The Dale Jr. Download - What Dale Jr. Thinks About Dodge's Rumored Return To NASCAR

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

After taking a week off to enjoy California during NASCAR’s West Coast swing, Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns to the Arby’s Studio for a new edition of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to catch up on the last couple of weeks and recap the NASCAR weekend in Sonoma: San Diego Street Course felt like a big success A dive bar inspired Dale to hide miniature Jesuses How will the return to Chicagoland go? Dale’s Father’s Day trading card haul Taking a look at the NASCAR In-Season Tournament brackets Who can make some moves in the points standings? Sonoma race winner Shane Van Gisbergen joins the show During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: Denny Hamlin’s costly spin at Sonoma Meeting Travis Kelce in San Diego Going to the I Bar after the race in San Diego TNT’s first broadcast of the year Dale’s 2005 Chicagoland victory 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 want 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, T.J. Hellway is starting a show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again. for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download here in the Arby's studio.

Don't forget about Arby's new Meat 3 Box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meets and we have the show. T.J. Majors is here. I'm back. We took a week off. Host of our was the host of last week's show. Thank you, Carson, for coming in here and just being a kick-ass host.

I think it'd be cool. We're going to talk about first San Diego. We're going to talk about Sonoma. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going over brackets. We have, I have a whole list of shit I want to share with everybody. But I've got a lot of shit going on this year

and there will be some other opportunities for somebody else to come in here and host. Yeah, I wonder who, like, fans would want to have. I think that's a great question. Fans, who would you want to host this show? Carson Hosevar did it? I would open the opportunity and encourage any driver to come in here, host a show. And that driver, do they get to pick their co-host?

Yeah. Didn't Carson? Yeah, TJ was away. So I think maybe if TJ's here. If TJ wants to do it, he can. But TJ, you want to take a couple shots off? When? You want to take a couple?

I like doing it when you're not here because I can talk about you. All right. Whatever. All right. Well, look, I think the person that's hosting, maybe they bring their spotter in. They bring their spot or their buddy, whatever. Another driver.

Makes it a little more comfortable. Yeah. More fun. Could you imagine Jesse Love, Connor Zillich? That'd be great. Co-hosting the download. Yeah. That'd be cool.

So let's see what the fans say. Let's see if we can get a couple. We got a couple other opportunities this year where I'm going to be gone. And we'll get us a badass host in here. I think it'd be fun every now and then, you know, throughout the year to sprinkle in some current drivers. Brad crushed it. Now, host of ours.

Yeah, Brad did do it. Yeah, great job. Yeah. All right. Let's get to the show. We got a lot to talk about. Where do you want to start? Yeah, I don't know.

Where y'all want to start? We are, um, we didn't, we weren't here, so we had a great, we can talk about, talk a little bit about San Diego, being on an aircraft carrier and all that bullshit. Everybody's kind of removed from that and moved on to the next one. We've already had another race. Yeah, it's weird already. It is kind of weird. Feels weird. But I do want to say, man.

I heard the rumor that we might be going back next year. I think it might be a two-year deal instead of a three-year deal. I'm just hearing some rumors. But Harvick said on his podcast or his show that, you know, it's probably better left one and done. You know, you just, and I totally get what he's saying. I guess they can't I guess maybe NASCAR would love to do it once

but maybe the reason why they have to do it twice is to get the commitment from the other side because it's a big lift for the Navy I'm sure there's some stuff that's a lot of moving pieces going on with the city and everything there and maybe that side said no man we can't just do this once so maybe there was a

reason why it had to be two years but I totally get what Harvey's saying about, and me and Steve were totally, you know, we were agreeing with this week. We're like, man, going back, it'll be great, but, man, that first time is so special. And it's kind of like when we went to Wilkesboro

with the late-moth stock cars in 22. Man, you'll never recreate that feeling that we had there. And this was sort of similar, man. You were just pinching yourself all the time. you were up in that, um, you're up in that aircraft carrier just like, man,

this is amazing, you know, and, uh, you got to go up in that thing every day. To do something, you know, with the rate,

with practice or whatever. And man, it was just fun. Racetrack turned out to be pretty solid. The race, the racing was great. If we ever designed that track, kudos.

Yeah. Yeah. Everything went really well. I mean, weekend wise, like getting in, like it was a little challenging at times. I guess,

Thursday was a that's the other side and I think to Kevin Harvick's point the other part of the other part of the conversation is there was a lot of that didn't go good um you know there's a lot of folks that had to endure long lines tons of walking on Friday I did like 15,000 steps I think Stephen stephen who's working for junior sports and a few other people out there did 25,000 steps on Friday so I mean we were you're walking all over the place to get to where you needed to go and ran out of food on Friday or Saturday. Just ran, you know,

there was a lot of things that didn't go well and you'll get that grace on the first go. Right. And when, you know, when you're, when everybody's excited to be there, they'll give up or for, you know,

therefore go or or ignore or overlook, you know, let some slide, right? right, you won't get that the second time. You shouldn't, you know. And so if they do go back and run it again, they got to make sure that the things that weren't good

or the things that they misread or whatever are cured, fixed, cleaned up. I'm sure they will, right? They'll try. But, yeah, I kind of agree with Kevin, like, man, if you could just take this thing, this cool little one-off, neat race that were. going to do every year and just take it all around the country.

That would be pretty badass. And maybe, you know, we get there one day. But I don't mind that we're going back. I think it'll be fun. But it just, you know, that first one was so cool. But you're interesting to see if they kind of changed the racetrack. I know SVG had a couple comments where he's like, man, I wasn't real big fan of the course for some reason.

He didn't like a few things about it. I thought it was fine. but I mean I'm not driving I'm not racing it so maybe there's some things that can improve all the way around even with the track itself they figured it out the drivers were figuring it out you know they figured it out pretty quick it seemed like no it was a lot of fun man after uh when the race was over with I went downstairs in the hotel and I saw Denny Hamlin and uh Jimmy and Jimmy Johnson and and a couple different guys hanging out down there and um so it was kind of fun like You know, usually when the race is over, we all, everybody goes home, you know. San Diego, a lot of people stayed out there for the, you know, a couple, at least a day or two, and then drove or flew to Sonoma. And so that's our plan. So it was kind of cool going to the hotel and hanging out and seeing, seeing folks, your peers.

And, man, we had a lot of fun. We drank a little bit. Got up in the morning and drove to Santa Barbara. and then we went from Santa Barbara up to Monterey. We spent the night in Santa Barbara. Then the next night we spent the night in Monterey's badass little town. Yeah, it sounds like it. It was.

Santa Barbara's great. We get to Santa Barbara and Monterey, both towns. We get on our phone, found the closest bar and like a block and a half from the hotel. And we went to me and Stefan and LaTart, his family, Adam Alexander. We went and had drinks and stuff. and just hung out. And that was pretty cool to be able to kind of sit in these little dive bars you'd never have a beer in and drink. In one of the bars in Monterey, we were sitting there.

And I noticed that they had this thing on the back wall. and it had all these little buildings on it. And in the doorways of all the little buildings were these little miniature Jesuses. And you ever seen things? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, after about, I don't know, six or eight beers, I was like, man, you've got those little miniature Jesus is all up in the buildings there. And he's like, oh, man, there's a lot of them in here.

I was like, yeah, he's like, how many do you see? I was like, well, I'll probably see about four up there. He's like, there's a whole lot more in this room. He's like, you've got to take a look around. And so all around the room, they had all these tiny little Jesus is hiding everywhere. And I thought, that's hilarious. And, you know, six or eight beers. I'm like, you know, I'm going to Amazon.

I'm going to order me some tiny Jesus. So I brought them. I just wondered what you brought in. There's a box full of them. Nice. Look that, man. you're just going to put them throughout junior motorsports I'm just going to hide them places

there's already one in here here dude I've already got them oh you don't want one I've already got a bunch of them how could you say no to this little guy oh my god I've got a lot of them can I have one yeah

my mom gave me one of them I gave you a handful my mom gave me one of them she's like here you need this I've got an idea we could we could hide them in Mike's office you need to put a whole bunch of in there. So you keep them, you walk around and you just put them places when people aren't looking. So

Steven's sitting next to me and he ordered a box too and he just tried to bring them in here and give them to me. I'm like, no, that's your box, man. I thought you had trading cards he was bringing in. That's what he had. That's what he... That's hilarious. I like, that's your box of miniature Jesuses. I lined up my spare bedroom, my house with those things.

Did you? My mom gave me one, so I'm like, okay, They've been around a while, huh? Yeah, so I bought a box like you did, and I put them in her room whenever she comes, and there's like a hundred of them in there. Things are awesome. They are. They are.

You put them all over the place, race cars. Yeah. For the race. For the race on Saturday next week, walk up and give one to each driver. Yeah, yeah. I have one in my backpack that somehow I got it.

Somebody gave it to me. Yeah. We drove up, there's a name for this road. What is it? The PCH? Yeah, there it is. Why do they call it that?

Pacific Coast Highway. Okay, there you go. All right, see. I'm not familiar. The PCH. So we drove up that thing, man. It was a, it's badass. And if you go on Google or go on your phone and take a look at that road or the pictures of it,

you'll, the pictures that you see, that's what it looks like. It's badass. The whole way up. Just on the edge of a mountain, probably hundreds, maybe thousands of feet. Yeah. There are hundreds of feet up from the coast, but you can see, I mean, just the ocean. See it as far as you can see. And so that was a blast.

We stopped and ate at some little restaurant on the side of the road. Man, it was just fun. We were just normal for a few days, you know, no responsibilities and no job, no work, no podcasting. None of that. We just kind of got to goof off. So I had a lot of fun. Then we got to Sonoma. and Sonoma is great.

There's a lot of great places in the area to stay at. So we landed in Sonoma and my wife and kids came up or out to Sonoma, so they were there the whole weekend. And we had a pretty solid weekend. In the O'Reilly race SVG won with Junior Motorsports. Little Lila got to ride in the car. car after the win so that was pretty cool and she seemed to to really enjoy that and so did SVG seemed to appreciate being able to do that that was a pretty cool deal got to spray champagne

in victory lane yeah that'd be fun yeah she probably uh didn't saw that Nicole liked it before so she's probably more likely to do it this time she was uh she made she changed her mind about three or four times before she got in the car she was like I don't want to do it I'll do it I don't want to do it. I don't know what the deal with her. I'm glad she did it. Nicole was standing there like, if she ain't doing it, I'm doing it. Ready to go. She's like, is she doing it? Because I'm doing it. If she ain't doing it, I'm not missing this opportunity. She was dying to get back in the car. She loves it. She's getting the bug. Big time. Big time. She liked it afterwards, Isla? Yeah, she did. She said she'd do it again. Yeah. Yeah. So now, you know, we're going to.

to Chicago land and we've got our guys driving our cars along with Chase Elliott and 88. So got to get another shot at it. Chicago land ought to be pretty badass. I'm excited. It'll be fun to go back. Yeah. I think so. I heard ticket sales aren't going well.

That's what I've seen. I don't know. I've heard that too. Yeah, I haven't heard anything about it. Yeah. And I guess Chicago street course is coming back. So I don't know that I don't know if Chicago, Chicago land stays. I'm nervous.

Yeah, you're not going to get both. I don't think so, buddy. Yeah, I think both of them be hard. We haven't even gotten it back yet. I wonder what the reason is for ticket sales. We already lost it. You know, that's probably why we stop going. Everybody, I mean, you can look at the races and go,

fucking, hey, man, that's awesome. Why did we stop going there? But, man, if it don't sell tickets, if the land's more valuable used as anything else. Yeah, it makes sense. but even if the racing is good, if people don't want to watch it. If the tickets aren't selling, I mean, if it's selling out, it would never left.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's probably, if it doesn't stay on the calendar, that's why. And that's tough because it's what should we expect? It's a badass racetrack. They'll be racing from the apron to the wall. And it's got some really nasty. bumps and difficult things that are going to be really hard for the next-gen car,

challenging for the next-gen car. So I'm sure we'll see some accidents or some guys busting their ass. Especially if there's a tunnel bump in three and four that's pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be interesting how the trucks, how the crews move and when they move. Yeah, I think it'll be pretty badass. I'm looking forward to it. Before we move on, here's a quick look at Dirtymo Media's newest show.

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On the way up the Pacific Coast Highway, we didn't have a lot of sales service. But when we did, I bought this badass shirt. Limp biscuit shirt. I had a couple of margaritas at No Boo's in Malibu. And you walked out with that. Feeling pretty good. I bought it on the fucking Internet, dude. Sorry.

Come on. Yeah, No boo's self-limbiscuit T-shirts, T-J. I didn't know if there was a store next to it or something. You walked out. I'm going in. There's nothing there. Buy a steak dinner and get a free lip biscuit T-shirt. Most of the house is.

around no boo burnt down. Yeah. We bought a bunch of cards. I told you about that. So, listen, I get to Sonoma. Amy doesn't like the card hobby. Right. You know, of course,

everything I get involved in, I'm overboard. I overdo it. Cards everywhere. She's like, man, the house is sinking. I'm like, what you're talking about? She's like, all the cards in here. The house is sinking. I'm like, okay. So we don't really have a foundational issue

because I'll get the foundation guy out here. But so she, we get to Sonoma, and she comes in, what happened over the course of the weekend in San Diego? You won't know about this. What happened for us, TJ? What happened for our kind over the course of the weekend at San Diego? In San Diego?

No, what happened for us? It was a holiday that came. Very special for us. Oh, Father's Day. That's right, buddy. Yeah. Father's Day. It's a grand day.

It's a good day for all the fathers out there to be dads. And we just get to do whatever the hell we want. And so for one day, right? And so we weren't together with our families. When Amy gets there, she's got Father's Day gifts. She gives me cards. Whoa. Wow.

Yeah. Big deal. And good ones. She got me some tops, chrome, platinum baseball. They're... Yeah, nice stuff. That is an awesome set. Yeah.

So I was pretty pumped about that. Yeah, that's pretty good. I got some good cards. And so she gave me a box of those. I had already bought a box in San Diego. all right so now i got cards and then more cards and so i'm sitting there opening up the box she gave me and also opening up the cards that i got trying not to let on that you had some i had lots more cards and she's like man you still you still opening them cards i'm like oh yeah

still opening them but eventually i had to tell her i'm like yeah i'm like yeah i I stopped at a store in San Diego. You know, we had a little time. But, man, I was really taking aback. She bought me, not only did she buy me like a box of cards to open, but she also bought me a slab or two. She got me in 1985 Jose Conseco or 86 Jose Konseco. Pretty solid.

Yeah. Yeah, that's nicer. Yeah. His cars do pretty good, even considering all dumb shit. he did. The fans love him, though. They do. Yeah, that's a thing.

I don't, and I want his cards. I don't understand that. I thought that he had, you know, he dates Madonna. He does, he gets, he's kind of, guy, he had some, you know, controversy, I suppose. He's out there. Yeah, toward the industry.

But, yeah, the fans do love him. Yeah, the fans love a lot of the, it's the media that doesn't like them, but that doesn't control the market. Yeah. I know, he, I know. His cars do well. So that was cool. We're going to talk about our,

Did you fill one out? Yeah, we filled one out at, well, I did the one out there at the show. I got mine here. I got like 110 points. What did you get? I have no idea. Awesome. Travis, how did you do?

I didn't do one. Man, this is turning out to be a great second. Well, you didn't do a bracket. Did any bros, don't do brackets? Then he came up with this fucking idea. I know, but if they're not going to put his name on it, then, put his name on it. Yeah, it should be the Denny Hamlin

Bracket Challenge. Oh, my gosh. Oh, so we're boycotting. Yeah. Year two were boycott. Yeah. We didn't boycott year one. Yeah, I boycott it last year too.

Did you? Yeah, no brackets for me. Because if they put his name out, are you doing it? Yeah. Oh, my God. We're focused on the regular season. Your petty is. Damn straight I am.

You gave me a hard time for blocking TJ on my phone. You said I was a little... I think that's a little... Wait, what you're doing is pretty petty. You won't do a bracket because Denny's name's not on it. You blocked TJ over a video game. Yeah. You won't do a bracket because Denny's name's not on it.

We needed a break. Mine is not the same. I didn't fill out an NCAA bracket last year either. You just, the fact that you say you won't do it because Denny's name's not on it. No, you're not. You're not joking. If Denny's name was on that, you'd be doing it.

You didn't fill out a NCAA bracket? No. What the hell? Denny's names on it on. Bet on the games and stuff. Yeah, I'll bet on it so that I'm not going to do a bracket. Well, all right. Look, we're no...

Me and TJ will have this conversation. I mean, I can talk about the matchups. No, you can't... You're not allowed... I feel like I did pretty well. A couple upsets, but... I got to find how to get to mine. This is the most confusing shit.

You know, the thing about the bracket on NASCAR's app is how did you print this? I forget because the printable bracket on their website is not printable. It puts it into like eight pages. That's right. Get your together NASCAR. I want this. That's why I didn't fill out a bracket. There you go. That'd be a reason. Um,

I got my bracket in there or something. Oh, here it is. Yeah, I went to try to like print my bracket or screenshot it or you know, anything, right? I wanted to screenshot it in full to tweet it out. Yeah. Can't do it. Now you can look at it in blocks or chunks. Yeah, because I saw you screenshot it

your winner. Yeah. Because you're a Denny bro for the next four weeks. I pulled for Denny and he got the job done against Ty Dillon. Ty Dillon and it was touch and go there for a while. Ty had this engine issue, misfiring bullshit going on.

They got it fixed. He's back running again. Denny's doing really well. Denny gets spun out. And then fucked up his splitter and luckily though over the course of the long run his car handled well enough. I think Ty started having some more trouble.

Ty had issues is really what it came down too. But I mean, Denny was beating him the entire race until the split. I mean, early, too. Just, like, terrible day for Tyler. Yeah. So, no, we're talking about Ty. Oh, Ty Dealing. Yeah, yeah. So, um, I had Tyler Reddick over Bowman. Bowman upsets there for me.

So that fucked up my bracket a little bit. Bowman. Good job. I don't, I don't, I don't, I had Redick. Let's not, let's not, let's not, on Bowman. I mean, he's a pretty solid road course racer. Yeah, but I mean, who picked him, though? I know. Probably not many. The next person that I didn't have following going through was So I got Redick going all the way to Atlanta So that's going to hurt me a little bit

But I got Hosevar beating Redick in Atlanta Oh yeah The other person in the first round That screwed me over was Suarez I know I was looking at that I had Svarez over Gilling I did too And Gilling, boy what a day he had

He did got some boxing matches out there. Well, he got... I loved it. He was throwing him too. Someone... How about it? He...

Bubba runs into him. He... You know, Bubba just got loose down in 11 and cleaned him out. Just a mistake on Bubba's part. And... But it's a bad deal. You're pissed off.

You go back in the next corner and you send Bubba in the dirt. Fine. Bubba recovers. But then the next corner he goes down and knocks for Raleigh Earth out of the racetrack. I was like,

we were laughing our ass off in the booth. That was It's hilarious. I was waiting on something to pop off, you know, in the race, and there it started. Todd heard you. And then later in the race,

Herp spun Todd out down in 11. So, yeah, that doesn't end until the, you know, once you and a guy are kind of going at it, gloves are off at that racetrack. Because it's a, you know, when you're running midpack and you're struggling all day, it's not a fun. Something about Sonoma.

It's not a fun. track. Something about Sonoma makes it where guys can get back to you. Only. You know what I mean? I'll say only the top five guys are having fun. The rest of it's. Yeah.

Rest of you aren't. Yeah. When you're in the soup, it's not. But Sonoma, like if you get, I feel like Sonoma, if somebody ruffs you up, you can get back to him somehow. I f***ed up here on Briscoe versus Almondinger. I picked Almondinger. I f***ed that up so bad because Briscoe was great last year and I picked him to be

one to watch. I picked him to kind of be a guy that could challenge for the win. F*** in my bracket, I didn't pick him. I don't know what the hell I was thinking there. This next matchup, though, is going to be a great one. Enverse Gibbs? Yeah.

I have Ty Gibbs moving through, honestly, going into Chicago. I have Gibbs versus Elliot at Atlanta. I got everything else right there on that side of the bracket. On the right side of the bracket,

It was very chalky. I had two... This is tough side over here. I had two f-ups. Eric Jones over Lugano. I had Lugano going through. Joey just can't get anything going right now. Jones is fast right now, too.

And then I didn't think C. Bell would beat Chastain. I don't know what I was thinking there either. What a performance he had on Sunday with that wrist. I mean, really fast. It was impressive. He wasn't getting out. Yeah, it was impressive. So there's my bracket

I've got 110 points I've got remaining 620 I think that's pretty decent So my bracket's still alive I got Denny going all the way to win the million bucks Don't let us down Danny

I've got Denny versus Hosevar I feel like the bracket is something Hosevar even though he steps up So have you noticed like the last two weeks he's popped off and gotten and qualified really well.

And it seems like the more that gets talked and the more sort of barbs, trading of comments on social media with other drivers and whatnot, the more he's meddling in all these little disputes and whatever you want to call them, the more he gets up for qualifying in race weekends. Yeah, he thrives in chaos.

I think he thrives. He does. I think he thrives. or he's something about him gives him an edge when he's bored you better be

you kind of better be worried if you're spire right um you think about like he's not married he doesn't have kids so he's not like he doesn't have these responsibilities that all these other drivers have

I think he looks at this bracket and he's like hey this is cool I'm gonna try to he's just gonna you know he's gonna be like I'm gonna make sure I'm gonna beat the guy

I'm supposed to beat every week this uh bracket he'll find a way to he'll find a way to almost do it or do it you know the way it's lining up is it's

like he could do it Yeah. Like, it's lining up really good for him here. Yeah, I think it could happen. But I think Denny takes it. That'd be cool. Danny versus Hosevar in the final. Maybe they'll name it after him.

Should. If Denny wins it, maybe they'll name it. Maybe they'll name it. Look, I agree to Travis's point, the idea of the bracket was absolutely 100,000% Denny Hamlins. Yeah. Denny came up with this. we helped him implement it here at Dirty Mo Media.

And then NASCAR took it, turned it into something real. Because when we did it with Denny, there was no money involved. Yeah, it was just something aside. Yeah. But NASCAR's like, hey, this is a cool idea. We'll put a million dollars toward it. We had, coincidentally, the two new partners coming in with TNT and Amazon. And so it was like, what NASCAR needs to give.

So if you've got a TNT or an Amazon coming in or any new partner, they want a big shiny thing to sell, right? And so it might be San Diego Street Course, right? Or it might be Chicago Street Course or whatever, right? And if NASCAR can convince the new partner that, man, this is a cool thing. Fans are going to love it. We're going to give you this. We're going to put this in your five race block.

they're more than likely to write a big check. So this was one of the shiny things that NASCAR brought into the series, into the sport when they were bringing in these two new partners. And so NASCAR took it. It's definitely Denny's idea. There should be some recognition.

Yeah. And I'm glad that they tweaked last year, they tweaked it and the seatings was all messed up. They went back to what our idea was. And it makes it better and easier for our fans to do. It's fine. They wanted to also have those races for Amazon.

They wanted that there was a little shiny thing for Amazon, right? During their five races last year. And it just didn't work. It was forced. And it, yeah, it didn't make sense. It was hard to follow. This is super simple. Amazon didn't really care about talking about how their races developed the seeding.

Yeah. It wasn't fun for us as broadcasters to try to force it into the show because it wasn't really, it didn't matter. And we talk about it at TNT, and we're like, hey, first round, we're going to tell everybody about it. We're going to try to tell everybody to fill out a bracket. We're going to talk about it on the front end of the show and say, everybody, come on, let's all do this together. Because you don't want to be that guy that gets a round in, didn't fill out a bracket like Travis, and everybody's talking about it, and you're like, man, that is kind of fun. I wish I would have done it.

You know, that happens with the college basketball. bracket all the time. I forget or something. It does, yeah. You know, you get around in, you're like, I should have done it. I wish I would have done it. Yeah, you're mad if you don't get in.

Yeah. So we talk about it on the front. We won't talk a ton of bracket. Once the race starts, we really didn't go bracket heavy. And we didn't really cover it a ton after the race. And we might, you know, each week it kind of will ramp up, right? Well, you guys did it perfectly.

It was like when Denny fell back after the wreck. It's like, okay, here's an update on the bracket. like Reddick is like so when it presents itself but you're not forcing it. No. As we go though, it'll be more important to talk about obviously with the final race between just two drivers. We'll cover it pretty good. The matchups were good. Yeah. I thought so anyway.

We had a pretty solid race in San Diego in Sonoma. I was entertained. Could it have been more exciting as far as the product on the racetrack? Absolutely. But I was happy with it. especially with the gillin stuff going on. Do you think coming from San Diego, though, because we kind of get spoiled at street courses like that

because those are really challenging. I don't know that it. I think that there's a target on, I think there's like a, everybody's watching the road courses going, all right, man, is we making this shit better because the road courses have sucked for a while?

And so I think everybody's kind of skeptical going into the Sonomas and the Watkins Glens. I am, at least, I'm skeptical going into them going, we're going to get a boring race. But I thought the race was entertaining. There was a bunch of goofball shit going on in the middle of the pack that was hilarious.

And then we had a really badass race to the end. SVG's car, SVG running out a race car, running out of tire was real. The 19 being faster, running him down, that was a real thing. There's people, I mean,

I'm seeing shit on my social media. We're driving to the airport after the race after we get done with post race. And they're going, man, y'all hype that shit. it up it wasn't that big of a deal y'all make that you know y'all hype it up and there's nothing really going on i'm like no he was really catching him svg really was out of a race car he even says so at you know he gets out of the car and briscoe believes it too because he's uh liking all my replies on social media if he doesn't miss that one turn he probably gets

there yeah and he's absolutely going to put the bumper to him in turn 11 now he's not going to i don't think he spins him out but i think he knocks him up the track a little bit or at least makes a you know makes a shot happen. You know, it gives him an opportunity to race side by side off the corner. But I was in the booth and, man, that was a lot of fun watching those last

three or four laps trying to see him. You know, we had to watch him. So Sonoma's about two corners, seven and 11. That's your passing zones. Sometimes you might see some guys cross over three B and pass down into four,

but it's just rare. It's messy. Yep. So 7 and 11 is your passing zones. And so if you're wanting to pass a car and if you're watching two guards go around the track and the faster one is behind and you know he's going to pass him, you've got to watch him set that pass up and try to run the course well enough to be in position for those two places to pass.

Right? So you're waiting. There's this anticipation building. And that's what you're doing with the end of the race there. briscoe every time you know they're running the lap you're sitting there thinking all right brisco come on hang in there i'm i mean i'm i'm i'm pulling for a finish

right i'm not pulling for a good race i'm not pulling for briscoe but i'm pulling for something right and i'm like hmm is it gonna you know when they go through the s's right SVG is super good there can brisco stay close enough you know to be able to charge into 11 and have something happen you know same thing on the other side of the track

up the hill through one, two, three, four. Can he stay close enough to have something happening in seven? Because where Briscoe was good was the breaking zones of seven and eleven. SVG was just a little better everywhere else. And so SVG would like gain half a car length back. And then Briscoe would get a car length in the next breaking zone. Right? So it was like one step forward, two steps forward, one step back.

Two steps forward, one step back. Lap after lap after lap, it was amazing because Briscoe, had to be perfect. He wasn't. He made that mistake into one. That was the difference. And he said so after the race. Man, I f***ed up.

If I hadn't a f***ed that up, I would have probably had a shot. I was so entertained. Really, really solid race. That's a solid run for Briscoe. Well, he did the same thing last year at Sonoma. It was a solid run, T.J. Pretty interesting to see Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell. do what they did on strategy.

That's the fun part I think about road course racing. I used to hate this. I used to, I mean, you know, I'm not saying I'm a full believer in stages and all of that. But for a road course race, stages are much more entertaining than not. The race begins, and the entire debate in our TV compound was, was what will SVG do? SVG has fucked up San Diego, right? Not his doing, but he came out of there with no points.

It was supposed to be a big point stay for him. So he's going to go into Sonoma and how greedy will he get? Is he going to try to win, sweep the stages and the race? Could he do it? Could he possibly do it? He's starting sixth. I don't think he gives him a shot to do it. If he qualifies on the pole and can sprint out to a big lead,

he controls it. Yep. But starting sixth, he will. wasn't able to drive through the field quickly enough to really make that happen. But he still was able to score points in the stages. You know, once he cycled through pit stops and so forth, he ends up seventh in both stages. So that, that to me was interesting to wait and see what happened there. What I didn't anticipate was Ty Gibbs staying out and winning both stages because you, you know, you make it almost impossible to win the race. If you don't flip a stage at some point,

you're bearing yourself. You can't win. Yeah, especially if you're racing. someone like Shane. Yeah. So I know that Ty Gibbs was really disappointed at the strategy at the end of the day. He sat there and said, you know, we had a fast enough car thing to win the race. And he would have loved to have wanted. And I get that. And he may have been right about the speed they had.

Yeah. He might have been able to beat. I love his confidence. But from a team aspect, very rarely does someone go toe to toe with Shane and get him? go get your points. Look, he, he, he was sitting right on top of Larson and Elliot in points coming into this race. He leaves Sonoma about 18 points clear of Larson now in fourth place, Ty Gibbs, fourth place, fourth place. That's awesome.

That is good. It is. has 28 points to Blaney. Blaney is Blaney's beatable. He's, I'm sorry, 26. Blaney is beatable. I was looking at my table there.

Blaney is a badass race car driver. This dude is, is a wheelman. Yeah. But I think Ty Gibbs, can Ty Gibbs catch Blaney? That's kind of one thing I'm going to be paying attention to. Boy, if you can put yourself in the top three, every spot that you gain for the chase is massive. Your odds of winning the championship go up by chunks with each spot you gain.

And so Ty Gibbs will want to try to pass Blaney. There's room to do that in the next several weeks. I think Blaney has even said, hey, I'm not even looking at the two guys in front of me. I'm just trying to keep third. And that's a real thing for Ryan Blaney. So I'll be paying a lot of attention to that. Christopher Bell was able to do basically the same thing for stage points. I think he finished second in stage two,

ended up having a really good result, got a bunch of points when it was all said and done, 50 total on the day. And he needed that as well. He's back in 10th right now. I think he jumped a couple of spots. He improved two positions, I believe, from 12th to 10th.

And he is 12 backs from Suarez, and Suarez is 25 back to Josevar, who is nine back to Busher. And so all of, if I'm Christopher Bell, I'm like, I'm running them down. It's going to be entertaining. The next several weeks for Christopher Bell to have a real shot at trying to race for the championship is to go out there and try to take seventh, be on that fringe. We talk about it all the time, and I'm sorry you have to hear it over and over,

but the likelihood of the champion driver for this year coming out of the top six in the chase is 85%. So if you're Christopher Bell, I don't think you can get Chase or Kyle Larson. I don't think you can get yourself into the top six, but you can be seventh, you know, and you can be that guy that can sit there and maybe upset that 85%. So he's going to have to... He'll have to hustle.

That's what this point system's built for, though, is that. So Ty Gibbs trying to catch Blaney, or even Larson or Chase Elliott trying to flip that as well and trying to get up in there. That top six is going to churn a little bit. But outside of, I think, Bresker is in seventh right now. He's 36 behind Chase. I don't know if he can get up there and take a spot. So I think the top six are going to battle and then Bisher back through, you know, I don't know,

12th is a battle. And then you got a lot of guys right there on the cut line. SVG is going to be a lot of fun. He's sitting in 14th in the points. Can he keep that? Can he just, make the chase, right? That's the big debate. After San Diego, his probability on the predictor to make the chase went from 67% to 20. After Sonoma will ask Russell, if we think that's improved.

Ryan Priest's 15th, man, it's hard to say whether he can do it. Austin Cendrick sitting right on top of the cut line at 16th. Eric Jones, Brad is Alasky, A.J. Almondinger, Legano. Do you think SVG can make it? Let's try to identify a threat. Eric Jones.

Eric Jones. Okay. Well, Legacy put a hell of a run together over the last several weeks. Then we got to the roadcourses. If the road course, you know, San Diego Sonoma combo didn't upset their momentum. There's a threat there.

Eric Jones can go up there and take a spot from SVG. Who else outside of that? I don't know if Brad can do it too inconsistent. Yeah, we've been inconsistent. AJ, I just don't think he can do it. I think the resources that Chevrolet has and they've, they, they basically have no resources. They have, yeah.

they can they have some but very little the fact that he's out driving joey lagana right now i agree well well yeah a j has talked about the lack of sim time the lack of resources they have since they're a dodge team Chevrolet's taken back or pulled back some if not all of the of the support and so that's going to be difficult and i think it'll get tougher if chevalierreley wanted to make it tougher do you think ross could go on a run if Chevy's trying to If they're starting to figure out things He's back in 22nd

I don't know I think you know it's tight You look at it Between all these guys It's like 1.5 points 13 points all the way up to Austin Cendrick I mean there's not a lot of points

Between 16th and and Ross You know most of the In this whole group here There's a lot of inconsistency Though you know what I mean like You could It's almost 40 points or so to Ross out of that's a lot man I don't think he can make it I don't think he can do it

Shane's got a couple guys I think you know Eric Jones would be a threat but I don't yeah I've got a still has to indie is going to be a big one yeah we'll see I mean as he's gotten a little better on the ovals and that might be just enough to get it done but it like if you go back though like after after what the third or fourth race of the season we got away from coda like kind of faded pretty hard he did but he ran great at charlotte he ran great at nashville remember him getting it up there and duking it out with the leaders at nashville yeah man yeah i mean i i just don't know what to expect i don't either and that's great yeah that's okay yeah it is good it's fun to talk about a couple of things uh from this past weekend

that surprised me the 45 steering issues um just so surprised of, you know, I know those things are going to happen, but that's the one thing that worries me with Tyler Reddick is the grimlins, the brake issues, the possible, you know, rack and steering issue. That's the one thing that kind of concerns me. I don't, you don't really see that as much out of Gibbs. There's a little more reliability, I suppose. I know that Denny's faster. right now just a little bit faster than tie still still looking at both of those guys is probably the championship favorites um denny more so than than tyler but this weekend that i just you ever you ever watched your race and felt like you were seeing like an omen of the future you know and so

that's kind of that that that was like man you know this field if the chase if i if i if we if we fell into the middle of the chase. You know, I feel like this is what we're going to witness. It's like not something in tie, something out of ties control. Tyler Reddick. Which happens to everybody at some point.

Yeah. He just started the year so good. It was like, when this happens, it's going to stand out. Yeah. Sores, man, it surprised me how,

how tough their day was. I know they had a tire issue early. He did, yeah. But it never really seemed to be, you know, once they changed tires and got going, it didn't seem. I thought he'd run better.

Yeah, me too. And he needed it because he's sitting there ninth in points right now. And now he's a dog. He's going to run hard and he's going to get, he's going to finish better than he should in a lot of races because of his stubbornness, which is a compliment. But he's a driver that I've got my own.

I think they overachieved him and Hosevar both overachieved to this point in season, sitting in eighth and ninth in points. and there's some real, real fast race cars right behind them in points, like Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, some guys that I feel like should start to heat up. So that'll be interesting to see if they can maintain their positions into top 10 in points going into the chase.

Got a shout out Connor Zillich, first top 10 of the season. Connor runs second on Saturday in the junior motorsports car and ended up with a solid result. Yeah, he needed it. Yeah, pretty good deal. It's wild, man, how, you know, how kind of tough this sport can be on you and how it can beat you up and beat your confidence up. And you just got to, you know, you sit there and watch Corey Hyam go out there and win.

And, man, you know, win on a racetrack that you think you should be able to compete at. get taken out of the race in a gigantic wreck that was super fascinating. So, I don't know. Good to see him get a good run. Hopefully he can start to build on some of that. Maybe the corner, you know, he's turning the corner a little bit. It's those kind of weekends where you can, you can kind of start to put together. Yeah.

Put together some things. Hey, this is Dellenhart 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.dirtymohmedia.com for all the latest merch. So that was on door bumper clear, Chris Rice was here

and said he said that they have Dodge is not committed to to racing on Sundays yet. For 2027. Yeah for 2027. I feel like that what if there's you know if there's

what is the likelihood and percentage of Dodge racing next year. In Cup? I think it's really high. I'm leaning more towards happening than not happening. Yeah. Well, per Jordan Bianchi, challenges remain for Dodge to be ready for 2027.

They've made progress in key areas. Their body has already undergone initial wind tunnel testing. they have had a breakthrough in recent weeks in how it would produce engines. I think that's the biggest holdup to know. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Their expected return to cup will not trigger NASCAR

to increase the number of charters available from 36 to 40. The teams that have charters are guaranteed specific revenue streams, along with the starting spot guaranteed in the field, increasing charters would ensure the new manufacturer a presence in every race, including the Daytona 500, without taking any away from others. What is it?

I don't get that. Well, they're saying like add charters, so they're locked in. Well, I mean, if they're already on a car that has charters, they don't need new charters. Yeah. If they're with colleague, they don't need charters.

But it doesn't seem like they're going to add. So it would just be colleague moving out. Yeah. So, I mean, I think the thought process behind that is, I know they made some concessions for them in the truck race, right, early in the season to be able to make sure they didn't get, you know, misqualifying and not get to run. I don't believe, so this is what I think happens. I think that Dodge gets their car ready.

I think Colleg goes into Daytona next year with Dodgers. I think they will be probably the only Dodgers. Maybe another team flips over. I don't know, but, you know, I don't know who it might, who it might be. It would probably be a similar team like, like colleague. It's not going to be one of the bigger teams. But I don't, yeah, I don't think that they grow the charters. I don't think that they introduce new charters to a, to a brand new team.

It's the reason why is because, as it says in this article from Jordan, the teams are guaranteed a certain amount of revenue, and if you add charters, you dilute the revenue. And so by quite a bit for each team, they would sacrifice hundreds of thousands, if not a couple million dollars per year if you introduced four new charters to the system, and the current owners probably wouldn't agree to that.

And that's, that's, no, I'm not. really that surprised by that. So, and that's probably a good thing. I think that you want to have some open spots, right? Yeah. Should the open car model actually become viable at some point, right? You want to still have that door open. If you...

It should be. Right. If you go to 40 charters, you literally lock the door to the outside world. and you're dependent on the current owners of those teams to field cars for the series. And I don't love that. I've been vocal about the charter system. It's, you know, I like the system in the O'Reilly series where you can build a car, show up and race. You can still technically do that on the cup side, although the way the payouts work,

and everything. It's like you're guaranteed to lose money. Yeah, 100%. They've almost built it into a model that would persuade you to not race an open car. And so they don't want people coming in and starting parking and just grabbing money out of the back of the field, right? So they don't pay very well for the open cars. And I get it.

I understand it. They're thinking in their mind if you're an owner of a charter, 36 is plenty. We got plenty of car. 36 is a good field, right? I think Dodge comes back. I think they're ready next year. I think they race in the Daytona 500. It's a big deal.

I mean, this is the thing. Chris Wright, they're going to have an announcement. It'll be a big announcement. They'll have celebrities. Chris Rice isn't going to come on door bump clear and tell you, yeah, we're good, we're good. Dodge's ready. That's not happening as much as I'd love it to.

It's not going to happen on doorbump clear. No. Is this news ready to go out? Yeah, it's already out. When did it go out? About 35 minutes ago. Really? Well, all right.

We got a little late model stock news here for you, the Cars Tour. We just had a big meeting with the Cars Tour owners, team owners. Yes. In Charters? We're doing a Charters. I'm just kidding. There's a lot to talk about with the Cars Tour. We just had a meeting yesterday with all the owners.

We did that in the offseason. I thought it was great. We had some great conversations around some protocols and things. We're always trying to improve. But this past weekend, we raced at South Boston. The Triple Crown of Late Model Stock Racing is going on. Triple Crown is South Boston. Langley.

And then Martinsville. Yep. We have Caden Quaple racing in the Triple Crown along with Lee Pulliam. Lee struck, Lee wrecked out, got wrecked out at Sobo, got a crash at these other fellow started. And Caden finished 6th, I believe, after running pretty well throughout the day. So pretty solid. Lee will retool for Lee and go to Langley.

We're going to run Lee and Caden in all three races. So that's pretty cool. The driver that will be driving for Junior Motorsports in the Cars Tour race at Wilkesboro was at the shop today, getting his seat dialed in. That is Chase Elliott. The one and only. He will be racing our second junior motor sports late model stock in the Cars Tour Race at Wilkesboro. I think there's a few other cool names that will be in that race as well, so you'll want to tune in.

I think I'm going to be on the broadcast for Flo. Oh, let's go. Yes, sir. So I'm going to be up in the booth, helping call the race a little bit with the team. Just giving a little here and there. Nothing too crazy. I'm not going to be leading the booth. but I'll be up there having some fun.

Hopefully we have a great race. Hopefully it's pretty exciting. Kip Kip better be on it. Kip, Danny. Danny's our race control. Does a great job. That race is July the 17th. So mark your calendars.

That's Wilkesboro weekend on Friday, July the 17th. We'll be out there practicing and qualifying. on the 16th the day before and then show up and race that evening. Hopefully the weather's good. It's a hell of a weekend to come out to see some race. Oh, man. Yeah, it's going to be good. First points race for Wilkesboro in 30, 40 years, 96.

On the cup side. Yep. Yeah. 96 was the last one. So pretty awesome to have Wilkes. But this is Wilkesboro getting the points race. was, it's for me the final, the final, uh, validation. Validation or the final leg.

Final. All right. It's all the way back. Yeah. It wasn't all the way back yet. All-Star race was cool. But for it to feel like, man, yep, all right, we have completed the mission. Yeah.

The points race is the deal. I'm looking forward to lap traffic and- 450 laps? Is it 450 in it? Or is it 350? They gave the race like 50 extra laps or some shit. Because it used to be the Holly Farms 400. So the cup race is like they extended it 50 laps.

Yes. The window world 450. Yep. 450 laps. Ah, yeah. That's a long one, boy. It is. Buckle-in.

Yeah. I just like the fact that there's going to be like lap traffic. Like there's going to be things going on. Oh, yeah. the whole race, like, that you're going to be able to key in on and see being there is going to be great. The coolest shit is when they repaved this racetrack, it took the groove down in one and two and and put it on the wall. Yeah.

So you run the wall in one and two, and then you run. Traditionally, you run the lower bottom groove in three and four. They try to move up in three and four, but it just, it's close. It's close. It might get there. They work that high entry into one up, like, you don't even, you don't even chop the corner anymore. It's like. It's badass.

It is. They do that in a late model stock, too. They run wide-ass open down the hill. So the front straightaway is downhill, and you're hauling ass off into the corner, and you just, whoa, right up into the wall, right at the wall, turn, and go. And you've got to turn down, too. So if the guy dives inside, takes that line away. Well, yeah, and it promotes maybe some contact time.

For sure. So, yeah, I'm excited about it. It's a badass little racetrack. It is. So we'll have some fun with that. Yeah. Chase Elliott That'd be awesome

I'm excited too He's excited I texted him this morning He's like hey man I'm wanting to get over to the shop Get in my seat We've been messing with the seat He came over a couple weeks ago

I'm like all right man They're there They'll be there Go check it out I'm hey we're racing with Chase This weekend in Chicago land And we're gonna race again with him With the late model

We're like dude This is fantastic I was like when you see the cup drivers Go racing the cars tour just like it's just good for the sport. Yeah. When's Danny running? I don't know.

Well, Denny needs, I told him this. Denny and 2311 need a late model team. A cars tour program. I know. I'm trying to talk Brad. I didn't know it too. Yeah. Boy, because Corey Hyam, he's going to run two or three more races with us.

It'd be great if they had one. Yeah. I told Corey, Corey raced with us at Ace and the race was over and I went over to him. I was like, dude, thank you so much for running with us. He's like, no problem. I'm going to run some more. And then he won that race in San Diego. And I was like, hey, you're going to run.

He's like, I saw him after the race. And I was like, we were drinking a beer at the bar. And I was like, he's like, hey, man, where are you running next? And I told him, he's like, I got a couple more. I'm excited. He's excited to racing the cars to him. And I was like, hey, I told you at Ace, thanks for running with us. But now that you're a cup winner, it's even a bigger deal to have you come run.

It's, f***. Totally different. Yeah. So pretty fantastic. All right, everybody, it's time for this month's selection of the Ultimate Racing Collector presented by Lionel Racing, the official die cast of NASCAR. Lionel Racing, they're your go-to source for your racing diecast needs. Check out the latest pre-orders at Lionelracing.com.

Here we go. This month's winner is Ryan. Check it out, man. Big time host of our fan. Look at all these diacasts. Wow. And so you love this because you know that he's bought a lot of the these recently.

Look at all them. Yep. Look at them 88s. A lot of junior murder sports stuff there. Connor Zillich. Wow. There's some of my die casts. I love it.

Man, we had some cool paint schemes. Indy cars. Yep. Look, there's no favoritism, even though you see a lot of Earnhardt stuff here. He's very organized. Yeah. Dude, you got to put them in order.

I just got a couple of diacasts the other day to put in my tower and you got to move around. If you have them out of order, that's just like psychotic. They got to be in a, Chronological. No, this guy is he's organized. Man, solid. Ooh, look at all it.

64's, yeah. It's a good collection here. Race winners. The Larson's. This guy pulls for a lot of great race car drivers. Oh, Blaney's. He's got the Blanies. You know it.

Look down there. I wonder if... Laine Smith action. I saw Brad Kiselowski. Yeah. I think he's just a fan of just great race cars and wins. He is. He's just a fan of racing.

Cromat. Good Lord. Whoa. Chastains. Ross. My goodness, this guy is not very selective. He is. More Larson's.

Just bring them. If it comes out, he's ordering it. It keeps going. There's a butter bean. Damn. They've got the 40 car. Yep, a lot of 40s. It's pretty solid.

Dang, he's got AC Dow. Holy cow. Here we go. 23. Let's go. 23. He is very organized. Oh, we got some late model stocks.

Look at those beautiful late model stock tools. That's the most late model stock. die cast i've seen oh we've got some dirt oh dirt no way yeah sprint cars yeah some old school

it's pretty good man like he's larcen old school larcen yep we've got some damn rc yeah trucks more trucks yeah man rfk

he's rfkk a lot of variety here he is he's got everybody yeah list goes on and on the 14 Daytona 500 car Good Lord. Ryan. That's nice.

Yeah. Yep. Really good job. Well, I appreciate that, Ryan. That was a great collection. I envy it as does everybody in the room. Yeah, that was nice. If you want to be like Ryan and send in badass videos like that, you too might be selected for next month's selection of the ultimate racing collector presented by Lionel Racing, the official die cast of NASCAR.

All right, SVG is called into the show. SVG, the big winner over the course of the week. weekend swept the races in the O'Reilly series and the Cup series at Sonoma. Bad-ass job. Thanks for calling in today, man. How's it going? Yeah, pretty good. Still on a high.

Finally caught back up on sleep. So I'm good now. I was going to ask you if you got some rest yesterday. I think everybody slept all day yesterday. Yeah. Good Lord. I did. The three hours kind of mucks you up on that time zone.

But, yeah, the 4 a.m. Get home on Monday. It wasn't too fun, especially when it was just flying home, not out partying. So that wasn't good. Shane one time I ran third at Sonoma with Steve LaTart and that was like a win for us. Is that a fact? Hell yes. We ran third?

Yeah. Oh. Yeah. We put tires on late. Come out. We came from like 15th to 3rd. It had to be fun. In the last run.

You were there? I don't remember it, but it had to be fun. We flew home from Sonoma and we all met at my house at 5, 6 in the morning and drank beer till like two in the afternoon. Yeah. I don't know if I could do that these days. Those were, yeah. Yeah, we were a little bit younger back there.

Yeah, I don't think it would happen. We were so happy to have run in the top five at that place. I ran my entire career at Sonoma, and my best finish for a long, long time was like 11. I just couldn't figure the place out. It's a tough racetrack. It's one of your favorites. Yep.

And you seem to really have a understanding of how to get around there, especially the most impressive part to me is your ability to get through the S of all i've always found you know six seven eight to be a very challenging turn uh uh you know putting those together and making that sort of section of the racetrack perform well is really really tough uh one of the things that i was uh i want to kind of get in the weeds here one of the things that helped me there was and this is different cars different tires all that years ago but i would go you know you use up a lot of curb on the right side trying to stay right to turn in to turn seven right the first left hander of the s's and we would take our old cars really and climb all over those little curbs

which is this little entrance into the road course or into the infield and you kind of jump them they're like little speed bumps and then you use a little bit of curb in seven there's a bit of a little straight away between seven and eight and then you kind of pop up over eight you know and you spin the tires down the hill. I would just fly through there as fast as I could, but I was never on the gas at any point during that whole section. And Ron Fellows, who was a road course racer that used to run with us, he told me about how he'd pop throttle right in between the S's,

in between 7 and 8. He'd just go, just a little gas that would kind of drive the car snug and help tighten up the right-hander going up over the hill down into 9. And I was kind of curious as to what do you think is important for you? That's one of the most critical parts of the racetrack, because if you don't get through their good, you're defending an 11. And so what is important about the S's? What do you need to happen there?

And how do you use the curbs? Or what is the things you're focusing on? Yeah, well, I think we had speed in the wrong places for tire life, and we were really past through the S's. This is in the cup car. And we just had so much front grip through there. but I would kill the tires and the slow speed. But yeah, if I got on the throttle between 8 and 9 or 8 and 8A, I think they call it,

if I got on a minute, I went there too slowly. Like you should be flying through the left. But yeah, using that, I think there's like a cut through for the road course on the right there. That's right. Curbs are. So you can kind of run them and open up the left, but it's pretty risky in the cup car. The O'Reilly car would ride over it like a Cadillac, but the cup kind of bounces, so it's hard to do.

Yeah, I mean, it's just flow there. It's so hard to take speed, but that's where you can take the most out of the tires as well. So it's a real, real compromise. Yeah, what was, you talked about the slow corners. What was it about the, you know, turn 11, turn 4, 7, those corners that were beating up the tires. Was it just rude drive? I mean, it's just so hot. The surface there is, it's degraded a little bit, but it's so dark.

It's very black tarmac, and it just, you know, when it gets the sunbeat on it, it just gets slick. And I think, yeah, it's just so hot and the massive traction zones, and you just slip in the whole time. And that's where the Gibbs cars were unreal. They had really good straight drive, but we had better braking and turning. So it kind of was a bit of a battle, but I would definitely, definitely have swapped some of that for some rear grip like they had. Yeah. Do you like tracks like that? you know what I mean like to get real slick like that is that fun for you know for you

um I mean it's fun going flat out the whole time as well but yeah the management's fun when you're decent at it too like when you can see it back yeah yeah it makes the last half of the stint fun that's for sure when you see oh yeah yeah if you yeah it's a big difference in speed if you do it yeah yeah it's it's really like if you can take it out of the tire on restarts to gain a couple of spots and but yeah you certainly pay for it later yeah you've told us um And, you know, during San Diego weekend that the, you know, the Cup series competition was tougher than we all were giving them credit for. And I think Briscoe proved that out on Sunday.

It really made you sweat it. You know, he missed a corner in term one and two, but if he hadn't had done that, I'm not sure what would have ended up going on on the last lap. You know, when you're racing, when you're racing with him, are you really paying much of attention to what he's doing? Are you trying to learn some of the, you really learn anything from watching him? as much as you're trying to pay attention to what you're doing? No, not really because he was behind me the whole day,

but I spoke to him in the driver's meeting. Now we sit in qualifying order, you know, so you kind of sit around who you're starting around, and he said he was really happy with his car, and I was a bit worried about that. Yeah, I could see him all day, you know. And I was kind of interested why the 54 flipped the stages. I guess they ended up with a massive points day,

but, you know, they would have been a real problem if they didn't. But, yeah, I saw the 19 all day in my mirror, and it was getting closer all day as well. For sure, yeah, we were kind of wondering about the 54. Ty Gibbs got out of his car at the end of the day and said he thought he had enough pace to bring the battle to you. And he may have been a little better than the 19, but they did choose an unique route, considering where they were in the championship that may be the right play when it's all said and done. He had like a 54-point day and ends up kind of separating himself a little bit from some guys around that fourth position in points. You're now 14th in points.

I guess you're feeling a little bit better after Sonoma, considering what happened in San Diego. You probably haven't had much time to really reflect on it. But can you forget about San Diego? Let that go. Not worry about it. focus forward, go to Chicago land with confidence that you absolutely can make the chase. There's going to be, and don't get pissed off about that. There's going to be debate whether you can do it or not.

That's what's fun about sports. There'll be a lot of people pulling for you and looking at you as kind of an underdog to be able to score your way into the chase. You don't feel that way about yourself, but that's the way you're going to be positioned. There'll be this debate. Can he do it? We'll talk about it Sunday. We'll talk about it next week.

How do you guys feel? I mean, that's points format certainly made it exciting. Yeah, our mindset definitely changes now. We're back into points accumulation mode and just trying to get as many as we can every week. And I need to not get involved in the stupid stuff like I did at Pocono and wherever else we did. Like every week, I've got to maximize my position. And, you know, that's probably going to be 10th to 20th. And, you know, if we run good like we have in a couple of races, maybe we can be in that top 10.

but yeah a 20th every week or a 15th we got to we got to do that and got to execute as well as we can and try and get ourselves in there you know but yeah the the hard part is the stage points qualifying as a weakness for me on the ovals and it's hard to get stage points when you start back there so yeah i need to need to improve that and just be consistent not make mistakes but you know not give anything up either keep being aggressive and um try and stay up the front Yeah. The one thing that I find interesting now, though, is I think you have improved a lot in your Oval stuff. And you're now sort of in a situation where there could, if you're, say you're at a sim session with your group or you're sitting in a meeting with your crew chief or your team engineers. There's a bit of a line now in the sand where it's, I see that I could get better here, but also the program itself has some things.

things that it can do better. I know the track house has made some gains this year, and we saw some of that at Nashville. We saw some of that out of you at Charlotte. But what else does the team, the organization need to be better to give you guys the car. Chastain, you and Chastain are running right on top of each other at the ovals at a lot of these races, right? And so you know now, hey, all right, you know, he's good. Chastain's great. the organization needs to gain a bit of performance.

Where do you guys need to improve? Yeah, I mean, you sort of summed it up in your question. I mean, for me, I'm really referencing to Ross still, because I know he's capable of winning races when the cars and equipment's right. As a team, we're definitely on the up. I feel like we've had a lot more flashes than the last couple of months. So it's coming, but we really just need to keep working, and keep trying stuff, but, you know, we can't take too much risk on the 97 car,

but, you know, the other two can, and hopefully they try some stuff and hit on some stuff. But, yeah, for us, we just need to keep improving and keep trying to get that average position up. That'll really help. But, yeah, I think we need to find some performance, too. Yeah, so do you, like, how do you look at the ovals now? Are you, I know road courses you got covered? Do you get more excited about them? because obviously you're progressing and you're obviously sorting better and better at them.

Like they're becoming more fun. Are you enjoying them? I mean, they've always been fun, but I mean, it's cool now being more competitive and understanding and being able to adapt and change lanes and move around and start understanding how to do that, whereas I'd be welded to one line before.

Now I can go top to bottom and try and understand how to make speed and multiple lines, which is, that's been a big improvement there. But I need to, you know, It's all about trying to find clean air and these big tracks is. It's fun learning how to do that. And I think I'm getting better at it.

But still, you know, I'll make a wrong choice and follow someone in on their on their bumper and just plow up the track. Yeah. You're definitely becoming more versatile as a driver, you know, especially like the Nashville. You've had some really strong runs. So it's got to be fun to be in that position. Yeah. And then as soon as you get up there with those good guys, it's even, it's like it on the road courses too. The racing's just better too.

They're not as much in a hurry. And they're not as much in a hurry. and it's the racing good up front. You've got to get up there. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the, the racing in the back half of the field is insane.

It's just crazy. It is. It is. It is. Um, 30th and any other series. Do you know much about Chicago land? Have you done much Sim in that track?

Uh, what's your expectations this weekend? Yeah, so it'll be on, on Sim later. Um, haven't done too much. I've seen some of the videos from the tire test and Larson's on board.

It looks crazy that bump at 3 and 4. kind of just oh yeah before he hits it to not hit it to not head it with any ore and it looks it looks really really tough

but yeah all the testing footage was on the bottom just running the line but every race I watch on YouTube the logo track so I'm sure yeah

once we start racing and a lot of cars absolutely yeah I'm excited for this weekend it's a badass race track and there's a yeah there's a bump the bump you're talking about

in three and four we will tell fans about that all weekend long. It's nasty, really, really bad bump. And then driving down the front straightaway, often to turn one, it's almost like you drive off a set of stairs. There's a, it's not a bump, it's more of a jump. So yeah, getting into turn one, there's like a drop off almost, where the car just kind of drops, you know, drives off about a set of three stairs. Yeah, you've always ran good there too. Yeah, I loved all the tracks where you could get up against the fence. That was my fun.

I enjoyed those. Yeah, cool. All right, bud. We appreciate you calling in, man. Good luck. We'll see you in Chicago and hoping you can have a couple of good week. String a couple good weeks together. Keep that oval progression going forward.

Cool. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. Now, ladies and gentlemen, get your bets. All right, everybody. It's time for Dirty Mo Doe.

This segment is brought to you by Fanduel. We got Russell here calling in to talk to us. There's no lines out yet for this weekend's race in Chicago land. But I've got one question for you. We just got done talking to SVG on the show. The predictor said that after San Diego, his chance to make the playoffs went from 67% to 20%. I was wondering if there was a new percentage considering the results from Sonoma. Yeah, we're back up to 35%.

Oh, we're up to 35%. Very nice. That feels about right. We are back to Frozen Russ as well. We're going to talk about that a lot. So I want you to keep that stat in the notes. Where does that sit with like some of the other drivers around him, though? Like an Eric Jones.

What's his percentage? Like Eric Jones is 31%. It's all pretty even through there. The biggest one, Lugano's the one that I don't totally agree with there. He's at 50%. Hey, making it. I know. But if you look at the next, what do we have, eight to go?

If you look at the next eight tracks, there's some decent tracks for Joey Logs. Could you put that in the notes where we could get that percentage? for everybody? Yeah. Yeah. You got it. For everybody. Fuck it, man.

Give me the top 25. Yeah, that. I want spider graphs for every driver in that area. We don't do spider graphs. I like the spider grass. I do too, but it's hard to correlate that to the screen to fans.

Dale's a big cap guy. They love percentages. You tell me a percentage. I get it right away. Dale, how are Russ's notes this year? Are they good for you? Do we need any tweaks? Like, where are we at?

I like the notes a lot. Okay, just making sure. Why y'all laughing? I mean, I can tell you in detail. Well, in years past, it wasn't written out specifically how Dale won. So I just wanted to make sure that rush is... Notes are good this year.

I'm easier this year. Russ, so what's the model saved? Since we don't have lines out, what's your predictor say for... It's exactly what you expect. Denny Hamlin, Larson, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, William Byron. Where's Bell?

Um, so Bell is down. He's like 10th. Really? What about brisco? Briscoe, I like a little better. Um, he, he's right in there too. He's right with him. It's there, that's a coin clip. You know, what, what hurts a lot of these guys is, you know, we still use some track information. So a lot of these guys haven't been there. So they get a little hurt on some of that. Does that hurt them? You know, do you think it's going to hurt them in the? the race not being there before or like or just like a whole new track i think it it helps the guys that have been there but i don't think it hurts them more than it helps them does that make sense yeah so like anytime you go back to a place where you won i don't think it matters that it's been

six or seven years it's you know you've won there we've also got extended practice this time how much is that going to help guys oh it's big anytime you have more practice it brings the field closer to me. At least I think so anyway. And at the same time as well, right? Like when you're all practiced with the same track, like we talked about the whole deal before where everyone's qualifying and practicing on different tracks. Yeah. So I'll be, I'll be thankful for the extra practice to be able to really kind of handicap the field, understand who we think might have a shot at it. You get two runs too on tires, I believe. So you'll be able to see guys come in, put stickers on. And then... Two sets of tires, yeah. Yeah, you'll be able to see

more down the road who's going to be good. So I found that interesting that like the top three drivers from each manufacturer were the ones that did the tire test there. So you had Hamlin from Toyota, Byron from Chevy, and then Blaney from Ford. Wait, you say Byron? Wasn't it Larson? Yeah, it was Larson. Did I say Byron? Yeah, yeah. That's okay. Hey, sometimes we make mistakes. I've made a bunch of mistakes on this show today.

So I like to do top tens. So let's figure out who we think. is give me a guy that I would expect to get a top 10 that's going to get one this weekend. This one's going to surprise you, but it's Brad Pislowski. Yeah. Whoa. Really? I don't get him in a wreck. Yep.

It's all up to TJ, but it's going to be brash avoidance. This predictor definitely is leaning into the historical data. It is. Like it was worse finishing on a mile and a half. half in the last seven's been 15th. Yeah. So it doesn't go back, but also it doesn't hurt that he had nine straight top tens at Chicago land just since we been there.

So, yeah, two decades ago. But that was a different car. I don't care. It's still the same, same crackish. Yeah. Tell Chase Elliott that on the road courses. So. You don't like the Brad K one?

is there going to be a lot of fall off there's going to be a ton of fall off I was asking Russ what he's predicting yes there's going to be a lot of fallout that definitely caters to a guy like Danny and Brad those guys that can they just have a feel for that man all right Brad Kislauski you know what Brad did a damn good job this weekend

managing his race didn't run him in anything dude now this started last on the field everybody's like, holy shit, the tails happened to brag. His last good boy, he fell off. But he did a good job. Yeah, we were actually doing decent at San Diego, and we just got the caution at the wrong time and got caught up and other stuff.

What about Bell? If he has him 10th, I'm guessing Vakes is probably going to have him kind of around there too. Do you like putting him in a top 10 parlay? Who? Bell. I do, because I feel like he's, since Michigan, he's kind of,

they put him back a little bit, compared to where he normally is and I feel like he could pop back off. What's our good comparison to this racetrack? What is a good comparison? I mean, you know, it's not like Charlotte or... A little bit of Kansas? Maybe, yeah. Kansas?

Yeah. But I don't know, Kansas doesn't have... I don't think Kansas has quite the amount of falloff, right, Russ? I mean, it has some, but not like what we're maybe expecting this weekend. No, I'd say it's... It has less than we're expecting this weekend for sure. So. Yeah.

So you're wanting me to make a bet where I put Brackzalowski in a top ten parlay. I said that that's what I would like to do, yes. When we go to these type of racetracks, the Toyotas have been dominant this year. You said a surprise. You said a surprise. You're going to have the top ten is going to be riddled. with Toyota's and some Chevys. Brad's not even the best Ford.

He's going to be good because of the falloff. That's my answer. All right. All right. I'll do Bragg Hezalowski. Who else? You know who I think, you know who might surprise at this racetrack?

Man, Eric Jones could do well. This is a real big reach, but I don't know why I feel like Suarez. He's high on the predictor. So he, listen, Suarez, I've watched this guy and

he seems to do well on these older surfaces. You know? He just, he just does. And he won it, Charlotte. I know it's a little bit of a weird thing.

A little bit of weird thing. Yeah, that was a little bit of a stretch, but he was still fast. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, like Suarez would be a good gamble. Now, I would not put, I would not put Suarez and Brad in the same bit, but you know, you just pick, you're going to pick your one long shot and then you're going to add two automatics into the parlay. Yeah. Not for a parlay, but what do you think about

Shane's chances to have a good finish? He's going to qualify, he's going to start, go out later for qualifying his entire management skills. Like, what do we think that he can do this weekend? That's a great question. And great, great point about him going out later and qualifying. So he's got a good draw for qualifying. Not so that they don't draw anymore, but that's what I like to call it. Yeah, it's got a good qualifying. He was really good the last mile and a half we went to, Charlotte. Yeah.

And Nashville. Yeah. Like, I think a top 15 for him could be doable. Absolutely. Obviously, you can't bet that, but. I think so. Yeah, that's pretty good. What do you think?

Russell, anything else? What do you think about Bowman? He won the last race there. You like him? Coming off some decent momentum from Sonoma. I mean, Bowman's always good at Kansas, too. Like, Kansas is one of Alex's best tracks, I think. Yeah, and HMS is starting to find some stuff.

So Bowman, I really think, could have a really good run this weekend. Yeah. I do. Yeah. Well, you know, I love that. I like, we like Bowman, we like Brad Casasowski, Sores. I wouldn't be, you know, there's some good names. Jones is a great one that you brought up.

TJ. I mean, a super long shot, to me, could be John Hunter. For top tens. Yeah, I mean. Sure. Legacy could go out there and both those cars could run in the top 12. What do you think about Legacy, though, on a track like this? Danny was saying that these kind of tracks, they still haven't really nailed it.

Like, the advantage the Toyotas have maybe aren't quite as, it ain't quite as strong on these abrasive race tracks. Yeah, especially for Legacy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, possible. I do think the abrasive racetrack racetracks bring the field closer. together. Don't you, Russ, like it definitely changes. The raw speed of the car can kind of hurt at times, I guess. Yes, but especially when you talk about legacy, Eric Jones has been great at

Darlington, and that's, you know, where it has the most fall off of anybody. Yeah, 10-4. All right, thanks for Russell. Hey, I'll see it to the racetrack this weekend, buddy. Appreciate you. Great. Good notes this year. Good notes this year. Good job. Thanks. The Dirty Modo segment's brought to you by Fan Duel to Premier Gaming Destination in the United States. Hey, everybody. We're live here on the Dale Jr. download for an Asch Jr. segment. We've been doing our show.

We had SVG call in. We did Dirty Mo Doe. We talked about all kinds of fun stuff. We've been drinking our Red Bulls. I'm almost done with my sugar-free red edition. Pretty good. This Asch Junior segment is brought to you by Xfinity, of course. And Xfinity is waving the red flag on Internet price hikes,

and they're raising the green flag for savings. You're going to get the speed and reliable Wi-Fi that you need, locked in at one price for five years, no surprises, no late yellows. Right to Victory Lane. Exfinity. I am an Xfinity Wi-Fi customer. I have Xfinity Wi-Fi at my house,

and we lean on it. What we do. It works really good, though. You know that you You just don't know how spoiled you are Till that don't work one day And you're like, damn, nothing, we can't do nothing Seriously

You're like, I don't know how to survive Yeah, you're like, I don't even know I'll go sleep, I'll go to do next Go to bed Yeah, really, and honestly, yeah Because that's TV, most time, that's everything I know, it's connected to everything You end up, you know, when you get service,

you start connecting everything to it then I can't even control my thermostat now Like it's everything. Yeah. I'm getting ready to redo the electronics in my house. So the, I know, I got this. It is a big, project. So this, this, all this stuff is 2008. And all of it's been hit by lightning multiple times and everything's been replaced and, you know, strung out and tied together and patchwork. And most of it's done by me. I'll go in there and try to fix something and break something else. but it's a mess. I'm getting ready to read this summer. I'm ready to redo my house.

And so I'm going to be going through all that stuff again, like reconnecting everything back. It'll be good when it's over with. I'm getting all new light switches. Oh, that's like everything. Everything. I got a lot. I got some light switches just don't even work.

Yeah. Damn light. Yeah. I had a my faucet broke oh had to replace my faucet Is that on the network too? No, but I'm just saying my house is old.

Yeah. My dish disposal unit needs to be repaired replaced in my kitchen sink. Garbage disposal? Yeah. Yeah. Just one thing after another, right?

I was putting some food down in there the other day and so you know that little rubber thing it's in there. I pull that out and I'm looking down in there and it ain't doing nothing. I'm like, it's spinning, it's spinning, but it ain't, it's getting rid of stuff. Yeah. I'm like, all right. It's ain't, this ain't working. Gotta fix it. Do you have any, like, what don't you put down there? Do you, like, is there, like, where do you draw the line? I put all the food down there. Like everything. Oh, yeah. Everything but a bone.

Yeah, I don't put bones down there. Yeah. But like, if it's food, it's supposed to go in there, right? Well, it depends on, like, the size of, like, if... I mean, if it's thick and consistent and can go in the trash can, fine. Yeah. But... Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, normal.

My garbage disposal. Common sense usage. I have, you know, live in an apartment. My guy was disposal, I can't do, like, a lot of stuff because it, the blade just doesn't really work. And then I have to, I feel like I have to throw one of those cleaners down in it, like, once a week. Do you ever drop? Have you ever dropped or Nicole ever dropped something in there? No.

Had to stick your hand down in it? I've dropped a bunch of... bottle caps down in there. Oh, no. Did you stick your... Who hasn't had a bottle cap in their dishwasher disposal thing? Did you stick your hand there to get it?

I think I magnetized it out of there. Got a little magnet. Yeah. You know, your little stick magnet? That's sketchy. I magnetized it out of there. Yeah, something. Listen.

Magnet fishing. The worst is if you have to take it apart. Yeah. Oh, it's terrible. If you got to take that thing apart. So, hey, I brought some beer today. It's Donna's pickle beer.

They don't pay us nothing. I don't have a deal with them. But I like this stuff. I drink it every now, man. Donna's pickle beer. We're going to put some of this in the back of the Tahoe that you can win on Wind Dale Jr.'s ride. If you go to the website at the Dell Junior Foundation,

win Dale Jr.'s ride, you can buy a raffle and win the Tahoe. And in the back of the Tahoe is a bun. Of cool stuff. Of stuff. Lots of stuff, including a little pickle beer. Also, in the back will be a bunch of the world's best beef jerky from jerky boys. I've went and bought the little speaker that you put in there.

I've got one myself already. The tiny speaker. Yeah. Yeah. There's multiple speakers. The tiniest speaker that I could possibly find. It's perfect. It is.

It is. So it's this tiny, tiny speaker. It weighs nothing. And I used it on my road bike because you don't want to put it. any weight on your road bike. The damn thing needs to be as live as possible because you're pedaling it, right? And so I found the smallest Bluetooth speaker to put it right there so I could hear music while we're riding. And I ended up buying a bunch of them and giving them to friends. So I put one of them in the back of the car. Yeah, but that's some of the fun stuff that we've been

having fun with today. Do you still have your road bike? And I've got this box. Oh, the box of... I've got a box of tiny Jesus. Jesuses. Have you ever seen these guys? I mean, it must be thousands of them in here. This was... Read the count when you ordered them. Well, you'll have to listen to the rest of the show to figure out why I bought those.

Yes. And what that's all about. But anyhow, I hope everybody's bracket's doing good. If you didn't fail out of bracket, you're late. Too late. But anyways, yeah, let's just get some questions. Well, first question is a topic we didn't get into. Who's to blame for Denny being wrecked?

Danny. Shouldn't have been there. Man, damn, TJ. I'm just kidding. Now that I've seen it, I think it's just road course racing. There's like four things that happened. It's just chain of events. Bumper cars, bang, bang, bang.

So Brad gets pushed. The 48's pushing Brad, right? It's what you do. You know? These cars. that's what you do under the corner. You get in the breaking zone, you get against a guy's bumper, and you're just kind of shoving him into the corner.

And he's not trying to move us or anything. That's just what you do into the corners there. Absolutely. He's not trying to wreck Brad, but he's just kind of shoving him into the corner. And he's only doing that to protect himself because he may be getting hit from behind too, and he doesn't want.

What you don't want in these cars that I've learned from the drivers is to be hit in the back bumper and hit into the next car. Because it's like a, it's like a bam, bam, It's like a bam-bam thing with the headrest, your head. It's really uncomfortable. And so they don't like to be, they want to be against the car in front of them. If somebody runs in the back of them, it's not like a pop pop.

Yeah. So Alex into the back of Brad, Brad hits the back at 7. But the 77 kind of fades back left over in front here. And Denny's a little wide. So there's like four or five things that happened. It's just racing. I mean, nobody went in there. And Carson did not even go in there and even thinking he was going to.

turn to any no no way yeah i agree carcin hosovar has been absolved of all fault yeah he he's uh he's he's cleared yeah it's official uh his fans man if you say his name what did you say they're ready to go what you say they are they're like teed up waiting for a moment what you say about the hurricane yeah and i'm starting to see a lot of like just like hosovar fan 77 won like there's a lot of just like non names out there

that are just ready to attack yeah What do you say? And they're creating accounts to... I wonder if it's Carson. Well, I would think so. I wonder if a lot of them are Carson Hosvar. He seems to be able to respond to about any comment made. I would say yes.

A lot of these were happening during the race. I don't think those are his. He's even in the comments on some Instagram post going at it with Zipadela. Yes, it was great. How does he see all this? I don't know. Is somebody sending him everyone? I got them friends.

His army. We all got them friends. they'll be like, man, do you see this? Yeah. And you'll be like, why'd you see me this? I don't want to see this. Yeah, I don't need to talk about it. I don't need to respond to it.

You know what I mean? It's better off, I'm better off not know. 100%. That's, yeah, absolutely. He's got people that are like, hey, man, look at this. Look at this guy said. What are you going to do about it? What are going to say?

Yeah. Hey, you got to respond to this. You should tweet something. Yeah, you should do that. He does. You know, you know, he's got all them guys, all them buddies of his that are, you know, they're all about the same age,

I don't feel like we ever, I don't feel like we were ever like you should really do. No, but not bad. No, but we used to. Man, when we were younger, we used to with each other all the time on, on text messages and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not, it's published prod. Yes.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying, like, me and T.J. would instigate each other into doing something stupid. Like, I'm going to try to make him get mad about this and get frustrated and go say something to this guy. We used to do it to Mike Davis, like, Like weekly.

Like weekly. So we did that all time. That's what he's got going on probably. Man, you're going to do something about that? You're going to let him say that? You're not going to do anything. The guy in Michigan that took the hat off Mike's head. He talked that guy right into that.

Mike got so mad. What happened? A guy, we were standing. We ran that special scheme. We were standing waiting for our ride to leave the racetrack. And we were waiting. Some fans had come around and we were signed autographs. The one fan was very drunk said

I want that hat on your head Mike you ought to give it to me and Mike said no I'm not giving you my hat I knew Mike had more of those in his bag and I said why don't you give it to him Mike you got a bunch of them in your bag the guy just yanks it off Mike's head and Mike lost his shit he's so lost the madness I've ever seen Mike like

and we were laughing because I'm like Mike wow you had three or four them in your bag he's like nobody takes my hat we had run that special scheme the Ralph Earnhardt Fathers Day Yeah. Bage car. It was badass.

We run third. We were all happy. Mike wasn't. We run second or third, I think. I think Casey Kane won. Edwards was second and I was third. Yeah. Good day.

Yeah. I had a fast car. Next question. People want to know what was it like meeting Travis Kelsey, San Diego. That's cool. You hear people are going to be at the racetrack, and sometimes it's people you want to meet. Sometimes you're excited about it.

we were up on the carrier and I wasn't sure who was coming all the way up there. It wasn't easy to get on that boat. You had to, it wasn't easy to get to where the boat was. Yeah. It's way off from the other side of the racetrack. Yeah, it's a complete opposite side. Yeah. So we're on the back of the racetrack.

You had to drive through a bunch of gates, get clearance through those gates. There were guards with guns and all kinds of stuff and multiple points to be able to drive through. You had to show your passes and all this stuff. Not a big problem for a guy like him, but it was just a process. And then you had to go up several 10 flights of stairs to get to where the deck was. And then to get in the tower and go up in the bridge was another, I don't know, four, five, six flights of stairs. But anyhow, you know, you're sitting there thinking, man, this is a big-ass race, a big-ass deal. The one thing that I'll tell you is Mahomes and all those guys came to that race on their own accord.

My boss... It's a bachelor party, I think. My bosses told me, well, usually every celebrity you see has been brought to the race through a partnership, a request from a sponsor of theirs, or even the outright series is paying for them to be there or giving them something. And they reached out to NASCAR and they reached out to Amazon and said, how do we get to this race? We want to come. We're going to be in the area and we want to come see it. I thought that was pretty neat. That felt very Formula One like, right?

You see celebrities at Formula One races. Now, if I see a celebrity at a Formula One race, I'm not, I don't think they're all getting paid to be there. That's a bus. They want to be seen at that event. And that's what San Diego felt like a little bit. Yeah. Especially when that happened.

So I'm just thankful, you know, they wanted to be there. They weren't asked to be there. They wanted to be there. And that was neat. That made me want to meet. them more. Yeah. Talladega when the Packers,

all them pack, the whole Packers route came for fun, like all them players. That was pretty cool. What was even cooler was Morgan. Wanted a picture with them. Yeah. Our Morgan,

who's a massive fan of Taylor and him and all that, she was like, I was like, I'm going to take a picture. And then as soon as I got done, I was like, all right, Morgan, hop in there.

I saw her photo. I saw her right after. And she was like, guess what? Travis is here. So she was pumped. Yeah. It was pretty neat.

Speaking of San Diego, one of the things we didn't touch on... He had his brother, too. See, that's what probably got him going is he saw Jason with Hendrick a couple weeks back. Yeah. I got to win. Got to win. They were great.

Speaking of San Diego, we didn't touch on this, but what was it like going to the I-Bar Sunday night? Eye Bar was awesome. Fun. I'll pick on Steve Littart a little bit. We go to the I-bar. You know, you've seen the movie, and you've seen the bar,

and you hear the stories, And we drove by it every day going in and out to the aircraft carrier to work. And it just looks like, it looks on the outside like every other building. Non-descript. Don't even, and I'm thinking in my mind like, you know, man, you know, the pictures on, the pictures from the inside, it looks like a cool place, right? It's like, freaking, not out here. But it doesn't look like a, like, okay.

So, but that's the greatest dive bars, you know, you walk up on them. You don't even know they're there. to you open the door and go in. But we got told, like on Saturday night, hey, we're all allowed to go and have a beer at this bar when the race is over. And I thought, man, all right. I wonder who all got this invite.

So I wasn't sure who it was. But we were all allowed, but we were also supposed to keep it real quiet. and so race is over and we get done with all our post race and stuff and our TV compound was literally only about 300 feet from it or not very far at all so we walked right over there walk in and it's slam full of people it's got all the NASCAR people in there Ben Kennedy everybody from NASCAR

Helton there was a lot of a lot of military in there, but it was slammed, full. And some regulars, just normal people, regular old people just hanging out on a Sunday evening that were just, that go there all the time.

And it's everything you, you, everything you hear about. It's all the mugs hanging and all the airplanes and everything. And people walk in there with their hat on and they'd ring the bell and, you know, nobody had to actually buy a beer because it was an open bar. but they mess with a few people

that put their phones on the bar and wore a hat in there. I almost walked in there with my hat on and somebody said something and there was a couple military guys at the door and they were like, why'd you tell him? We were ready, we were ready. Yeah.

Some of Ernie's. Get your phone out at Ernie's. You buy around. And then really cool to watch Coreyheim come in. Part of his post-race celebratory process right he comes in still got his driver's suit on goes back gets his beer you know gets a big cheers um hangs his mug up and uh that was pretty cool so that made me think man you know that that that's the kind of NASCAR needs to be doing you know what I mean yeah like you win a race

and you go get a beer at the damn bar down the street of the one of the famous bar in the area you go and have a beer and a big cheers and everybody's invited and that was a really, really neat moment. Do you think it's like it's because a lot we're staying, it just makes it, you know, everyone's not in a rush to get out of there. It felt a ceremonial, but very natural. It felt like it, you know, something that could be like ceremonial, traditional. It just really added to what you thought the weekend was supposed to be and how cool it was. and you know because you go to you go to san diego and it's badass everywhere you look

you've never seen any of this stuff before and you're on a carrier doing the race and the races on a street course it wasn't there and beautiful area san diego weather's great um so i mean just the whole but as soon as the checker flag falls to your point tj like it's over they start tearing the track apart immediately i mean we were on the flight deck of that boat of the ship. And when the post race was over, all those kids, those men and women in the white uniforms that work on that carrier,

their officers were shouting at them. We got to certify this deck. Let's go, everybody. There's, you know, parties over. Get to it. Back to work. It's an active naval base. It happened immediately.

And it was such a reminder of where we're at. Like, yep, this is real for them. This ain't, you know, they're, were so thankful to like have a little reprieve from the from the from the from the routine of what they do every day and then but as soon as that was over their officers made sure to let them know that it's over with back to work get to it we got to certify this deck we're going to be flying in 24 hours yeah so my experience with the people that worked on that base and the we they were awesome yeah like the experience that like going on to there and stuff and the the the the

the people that were there working itself was really good. It's just, it's true, but like, when you're, when the, you know, you, it's just interesting to be around the military because in those moments, because when it's, when, when it's, when it's, when it's, when it's, when it's recess, for a lack of a better word, everybody's, all the officers, all the upperclassmen and women are, or everybody's nice and kind and everybody's, everything's good. but when that's over and it's back to work, like they snap back into like... Work mode, yeah.

What, who they are, what they are, and the rank and file. Yep. And it is a real deal, and you better get out of the way. But it's just really cool. And, yeah, that was badass. Going to the bar bar was fun.

So I was going to pick on Steve. We get there. We're going to have a beer. I'm thinking, you know, I'm old. It was hard to get up there to get a beer, so I order two for me. And I drink those really fast, and then I order two more. And so I'm sitting there.

I'm three, four beers in after about 30 minutes. And Steve brought his wife, Trish. The boss. God bless her. Steve had his beer, and he's like, all right, I've had my beer. Let's roll. And she goes, we ain't leaving? She had some friends there.

She's like, the eye bar. Are you kidding me? have more than one beer. And so they were going to head back to the hotel. But yeah, I had about six beers, plenty of beers. Yeah, I mean, you never know the next time you're going to be back there. So you got to take it in. I hope next year.

Hopefully. But if not, you know, at least you did it right. Yeah. Next question, I forget who in the chat said it. You know, the prime's over with and now it's the T&T. And they want to know what you thought of the pre and post race set with Jimmy and Marty on there with the rest of the guys. So, yeah, I'm glad to ask that question. TNT made a lot of changes.

We upgraded. Bad-ass stage for our pre-and-post race, makes the event feel bigger, makes it feel more important. Having, you know, Jimmy and Jamie and Marty on there was a lot of fun. We knew coming in to our shows that we were going to be just, so there's not a lot of producing. There's not a lot of direction.

with T&T, they don't tell you, they don't put, so with most people that I've worked with, when we get there in the morning, there'll be one or two pages of the run of show. And it'll be like, okay, on the run of show, it'll be like, all right, Marty's going to say this at the top of the show. We're going to show this video. We're going to show this stat and graphic,

and then we're going to ask Dale this question. We're going to ask Jamie this question. It's very itemized to the minute. Yeah. at T&T, they're like, the producers have these sheets, and you're like, hey, do I get one of them? And they're like, why do you need one?

Just sit down, just talk. And Marty's going to ask you, Marty's going to start it off, and y'all just go. If you got something to say, say it. And they haven't like said this outwardly, but the impression is, is like, they want that stage and that pre and post race to have a very inside the NBA feel.

And like if you got something to say, if a guy's talking and you got a counterpoint or a joke or a comment that you think is hilarious, you know, something that you think they said that's silly, you say it. It was like inside NBA slash college game day. That's right. And, you know, and so the only problem.

Is that more fun or? Yeah, it's very fun. The only problem is every now and then, we're going to talk on top of each other. So we were doing the interview with SVG. I've got a couple questions in my mind that I'm ready to ask him. But I know there's four other guys.

they got the questions they want to ask as well. But my ass is going to ask two back-to-back questions. I'm going to listen to SVG answer. And as soon as he's done, I'm coming with the next question. And sometimes at the same time, Jimmy's going to do the same thing. And that happened in the moment.

And that's going to happen. And if I've got a question in and I'm trying to get another one and Jimmy's got one, I'm going to get out of the way. Jimmy, go ahead, man. You ask your question. Was it Jimmy or Jimmy Jam? Jimmy Jam. So, you know, it's, you know, we did not know that they were going to play the drunk Jimmy interview.

I didn't know they were going to show that video of Jamie Murray dropping his pants and that was funny on flow. But they want the show to be cool and chill and know, you know, it is what it is. And we're all going to, you know, we're all going to make fun of each other and get made fun of. and it's just going to be it's going to be what it is. So I'm excited about it. I think from last year, TNT made some big gains.

I heard we had some audio issues. So that's the only part that I can't hear and see. I don't know when we're having audio issues because I'm not listening to the broadcast. So we do the whole show and we get done. And I'm like, hmm, that felt pretty good. But then you hear in the, you know,

on the backside of the race there was some things with audio and stuff, and they'll work on that, they'll improve that. I noticed that when I got back down to the post-race desk, that we had went away from the cordless to the corded mic, so I knew that they recognized there must have been an issue. Because we would be up there talking,

and I would, my audio would drop out of my earbuds, and I'm like, I wonder if that's happening on the other end for TV, for viewers. And it must have been, but, you know, just little bugs like that, they'll work out. but I like TNT's casual approach to it.

And they recognized, I think, after their first year some things they needed to change and they did. And that shows me commitment. That shows me that they care about it. But they also have an identity and they're not going to, they're not going to stick to that. And their identities, you know, fun, casual, easy going, not goofy, not hokey, not corny, but just laid back and just say what you say,

say what you feel, say what you think, and come with your opinions. So I think, you know, almost like doing this podcast, like the pre and post race show should feel a lot like you're listening to some guys just chop it up. And I'm excited about that. Marty's going to get more comfortable once he sort of does a couple weeks, he'll start to see you okay. How was it good at Marty back? Good.

He's, I mean, he's one of our friends, so it's like just hanging out with a buddy. But I think he'll, as he's like, oh, okay, this is what this is. I got it. Oh, this is, oh, this will be great. I think the first week he was kind of nervous about how it was going to go and how it was going to come off. But I don't get nervous for it anymore. I don't know why.

He's a natural, though, too. I used to get so nervous, but I don't anymore. I guess it is you're going to get up there do it people like it you get to stay I just felt loose it felt like it was like guys that you want to just go have a beer with and talk racing with is what it felt like

it'll get better some weekends Jeff Burton will be up there Jimmy's doing three races Burton's doing two but that's what they I think what they want that pre and post race desk to be is very inside the NBA and just like you know

Kind of just chatting it up. Yeah, if you got a comment or you want to, oh, what? I don't agree with that or, man, I can't believe you said that. Damn, that's a hell of a thing. You know, just come on up there and just talk. Next question, they want to know, what did you remember from your victory at Chicago Land and 05? Anything special about it?

Yeah, we took two tires. We had to pass, I think Scott Wimmer was driving for Bill Davis and had to hammer down. my crew chief was Steve Mill Steve Mill is a legend in this sport now he's worked for I'm gonna miss a few but he worked for

the Petty's for a really long time in the late 70s and early 80s and then obviously a lot of people remember him as a big part of Mark Martin's team him he helped Mark Martin and Roush build that original six car into a winning program

and he ended up coming to DEI and he was part of, he was a competition director for DEI. I got us in a real shitty spot in 2005 and he bailed us out. He was not a crew chief anymore, didn't really want to be. He was a competition director. He was over a big majority of the company managing stuff. And I loved it. I loved having him in there because I admired him.

being over at Rouse all those years, and my dad would talk to him, and I knew, you know, he was very respected. So I get to win a race with this guy. We go to, he's, we, we're in a spot in the season. We are changing crew chiefs. And I said, hey, man, would you do it? And he's like, I'll do it.

So we go to Chicago and, we had a pretty decent car. But late in the race, so we had a late yellow. We come down, took two tires. I don't think we had too many laps on. left, gave us a shot. And Matt Kenseth, I think, had the best car, had run good all day long, and we were able to hold him off to the finish.

And that was the one bright spot of the year for us. And I got to say I won a race with Steve as a crew chief, which not a lot of people can say. Awesome. Yeah. I think that's a good spot for us to wrap past you. Yeah. Thank you guys for tuning in.

It's been a lot of fun. I miss being on the show. for hosting last week, host of our, we're going to ask y'all at the top of the show how many, who y'all want to host next.

We might have some open opportunities. What drivers would you like to come on to the show and control things for a week? Thank you, Xfinney, for waving the red flag on internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. You get the Wi-Fi,

the reliable speed that you need, locked in at one price for five years. So if you get us, if you get us, if you get, get the service, you want to pay more for five years. Pretty incredible. No surprises, no late yellows. Straight to Victor Lane with Xfinity.

Appreciate everybody joining us here in the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats. Thank you, T.J. Yeah, it's a good show. Travis. Yeah, it's fun.

All right. We'll see y'all next week. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.