The Dale Jr. Download - What Next For Keselowski & Cleetus Joins The Show

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

Kyle Larson put on a clinic in Kansas, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio to talk about it on Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to discuss an eventful weekend before looking ahead to Las Vegas:Lines were crossed at the Martinsville 300After Larson’s perfect 76-point race, who still has a championship shot?The splitter change to the Next Gen car seems to be making a differenceHotter track temperatures in Las Vegas could make a differenceWho was at fault in Carson Hocevar’s wreck?Race winner Kyle Larson joins the showDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions about:What track did Dale struggle with at the beginning of his career that he got better at?What to look for when getting into trading cardsSpecial surprise guest Cleetus McFarland joined the show2027 CARS Tour opener at the Freedom FactoryThe car Dale drove in the NASCAR Japan event  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 back again for another episode. of the Dale Jr. Download here in the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three bucks. We got more meal for your money. Get more meal for your money at Arby's.

We have the meets and we also have a great show for you today. He's a sh**on of stuff going on in the sport in the industry. TJ, how are you doing, man? I'm good. All right, buddy. Had a great time last night at your Western Town. Oh, we did. It was a surprise party for our Joey Meyer 60th. You were able to not ruin the surprise? Yeah. Okay.

No, that's good. You're awful with secrets. I just... Speaking of that, he, like, y'all had him mad beforehand because about buying airplane parts or something,

like he was freaking out. I know. So, I had to figure out a way to get Joey to come to his surprise party, which was at the western town. So I called him and I said,

first off, I had Stephen Stephan text him and say, man, Dale's got an old airplane that he's putting in his race car graveyard. And he wants you to come look at it. And Joey's like, man, I got plans. My wife's taking me to dinner. I got a bowling match.

He's a bowler. He bowls with Jack Sprag and a few other guys. And he's like, I can't. And so I caught him. And I said, man, I need five minutes. Come on by. Just take a look. Okay.

All right, right before his dinner with his wife, he was going to come by. So he comes by and, uh, In the couple of hours, since I called him and then he showed up, he had found another couple of planes. That's the way Joey works. If you say, Joey, my shoe's untied, man. He will have, in about five minutes, six people lined up to tie the shoe. It's like, no, man, I can do it.

I got it. I was just like to know my shoe was untied, but I can tie my shoe. Man, I got to call five guys and they're ready to come. You just let me know. So I'm like, hey, Joey, I got an old airplane. I found. I put it in the woods. I want you to come take a look at it.

It's super cool. He's a pilot. And then when he shows up, he goes, dude, I got a bunch of planes for you. I got guys ready to bring them if you want them. And I'm like, all right, let's go take a look at my plane. We drive down to the western town and surprised him. All his friends were down there.

so he was he was like but the planes i'm like yeah the planes aren't real bud i don't have a plane in the graveyard well i got three or four ready to come on i'm like oh no turn it off but that's the way he works he is yes poor joey oh man he did the same thing in down there at the beach whenever with the car he had everything lined up but if you wanted it i know every so if joe joey'll be like uh he's a kind of guy if you're like, hey man, you got to, he's going to hear this, and I don't want him to take this the wrong way, but you've got to be careful what you tell him.

Because if you say, if he goes, hey, man, what's you doing next weekend? And you'll be like, oh, man, me and the kids and the wife are going to go down to this place to have a vacation. What do you need a rental car? Do you need lunch? Do you need food on the way down there? Do you need food on the way back?

Do you need, you need your car at the airport? You need a truck taking from there for you. And he starts trying to like convenience your trip. And so it's like, no, no, no, everything's fine. We got it. He's very thoughtful and thorough. Oh, yeah. Like he's the perfect pilot.

Oh, yeah. Well, congratulations, 60 years for Joey. He has flown planes for my dad for DEI. He's been a spotter for years, still spots a little bit for my late mile races. and flies our plane and knowing forever, seems like. But great dude. It was also fun because at the, at his surprise party,

I see all these people that I know. It's like Tony Jr., a lot of the eight guys from the Bud Days, a bunch of spotters, Jack Sprag, all these different guys that you know really well, T.J. Yep, it was great. It's pretty fun. It was a lot of fun.

She, Annie did a good job. Yep, he was overwhelmed. He was cool. So let's dive right in. Before we get into dirty air, we'll quickly talk about Car Store. Yeah, all right. Car Store. Car Store has a race this weekend at Newport, Tennessee.

Weather ain't looking that great. We're going to, we're going to look at everything really good over the next 48 hours. Thursday, I think, would be, you know, if we're going to make a decision to make any sort of change to the weekend, Thursday would be the day we'd do it, try to get to it before people are traveling. Right now, all things are go to run this weekend, but the weather doesn't look great. And so that's really complicating some things, stressing my ass out. But anyhow, Newport this weekend for the Cars Tour, the final Cars Tour race is the 17th of October in South Boston. This past weekend, they had to Martinsville 300. Junior Motorsports takes home the trophy,

Caden Cople, one hell of a drive. He's a great race car driver. In my opinion, Caden Cople is the best race car driver driving stock cars that does not have a truck deal, an O'Reilly deal, or a cup deal. I'm saying that

you know obviously he drives for me in my late mall car but he to me is I'd put him up against anybody that that would uh that you know that would be called a prospect or a oh for sure a young hot talent that's um you know

I watched him around that truck race he's primed and ready that truck race at Bristol people aren't going to notice it but he was running he was overachieving in truck before it broke. Yeah. Like he was going to run top 20. That truck was running better than it normally was.

It was doing good. Yeah. That's all I needed to see from Caden. He's a hell of a driver. Golly. He is so composed to sit there and hound Corey Hime like he did at the end of that race. But anyhow, there was a big fight. You guys talked about it on Denny's podcast.

A couple of them. Yeah. So obviously there was a match after a heat race that got bloody. there was then so Coreyheim and Trayton Lapsovich two very obviously talented drivers Corey Hym is a two-time Cup winner it's really cool when Corey Hime comes and races late model stock cars he enjoys it

you know we we do not see a lot of cup level talent coming down and racing short tracks anywhere. Now, there are some that do, and they should be celebrated. They draw a ton of attention to these races. Yeah. So I want to say that about Corey, and he runs a few cars tour races throughout the year. But anyways, him and Trayton.

Trayton's a very talented driver. I would say Trayton's one. Trayton is also, much like Caden, Quaple, a very talented prospect that I think people should be kind of paying attention to. too. But they were duking it out. Everything that happened before the checkered flag was pretty aggressive, but it's typical of Martinsville and typical of this 300. Yeah. They had a lot of late yellows. They always throw this late yellow with 25 to go that's completely unnecessary. It's sort of like a competition yellow to rework. It's sort of like, here we go, so you can pull through each other.

I hate it. I do too. There's a couple of times that I've told our guys, I don't want them to even go run the race because they have these late yellows that are just going to, you know, encourage destruction. Mm-hmm. But, you know, my guys just badly want to go race it. So, anyways, they, they, you know, we, we get through those cautions without issue, but then there was, there was a late caution right at the very end of the race. Somebody got spun out.

Tristair McKee ran over poor Matt Cox off a turn for. and then he got his car ride it and under caution wreck Tristan down in turn one. It's all silly. But it's kind of what happens. They're racing for 20th. It's pointless. Very pointless. And so that brings out this late yellow.

And there's some framming and bammin, beating and banging to the finish line. And for the most part, it's what you expect. But everybody's straight. Everybody crosses the finish line. Good. It was a heck of a race. Get down into turn one, Trayton Lapsovich crowded Hymne into the curb.

And I'm not sure whether Trayton did this on purpose or whether he just was unaware, but he definitely comes down and doors the 22. Heim, monster trucks him, full freaking throttle. Yeah. So like... I don't think he planned for that, but it happened. He went.

full throttle. Yeah, but you don't, you don't plan on jumping. You just, well, why do you go full throttle? I'm just saying, I don't think you plan on jumping in the air.

I have a lot of witnesses down in the corner, sit there and watch it happen. I mean, I'm not saying he didn't do that. I'm just saying you don't plan on jumping a car, though. Well, I know, but he's hard to do.

If they bounce off each other and he does nothing, he may be climbs the curb or whatever. Maybe, I don't know. And, and they can say, what the hell was that? And that was, just that alone would have been pretty stupid.

but Corey full throttles at jumps him nose first into the outside wall. Yeah, I mean, I agree it was a dumb decision. Under the cool down that. Dumb by both of them. Yeah, absolutely. And so they get out

and that should have been the end of it. Now, you know, they got two tore-up race cars. It should have been over the checker flag. Well, the sh-the-sh-chequer after the checkered that was dumb. That should have been the end of it. And then they, you know, Trayton's going to go talk to him.

Trayton says he wanted to talk to him. He had no intentions of fighting, but it was good that it didn't happen. For whatever reason, I don't know, Chad Bryant, who owns a 77 car that Trayton drives, stopped him.

And it was good that they didn't talk. Yeah, I thought that was actually... Let's just not do that, right? Figure it out later. Figure it out later. All right. Corey Hime is...

I mean, this is like 10... feels like 10 minutes later. Corey Hym is by the hot dog stand and Chad Bryant and his guys jump him. Corey Hym is walking back to his holler. Yeah. Is what he was doing.

Interviews done. Everything's over. Yeah. So he's, but this is many minutes after all of this shit went down. So Chad Bryant and his guys jump Corey Hym.

It's all right there on the internet videos. Yeah, you're not missing it. And that, that, that was over the line, way over the line. And so, you know,

Chad Bryant and his guys, I know Chad. You know, he's raced into cars tour. He's raced in late model stocks for a long time, very successful. I got a lot of good things to say about Chad, but not in that moment. Yeah. That was a bad decision.

and I think that NASCAR is going to have a, NASCAR is going to make a decision on how to, how to punish Chad, who was obviously involved and very hands-on, no pun intended. And a couple other people in that video are, that I think, you know, I've had a few discussions with. I believe they're easy to identify.

I agree. And those people, too, will be handed some punishment. be interesting, I suppose, to see what happens. But I would suspect that Chad is absolutely, Chad and a few other individuals in those videos are absolutely going to get some sort of a NASCAR suspension. That is probably absolutely coming. What about the other fight?

Suspensions there? I don't really know. You know, with Burrow, Chase Burrow and some other fella. Yeah. That probably is going to be problematic as well. I mean, I'll be honest. I think that if I think that that stuff at that that stuff you can you can't condone that ever no you can't when it happens under such a big spotlight as the 300 it needs to be handled

you know it needs to be handled so if you leave the door open the littlest bit well we just we need to get that cleaned up a little bit at that particular race that seems every time we have the 300. And I know, look, man, the cars tours had its own problems. I'm not, I'm not, I'm going to sit here and say, man, we've got to clean up the 300. And then at Newport, who knows, we might have a fight breakout at the end of that race. We don't want that to happen. But these things just happen. These things happen. And so, but, you know, you have to, you have to handle it. And you have to hold people accountable. and in the long run,

it's a bad look for short track racing. In the long run, it's not a great look for short track racing to have dudes pushing, fighting, bleeding, hollering cussing. Yeah, tearing cars up. Yeah, just for people that, this late model race, when you say the 300, this is the, for late model stocks, this is the race. Yeah.

Like this is the Super Bowl. Yeah, for late model stock. And so I think everybody needs to kind of hold themselves a little more accountable at that particular event because it's very important. And I champion that event. I want it to be successful. We go race in that event. We've won it several times. It matters to me.

It's a big event. It's a big deal. And so that's something that we wanted to cover before we get on the dirty air. Let's go and talk some NASCAR Cup racing. All right. This week's Dirty Air is brought to you by Charlotte Burr Speed. and the Bank of America 400. Three days of racing, good times, and live music coming up in October the 9th through the 11th.

My birthday's on the 10th, y'all. Grab your crew and get your tickets now at Charlotte Motorspeedway.com. The last race at Kansas in April, I think it was in April. What did they have? Three yellows. Yeah, it wasn't much. How many yellows did we have? Five or six probably, man.

Are you including stages? Yeah, Noah and you had the host of our restart. That's right. Noah blew up and then the host of our restart. So maybe not five, I don't know, five, four? Yeah. Five counting comp. Kind of a dud of a race.

The last 40 laps saved it, but yeah, it was pretty boring. Yeah. We've had that before. Yeah, we have. I'm not, I know. You know, I mean, listen, the thing. we're going to have 10 races in the chase that are all going to be thrillers would be foolish and you can't blame larsen for domit like sometimes greatness just comes out yeah sometimes they hit the

setup right on we didn't have practice they sure did we didn't have practice so they didn't no one really knew and they they hit it on the head wait you think you needed practice I'm just saying some some people say no practice is better see no practice practice doesn't really matter doesn't make doesn't mean the race is going to be better or worse Yeah, you never know. You don't. I just think there's an argument that we don't need to have too much practice now because it seems like the races are better with less practice.

I don't buy into that. I don't really buy into that. I think it closes the gap up from cars. Yeah. Well, anyhow, Larson did dominate Kansas and he extended his point lead to 26 over Denny Hamlin. and all 15 drivers in the chase lost points to Larson at Kansas, as they should have. I mean, it's a perfect race.

It's hard to beat him there. Ranging from 24 points, Austin Sindrick, to 65 points, which was Carson Hosebar. Larson is leading Denny Hamlin 26 back. He was only one back coming into Kansas. Christopher Bell is 50 back. He was 17 out. before that race.

Lugano is now 67 points out. He had a tire issue late in the race and bled about 15 or so spots. I don't know how many spots he lost, but he lost quite a few. That cost him quite a bit. Yeah, about 10, 12, 12 or something like that. And then you have Blaney in 5th at 91 back

and Ty Gibbs 94 back in 6th. Let's just look at this group here, these top 6, maybe even 7 or 8 if you want to, but who is still in it? who's still got a shot at clawing back into this I think you have four drivers yeah

you really think so I think it's Hamlin Bell Legano Blaney well that'd be five if count Larson I'm not counting other drivers outside of Larson how many you're in it I mean Larson's in it

five total five total five total and I'm a little hesitant on Lugano and Blaney but they always find a way to show up in big moment I'm out of respect to what they have done. I think they, but I mean, if you said it was Hamlin and Bell,

I wouldn't like argue against you and go nuts. Yeah, I honestly, without, without them, you know, having, having trouble, 67 points for Lugano and 91 for Blaney, I just, like, I just think that's too much to overcome without having issues up top. I mean, that's doable with some, they could catch fire, but they're going to, I mean, it has to happen now. Yeah. Catch fire and Larson can't. He's got to fall.

He can't be averaging a three. No, Larson's going to have to have a bad race. A DNF. Yeah. I think so. Yeah, this is interesting. I'm hesitant to say this because I'm hardly contend, you know, it's hard to predict.

But this thing's real close to busting wide open. Don't you get that feeling? Sunday, there was two bad outcomes that could happen for the field. and one of them happened. Yeah, Larson, Max Point's Day, pretty much. Yeah. I know. So we got quite a few races left.

The thing is, can we, can someone else win? Because that win, you realize it's so big, like, Dany was going to be eight back, had Briscoe won. Like, the swing of, I don't think we gave respect to what first place does early in the year. I just, it's going to be tough for, like, who's going to go dominate the next? two, three races and chop that lead up. Yeah. I have a hinge of concern that this points battle could could, could get the point, I guess the gap

from first to second is going to continue to grow. I have a concern that, you know, we don't, we definitely don't want to go into homestead without much of a threat. you know, there may be some, the idea that somebody's still mathematically alive at Homestead is, is pretty solid. Mm-hmm. But, you know, going into Homestead where somebody has a 30-point lead, 35, 40-point lead. You're not overcoming that. No.

Even though there's a mathematical shot. It doesn't, it doesn't. It's not exciting. I think you need to be within like 15 to truly. Yeah. the difference if they win. A 15 gap would be great because pressure is going to be on.

You win and you can still do it. But if it's past like 25, I don't think you can. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we're losing as this, as these races go by

and as Larson's having such good success, we're losing a lot of guys. Do you think Larson can sustain this? We're looking around in the trenches and man, there's a lot of dudes taken out. We only got a few other guys still standing and firing back. And they need to fire back in Vegas.

Well, I'm just like, I was hoping that more people would still be alive at this point. It's too early to be whittling this down to three or four dudes. So this is the same thing that happened in the middle of the season. I think it's early for it. But this is the same thing that happened in the season with Ligano. I know. Lugano had for a month of great finishes. This is what happened with Reddick.

So happened with Denny. Right out of the gate, five races. Reddick's 100 points up and you're like, yeah. So, I mean. But then it took what many weeks for somebody to claw back to that, right? So they got to be careful, man. Not let Larson.

I mean, I don't know how you stop it, but. But do you think he regresses? Or do you think he can maintain this top five? Obviously the top fives are going to be hard. but if he finished his top 10 the rest of the race is, he's not getting beat, I don't think. I don't know, man. I don't know about that.

Denny win, and he's right back on top. Yeah, a win, and then if he, then if Denny's getting top of fives and Larson's getting tens. Bell has a perfect race in Vegas and dominates the whole thing. He's back in the conversation pretty heavily, in my opinion. Looking at this lineup right now, I think Larson and Denny, that 26 points, they might as well be tied, right? because a win is going to throw Denny right back on top or right even with Kyle. What Denny needs to hope doesn't happen is that Larson doesn't win another race in the next two weeks.

Bell better win. Yeah. Any of the guys below there, like, got to win. Yeah. Bell better win. The thing that you got to watch with Joey and Blaney is the fact that Martinsville, Phoenix, those races are still sitting out there in front of them. can they do a couple of things

in the next few weeks to stay you know kind of under that 75 point mark and give themselves some some slim shot it's still a very slim shot

you got Talladeg in there too I agree I forgot about Talladega that's the big well I'm just saying heck it's flipped the whole thing correct I think it's a three-man race I'd yeah But Ligano and Blaney still have hope.

A puncher's chance. Right. Yeah, they have some strong tracks coming up that they could chip away at it. Martinsville, Daga, Phoenix. Those three racetracks are the only reason why they still, in my opinion, have a chance. But do you think, like, Denny's been off in the chase and he hasn't won in a while, do you, as a driver, does that get to you? Are you worried about, like, just he hasn't really had, like, a great race? I think, this past week he kind of...

Denny's comments certainly have changed when he talks to the media. You know, mid-season, he's telling everybody, if you turn left, we're the favorite. If we go to a racetrack and there ain't no right turns in it, I'm the favorite, you know, to win this race. And rightfully so, his comments now are very measured. At the end of the race, hey, man, this is the speed we got. That's where we're going to run.

that's how fast our cars are we got to get more front-end speed we got to do but you know he's always had a lack of fire-off speed all year and he hadn't had to worry about it because his long-run speed was just so good and and he kind of felt like man you know I'll let them guys worry about how great their car runs in lap one and two that doesn't matter I'm I'm the man I want to be the man at 15 20 30 laps into the run and it worked but he doesn't have that kind of speed anymore yeah And his fireoff speed, even though you said it wasn't good, was still fourth to seventh overall, like still really good. Yeah, no, compared to the others. Yeah.

And he still has good long run speed, but it's just not as good as before. And so when you look at, we've talked a lot about the splitter change that they made in NASCAR. So at Wilkesboro, the teams added new struts to the front of the splitter. and what the teams want to do with this car is make the underneath kind of like a banana. They want to arch the bottom of the car. They want the nose to drop down. So you'll see the cars if you walk through the garage.

They have all the cars sitting up on jack stands, and then they'll have jacks underneath the front splitter. That's holding that front splitter in place so that the car can go through the tech shed and pass all of the tolerances. But out on the racetrack, they kind of want all that sag, all that front stuff to kind of sag down as much as possible. And some teams had this really going well, and it creates kind of a banana effect underneath the car, which is better aerodynamically. It's added down for us, right?

Yes. And so NASCAR then came in and made some changes to these struts that hold that front splitter or front valence, all those things, in place a little more rigidly and is taken away. a bit of the advantage that some teams had in terms of how their cars would maybe change over the course of a race. And so this change happened right before North Wilkesboro. And we're going to look at win percentage, top five percentage, top 10 percentage, and lapse lead percentage for Toyota before and after the change. change. All right. Lapse led before the change, 47.9% of the lapse. After the change, 34%. Top 10s is 38.5% before the change, now at 35% after not a big change. Top 5. So Toyota's are still

good, but not great. Top 5s is 50% before the change, 42% after the change. And wins, they won 60% of the races before the change and now they're 33%. So they are still good. They are still top 10 and you can see it by looking at the running order or watching the race on Sunday, but they're not at the front of the field dominating Ford and Chevrolet, at least since this has been taken into account. A lot of short tracks on there though, and that's not their strong point. Yeah, 100%.

And I don't think it's not nothing, but it's something, but then you add in the fact that Ford's at the end of the year typically find something. You've got to think that Hendrick was going to get some speed. So if the Toyota's just come back just a touch and the other two come forward a little bit, you're right. You get that. I agree. I wanted to see Kansas with my own eyes, right?

What were we going to see? Would we see the Toyota's all out front? We didn't. They're running good. They could still go to the next race and absolutely win it. Brisco, to me, at times, looked like the best car, as he did at Chicago. And Brisco did a great job. He did.

But he's too far out. I think Brisco is too far out to make a surge. And so the hope for Toyota now lies with Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell. And at this point, it's a mile and a half, so I'm not sure that they're the best Toyota's. I would say that Briscoe right now has a little bit of an edge on his teammates. Yeah, Reddick was solid. He just, he had to come through the field. I mean, he came through the field. But early on, they were bad. They fired off like crap. They unloaded it. They unloaded bad, but he drove through the field.

He did get up to like six and they had that bad pit stop. They can't do that. No, I'm not saying they came to, but the speed was there. He got out of the car and was, he did not have this optimism that you do. I mean, after a bad, I get out. He got out of the car and he's like, we got to get our shit together. What the fuck? That's back-to-back weeks that he's been critical. You can't unload like that. He's not quite as, he's not quite as,

he's not seeming to be as optimistic about their speed. I mean, when you drive through the field like he did, it's pretty good. Yeah. We make of Cendrick performance. I know that he's not in it, but man, he. Great performance from Austin. Yeah. I mean, great performance.

I don't think anybody had that one marked. 100%? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what to think about that. You mentioned Briscoe. Is there anything he could have done differently to hold off? Larson there at the end

Did he force it and make some mistake? Like what could have he done? He's going to go back and look at it and think he could have done something differently But I thought he did a great job of even getting up there making the pass And you know honestly I didn't I didn't think that the five was going to be able to get back by him Yeah You know it's whole hard to pass but Yeah the five was

Exceptional the way he could run the fence and the speed he could carry like he was He was a I know that Larson, there's a couple of numbers that are standing out to me. I know that Larson had this perfect day, right, points-wise, but some of the amount of points that drivers are losing to the winner are mind-blowing. In the way we do points now where it's like, you know, every point's a position or every position is a point. So like Hosevar lost 65 points. Busher, 62, Daniel Suarez, 53, Ty Gibbs 52, Legato 51, Tyler Reddy 50.

I mean, chunks and chunks and chunks of points. Do you think something's too heavily weighted? No, I don't. I ain't mad at it. I mean, we've defended this new system all season long, and he had a perfect game. he had a perfect day and these other guys didn't all the points were laying there for all of them to get

yeah I agree his finishes in the last month are incredible and he's earned where he's at yeah we asked NASCAR to make this feel more legitimate I think he's working as designed yeah he wasn't running 18th all day and then won the race the dude dominated the race and got rewarded for it yeah but and and he is in

such a great position now because these finishing positions, these finishes end in the chase are just incredible. Fifth at Darlington first, second and first. Yeah. Averaging a 2.3 finish in the chase. So one thing

that I think probably has helped this a little bit and there's probably some adjusting is the amount of rainouts we've had and how the order has been set for the race, which... Heard a lot about that.

You know what I mean? You think that that's the next thing NASCAR changes? Because there's a big conversation. It seems like every week due to the rainouts going on with the metric. If I was NASCAR, I would get rid of chase drivers being at the front. Just qualify and go off the metric. Yeah, what if you don't qualify? What if you don't rain?

Like it has three times. You go off the metric, but I don't think qualifying should be. That's what they... Like, I'm fine with how it is when it gets rained out. I don't like that if they do have qualifying, the chase drivers at the front. I think you just lined it up by points like it used to be. If it rains out qualifying.

If it rains out qualifying, you want them to start by points. Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine with that. That feels fair. Yeah. You know,

the only thing is, is like a promoter or NASCAR as an entertainment industry, they are somewhat entertainment as they are sport. But as a promoter, you're going to be like, man, I hate to put the best car at the, front of the pack. But I mean, they, in, if you're going to have a rain out, they've earned.

Yeah. They've earned it, right? Yeah, the metric's going to have them there anyway. Yeah. I agree. The point, the problem with the way it is now is if you have a bad race, that guy's buried in 34th or 30th or something. For the next race.

And, you know, and then he's losing, that's why they're losing big chunks, some of the guys. Because you can't, you can't start in the back. and get stage points. Exactly. So the gaps already. At a race where there's not many yellows and it's strung out. If I'm 10th in the points and it rains out, I still got a shot to get up there. Even 14th or 15th.

You have a good first stage or something or, you know. You look at the swing for Blaney. He was up front, gets wrecked two weeks ago. Yeah, where Blaney starts at the back, can't get stage points. And now he's sitting 91 back. Blaney is a perfect example. That's good. Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's like a glaring flaw. Oh, but it can be worked on. But, yeah. And I could see somebody arguing that, you know, the guys that got to start up front earned it, but earned it a unique way as opposed to just saying, all right, here's the points. Line them up that way.

A couple of things, we talked about this last week, a couple of things that stood out to me. Larson not only is performing on the racetrack, but he's performing on pit road. His pit crew ranks is the best over all 30 races this season. I mean, shout out to him, Cliff, that pit stop at the end to not let Briscoe short pit him. Overall, pit crews in the championship chase during the chase, their first on average. Chase Briscoe's team is second on average as well. You have William Byron, Chase Elliott. Denny's boys aren't doing too good.

This past week, I don't think... But, but... No, I'm just saying, I think that, like, they let him down. They put him back there and he was in a wreck because of it. The first three races, they were bad. But at least they finally had a solid day where they weren't the story for the 11 team. Their best stop overall is eighth best. Their clean average is fifth, which I think is kind of about where they are.

Overall, they're 19th. They've had two mistakes. Can't be having mistakes right now. No, you can't. I mean, you looked at Joey. they drop the jacket. You have one bad pit stop in the chase and it's like your race is done for. I mean, you're losing chunks of points.

I just, you know, I mentioned that because as we don't really look at the crews as having this overall, you know, effect on results. But in the chase, you start to sort of spotlight that a little bit because certainly in the last couple of races, crews are going to keep their driver in the battle for the championship or inadvertently, you know, take them out of it. And so, you know, we just kind of, I think it's good now at this point to kind of look at the crews that are doing a good job. So you can kind of highlight, all right, man, this guy is now in this great position. and if it's Larson, his pit crew has been pretty damn awesome.

That's going to continue to save him when maybe the car isn't quite as good. Yeah. You look at Cendrick this past weekend, you know, how he maneuvered pit road. His pit crew is pretty good, but he had some issues. And so it's like you lose three or four spots every time you go down. It just makes your life harder. Yeah, everything compiles off each other. If you have a good stop, you come out in front of a couple cars.

You were racing and stuck behind. you have a good restart. Next thing you know, you're plus five or six from where you're running. Yeah. It just all adds up real quick. And just don't have to blow up. Yeah, you can't do that. In the Chase Cendrick's crew, this is a crew that he was given to.

Blaney's crew. Yeah, Blaney's crew that we highlighted all years struggling. He was given that crew. Their clean average is 12th and their overall average is 10th out of the, out of the drivers. in the entire field during the chase. So they're performing pretty well. One thing about Austin that was noticeable was his ability to run the bottom in three and four compared to Lake Larson and them who were stuck up top. Last week we talked about Ryan Blaney having led the most laps in 2026.

Now it's Kyle Larson. After the dominating day, he is at 1,118 laps. Blaney at 1035, Denny Hamlin in third, 950. I've always looked at laps lead as long as I've been around racing as one of the top metrics of just team performance. How good you are.

How good your speed. How good your years been? Yeah. If you're leading a lot, you're having a good year. That's right. And then he still, even after last weekend, has a chance to be the oldest driver to win a championship

at 46 years old. He still has that opportunity. We got to Las Vegas this next weekend. I honestly kind of feel like Kansas and Las Vegas are super similar. Kansas is a little bump or Las Vegas a little bumpier. Down in term one and two, there's some wild bumps getting into the bottom of term one. You can kind of go under or above.

But you run the top at Vegas if you want. You can run the bottom if your car works down there. It's kind of similar. So should we see all the stuff? same guys. Well, looking at the weather. Did you see the weather? No. 95. What? Wow, it's going to be hot. Yeah, that's pretty warm. So it could be a little bit of a pace slowing down a little bit, hot racetrack, sliding around some. You know, everything will still work out, but usually, I think sometimes when the pace slows down. What was the temperature like this weekend in Kansas? It's mostly cloudy,

right? Yeah, it was like overcast, majority of the race. It got a little warm one time, but I don't, it was like maybe mid high 70s. Okay. Maybe something like that. It wasn't ridiculously hot. 95 is pretty hot. Is there, when it gets sunny, is there, does that help certain people? Or what, like, if you're a fan watching, like what?

Yeah. What does it change? I think the cars are harder. They're on top of the racetrack. More pace slows down. Track has less grip. Right? I mean, you're not.

to see it. You felt it. I got a feeling that, yeah, the hot temperatures will take a lot of grip out of the racetrack. It's a better racing if you're a fan because the drivers have to do more. Yeah, I'm just trying to think in my mind does this give, does this help Denny and his guys? Well, I mean, he made the comment on his show that if it would have been sunnier for like five more minutes to really, he felt it would have helped his car out, but it just never really got sunny. I think it does. I think it does help Denny, because Denny is a race manager and he knows how to finesse more. Yeah. I think, too, it will, I think as you take grip out of the racetrack, I think that that aids

the Toyota and their strengths. Chevy's found something. There's no doubt that, and Denny said it in his post race. He's like, five's the best car right now. Look what they just did. They just did what they did. They're the best car. and in this next gen era,

you show up at the next racetrack and you should expect to see kind of the same people still running the same speeds. So if you were going to Vegas and it was going to be 80 degrees and if that's very similar to what you had at Kansas, you got a very similar racetrack, I would feel really confident about Larson going out there

and getting another great day. But if it's going to be super hot, also be interesting to see how the wind's going to go. 10 to 15. That's a lot of win. Wind can be effective on the balance of the race car at Vegas more so than other racetracks. But if it's hotter and slicker and there's less grip,

I believe that if you're Denny or anybody driving a Gibbs car, you think that helps you slightly. I think it closes the whole field up slightly. Yeah. Honestly, because the raw speed of the car Well, dude, when you take grip out and you, you know, you're taking grip out of the racetrack is mechanical grip. You're, you're, if you have an arrow advantage or if you have things that are helping you create

downforce in your car better than other teams, then you're in a better position on the hotter slicker track, right? So I still think, I'm still not 100% convinced that the Toyotas aren't the best car aerodynamically in creating downforce on the bottom of the. race car because I still feel like on the long run they're they're pretty strong now the five certainly goes everything the five did this weekend goes against that I know well that's why they say like daint said the chevys are the best now I don't I don't think the chevies are the best I think Kyle Larson like I think he's like Carl Larson and kansas like just chase ellet and William Byron weren't like

they were just kind of in there in top 10 they weren't bad but like I don't think it's like Chevy as a whole has made this massive jump I think Kyle Larson has made this jump. I really think of being that hot, you're going to see more guys, you're going to see Blaney, you're going to see a little more Legano with a better opportunity

to be up a little higher because when the pace slows down, it brings them closer, in my opinion. I don't know. You know, Charlotte is always one of those weekends I look forward to. There's just a lot going on, and this year they've packed a whole bunch

into the Bank of America 400 weekend October 9th through the 11th. You got the Crasman Truck Series Series Echo Save 200 on Friday and then Saturday, you've got the O'Reilly's Auto Parts, Blue Cross, North Carolina, 300, and Cup qualifying. Obviously, I'll keep an eye on the Junior Motorsports cars, pulling for those guys to have a good day. And if you bring the family, kids 12 and under can get in all weekend for just $10. Then Sunday, you've got the Bank of America 400, and your Sunday ticket also gets you into the Tyler Hubbard pre-race concert and the fan zone

where they'll have driver autograph sessions and a bunch of stuff going on before the race. So it's a pretty good weekend to get out to Charlotte Motor Speedway. Go to Charlotte Motor Speedway.com to get your ticket and we'll see you. October 9th through the 11th. So another moment in the race that involved Carson Hosevar. And you had a restart which are chaotic in this next-gen era. The drivers talk about how aggressive they have to be. They even had some clips during the race where,

some drivers like Riley Herps and other guys were talking like, man, we don't want to do this on these restarts, but we kind of have to. And you can see in the restart, when they launch, there's contact with a lot of drivers. There's a lot of pushing. You rely on guys giving you some aid and shoving you down the straightaway, getting acceleration going, heading off into turn one. And the 77 was laying back just a little bit to try to get a good launch on the car in front of him. Brad Keselowski is doing the same thing. All those guys doing everything you can do to try to create an advantage. And Brad and the 77 connect right around the flag stand. There's a push coming from Brad.

And at the very moment that Brad gives him the push, it turns the 77 loose and he corrects back to the right into the 54 of Ty Gibbs, who was going to the middle. I don't know if So you're already I'm not like you're kind of wrong already Well you can give me a chance to finish So the 77 If you're right on board with Brad

He makes contact with the 77 If you ride on board to 77 He moves into 23 moves Go ahead man TJ Major's download Go for it. Look He sees a 23 move up and he moves up That's what he's trying to do

He's filling the middle off the 23 That's what he can see He's not moving off a bump or a wiggle. He sees, we're all trying to do it. We're all looking for the hole in the middle. Why didn't you go to the middle?

Because there wasn't a hole. Okay. Because we don't want to wreck. So if you're riding on the roof of Brad's car, Brad makes contact and the 77 twitches to the left, turns to the right to correct for that. Okay. And goes into the car in the middle lane.

The guy, the driver said he turned to the right to try to fill the hole after that. So, well, I mean, maybe he was intent. Maybe he had intentions of going to the middle, sure. He said he did. All right. But I think the contact with Brad and exasperated that. I just think when he saw Bubba move, because Bubba was blocking, Joey was blocking Bubba.

And when the hole opened up, you can't wait. I told, you tell your driver on the radio, when the middle, if I call middle is open, you have to go right then because if you hesitate, it's not going to be there. Well, the 54 and the 77 both reacted at the same time. And they met. Like Joey is blocking Bubba, and when they move up, Hosevar sees them move up. And that's when he, I mean, I would do the same thing.

But the 70, I don't think it really has anything to do with Brad. It has nothing to do with Brad, in my opinion. Yeah. Well, I thought Brad's contact with the 77 affected the 77's move. If he's moving to the middle, I don't, I'm not saying he's not trying to go to the middle. But I'm just saying that. Well, yeah, you had a bump. I got momentum.

I'm going to try to do it. He had, he had a bump that. upset his car. See, I don't think it upset him. I mean, it moved a car, but I don't think he cared. They hit way harder than that. And don't bust loose. Yeah.

I mean, we hit. I just watching the roof cam, it looks to me that when they bump, it turns the 77 left. 77 corrects to go right, even if he turns right to either go into the middle lane intentionally, or he's correcting toward from, he's correcting from the bump. I mean, he's definitely reacting to the bump, but the hole is so big, you've got to take it. My opinion, if he's left alone and not touched by Brad,

I don't think he runs into the 54. That's what I'm trying to say. So he's not going to, he's got to run before we get there. My opinion is if Brad doesn't hit him, he doesn't hit the 54. I mean, I mean, I can't answer that question. I don't know, yeah. I just know that we all try to get to the middle.

and when he saw them, when those guys move up to block, that is the first sign you look for is when somebody tries to go to the outside and gets blocked. That's the first sign of the middle opening up. And he wanted the middle and he aimed for it. I mean,

it's what he said in his interview too. I mean, he may be wanting to go to the middle, but I just feel like... See Bubba move up right there? I don't give a fuck about Bubba, T.J. Okay. If he still can see the 54.

Right beside him. I don't necessarily think he can see that. The 55. is at his door. No, no, no, TJ, watch this. Watch the 77. Bump turned. Whoa. Now that, am I the only one that sees what's happening here? Yeah, the bump happens. There's no lot. The bump gets him turned left. He corrects to the right. I don't think he's driving off, Brad. I think he's driving off that gap in the middle. I'm watching exactly what happened. And when he hits, when he hits the 77, it turns the 77 left briefly, and he corrects to the right.

and he hits the 54 It's a fuck bump that sent him up there I guess Carson wasn't driving the car you were I mean dude He said in his interview

he was shooting the middle turning right I know I know but he Well he apparently you know more than him I do I mean he's driving the car and says I saw the hole open up And I went for it

Hold on second Did you talk to Carson Yeah did you talk to Carson I mean he did an interview saying I saw the whole open up He did a freaking interview Listen. I did. You apparently didn't.

I'll call him and if I'm wrong, I'll admit I'm wrong. Show his, play his interview. I'll call Carson and I'll say, hey man, when you get hit right here, do you not get turned a little bit sideways and correct for that? The car wiggles, but he's not correcting. He's shooting for the hole. He said that. I am not, I'm not disagreeing with you. If he wants to go to the middle, fine. But I don't think he's correcting. Like, he's just going for the hole. He's having to correct. You can see it in the fucking video right here, TJ. I believe that if the six doesn't hit him, he doesn't hit the 54.

I think he's going to shoot that gap no matter what. I also think... Like he's going for the hole. Shooting the gap is not what happened here. I think the contact sends him into the 54. I think he's making the move no matter what, because that's what Carson does. He looks for gaps and he goes like everybody.

Well, I think the bump made him Rick. And I also... I could be wrong, but I feel like Carson's not going to, like, throw a blame on Brad for this. I don't think this is the time. for him to say, oh, Brad did this? Man, Brad wreck me. I think he's choosing his words. Yeah. I don't think, I literally think he was doing what he said. I'm not blame it Brad for this. Like, this is a restart, but I do think that. Look, Brad didn't do anything wrong. He pushes just, I was just saying earlier in this clip, he's pushing just like everyone else. Everyone's making contact. But in this case, the contact does upset the 77. He corrects for it. And he ends up into the door of the 54. It's a f***. It's a f***. It's. It's. It's. It's. It. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's It's a racing deal, but the contact is what kind of got the 77 upset, in my opinion. I just, I think the outside lane moving up is what he saw.

Yeah. And he goes off of that because he can't see the 54 right there. There's no way. Okay. I mean, he's at his door number right there. He can't see that. They're side by side. He runs into the left front tire of the 54.

How far do you think to the right they can see? I'm watching the video, buddy. I mean, I'm sure he can see out the right side of his car. Oh, really? You can see. Yeah. You can see right all the way over here? Right over the f*** headrest.

I don't think he's looking at that guy. I think he's looking at Bubba. Well, you have peripheral vision too, so that's something that you might not understand. He paused again. Looked. You might not understand having elite peripheral vision. But race car drivers, they do. And so he doesn't need to be actually looking to see what's beside him.

All he knows is he's got to run. He's trying to fill the middle. I really don't think he can see the 54's nose right there. I don't. All right. Do you, Travis? Right when he's hanging right, tell me. he can see the 54. There's no way.

I don't have elite. Yeah, we're not elite, but I don't have that star. He's got to know the guy's beside him. To confirm nobody has talked to Carson, though. No. Just listen to his interview. All right. Well, that's my opinion about what happened with that Rick.

And that's T.J's opinion. Well, either way, at the end of the day, it's just racing. Everyone's going for spots. It was not. This is not Bradgett in his payback. Yeah, this ain't Bradgett in his payback. That's people that, I agree with that. This is not malachian.

What is the malicious? Malicious. Malicious. I heard Danny f*** up a couple words. What was his, what was the word that he f*** up? It was when you asked him about the Haim deal. Oh, He was like, this is class.

Class, classness. I don't know what it was. It's so funny. I'm like, hey, it doesn't, but I'm not the only one. By the way, to clarify the conversation about the wreck that happened was not, when I said move of the race, was Brad missing the race? wrecked to the bottom. TV failed to play. You said that was the move of the race, Brad. I'm glad that you wrecked that. They couldn't put that part on TV. Yeah, I thought we were getting

so they couldn't put you cussing on TV, TJ, so they cut that out. That was code for, man, great job causing that. I'm glad you wrecked that. That was something that you said. I heard it. I think it was dumb. Can that be a t-shirt? I'm glad you wrecked that. Yeah. You all seem to have a lot of remorse. after that happened. Did y'all have thoughts of pulling down pit road? I want, yeah. Man, let's just park it.

I did. I did. I literally hated to see that. Well, took my guy out. Yeah. Josh Barry. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, how are you doing?

I'm good. That's being a Josh Barry fan. We're going to top ten it or we're coming in on a record. That car was fast. You think? That car was really fast. Yeah. He was running.

Top ten easily. Yeah, he was top ten easily, I think. Yeah. All right, there's a couple of developments. Two. A massive one. All right. Number one, TJ, you were right.

I'm not, what? I'm not here. I asked Carson Hosevar this very thing. T.J. and I are arguing on the show. I say the bump from Brad, while not payback or aggressive, slightly turned your car left and you corrected for that, and it sent you into the 54. Maybe you were going for the middle anyways,

but I believe you don't hit the 54. if you don't get the bump. TJ says the bump had no role in your contact with the 54. Who is correct? Carson Hosevar says, I turned right. That's on me. I don't actually think the six had anything to do with it.

I tried faking the nine to the bottom and switched to the middle. So the bump happens right as he's faking the nine. I was fooled. You were right. It's not like I spot these races every week. Well, I mean, I f-h-raced all my life. So I have a little credibility. I mean.

Look, two guys having a conversation. You were right. I was wrong. And I told you. Be honest. You haven't raced a cup race in almost 90 years. You can fuck stop there. Let's go to the bigger news.

I'm really enjoying this. Keep going here. We got some big news. Let's go the bigger news. This is bigger news. He's admitting he's wrong. I did. I did.

I admitted. I was wrong. I think Carson wants to bump to try to make the move because he like the momentum. He does not want to go to this next news bit. Oh, I don't. I got to go the bathroom. All right. Huge news is just broke.

And Brad Kislaowski is out at RFK racing. So let's take a look here and see. Jordan Bianchi has reported Brad Kislauski, the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion will not race for RFK in 2027. He's 42 years old. He's been part owner of RFK,

the team named after Jack Roush and Fenway sports group and Brad as well. They're all principal owners. They made this announcement this morning. He's going to finish out the current season driving the number six. He's going to give up his ownership stake. It says he likely will

give up his ownership stake. The move comes on the heels of disagreements between Keselowski and Fenway Sports Group over the direction of the team according to sources briefed on the matter. A massive. Yeah. His future beyond this season,

then is still to be determined. It's likely that he will continue to race in some capacity, though with a different organization. RFK will fill two full-time entries next year for drivers Chris Busher and Ryan Priest's still unknown or not announced about a third full-time entry for RFK, which I would say this makes that very unlikely since they do not own a third charter and they would take a loss to operate as an open team. So pretty dramatic.

Like, I don't know where he goes. There's, I mean, going right somewhere right now is extremely difficult. Yeah. Yeah, there's not like, you know, all the seats are kind of, no, listen, contracts can be broken. Brad's main responsibilities, it says, here, are primarily centered around the competition side and building the team into a consistent winner.

and on this front, RFK has been better since Brad arrived, winning seven races and placing multiple drivers in the playoffs. But consistent high-level success, that's alluded to team. Brad is only one race since joining RFK. And they've made several personal changes, personnel changes in the recent years, including Brad's crew chief moving on. just a few weeks ago. Man, that's pretty compelling stuff.

But, you know, you've got to think about Brad and the decision to leave Penske years ago. He was presented with this opportunity and thought that, hey, and I can understand this, Brad is a, as a Kisilowski, and what he and his family did as a racing team and a family ran team. Brad wants to be an owner. Brad wants to be a successful owner, same way his dad was. And so he saw that opportunity to join RFK.

And I'm going to tell you, RFK was not good. They ran at the very back of the field. It was not hard to go find races from, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten years ago. And realized, just how far this organization had fallen. And Brad comes on board.

We immediately heard about how Brad walked in the door. They cleaned up the shop. They made the shop a better place to be just physically. It was a mess. And, you know, repainted the floors, cleaned up all the, you know, shi-land around. They had this wholesale, you know,

get rid of everything that we didn't need. because we're going into the next gen era. And so they got rid of all of this stuff laying around that was obsolete. And it looked like that Brad had this influence of basically changing the culture within the organization. They get back to winning a few races, looking relatively strong with Chris Busher. And while Brad continued to struggle, he had some decent runs, but Brad never really saw the same success that he was having at Penske, he seemed to be having a really good influence on the organization overall.

So it's interesting that they couldn't figure out a way to continue to operate and moving this thing forward. And I don't think that this is obviously not a great end result for Brad, but I also feel like that this is not a good end result for RFK's future. Yeah, nobody wins them. Not really. So I don't look. Jack Rous is a legend.

but I think Jack's time and his time as a team manager and a person that can actually push this thing forward and hire and fire and organized, that is come and gone. And Brad was the one racer in the room, you know, that had his finger on everything going on in the sport. And so, you know, they'll be challenged to replace, the knowledge and and vision and all the things that I think Brad brought to the table,

they'll be challenged to replace that. They can certainly do it. But what does this mean for them going forward? I feel there's some uncertainty there. Yeah. And I don't know where Brad goes. Yeah. So, TJ, you're very close to Brad.

I want to give you an opportunity to speak. But, and you've been spotting for him for years. He was the best man in your wedding. And, you know, what? is obviously what is what is your take on this news dropping today? It's just kind of you hate to see it because of how the being there for the whole transformation of going in there from the beginning getting the cars turned around. The first first year was a six, eight months was a struggle like getting the cars right

and then to turn that around and I feel like Brad has been in position to win numerous races that just we didn't capitalize on and we needed to. but to see the place in like what you said a little bit ago like you don't replace a guy like Brad or even like Denny you don't replace the knowledge that these guys bring to the table you don't replace it in my opinion like being in the seat still knowing everything they know like you that you don't just plug somebody else in a seat like that and get that knowledge and leadership um you know guys like i think other drivers you know, really respect guys like Denny and Brad what they've accomplished and what they do bring in still.

And it's going to be hard to do. I think, you know, it's just not a good end for anybody, like you said, in my opinion. I don't, I don't think that, you know, Brad's still one of the guys that captures a room when he speaks, you know, and when he does interviews. And I just think that's going to be a hard void to fill. Pretty big news. No further comment. No further comment. Where are you going?

No further comment? I don't know. Yeah, no further comment. Where are you going to spot next year? You don't know yet. All right. Maybe our reporter. Travis can break the news.

Yeah, if you like to tell me and I can tweet it out and get that. That'd be my first news break. Maybe. Big time reporter now. To be to be TBD. TBD. All right. All right.

All right. We got Kyle Larson on the show here, calling in after a big win this past weekend at Kansas. Kyle, you're on the West Coast hanging out with a family. You've got a lot of racing going on in your life. But things seem to have turned around for you and your team. I know you guys have been kind of following y'all really closely all year long. Everyone made a big deal out of the dry spell.

But I know, I guess, right around Charlotte, you guys kind of hit the reset button and things seem to turn around and the performance seemed to be getting better and better over the course of the summer. And now here you are with a couple of wins and the points lead in the middle of the chase. So, you know, think about, you know, how far this team's come this year. You overcome quite a deficit in terms of performance to the Toyotas,

and now you guys look like one of the best teams. Yeah, no, I mean, it's definitely been a great recovery, I guess. It's taken a lot of time. I feel like it's been a year and a half of some struggles, even, you know, we were able to win the championship last year. We still hadn't won and, you know, lap sled and all those things have kind of gone down a little bit. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't really know what's changed here these last, you know, handful weeks especially.

But, yeah, I mean, as you mentioned, we progressively were getting a little bit better, but I still felt like we were a ways off of the Toyotas throughout really all year. But, yeah, the speed and execution we've had to start the chase has been amazing. I've just been super proud of everybody, especially proud of, you know, Cliff Daniels for, you know, leading us through the dry spell and then leading us to where we're at now. So, yeah, still a lot of racing left, but I've been proud of how quickly we've gotten to where we're out right now. Yeah, it's been awesome to talk to Cliff a couple times throughout the year and especially on the show after the past win that you guys had. And his, he's very, very talented. I don't know his organization, his thought process, when you go into the garage and talk to him,

his ability to elaborate on any subject or anything within the car or his preparation is very unique. And so you have to, I guess, you know, you've got to have so much confidence. You're not only incredibly talented as a race car driver behind the wheel. You know when you get in a good car, you're going to be able to do things with it. but I can't imagine you, you know, you look around in the garage and there's no better crew chief in the garage than him for you. You guys are an incredible match. Yeah, no, thanks. I, yeah, I mean, every driver has a great crew chief, but, you know, I think I have the utmost confidence in Cliff and not only how smart he is with race cars and engineering and all that, but I think what he does,

you know, with his leadership skills and always trying to develop those to, lead the team of people around him in the right direction, the right way is unmatched. So I think that's what kind of separates him from everybody else. And I'm just very lucky. And I've said it a lot to be with Cliff because, you know, who knows where I would be at right now if I didn't get, you know, paired with him. So just very grateful. And hopefully we can be together until the end of our careers and, you know, sharing a lot of success. When you experienced last year's playoff format, you've been in that format for many, many years. But now we're going through this chase for the first time in a long time.

We're all kind of learning in real time what a win means, what stage points mean. Are you enjoying this format? Is it as much fun as it looks like from the outside? fans, industry people, myself, broadcasters, we all seem to really be enjoying the ebbs and flows of every weekend. And I have to wonder, as a driver, do you love how this is playing out and do you feel like you have a better understanding of your objective going forward and more control over your fate? Well, yeah, I mean, I think the objective is to be up front all race long.

You're not just finishing well. As you've seen, stage points have been ultra important. So, yeah, I mean, selfishly for a team that has been running up front all race long, yeah, it's been great. But then I also look at like a Ryan Priest. I don't think he's been out of the top 10 yet in the chase. But I bet he's in the single digits and stage points earned. And, you know, he's still buried in points. So, you know, I'm not asking for, like, changes every year to the format.

But I still think there are some tweaks that could be made. I do believe that stage points are potentially too important. But it's still been a nice change of pace compared to what the playoffs were. And I think whoever ends up winning the championship at the end of the year, I think everybody can agree that they were a deserving champion, where in the last few years there's always been an argument on that. So, yeah, kudos to the change. I think it's been fun.

I think the pressure of it's been a lot of fun. But yeah, I still think there's some things to look at to make it even more pure and authentic, which I think is true racers what we, you know, would hopefully want. So a quick question for you. I know you're busy. Do you have, what's your schedule racing coming up? You just strictly stay with the cup stuff for the next until the end of the year. Do you have any sprint car races or anything coming up?

Yeah, just cup. I've kind of done that the last handful of years. There's really, you know, not a whole lot of sprint car racing I can go do. The majority of the racing that I do throughout the year is midweek. I'll sprinkle in some Friday shows and stuff. But throughout the summer, it's all midweek stuff with school being out and all of that. So, yeah, there's not really any midweek race in this time of year. But even if there was, you know, I kind of like slowing down and just really solely focusing on one thing.

So, yeah, no, I don't have anything. But once the season ends, I'll get right back behind the wheel and get back to racing. and hopefully sprinkle in a couple vacations, but yeah, do some midget racing. How's the high limits stuff right now? Yeah, high limits have been going really good. You know, the point battle was tight there for a while. Rico's, you've gotten hot again, so he's kind of stretched out, yeah.

But the racing's still been really good. It's, I think what makes our series a lot of fun is the unpredictability of it. You know, there's a lot of young talent and just chaos, it seems, sometimes in high So it's always fun to watch. And I think as a series, though, we're trending upwards really quickly. So that's due to a lot of hard work from everybody in the staff as well as, you know, Flow racing. I think Flow has been amazing for short track racing. I mean, Dale, you would understand that as well.

So great partners. And, yeah, look forward to the future. As we look forward to Vegas, I was sitting here, you know, waiting on the mile and a halfs to show up. wanted to see what would happen at Kansas. You're very good there. A lot of people aren't that surprised to see you go out there and have such an incredible day. When you go to Vegas, do you feel like that you see a repeat of the same people running in the same positions? Or do you still feel like Denny is the favorite?

Where do you feel like you handicap the field? Now that we have one mile and a half behind us here in this little three race stretch. Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be a lot of the same faces for sure up front. But I would say that, I don't know, I mean, they're very similar. But I would still point as Denny as potentially being the favorite just based off of him, you know, winning the last two times there. And just the raw speed that he had in his car at those races compared to the field. I feel like the Gibbs cars get over the bumps through one and two a little bit better than we do. And so they can carry a bit more speed and kind of be on offense a little bit better.

But I do believe we have improved our car compared to our last two trips there. So that's where I don't really know how we'll stack up to the Gibbs cars. The Penske cars, I would say, are Vegas is typically they're better intermediate. And with them been really good at Kansas last week, that was a little. little bit surprising, I think, to all of us. So I would look at them as being even more a contender this weekend. But, yeah, it's been fun. I feel like the field is a bit more equal.

But we'll see. There's still six races to go. And a lot of teams can, I think a lot of teams are still in this, even though it may not seem that way right now. Yeah, we were looking at the numbers and points. I want to let go. But we were looking at the numbers. debating like who's still got a shot who really

have a shot and I know you might not have the actual points in front of you but you know C-bell is 50 out I think he's still absolutely in this but I and I would say Legano Blaney at 67 and 91 out with with the fact that you got Martinsville, Daga and Phoenix still on the schedule I don't throw them out yet but everyone behind them

Gibbs at 94 Reddick even Briscoe is Goosy at mile and a half is at minus 123 I just don't think they have the races to get it done. Where is the number in terms of like, man, I'm worried if I'm this far back at this point? Yeah, I mean, I think it's still, I look at, yeah, like Blaney and maybe Ty is probably the last couple, Blaney for sure, because as the tracks you mentioned, I definitely don't think that he's out of it. Because, I mean, I just look at like, I started the chase 55 points back, and in two races,

I was only like, I don't know, eight or nine points out of the lead. And I finished fifth with average stage points at Darlington, and then Gateway went really good. So like two good races, you can be right back in it. And Denny didn't even have like a bad, like terrible. I mean, for his standards are probably really bad. But, you know, it wasn't, he didn't have any DNFs. And I was two races into it and I was right there.

So I just think the points can swing a lot. And, you know, it's just, I don't know, media members want to, like, one race goes by and they're like, boom, that guy's going to win the championship or all that good. Those guys are out. So I just don't, yeah. I think Kyle's got it wrapped up. Yeah, it's the reverse psychology, I think. But, no, it's just been fun. I think the way the points are, it just adds pressure and a lot, a lot more emotion. Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. Thanks so much for your time, man. This has been really insightful. Have fun out there on the West Coast. Good luck this weekend in Vegas. See you, man. Congrats.

Hey, this is Dellenhart Jr. and for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the Imo drink some beer t-shirt we've been talking about here around the office, head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch. All right, y'all, it's that time again for this month, the selection of the Ultimate Racing collector presented by Lionel Racing the official diecast of NASCAR. Lownel Racing there's your go-to source for all your racing diecast needs. You can check out the latest

pre-orders at LinalerRacing.com. Let's take a look, T.J. and see who this month's winner is. Is that Landon? Yep. All right, Landon, we're headed downstairs. Okay. Wait, you got the Chiefs? Oh, yeah, Daytona 500. A couple are in Hart. Oh, nice. That's interesting.

It is. We turn the corner. We got a little Alex Baldwin door. He headed into the man cave, the finished basement. Got some fish. Dude. Look at this. Nice.

Yeah. I like those cabinets. Yeah, those are nice. Looks like they closed maybe. Got some LED lights. Yeah, dude, those are nice. He's got his, looks like some baseball cards, some sports cards. Everything.

All types of collectibles. Everything. Look, lug nuts. The display and the presentation. He's got some trading cards. A plus presentation. Yeah, this is a lot of, oh, look at a whole little sundrop shelf. Sundrop shelf.

Sundrop has to love that. Yeah. Then you got 88s all there. There's a lot of Earnhardt stuff. Wow. Oh, there's, yeah. Look at them all them sighing too. Some hot wheels.

Unopened hot wheels. Fish tank. Solid bud uniform. Got a fish tank. J.R.M. A nose looks like off of one of our nationwide cars. a little quarter panel action. Kansas City.

Yeah. I don't like the chief stuff, but. Why not, DJ? Got some cold. Oh, I like them.

Oh, the oil cans. Yeah, the cans. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's a nice time. Dude,

look at the wall, like the metal. I like the metal. Yeah. A lot of Bowman or 48 doors. Look at the liquor. Oh, the liquor cabinet.

The bar over here. That's awesome. Wow. Yep. Coffee table tire. Yeah. It's actually a well. That's actually a good use of the tire.

It's pretty nice. It's pretty nice. of the tire. It is. Zoom in on the liquor again, buddy. Come on home. We'll see you out over there.

He's a lot. Hanging out here. Where's your TV at? All right, there it is. On the wall, right under it, right with the nose. Oh, yeah.

He's watching the hangover. I'm going to be honest, man. Oh, look at that. Yeah, more door. That's a hood. Is it an ally hood? All right. This is a pretty cool spot.

So what I like about, was it Landon? Yeah. What I like about Landon's little man cave, very, very, very tight small space.

Good use. You know, you get, you get some small spaces in your house and you're like, what do I do with this? Get some odd spots where you're not quite sure what to do with it. He has, he's taking this square footage and done a really good job and maximize use of that. Got a couch and your TV and your beer and liquor and. It didn't look crowded either. No.

Like it looked clean and neat. Just well done. Yeah. Well done, Landon. Well done, Landon. Really nice. He is this month's Lionel Ultimate Racing Collector. Thank you, Lionel, for giving us the opportunity to celebrate some of these fans and some awesome collections.

Lionel is your go-to source for all your die-cast needs. Check out their latest orders at Lionel Racing.com. All right, everybody. We're live here at the Dale Jr. download for the Ask Junior segment of the show. Xfinity is waving the red flag on internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. Now you get the speed and reliable Wi-Fi you need locked in on one price for five years. No surprises, no late yellow straight to Victory Lane. Just like that, folks, we've got a winner.

1030, two weeks in a row. I think this is going to be a trend. I'm going to try to do our S-Jrugnors segment at the same time every week and try to build our followers. We had 160-some people here waiting. This is an important week. Somebody jumps right in and Fuzzy says, mute him. This is an important week because Travis can actually get muted. Yeah.

They're all going to give Travis a hard time. Don't take any of this personally. Travis, they're just all having a good time. Okay, everybody's having fun. I'm good. All right. There's been a lot of big news dropping today.

Brad Zalowski. He's made this announcement that he's out at RFK, leaving the organization. I thought you were talking about the weather in Newport. He's given up his ownership of the team. We don't know where Brad is going to go. T.J. has not got any information. We've tried to pry it out of him.

He knows nothing. Also, yeah, the weather this weekend in Newport for the car store race doesn't look awesome, but we still have a little time to wait to see if that sorts itself out or what we do there. But we talked a lot about a lot of things. We've got to talk to Kyle Larson about winning at Kansas. He had some really insightful things to say. Great interview. He got up early in California.

He didn't just breeze to the interview. We asked him some questions. He gave us some really articulate answers. I thought he was really good. Very good. I thought him talking about stage racing. I thought it was very interesting. He had some opinions about the point system and how much he loves it,

but also some of the things that he thinks could use some tweaks. so pretty interesting there and we may have a surprise caller somebody joining us during this Ask Junior we had some pretty big news in the cars tour that we announced yesterday that we may expand on so let's get right to some questions

do you have any questions Travis yes first question is what race track do you feel was your worst at the beginning of your career that you slowly got really good at Sonoma you hate Sonoma I hate this and on it. I don't know why,

because I always thought we ran okay. I was awful at Rockingham. Awful. And I finally got me a top five, the last race there. I was running pretty good that day when me and Kurt Bush got into it. I was actually, I think me and dad were sitting there running like kind of eighth to twelfth together, which was really fun because I didn't get to race dad a lot when I looked back on 2000. Not many races where me and dad were door to door.

So when you got near him, Did it like, did you look forward? Oh, man. Make you nervous? I freaked out. That's what I was wondering. When I would get around him. Yeah.

Oh, man. I would almost, um, I would get so, like my heart rate would just go through the roof. Yeah. I just get so, I'd get excited, nervous, all the, all the emotions and almost. Would he make it harder for you to pass or easier for you to pass? I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember us having any moments like that.

Really? Yeah. He raced super hard, like really hard. So he probably wasn't going to cut you any, any, any, more breaks. Yeah. No. I remember we were at Rockingham one day, and Jeff Gordon and him were battling.

I think it's one of the, my rookie year. Jeff Gordon and him are battling for like fifth, sixth or something. I can't remember exactly what was going on in this race. It was late in the race. And I did not do a good job of getting out of their way. Oh, no. And, but finally, you know, they passed me. and I think, you know, I was stupid, young, and so I see them coming.

And so instead of thinking, need to get out of their way, here they come, I'm like, I'm going to run harder. I'm going to run hard. I'm going to show them. I'm going to show them how good I am. You know, my mind went to like, I need to show off in front of them. I need to, here comes Jeff Gordon and dad. And I should have got my ass out of their way. So dad passes, they both go by and dad waves at me out the window like,

you dummy? Get the hell out of the way. You know? And I mean, you could tell with the, with the wave was absolutely not a. Thank you. Yeah, that was like, what the hell? Get out of the way. So he had like the hand up.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Oh, yeah. I think people still drive like that at times when they get around certain drivers. You know what I mean? Like they still feel like they can prove something. Yeah. I

Yeah I think Rockingham was one of the toughest ones for me Darlington was really really hard

but we got better there Somebody somebody wants to know How do we know Brad is leaving Because RFK and Brad both Or there's been a statement

From Brad So the internet Yeah Jordan Biankey's reporting on it Yeah Brad we don't know Where Brad's going Where could he go

What teams are Where's he going? Where's he going? he must have you'd have a team would have to break up a contract similar to legacy with John Hunter I don't believe Brad allows this to happen

unless he had a plan B Brad don't seem like the kind of guy that but was he doesn't have plan B ready I don't know what steak he had in the company if it's all if it's split up evenly if it's two against one or what it like did he have a choice well I don't

regardless. I just, he could have, you know, if he had a tiny, tiny share, he could have been like, all right, you guys, you know, we're going to do what you guys won't. I'm going to keep racing and being a part of his team. If he had a very small stake, I just feel like he, I don't know. Yeah, I just, I don't think Brad has, I don't think Brad just jumps off, you know, off the ledge without a safety net. Next question.

Next question. Somebody wants to know. What is wrong, TJ? You get nervous? No. I like the, there was a comment up there that said, Travis is like the creepy guy

with the van but doesn't have any candy. Whoa, that's a tad aggressive. Somebody want to know if they wanted to buy their first box of baseball. Somebody says, Dodge is coming. He has Dodge.

Dodge can save him. Maybe. We'll see. Yeah. It needs to be a team or a charter first. Colleague. K and K. K and K.

K and K racing. Somebody that responded to the Twitter post yesterday, I want to know if they wanted to buy their first box of trading cards, what should they look for if they're going baseball? What? Oh, baseball. I don't know. Yeah. Like what's a good, like... Oh man, I'm not good at this.

You're like a trading card expert. I am not a trading card expert. I mean, we are not. You're more than a novice. Yeah, you're further along than what you think. Well, I mean, if you're buying, I like. I'm going to walk into the hobby store and you can pick up all this up. What are you looking for?

Oh. What year, what card, you know what I mean? Like, what do you go back? I'll be honest. Like, okay, I mean, there's a lot of different ways you can go about this. If you're, if you're spending, you know, if you got, you're spending under, 50 bucks, you can get a box of junk wax and have a blast, right? Opening up all these old cards and recognizing all these names, but you're not going to

have much value. No hit. There's not many hits. Not much value. Yeah. If you have quite a bit of money, then if you're doing four to 600 bucks, there's a couple of boxes where you're only getting like three cards, but they're guaranteed autographs, guaranteed hits.

Yeah. Patches or something. I know that's not as fun because you're basically, you open in a box and there's a your three cards or your your your couple of cards that that are supposed to have pretty good value but I like I like that I like that over opening a if you go get a box of general you know 2026 tops football 2006 tops baseball you end up with a couple of cool cards cards and a lot of base. And I just feel like, I honestly kind of got a feeling that we're back in a bit of a

junk wax era with the base stuff. Like, I just don't know. I just can't see how, so they got, so you've got, take any baseball player. You've had, you have the base card, which is always a low value, couple 25 cents. But then you have nowadays, they'll be this guy, they'll be the, they'll be the, card that a card will have like 50 variants that are like yeah they do like they got like red ones what are we doing yeah i agree with that like there's like oh man i got the red shimmer and that i got the green shimmer the orange shimmer the purple shimmer the red wave the orange wave the purple

wave it's like what do we do it this one's a 25 well those are cool if you get a numbered card but them they even have variants that the variant cards that aren't numbered They're just different colors. They're just, it's like a, it's basically like a filter on your Snapchat. Oh yeah. You know, it's like what filter are you going to put on the card today? And there's a, you know, it just doesn't make a ton of sense to me how this is good for, you know, the value of the card 20 years from now. You would buy cards back in the day and say, man, I've got a great player.

and I'm going to hang on to this, and in hopefully 20 years, this $1 card is a $50 card, right? And so I just don't know, I think we're back in this sort of junk wax phase where they're just so many variants of a card. And the base is not even, the base is not even... Close. Not even considered. Nobody cares about bases anymore.

So... You know, I like to go for the downtown card, so those are my favorites. I do love the chase. But if you're just like, hey, man, I want to get a couple of... of great cards. There's a couple of boxes where you can, you know, you're going to pay a lot of money for them, but I'll be honest. I've went on

eBay. I'll go on eBay and look for some junk wax and order a $20 box of 88 or 89 tops and open that up and I'll give all of it to the kid down the street and I'll keep the Nolan and the King Griffey, you know,

and I'm happy. Yeah. You know, chasing after. I like Griffey, Nolan, Randy Johnson, and I'm, yeah, so... Where's our packs? I just keep adding to the, yeah, you want to pack? Yeah, I won't pack.

So that's kind of what I do. This person here in the chat says, Dale, do you, by chance, remember driving the number one Coca-Cola car? When did you drive it? I have a die cast of it, and I've never seen or heard of it. Really? I drove that car in 1999 in Japan. Yep, Japan.

Man, yeah. I think Ross Chastain did a throwback at Darlington a couple of years. ago with that car. Fun story. A lot of people may know this. They may not. We built a car.

We're going to go race in Japan, exhibition race. Me, Tony Jr. Dad's in the red Coke. I'm in the black Coke car. So we have matching Coke cars with the polar bears and all that. We're going over to Japan to race. We build a car at Dellenhart Incorporated. We're really excited.

We take the car down to. homestead and Steve Park takes it out to shake it down, backed it in the wall in turn three. Hey Dale, I'm going to cut that story off for a second. We have a surprise guest joining us. All right. He's here. The man himself. Dude, I always get on as a surprise guest. What do you expect? What do you expect? I didn't recognize. You had sleeves. Oh, my seat jacket. Y'all want to know something funny. Oh, hell, here we go.

Cletus McFarland has joined us and left us and left us I don't want to be under dress Does he know about Epic Chop Houses do rule He's getting his sports code on Dude did you see that So Epic

So Cletus sends me this photo Of the door at Epic Chop Houses Really great steakhouse in Morson, North Carolina And at the bottom of the door It says No one allowed in

Without Sleep And I swear I believe they put that on there last week. You can tell it's new. It's new vinyl. It's new vinyl. You think that's a dig or a little bit of, did you go in and eat? I mean, I think that's from you causing a rile on the internet. You did conclude us out. I would never. Listen. Appropriate dress required. See, shirts must have sleeves. See, it does look different. It is different. It was added. It was added later.

they must have put that on. Did you go in there? Did you go in and eat? Or did you stay out? I haven't gone back since you put me on a blast. I thought you took that picture yourself. Zach went there and he's like, dude, did they add this because you? I'm like probably because Dale's tearing me up.

Oh, man. He does that, man. You're not the only one. Trust me. he doesn't eating yeah restaurants are kicking me out

left and right changing rules I mean yeah so yesterday we had a big announcement of the cars tour

everybody saw we went to visit you a couple about a month or two ago yeah down in Florida in Bradenton

got to see your whole operation really really cool got to meet a lot of your folks and just just a great time

great piece of property you got a lot of great things going on yes Yeah, Cars Tour kickoff at the 3rd factory. Oh, kickoff.

And did you see all the hype that it got? Did it get a lot of hype? I mean, just the Cars Tour page post has a thousand shares. I love that. I mean, it was popping off. I got more texts from friends that, you know, don't normally come to the track yesterday than I've gotten in a long time. They're all like, we're coming. This looks awesome.

Yeah, it's going to be something, ma'am. We're going to start to see. season, 2007 Cars Tour season with Cletus down at the Freedom Factory. I feel like it's great timing too, you know. Early February, the weather is going to be awesome. February 6th is the date. Now, we have in the Cars Tour for a lot of folks that maybe aren't familiar, we have the pro-late model and the late model stock.

Cletus, you're going to be racing in the pro-late model race. I know. And are you going to be in pros, too? I will not be in pros. I'm going to race in the What? I'm going to race in a late model stop. What happened?

What happened to straight rail rail, Dale? Oh, man. I mean, I'm going to, see, that makes me want to get a late model stop. Oh, my gosh. All right.

Like, rent one, you know, maybe I can rent one because I kind of want to burn you up. Well, you know a guy that probably has some available right now. Well,

I can change my mind and I could run the pro. But Harvick's going to be there. Harvick's probably going to race in the pro as well. Who's another name that we should go after to get for this that's not already committed? Danny. That'd be great. Can you work on that?

Danny in a late model stock. Well, I can tell you that I talked to Carson last night. I know you talked to Hosevar. Carson would do it. He said he's in as long as we can have like a four-car Crown Vic shootout, me, Dale, Kevin Carson. And I mean, as long as you two.

He just wants to spin me out. he did say that that's weird how that works isn't it like why don't I just go on the racetrack and let Carson just spin me out and we can get that part over with come on man we'll get you to cheat it up brown dick or something

or I was thinking have you seen that King of the Hill thing that people are doing with the trailer first one on the trailer oh yes yeah we could do that I don't know part of that I'll watch who was trying was it you do I saw a video doing that already trying to get it and it was one of the most things I've done.

I would love to watch. We can do that. I'll drive the truck. You drive the car up on it. It'd be fun. Or you drive the truck and I'll roll over. Dale, you're not accepting terms to a four car shootout yet.

Not yet. Not yet. I want to negotiate further. So fans, if Carson Hostfar doesn't race, it's Dale's fault. Attack him this week. I need to get you a caprice or something.

Is that kind of a little bit? Is the caprice faster? Because then that might matter. I could get you something that's just slightly faster than the ground. I want to be able to get away from Carson. I mean, I was surprised at how aggressive he was in my text messages about sending you out. You've seen him drive, right? He's freaking, like, aggressive all day long.

He owns a tank. He bought a tank. I mean, who buys a tank? Did you watch the beginning of the race? I mean, obviously you watched the beginning of the race on Sunday. I mean, I'm always making moves out there. He does not wait. What does he get? Yeah. Obviously.

If he goes on track with you, me, and Kevin, I mean, who knows? I'm a little concerned. Someone's getting spun out. But I'm really fired up about it, man. I can't thank you guys enough. You know, when we bought the Freedom Factory, I had no intentions of really, like, chasing late model races or anything like that. But now to have, like, your guys race of all kicking off there and people so excited about it, man. I just am so thankful to do it with you guys. Yeah, I was very, very thankful to be to get out there and see the track and talk to you guys. And we had a lot of fun that day. I thought that was cool that you guys do like site visits and like really.

Well, yeah, we just check it out. That was cool. So that's leading up. That's the week before the clash or what? Yes, that is the week before the clash. So you'll have, yeah, if you're in Florida, you can come to Brayton, watch the cars tour, enjoy a great weekend. Get ready for some Daytona? Yeah.

Sorry, I don't want to interrupt. No, go ahead. Well, I'm saying, and then it's speed weeks, right? That's right. Yep. We have, we kind of become part of it off. Yeah, you're kind of become part of speed weeks now. Yeah, so we're like a week before it because I think it starts, like the speed week starts that next week.

I think we can consider ourselves kind of the kickoff of speed weeks. Yeah. Yeah. It's getting it now. We're just kicking this thing off. Yeah. it's going to be sick. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Yeah, well, we'll have to strategize more on the We will. We will. But we'll figure it out. All right, what's the big project you're working on right now? I'm working. Hold on.

Yeah, I was going to say, what did you just look at over there? I literally have been turning wrenches because that's how behind we are. When I start turning wrenches, and that makes things risky for us. But we're working on this,

uh, my L Camino. Yep. Oh, wow. It up and going. That looks a lot different than the last El Camino I saw sitting right there. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah. We got a crappy one and then we got this one. So it's going to make, you know, maybe 4,000 horsepower. Oh, I see the S-10? Yeah. You still doing this? Yeah, Ruby. And then the Corvette.

Yep. Yeah, we got Leroy over there. Did you do the giveaway yet for the Orange Vet? Yeah, it's over. But they don't, like the firm we use doesn't pick someone for another couple weeks. Nice. Okay. Yes, sir.

No, he's got a lot going on. We try to, man. Well, I'm fired up. Thank you guys again. Yeah, buddy. Appreciate you. Thanks for coming on. And we can't wait to see you next February.

Pretty awesome to have Cletus come in and help us spread the news of the Cars Tour, opening their season in 2007 down at the Freedom Factory on February the 6th. He has a big, gigantic plot of land entirely flat. And I say that because if you're thinking about coming down, there's a lot of the sixth. of room for camping, a lot of places to be able to get out there and be comfortable and enjoy the weekend with us. And I'm excited to hear from our competitors. The pro-late model car itself races all over the country. A lot of cars down there in Florida that I'm sure may join us for that race. The late model stocks, they race right here in this sort of Mid-Atlantic region of the country. So this is a big haul for our late model stock competitors.

So I'm excited and hopefully they'll embrace what we're trying to do and go down there and have a great time. It's going to be highly – it's going to be a – it'll be a big number, you know. So for our teams, our teams that are trying to sell sponsorship at this point in a year, there's a big feather in the cap for these teams to be able to secure some funding, extra funding for the season. I like it because it also – the fans of Cletus are now – maybe they aren't – watching the cars tour but now they're it's just i think it helps everybody yeah it's gonna be awesome so good timing good place yeah we went out there now the track surface man has got a lot of character that's a that's a understatement it's abrasive it's got a lot of character a lot of patches and

imperfections perfect so but they run the bigly there every year they have races there with supers and and so forth so i mean it's it's it's seen action everybody that i've talked to that's been out there to race on the track and everything says that it's good to go. We put our own eyes on it. So feeling pretty confident that we're going to have a great weekend. Yeah. Who did you get anybody good? Oh, for my cards.

I got some good ones. I got Kerry. Eddie Wood. I got Sterling Marvin. Nice. Mark Martin, I got a legend, Benny Parsons, and then a Morgan Shepard and a Bobby Hamilton. You got Kerry.

I have, nice. Oh, all better than that. Hold it. Oh, Tony Yuri. This one's kind of cool to me. the Pete Wright He used to work with Pete Wright Yep Pete gave me

Pete's one of the first guys that taught me About race cars Yeah that's right We got any more questions Did you want to finish your Japan story? Oh yeah sorry So

We were talking about I was talking about the car we built To go out there Park wrecked at Homestead The Flat Homestead And hit the turn three wall It shook him up Pretty good

and so we had to hustle to get another car quickly to be able to get it into the shipping container and get it to Japan in time. And I believe that we got a show car from Andy Petrie that was a skull bandit show car and the front clip was bent and we weren't able to change the front sway bar. So the front clip, we couldn't get the sway bar out of the front clip.

And so, but that's the cost. car we end up taking out there and ran pretty good. Yeah, I thought it was competitive. Yeah, we did.

We drove up and I think we got the lead and then I hit the wall off term four, trying too hard, but ended up running six or something. You like the track?

In Japan? Yeah. It was like a... Gateway a little bit. Gateway would be a great example, just like Gateway, but flipped. Turn one and two was the big

long sweeper. It was identical to Gateway. Very good comparison, T.J. that's what I'm here for. All right, well, that's probably a good place. Xfinity is waving the red flag on Internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings.

Now you get the speed and reliable Wi-Fi. You need locked in on one price for five years. No surprises, no late yellow straight to Victory Lane. Just like that, folks, we've got a winner. Thank you y'all for tuning in. Thank you, Exfinity. And we'll see y'all next week. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

Place your bets. Hey, everybody. It's time again. for some dirty-mo dough. Brought to you by a fan duel. And we have Russell on. Russell, thanks for calling in today and being a part of our dirty-modeau segment.

Excited about all the information you're going to bring to the table today. Last week, we had some top ten parlayes. We gave out some winners. We did. Except for T.J. I don't know if many people were paying attention because we haven't been very good. So I don't know a lot of people have much confidence in our decisions, but this past weekend. So we had a Denny Byron top 10 parley.

Yep. That hit. A Briscoe Byron. That hit. And then a Briscoe Reddick Larson? That one didn't hit. That one didn't hit. What about our picks in terms of matchups?

Our matchups, we hit three matchups and told people to avoid two of them. so I think we went 3-0 what could you want from us we're great all right man well listen we talked earlier a little bit Russell about the upcoming race at Las Vegas and what to expect

I'll I'm gonna give you some drivers man and you tell me I'm gonna give you some drivers I'll give you the the label that racing insights has given them and you help me understand you help me understand

why they fall in line here and we're going to go through all of the um all the chase feet to the coals all right the hottest hand in los Vegas that goes to Kyle Larson why yeah as average finishing the chase is second he's scoring nearly 60 points a race he's got three wins at Vegas dominated last week at Kansas I don't I don't think you can go wrong with this guy so he's just never going to lose. I'm not saying he's never going to lose, but at this point, it's back to the old Kyle Larson where we used to say you have to bet him until he screws up again. So this is, he's on a roll, man. I agree with that. All right. The house favorite. That goes to Danny Hamlin.

Yeah, he's won the last two Vegas races. He's been in the, I think his worst finished in a mile and a half in the last eight races is fourth. His last two mile and a half, he's been in the, his last two mile and a half wins we're both at Vegas. So I think this is this is a guy that that that you can't go away from either. I don't know if I pick him over Larson though this week. That's interesting. Even with the higher temperatures. I think the temperature, the hotter track might help just slightly. Does the predictor take weather into account? We have all the weather information, but it does not. Oh, I knew we could. I could we can do that next week. If you, like if you'd like.

I need it this week. We have all the moon phases too. I know Dirty Mo loves the moon phase. So you did. Moon phase before temperature. All right. We're getting into the weeds. Vegas,

Vegas bridesmaid. Who is the Vegas bride's maid? Christopher Bell. Damn right. Best finish there is runner up twice. He's got five top fives in the last seven Vegas races. He can't win there,

but I'd pick him for a top top five. top three. I think those three that we mentioned are your three championship guys. Yep. All right, the Vegas King with a 1.5 mile hangover is Joey Legano. Yeah, four Vegas wins, most of all active drivers,

but finish 15th or better in the last six Vegas, but only one top five. So, and this series really struggle in a mile and a half. Average finish at 20th. Viva. Lost Vegas.

Brian Blaney. Average finish a 30th in the last four Vegas races. Oh, no. Not my man Blaney. Yeah. Yeah. So I just, I just kindly stay away from him right now. Betting on a Vegas rebound is Chase Elliott.

Chase was runner up at Vegas in the spring. It's his only top five in the last eight Vegas races, though. But he also won a mile and a half earlier this year at Texas. and top 10 at Kansas last week. So hopefully this is a sign of, and Hendrick won last week, too. Hendrick's looking a little better here in the mile and a halfs. I got you.

All right. Roland Career, Best Sevens is Austin Sindert. Yeah, he's on the best stretch of his career. Best seven races stretch of his career. Average finish of eighth. And as his first top five on a mile and a half track was last week when he was runner up at Kansas. What?

his first top five and a mile and a half? His previous best was six twice at Vegas. Okay. Well, there you go. All right. Austin Cendrick might be a top 10 bet this week.

Yeah, I agree. Vegas glow up, Chase Briscoe. He finished fourth and eighth in his last two Vegas races after five consecutive races without a top 15 there. So anyone at Chicago this year?

I agree. I was going to say outside of Larson, I think he's the best thing going right now on the mile and a halfs. Yeah, he was your best bet to win last week other than Larson. All right. Top 10 machine, but needs more. William Byron. He's finishing the top 10 in the last three races this season, but no top fives. Top 10 in all six mile and a half races this year and six top tens in the last seven Vegas races. but he needs more. He just has not scored enough stage points and he needs to win to advance here

further in the chase. TN4. Consistent on a mile and a half, but Las Vegas is a concern. That's Bubba Wallace. Yeah, only one top five and three top tens and 17 Vegas starts. So his average finished there is 22nd.

Only six lead lap finishes. Vegas, I would, I'd kind of stay away from him, but when it comes to Vegas. But overall, mile and a halfs, he's been, he's been top 10 and six and five of the six races this year, a mile and a halfs. Searching for a new heater, his teammate, Tyler Reddick. Yeah, only five top tens in the last 14 races this year after, after 12 in the first 16. So, but he only has one top 10 finish in the last four Vegas races. So he is, he's looking at. for that magic from the start of the year. Still looking for Vegas luck is Carson Hosevar.

Yeah, best finish of 15th at Vegas and six starts. So it's only finishing the top 20. He's also never, this goes back to Cendrick. He's never finished on the top five on a mile and a half track either. Well, I think when we're looking at our favorites to win, we all got to say that, you know, we'll last the predictor here in a second, but I think we all love Larson. I'm being surprised.

I would not be shocked if the predictor has Denny first. I think it's Larson to Denny neck and neck with Briscoe right there in third. What's the predictor say? It's Denny Larson Bell Briscoe. I knew it. I'm telling you, dude. I got a feeling Denny's going to do it. Yeah.

The predictor loves Denny's last two races at Vegas. and, you know, he's not been bad on mile and a half. No. Like, we just talked about. Like, that's, so that's where we got it. All right. Well, I think you can bet any one of those three and get a chance to, you know, have a winner at the end of the day. Is there anybody I think that, you know, in terms of winners, anybody that stands out that we're not talking about could get up there and shock the world?

I like those top four. Who's the one? Hamlin, Larson, Bell, Briscoe. Briscoe, Bell. Okay. Bell. Okay. Yeah.

Plus 148 if he did those four in a parloid for top 10. All right. What about your favorite driver? Josh Berry? Yeah. I don't know, man. You know, I mean,

Vegas is a good spot. He won O'Reilly and Cup races there. I think it's another opportunity for him to try to get a top 10. What if I told you plus 250 for a top 10 for Josh Barry? I'd probably put it in there if you wanted to, but... I think you just bet it on its own. I think they had a no speed I saw at Kansas. He can run top 10.

I agree. Yeah, he seems to do really well at Vegas. When we look at stage wins at Las Vegas by team, Hendrick Motorsports has 16 stage wins. The next team is Penske at 6. Joe Gibbs racing at 5, even with Denny's wins over the past couple of trips there. Man, the Hendrk cars just have a really, really good success over the course of their career in stage wins.

since stage racing has been around. But moving on to top ten parleyes, we did a real good job last week. We talked about that. We also talked about Denny Hamlin and William Byron, who have, they're the only two drivers. They have top tens in all of the one and a half mile tracks this year. Do we continue to parlay them in the next week's race?

Do we do a Denny Hamlin, Byron parlay for top tens? That's minus 120. but if you want to make it plus, just throw Larson and it's plus 120. There you go. I throw Larson in there. Okay. So Larson, Hamlin,

Byron for a top 10 parley. Larson has the longest active top 10 streak at four races. Denny and Byron are the next two drivers with the longest active top 10 streaks with three apiece. And those three, as we mentioned, are also the longest active top 10 streaks at mile and a halfs. The other drivers that are on these lists are Christopher Bell. So I would throw Christopher into a top 10 parley.

If you wanted to even maybe get that Denny Byron parley bumped even more, take Larson out, put Bell in. I bet you get a little bit more juice on that. Plus 129. Here's a couple of the names. Would you risk on Bubba Wallace for a top 10 this weekend? Would you risk Ryan Priest on a top 10 this weekend? Bubba, I say Bubba, even though you said, stay away.

He does have two top tens in a row in the last two mile and a halfs. Yeah, I think Bubba can be good here. Could be a shocker. All right, you're staying away. I'm staying away from him. What about Ross? I think there's other good options there. What about Ross Chastain?

I know he's been shogling, but does he run good at Vegas? Just give me your money now. Yeah. What about Ryan Priest? I don't, I like him actually better than Bubba. What about Ryan Blaney? Yes. I told you I was staying away from him.

Staying away from Blaine. Yeah. My thing right now is bet the top like six chase drivers. Like this is, yeah. I mean, wait, fight. Yeah. This is the time of year where, you know, the top 12 and the chase tend to run in the top 10. Yeah.

They take up a large majority of the top 10. So you could probably get pretty fortunate putting, two or three of those drivers in a couple different parlayes and landing those pretty easily. Yeah. Well, look, that's a good enough for me. I would do, I'm, you know, I'm going to promote a Denny Byron Larson, top ten parlay, or a Denny Byron C. Bell, top ten parlay, a Denny Byron, Briscoe, top ten parlay.

All of those, I mean, we're not trying to strike it rich here. We're just trying to end this season on a bunch of wins. I think all those should pay out. Yep. All right, Russell, I appreciate you, buddy. All right, thank you. Thanks, Russ. Thank you to, Russell.

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