The Dale Jr. Download - What Will It Take To Save Nashville Fairgrounds?

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was back behind the wheel of his JR Motorsports late model stock at the Nashville Fairgrounds this past weekend. He joins co-host TJ Majors to discuss how the CARS Tour race went and all the action from NASCAR’s weekend at Bristol: - The CARS Tour weekend in Nashville was a big success - The future of the fairgrounds - Ty Gibbs finally breaks through - TJ catches a stray in the Ricky Stenhouse/Brad Keselowski dust-up - O’Reilly Series race winner Connor Zilisch calls into the show - Blaney’s pit crew problems are noticeable - Trading card expert Kyle Kravitz joins the show During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: - New hat on the Red Bull fridge in the studio - Dale’s Goodwrench pit crew suit from when he was a kid - Celebration in victory lane at the Nashville Fairgrounds - Smokey and the Bandit or Cannonball Run? - What racing movie can you watch over and over? Don't forget to check out shop.dirtymomedia.com to get your hands on our merch! Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download in the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat in three box. And you get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats, and we got a great show for you today. 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. Do 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. DJ. You don't need a cool vest for that race. What are you thinking? Get them, DJ.

Hellway is starting a show. All right then. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. This is Bristol, post-Bristle 706. Finally, the number. Episode 706. Dude, it feels like it's episode 7,006. Doesn't it?

7606 is a lot. Yeah. I reckon. I said I reckon the other day. My little girl goes, what does that mean? I said it kind of means whatever. So how's it going, TJ?

My co-hosts. It's going. Yeah. You ready for the show? I am ready. I got my Red Bull open. I'm going to have me a little sugar-free Red Bull. And we're going to talk some,

we're going to talk some Bristol, talk a little Nashville Cars tour. We're going to talk a little Stenhouse, Casolowski, Ty Gibbs, big winner. Big winner. Connor Zilich is coming on the show. And also we're going to talk a little trading cards.

We have tasked Travis with getting us an expert and man, did he deliver? Hmm. Yeah. So, King of the Cards is going to come on the show. We're going to ask him some questions. We got some, I got a little list of things that I want to ask him. Did you prepare a list of questions? I have a list from before.

Hell yeah, brother. No disrespect, but I only know this guy via his moniker, his King of the Cards name. Do you have a real name? Kyle. Kyle! That's why the cards, I think, is K. Is K? Sweet. All right.

So, Kyle. And I've seen this guy's social media. It's been coming up on my algorithm because I started collecting cards, and now my phone's starting to share with me the things that it thinks I want to watch. And King of the Cards is some of the stuff. that it's sending me, and this guy seems super cool. He's so nice to all the people. He's got a lot of fans that come to the card shows and walk up to his table.

And, man, the interactions that I see on social media are awesome. So I can't wait to get him on the show. That'll be a little bit later. Obviously, Dirty Mo Doe and all the good things are going to happen today. So let's get started. Let's go right into the Cars Tour, T.J. Went to Nashville Fairgrounds this past weekend. and here are my unfiltered thoughts.

So, yeah, I want to hear this because I have some questions. We practiced Thursday from three to seven, and then it was like Groundhog Day. Friday, we did the exact same thing again, three to seven. And then Saturday, we had a 20 and a 40 minute practice roughly in the morning, qualified around five, and then we raced. and that is way too much practice. I don't want to go do a race weekend where there's that much practice. It's just too much.

I don't want, it's not interesting or fun for me. The race, the race day, all that, the cars, the people love it. One thing I did not like about this past weekend was so much practice. Of course, it was Nashville, new track. But if we don't show up and like open the track and say, okay, everybody's here, it's time to practice. They're all going to rent it. They're all going to show up on Wednesday and Thursday and do it anyways. Or come the week before, now they're traveling to Nashville and back home and back out to Nashville again for the race.

If we don't, like, kind of organize it, it gets more expensive for the teams. It's crazy how different the dirt world is versus the asphalt world in practice. Dirt guys, they run three corners and start to race. They go out and practice for two laps. You know, their hot laps are like, bam, bam. over. Yeah, they're quick. Yeah.

But it was an amazing weekend for the car store. It was an amazing weekend for Nashville Fairgrounds. So Nashville Fairgrounds has been in the news quite a bit over the last probably five to ten years. And it's all revolving around the future of the racetrack. and there's obviously the fair board local government council there's all these different levels of government that votes that deals have to go through to be approved and man you'll you'll get through one line of government and then run into a brick wall or get through a couple lines and then run into a a brick wall and there's always opposition. And it's unfortunate. It's very political, which is never fun.

And, you know, the racetrack, first off, is sort of protected by an amendment to it's protected and racing is forever preserved as an activity on that property. And so, while the opposition to the racetrack can stifle its future and growth and its upgrades,

they cannot, for the current period of time, end all racing at the racetrack, because it's protected in these laws that were implemented over the past couple of decades. So that's why racing still happens there. And that's also why the track itself hasn't seen any recent upgrades to the facility. The surfaces in rough shape needs a lot of patchwork. I wouldn't say it needs a repave, but definitely has some problems on the surface that I saw this weekend. The grandstands and facility, while usable, functionalable, they do need to be improved and cleaned up. A sound barrier needs to be put up around the racetrack, a very proper sound barrier.

needs to go up around the facility quickly. Otherwise, I mean, it's the foundation and the footprint of the track is in solid shape. And we didn't really, it felt like a great facility for our series. But there's a lot of opposition sort of stifling what the track could continue to become. and there's a lot of support that wants racing to continue. There's a man that built a soccer stadium on the property who has a lot of interest in that being successful. It's a 30,000-plus venue that hosts concerts and multi-use.

He obviously isn't a big, he probably isn't a big fan of another 30,000-plus seat venue, being right next door, right? Because while the racetrack is motor sports oriented, it would then, it can also be seen as a multi-use venue if they were to increase the seats for sure, where it could do concerts and so forth as well. So I don't know.

Maybe that's the, that's, there's a bit of a tug of war, I guess, happening between the community, the individuals that are that own the soccer stadium and so forth, the soccer team, and the fans that want to see racing continue there, the racing community in Nashville. So there's a lot going on. I feel like there's a good core racing community there still.

Okay. I mean, do you get that vibe when you're there? Maybe we had 13,000 people show up that want to watch the cars tour. That's pretty good. Yeah, packed the place out. I mean, if you could have sold 20,000 tickets, I think you could have gotten close to that. With that all said, this is the feeling that I get.

Most of us don't live in Nashville. Most of us get our information about the Speedway on social media. Most of us read articles or post, tweets, whatever, and we form our opinion of how the progress is going with the racetrack, right, from just basically social media. That's me, that's you, that's all of us, right? and when we're not in Nashville, not standing on that property, not at that racetrack, not watching a motorsports event going,

it can feel at times that there's a bunch of opposition against the racetrack and there's not a ton of confidence that something is going to come together. But when you go there and you stand on the racetrack and you're at the place and you see it operating and see the fans coming and see it happening, that changes your mind. there is you know it's a big racetrack it's a big piece of property it's been there since 1904 racing's been going on there forever second oldest racing facility i believe in the country really yeah

so when you're standing there you go oh no man this is not this ain't going to go away quietly this place is stubborn um you know they there you don't know who's going to you know who's going to went out on this, you know, tug of war, but this place isn't going to get wiped off the map just like that. It's fighting, and it's got,

it's got some legs. And so there's two routes, I think, that this racetrack could take. It is, obviously, it can continue as it is, being managed by a guy like Bob Sargent, who is a promoter there now.

that's not a terrible route because short track racing continues. Bob's got relationships with all the folks that he needs to have relationships with in the town, knows how to do business in Nashville. And the only thing about that is it seems like the track doesn't get the financial support it needs to be able to continue to upgrade and just do general maintenance. like the surface. There's a couple holes in the track need to be patched.

And then they're just, you know, there just needs to be a little bit better general maintenance if we continue down the current path of racing at Nashville. The second route, obviously, is with Bristol and Marcus Smith. And if Marcus comes in and gets control the track,

he wants a 30-year runway. He wants a guarantee that he's going to get this place and get a hold of it for a long time so that as the investments are made into the track, he knows that the track's not going to get yanked out from under him after 10 years, right? That's fair. If Marcus puts $60 million in this place,

he wants that 30-year runway to be able to make it work. That's how he sees how he can make that profitable. Because he's going to put a ton of money into it. as soon as Marcus gets the racetrack, he's already got commitments to the local community and local government to do the sound barrier and all types of upgrades to the racetrack. So he's been proactive.

Yeah, they have a plan and it's ready and it's being mulled over by the local government. And that absolutely could happen, and that's still in motion. And I know that Marcus and his team are still eye on the prize, they're still working that deal. It's not dead. And so I don't know, you know, and I know nothing more than that.

I know as much as all y'all do, Marcus isn't in my phone, telling me inside information. I don't, I can, if I go to Marcus and I say, Marcus, what's the update? I don't get details. He goes, we're still digging, you know. He'll tell me something like, our guys were there last week. Our guys were in town last week, meeting with local government. Our guys are still boots on the ground. And that's all I need to hear.

They're still trying to make that effort to put a deal together. I think, honestly, if the laws stay in place that protect motorsports at the track and racing is going to continue, I would probably prefer Marcus's team managing the track because I know if I'm in a townhouse or a neighborhood nearby or my kids are going to school, you know, within vicinity of the racetrack, I know that Marcus's promise and will be forced, really, to put the sound barrier up and to really improve the burden of noise that the racetrack is. So if racing is going to continue,

which the laws are in place for that to happen, and Bob, I think there's a world where Marcus gets the 30-year deal. Marcus upgrades the racetrack, and Bob still promotes the short track racing that would continue there. I think there's a world where both can be true. And so, because I absolutely think, Marcus gets the track, you're still going to have pro weekly racing, cars tour, whatever you want to do. Right.

And the other thing, too, is that if Marcus got the racetrack, they're not adding races. They're not adding track time. They're not adding dates. Because the fair board's going to tell you this racetrack gets to run 10 times a year. That's it. So if it's a NASCAR race, I don't care, go-kart, whatever. You get 10 races. You get 10 shots.

When I took the cars tour there, Bob had to. pull something out, right? He put the cars torn the hat, something had to come out because he only gets 10, 12 dates, whatever, right? And so, you know, it's not, there's not more racing. You're basically saying,

if they agree to do this deal with Marcus, they're basically saying, Marcus, come in, fix up the track, put the Soundberry up, make it better for everybody, better for the community, better for our racers, better for Nashville.

I just don't understand why it's taken so long for everybody to understand that this is the right way forward for the racetrack. It's interesting. So that's what, we had a great weekend. I went around to competitors before, during, and after the race, and everyone was thrilled to be there. A couple of them said it reminded them of Myrtle Beach, because the track had a great environment, the track had a great culture and environment, uh, had a feeling,

uh, that was fun. And then you had Nashville itself when you got done at the racetrack. Like, Saturday night, dude, we went downtown, drank some beer.

Tons of places to go there. We went to printers alley. Oh, a bar called the cellar. And drank beer till two in the morning. We took the guitar that, um, Caden won.

Dang. Hung it on the wall in the bar and cheersed it and drank beer to it. Had pizza. I mean, not every racetrack that we go to. Is there an after party, a place where you can go, or even on Thursday night after testing, a lot of guys went out and had fun. We went to Tutsis.

That's one thing I remember of the Martinsville weekend when I ran the late Mall race. You got down on the track and everybody went to Clarences or the places in Martinsville. And you saw all the guys that I was competing against. You saw them there. The infamous Dutch Inn. The Dutch Inn. Yeah, you get the Dutch Flu. There was a bar in a hotel in Martinsville.

The hotel is called the Dutch Inn. And that bar, if it could talk. I don't think it's there anymore. But, I don't know. I mean, in the 80s. Even in the early 2000s. Yeah, I know. But, I mean, imagine Tim Richmond and all those guys.

Yeah. The Dutch Inn. Man, I just can't. tell you how much fun we had taking the cars tour to Nashville. It was fantastic. I could sit here and talk about it for hours. Hey, everybody. The 2026 NASCAR season is underway and it's already shaping up to be another year of hard racing,

great storylines, winning moments that remind us why we love this amazing sport. And when it comes to capturing all of that on-track action in collectible form, nobody does it better than Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR. Their race-win diecasts are some of my favorite cars in my own collection. That's because the detail, they look exactly like the car does in Victory Lane. The confetti, scuffs, marks, tire marks, damage, all of it. It's like freezing that winning moment in time and having it right there in your own home and your own collection. Lionel Racing Diacast, they're the real deal, and right now, Lionel is offering a free domestic shipping

when you use promo code download 26. That's free domestic shipping when you use the promo code download 26. So head over to linnellracing.com, grab your favorite diecast and make this NASCAR season one to remember. Anyhow, let's move on to Bristol

Cup Racing Man. I watched the Cup race on Sunday and congratulations to Ty Gibbs. I know he's long overdue and he was thrilled to be able to get himself to Victory Lane. gives is in the sim this morning so he's not going to be calling in to the show but um we've all kind of watched this kid go through uh the challenges and hurdles and trying to become a uh winning race car driver in the cup series and he used to racing the cars tour worked his way up through the

exfinity series had a ton of success and um it's been a bit of a rocky road came into the cup series and looked like you know man these kids got it he's he's he's ahead of the game but struggled over the last couple of years and there's been some, you know, there's been some personnel changes and whatnot, but it seems like right now they're in a stable place. They're running like it. Yep. Top 10 after top 10 after top 10. Yeah.

The kid is pretty dang competent. I mean, he's, he doesn't make a bunch of mistakes. Is he a championship contender this year? No. I mean, I don't know. I don't think so. That's a bit of a jump, I think, from where I have him in my mind before Bristol. I know he won.

He's getting there. He's getting there, yeah. He's kind of like, I guess you could say he reminds me a lot of Chase Elliott last year, very just consistent. If you can't win the race, he's going to get you that fifth, going to get you that eighth, going to get you that tenth, going to get you that third. You know what I mean? Yeah, I just wonder if this does it for a tie, though.

Does this give him a little bit. it more like you never know they always you know they always say you just got to win that first one and then the floodgates are going to open that doesn't always the case i don't always see that no i mean it's as as hard as when it's just as hard to win him he's not going to try any harder than he already is when he doesn't get easier after you're the first one yeah yeah i don't know where that came from to me it gives the driver the confidence okay i can do this now a little you know what i mean but i don't know that he lacked it yeah maybe not i don't know yeah i don't know i mean he went through a couple rough years. I'm sure there was probably some hard times for him.

He seemed like outwardly to realize where the problem was and knew it wasn't him. That's just my perception, but, you know, I could be wrong. He could be really insecure about it after the last rough couple years, but he doesn't express that. He expresses, hey, man, I know where the problem is. We're going to get that fixed, and then I'll be good. And that seems to be what happened. It's looking like it so far. Because, I mean, there was a moment in the season last year where the temperature around it was that he was tough to beat, maybe tough to deal with. Well, yeah, you had Gabe Hart as like the quasi crew chief Tyler Allen, like, really wasn't on the mic. Like, it was just awkward.

It was. And then Gabe Hart's out at the end of the year. That whole situation looked. It didn't look great for Ty. Didn't look great for Ty. Ty just kept his head down, went about his racing, and now he's in Victor Lane.

Now he looks, and they've been running great. This wasn't like a surprise. No, not a surprise. They've been running great every week. And so now it's like, man, maybe it wasn't him. You know, maybe in the right scenario, this kid's just, you know. This is proof that if you hang out around that top five,

you're going to be able to win races because he wasn't the dominant car. all day. No. He wasn't the best car all day, but you give a guy in the top five a shot to win. Mm-hmm. There it is. And as we talked about last week, like, he's only 23.

So to our, what we're talking about, like, yeah, it's taking him a couple years. Yeah. It's got to mature, like he's got to develop. That's a great point. I mean, I always say this, and everybody's tired of hearing about it, but like Ligano, Byron, I mean, it's right. It's just the exact same thing. And he wasn't racing cup at 20th.

Like, there's... It's the exact same thing. You put these guys in these cars at 19, 20, 21 years old. they are going to have flashes, but they are also going to have rough days. And if you can see that through, right? You get Byron, you get Ligano. You get Blaney.

A lot of guys don't get the opportunity, though. They don't. But Ty's going to get it. Yeah. Like Denny, Denny put his time in right. Like, I feel like guys like Denny and Brad and Martin Truex, they all came up. A lot of them, almost all of them, you know, came up that way.

Like we look at, we're going to have Connor. I'm like he's struggling right now, but like he's young and it's going to take him some time before he can break through. Yeah. On an oval. It will. Well, Ty Gibbs may not even be in his prime yet. Oh, I don't think he is. Not close.

Yeah. And so, yeah, just think about that. Like, he's sitting there fourth in points. And, you know, definitely in the conversation around points, but I don't think that he's... When could he hit his prime? Is he five years from it still? Could be. Oh, I mean, I think that you're, if you're in a great situation with a great team,

it could start around, you know, the age of 25, run to 35. Yeah. I mean, he's not even. Different for everybody. Just different for different people. Like Denny's is, you know, Denny's is a lot, his prime run is a lot longer than most. But most guys get about a 10-year window of like, they're really peak. It could still be great after that.

I feel like Ty is in a really good spot to have the same path that Denny had with the equipment that he's in because Denny's been in A plus equipment his entire career. So his prime window obviously stays open longer, in my opinion. Play opens up sooner too. Definitely opens up sooner. The challenge for Gibbs is going to really be how that operation is ran from the top down. So Joe is way up there in age, right? He is absolutely, he is his celebrity status,

his recognition, name recognition, all those things, 85 years old. So that right there is how they, he's a big huge part of their sustained success, partner relationships and all those things, right? So how they carry that on beyond Joe himself is the key to Tye's success. Right? So, like, for example, I mean, I would say it's kind of like...

What do you think Ty needs to keep to see it? Let me just say this. So, DEI, for example, right? DEI with Dale Earnhardt and without Dillenhart, two different buildings, two different operations, two different businesses. even though the names there, the legacy's there, to be able, it is just not the same if that man isn't walking in the building. The way he would come in there and talk to employees, the way he would, you know, shake hands with sponsors and market the company.

When that leaves, someone else has to come in there and do that. Someone else has to come in there and be that. And no one could replace that, right? And so no matter, and we, you know, DEI can be successful, but it is not ever going to be what it was without Dale Earnhardt present and in the building. And so that is the challenge for Gibbs is when Joe is gone, how can they continue to have the partnerships they need to fund the operation, maintain the critical, talented individuals in engineering and crew and support,

to be able to build fast race cars. And if they can find that magic way to do those things, that charisma and that ability to, you know, to really truly be successful in operating the business, TIE's got a real opportunity at a solid 20-year career with a lot of wins. Those positions are hard to fill, though. The leadership. Yeah.

It's hard to fill those. Well, they may have a plan. And you're like, I'm sure you know, their stories about people that worked with your dad. The things he would do, like go see him on the land. Just walk up and, I mean, that made their day. Like, they couldn't wait to get there. And also, like, a sponsor maybe once chose, like, you know what,

I don't have that same relationship with whoever takes over. I may not want to. Exactly. That's what I'm speaking about. Yeah. So the leadership, tie ties, I know that's a long view, but that's truly, like, what kind of driver can tie be? like if he's driving for Joe Gibbs racing he's going to be as good as Joe Gibbs racing is

yeah right because he's a winner ties now a winner ties a guy that's fourth in points is a winner get him in a great race car he's going to get you a great result very not really mistake prone he's dialing it in not in his prime this guy's got a great runway right but he's going to be only as good

as the equipment and the organization he's with and so that's that's kind of how I look at that I agree let's talk about you had a little bit of a comical moment during yeah we had a little bit of a comedy exciting moment yeah comical for us comical I didn't know it was comical to after the race well why so Stenhouse gets into Brad and spins Brad out

and Stenhouse comes over the radio and said tell T.J inside Tell T.J. Inside? Yeah, I guess. No, he said tell T.J. He's an ass. What do he say? No, what did he say? That's what he said.

He said, tell T.J. Inside. Oh, I thought he said, tell T.J. He's an ass. I don't turn the wheel. Okay. Well, did he, uh, did he, did he not come up the racetrack into y'all? Well, eventually, we, he got a big run out of four and I've watched it, counted it down off the top side like you always do. We get to the start, finish line, and he's like, It kind of started, like it was a late dive, but I don't, I mean, I don't blame him. I mean, he gets into Brad a little bit.

Brad kind of closes the door and we go up the racetrack, but he just continues to go up the racetrack and doesn't stop until he spends us out. Yeah. So did Brad enter? We crowded him on entry a little bit. Crowded him on entry. That's what I was trying to get out. Yeah, a little bit, but that happens a thousand times a race.

And, well, I mean, in Bristol, you enter on the bottom or you enter, here we go, we're on board. Oh, whoa, yeah, there was contact on entry. Yeah, Carlo, TJ. Yeah, yeah. Carlo. Hence why I said that, too. You told him, Carlo?

Absolutely, told him, Carlo. Yeah, inside it. I mean, I counted the entire rundown. Yeah. So, man. But it all worked out how it should have. Well, did you talk to Stenhouse? I don't need to talk to Ricky.

There's fine. I was racing. You ought to call him. I don't need to call Ricky. I'm not driving. When he answers the phone, you say, car outside. I wish we had very. Ricky, surprise, TJ.

I know. I mean, inside, like Darlington during COVID or what? Just call his number and then as soon as he picks up, see, outside, outside, outside, outside. Yeah, outside. Clear, all clear. Spin behind you, spin behind you. Those moves happened at Bristol like a thousand times a race. TV doesn't catch them all.

I didn't see it. Nope, that was the only time I saw that. That only happened once and that was your. Yeah, just mine. Just there. So Brad got spun out. Yep. Yep. You didn't hit nothing.

Good job. Didn't hit anything. Came back. Ran. Then we got a speeding penalty late, which really hurt our day. But still finished top 15. So, but a late penalty, so I'll take it.

All right. Well, we got a phone call just now. Connor Zilich has rang us up. Oh, time. Yeah, we're going to jump forward into the Xfinity series. Connor, how you doing, buddy? I'm good. Where are you?

I'm a guess he was at home. I'm at home. I'm at Jesse's house, but it's close to the house. Jesse's got some, is that a boob light up ahead of you? That is, Jesus. It's a boob light. No, it's just the light. No, it's one of them old boob lights.

It's got the thing in the middle. You see those in apartments. It's like these, just smaller. It's hilarious. Never heard that one before. Is that, what is on the wall? Is those Jesse's checkered flags? Yeah, they are, I assume.

I mean, there's a little office. What's on the, what? What's the frame stuff over there? Is it some kind of a, is those his... Yeah, does that camera move? Academic awards? What are those? I don't know.

They're from ARCA. Arca. Oh, he's hanging ARCA awards. Hell yeah. Hang up them ARCA awards. Good Lord. You know, I hung up the... I printed out and hung up my first eye racing win.

I remember hanging those things on the wall. That is about what that is. It's good for Jesse. Put your NCAA award up. Is that Jesse's B license on the wall over there? Is that his rookie? Yeah, it is. Oh, that's Jesse's rookie class.

He graduated from the rookie class, Streetstock class over there. His first streetstock win will show up. He's getting hammered. Season three. He's not even here to defend himself. He's getting hammered. It's probably sitting on the other side of the camera.

Oh, gosh. Galley. So this weekend, you got a chance to drive for Junior Motorsports, man. Always awesome to have you in our cars. We had such a great year. last year racing with you. And so we're thrilled when you get back behind the wheel. And you got to work with Rodney Childers.

You've been able to work with him a couple times this year. I've known Rodney since I was in school. And so, but you're getting a chance to work with him a little bit and get to know him pretty well. How is the, what's Rodney like as a crew chief? Like, what's his temperament and what do you like about getting to work with a guy like that? Yeah, I feel like Rodney's just never worried or stressed. And that is very helpful to have in a crew chief because, you know, that's the last guy you want to be, you know, uptight and stressed and nervous. And because, you know, he's the leader of the team.

So, yeah, it's been cool to kind of just learn from his demeanor and how he goes about things. But, yeah, he's so laid back and just, you know, I feel like he's always going to do the right thing, make the right call and not really stress about it if not. So, yeah, he's a good dude. and I'm glad that, you know, I was a part of his first win with J.R.M. It was a really cool day. What's it like to win at Bristol? I mean, I used to go there as a little kid, and that night race at Bristol was my favorite. Of all the races to go to all year long, that was the one that was like at the top of my list as a kid because of the action,

and you just got so close to the racing, and it's always a lot of fun. So I have Bristol high on my list. It's even higher than some crown jewels, in my personal opinion. but what's it like to drive up on top of that building and win a race there? Yeah, it's the victory lane and the sword. I don't know. Were you, I guess, did you ever get a sword? I don't believe I did.

No, they didn't have swords. I just got the giant trophy. Yeah, back in the day. Yeah, they started the swords like 10 or 12 years ago. So, yeah, it's a cool tradition that they have now to give the driver that wins a sword. And, you know, obviously Bristol is one of the cool. tracks to win at because it's just everything feels so tight and and I feel like you're so up close with all the fans and everybody who's there, you know, watching the race. And it definitely adds to the,

to the experience of winning when you can kind of feel like you're celebrating with everybody who's there. And obviously driving up, you know, onto the top of the media center or whatever the building that we drive up on top of for Victory Lane is unique and really cool. So, yeah, I had a lot of fun. We had a really good race car and, you know, we're able to stay out there at the end and make that strategy call to put us in a position to win. And, yeah, it was my first win at Bristol. So that was awesome. Did you think you were going to be able to get by the 19? I know passing on the bottom there, late in the race is difficult, it's tough, challenging to put that together. It looked like you had to really put to work in to get there. Yeah, I mean, I did not. No, as soon as he got to my outside, I was like, I just completely blew this race. You know, he did at the restart before, and I should have known better to get up when he got to the outside of me the first time. And I didn't.

And I thought that was going to be the end of the race. And he was just going to, you know, rip the top and get by me. And, you know, he made a mistake on top. And, you know, as soon as he did, I got up and, you know, took the top away from him. So it was a little bit lucky that, you know, Brent made that little mistake running the fence. But, you know, we were running so hard those last 10 or 12 laps. and, you know, Kyle and me, we hadn't really been running the top like that all race long. So it was kind of the first laps up there.

And hence why, you know, Brent and Kyle both ended up making a mistake that, you know, cost them a little bit. So it was, you know, the pace had picked up and we were all giving it all we had. And, you know, when you're doing that for 15 laps in a row, you know, you're going to make mistakes eventually. And fortunately, I was the one that, you know, was able to sneak through and get the win. Did Kyle make you nervous at all? Because I saw it, he like cleared Brent, and then he got to you, like, it seemed like he got to you really quick, and then he made that mistake. And it was like, because I thought he was getting ready to probably take a dive or, you know, do something.

And I guess he jumped the cushion or did something. Yeah, I mean, it's never fun when you're, you know, there's five to go. And Kyle Larson's behind you with 100 lap pressure tires. I mean, that's never really what you want to see. What could go wrong? Yeah, exactly. but, you know, I just kind of forgot about what was behind me and just tried to run my best corner each lap

and not make a mistake. And, you know, he was going to have to do something to get by me. I felt like I wasn't going to be the one to, you know, I wasn't going to make the mistake and let him have it easy. You know, I wanted to force him into making a move or something like that to get by me. So, yeah, I mean, to be honest, I was running as hard as I could, but I knew that I couldn't make a mistake

because he'd be right there to take a big of the thing. When did you run your fastest lap? I think like lap 291 or something, like time to go. Fast slap of the race. Yeah. That's what I saw too, and I was like, good Lord. Yeah, I know. We were digging as hard as we could at the end.

And honestly, we were on the oldest tires, me and Brent, and obviously Kyle had new stuff, but we were driving away from everybody who put tires on at the stop before that. So it's kind of funny that, you know, you run the tires for 100 laps and they're still just as good as new. But, yeah, I mean, after practice, like, we still had lines down the middle. Like, I mean, there was nowhere at all. So that's kind of what, you know, the caution came out with 35 to go.

And I actually lost the Bristol race in the fall last year, kind of the same way. I was leading. And, you know, we pitted and tried to get the track the tires to come back through, but we just never were able to make it back up to the front. So as soon as the caution came out, I kind of told Rodney, I was like, look, we're staying out. And, you know, I'll make it work. So I'm glad that we're able to do that. And, you know, glad that Rodney trusted me to make that call. Well, what did Kyle have to say when he came to the window at the end of the race?

Yeah, I mean, he just said good job. And I gave Marty some shit. I was just, I was telling him. I was like, why the hell did you pit? You know, we lost that race doing the exact same thing last year. and, you know, he laughed. Rodney called me this week asking me what I thought about coming down pit road. And I was like, God, he is still like not sure exactly what to do.

And he's like, I got Larson and I feel like I got a pit. You know, I'm like, well, if you think you can drive back through there. Yeah. Yeah, it was funny. You know, Kyle told me a good job. And, you know, we laughed about the decision to pit or not. And, you know, I kind of went on my way. but it was cool to race against Kyle.

You know, I race against him on Saturday, and, you know, we're racing for the win, and then Sunday he's lapping me on lap 40s. So it was definitely a change going from Saturday to Sunday, but, you know, it's a lot harder on Sunday. I mean, it's just the cars, the competition, everything's tougher. So it's going to take some time for me to figure that out. But we're working at it every week and trackhouse as a whole,

trying to get better. So, yeah, it's been a struggle, no doubt. but we're getting there. Yeah, what are some of the things that have jumped out at you on the cup side that are so unique and different from what you've experienced? Man, I would just say, like, the intensity is, you know, you get in those, like the O'Reilly races and just, you know, it's intense on final restarts and it's intense, you know,

that points throughout the race, but, you know, in the cup car, it's every single lap. Like, you can't make a mistake. you can't take a lap off. I feel like it's just you're always fighting for the next position. And I feel like in everything I've ever raced, it's never quite like that. Like there's moments of the race that are intense, but man, in those cup races, it's every lap.

You're fighting for your life, it feels like. And it's just very, very competitive. And everybody's so talented on Sundays and the teams are also competitive. And, you know, all have so many. resources and spend a lot of money to make their cars fast. And it's just, it's different than anything I've ever done. Well, man, we know you're going to figure it out. Rookie years, they can be rewarding, but also there's some,

there's some humbling moments in them. But we know you're a winner and a champion and a bright, bright future for you in the Cup Series. Thanks for giving us some time this morning, man. Have a good week, and we'll see you at the racetrack. Of course. Thanks, thanks, Dale. Thanks for having me. See you, T.J. See you, man. All right.

Car outside, by the way. Car inside. Car inside. Inside. Inside. See you, man. Well, it's great to be able to talk to the winner from the Xfinity series or the O'Reilly Series.

Oh, it's good to see his perspective now since it is, he went from such a high to Daytona. Everything is going to be great. And it's just, it's hard. Yeah. Like to see where he was, because he was like top dog, right? Yeah. Well, it was a lot of fun to see the success.

And I talked to Rodney Childers after the race. and he's like just, you know, on to the next. I know, yeah. Rodney, like, during one thing I noticed about working with Rodney is the driver can come on there and say, Rodney, this thing is the, so loose I can barely drive. 10-4. Like, it's like the most, like, you're on, I mean, literally, you could, like, the word, the most hype scenario could be happening, and Rodney is literally just 10-4.

Yeah. I think that's why, I think, hard. loved him so much is because Harvick's a fiery guy. He is fired. You know, and when things aren't going the way he expects him to go, he's going to let you know. And I believe that Harvick really probably appreciated the fact that Rodney didn't get stirred up. Getting stirred up doesn't help.

Kevin knew. Kevin needed to pop off, right? Kevin had that release valve and needed to get something out. But he didn't want his crew chief to spiral or get fiery or get upset. Similar to you. I mean, you were kind of the same way. Yeah. And I worked really well with Lartart because he would,

I would say something on the radio and get mad or get on, you know, because you got, you just got to get it out. And sometimes he would let you go. And other times he was like, hey, you know, that's enough. Yeah, he would. But it was pretty, uh, he would never, I would, I, he wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't screw him up. Yeah.

My fiery, you know, you know, my episode of being frustrated or mad wouldn't send Steve down the wrong one. He never read into it. Nope. He let you get it out and kept working. That's what Rodney's like. Back to the Cup stuff. Ryan Blaney looked like one of the best cars all day long.

Yeah, he was. Him and the Five, definitely. But he is struggling on Pit Road. He's not struggling. Well, I'm trying to be nice about it. Yeah. He's struggling on Pit Road. And Russell told us about this on earlier weeks ago,

during one of our dirty modeo segments how tough things had been on pit road for Blaney and how this crew is struggling. And it's really, really surprising. They lost 86 spots on pit road. This season. I'm curious if that includes because I think he's had some penalties too.

Well, sure. But I mean... He was asked about it the other week, said the guys need reps. They want to give them time to figure it out. And when he feels like when the playoffs come around, they'll be ready to rock. But isn't that

dumb? Because every point matters with this format. Take them from Centric. Todd Gillen has a development team. You're screwing up your best chance to win a championship. I don't think you can go

rocking the boat like you think, Travis, because you got more than one team there as well. And I think if the coaches see the potential in the guys, sometimes it takes guys a little big other. Three months from now, this might be the fastest grew up here road.

There you go. I mean, I feel like that there's some, I, for right or wrong, there's probably some loyalty there. You know, Blaney, I don't believe Blaney is sitting there

in the conversations around should they make a change, should they not make a change? Blaney's basically saying, you know, I'm going to leave that up to It's not his area. No, I'm going to leave it up to coaches, high-level management. If they think somebody needs to change, they'll change it.

But if they don't, until they do, I'm loyal to who's on my car. I am your guy. You're my guy. You may not be hitting on all cylinders right now, but I believe in you. As he should be. And you're going to figure it out. And so I don't think that's lip service. I think that he genuinely feels that way.

And you ride or die with those. guys until upper management makes a change. When they make a change, you got a new guy. You ride or die with, you're like, all right, man, let's get it. New guys here, come on in. This is a family. Let's get our ass, you know, in gear and get going. They got an issue, and I would have confidence that Penske could figure this out, you know.

Why wouldn't you as a driver, though? And I believe you, and I get that that's what, like, the drivers kind of leave that. but why wouldn't you be more like hands-on? Some are. Some are. Like, you know, Harvick was very vocal about his crew at times. And I mean, you know, not that you can't be vocal on the radio when they don't have a great stop. I'm not saying vocal on radio.

I'm saying like... I was going to get there. Okay. But I have to cross my T's and dot my eyes so that I don't get taken out of context. The thing is, the thing is. Travis, when you get in the middle of determining an individual's role in an operation, you're taking on, you're assuming responsibility, you're assuming the, you're assuming also the fallout if it doesn't work.

And like, if you're not a f***ing expert at something, don't meddle. Like, I learned the hard way that I don't need to, determine who my crew chief is, right? I thought I could do, I thought I needed this or needed that, and I was absolutely wrong. And those are mistakes that are costly, very costly. And so while you might not think it's a big deal to go, man, let's change this right front, carrier, you know, this changer's not good, you know, whoever right, you'll just pick a guy. Let's, let's make a change there.

that could send the wrong message to the other team, you know, the other guys on the crew. But what if they believe in this guy and they want to, you know, they need him, they think he's going to figure it out. And Blaney comes in there and shoehorn's the guy out. Now the rest of the team's like, well, Blaney, Blaney's not got our back. Yeah.

You know? It changes a lot more than you think. Are we going to, especially under this format, you're willing to risk losing points. And like, are we going to treat pit crews like, we all talk about how they're, Well, let me ask you this. They're athletes, so let's treat them that way.

But it's not like you don't, it's not like you're going to take this the guy out and put another guy in it's like, oh, it magically fixed. It doesn't happen like that. Like it's. Look, I hear you. Upper management absolutely needs to tackle this situation. They have, there are people who it's their job to make sure that that pit crew is badass. That guy, whoever he is in the role in the, in the organization should be fixing this. It isn't Blaney's job.

And so, you know, Blaney's got to ride and believe in and put his arms around the people that are going to the racetrack with him every week. And he's not sitting there looking at a chart of all of their guys and going, well, that's the guy we need. Let's take that guy off that car and put that guy on. he's not spending his days wondering about that and knowing that information. So, I mean, why would Blaney walk in there and go, he might could go in and demand a change. He might be able to go into this person's office and say, fix my pick crew, damn it.

Yeah. But it doesn't go any farther than that. Ryan Blaney's not having a terrible season. No, but, I mean, if the pick crew is an issue, yeah, it might need a little attention. he could be probably what have 15 more points with this like yeah and i mean what if to tj's point you hung in there and they got it right with the people they have how rewarding is that like to to to see that person or that team jail come together and when it comes when it counts

they start to gain the the spots they start to win the races they need to win you know and it happens it does happen just like tie gibbs right nobody gave up on him guys not even in his prime yet nobody gave up on byron nobody gave up on longano but the other side of that tie gives makes a change now he's knocking out top five you know what i mean like but but i do agree with the pit crew thing if they believe in the pit crew deal man that's a it's a those guys are it's a very There's a lot of athletes in there and a lot of really good guys. And I do believe that they have people in there they think is going to eventually figure this out. They may make a change, but I'm just, I don't know that it's Blaney who needs to be the catalyst of that change.

You're putting a lot of weight on his shoulders when you start doing that. I mean, you're the stark quarterback, though. He's not. He's a race car driver. Yeah, this is a coach's decision. It's a coach's decision, yeah. Telling, T.J. Well, I mean, the.

coach doesn't you know the quarterback doesn't but who's got more power the crew chief or blaney the crew chief what do you mean for going to changing the crew getting a change oh crew chief that's his job that's his area and then he goes to the pick coach it's like literally in his title but does it but blaney is the face and if he's going and saying hey this all like he what is he going that blaney's not like blaney wants the best pick crew and he has to try trust the people at Penske and the people there, which they have great people, they're going to figure it out. It's not like they don't know what they're doing. We think they're going to figure it out.

That's what I'm saying. They will figure it out. They'll figure it. At Penske. I know. They're like, geez. He's hard-headed DJ. He is.

Denny, bro. There's nothing to do with Denny. I know. I'm just messing with you. So your name, Cruche. Hey, how about Riley Herps this weekend? What about him? You're on pretty good.

Was. He did. He ran pretty good. No, he wasn't. Yeah, no, Riley was running great. Qualified really good. Qualified good.

He did. Yeah. He did a great job. Pretty interesting. Turned Kyle. Had enough of Kyle. So he turned him. Yeah.

Do you think he did? What happened between them? I couldn't tell if he was just, I couldn't tell if he was just trying to get a little bit every lap and he got too close right in the middle of three and four and bumped Kyle because it wasn't like he just went down to the corner and sent him like we saw earlier. but um did Kyle spin herpes out later I think he did it looked like it yeah so you can't keep up with us so right there like yeah I don't tap denny said that he was told to like pack some air on him and I think he just got him close and bumped him I don't think he meant to spit him out man no let's see

I didn't get to see what was then he talking to him during the race he wasn't talking to him during he's saying Denny on his show said yeah yeah I mean I that's what I'm saying rally is trying to get every foot he can get to get the right angle down. You know what I mean. Contact. Oh, more contact. And more contact. Oh, Bristol.

And more contact. That one wreck where SVG spun out a backer up in a home. Oh, yeah. That was a old style, 1985 Bristol crash, man. They're still coming. They're still in. So do you have a video of Kyle retaliating or doing whatever? There it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They got him. Spunned him down the front straight away. Oh, he's on him in the corner. He gave him a pop right there in the middle.

He's packing air. And he's like, you're getting it. Yeah, Riley did wiggle and give him the chance to get right there. Kyle did a good job of... Oh, boom. Yeah, that's... Not too bad. No.

Did you know that Chase Elliott wrecked on the coming... I heard. I saw it. And I thought, yeah, he wrecked down and he was spun out. And he kept going, but he just got loose off a four and spun down to the whole front stretch. Oh, here's Cobbush's his race. I know you're frustrated. Us yelling at each other during the race isn't going to help.

We're in this together. That was a spotter. Telling Pullman. Like, it's just, and Pullman says it's the same shit every week. Ooh. Oof. It reminds me a lot. Of the digital radios.

Yeah, yeah. It reminds me a lot of a particular crew chief that I worked with. And you and him would have. Oh, we would argue a couple times. Absolutely different. I would have a conversation with him on the radio about the car, we're struggling, we're not good, this is this, this and that,

this and that, talking about balance handling, things we're trying to change. And then you and him would have a conversation on the other side of like, why the fuck is this thing doing this? Why is he doing that? Why is it driving that way? Why does he run there?

Why does he do that? Oh, the one time I got told to, it was the Fontana race where we stayed out on tires and I was like, we had 10 laps in our tires and you chose the top. We went into one. I knew it was going to happen. I mean, down the front stretch, we're, like, already 20th,

and he's, like, on the digital. I was like, why don't you tell him to let everybody go by? And I'm like, really? I'm like, why don't you keep up telling yourself? That's what I told him. So that was probably the, but I didn't, I did enjoy the digital, because we could talk a lot of shit about you, too. I know it.

And I had no idea it was going on. And y'all would come on my radio and be nice to me. It's like, good job, good quarter, man. What the hell's he doing? Yeah. Yeah. That was fun. That's a lot of fun. Lance, Lance McGrew.

My old buddy, Lance McGrew. I still talk to Lance. I know. He's out there doing it. He's out there doing it. We were friends and we are friends. Yeah, Lance is a good guy. We had some tough ears racing, but.

Yeah. It is what it is. I don't have any sour feeling. No, Lance is a good guy. But that was exactly like the Lance McGrew relationship. Lance comes in. He's trying his ass off. We'd have a great conversation,

even when we were struggling, we'd have a conversation about what could we do to fix the car. We're frustrated, but it was not like we were yelling at each other. And then you and him would go on Channel 2 and just be disgusted. And it's exactly what it was like. I never really, I never really cussed.

I never really downed you too bad. No, I'm just saying, like y'all would just, it was not, you wouldn't have the, you know, you would.

We wouldn't say it on one. You'd had a filter when you were on one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think the difference with, This is like, yeah, this is something, the issues they're having, a lot of people were having on Sunday, but for them, it's multiple weeks now, so it's not just a one-off. Yeah, it's hard.

They just need to, I'll tell you what sucks is the way this, and I wish it was different in some sense is the way that you'll, if you lose momentum and have a bad race, you get the bad qualifying deal the next week. And it's just so hard to come back out of that. That's what Josh Barry told me. So hard. He said. they could fix it. Josh Barry told me that the, having to go out early in qualifying

and not being, not, you know, that is the hardest thing to overcome. It is. Yep. You get, you're starting the back, bad pit stop.

Bad pit stall. Yep. Start in the back. Which then, bad pit stop, you go in there, you don't have the greatest stall. You get jammed in sometimes.

You lose two, three spots every time. All the guys you work that run to pass. It perpetuates itself. Yes. And you don't get out of that cycle. And you go into the next race, qualifying early and getting a bad stall qualifying in the back and you have to just put together the

perfect race once but then it's still hard because you don't obviously when you start in the back you don't get a chance to run a fast lap most of the time most fast laps are run from front and clean air and early in the race you don't have a chance to do that which adds into the formula i just honestly i miss i miss i miss random draw for qualifying i'll be honest so yeah i do too i think that they should you should qualify by points. Qualified by points? Yeah. Starting the fastest cars first. The best cars first.

I think you just random it. I mean, but you could do the fast cars first, but I mean. Random sounds fun too. Random is just everyone's got a shot every week. Yeah. You know what I mean? You get the right draw. You get that late draw.

Everyone, you kind of, you circle cars going down the qualifying order. Oh, that car. Ryan Newman. You knew like when Ryan Newman went out. let you're like oh that's one we got to look for right here yeah yeah yeah it would be interesting if they like televised it like here's at least streaming yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean col arson's going out third yeah does it not is a let me ask you this if they did that as a broadcaster would that be exciting for you to to yeah sure you know because you'd have to go down that list

and be like yeah this guy's gonna be fast late we got to go for him i can have some fun with that yeah yeah well um one last order of business before we move on the um talladega stage lengths for the cup race will be different 98 laps in stage one then 45 45 you won't need to stop fuel in the final two stages they're trying to do something about less fuel you're trying to do something to get rid of the fuel savings this won't do it they know that they know that that's not going to like remove it entirely that's fine but they're just trying to get it to where at least the hard racing is at the back end of the race. So the race is going to start. Guys are going to save fuel in stage one. And the hope is that once they're beyond that stage, they won't need to save any longer. We'll just have to see how that kind of works out. We have another guest caller today.

And this is going to be a lot of fun for me and TJ. talked about our cards and getting back into collecting over the last several months and had a lot of fun with that. Rips some packs yesterday. Probably going to rip some more today. And you know how our phones are. They're always listening. And my phone's been sending me all these cool videos and different content creators and so forth out there making some great stuff. One of them in particularly is king of the cards and that is Kyle Cravitz. Is am I pronouncing that right, Kyle? You got it. Good morning. How you doing, man?

I know that this is last minute, and I can't thank you enough for coming on this show and talking to us. I know you're an established collector out there. I've seen a lot of your content over the last couple of months. I love your disposition. I love how you treat your fans and folks that want to come up and talk to you at the shows. Videos are entertaining. Videos are great. So basically, my hope.

is that you would come on the show at another date to where we could talk at length. But we're going to do a quick surface level, 10 minutes here around collecting. To give you a little bit of a background, back in 1987-ish, I got into Vicarque collecting with my friends when I was in school, got a bunch of the, you know, Tops 87 stuff, all the way up through 92, 91, upper deck. And then I just quit. I don't know why or whatever, but I just put all that stuff away and didn't touch it for 30 years. The fun part was getting it all back out and actually going through the collection and seeing what I had,

what was worth anything and what I might want to do with it. And what it did was draw me right back into the hobby. And man, is it changed to have been completely away from it for 30 years. And I mean, you even have your own language now. there's all these terms and things that I'm having to learn but you're looking at two guys that are absolute novices like I've never been to a show yeah we never been to a card show for sure

I'm just learning what case hits are and blaster packs and all those things right we'll change all that that's what I'm here for so if you you know when you meet folks that are sort of new to collecting what's some good advice what are some I imagine you want to kind of establish first what kind of collect you are but what are some good things to think about. Well, I think simply enough, start slow, right? I think a lot of people jump in and right now you're seeing a lot of big price tags on things, right? So it can get a little intimidating and people jump in and they buy big time boxes. They don't hit what they want to. They buy a big time

card. It goes down in value. I say start slow. Learn first. You don't need to jump right in and be spending money. Maybe the best thing to do is actually go to a show, not buy anything, watch, videos and don't buy anything yet. I think learning is the most important thing up front. Secondly, I tell people figure out what you're trying to do. If you're trying to collect, then collect things about just passion. That's love. Like my collection does not look like the $100,000, $200,000 deals that you see sometimes throughout the whole video. I have $10 cards that mean the world to me. They're very different ball games that you're playing. They're the guys I grew up watching. It's my favorite. Something that's stuff.

stuck out to me. Aesthetically, the card's beautiful. It comes from a rare set that I fell in love with. Very different. If you are trying to trade your way up, whole different story. I tell people, look, don't complicate it, don't prospect, buy for X and sell for Y. That's it. How many times can you do that?

You won't be perfect. Just win more than you lose. Can you buy something for 80 bucks and sell it for 100? Can you buy something for, it depends on your budget? Are you working with 50 grand that you could easily tie up and turn it into 55 and trade it up to the cards that you want? People have different approaches. And I'm obviously a mix of both, right? Like, I'm hobbyist first.

I'm a collector first. But I have the business side of it. You have to figure out what your goal is. So start slow, figure out what your angle is. And if you're collecting, collect what you love. And if you're trying to make money, keep it simple. Don't gamble. Don't guess.

Just take it from X to Y. What is the best way for a collector to establish value of a card? Like, you know, say I'm wanting a specific card, I go on eBay, you know, there's four, five, ten, maybe a hundred of those cars listed, right? How do I, what are, is it apps? Is it, how do I establish sort of where I'm comfortable spending? So that's usually the toughest thing for most coming in. And there's no perfect answer, but the closest thing to perfect.

that I have found is card ladder is my favorite and I partner with them. They do a phenomenal job compiling data from all auction houses, websites into one platform. So I love utilizing that. People do use eBay sales, but sometimes the data isn't curated well enough. And what I mean by that is they won't remove certain sales that actually don't end up getting paid for gets, you know, it's not perfect anywhere but it's a little less perfect there because it can easily be manipulated people go on there they they bid on cards and they don't pay for them and they run up the value of a card they have it's not a perfect world in terms of valuing cards and people figuring out values but the closest thing to it

like I said card ladder's been really the only app that I've found to be top tier reliable it's the best one out there so I use that when you see me making those deals or even sometimes they pop the values or the previous sales on the screen so people can see. It just gives you an idea of what you're working with. I've had the same thing happen like I just mentioned of, okay, great, I got a value from guard ladder. You know, we end up making the deal. And little did I know, the next one runs for auction for two-thirds of that.

You got to be careful. Like I said, it's a humbly experience. You learn a lot throughout it. There's no perfect way. What about, do you have any kind of like a protocol or personal sort of code that you amend to when determining how much you're willing to spend on a card? So say you do determine the card's worth 100 bucks, right? You know, are, and I, this is something that I kind of am challenged with. I'll look around at different, I'll find a couple different data points from different apps or eBay or what,

have you about a value of a card and then I'll go somewhere to actually try to purchase the card and it's more by you know it's 20 or 30 dollars more than than what it's being listed for. How do you justify like because you know it might take a card a while to gain that much value, right? So in some places you see cards listed at value, other places you see cards listed quite a bit overvalue. What's a collector to do in those situations? Well, it's kind of what I was just just pointing at that the value is arbitrary, right? It's whatever you make it, whatever a collector is willing to pay for it. It's not like an Amazon or something like that. If you get a price-man-job activity, you know, trust me. If I try that, it shows I'd get

kicked between the legs. But it's a complicated answer because I've had people, you know, do both. They try to sell me something and I say, look, there's one listed here that I just found on this site and you know I don't think I could do that knowing that's listed and then they go two booths over and since the last sale was higher they got paid more than that and nobody's wrong nobody's wrong it's just there's not going to be a perfect number and not everybody uses every platform so knowledge is power right the more you utilize the more data and info you can gather what's out there what's listed what's sold and that's going to help you make those kind of decisions, but I don't want to say it's an advantage, but it is. The more info that you can gain,

the more knowledge you have, the better position you're in to make an educated purchase or sale. I've not sent anything to PSA yet or the other various organizations that do grade cards, but I want to. I'm excited about that opportunity to see what gets returned to me. what's the advice to individuals that have never been involved in sending cards to grade? I've watched a few YouTube videos. People are out there giving a lot of great information on how to prep your cards and how they prefer them to be delivered to graders. But what cards should I send in?

What should, how do you make the decision on what card goes and what card does it? Well, it depends on the value of the card. and then it depends to me on the values of that card potentially in certain grates, right? And you have to know what to look for condition-wise. You're looking at the centering, the corners, the surface, and the edges. But once you figure that out, I promise that part is not rocket science. To me, grading is deriving value. And the only other reason a grader card is to protect it, right, to put it in some kind of casing.

And that's an expensive casing right now. So if it's for your collection, I don't know that I'd grade it unless there's intent to sell now or at some point. If you do want to do that, you're looking at here. Here's another one. This card right here, top young hockey prospect in the game. I'm a fan of his. But this card last sold, it was a $15,000 sale publicly, right? If I'm just using that as a stagnant example, and that's the only one that's surfaced,

it's number to 10 it's tough to come across. The first one that gets graded that'll hit the market, probably any grade, let's say it gets a nine. It'll probably do 18 to 20,000. It'll get a bump just for having it graded. It will be expensive to grade due to its value. If it gets a 10, if it's only 10, could be $25, $30,000 cart because it's kind of differentiate from the others. And then it comes down to how well that card.

typically grades. That card is subject to a lot of edge chipping. It's just the way that it's printed and produced. If there's only one 10 and you have it, a whole different ballgame. Now that there's a huge premium to collectors, let's say out of the 10 copies in the report that you can look up online, you see that seven of the 10 have been graded. And out of the seven that have been graded, six of them got nines, but one got a 10. That 10 on a high-end card, forget 25 to 30. It might be 35 to 40. That's just kind of the premium that collectors put on these things in the way they differentiate markets at least right now. Wow. Well, man, last question before we turn you loose, man. This has been so helpful and I've really enjoyed it. What's the Holy Grail card for you?

Do you own it? And if not, what is the card that you want to have in your collection? I get asked this as much as anything and there are too many to choose from. I have an all-time favorite. It is just a favorite, and you can find it, and everyone can enjoy it together. But the Billy Ripkin F-face era. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You said you like junkwax. So I just think the story behind that's so funny. And I have a few copies, and I have a few signed copies.

And I got to sit down with the man himself, Billy Ripkin, a couple years back. And we opened a box of 89 Fleer hunting it down from an error case. he's a funny guy and he gave me a very hard time as we were doing it too we end up not finding him and it was definitely a resealed box that's the sad part with oh yes people peeled those open and then resealed them and we got stuck with that one while i'm sitting there with the guy himself i'm like mathematically man we're going to hit it we have to hit it yeah and meanwhile we're just hitting like random base cards of his brother and i'm just rolling my eyes but he was a character and just to say I did that with him makes that card that much core for me because we ask him if he's

ever done it before and that was the only time he's ever done it. So legendary card, fun story, but that's one every time I see it in a case, I smile. I bought that card two weeks ago. And so, yeah, I remember that card from my childhood and never thought I would own one. And it was just as mythical then when it came out, it was just as mythical for us as kids in high school as it is today. Is there a card you're hunting right now? Well, I'll tell you what I did. I'm very, I have a bit of an addictive personality.

And so when I got back into collecting cards, I, as I said, love the junkwax. So I would go on and look for, you know, cheap $20 boxes of sealed. Yeah, sealed stuff. I think I did actually get a couple of boxes of re-sealed. sealed fleer stuff as well. But so I've got a ton of junk wax at the house just to open up for fun. But the one, I, I established an objective. And what I did was I compiled a list of about 80 athletes that I want to own a card

of that's graded. And I'm, I've actually set a price range of $50 to $150 per card. I'll have to exceed that with some particular athletes because they just won't have nines or tens at that level. But I'm trying to keep my spending modest, but also build a really neat collection and have a graded card of maybe the top. I basically went through and did a lot of work with AI

and a couple of things to determine the 80 athletes whose cards most likely will improve in value over time. And it's all names you'd absolutely recognize. Yeah. And that's gave me like a purpose, like an objective. And I can slow play that and have fun in the game and not be out there aimlessly just, you know, spending money on a card that I have no idea whether I really wanted or not, you know.

Because I'm not going to probably go to a lot of shows with my schedule. I'm not going to, you know, I'm just, I'm only collecting to keep, right? Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Turn around and sell stuff. So I needed to sort of slow it down a little bit because I was just going to end up. up with a bunch of junk quacks, uh, base cards. Kyle, thank you so much for giving us some time today.

That was so, so nice to you to come on the show. And, uh, I know, I know you got a lot going on. King of the cards on Instagram, TikTok.

This guy has tons of great content. If you are interested in collecting or want to learn more, he is absolutely a must follow. Uh, love what you doing out there. Hopefully we'll get to meet one day. Get you back on the show, man. Thank you.

We get you out to a card. show and looking forward to making a deal. Awesome, man. All right, Kyle. Thank you. See you, man. Thanks. Hey, this is Dela Hart Jr.

And for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the Imo drink some beer t-shirt that we've been talking about here around the office, head over to shop. Dot dirtymo Media.com for all the latest merch. All right, everybody, we're back at Ask Junior. Before we get our questions, I got to tell you all, obviously, that this is brought to you by Xfinity. And Xfinity is waving the red flag on Internet.

price hikes and waving the green flag for savings. You get speed and the reliable Wi-Fi that you need locked in one price five years. No surprises, no late yellows. Right to Victory Lane? Just like we love to have it. We've got a winner in Xfinity. Imagine that. So first question, I see we have a new addition to the set on the Red Bull fridge.

What is that hat there? A fan brought this and gave it to me. All right, I got it. A snappy little case right here. This is kind of like a PSA case for hats, I guess. It's Dad's Hat from, I would say this is probably 1979. Could be 1980, but the car on the patch is his rookie car. And Oldsville Bill 442, it's even got Dad's autograph.

And that's a legit, Earnhard autograph, almost faded out. in ink. You know, hats were a lot of fun back in the day. Richard Petty had a hat like this as well, red and blue, and that's what that is, man, pretty cool. Pretty cool case. Yeah. We get some cool stuff.

Fans will give me some stuff out there, and we put it right in here. We've got a couple different things that fans have brought to the studio, and we'll put it in here. a fallout boy 9 424 once no do you still have the good wrench pit crew suit you wore as a kid no oh man

so it's a real possibility that the person who owns that is going to hear this or listening to this right now but I went I didn't not so I don't know how that got out of my possession I don't know I was

I was I wasn't someone that would sell that stuff. Maybe I did. But don't remember selling it ever. I don't know why I would sell it or think someone would want to buy it, right? But I remember when I lived at my dad's, all of that stuff was in my closet and it was in the back of the closet. And so when I left my dad's house and moved out of there, I didn't, I must have not taken everything. And I don't remember taking that and keeping it.

I moved to a double-wide trailer. I didn't have much of closet space, so I wasn't going to have storage or anything like that. So I didn't take a lot of stuff out of my childhood bedroom. I left it. And I never really returned back to that lake house to retrieve anything. But anyways, that was the last I remember of seeing that, that uniform. And I had that.

I was wearing that when I was 14, 15, you know, or so. When I turned 16, I never. went to the racetrack with that anymore. I didn't wear that uniform anymore. So that was like 13, 14, 15 years old. I was in an autograph session. This was probably six years ago, maybe eight years ago. I feel like it was somewhere like Minnesota or Pittsburgh or somewhere up north. And I was in a stadium. I was in the city in a football stadium signing autographs and it was like an auto show. There was an auto fair going on. And there was cars. all over the place and booths and tents and stuff.

And I went on, it was out open arena, football arena, and maybe where the Vikings play or something like that. And so weather was great. I'm sitting there signing autographs on stage at this table. And this guy and his son walk up and laid that uniform right down on the table in front of me. And without thinking, I signed it.

What I should have done was offered them whatever it took. to get it back. Because my name's on the collar, it was legit. And, but I signed it. And they, we talked about it. I was obviously had a reaction like, holy moly, what the, you know. And we talked about it for a minute or two. And, and then they walked away.

And having signed it and written my name on it, I don't want it now. I don't, I don't know why. I just feel like that now I don't, now that I've signed it, I don't want it. Unsigned, I would have probably tried to buy it back from them. And I do that. Somebody had one of my old sundrop doors off of my late model stock car from 1994, and it had my autograph on it.

I bought the door, cleaned the autograph off of it. I mean, that's understandable. Yeah, because I don't, yeah. Like, if I sign a clothing item, fabric hat or something like that, then I don't want it. But what's different for you? Yeah. So there.

That's kind of how I'm at peace with it. But man. And I don't think that there was but one or two of them in existence. The other one, if there is more than one, it's probably in dad's closet. Dad has a closet on the DEI property. And it has mine and Kelly's military uniforms in it from. military school. It has all types of stuff, like things like that in there. So I'm sure that there's another one or two in existence, and it's probably in

his possession, wherever his stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Your cars tour, celebration, Victory Lane. How fun was that? Getting to spray some. That was great. We won, we won the race as the owner of the car and the sponsor of the car. Who was the sponsor? Oh, yeah. Jerky boys. So I drove in the race on the series, on the winning car, and then sponsored the winning car. Like, what else could there be? Yeah, that's the first being the sponsor. Covering all the bases.

I was joking with Caden. We got up there and they gave us a couple of bottles to spray. I tried to get his dad to spray the bottle that I had, but his dad, Travis, wouldn't do it. He's like, no, you do it, you do it. And I'm like, hey, Caden, what you got there? Grape juice? You have to work to get that stuff to spray because he's not 21. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Dad joke. No, we got it. I heard a good dad joke while I was at Nashville Fairgrounds, and I hope the fan that told me this is listening. We signed an autographs for the jerky boys' tent, selling jerky. We sold a ton of jerky.

Everybody that tried the jerky there said it was the greatest jerky in the whole world, which I knew they would say. And I said, hey, man, how you doing? He said, fine. If I was any finer, you wouldn't be able to see me. I thought that was a great joke Oh my gosh Usually you hear things like fine

Fine as frog hair Or fine Finer or something like it But if I was any finer You wouldn't even be able to see me And I was like wow Did a piano string Did you know that it's really hard?

Hey check out this idea Oh no So I got in We've been talking about collecting cards Right I got a couple of rack packs here That I'm going to open up at the end of the show.

But we were talking about collecting cards. And when I collected cards in the 80s and 90s, there weren't any variant cards in the packs. There weren't like autographs or one of ones or one of 99s or nothing. You just had base cards and that was pretty much it. And so now, you know, that I got into it and I'm like, wow, they got all these different cards for everybody.

And I kind of knew this because I've been signing cards for a while, but I never really thought much about it. Well, Amy, my wife, she rolled her eyes at this idea, but I think I want to put it out there and get the temperature of everybody. Think about it like this. When we went over to the jerky boys to sign autographs, I had a stack of postcards.

Nobody wanted a postcard. They wanted me to sign the bag of jerky. And so I thought, man, what if I sign a thousand bags of jerky and we drop one of those in every five, shipments. And we do like a, you know, so we do like a five-month or a three-month sweepstakes where, hey, man, if you order from us, it might be in there in your box. We're just going to, we're going to drop one of those in there.

And so maybe, you know, that would be exciting for people when they order their jerky or they're getting their subscription that they have and they open the box and there's a signed bag in there. The next level was that we would make gold bags. do one Really wonka Yeah that's what I thought right away Do one of 50 or one of 10 And you get it

And the bag is label And everything on it What if you just put a new bag in there Sign not put jerky in a bag Just put it in there with the shipment Because wouldn't it Like if you kind of rip the bag open Are you gonna want to really eat it?

Don't eat it Well if I But that's what Amy said And I said well damn I'll just do a free bag of jerky in there So if you get 10 bags The 11th one will be signed So we fix that

But think about like if the whole bag was gold, except for, you know, the little sea through to see the jerky. Like coming up with some variant, yeah, bags. I mean, what if you get the gold bag? Do you get to go to the factory? I mean,

yes. You're going to roll out and do a cartwheel on the carpet? Yes. Come limping. Yeah, like, how? Got a golden ticket. Yeah. Yes, like we could do some stuff like that. I'm like, wow, man, this is so fun. Thinking about ideas.

Press all these buttons, Charlie. Yeah. And his lazy grandpa comes out and nowhere. Has it moved in years and pops up. What happens when we go through the... That was the only part. Did we talk about it over here? That was the weirdest part about the chocolate factory movie.

Was at the end when they're getting ready to take the thing through the ceiling. Yeah, the Wonka Vier. And he's like, what happens when we go through the ceiling? He's like, I don't know. Might cut us the shreds. I was like, this is a really good movie until this moment. Now I'm worried that they're going to... going to literally die at the very end of the movie.

You can have a fizzy lifting drink? All right. Go with the gold bag. We could do both. Why can't you do it all? You could, I guess. Yeah, you can do one sweepstake and then a couple months later do another one. Like, it doesn't have to be a...

But the gold bag. Oh, that's cool. I want to have some fun. Let's do it. Shipping people regular bags is great, but it's not as fun as throwing in some go bags, man. I agree. Yeah.

I don't know who asked us in the chat, but he said, if you had to watch the movie every day, would you rather be smoking the bandit or a cannonball run? Oh, man. Oh. No. He didn't give us a racing movie.

Well, that's fine. Six-backer-stroke race. Right, yeah. There you go. Six-backer-shr-r-race. Why does that have to be a racing movie? We love racing. Yeah, I mean, we're interested.

So what were the two choices? Cannonball runner is Smoking the Bandit. Smoking the Bandit. Yeah, it would be hard to go against that. Cannonball runs pretty good, though. Smoking the Bandit. Easy. It's definitely easier to, I guess. It's a good movie.

Cannonball runs a little chaotic. There's a lot. Smoking the Bandit is just... There's a lot of switching around. Smoking the Bandit is just straight-ass cool all 100% of the time. Cannonball runs pretty... Cannibal Run is a little... A good one way.

Cannibal Run is like the inside of Clint Boyer's brain. It's all over the place. It is. There's a lot of different characters and celebrity cameos. Yeah, everyone's on a different schedule. You switch around. Yeah, they're all... It's all over the place.

Yeah. So answer your racing question, though, the two movies. Which one? Oh, if I had to watch a racing movie over and over, which one would it be? Every day. every day. I got to tell y'all, man, Last American Hero.

It's old. Yeah. It's dated. But Jeff Bridges, lead actor, not a bad deal there. Ralph Earnhardt's got a cameo in there, driving his little car at Concord or Metroline. And I feel like that even though the storyline,

even though the script is a bit dated, Like it's a very, they made it, they didn't have like a robust bank account to make this money or make this movie. And some of the, you know, some of the conversation is a little, I don't know,

arcadic and not, if you can see through that part of it, that movie gets it right. Like the plight of the racer, the, it's not, there's not a lot of Hollywood in there. There's not a lot of fluff or make believe or twisting or convoluting the story.

So I love the Junior Jackson's path to try to get into racing and get through and to the top and the cars and the way people acted and everything and the challenges that he had trying to get out of the steel and the moonshine business. I just thought it was a great story. Yeah, I mean... Good soundtrack. Six-pack's probably similar, isn't it? Six-pack is very...

I mean, realistic. Disney-like and make-believe. Like, Kenny Rogers. I was going to say, like, the path, though, like... No, but... Yeah, you're right. Yeah, Kenny Rogers. Yeah, I love Six-Pack.

It's badass. The theme song, Love Will Turn You Around. Hey, love that song. That's in my top ten. I love it. But, and Breezy. Like, Diane Lane. I mean, it's a great movie.

Love it. The kids being the crew, all that. But it's like, it's a little bit Disney-like, like a non-cartooned Disney. What is it, Greece Lightning? Grease Lightning's great. Yeah, I liked that one a lot. Richard Pryor? He's awesome in it.

In a drama, not a comedy? Yeah. Like, it's Richard Pryor. Like, we know Richard Pryor is like one of the greatest comedians ever. But this is Richard Pryor playing Wendell Scott in a non-cometic role, period. It's a really good movie. Very good movie. Yeah.

I would say that Greece Lightning is probably number two. Yeah, I like Greece Lightning and the Last American Hero almost from the same era, time frame, like year. And they're just, because there's no, it's not dressed up or it's not, like when you go to Days of Thunder, great movie, but there's a lot of sensationalism and stretching of the truth in terms of, you know, how things happened or would have happened. What's your Mount Rushmore of Arc?

games. Damn. Yeah. Bill I's NASCAR Challenge. Yeah. That would be up there on mine. Yeah. That was pretty good. I would say, yes, I would put Bill Elliott's NASCAR challenge into top three. Hmm. Grand Theft Auto. I mean. Arcade, though. Yeah, because Bill Elis NASCAR Challenge didn't come out on. So Mike Tyson's punch out. Mike Tyson. That would be number one. not the golden tea but the bowling i didn't ever really like golden tea but it played a ton of it but

i love golden tea bowling i have that at home i have this bowling game lucky strike is what it called uh that would be on during covid i took ila downstairs to the bowling game and we played it every day and she got really good for a two two and a half three year old so these are all considered arcades i guess donkey cong i mean that's a classic They need to be something you'd find at an arcade on a machine that you have. Yeah, so Mike Tyson's punch out. I mean, for me, like you strike bowling. For me, it would be, uh, does that Mickey, does that, Mickey Thompson?

With the stair wheels? Yeah, it was like four and one deal. Yep, yep, yep. That, when you walked into an arcade and saw that there, you're like, oh, this is going to be fun. Yeah, I'm playing that. Yeah, I absolutely played it. Yep, I'd add that one. Yeah. There you go.

TJ, did you do three? I mean, I had two. I would do I mean I feel like Frogger is up there as well it's just an original It's a classic Yeah I don't know how you

Like everyone knows what Frogger is The best is when the kids are little And the parents just let them sit there And act like they're playing the game And it's just Oh yeah They're not really playing them For mint like it's covered

Yeah I like to cruise in USA too I don't I mean that one I remember that name But I don't remember how that game played It came out on Nintendo I think as well But

Okay What about Mortal Kombat? No. I never got into Mortal Kombat. All right. Well, that's your question. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate everybody tuning in.

It's a lot of fun. Great conversation, a little quick-ass junior and had fun doing that. Thank you, Exfinity, for everything you guys do. They're waving the red flag on Internet price hikes, and they are waving the green flag on savings, TJ. Waving the green. They are.

You get speed, you get the reliable Wi-Fi that you want to have, and it's only one price locked in for five years. They're not going to bump the price. No surprises, all that good stuff. Right to Victory Lane with Xfinity. Imagine that. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets.

Get your bets now, ladies and gentlemen. Get your bets. We're here at the Dirty Modo segment. Things are on the up and up. Brought you by a fan duel. Fan duel is the premier gaming destination in the United States. I did not. I did not gamble this weekend.

I wanted to. I did. But I had so much anxiety over my race at Nashville that I could not even think about doing anything. Yeah, no time either. All that practice is. I couldn't. I never had a chance to put a bed in. We were practicing.

Great job by you, Russell, for picking the, basically telling us. we should bet. Golf clap, yeah. We should bet Mr. Gibbs. He's not getting full credit. Okay. I sent him a text. Here we go.

I asked him, I said, what do we think about Ross Chastain versus Carson Hosevar? Chase Elliott versus Carson Hosevar. Chase is getting plus money. Quote, bet the house. Oh,

we don't have a house now. Oh, man. We have bet the house. Your house spun out. He was going to be okay until he spun out. He was never in front of. Yeah, I don't think he was okay. I don't think he was okay then.

I don't think he was okay then. Except when they stayed out. Yeah. And then he dropped. He's right. You can't hide on this one, Ross. Hey, Russ. Well, we're going to Kansas.

Denny Hamlin is the favorite. Damn it. Look, I like Denny. But damn, I'm sick of him being the favorite all the time. It's doing good stuff, and he's good. It's hard not to be the favorite. I know, but it's tough for our betters because they bet on him and then he doesn't win. Yeah.

Travis. I don't know. you're looking at me for. Yeah, what's wrong? What's wrong with Denny? Fix Denny. Yeah. It's not my fault.

He's on his tires at Darlington. Okay. Sorry. Denny's a plus 500. Christopher Bell, plus 550. Kyle Larson, 650. Briscoe, Byron, 850. Are we missing a name?

We missing a name? Russ. I don't see Blaney on it. The guy that won the race last time? Who won last time? Chase. Chase Elliott? He's got two-in.

there, but he shouldn't have won that I mean, yeah, come on now. I mean, he wasn't like. But I would say he is a solid top 10 finish. Boy, I mean, that's going out on a limb. Well, I don't know. We've got the best average finish that can't. It's all drivers. So I just wouldn't bet him to win this week.

Man. And Blaine is one I would stay away from, too. Lars is probably going to be in top 10. Why stay away from Blaney? Yeah, what's wrong on Blaney? Well, first off, his pick crew is a... Oh, here we go. Only two top tens in the last six of the races.

So he's lost like 840 spots this year. Is that all from... So is that including penalties? No, that does not include penalties. That's not include penalties. So it's 80, that many straight up. Jesus, they suck. Yes.

Calm down. I mean, that's how many average a race? Yeah, it's bad. How much, though, does, like, a Denny or Redick... Someone that's racing up there, have they lost? Because I do think it is a little unfair to compare it to a guy that's coming in 20th. That's harder to lose as many spots.

Okay. So Denny's plus minus is one. Plus one. He's plus one. I like Tyler Reddick. I do too. Plus 1,000. That's odd, too.

Hey, I was just thinking about that. Look, I know Tyler Redick hasn't ran very good at this racetrack over the last couple of trips here. He's qualified pretty good. Last race here, I think qualified 12th. but before that it was fourth, fourth, fourth, multiple times in a row. He's not finished great in any stages, so there's really no reason to believe, but this is a high-line racetrack. I'm going to buy into the idea that this is a totally different race team than they were a year ago.

I don't love the idea of putting money on him winning because I'm tight, but I do definitely think that he's a top 10 or a top five bet. Yeah, top five for sure. Yeah. What you think of your, Russ? I know you probably, your predictor's got to be keeping it honest. Yeah, he has him like, the predictor has him six. But if you look at Vegas, he was not very good at Vegas.

Do we care about that? Yes. I do. I do. Yeah. Something, and not that he's bad here, but something with this track and Tyler just doesn't seem to, to mix as well as other places. What about his teammate, Bubba?

I think Bubba can run really good. They both have had good runs here. just not recently. But it's possible they reclaim their competitiveness at this particular racetrack. I mean, Bubba was fifth here in the last race, and obviously with the wins and success that they've had there, they've got to come in feeling like they can recapture the magic they once had. Plus one for top ten.

Bubba needs a rebound, too. Like Bubba needs that spark. This is like an opportunity for them to come in somewhere feeling like they maybe. I feel like he goes in here with some confidence. Get back on the right track, yeah. Good note right there by you Timbs. Plus 120. Yeah.

Top 10. So who's the who's the sleepers? So I like if we believe that Bowman is back. I like Bowman as a sleeper for a top 10. But who believes he's back? That's why I'm asking you. He's good at this track. That's what I would say.

Most top 10 of this track. He's been top 10 in six of the last seven. he's got good odds I mean he's plus 260 for a top 10 I just want to see him I feel like Bristol I feel like Bristol's one of his better places too maybe it's not but

but that wasn't was he he got caught up though in the wreck right he didn't yeah but he wasn't I don't feel like he was running very strong what about Ryan Priest for a for a top 10 bet man he's running pretty good this past weekend

but I'm just gonna That's, like, he's been 11th or better in seven of the last nine mile and a half tracks. I mean, he always seems to creep up, man. Like, he always seems to find, and honestly, I feel like, I feel like all three of those cars you could probably put it right in the top 10. Like, it could be any one of them to me, because they all run right next to each other most of the time. Just, uh, Priests and Bush or maybe. Yeah. Six is just struggling.

Six is not. Six was fine. last week. We just spent on pit road. Every time I look up, it's spinning. You spun around. Spun around. Got ran into by the 47. Thankfully, that's only the first time. I mean, does that count as wreck avoidance?

Man, what was he doing catching you? That's a good point. The six has been decent on mile and a half recently. I'll give him that. We were good yesterday, too. Just sped late. Hurt bad. Too late.

I'll give you one more. I like Corey Hime. I'm always a believer when he's in that, when he's in a race he can finish top 10 he's plus 370 too that's probably why i like him too that's good he's in a good car too so but this i mean i think cori does a great job but it's cup 3 is tough man it'll be tough it is tj but you're trying this is a bet you're trying to make money yeah i mean just trying to predict where this guy's gonna finish don't put a lot on it just a long shot yeah long shot that's it's definitely worth a long shot for fun one root for so plus

370 what number would you like i'm not throwing a flyer on him on him anything under plus 200 i wouldn't put that. But the sad part is if he's 100 plus 200, it's probably because his car is fast. He's probably going to finish top 10s. You bet him before practice and qualifying, right? I bet him right now, yeah. Probably be the high. He won't, I don't think he'll qualify of less than, you know,

I mean, top 25 and that Dodds won't change that much. Gotcha. Interesting. Do you bet Bubba Wallace to win at plus 200 or plus 2,500? Man. I'd rather bet him top 10 at plus 120. That's that's a good odds.

He'll finish top 10. He's a good result, like we've been saying. I don't necessarily think a win. A win's a little bit of aggressive. I think Reddick's more in line for a way. I think you've got to put just a sprinkle. I know. I don't think so.

What do you think, Russell, you're betting on that? I'd stay away from until he gets back. Even $5, $1, $2? Come on, man. You got to put a dollar on it. I'll put a dollar on it. A dollar. Yeah, let's go.

And that was, if you put $1, you will lose $1. Oh, damn. But I couldn't get 22. He's been 17th the worst before that, in the four races before that place last year. Yeah. Who else was really good at Vegas? I wouldn't have the finishing order from that race. Because I do think that they're not identical tracks, but they're kind of unique.

They're both similar, I think, in there. Yeah, like Gibbs was first, fourth, fifth, and eighth all right yeah so you gotta love the you gotta love the gybs to toyotas and again

that gives me some hope or confidence or feel good around Redick and Bubba Wallace yeah and RFK was all top 11 so TJ's right and Brad was 10th

you have a pusher was 6 you always remember your last top 10 I just saw it on the screen actually. You never forget that last top 10. I think Priest was 11th, wasn't he? He was.

Yeah. Well, let's do a top manufacturer parley. We haven't done one, so let's do one. I think I'm going to... I like Larson. Yeah. I was going to say Larson and Denny would be... I go Larson, Reddick, Bisher.

Those are my three. Dang. I go Larson, Denny, Busher. Wow. Hear that, Brad? I'm going to do... Chris is really good there. I'll change.

I'll change and I'll do, yeah. I'll do, I'm going to say Blaney. I think Bushers are an awesome choice. I think Blaney, Christopher Bell, and William Byron. Russ, thanks for coming out. No problem. Thank you. Not too many more weeks, buddy, me, and you're going to be in the booth.

I know. Yeah, son's over. Shoulder to shoulder. I see you. got some new, you know, some new papers, some new... Oh, yeah, you started to look, huh? Russ, how are your one-notes, your one-liners for Dale? He'll have to wait and see.

Yeah, Lord. That Dirty Mode Doe segment was brought to you by Fanduel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. Pretty solid show today, T.J. Thanks for... Yeah, lots to talk about. Thanks for coming out. Thanks for joining us in the RBCS.

studio everyone. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats. We'll see you tomorrow. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.