The Dale Jr. Download - What's Daniel Suarez's Plan If His Baby Is Born On A Sunday?

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Pull those straps tight, put your helmet on, and hit the gas — Dirty Thirty, the best 30 minutes of content from this week at Dirty Mo Media, is ready to take the green flag! We had a fantastic fill-in for Dale Jr. this week, who was on vacation, with Jamie McMurray hopping into the host position. He and TJ Majors reminisce on time spent with Sterling Marlin, and also the time Jamie went partying with Jr. in Panama City. Over in Denny Hamlin's neck of the woods, the crew at Actions Detrimental took a moment to talk about Hendrick Motorsports' lackluster performance at Indy — but is it the new norm? For the second week in a row, Door Bumper Clear hosted the Cup Series race winner. This week it was Corey Heim! He talks about Hocevar's middle finger and the rivalry that seems to be brewing between the two of them. Speaking of super-subs, the Suarezes came to sit in for Dale & Amy on Bless Your 'Hardt! Daniel & Julia answered all our questions about babies, diapers, and what's Daniel's plan for the birth? And last but not least, Jordan Anderson joined Kelley Earnhardt Miller for Business of Motorsports, where he talks about his faith, family and figuring out how to go racing, no matter the odds. That's all for this week! See you next time on the Dirty Thirty/ Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, I'm Dillon Hart Jr. And this is The Dirty 30. The best highlights from all of our podcast this week, 30 minutes every single Friday. The Dirty 30 coming in short. Let's get right to it. This episode of The Dirty 30 is presented by Arby's new Meat in Three Box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats.

Next question here is they want to know. Do you have any good Sterling Marlin prank stories? my God. Appropriate for this show. There's not much Starling. I will tell a quick one. I tell this one a lot. So my rookie year, Casey Mears, my teammate, and I looked up to Sterling.

I can remember, obviously I had filled in for him those seven races in 2002. But I kind of, I mean, I really looked up to him. I'd seen him on TV all those years. Yeah. Great dude. And you know what it's like when you, people don't. look the same in person as they do on TV. And so like when I got to be around him and and I don't think Starstruck is the right word, but I was, I was a fan. And so it was kind of cool to get to be

around him. And we used to go, every team would go to Talladega in like December and do those just horrific three day speedway test where you just run two laps at a time, come in, get in another car. It was, it was, they were terrible. But we went down there as a team and Ganassi had expanded to three cars this year. And so it was Sterling, Casey Mears, and I. And at the end of the first day, you know, we get done at five o'clock and it's getting dark at Talladega, you know, in December at five o'clock, the sun's going down. It's starting to get dark. And Andy Graves was a team manager at the time. And he came in the garage and he's like, hey, Chip would like, and I didn't know Chip very well either. None of us did, right? Because Chip was somewhat new to

NASCAR at the time. And I had not been around him except for like the signing of my contract. he's like hey chip would like to get everybody on the phone and just talk about the day so what we're going to do is we're all going to go get in the pit crew van and those big 15 passenger vans get in the van and we'll just put it on speakerphone and everybody can talk okay so the crew chiefs the drivers the engineers we all kind of cram into this this 15 passenger van and I did notice that sterling wasn't in the van and so anyway they act like they're calling chip and they put it on speaker phone And what had happened was Sterling had put one of those little quarter sticks of dynamite underneath the van that we were in. And I'm going to tell you something. When it went off, I knew it was a prank, but I also saw fire shoot up the sides of the van.

And the van kind of rocked. And I was like, what if this goes wrong? And the band blows up. And so then there's Sterling laughing. So it's pretty funny. Another one real quick, you can use whatever you want here. But we also used to go to Kentucky and Texas. a lot. A lot, yeah, Nashville and Kentucky. Engine test. Do a lot of engine tests, just durability test. And we were there in December, January. It had been snowing, like the track. There was snow like on the infield, but the track was dry. And it was so cold. You would come in the garage and they would shut the garage door behind you. Yeah, it had all those space heaters on, right? And so we were doing an engine test. And I think they had changed engines. And Sterling was was driving the car. and the engine guy had primed the pump.

So, you know, you take the dry-something belt pump off. They would prime it, and then you put it back on. Put it on, yeah. Well, Sterling grabbed an extra belt and threw it under the car. And so they shut the door. And when he got in, he started, he's revving it up. And he went to back out, and the engine guy looked down and saw the belt and was like running. And they're like trying to shut the door.

And he hit his head on the door trying to. trying to get out. And the guy's just melting down because he, you know, he thinks the belts off. Yeah. And, of course, the belt was on. Yeah. Sterling was funny, dude. Dude, I got to work with him.

He was the first full-time job that I had, uh, his last couple years there. And man, what a, I've actually asked him in that dynamite you were talking about. We're not talking like. It wasn't a firecracker. No, we're not talking firecrackers. I asked him like, hey, I asked him one time, like Sterling, can I get, you know, some dynamite? We want to, you know, blow some stuff up.

on the land. Hold on. Takes his flip phone out. He calls this guy, hey, he goes, Johnny Firecracker. That's what he said. Hey, I need some firecrackers. All right. And it was like a week later, I got a brown bag. He said, keep in the fridge.

So me and we, me and Tofer and Dell Jr., we spent, we blew so much shit up. Dude. It's so fun. Sterling, he was just one of a kind. He was. He was. was an awesome guy. He was a really fun teammate to have. Yeah.

And he had plenty of stories. He, yes. Like, I really enjoyed. I got to work when I first started racing. My first year was doing pit practice stuff at MB2 motorsports. And I got to be around Kenny Schrader, which was, I went from Schrader to, had a little bit with Boris said. I got to work with some really good guys, like personalities.

Like, and Sterling was, I mean, just a fun, dude. to be around like really good guy and uh yeah i really enjoyed my years with him yeah he was like we were talking earlier in the show about how aggressive it is now i remember sterling being one of the guys being like what's the hurry we got 500 miles to get there yeah like at the start of the race yeah yeah in practice i'd tell him you know guys this is when you and you and del junior would get up and run the fence at places and i'd be like i'd be like hey they're running the top find them to speed i'm looking at you know stop time and stuff and i'm like they're getting faster and up there and he'd go up there and try it. He'd be like a lane and a half off the wall.

He'd be like, oh, can't run up there. It's too loose. And I'm like, you what? But I don't have eight feet to go. More than that. Yeah. But yeah, he wasn't running that fence. But no, he was a lot of fun to work with. So you mentioned Jimmy Jam and now Johnny Firecracker sounds like a good alter ego. Do you have an alter ego when you've celebrated any of your wins or have had a good time? Yeah, I was curious because I mean, I think you'd be disappointed. I don't know, man. I mean, I've been on some trips with you and I've ran you've ran hard. I had I had my moments. I definitely had my moments in like 2002, three, four. But like like most of this. Define a moment. Yeah. Like what's one of that moments. What flashes into your head. I know what you're thinking.

I know. I know. I know what you're thinking. It's a Cabo trip. Oh yeah. Yeah. I might have unleashed some clothing on a balcony and twirled it above my head to Piti Pablo. to who? The Pity Pablo song. That's why you were, you know the helicopter song, right? Yes. You were up there. I got a picture of it somewhere.

I'd say a good story. I'd say a good story. And Dale will be involved in this. So it'll be fitting in, I don't remember what yours, 2003, 4. I did not know, I didn't know Dale at all. And we were parked next to each other in points. And I was driving Finch's Bush car, a rally car at the time. And Finch told me, he's like, hey,

you know, if you and any of those boys want to come down, I have a condo in Panama City. And I'm like, okay. So I went over to Dale like the next week. And I had never talked to him. And I'm like, hey, I said, you know, Finch has a condo down in Panama City. Said like maybe for spring break if we want to go down there. Like I think Elliot and I are going to go if you want to go. And he kind of looked at him and he's like, all right. And so I'm like, okay, so we're going to go. So I think Elliot had a plane. It might have been. Dale's plane. I don't remember who's, but we decided we were going to leave from Bristol and fly down to Panama City. And we get on the airplane and we're all kind of talking. And this leads up to what you're

talking about. I remember I told them, I was like, man, I don't stay up real late. I'm like, I'll go pretty hard until about 10.30 and then I'm done. And I don't remember, I think it was Dale. He's like, have you ever had Red Bull and vodka? And I'm like, I have not. And he goes, you're going to be just fine. And so we got to, you know, our trip and I got introduced to, yeah, Red Bull and Vothka. And by God, I made it until about 6 a.m. I believe that next morning. I'm sure he did as well. That was also the tabloid trip. National Enquirer. National Enquirer. Yeah. That's where you guys ended up in the...

It's the foam pit. Yeah, there was... Yeah, we're not talking about all that. That we had... Wait, you said foam pit in Panama City? Was that Spinnikers? Could be. Or Lavella. There's no way I remember that. I don't. Honestly, I don't, I don't remember.

Like, I remember, this is what I remember about that trip. I remember the National Enquirer being there. And Elliot had M&Ms as a sponsor. I had Texco Havlin and Dale had Budweiser. Two of the three sponsors were not very excited about what might come out on National Enquirer. And it wasn't Budweiser. No.

Yeah. So, but I don't remember. I don't remember what came out of that. It ended up being like nothing. We didn't even, I mean, we didn't anything wrong. We were just, we were just having fun. You know, we were all just, we're just hanging out. Like, it was just, we're just partying.

It was, it was a good time, though. Bad day for Hendrick. That's the norm. I, you know, I look at their graphic after the race and like, I mean, Stuart Haas, they were getting, they were getting beat like a drum in their comments the last year of their existence. And like, the old Hendrick bros, they're starting to get in there. Like, what, is this our norm now?

Are we just a teen's team? They're not, folks, but. Six, eighth, and 12th and points. They're not, they need to, they need to have a Snickers. They've not been theirself in a while. You know, Larson, I'm sure, was fast. Blue left rear, you know, it's hard to say that it's not air pressure related, so that's... There's a video, though, of him exing pit road that Bozzi had, and you can see the car just...

Yeah, it's beating the shit out of the left rear tire. Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, my car was doing it pretty bad, too, but, I mean, there's always... Usually, the more air that you have... having the tire, the more it can take some bouncing. Now, if you have a cushion ride, you can run your air pressure lower. So there's always a balance there, but I mean, usually you blow a left rear. It's, that's not luck, folks. That's, that's, can't call things luck that someone has a role in. And that was likely too low of air pressure or to, you know, ran it too hard on low air,

or the load on the left rear was too much. Who knows? I have no idea. But they found their limit of how much error they could put in or need to add more. Chase Elliott, he cleared himself off turn two with the 47, right? Yeah. Yeah, that was not good. It's just, I don't know.

I mean, we're sitting here. clowning on it, but it's, I mean, it's, it's not really indicative of their speed. They, you know, North Worksboro, I thought the nine was really, really strong. You know, they've got, they've always got like a couple cars that are in the top five or near the top five. I mean, but just what the standard in which we expect from Hendrick Motorsports from, from the legacy, it's just winning a lot of, we expect. Lots of race wins and top of the standings. And when I see like William Byron and 12th, that's just, that's mind-boggling to me.

Corey Hyman is as many wins as Hendron Writersports. All right. Well, I'm excited to get into spot-on, spot off, and especially hear some more about this little rivalry that we have heating up in the Cup series. Number one, Carson. There's not much of a rivalry. It kicks his ass every time. That's the best, you have the upper hand at it, which is the best place to be. Carson Hosevar predicted the future

when he told Corey Hime he was number one spot on, spot off. Corey? Spot on. In honor Carson, I've got my ring on my middle finger. Hey, there you know.

Did you send him a text with the, with your ring on the middle finger? I think the best Twitter response would have been a quote to just flipping off the camera with this on my middle finger, but I don't think it would have got approved. The thing that I laugh at is like, there's no way you saw that.

I know. I mean, No one coming to pit road is focused on anything except for the commitment line and getting, dude, we are all. I'm like, there's the way he was just dead set on lights. If you look closely, I am emitting smoke for my rear tires walking up getting a pit road. I'm not looking over here at the middle. Like, come on.

Steve said that on the broadcast too. He was like, I'm sure he's probably focused on the commitment line making sure he doesn't miss pit road. Yeah. Versus of our butt. It's, it's, I don't, I don't have a good enough read on him to know that, if he was actually mad because what happened he came out of he cycled behind Corey Corey did what he had to do to keep him behind him

which is what you have to do in that race like we talk about it in our meetings you can't let anybody pass you because that could be the difference in anything you know if Carson cycles ahead of Corey Cory Pitts Carson could cycle way in front of him you know like if he's got clean air he's making lap time up while Corey is

getting ready to pit now like when when the cycle's over he's going to be that much further ahead So if you can keep him behind you, that's what you have to do. And that's the thing is you lose just less than a lap by pitting. It's like 80% of a lap you lose. So if you let a guy go and he can get 30 car links in front of you, you're probably going to net out even. But if you can keep behind you and pit, you're going to be 30 car links in front of them. So you cycle out ahead of the guy.

Just the timing of everything works out perfect where you just got to keep guys behind you. And it's just part of it. So I can't decide if he was actually mad or. if he's just doing this for attention, like we see him do a little bit here recently. But yeah, I mean, I don't, you can't be mad because that's what, I mean, if you are mad, you're stupid because that's what he's doing what he had to do. But yeah, I think the 77 was losing a lot of time getting on pit road. I don't know if you guys noticed, but he got his butt kicked every time getting to that

yellow line. And I guarantee you they're studying that today. I bet you he, he didn't do a very good job. job. It's hard for us to see it from straight down that straightaway. But then, like, I also noticed I felt like they were just running hard all day long and spending more time on pit road because of it. And we, like, they just continued to, as we all know, like, talk about Daytona coming

up. Like, we're all kind of saving fuel and trying to make the stops as sort as possible. And I felt like every time we pitted, they just kind of, him, the 7, 71, they kind of just kind of kept creeping down the pylon a little bit as the race went on. But yeah, I mean, this was, I just love it. because it's knowing your mindset, knowing how even kill you are, and knowing how kind of he's up and down,

I feel like you're the perfect adversary for him because it's like, I don't give a shit. Like, where'd he finish? Yeah. Yeah, I think if you were to flip anyone off, coming to a commitment line would be probably the last place to do it. If you wanted to say it.

Really, that was the only time he was alongside of you. So he didn't have a choice. I did never see him again after that. First question. A lot of fans want to know this. Have either of you changed a diaper before? I have not. I have not.

And I have not neither. Oh, and apparently he doesn't plan on. Oh. I said, well, you're not getting any more kids then. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a diaper person, man, but... Nobody is, Daniel. That's true. I'm not either, but I play the role of uncle, and so I can walk away when it's diaper time.

Yeah. Yeah. You start screaming. You hand it right back. Yeah. It's all different. I'm planning, you know what I was, what I had in mind? The answer is no.

I have never changed a diaper in my life. But when I have to, I think I'm going to grab the kit, change the diaper, go to the top and do like a little car wash. Now remove the diaper and then. Remove the diaper and do like a little car wash with some pressure. Or just hold it by the leg and just spray them. Grab the blower that we got. dry everything

and then put it a new one back on or maybe maybe maybe maybe let a lot of free for five minutes so everything breathes airs out airs out yeah that'll work good okay next question next question is do you guys have like a

finalizer paredown list of names or do you're just going to wait and kind of just feel it out so everyone asks us this question and Daniel most of the time says yeah we don't you know we're not sure yet the truth is we've had a name picked for each for years already. He just gets shy because

then people want to know what the name is and he's like he doesn't want to be the bad guy to say well, you know, I don't want to say it or whatever. But the truth is we've had a boy name and a girl name picked out for years and so we're good to go. We're going to get to the hospital and we have our options. Next question. What's the plan if you're racing and Julia goes into labor. Are you finishing the race? Are we just going to miss the race? We've seen Travis do a little bit of everything. Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And honestly, I don't have a plan. I don't really have a plan. I know, I know that Julia don't want me to miss a race. And obviously, we're going to be on the playoffs. So I can miss a race. So I think that

depends where we are the time maybe if baby was coming Saturday maybe you know in my mind maybe missing on a Saturday would be okay

right now if it's somewhere close but not Sunday like Sunday I'm not missing a race I just can't you know being in the playoffs being so competitive with the team and we have just so many great things

that we're building that I just can't, you know. If this was the previous format of NASCAR... See you later. And, you know, and we're not in the playoffs yet, and we're already going to race, oh, that's fine. It's not a big deal. But the way that things are right now, I just can miss a race.

Maybe I can miss practice and qualifying. Depends of the situation. But we'll have to wait and see. Maybe it's before Daytona. And there's no practice or quality. There's no practice anyways. Qualifying doesn't really matter. That would be amazing, man.

You know, I'm so confident. I'm not worried about it because I'm confident things are going to work out. Things are going to work out. I don't know how, but I'm confident that I'm going to be there with Julia when the baby's born. Yeah. I feel like, and obviously this doesn't always happen, but I feel like as a woman, you give birth when you, your body knows when you feel safe, right? and so I wouldn't feel safe if he's not there. So I trust my body to, it's going to come when he's around.

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.dirtymo Media.com for all the latest merch. What did it look like in 2017 when you kind of were coming on to the NASCAR scene? And what were you doing until that point and kind of talk about that year and what that was like? Because you took what you were just describing and learned and used that to your advantage that year.

Yeah. No, it's through the years that led us up to that was pretty crazy. I did, ran dirt late models throughout the Carolinas, got a super late model ran that for a couple of years. And met a guy in 2014 that wanted to go East Racing back then. And we had run Greenville Pickens earlier in the year. And we went to Richmond and ran a race. And we were on their race. I got caught up in a wreck, tore the car up. Not a very good day. Well, I got a call a week later from the crew chief and from Penskeyshocks and from NASCAR and all these other people that the checks had bounced.

You know, check bounced. Are you going to square up with us? You're going to pay it. And I think at the time it came up to probably, and this is like, where's the turning point? And there's two of them. There's this one. And then there's the one when we started the O'Reilly team in 21 that I look back in my career on pivotal moments. Not knowing that they were really those moments at the time, right? 100%, which happens every day. Door slammed. There's another door here. And it was about $40,000 of bad check, stuff that had gotten written.

And I had just had hung a brand new body on my super late model. I had a hamkey car, motor in it, everything like that. And I called to my dad. I said, hey, I need some advice. Here's a story. Got caught up with the wrong crowd. This whole deal here. I'm in a tough spot.

And he said, you need to do the right thing. and you need to make everybody whole, even if it cost you, your driving career. And so I sold my super late model. I listed it for sale. Found a guy out of the West Coast that bought it. And I think from the sell, I sold everything I had. Kept my trailer, but I sold everything for like $55, $56,000. So I had a little money left over, paid everybody off.

And I figured, all right, you know, my driving career is done. How hard was that? It was pretty sad. Because you say it like, okay, I talked to my dad, I hung up the phone, and I did this. Did it really go that way? No, it was several weeks of like, you know, I had it listed online and people wanted to buy it. I'm like, do I want to call them back and make the deal?

Like, it was tough. And when I finally sold it, I had enough money left over. So you know what? I'm going to go run at least one truck race. I'm going to make that my goal just to run at least a NASCAR race so I could say I did it at this time. And this was 2014. And I found a couple team owners I talked to and found a team owner back in 2014 for Phoenix, the 50 truck.

And they said, hey, if you'll come out here and cover the tire bill, you can run the truck and did it and had enough money left over to do that. The race went pretty good. I think we finished 22nd or 23rd. And this was back when it was Phoenix and then Homestead. And the race went really good. And they said, hey, if you can do the same thing, come run Homestead next week. And went and did Homestead and ran pretty good. It stayed out of trouble there.

And then over the offseason, that was kind of got going with, I got to meet Mike Harmon and the 74 truck and met him over the offseason. And he said, hey, if you want to run this program, this is where I got interested in as Mike was running his O'Reilly program at the time. And the truck was just over in the corner. And he said, if you'll take it over, you can work out of my shop. I've got some older engines here. And we'll do that. And so 2015, we ran the full season with one truck. And I kid you not, like, we took it to Daytona. It went to Atlanta. It went to Martinsville. It went to Mossport. Like, same truck everywhere. We ran old SB2 engines. And that was kind of the jump that got things going. But if it hadn't been. for that deal that happened at Richmond, I might still be racing late models at this day. Like that was the thing that kind of like pushed me out of my comfort zone, squared the dead up, went and ran those two truck races. And it kind of parlayed that into the deal in 15. And yeah, I look back on that moment. I'm like, man, I figured that was in the world. I was going to go get a job at a bank or somewhere because I'd go into college.

I went to Belmont Eddy College. I got a business management degree in their motorsports program somewhere. I got a college degree. I can go get a normal job. It's probably less stressful. go do something, you know, routine a nine to five somewhere and, you know, get after it. And I look at something that was so bad in the moment. And it was a blessing of skies because it opened a door up to something and a whole new opportunity for me. I know. I want to stop on that for a moment just for our listeners of business of motorsports and to think through that because that is, I mean, those times are so tough in the moment when things don't go like we plan for them to go or how we wanted them to go or whatever. And it's so easy to, you know, show. shut the door on that dream or whatever it is. And like you said, look elsewhere.

You're going to look, you know, what's my regular? Now what's my day job going to be, you know? Still got to pay the bills. And then being able to persevere and continue in spite of the adversity to look for those opportunities and take those opportunities, which a lot of people, I think, you know, in the sport today, they are trying, they try to decide what's the risk in taking those types of opportunities versus. is not versus being in equipment that's subpar versus being in better equipment. What am I, what am I giving up? What am I doing to myself? You know, I think about Dawson Cramm, who I love and his family and just they grind every single year, grind after grind, you know,

trying to get himself, you know, in rides and get that opportunity to look at. So you're doing this with Mike Carmen. You're doing this with one truck, old engines, all of these things in 2015. Yeah. Which is the perseverance that it took for you to be able to look back on that moment and really see that it was a consequential moment at that point, right? 100%. Yeah. I think back to a quote that my dad told me that year in 2015 and we're a big faith-based family. If it wasn't for that, I don't know that we would have made it through the stuff that we are today.

And I look back at that year. And my dad told me, he's like, you know what breaks the rock down? And it's the water. He said it's not the power of the water. It's the persistence of it. Staying after, staying after. And I guess that's always been the biggest thing in my race career is just survival. Like, hey, if I can make it a next year, we'll keep going.

You know, hey, if I can make it to the off season, we'll keep going, you know. And so we did that for several years. You know, my wife, I'm very thankful. You talk about the family side of this. This is a tough sport. It's long hours, late nights. I mean, there's times where, you know, a Monday for me, you might get there at six o'clock in the morning.

You're there until 9 or 10 o'clock at night just because everybody leaves at 5. And now you've got four or five hours where it's quiet. And, you know, I mean, there'll be nights where I walk to shop and just put an inventory on stuff to look at things. But, you know, my wife's been a good grounding boy for me, Kendall. And then you talk about her. She grew up in the racing world. I was going to say, I always said to myself, I wasn't going to marry anyone in racing. But you almost, if you grow up in racing, you almost need to marry someone racing so that they understand and get it. And Kendall, definitely, Kendall is the daughter of Larry McReynolds. And I was going to ask you if you get to get advice from America's crew chief from time to time. Yeah, no, Larry is, there's been a lot of times I've called Larry. I said, hey, what do you, what do you think about this? And he says, well, do you want the, do you want the father involved or do you want the real answer? And he's not an ear massager. He says it to me all the time. He said, I'm not going to massage your ear. I'm going to tell you the truth. And it's good to have that, you know, because I can go to him and trust him and know it's going to stay between us. And, you know, I've run a lot of ideas by him. So he's been a great sounding board. You know, John's been a great sounding board. You know, my dad, I got a good relationship.

with him. He still does his houses down in South Carolina. He comes to a lot of the races, but he's very hands-on. And, you know, he's kind of like my prayer warrior, my faith guy. You know, when I go to him, he'll kind of pray about some things. And he always is quick to give me some good scripture to get through some times when things do get tough. And, you know, also to stay humble when things are good on both sides of it. You know, you mentioned Joe. Joe's been a good sounding board to me this year. You know, my brother-in-law, Brandon, he's in the sport as well. So he's, he's been good to talk through some things. And, you know, just very fortunate to have. that. All right, that was another episode of the

Dirty 30, presented by Arby's new Meat in Three Box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meat.