The Dale Jr. Download - Why Shouldn't Corey Heim Be Rookie Of The Year For 2026?

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

After NASCAR’s rain-filled weekend in New Hampshire, Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns to the studio this week for a new edition of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to react to the race and major stories of the weekend: What should the protocol be for pitting during wet weather races? Carson Hocevar and Connor Zilisch’s on-track incident We should rethink the Rookie of the Year voting process Connor Zilisch is heading to Hendrick Motorsports in 2028 Austin Hill gets promoted to the 33 car at Richard Childress Racing The CARS Tour action from Anderson Lee Pulliam joins the show to share some news During the Ask Jr. segment of the show, listeners sent in questions regarding: The IROC race in Washington, D.C. Trading Dale’s Daytona 500 wins for a different crown jewel trophy Favorite Elvis movies Favorite types of potato chips Tyler Reddick’s rough summer Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour. Did I want the best man at your wedding? Who was your best man, Dale? T.J.

You don't need a cool best for that race? What are you thinking? Get them, T.J. Hellway is starting to show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode here in the Arby's studio for the Dale Jr. download. T.J's with us. Everybody's in the room. This episode is presented by Arby's. Don't

forget about Arby's new meat in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meets. Let's get started. We got Elijah, Travis, James, also in the room. Full house. Full house. I like it. You know, we need another camera on the show. And we need this on bless your heart as well. Because we'll talk to you guys, and I need a camera that pops y'all on screen. Maybe even it's just like a small bubble camera up in the corner that just kind of throws the whole room. You don't really need detail exactly who.

I don't need to know if you got any nose hair sticking out, but I just need you on the screen. Because you say we got Elijah and nobody really knows. Nobody has seen him. Plus it gives him some accountability. I know. I also got some renovations. I've been begging Mike Davis to make.

I want them to take all the glass out of the booth, take the door out of the booth and everything, and just bring y'all into the room. Like, there's no reason to have that sealed off. Yeah, because it's not like a soundproof glass. We really can't, yeah. We just never did take the glass out because we used to record in that room.

But especially for, bless your heart, when I'm sitting over there and aim in me, do a lot of interacting with you, Travis, during the show. We need to take that glass out. get out of here that glass is tired of looking at Travis I'm only saying this on the show because usually if I say it on the show

then it happens yeah starts happening how you been buddy I've been good yeah back from that's it back from Loudon little rainy yep yep you went to Loudon rainy yeah it was nice nice

nice to go up there and put all myself on the rain never rains up there no never I think there in Dover probably have some of the highest Monday race or I don't know Michigan's yeah damn yeah I'm glad the rain tire situation I'm sure we'll talk about but You said you went to a card shop?

I did Yeah, yeah, in Manchester. Oh, yeah, it's Queens. Yeah, it was good. They had a lot of stuff. Okay. A lot of Patriots cards. A lot of old baseball cars and stuff too.

Yeah, a lot of everything. I went to the GameStop in Moorsville got some cards the other day. There is, yeah. I was going to put this on social media, but I'm going to ask it here. I bought hangar packs. Like, I don't easily buy a hanger packs.

usually get a box, but I bought hangar packs and my cards were damaged. It was if somebody was messing with the hangar pack trying to figure out whether one of them thick cards was in there. Yeah. Because guys. Or a patch card. Yep. Guys will go into stores and mess and grab the hangar packs and field them to see if they can

kind of tell whether there's an... Because you can. Over overly large or thick card. Because two cards, one card in each hanger pack was damaged. on the very bottom in the very center of the card like a thumb had shoved the card up and bent it. It was... Yeah, it's annoying.

I was like, man, this is intentional, whatever this was because it was two packs, same issue. That's annoying. The top card in the pack. Yeah. I'm not a... I'm not done this enough to know. Like, if I saw that, I was like,

oh, damaged in shipping or something. Somehow it got damaged. Maybe it did. Maybe it was just a simple, you know, got banged around in shipping. but I think there are I have seen some maybe some people that are expert

collectors could say oh that's a common thing that happens with people start messing with the cards yeah I mean you see it more and more people are trying to find ways to get an edge I saw on social media this guy was getting filmed

he was at like a dix or a I saw the same thing yeah he was a sport he was messing with all of the cards the hanger packs and the guy's filming him going man why are you doing this

He's like, leave me alone. Stop filming me. Well, he was trying to find if there was like a thick card in the hangar pack that would be a giveaway that it had a good value. And interesting. But anyhow, we have a lot of, let's, here, I have a lot of boxes of old racing cards. We're going to go for another pack of high heat.

Yeah, those were cool last week. I like to open these because we may have our next, Wednesday guest in one of these packs. We just haven't thought of to have on the show. Yeah, let's see. Remember last week I got that cool pilot.

You got Mike Collier, who is the pilot for my dad, you got his card, if I got a pilot card in a pack today, I'd be pissed. But no disrespect to the pilots. Sorry, Joey. Sorry, Joey.

Man, all these cards are stuck together. They are. Whoa, we got a Joe Nimich. This is the best one. What'd you get? Oh, you got Kelly. Dude. I know.

Yeah, man. I'm going right up there and getting her to sign it. Dude. You got Kelly awesome. Can we send you up there right now with a watcher? Yeah, I'll be right back. Kelly needs you sign this. Can I get a camera?

Is it worth more if they filmed the signing? I mean. I got a Rockingham. Oh, these are stuck. I know. I got a Rockingham race winner. So like whoever won that race, they're on the card. It's Russell.

I think that's cool. I don't like those. You don't. I think they're kind of neat. They're less value than the actual Rusty Wallace base card itself. So, like, when you get something, it's like the team card. To me, though, if a kid was Clayton, he went to that race and got that card, it'd be kind of cool. That's one niche motherfucker that liked the card of all the people in the world.

Chris Hussie, he's crew chief for, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. Bobby the Bonnie. Hussie. They were teamed up in the past for. the Bush Grand National Championship with Bobby LeVonnie. And he was a crew chief for Bobby, I guess, in his first season with

Bill Davis. Hank Jones. Nice. Hank Jones, a crew member. It's president of sports image, the official licensing company for Dalyan Hart RCR, Goodrich. Eventually, I think all of the race teams were under that banner of sports image. Richard Jackson, car owner,

for him and his brother, Leo. We're car owners for Rick Mass, Terry Lubbani. And Jimmy Hensley. We've talked about having Jimmy on the show. I saw Jimmy over at Dirt Track. Jimmy driving the number 55 Petron Plus Ford, pink and black and yellow. I've got a pretty interesting.

Pretty standard pack, I think. So, all right. Out of my pack, I would say Jimmy Hensley would be the preferred guest. You've had one or two of mine already. go ahead i got uh kelly butchmock uh jimmy spencer you've had derek coat yeah hutch strickland oh yeah and mike wallace wallace there you go man pretty good pack for you there brother no bad yeah all right so let's um let's start to show the dirty air open segment is brought to you by our friends at bass

pro shop the fall hunting classic is happening now that's a that's a that's a that they have this time of year. Great deals on hunting gear, apparel, equipment, and more. Visit a Bass Pro Shops today. America's best outdoor retailer. I went to the one in Concord, got a new bow.

I just got my dates locked in in October to go hunting with my friend Martin Trix Jr. My brother-in-law, L.W. I'm going to try to take Sean. Y'all know Sean, broly. Sleeveless? Remember the pitcher you took with Sean? Oh, yeah, yeah.

So me and Sean went to have dinner with Cletus, and we went to Epic, which is a nice steakhouse, and we had a lot of fun with this. So we show up, and I took Sean because Sean loves drag racing, Cletus drag racing, all that. I thought they'd had fun talking. They did. Talked a lot about drag racing. And so Cletus shows up in a t-shirt with his posse in their t-shirt and cut off shorts. And I was just laughing.

that talked about it on our show a little bit and then cleetus posted some photos on AI using AI on social media of me and actually he posted a photo of them or he sent me a photo of them wearing suits and when he showed up for dinner he goes man we were going to wear suits we thought about wearing suits and I was like that had been hilarious it would have been so he sends me this AI image of him in suits and I said dude you got to take mine and Sean sleeves off And so then he made that photo and posted it online. We had a lot of fun with that. Yeah, it was good.

So a lot to talk about for this weekend. Obviously, a pretty good race. I thought the race at New Hampshire Sunday was compelling. They started on wet weather tires, which I was, I'm so glad that we're at this place in the sport. where we can actually do that. It was not a lot of fun whether you were a kid going to the track or whether you were racing in the cars or whether you're a broadcaster

and you wake up in the morning and it's wet. And the radar says that it ain't going to get much better. Because you're going to have to wait that out. May you end up having to stay the night and racing the next day. It just really sucked. And you always got great plans on Monday when it rained. out of a Sunday race. It's never when you have nothing going on on Monday.

You always got some trip you're taking or some shit, and you can't freaking leave when you're wanting to because now you've got to be at the racetrack. So, anyways, I turn on the TV. I missed the Carson Hosevar spin out on the pace laps. But I turned on the TV, and they're going green. And I'm like, holy shit, it's wet. And I'm watching Denny trying to get going.

Remember him on the frustrated way? couldn't get the power down. Holy crap. Yeah, there are a lot of them just wiggling. And I immediately, I mean, I don't even know it's, I'm not turned on the race, right? So I don't even know it's damp or it's wet or nothing. I just turn it on because I know this is the time the race supposed start. And now I'm like massive anxiety because I ain't a bullse.

I'm sitting there going, man, my man, Josh Barry qualified good. He's got three top tens in a row. He almost won this race last year. let's see if we can get another top 10. And there was some good momentum online around him and everything, just some good momentum all in general for Josh trying to figure out what he's going to do for next year. And so that was my main objective of the day when watching the race. I was a Josh Berry fan and I was just going to see what was going on.

And as soon as I saw it, it was wet, I was like, oh, this has changed everything, right? Can this be a good day for the 21? And can he manage it being wet? I remember, though, when they were on rain tires, I think, at Richmond, a couple years back, he ran really, really good. He likes the rain tire. I think he ran there and some rain tires too at some point. He likes the rain tire because it's really similar to the old Hoosiers that he ran in late model stocks.

It's just very grippy and gumballish, softer compound. It's like just, it's grippy, but it's on top of the track more. I feel like there's more finesse with it. Yep. Well, I just was like, hopefully this works out. You just don't know. What a compelling first segment there, watching cars try to run the bottom, bottom, like on the apron. Extreme top or extreme bottom.

And then everybody's way, way up high, way out of the traditional groove. And I know that a lot of our listeners know why that you run that line on a rain track. And you run what they call offline when it's wet. And the reason is is because the traditional racing line has a lot of oils and rubber and all types of things that are sort of smashed into the surface of the racetrack. And the water sits on top of that. And it's slick. And obviously, you know, if you get offline, the track is more porous and absorbs the water better. And you get a little more grip.

It's just faster. Even on road courses, if it's wet, you run offline. And if you had to cross the driving line, you cross it quickly. Yeah. Or you're going to – Super slick. Trying to throttle up out of the corner across the racing line. You'll spin the tires.

It's just – it's very tough, very challenging. You can spend the tires in a track house when it's wet on the go-carts there. Yes. When you cross the main groove. That's how – imagine a cup car going across that. Yeah. And so it was really compelling. And I couldn't –

remember as we're, you know, closing in on the track drying a little bit, I couldn't really remember. I was like, what are they going to do? What is the, what is the protocol? You know, it's, it's, it's not been that long since we started running rain tires. So it's not like this thing that I have imprinted in my mind. And they sort of adjusted the protocol and do different things ever since they brought the rain tire in. It's not always been, man, this is how we've done it. Well, here, remember here, don't forget they did the deal a couple years ago. The guys tried to put slicks on when they didn't say you could yet. And they made them come back down and put the reins back on.

Yes. Like, it was that loud and too. That's right. Well, there was obviously a big debate. Once we all learned in real time, NASCAR is going to throw this yellow flag. The teams are asking for it. Some of the crew chiefs and car drivers are out there saying, man, it's time to switch. and NASCAR had told them, I assume,

that they all knew, I think, going into the day, that there wouldn't be, NASCAR would throw the yellow. NASCAR would tell you when the track was ready for dry tires. You were going to put tires on, according to NASCAR's information. And so all the teams were aware of that. And so they're sitting there going,

hey, it's about that time, you know. It's about the time. They told us about, they came across radio like five laps or roughly five last, they were going to throw the caution and said, hey, I think, I think they saw a couple cars start to have some issues and like, what kind of issues? Just like the tire issues? Yeah, start using them up, like going down.

Like they're going to start pitting under, like people are going to start pitting. Putting on more wets? Which, because so they. Either way. No, you can't put a dry tire on. Unless they, yeah. Right. So they were thinking, okay, some guys are going to start pitting to try just because their tires

are so bad. I wonder, like, how bad, how bad were some of the guys in terms of how slow had they gotten? They were getting really, there was guys dropping hard. Ross had a tire smoking. We passed Ross. And that was, he was, that was for like two, three lapses. What was smoking? I think he might have had a suspension problem, but I don't know, but, like, there were definitely guys fading really hard.

And I think Ross, I think Ross's issue might have sped up the process a little bit because, right. was you didn't know what was going on with Ross if you're NASCAR I'm thinking I'm sorry your car's slowing down I mean that's the same thing I'm like hey I'm sorry you ran too hard

maybe you should have gotten more wet straightaway I don't know maybe you should have found the moisture that's yeah 100% I love the fact that you can you can't throw a caution because guys are slow

well I just don't think they want the pit sequence. I don't know. I'm just saying, I don't think they want the cycle to start and have a really busy pit road. Pit road was by far the wettest part of the racetrack. Yes.

So, all right. Let's move forward to the actual debate. They throw the yellow, telling everybody it is time to shift from the wet tire to the drive. And come down pit road. Non-competitive stops.

You're not going to lose your spot. All that's. And so, we have talked about this in the past. Last year, I think we had a similar situation going on. My opinion then was, look, I get it. You should be able to, you know, why won't they let these teams do all these things? Why, you know, they put their big boy, put their big boy pants on.

This is supposed to be the best drivers in the world. All of those things. You can say all of those things. That's true. But back last year, I'm also thinking pit road's not entirely dry. Our guys, you could hear on some of the radios, even SVG before the race started, he's like, man, I'm not sure what this is going to be like. And nobody in those cars knew how hard to get down in the corner at New Hampshire.

They'd never ran that track wet before. And so you could see how timid everybody was, how careful everybody was trying to be, and how easily Reddick spins out. You could just, all of those things are like, okay, man, this is treacherous. Reddick definitely, that definitely made people, okay, maybe I'll, yeah.

But I mean, it's like anything. I'm getting to a point. So imagine all of that anxiety and trepidation, I guess. Now you have a wet pit road and you're going to send all the field down, you know, pit road to change tires. Even if only one car comes down pit road, his guy's got to come over the wall with the hope that he understands how to get slowed down and stopped in the stall and not run over his own pit crew, which would easily happen. I mean, do you risk, you know, let's say 36 cars pitting and breaking a leg or two? Yeah, I mean.

I only say that. Like, I think I can understand NASCAR's reservations for, I can understand their concern because. It would be dangerous. It is dangerous. Our drivers don't have any experience pitting a live stop in that condition. I think as we get. a couple more of these type of events under our belt. Maybe the confidence for NASCAR goes up.

Maybe they hear the public screaming for live stops in these scenarios. We all want it. I want it too. We all want it. We all want the teams to be allowed because it adds such an incredible layer of strategy. Oh my gosh. When do you come down? Because some guys, Cendrick, some other guys are going to get on the dries quicker.

and that sort of change and evolution of pace and what guys give up or gain can really, really change the dynamic of the race. And we all want to see that. We all want to see it. I do too. I do too. There can be big jumps in track position.

I know. I just don't know if our racers are ready. And I would have to sit down with NASCAR. and say, I would have to, you know, if I was NASCAR, I'd get all the drivers in a room like we used to do. We'd have drivers meetings in a physical building. I'd have no one else in there. And I'd say, guys, how confident are y'all to get down pit road into your box without any issue?

Let's task the teams to make sure they're doing everything they can hours before the race to prep that box. Have it dry as they can possibly have it. have it ready for the car to come in there for a live stop. Most of the stalls themselves were pretty dry. I bet. The guys do a good job. They got, I don't know if you see them. They can tarp them.

They can put fans on them. They got the machines now that they run over. They run there. They do little rollers. Yeah, they got them rollers. So I, yes, I think if we, if we're proactive, we can get there quickly to where we're having live stops in these situations. I think so, too.

Now, look, I mean, and it could. be basically a case by case. You could be sitting there and say, NASCAR could say, I'm looking at Pit Road and I feel good about it. Let's have a live stop. Or NASCAR could be coming up on, you know, lap 30 or 40 in this particular race and look at Pit Road and go,

there's a bunch of puddles out there. I don't feel good about it. Let's not have live stops. This won't be live stops. And I'd be fine with that. What if they just deem the track wet and it's a certain speed? That's what I was thinking. like, okay, track, you know, it's still, we're still considering it a wet weather condition.

Pit road speed goes from, you know, 50 to 40. Now you got to have. You run a different set of lights. And then also maybe you could do something like under wet weather conditions, you can't jump over the wall until the car stops. That takes guys running around on pit road. I like all this. Those are two quick things just thinking from, you know, slow the pit road speed down a little bit.

And know over the wall until the car stops. Yeah. I mean, that's certainly some things to think about. And I think NASCAR, hopefully they're, you know, hopefully they're having these conversations internally of like, all right, man, everybody's asking for this. And we know we need to get there. NASCAR knows we need to get there.

We're going to finally at some point live in the world of livestock during rain or wet track conditions. Yeah, I don't think they enjoy having non-competitive. I think they're just going to lean on the side of it. caution. I agree. And I will say up till the race, like, they were going along like, I mean, they

were putting the guys in when it was still wet and like they were going along with confidence that we were getting ready to roll. You know what I mean? Like, not as timid as what they were in the first time. You know what I mean? Like they're getting more comfortable with it. They're getting more comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Which is great. I like that. Yeah. I know

that was one of the things that there was a ton of debate about. The Air and our family has always trusted Bass Pro Shops for our outdoor adventures, and that's something that hasn't changed even today. I grew up shopping there, and now I enjoy bringing my family along as we gear up for our time in the outdoors together. That's also why I'm proud to partner with Johnny Morris and Bass Pro Shops. They're tremendous supporters of conservation and the outdoor traditions that bring families together. And right now, Bass Pro Shops is celebrating the fall hunting classic. It's the biggest hunting sale and event of the year. Whether you're preparing for opening day,

maybe you're upgrading your gear or stocking up for the season ahead, you'll find savings on hunting essentials, apparel, optics, trail cameras, and much more. Plus, club members enjoy exclusive savings, and they earn points toward free gear while helping support conservation efforts across North America. Don't miss the Fall Hunting Classic. now at Bass Pro Shops and Cabellas. Hosevar v. Zillich. Oh, that was scary.

Yeah. Hosevar spun on Hosevar spun on the pace laps. On purpose or not? Well, I don't think that he spun on purpose. What I think Hosevar was doing, maybe he did want to actually lose traction. I could see him think, I'm going to learn how much grip I got before this race starts.

I could see him thinking, man, because he kind of slowed down, then he fired up and took off. And I could see him going, you know what, I'm going to learn something that no one else will know until they all go down in the corner. I'm going to know it before them. Like dirt guys. You see them guys speed up and test stuff real quick, you know? Yep. Later in the race, they're going down the front straightaway,

there was a little contact between him and Zillich. Wasn't even a lot. And then it looked as if, it looked to me like Carson veered into him intentionally like, hey, fuck you, man, and wrecked himself. Like right there, a little contact, and then it's like Carson... Dad, did there such a good job right there. Do you think Carson

Turn left Hit him in the fender Like screw you, pal I think What do you think this happened there? I think guys sometimes The wretches Is this off?

Yeah, this is all four So it's like, all right, a little contact right there And then he goes You man See the whip of the wheel? Yeah, I've seen

I see it a lot With races like this And guys kind of swerve When they're not happy Or just kind of like And they try to get you It's like flipping the bird but not for him.

It's just kind of like a body language. And if he gets, if he gets C88 down the track a little bit, it hurts his entry for the next corner. I just felt like it was a more, it was like a gesture. I think so too. I was like,

I didn't like you hitting me right there off the corner. Yeah. So there's contact right there and it's like, I'm mad, you know? I think that's what that was. And it backfired. And it backfired on him. After the race,

he blamed the spin on himself, which spin? He blamed that on himself. But after this, he gets back on the track and he's racing Connor. I'm going to get there. Yeah. So he blamed. I didn't know which spin he blamed on himself. So he blamed that spin with Zilich on himself.

But then later in the race, they are damn door slamming down the straightaway. And it looks like it's Josevar. He's mostly to blame for it. They come off the corner and he just kind of drives down in the corner. And he runs Connor up the racetrack into turn one and two. There was just a lot going on that I didn't quite understand with Hosevar. And then there was a spin later in the race that it was questionable whether it was intentional or not. I mean, I've spun out on purpose before when my race was falling out of, you know,

when my race was falling out of reach, you get desperate. I'm not I'm assuming or I'm speculating that he did spin on purpose I'm not saying that he did I didn't really get a great look at that last spin but I've seen other guys spin on purpose and I when I when I when I see it I see I suppose I could say because I've done it myself I just wonder though like after the first incident does he need his team to go hey that's on you because it seemed like he's racing aggressive to Connor because he feels like Connor

was in the wrong when he wasn't like is this where he needs his team to help him out a little bit? No, I don't think so. I think he needs a couple of I think he needs a couple of people that he really respects

to say that was dumb. Man Carson is I like Carson Hosevar a lot. This kid is he's a great asset to the industry and I'm trying to think

I'm 50, almost 52 years old and the way that I view the world is different than when I was 24, 25 years old. And it's certainly a different world for a 20-something year old than it was for me. But

like okay when Zillich gets in his left rear and he does this sort of this sort of gesture this body length this sort of swerve thing you just don't need to do it

just gotta not do that just beat him well I mean Hosevar loves a good race what what about what about Zilich hitting him in the left rear wasn't to like like when when do you get to actually

bounce off each other a little bit. Trade a little paint. And that didn't even affect it. And it wasn't, I mean, if it cuts his left rear tire, yeah, you can be madder in hell. But it was just a little slight contact that, that to me, ought to put a smile on Hosevar's face. Yeah, he's like, oh, you want to race like that? We're going to race hard now. That's what I, I mean, every now and then, you go to some of these racetracks where you can have some contact and have a little fun.

I feel like Hosefar would pass like that too. I feel like he'd do that. I wish that it was like acceptable and encouraged to have the kind of contact that Zillich and him had initially off term 4. And that it wouldn't. I think it is, honestly. I mean, but there's, it shouldn't incite this sort of reaction down the straightaway of like, I'm a swirving and tell you, I'm show you that I'm mad. Oh, shit, I spun myself out. the thing with

the thing with Carson is look he had a decent day he ends up finishing on the lead lap in what probably he's one lap down and got lapped right at the end of the race where did he finish 19th

19th so he spun out twice well three times if you count the base laps and, you know, did a lot of Frammon and Baman with guys. Didn't, and ended up finishing on top 20. What position was Ian when that wreck happened? Did you stand on the screen on the list of Zingboard? Not a great. Not a great.

He's like 12th right there. Yeah. It'd have been 12th. Yeah. Not a great day, but not a terrible day. I just, I don't know, man. I feel like he just needs to kind of cut him. out some of the stuff.

During the, yeah, like, let's go, let's go do the best we can do. Like, look at Barry and Bubba. They had a little back and forth,

but, well, I was going to talk about that later in the show. That was fun to watch. Yeah, it was fun to watch, but the, look,

Carson, like I, if I'm, I am a fan. I'm a fan of Carson. I, I want him to get door down a straightaway

and not having a reaction to it. just keep racing man just that's racing that's racing that's damn racing that's the he talks about how he loves the the racing from the 2000s and the broadcasts and how everything was awesome well that's kind of shit that was made it awesome um i mean i wouldn't want to go from 12th to probably 30th right there no fun i don't know that he's even thinking about man if i i'm running 12th maybe I shouldn't take any chances here. Look, I don't know. I just...

Yeah. I don't, I just don't, I just don't, I think it was just a... I don't want to, I don't want him to change, you know, his personality. I love how he races. It's those little things that I don't love. That's like things that there's guys in the field and have, there's guys in the field and there's guys that have been in this sport years ago that you didn't like because they couldn't stop doing those little things.

And you're like, all right, man. After about five years, you're like, and, this guy can't figure it out. This guy can't quit this little bullshit every now and the end that drives me crazy. He's got a win now. He's established more. Like, it's time to take a step. Yeah.

And he's, yeah. And he will. I think he's. Yeah, I don't think he meant to spin out here, but it. Well, of course not. Yeah. but he you know I don't know maybe he thought he was clear but I felt like he there's just too he just got so much too much going on in that rate you shouldn't have

that much happening I think he's doing exactly what you said he's watching his mirror he felt he's looking at him so he's trying to get him off of him he's mad trying to show that he's not happy and it backfired yeah I hate that happen it's going to happen every now and you're going to make mistakes too I'm well the bad part is at the end of the wreck there's other cars sitting there that are in it. Yeah, that's true. That's the bad part. I mean, you see the 22.

The Ligano is in it. There's a couple other cars that were sitting there. Like, now you're hurting other people's races because of that. Well, I thought it was a unfortunate and unnecessary thing. The Josh Barry Bubba Wallace deal. So I'm going to be honest, man. Bubba never ran like the same lap or line twice. during the scenario.

So Josh, Josh is trying to pass Bubba. The 21 to 12, they could get in the corner ridiculously deep. And Bubba was, Bubba was making a lot of adjustments on his entries,

the line he was running. And like a couple of laps before this, Josh just about ran in the back of him. Yeah, he did. Real close. So close. And I think when they go down into turn three and four,

Josh drives down in the corner and buries it down in there. I don't think that Josh meant to hit him. And when Josh realized, so if you commit to the corner really, really hard, look at Zillich, right, when he's trying to miss that wreck. He has to go high into the corner and he goes up there and hits the wall and runs into the three car, whoever that was it spun out up there. 35 cars. Herps.

Yeah, Herps. So Josh has buried it into the corner And I think if Josh gets on the brakes harder To try not to hit the 23 He risks spinning himself out The car tips over on the right front Carries the left rear spins out And so Josh is like

Oh shit I'm gonna hit it You know he knows he's gonna hit him And he knocks a shit out of Bubba Wallace And I think Josh in that moment goes Oh I didn't mean to do that And if you watch Josh The line that he runs into turn one is a, please don't hit me, please don't hit me, please don't hit me.

I was watching that like, oh boy. Josh is like, look right there. He's like, I didn't mean to do that. And he's taking this sort of super defensive line so that the 23 Bubba, if he was really, really mad, doesn't destroy him. And because Josh is sitting there going, I've got to run top 10 today. This is, I got to do it. I've got to keep this sort of narrative going that I belong here, that I belong here, that

I need to keep the conversation around me. I've got to run good. I can't f*** this up. And he got down in the corner, made a mistake. He dove into turn three. Bubba committed to the same line. And Josh is like, and smashes him.

And then... I think he might have... I think he was okay with hitting him. I don't think he meant to hit him that hard. I don't think he made him to hit him that hard either. No. That was... But as soon as he did it, he was like, you know,

he goes by and then. And he's like, but he didn't hesitate right there. Right here he's like, oh, that was harder than I. Right here he's like, that was way harder than I wanted to be. Yep. And now how do I not get my ass wrecked? Because Bubba's sitting there going, you don't know. Bubba might be like, what the fuck was that?

He might have been seeing host of all the moment. Right here, Bubba could erect him and he doesn't. He could have. And Josh is running him hard right there. Yeah. So. I liked it. It's good racing, but it was so funny.

I was kind of laughing when you see the defensive, ultra-defensive line that Josh runs down into turn one. it's a line of, man, I'm going to blow this corner. I'm going to run the worst line I could possibly run through this corner in an attempt to not get crashed. I don't think Bubba was going to wreck him. You don't know. I know.

Because he hit him hard. He hit him hard. Yeah, he didn't just rub him a little bit. It was like, I mean, I don't know, man. Bubba might have hit him just as hard back. And maybe Josh doesn't save his car. Yeah, maybe. You don't know.

Yeah. I think it's an eye for an eye out there. You hit me hard. I want to give it back to you right. way and I think all drivers are similar don't you? Yeah yeah I mean I would think I would hope I thought that was a funny series

of events Do you think that Yeah I know there's some yellow flags that kind of Flip strategy the 12 car had to take two to be able to get his track position back Yeah a few untimely cautions that came out Toward the end of the race that kind of kind of changed everything Yeah it did

And Barry was able to drive back from just inside the top 10 up to third. Look, I think the 12 had the best car. Even though on NASCAR Insights, Josh Barry was number one on speed. I just, I don't know, I just felt like the 12 had, most times throughout the race of 12 was the better race car.

I think the 12 was the best race car. I don't know if that's probably weighed because... That number is probably weighed because of the four tires at the end of the race and all the laps that he ran faster than the 12. Well, he ran whatever that was, that whole last run. He ran most of those laps faster than anyone else on the racetrack. So to your point,

T.J. That's a little Wade. Blaney was second on speed, but spent that whole run on two tires only. Bubba Wallace said this was one of the worst race cars he's had. I'm kind of... I thought it was one of the better ones. I'm kind of surprised by that quote.

but I mean he was solid third because he was at certain points in that last run he was faster than Blaney He was a solid third place car all day At least one of the worst cars ever drove And one of the best cars on the racetrack So anyways just a But a great gutsy run by Bubba Wallace

Yeah great run by Josh Barry Christopher Bell Kyle Larson Ty Gibbs Denny Hamlin all the usual suspect suspects back there in the in the backside of the top 10 so you know Tyler Redick was a bit of a surprise didn't practice very well

goes out there gets the pole had some issues spun out in the race but ended up with a reasonable finish Ryan Priest ran strong but that's the kind of race track where he's got a ton of laps he's a modified king modified's run a lot at New Hampshire and this kind of place where when he was betting on himself

going and running his five races with Joe Gibbs and whatnot, that was one of the racetracks where... Modified race was good, too. Did you see any of it? I didn't. It was good. Did you ever have an incident where you came into pit and your pit crew wasn't ready for you?

No. I mean, the only thing I can think of is maybe a flat tire goes down real quick and they're just kind of scrambling really quick, but not like sitting there eating ice cream. Shout out Noah Gregson. Yeah, great run for Noah. No one's, you know, ever since he announced this deal, they like have ran in the top 20. He was awful.

He had a good day. He had some monster restarts. He was awful all year. And then he announces his deal and he's like, been good. Maybe he's feeling the pressure and now he's like, I don't know, man. But you just, you never know. I mean, you think, man, I'm going to give up on this guy. Maybe he doesn't belong there.

Maybe he feels that. Maybe he's thinking, maybe I don't belong here. Maybe I can't do this. And it just goes to show that they actually are quite talented. They actually do have the ability to run well at that level when everything's working, when everything's clicking along. It's easy to forget how good guys, because Nolo, I mean, heck, he was on a streak here before,

or like homesteads and stuff. Like he was the guy to beat. Do you remember at Haas when he got in a 10 car? He was like 10th left, 12th in points for like the first two thirds of the year or the first third of the year. He rattled off all these top tens and top 15 finishes. Yeah, he was really doing well. Kind of reminds me of that.

Y'all run pretty good with Brad. Yeah, all three cars were, what were we, fourth, fifth, sixth, or fifth, sixth, seventh there for a while? Yeah. Like, yeah, we were, it just got kind of caught on the two and four tire strategies. You're either on the front side of or backside of it. But it was, I mean, that was the fun part of the race, too, was, you know, that and track dry. Let's talk about some off track stuff.

Great, great race, predictable victory for Blaney as he continues to be dominant at New Hampshire. But I love that race, and I saw it got a pretty solid number on the good race pole. What was it? I didn't say it. Mid-80s. Oh, that's really good. Yeah, it was pretty decent. We talked about

one of the things that came up in the conversation this week was rookie of the year eligibility. Corey Haim has been deemed ineligible for the rookie of the year next year. And they talked to Brad Kisalowski and maybe a few other drivers and Brad recalled back when he raced coming into the NASCAR series,

he ran more races that he had a part-time schedule. He had an opportunity to run a lot of races that would deem him ineligible. He valued the opportunity to be on the track over the eligibility for rookie of the year. So he ran the races, foregoing his opportunity to race for rookie of the year. I got a I got a different I got a different take on on this

that maybe a lot of people hadn't even thought of. Would anybody really have a problem if Corey Heim was awarded rookie of the year in this season? No. I mean if you come in regardless of how many races you start I know currently

I believe the rookie of the year is a points-based system on the results of every race. And that's always been a part of it. But I'll go back to 1979 when my dad won the rookie of the year. He missed four races due to breaking his collarbones, missed a handful of races, broke his collarbones at Pocono. He did not beat Joe Milliken in the final point standings. and it was not assured that Dad was the outright rookie of the year. They had a committee or a panel of people that would vote after the last race in Ontario that year

on who would be the rookie of the year. So it was a bit of a point system, and that sometimes would produce the clear-cut, obvious rookie the year. But then you would have these other ones where they would battle and be really, really tight, and the committee would then make a decision, or they could weigh and sway the result. And they gave it to my dad over Joe Milliken, even though Joe had more overall points and was higher at the end of the season in the point system than dad was.

Which I'm fine with. Either way, that's fine. My point is, is like, maybe we need to get back to having there be some voices in the room it's not some, and maybe there is still some of that involved, but let's not just look at results. Let's not just look at top fives, top tens, and all those things. Let's just sit down at the end of the day and go,

all right, man, who's more deserving of this award this year? And I'll be honest with you, I wouldn't have a problem in this particular instance because of the fact that he's came in here, even though he ran a very partial schedule, he won two of those races. And he's legitimately, he is legitimately, a rookie of the year. He's, I mean, a rookie. I take that he's a legit rookie right now. So he qualifies

in my book. And I could, I could understand and would not have a problem if they said, Heim is your rookie of the year. And so do we need, does the guy have to run every single race? If he has an abbreviated schedule, even if it's 8, 10, 12, whatever, if he goes out and wins two of those races? Holy shit. Yeah. That's pretty dramatic. Who are the rookies this year?

Zillich. It's just Zillich. Oh, then that's, what are we doing? And next year, I mean, if it was Corey next year, I mean, who's it even going to be next year? Is there even going to be one? Jesse Love.

Just Jesse? I mean, that's like, well, so that's the problem with the rookie of the year is a lot of times that there's only one driver. So it's like, and that's okay. Look, I mean, every year, we had a really great class in 79.

You had a Harry Gant. You had a couple of guys. And so sometimes you're going to have really amazing classes. Sometimes you're going to have one single guy. And that's okay. It just is. It's just going to have to be okay. All right.

But maybe we need to kind of rethink the eligibility. I don't love the idea that you could run 15 races and still be eligible the next year. I think that that 15 race schedule was your rookie year. That's a lot. You know? Or 10. He's, Corey Himes, a rookie this year, in my mind. This is his rookie year. He's running off races now. He's won two of them. I like the idea that, I think the limit's seven, I'm not quite sure.

But I like the idea that like, hey, man, if you run over seven, you're now eligible for the rookie of the year. year. Yeah. All right. If you want to run more than seven, if you're going to, you know, if you're going to make a count. If you're going to stay under seven, then you move that eligibility to the following season. But if you run more than that, by all means, make it count, go out there and make an

argument for yourself as this year's rookie of a year. And he would, in my mind, likely win it. So, you know, that's kind of where I think that should be. I also want to say, could they please consider bringing the yellow stripe back? Like taking the yellow stripe off the cars, that was such a, I don't know, that was, to me, that mattered. I don't, when we took the yellow stripe off the car, the yellow stripe was always your signifier. Signifier, but also, I mean, it was, it was, it was very symbolic to, you know, to be being able to remove that, right?

I've sort of, I've earned this opportunity to take this. Yeah. Right. You put the time in. Yeah. And now we don't have that identifier out there. And it's just, I don't know, man. I don't, I never, I never understood the decision to get rid of that.

And if we really want rookie of the year to matter, let's, let's put a banner on the windshield even. If it ain't a bumper sticker, it's a banner on the windshield. fine, but something that's an identifier for that particular driver on the racetrack and for the fan at home. It's also a little bit for the drivers and competitors on the track. That was actually the reason why the yellow bumper was added or the stripe on the bumper so a driver would know, hey, this guy is a rookie in front of you.

Be careful. Because you would go to Daytona, you would go to some of these races back in the 60s, 70s, there'd be a ton of freaking rookies out there, especially in the Bush series. You'd have a ton of yellow bumpers out there. And you needed to know to be careful around them fools. You know, because a lot of these guys had never ran in a big track like this.

And so there was a real reason. That reason has certainly eroded away in recent years. And so I understand why they were like, you know what, do we need this? But I think for the fans, I love the identifier. I love, especially when there's a great rookie crop, right? Especially when you've got four, three or four guys out there,

they're legit contenders to try to go win it. Yeah. Or, you know, when you do have that Corey Hymn that's running that, you know, seven or ten or twelve race schedule, I want the identifier on his car. I think it had been cool. He goes out there with the banner on the windshield and win San Diego. That's what I say. If he has that bump or something, you see it.

That banners in every photo for the rest of time. And then if you watch the race 20 years from now, you're going to be like, I forgot he was a rookie. Yes. The winning die cast. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Lots of good reasons to bring it back.

Some sort of signifier. But I feel like that that, you know, that's kind of my take or where I stand on it. It's not really a whole lot far removed from where we really are today. But I, But I feel like in my scenario, at least Corey Hime gets a chance to win the rookie of the year in one year or the other. You should have to like apply for it. What it sounds like.

Well, he is because of the way the rule is now. I think you should answer that. Go ahead. The way the rule is now, he has made himself ineligible to ever. Yeah. Try to win it. In my situation or in the idea that I applied, he at least has a shot at it one year or the other, right?

Which he should. Which this year, I think you would give it to him. I think he, oh, how do you not? If he was eligible this year? How do you not? Yeah, you would. He's won two races. Yeah.

I mean, does he have to run the whole schedule? Rookies aren't supposed to win, first of all, like that. I don't know. The other thing that talking about Zilich, he makes the announcement that he's going to HMS in 2028. There was a lot of, there was a lot of conversation around this that was kind of surprising to me. People were like, what?

This is so strange. He's going to go drive for trackhouse one more year, then go to Hendrick. Hendricks doing this months or over a calendar year in advance. And like this had never happened before. And I mean, there's multiple past circumstances where this absolutely did happen. At Hendrick. Yeah.

Yeah, like Casey Kane. Yeah, Mark Martin had one more year on his contract. I'm going to say my, I might be wrong about this, but my feeling was that Rick would have put Casey in the car if Mark would have said, what I'm going to get out. But Mark said, I got one more year. I think I'll run it. And Rick said, well, all right. I got to figure out what to do with Casey because he's under contract with me. So he went and ran Red Bull for one year. Yeah. You know, so when a guy's available, if you're an owner and a guy, if you're an owner and you're able to go out and get who you want,

and that driver is literally sitting there available. If you don't get him, someone else is going to do it. And so they did their homework. They weighed the pros and cons of their idea of Corey Day, what they think they've got to do with him to get him to where they want him to be. They've got all their other drivers and what they want from them and how, you know, they're trying to resign Chase and all this. So they're sitting there and they're doing all their due diligence

and they're doing their homework on Zillich. You know, he had this incredible O'Reilly season, and now he's struggling and looks really bad. And I'm sure they dove into that to figure out, right, man, if he comes over here, can we fix it? Can he compete in our stuff? So they did their whole. homework and they decided to go for it. But if they don't, someone else is going to sign him.

For sure. Yeah. And he'll get swept up. And so, you know, we went through this whole conversation about what does Justin Marks do, so we won't get into all that. But I was really surprised that people are so taken aback that this would happen so far in advance of the actual opportunity for him to get behind the wheel of 48. I think fans don't realize, though, especially NASCAR, like how far in advance NASCAR teams are operating, whether it's true. drivers, whether it's sponsors, like, this doesn't happen a lot like this. I mean, a little bit, but not like to this magnitude. I don't think. Well, you don't, I don't know, man. Like, what does this do to, like, the situation at trackhouse next year? Like, how to, like, does that not?

He's going to race there? I know, but, like, doesn't, is, does it change, does it change the dynamic of the team a little bit, knowing he's already leaving? Yes. I mean, it's going to be, people would like to call it a lame duck year. But look, I mean, Connor's going to go to the racetrack drive and the 8-8 car for Justin Marks next year, hoping to run well and have a good time. He's not going to just mail it in.

He's a kid, and he wants to get better. He's not, I mean, a 40-year-old veteran might mail it in, might just go, fuck it. But he's not, you know, he's young and motivated and driven and wants to prove that, you know, that he can do it. He wants to prove that Rick made the right decision and go into that year. And Justin's motivated, right, to draw interest of other drivers, potential people that could come drive that 88.

And they may sign somebody today. I'm sure they've already got a list. Yeah, they're probably talking to guys right now that they want in that car in 2028. They've probably already been talking to people once they knew. Yeah. You know, I would hope. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's a little weird and awkward, certainly.

That's kind of what I was meaning. Like, is it going to be? It's awkward. It's awkward, but I think they're all motivated to make it work. Now, will it be Rosie and a whole lot of fun in the competition meetings and all that, and all the partnership meetings and things that they'll do together? It's not. It's not going to be ideal.

But I think Justin's a professional. He's got Justin's dis dis... disposition and Connors, I think, well, they're professional. They're not going to, you know, be, they're not going to be petty about it. Does it make it harder to give him, you know, the SVG info that they've built, the notebook that they've built over time? You know what I mean? Is it, does it harder to give him that info, knowing he's leaving to a tough competitor?

Well, I think that they could put a car underneath him without him really being able to go recognize what it actually is, you know, to take said information. It's not like he's an engineer or a crew chief. Yeah, it's not like the setups now. He's not got a laptop. He's not got data. He's not got information. He's not going, oh, man, I've got these files or this information or these, you know,

he doesn't have all that. I will say this. I used to have, I have every setup of every race. Yeah, you've a binder. I have a binder. I've got every setup of every race that I ran at Hendrick. They used, we used to get like a... I remember you used to keep it.

Yeah, we used to get an email, and it had all this information in it, and it had the setup of the race car. And I've printed every one of those out, and I have them saved in my house. And so... For a while, those were easier to read. Then they got harder and harder to read. Yeah, there's a lot more information on them as time went on.

But, and I was doing that because... Because, you know, it was good to be able to go back and look at last year or the year before, and I didn't have to ask the crew chief for that information. I could just do it myself and say, man, you know, we're going to Richmond with a 300 and a 600 and a back. Last year we ran a two and a five. Why are we stiffer? You know, so he may have had that type of access. I don't know if they still.

I don't know if they still do that today in the information that you get as a driver. and you would know maybe more than I would. Yeah, I mean, I still think most drivers, I think they're pretty tuned in on it. Okay. Well, maybe they would need to adjust some of that in terms of what they're sending to him, what he physically has access to.

Maybe he doesn't get that setup sheet anymore. Yeah. And that's an easy, but, you know, that's an easy box to uncheck. Sure. And I'm sure Connor could understand that. Now, you know, because I don't know that Connor's sitting there

looking at the setup sheet going, damn they're going to put that spring in the right rear this weekend you know he's just kind of taking their word for it i mean to me i i feel like connor's smarter enough he probably knows what a good road he probably knows the basics of a good road course set up already i would you know from what SVGs taught him and brought there i feel like he already probably has a good baseline yeah um there uh was also announcement for rcr austin hill to drive the 33 car that went out a lot of, you know, a lot of wild feedback over that. A lot of people were hoping Barry might get that opportunity.

But I think you have to look at what Austin Hill and RCR have done together, how long they've been together, the relationship that they have created and developed. He's earned that opportunity. Well, even if you don't feel like that he's earned it, I think that you've got to understand that this guy has been working in that building. they have created a relationship of trust and value. They just like Austin Hill. And you're not going to throw away the relationship that you have

and all of the years in equity invested on a, you know, on a on the chance that, you know, you bring Josh in and it works, right? I think Josh would have been a grade higher. If I had a cup team, I would call Josh Barry today to go racing. But I also know that I'd have to consider Justin Algar for that seat because Justin's been here for all these years. He's done all these things we've asked him to do.

So that's similar to Austin Hill and RCR where you just got to remember, man. they they Austin Hill's like family he's part of their he's part of their DNA yes and he's won a lot of races with them they got a great background together history together while while I would have been happy that Josh Barry as a Josh Barry fan I would have been happy that Josh was getting an opportunity I would have said damn I can't believe they they just cut Austin Hill go it would have been surprising yeah so I'm I think that they did the the right thing uh especially for them. And I'll be honest, man, Austin Hill drove that thing up into the top 20. He was fast. The three and the 33 didn't look good. They haven't really had a lot of great speed.

He drove that car into the top 20. It is hard at this level. He is doing a respectable job. And if he can get better, this will look like the right decision. And I think, you know, time will tell. but TV probably didn't show it, but when the track was drying out that first run, he was one of the fastest cars. He drove up into the top 20. He might have got some track position on pit road at points, but I think he also,

and he passed a lot of cars in beginning that race. If you want to go back and look at an onboard, his would be pretty good because he did pass. I noticed it. Like, he was fast. Yeah. Just a couple of more things I want to do before we move on to the next segment.

The Cars Tour raced at Anderson, past weekend. Incredible race for the late model stocks, a solid pro late model race as well. A couple of things I want to point out. I raced there last year, we had a great crowd, wondering going back this year what kind of crowd we would get. They did not disappoint.

The people in that area around Anderson, South Carolina, came out. We had a fantastic crowd. There's a bit of a college. There's some colleges close by in the region. We had a college kind of quasi-college section down in turn one on the grass bank. They brought an energy unique to that race that I haven't seen at any other race that we've been to this year. So great job to Anderson for the track owners, promoters, their marketing and everything.

They had a fantastic crowd there, and that directly affects the race that you see on the racetrack. When the drivers are standing there and they can see how many people are excited. decided to be there. And there was a lot of rowdy energy coming from that group down in term one. The drivers get in the cars knowing they want to be the one to put on the show tonight. And so we had a great finish. We had an issue on the racetrack with Landon Huffman and Tyler Rife. And so Tyler runs a limited schedule.

Landon runs full time with us. Landon is on YouTube, a lot of great content, does a podcast. and he's very vocal and opinionated about all the things going on in the cars tour. Couldn't tell. Yeah, he works hard on his race car too all week long. Anyways, he's put himself in his great position. So he's out there racing, kind of struggling a little bit with his brakes. Tyler Rife going down the back straightaway, drives up over his left rear.

Like, it was a blank mistake. Put any adjective you want in there. small, huge, massive. It was a misjudgment. It was a mistake. Tyler Rife was not trying to wreck him intentionally, but he just didn't turn into the corner. And when it was time to go into the corner,

Landon Huffman did. And Tyler drives all over the left rear, spins Lannon out, destroys both cars, really. Landon's out of the race. It wasn't an intentional crash. You're not going to penalize or suspend a driver for up, even though you don't like it and it happens sometimes

Landon ran over the 16 car of Chad McCombie at Tri County he f***ed up it happens and so they come down pit road

landing gets out and goes down to Rice car gets in the window I don't know if he swung on him or not but he screams at him a little bit they're screaming at him

each other it didn't look like he swung at him and then he kicks the door well it kicks the door first okay either way You got a good look at it then, pal. I was watching it.

Yeah. So he kicks the door on the race car. And once, twice maybe. At least once. And then they all get yank pulled away by their shirts and carrying on. Sheriff show up, which is good. Always great to have law enforcement on hand in case. Because sometimes, man, these things can turn big.

You get crew guys in there swinging. They can get ugly. Jack handles. You've got to have those guys there. And we're thankful for that. I wasn't worried about that going down with Lannon or anything. But I was a little surprised. Um, he goes down there and kicks the guy's car.

And you got a dilemma now. That pissed. That would piss me off. You got a dilemma. Look, Landon's car is destroyed. I mean, it's not. The left rear rear is tore up a little bit, but he said it bent the, it bent the rear end housing, left rear tires jammed up in the battery box.

They got that car at the shop now tore all apart. Maybe having to put a rear clip on it. I don't know. Either way. Either way, whatever. He's got a lot of work to do before he goes to Florence. But you got a dilemma now. a series.

You also have a precedence. Anytime anybody goes into another guy's pit, we have had to penalize them. We cannot have people. It's mainly crew members you're trying to keep from doing this because the crew members don't know any better. They'll go down there and swing. They don't think straight a lot. They'll throw a ranch or jack handle.

It could get ugly. Yeah. So you have to penalize the guys when they do it to stop from it happening at the next race. I don't mind drivers going down there. and raising hell at each other. It's fine. I don't mind. If you want to go to...

I don't think that's a problem. And Tyler Rife went down to Huffman's pit later and tried to apologize and they got into another argument. So I don't mind. You're at an end field. It's very confined and tight. You're going to run into each other.

Well, it's going to happen. You're going to walk by each other's pits inadvertently sometimes. And so I didn't mind that Huffman went down there, but, you know, where do you draw the line in terms of him kicking the car? Is that a... I don't think there's anything wrong with the conversation at all.

Yeah. I mean, if you're mad, you're going to tell the guy and he needs to know it, then maybe you get a phone call in a week or you're talking again later. But any sort of contact to me is... I mean, what if he smashed a windshield in? Or, you know what I mean? I just don't think. I think you draw the line of any type of damage or contact or whatever, like to me is...

Yeah. If you're trying to prevent stuff. Now, what's next? I mean, another guy spends another guy out. Can he go down there and... And like I said, do something to his car. You're damaging property. Yeah, we had a couple years ago or last year, we had a guy,

we had a crew member climb into a car. We've had guys try to reach into cars yanking wire. Oh, I saw that. It's kind of a few years ago. I saw it happen. And so, I mean, it's super dangerous because then, you know, you got the guy in the car is trying to drive away while the guy is hanging inside the car. You know, so that's the kind of thing you're trying to avoid.

What if, you know, while Landon's in the car, Tyler just decides to pull away. That's dangerous. Yeah, and it runs over his leg or his foot or something. So you're trying to, you can't just say, you can't just go, Landon, don't do that again. Well, you could, and you hope that he wouldn't, but I'm good friends with Landon, and he still went and did it. You know what I mean? like he still did it knowing that I didn't want him to do that.

Yeah. I mean, to me, it's just you got to take faces and names off of people here. And if this guy goes, if this person goes in there and does something, and it's black and white across the line, then you've got to do something about it. Yeah, it's tough, the limit of being. We had a really great race. That's one thing that kind of stunk.

That's for one, great for the other. Well, and at the end of the night, we had, we had, Leap Williams car was leading the race and had a flat tire, you know, a couple laps to go and had a 20 car length lead was going to win. Yeah, he was gone. Chase Burgesson? Yes.

And then Carson Lofton ended up winning the race. He, we, it was a pretty wild race. Second and third were battling. It was a great race going on there too. We had a. Connor Jones and Carson Lofton. Yeah, we had one restart that both drivers on the front row were sent back a row. How do you do that?

So the lead car was Carson Lofton. Yep, inside or outside? Inside. Okay. He overslows. In my opinion, our opinion, he might, I mean, if he's sitting here right now, he's probably like, no, I didn't. I didn't oversaw. We're watching it.

We thought he oversloughed. As he's overslowing, Ronnie Bassett Jr. there's like now a half a car length ahead in the launch. Well, when they both launch, the 04's ahead, and by time they get to 1, 04 is almost totally clear. And I'm like, I thought for sure they were going to put Bassett back a row. But Danny, my guy up there in the booth, he's like, both of them. You got the guy on the inside playing games,

you got the guy on the outside that didn't hold his responsibility. because I think if Ronnie Ronnie can't help the guys slowing down but he can give it back he can give it back right and we can get into turn one even and I think Ronnie doesn't lose his front row's position

yeah you can't be too bad about it yeah he saw he he was giving an advantage and then took it and so too big of an advantage yeah yeah but man my guy Danny was like no they're both going back I'm like all right I mean that hell yeah that's great but no bulls

from now on I know that's the way you've got to be strict with it now. That's good. He set the tone. I thought it was good. I mean, yeah. But anyways, congratulations to Carson Lofton. He got his, I think, first win this year.

Connor Jones second, Chase Bergerston was third. He was the one that was driving Lee's car. Had the race won with a couple laps to go. Next race is at Florence on the fourth. This is Friday night before Darlington. If you got tickets and you're going out to Darlington, you're camping at the big speedway and you're there for that race. the Cup race and all the NASCAR stuff there,

10 miles away, Florence Motor Speedway, Friday night, come see us. It's a small racetrack, and you never know who you'll see racing with the cars toward Florence. Since the race, the cup guys are so close, we may have a few of them come join us.

We'll have to see. You foreshadowing? He's manifesting. It's happened about every time we've ran at Florence. Yeah. Yeah. Florence's such a good track, too. I'm meeting with a cup guy Thursday to introduce him to a car owner to see if we can work out something for him to go compete.

There could be as many as three Cup drivers at Florence Friday night. We'll see. Maybe a trucker there. I'm sure Caden Honeycutt's going to show up and race. I don't know. They got truck race over at Darlington? Friday. Don't think there is, is there?

What's going on at Darlington? Friday. I think it's so... Here we go, we got a schedule. Their next one's Bristol. Yeah, I was going to say, I think it's just O'Reilly on Saturday. Cup Sunday.

Yeah. Perfect. So, yeah, if there's no truck race, then I bet you Caden Honeycuts's over there racing with us as well. Even if there was a truck race, Caden would probably figure out how to get on the run, yeah. Yeah. All right.

Well, this segment of Dirty Air is brought to you by Johnny Morris and Bass Pro Shops. Thank you, Johnny, for bringing us this week's dirty air segment. Don't miss the fall hunting classic going on now with great deals on the gear you need for the season ahead. You can visit your local bass pro shops

or cabella's. Bass pro shops is America's best outdoor retailer. I always gets excited this time of year. I've got some land and I'll go bow hunting this year sometime in October or November, maybe both. And so I went over to the local Bass Pro Shop, met with the Botek, and got me a new bow.

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Take advantage of the fall hunting classic through August the 26th. Hey, this is Dellenhart 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. All right, so as we told you earlier in the show, we're going to have Lee Pulliam join us today. And with him is Jody Miesomer.

Jody's a crew chief in the O'Reilly series. and that kind of gives away our bit of our information or what Lee's here to tell us. But Lee, you called me last week, and you said you had some news. So why don't you share with everybody what's going on? Yeah, so the moment I worked for my whole career, right? So I got the opportunity to drive to 87 for Peterson Racing in 2027,

and we're going get things going here at Las Vegas to start it off. So I get to race this year at Vegas and Martinsville and just surreal for me. I mean, it's what I worked my whole career for. I went a long time without racing and

yeah, it's hard for me to believe, man. It's all come full circle and a big part of it was you an opportunity that you provided me to run to Martinsville. And it just opened the doors for a lot of cool things to happen. And a lot of people you knew what I could do and you knew what to expect of me and it just kind of

opened a lot of other people's eyes as well man that's incredible so um when did this conversation start so after martinsville you know I had quite a bit of people interested in me after that performance and um so you know things kind of I was working hard trying to work a deal with you and you know try to see if we could run some more races here and really I'd put all my focus that way and when it looked like, you know, you know, things weren't quite going to work out, you know, I just kind of started feeling people out and different options. And, you know, the guy, I have a lot of friends at RCR and the guys that, you know, Danny Lawrence was, was huge in being an advocate for me. Really? He loved my story. And, you know, I think, you know, I sat down in

office, when I sat down in office with Danny, you know, one day we were, yeah, it just kind of hit me. I'm like, I am like your dad was my hero going up. I'm like, dude, I'm sitting here at a place that Dale Sr. raced out of and made such a great career out of and sitting in this office that he probably sat in. And, you know, it didn't, that whole experience was just unbelievable for me. And, you know, Danny said, hey, I think I got an opportunity, a guy that's an alliance team with us.

And I think I can, you know, I think you would be a great fit for the team. So Danny introduced them to me and just kind of how it went and it got rolling. So Doug, you know, he was – he's – Doug and the whole team has been supportive of me, and they like my story, and it just kind of worked out. How do you fit into this, Jody? I've watched Lee at Myrtle Beach, South Boston. I'm a late model guy. And not a whole lot of experience in my stocks, but super late models.

And I still get to run my super truck once or twice a year. So I know what Lee could do. And when I was asked about Lee, I was a really big advocate for him. Yeah, it's pretty incredible that this is the way things have worked out. You know, we kind of live in a time now where we don't see these kind of opportunities, you know, given and as often as we'd like anyways. All of us armchair quarterbacks or armchair racers, we all think we know who belongs where and who should be getting this chance. or that chance. Lee, you

raised slate models and we went, I learned, I already knew you'd done a lot of winning, you know, but when we went out to do the Smartesville deal, we put together some social content around the lead-up to that. And it really did drive home

the career that you had had, you know. Hundreds of wins around all types of tracks, track championships, and all types, you know, national championships, winning multiple big races all around the southeast. And then you had decided that you were done, right? You had moved, you'd sort of shifted yourself into the car owner position.

You were running a business as an owner in the cars tour, and you weren't behind the wheel of race car for six years. Yeah, a long time. It was over. And it was tough. Yeah. Yeah. Fortunately, you know, speedwalking through this process,

because you've been on the show and everybody can go back and listen to that episode and hear all about your story. And it's a great one. I think, you know, would you credit Brandon Queen? He's not going to run your car at Martinsville. There's some funding available. You're presented with the opportunity to actually go to Martinsville and race. Isn't that somewhat how the story turned out to get you back behind the wheel?

Yeah, basically. Well, really it started off. My dad was sick. Oh, that's right. You know, so I made a promise to him in the hospital. Hey, Dad, like, if you'll fight through this, I'll find the funds to go run Martinsville. And Butterbean got the opportunity to run the truck at Kansas. So it just kind of worked out. His sponsors were like, hey, don't worry about funding. We're going to just. Go race. We're just going to pay for you to drive, you know, Brendan's car. So that's how it all worked out.

Now you're back behind the wheel. Yeah. Yeah, so I run that race and I actually went a whole other year without racing. And I just wasn't satisfied with how I'd done at Martensville. I mean, I was good, but I wasn't fighting for the win. I was just top 10 all day, you know, which is 80 cars. It's hard to do. You hadn't drove in six years.

So I decided, man, I was going to work out and try to get in better shape for next year. And it was pretty cool, man. You lost a ton of weight. Yeah, I worked really hard. So I've been, I lost. I mean, I was probably in the worst shape of my life a year ago, and now I'm probably in one of the best shapes of my life. So I lost a lot of weight, and I put a bunch of muscle on.

So, like, I did, I've been working out really hard and eating right and just, just being all in. So I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life, and I focused hard on that because, you know, I feel like that matters at the end of these races. I feel like it matters to the sponsors, and I just want to be the best version of me. So you go out and run. run Martinsville in our car. You created that opportunity as much as you want to give credit to others. You created that opportunity for yourself and you did a really, really good job. And as you mentioned,

we were trying to figure out, you know, what's the next thing? What else do we do? We ended up running a Triple Crown together this year, which we're not done with that. We still got Martinsville to go. But the, you know, you get this opportunity. and you said that you're locked in for 27 next year? Is that a sure thing? Yep. We locked in for 27. And like I said, you put paper, you put ink to paper?

Yes, sir. You signed it on the dotted line? We're going to get it done. Who are the people that you'll be representing on the racetrack? I see some new logos. So Doug owns three-dimensional. And so they are based out of Detroit, near Detroit. at Michigan area.

And they do a lot of work for, I mean, SpaceX, different automobile manufacturers. They do, they do tons of stuff. You look them up, three-dimensional.com, and it's pretty neat, the things that they do. And they do it in large-scale quantities, too. They can do anything. So that's going to be, you know, our main sponsor. And then, you know, some of my partners are going to be on for a few races. So we'll have Folsom Fence Supply.

repair, Folsom Falsam Fence Supply on board, Best Repair Company, and also Carolina drilling. Nice, man. Well, you said you're going to race at Vegas this year. That'll be the first ever mile and a half he ever ran? It will be. What are you doing to prepare? So I've watched a race several times from the spring. And, you know, just going to, you know, I'm going to get some in-car camera stuff and study all that stuff.

And talk to people, lean on people, different. people about things. Who do you talk to? Do you, you know, with the alliance with RCR, do you go to Austin Hill? Do you go to Jesse Love? Do you know, do you call up some of these guys junior murder sports you got relationships with? Who do you talk to? Yeah, I think it's all of them, really, you know, just lean on them. I think me and Allgaier become pretty close here to, you know, and he's been very good to me. It's got a few laps. Yeah, absolutely. So he's one I'll trust a lot, you know, and like you said, Austin and Jesse being at RCR. So it's, It's cool because I got a lot of people in my corner. And, you know, Corey Haim, I mean, I can trust him because he's like a little brother to me. That's right. You know, I pretty much, you know, raised him through his young years. So, you know, I got a lot of people in my corner like that that I can lean on.

Who else have you shared this information with? Like, have you talked to Corey? So I've kept it very quiet. Yeah. So it's very, been very minimal. So you're one of the few that knew before today. And how did your family react? They were excited.

So I think all of them were emotional, you know, like I think it's still kind of hitting them because they know to grind it. I've been through my, for my entire life, you know. So this moment is something I worked for and just, you know, for me, it's still just, it's still hitting me, you know, it's, it just doesn't, you know, until I go to that race track, it just still seems surreal. Yeah. No, it does.

I feel that, man. and I can tell the emotion is as genuine as it comes. I think that you're going to be really surprised by how many people are going to be in your corner for next year. Not only the race you'll run this year as well, but knowing that you're going to get this opportunity, and it's going to have so many people wanting it to go well and wanting you to really realize the success that we all know you're capable of. So, man, it's going to be a pretty damn cool deal.

How do you go to Daytona? Where do you walk into Daytona next year? Oh, wow. You're like, that's going to be, when I drove a dash, there's nothing like driving in that place and knowing you're going to run there. So you got a lot to look forward to. I'm super excited. We'll have you tuned up. You'll be ready to go.

Yeah. No, I'm super excited. You'll be ready to get right in the draft by that point. Yeah. I will. I told you. I said, give me any restrictive play advice you can. Oh, I will.

We'll be talking all winter. Yeah. You'll be ready. Are you doing anything else the rest of this year? I know you said you're running Vegas and Martinsville. Are you going to attend any other races? Are you going to go with the teams at all, you know what I mean? Are you going to start going to some of these tracks now and watching?

So I know for sure I'm going to Darlington because we race Florence that weekend. So I have to fulfill the obligations this year that I promised, you know, through LPP. So it makes it a little tough to go every week. But any time we have an off week, I'll be at the race track with the guys. You almost pulled off the victory with Berkison this weekend in Anderson, hell of a race, great crowd. I really enjoyed watching on Flo, but I know that you guys were a little disappointed, but he did such a great job. He really did. His post-race interviews and everything, really, he was actually really solid. He was a really solid. He's a great kid and a great family.

And actually, the Burgess family may be on the car a little bit next year, too. So that's pretty cool. But, no, I'm very proud of him. I mean, that was only his second cars to a race. Yeah. So we won with him at Tri-County the week before. And, uh, You know, just, it was heartbreaking. I seen it sparking with about 10 to go, and I knew a tire was going down. And we were talking about it on Channel 2 with the spotter. And I was like, man, just, let's just hope that it holds up. It was a slow leap.

It was, yeah. But the last two laps, that thing was about on the realm. He did a good job, like of even getting the car home in one piece like that. He did a really good job. He did. I was proud of him that he didn't cause a big wreck coming to the checkered flag. I texted him after that. I'm like, I cannot believe they didn't wreck.

Is he going to, is he going to drive the car? more? So he's going to run, our plan is to run him full time in the tour next year. So I'll keep LPP going and just cut back to one car because with me being gone next year, I'm going to be fully dedicated into the O'Reilly deal. But my guys can handle one car out in the shop. That's music to my ears. Yeah. As a car store guy. Yes. I love hearing that. We need you, buddy. We need you. I love being a partner. You're going to be needed it. You'll be spread thin. You're going to be needed it. You're going to be needed everyone. where next year.

What are the thing about them restart calls? I'm just kidding. All right, buddy. Well, I appreciate you coming through today. Jody, thank you so much for being here. I'm excited for you guys. You know, you're going to have a lot of fans in your corner. You just wait.

You don't even know how excited people are going to be able to hear this news. And so, yeah, good luck. I'll call us up. Anything we can do to help you get ready for Vegas. We'll do everything we can, buddy. I appreciate you guys. You bet you, man. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. All right, everybody, it's this time of the month for the Ultimate Racing Collector. Presented by Lionel Racing, the official diast of NASCAR Lionel Racing, is your go-to source for all of your racing diacast needs. Make sure you go to check out their latest pre-orders at LionelRacing.com, and we have this month's winner. It's Tyler McLean. Let's take a look at Tyler's collection.

We see a lot of sheet metal, A little Chase Elliott Fender, maybe. I think so. There's some Mountain Dew. Got some vintage stuff here. Oh, man, got a little football, hockey. Green Bay Packers fan. Yep, Green Bay Packers.

What do you call them? What are those things? Yeah, those. Oh, look at that. Number three collection. Oh, that number three looked like I've been racing at the dirt track. Then his die cast, a little Harvick and. shrew

Gregson Chase Earnhardt there's his other it's a good little combo right there oh little Earnhardt autograph some more diecasts here

Harvick Larson Little Lee A lot of There you go Got that gold one I seen that gold one That's a great picture

See that one a lot Signed a lot of those photos And then the old racing tire from the throwback race it looked like at Darlington. Dale Earnhardt and Little Lee autograph. There you go. And more diecast. Oh, more of my diecast. Awesome. And Harvix. I like it. Man, look at the collection. Look at the

collection. I mean, he's not missing any of them. He's got the old Richmond 8 car. Yep. Some more Harvick stuff, Chase Elliott. He's kind of a fan of a lot of different. drivers. There's some more I run car stuff.

I love it. Yeah, that's pretty cool there. More Harvick stuff. Nice. And this is going to keep going.

We've got more and more stuff to look at. Now he's got, oh, he's got his tower, his rotation tower. So you put your

best in here. It's not. Look at the cover on that one. There's like a car cover on it. You put your best stuff in this thing right here.

Look at him. He's proud of these. You got some autographs. These look like they're all autographed. I have one of those as well,

one of those towers, every car in there on one side is autographed. This is a good case. Yeah, he's got a lot of autographs. Yep. This is going on and on. Look at his little mini motor. You can buy those and put those together. It's actually pretty neat.

A little model kit. And it turns, it moves. You can see the pistons moving. Well, he's not done. We got a little special display for Dad, signed autographed on the roof, the Bass Pro Shop car. We've got a nose. It looks like a... That's like your car.

Yep. Oh, number 88. And then that 88 was a Mountain Dew car. It's a Charlotte tire probably, right? Oh, the helmet. Is that a Brady helmet? Who is that? I didn't make it this front of the video.

I would have not picked him if I saw the Michigan helmet. More sheet metal. More sheet metal. All pinned to the wall. Heck, yeah. Oh, dear. Nice buck. There's a deer, yeah.

Awesome. All right, man. Hey, Tyler, great video. That was a long one. We loved it. We liked looking at all that stuff. I'm a big die-cast guy, so I love seeing everybody's collection. Try to look in there for anything that maybe I want to add to my collection.

If you want to do that, you've got to go to the latest pre-orders at lionelracing.com. Thank you again, Tyler, and everyone else who sent in photos and videos trying to win this month's Ultimate Racing Collector presented by Lionel Racing. We're doing this every month. You get another shot. Just stay glued to our social medias here at Dirtymo Media, and you'll get your chance to come back and win again. All right, everybody.

It's Dale Jr., and you're here for the Asch Jr. segment of the show. We're live. I see all the folks starting to file in. So thank everybody that's here now and that'll be here later. It's got 53 tuned in right now. Hopefully we can get that way up. But I'm going to hear with T.J. and the Asked Junior segment, as usual, is brought to you by Xfinity.

And they are waving the red flag on Internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. You get the speed and reliable Wi-Fi that you need, locked in at one price for five years. No surprises, no late yellows, just straight to Victory Lane. We have a winner, and it's Xfinity. Imagine that. So seeing everybody rolling in here.

Getting, yeah, there we go. All these Travis fans. We've had a good show. I do want to tell you all, coming out later today when this show is released, there is a fantastic major announcement. Really good. Really good announcement.

There is a driver announcement. A driver announcement. Yeah. Let's get that out there. 3 p.m. Get everybody speculate. 3 p.m. 3 p.m. today.

Who could it be? Man, you're going to love this one. Opinions have varied over the last several announcements. This one, I think, will be unanimously loved. And if you don't love it, that's on you. Yeah. Anyhow, we've got hopefully some good questions today. So go ahead, Travis.

I see some people talking about IROC. What did you think of that race over the weekend? So I didn't get to really watch that race. but I saw a post on social media from Greg Wallace, who is Rusty's son. Rusty drove in the race. I think it was Greg who posted that. Maybe, probably. But he's like, man, nobody was going to beat that HMS built rocket.

Someone put that in the chat too. So the idea, right, is that Ray Evernham, and Ray's going to be so pissed. I'm going to get a text in a minute. He's going to be like, we do work on. The idea is that Ray gets. keeps all these cars tuned up, right? And they ship them all to the racetrack and all the drivers show up and hop in them and just go have fun.

But old Jeff Gordon, more than likely, took his car to the house, did a little backyard, you know, garage work on it. Had the boys at HMS, you know, tune it up a little bit. So, I mean, apparently he drove through the field. Last time they raced at 10 tents, him and Kurt Bush had a brawl. a brawl?

Like a fight, a good race. Yeah, like on the track. Like it was close. It was dicey. I don't know if I'd use the word brawl. They had a brawl. They had a battle. No, a bra means they're like,

throwing punches. No, they weren't fighting. Of course they weren't. And this time, it wasn't much of a bunch of a battle. So, Jeff. Come on, man. He went back to the shop. He did.

You guys need to work on this little bit. Yeah. Y'all got me working too hard. To tune the rest of them down or mine up. This needs to be easier. Yeah, I'm sure they had her handling pretty good. Clay here in the chat wants to know, would you trade any of your 500 wins for another crown jewel? No.

The 500 is the biggest race. No. I couldn't do it. I thought you were saying a championship. I might trade one for a championship. Oh, I think that's an easy one. Yeah. I thought that was the question.

So would I trade it for any other win? No. like I my the reason is is like it got instilled in me at a young age and all through my dad's career that the Daytona 500 was the most sought after win right because dad wanted it badly he had everything else but that right and where you got so close so close so many times heartbreak right around the finish line so close and so much heartbreak and so and I'm it's imprinted on me it's like man Daytona 500's hard to win and it is real important to win one. And so, you know, when I finally got one, oh four, I was like, damn, all right. I got that quick, you know, early in my career. Crap. Nice. I don't have to go through this sort of 20-year thing of, man, am I ever going to win it? Maybe I won't. And then many years went by and I thought, crap, I'd like to win another one. That was pretty fun. Like having two. You know, there's not many things I could ever do in this sport that my dad hadn't done a lot, right?

But if I won another Daytona 500, I'd have one more Daytona 500 than him. And so, you know, winning that second one, especially with Steve, you know, sort of realizing, you know, the success that me and him could have together. Super cool. I wouldn't trade either one of those wins. Makes sense. Next question came from Twitter. What's your favorite Elvis movie?

Elvis movie. I wasn't a huge Let me think about this I wasn't really a massive fan of Elvis the actor That's fair Yeah Because I always thought that you know He got kind of roped into these long contracts

Of doing these movies that weren't all that great And we were kind of robbed from All these years of music That he could have been I still creating music But it was all these like You know Kind of these songs were all paired with these

movies and they were almost as kind of hokey as the movies themselves. So we like, man, when he comes and does the 69 comeback special, do you ever watch that? Nope. God, you need to watch it. So there's this story behind the 69 comeback special.

The Elvis is going to come back and actually really put on a concert. He hasn't done this in a long time. He's actually nervous about it. The record executives and I think Colonel Parker and all these people were like,

the only way we're going to do this is if it's a Christmas-themed show. And Elvis refused. And there was sort of this sort of tug-of-war about this even happening or 69 special even happening. But they like insisted, man, he'll do whatever we tell them to do. Colonel Parker's like, I'll tell him what to do and he'll do it. And that was one of the first times I think Elvis is like, ain't happening, man, we're doing it this way.

And this is what I'm singing. These are songs I'm going to sing. and so and it was this really cool show elaborate set he's on you know you got the you've probably seen when he's standing on that stage in the leather suit around all those people in that small stage kind of more intimate sort of setting he plays a couple of christmas songs and then he plays which he promised him he would and then he plays all these songs that we recognize and knowing for and then they had these other big sets of uh kind of like american bandstand style sets where he's playing and all these dancers and people were running around.

And then he does this song at the end. I think it's called If I Could Dream or something like that. It is freaking awesome. But so you ought to watch it, man. That's like a, that was like, man, dude, he is back. And holy shit, he was such a talent. All these years doing these movies and shit. What the hell?

I'll give it a watch sometime soon. Okay. All right. Next question is for TJ on DBC. they're talking about the spotter stand and who complains the most we want your opinion on. Complains about what?

Just who up there on the spotter stand at Teva? T.J. does this shit. He acts like he doesn't think, T.J. acts like he doesn't know what we're asking. You know damn good and well what we're looking for here. But he's so scared to say any shit about anybody. No. You are. Everybody online talks about it.

I like to. I like to, uh, scared to say anything. I like to complain. You're going to just throw yourself under the bus. So you don't have to say anybody else's name? Let me. Who complains the most? I don't know.

Probably, probably Herschman. Probably Herschman. Maybe, I don't know. Herschman's hard to argue with. Uck alert. Next question. Someone will know. Whatever happened to the Dale chips.

Oh, so. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Dale chips were good. I mean, yeah, they were good. I learned that you don't make a bag of chips and then expect to walk into the grocery store

and ask them to put it on the shelf. It's tough. The shelf space is bought and paid for. Oh, it's tough. It is not like, oh, man, this is a great product. You know what? We will put it on the shelf and we'll, you know, man, yeah, we'll if people buy it, man, we'll put more on the shelf.

And, you know, the, if you, when you go into the, the grocery store. This has changed kind of the way I look at the grocery store when I go in there. When you go in there and look at the grocery store, all the things that you see have, there's a lot of politics involved in where they are in the store, where they get placed, and how easy it is to access those things. And so it's a tough, all that sort of consumer, you know, candy bars, potato chips,

alcohol, whatever, all of it. It is so hard to get opportunity on the shelf. And I understand. I mean, people just aren't, you, when you go into the grocery store, everything in there needs to sell with frequency. Like, it needs to be coming off the shelf. And if it don't,

they're going to remove it because they'll just add the stuff that does sell. Mm-hmm. Because they don't, every space, space on a shelf in a grocery store that's not moving product is wasting. And they're losing money. Yep. What was your favorite barbecue? My favorite tater chip flavor of all time is salt and vinegar.

Nothing compares. Salt and vinegar is just so good. I remember the first time I had salt and vinegar. I was like, holy shit. This is good. Now, a friend of mine brings me ketchup-flavored potato cheese. chips down from Canada. And I've been told that I need to do two ketchup chips with one deal chip.

Yeah. So deal potato chips. They're pretty good. I like deal potato chips. So now we're mixing chips. Yeah. It's like a cheeseburger. Really?

Yeah. I need to try that. What if you had a Dorito in there? Now it is real cheeseburger flavor. You know what I'm saying? Because you just got a ketchup, ketchup deal. Where's the cheese of the cheese burger? You got to throw in maybe a Dorito.

A standard Dorito. Yeah, a nacho cheese. I feel like you're working really hard to just eat some chips. Dude. Sometimes you're having a little fun, teach you. How do we get all of those flavors on just one chip? Well, didn't one of them made the chip. What are they called all dressed up or something?

Those also came from Canada. A guy brought those, a bag of those. It does say that. It's all dressed up. It's what it says on there. I don't know what that means. That means everything. Mixed together.

Well, I don't know what. I've seen that. I've got a bag at my house. The guy from Canada brought the bag. It says, all dressed up. What does that even mean? Does anybody in chat know what flavors are? Yeah, type it in, Travis.

It's a lot of flavors. You know what I love is a standard, like, ham sandwich with Doritos on it. On the sandwich. I just go with, like, regular, like, lays. Oh. I need cheese, I need the nacho cheese Doritos on the, in the sandwich. Did you ever have when you're out of bread and all you there is is as bologna and potato chips? You just turn the bologna into like a taco with some potato chips in the middle?

I've done that. That's the struggle busts right there. Did you see the mix right there? That's pretty, it's not, it's highlighted. Oh, barbecue, ketchup, sour cream, onion, and salt and vinegar. That's the all dressed up. That's too much. That's a lot.

I don't, I've ate them and I don't get it. all that. I definitely didn't get the salt and vinegar. Salt and vinegar is the best. All right. Let's see. I mean, Travis is out of questions already. Well, no, because the Chad's going so fast, I got to give another question and get them up. Fanwen, though, do you think Tyler Redick is pressing a little too hard? I can't figure out why they've, I'll say this. I don't envy their position. You go to the racetrack. You feel like, all right, man, we've hit the reset button. You know, midweek, let's just go back and go back to everything we know, everything we trust, tried and true, show up, unload, and struggle, right?

Have, you know, be slow in practice to go out and qualify on the pole, and you're like, well, okay, there it is. And then, you know, he had some issues in the race, but he ended up finishing okay. He had a good comeback. But, I mean, for the last several weeks, it's been, you know, just some odd things that have happened to them. A lot of mechanical things. out of his control.

So I don't know. It's kind of one of them deals where you just don't change anything. Let's not panic. Let's just keep doing what we know. We know this is what's been working. Look at my teammate, the 23. He's running good. He ran good this weekend.

So you look at your teammates a little bit if that can bring you some comfort. Yeah, I mean, he's so fast. You know, to not try to go get crazy and reinvent the wheel or anything. They'll figure it out. He'll pop off a good moment. run somewhere. Yeah, I just think last past week it could just maybe a little too aggressive at the start there.

It's easy for me. It's easy to say that watching on the couch. Yeah. I mean, it could have been way worse. He could have got in the wall right there and been really. So Denny comes to a stop and they, and he wanted his spot back? Well, he did, but then

he made just a little bit of contact with Radick and they're under the rules. If you make contact, you're part of the right. I didn't know that if you didn't touch him, you're allowed to get your position back. If you maintain speed. But stopping on the track is not maintaining speed. I don't know where every lineup, every time it's yellow,

I don't know where we're lining up. Yeah. Dude, can I, this, I thought about this yesterday because I figured we were going to talk about it. And it still pisses me off today. And I've talked about it on this show, and I bet there's people in this chat that remember me complaining about this.

We were at Watkins Glen coming to the finish line, checkered flag. We're down in the carousel, and there was a big pile-up. TJ, you were spotting for us. I'm with Littart in the amp car or the National Guard car. And so there's a big pile-up in the bus stop,

And we're racing like six or seven guys in around the bubble with a couple of races, four or five, six races to go before the playoffs are going to start. And Clint Boyer is one of those guys that we are racing. And Clint destroys his car, knocks the whole nose off of it. And about 12 or 14 of us go by Clint while he's crashed into this pile up. and Clint doesn't come to a complete stop but I mean all these cars go by him he's in the wreck his car is wrecked

he drives back around us under caution the caution's out he drives back around us and pulls up in the line where he was and NASCAR just scores him right there race over and me and Steve were so upset man we went over to the NASCAR hauler this was the same race

where rudeman destroyed. Oh, in turn two? The six. Yeah. In turn two, yeah. David Reagan. David Reagan. Same race. Big wreck. So, me and Steve go over to the NASCAR hauler, and there's already a lot going on, man. There's a lot of people there for a lot of different reasons.

And we were like, y'all, the guy's destroyed, and he lost all these positions, and then he drives around us as we're coming back to the green under pace. under, you know, reduce speed and you just let him finish there. Like there's points involved here. There's like, on the line. What do we do it? And they didn't change it, man,

well, they just kind of shoot us away. And that is real frustrating. But we've seen it before. Remember there was at Darlington a couple years ago. There was a couple guys that got banged around and some got their positions back. And they were damaged. Yeah, they were damaged.

Yeah, there's a lot of controversy there. And it's tough to do. We have the same thing. happen in the cars tour we have kind of a rule like uh you know that we used to have this rule like if you had any involvement i don't you bump a guy trying to go by the wreck you're involved you go to the rear with everybody but then it was hard to make sure you saw everyone that was involved because we didn't have always great replays and stuff some guys you would miss and then everybody comes up to you after the race he was involved you didn't put him to the rear you put me to the rear um so it's a pain

the ass. I don't think you can, if a guy stops to just not hit something and then takes off again, doesn't touch anything, I don't feel like you can penalize him. If you stop on the racetrack to avoid a crash, you have gave up all the positions. I'm sorry, you stopped on the track. I mean, I can't, I don't know, man. I have a hard time. Like, I'm in the car driving it and this guy stops on the track. I have missed the wreck. I have went by it. He completely stops and you're going to let him get back in front of me. I've got through the wreck. If he's not. If he's not. I just don't want to, I don't want people to speed up into wrecks trying to shoot gaps and do things like that. If you're stopping to avoid a wreck and you're not in it, you shouldn't be penalized for it. You're being safe.

So I'd rather have that than people being like, oh, I got to get through it. I can't give up a spot. I don't want to race into a wreck. Yeah. I see your point. I don't want to race into a wreck. No, I don't, I see your point.

And when there is a wreck, I don't want people's mindsets to be like, man, I better not sew down too much here. I'm going to lose too many spots. and then you got the guy that just stays in it and blows through there. And then you're like, why is he getting that? Well, I think if you, you know, if you maintain any kind of speed, you got an argument to actually get some positions back because they freeze the field,

you know, with the moment the wreck is beginning. So there's the idea that they go back to the last loop. And as long as your momentum's still going, I don't care if four or five guys go by you or whatever. But in my instance, in Rockinsland, he was, he was wrecked. No, I agree with that. If you're in it, if you're in it, then you're in. This was billowing smoke. I'm looking at like, even like a road course at Chicago, they had the track blocked.

But in Denny's case, he comes to a complete stop. That to me is you're in. He had contact. Yeah, but even if he didn't. To me, that is you're stopped on the track now. You're part of the accident. See, I don't consider him part of it. If he's stopping, if he runs into it and he hits it, he's part of it.

Because now you got to argue, some guys will say, well, I was just stopping. Well, no, I kind of saw you slide. I saw you sell, you know, half spin, you know. Yeah. Well, I was just trying to avoid contact. Now you got that, you know. I mean, either way, you're going to have an argument for guys flying into it too. Yeah.

All right. Well, I think that's a good place for us to end. That's it. Really? Mother f***. What? Sorry for my language. Oh, now you apologize for the language?

Well, I mean, MF is a really shi thing to say. I'd have better manners. But we got 582 people here. you've asked four questions. We've been on here for what? 20 minutes. No way. Yeah.

Is there a timer? Yeah, right here. James said confirmed. Do you think James would lie? No, James wouldn't lie. We could have done another question by now. Yeah, we could have. We got a wrap.

We'd be going for a long time. One more question. We got a wrap. Why? Then you find the question. I'm going to find it. Is that all it is? You're just tired of finding questions?

No, I've got questions written down. Somebody asked something about a schemer earlier. Oh, somebody says, can a deal be made for me to broadcast the Dayton to 500 in 20207. You know. Oh, gee, this has got me nervous. Why? No, there isn't a deal.

We're live. There isn't a deal that can be made. But there was a moment where there was some conversation of me. I think the handoff between Fox and NBC, Fox's last race was Sonoma. The next race for NBC was somewhere. There was a conversation with NBC and Fox. have me do the Sonoma race with Fox. It's sort of like this blend of a handoff to the second half of the year.

That's as close as any of that ever got. I think we actually did talk, I think they're, I would, I think they actually did talk to Fox about plugging me into the 500 booth one year, but I don't think that went very far at all. Fox I don't think was interested in, in that. They had their guys and they weren't going to have me in there. T.J. Are you got your job there?

Are you coming this weekend? To the what? To the race. I'm going to the Raleigh race. Oh, Rale, race. Yeah. Should be a good one. Yep.

Yep. It's to be determined if I spend the night and stick around for Saturday, but I will not be at the race, at the cup race. I will, if I stick around Saturday, it's going to meet a few people at the racetrack. that I need to meet and then go home. But yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going somewhere Saturday morning to scout a potential facility for the cars tour that may be on the car store schedule next year. And then I'm going to fly to Daytona for the race for the O'Reilly race.

All right. That'll be fun. All right. guys as much as I'd love to stick around I can see that you know your favorite guy in the room Travis is getting annoyed so we we're going to wrap this up

super excited about this show again a big big driver announcement coming out at 3 p.m. that we did here on the show and so Xfinity sponsors the Asc Junior segment and we're thankful for them and everything they've done to for our sport and here for us at Dirtymo Media. And they're waving the red flag on internet price hikes and raising the green flag for

savings. You get the speed and reliable Wi-Fi that you need all in one price for five years. Xfinity. Imagine that. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, y'all. It's time for the Dirty-Modeau segment brought you by Fanjul.

Russell has called in to give us his expert advice. the favorites according to Vegas going into Daytona. Daytona. Such a tough one to spend money on. You got Byron and Blaney at plus 850, Legano at 1,100, Reddick Bell Elliott at 1,200, Larson and Cendrick at 1,600. Larson hanging around there in the top six or seven.

You know, who are some of the drivers that consistently perform better at these drafting tracks. I love that you said that. I'm getting you. At these tracks where the drafting occurs. I have changed you. I love it. Tracks like Michigan.

He's just reading the paper. He's just reading the paper. Tracks like Michigan. No, no, no, no. Yeah, the rules are different. The rules are different at these tracks.

That's why we group them together. Why don't you call them the different rules tracks? Hey, I was walking to the roof some guy walking by some guys, hey, is this a short track? Yeah. He said it's a big short track. All right.

Who are some of the drivers that traditionally do well at the drafting tracks? There was Redick we mentioned at 1,200. Obviously, I think, you know, he has a chance. Yep, I like him. He has a chance. Oh, my gosh. Go for it. Go for it.

My surprise that you haven't mentioned is Chris Busher. Yeah. Spitting top 10 and six of the last seven at Daytona, top 10 and five of the last seven at Daytona. Top 10 and five of the last. seven on drafting tracks. He's one year. All right. So I hear you there, all right, on Chris Busher.

Canney finishing the top 10, boy, it sure sounds like it. Priest was one of those guys as well for a while. For a while. He's not on your board anymore. No, he's not in close. I'm just saying, Busher to me is just like Priests used to be. He's just going to figure it out. He's winning the race?

I'm not so sure. But can he run 8, 7, 6? Yeah, a lot. I mean, you know, if we're trying to bet top tens, I think you've got to put Chris Buescher in a parlay. But at what odds are you going to get Chris Buescher at a top 10? Probably not very good. Probably not.

Yeah. Blaney's on the top of my list then. I don't have, you've got a hot list, you've got a cold list, then you've got your sleepers. I do not, I don't think Chris Bush, running in the top 10 every time they go to Daytona deserves the hot. Okay. So what do you want in the hot?

Like, like... Give me a guy that you think's going to win. Ryan Blaney. I think Ryan Blaney's going to win. Dude, he ain't in your hot, your cold, or your sleeper. I knew you're going to read him, so I'd have something different than you. Damn it. You can get up...

Yeah, but you're giving this information to all of the people in NASCAR. You're just screwing everybody over? Yeah. I mean, I got it too. You can get Busher plus money for top 10. There you go. There you go. I want it.

Put Bushier in my top 10 parlay. Dale's fake top 10 because he can't bet. Carson Hosevar, you have him as one of your hot drivers. I mean, I get it. Three top fives and four drafting track races. That's the most of all drivers this year. Winner at Talladega in April. I feel like if he can just not

short circuit in the middle of the race because somebody looked at him the wrong way. I think we got a shot here. Would you pair, Busher and Hosevar for top tens? That's a tough one. What's the numbers on Hosevar for a top 10? Minus 1-10. And it was plus money on Boucher?

Yeah, so you're getting plus 21. Well, I'm not putting Hosevar anymore. Yeah, wouldn't either. I need plus, I need another driver to throw in this top 10 parlay. You got William Byron cold, man. He's got some success. I know, but not lately. Didn't he win the Daytona 500?

Yeah, two years ago. Yeah. All right. Well, Denny Hamlin, you have him as cold as well. One of the best restricted plate racers currently in the whole series. Yeah, but he hasn't had a top 10 at Daytona in the next gen era. All right. But what about the first?

fact that he can do whatever. Stop it. No, no. We're moving on. I'm moving on. We're moving on. But Denny. Chase Elliott, you have him as a sleeper.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, you got four top five finishes in the last eight drafting tracks. Can we take Atlanta off the list? And that would give me a better confident understanding of how to bet. Wasn't Chase right there at the end of the Daytona 500?

Yeah. I feel like. Well, too, this year. Atlanta skews my feelings about all this. a little bit, having Atlanta's statistics involved. But they relate. They relate what? Not really.

They relate. I thought you said they are late. They relate. The tracks don't race the same. Daytona and Atlanta race different. Atlanta shouldn't even be in the same category to me as Daytona, Talladega. It's its own thing. Yeah, it is.

It's a home deal. You ought to call Atlanta the hybrid track. It is. It's a hybrid. Give me some hybrid stats. Okay. Leave Daytona. and Taladega alone. Take Atlanta out. It doesn't, it doesn't mix.

It does not mix. We're ruining his day. When we go to Atlanta, can I include Daytona and Talladega? No. You just include Atlanta results. They're not, they're not the same. They don't draft the same. They don't work the same. They don't strategize the same. Like Daytona Talladega, it's all this fuel miles crap. None of that really happened. What is the same? What does Talladega and Atlanta have in common? Do you draft? Well, you draft it all the tracks. He loves to mention the rule package. I don't care about the roll package. How does it race?

Fans don't care about the rules. How does it race? Like the racing is what yours should be. The racing is very similar. It is not similar. Very similar. Not at all. I don't know what races you watch.

At Daytona Taladega, they ride around 60% throttle for the whole day. They do not do that at Atlanta at all. It's not even close. They might when the car starts to handle that. This was a setup today. I was set up. Man.

Dose of reality. Yeah, you face the damn truth. I know. It's not a setup. This is what walking into the truth feels like. If you would accept reality, it wouldn't be a setup. All right, let's move on. So we've got Busher in our top ten parlay.

I like putting William Byron in it. I do. I do, man. Can he win the race? I don't know. But I bet he's ass is sitting about eighth coming down the back straightaway like he was when he won Daytona. Yeah, probably like 10th. Well, whatever.

10th is good enough. we still win the bet. Still won, yeah. One of these days, Denny Hamlin's got to bust through, man, because I love this guy on the restricted plate tracks. You just told Travis to shut off. Can I ask the question I want to ask?

I don't like Denny in the cold. Can we get a lukewarm? Can we get a room temperature? He's got nothing to lose this weekend, too. He can race for the win. Can we go for the, can we get a hot? Can we get a top 10 group? So you really think Denny's going to be up there,

dicing it up? No. That's really what I want. in the next notes. And he'll do it. If I ask him to do it, he'll totally do it. I like hot, cold sleeper. And then give me a...

Luke warm? Luke warm. Give me a... His ass ain't gonna win, but he'll get you a top ten. Make it, Brian. His ass ain't gonna win, but he'll get you a top ten.

I like that. Russ, I have a non-Denny Hamlin question. Brian Preece is basically the only driver below the cut line that has a chance. Do we think that he can do anything to find his way in? to the chase. He's going to have to win,

he's going to have to win, which he hasn't. And nobody's ever like won both stages and won the race in this style of racing, especially if you think he needs to win both,

you think he needs to win both stages and the race? Basically, yeah. I think he could get staged that early. If he finish his top five first two stages and there's some attrition at the end,

it could get really close, couldn't it? Oh, for sure, for sure. But, yeah. If you, I mean, betting priests to win would be fun as if you're wanting to be entertained um i don't feel like it's that far-fetched i think i think ryan could be really competitive here he's he's been good at

plate races before yeah yeah i might not bet um would you bet let me ask you this so shane svg Shane van gisberg he needs to finish he just needs to come home yep in one piece right So he ain't going to race for a stage point, ideally, right? He shouldn't. He shouldn't. He might end up finishing up there, but... Yeah. You don't know.

I mean, if they go up there and they get a good stage finish, they kind of locking themselves in. That's what I was thinking. But the idea is that he's very careful and probably chills. This gives me some top 10 vibes. I know that he... Dude, I know that he needs to just get home, right? And just grab a handful of points and go home.

But what if this is a shit show? And they tear a bunch of shit. And he's sitting there missing all the bull's shit, kind of chilling, not doing anything stupid. And then he's just kind of gifted this ninth or eighth or seventh place finish. We've seen that happen so many times. He's lukewarm. He's definitely a lukewarm. That's it.

I mean, I'm not saying he's in the back. I agree with you. I think I would put... He's right there. What's the top 10 SVG? Just by itself? 235. Yeah.

Plus? Yeah. Dang. I do that by it. Yeah. I do that by itself. I do a priest victory. What's his odds to win?

Plus 4,000. Priests to win. I mean, I'm only put small one unit on it. And when he says one unit, he puts zero units. yeah like five dollars i mean all the takes is the right push at the right time the last one but two i mean that's it nothing everything under when was rfk's last win t j i don't care i'm listen i'm not saying he's going to win it's super unlikely obviously because of the odds they think so too are you wanting to have fun sunday or saturday are you wanting to enjoy watching the race do you

want to make it more enjoyable put a dollar on priest to win if he absolutely wins this race and he's stand there advanced into the end of the chase and you've you've made yourself 400 bucks. Yeah. I like it. Bet you a bet you a dollar or two on Priest to win. I would go for a single bet on

SVG for a top 10. Priest will have more help. I mean, Brad will be pushing him. It's possible. Yep. And then I would I would do the the busher, maybe busher and give me any of these guys right here. Byron

Hamlin, Chase Elliott, or Byron Hamlin or Chase Elliott, put any one of those three in a top ten parlay with Busher. That'd be nice. I would. Let me throw out another name. What about Stenhouse?

Ooh, I like that. Yeah. Always got a shot. Stenhouse's... I like Stenhouse's odds to be leading this race with 30 to go. I mean, will he finish

the race, period? I'm not sure. but at some point he's going to be sitting there with a lead. Yeah, at some point. Usually Ricky starts to shine when he doesn't, he misses the first couple wrecks and then he, he's good at doing that. Like he'll find his way up there at some point. And they don't need stage points.

You know, doesn't allow them to do a little more things creatively with fuel to give him that chance to sort of do the leapfrogging needed late. Yep, restart behind him. Yep. And then, you know, take control of the race. That's how I see him doing it. Or they go for it, right, and run a risky fuel mileage that has them a lap or two short that they have to figure out.

I think if he plays the first two-thirds of the race, just smart and misses Rex, and then you narrow the field down some, and then Ricky's a great plate racer. Absolutely. So. So Ricky, unlike Denny, has been able to continue and transcend the next-gen car. Still. Good. Plus 125 top 10. Daytona.

Danny Bros. ain't camping there, are they? What's he to win? Plus 2,800. I would... I'm going to like that better than Priese. You know, we've seen... So do the Vegas odd makers.

Thank you for that. Breaking news. Well, I appreciate it, Russell. Man, that's pretty good. I think we got some good bets to have fun with. We also have some featured matchups to go over real quick. just before we let you go. Tyler Reddick versus Chase Elliott.

Reddick. Reddick. Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace. Ooh, that's a real good one. I like Blaney, though. All right. SVG, Priest. I'm going to go with SVG

because I think Priest is going to push more than... More than SVG would. Okay. I think... So you're laying up. All right to go, Russ. Zilich, Hosevar. Hosevar.

Zillich, I think he has eight or nine D&Fs for accident this season. Oh, boy. Tough. All right, y'all, that's the featured matchups. This is the Dirty Mode Doe segment brought to you by Fan Duel, the premier gaming destination of the United States.

All right, everybody, thanks for listening to us here in the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meets. It's a great show. Thank you, T.J. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

All right, buddy. Appreciate you coming through. This is a good one. I hope everybody has a great day and we'll see you tomorrow. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.