The Dale Jr. Download - Wrecking Teammates, Going Hunting and Fights in the NASCAR Hauler

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

The Dirty 30 brings you the best 30 minutes from Dirty Mo Media every Friday — the funniest, wildest, and most jaw-dropping highlights from your favorite shows. This week, Dale Jr. and TJ Majors were joined by Ryan Blaney after his win at New Hampshire. Ryan discusses people sleeping on Joey Logano, Ty Gibbs vs. Denny Hamlin,and why Team Penske drivers work together better than any other team.Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs were the big story on Sunday when Denny spun out his own teammate. On Actions Detrimental, Denny explains why he didn’t do it on purpose, but why he was mad at Ty and what he wants team leadership at JGR to do.On Bless Your ‘Hardt, Dale recounts some of his favorite memories as a kid going hunting with his dad. And finally, Dale welcomes back longtime Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton to discuss the 2008 Indianapolis tire debacle, the 2012 Daytona 500 jet dryer situation & the never-before-heard details on the rumored fight between Tony Stewart & Kurt Busch in the NASCAR hauler at Daytona.    And for more content, check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, I'm Dillon Hart Jr. and this is the Dirty 30. The best highlights from all of our podcast this week, 30 minutes every single Friday, the Dirty 30 coming at you. Let's get right to it. So Ryan Blaney is in the studio. You think about how great y'all are at Phoenix as an organization. You look at New Hampshire as a track that could be somewhat, you know, similar. And so if you do whatever you're doing at Phoenix that's working should maybe work there as well, at Loudon, but then also the 22 is able to do the tire test.

And it is a little bit of a different tire. But how much of the test versus just being already good at that racetrack? What's the balance or the ratio there? I thought the test was really helpful to us. Those guys went up there and had a great test, I guess. You know, and you never know what you're going to end up with tire-wise, right? You're running through like five or six different compounds of tire up there. but they thought that they found something just overall in general that kind of worked with

a lot of the compounds that they were doing and luckily it was able to apply. So those tracks have kind of always been a strength of ours. But I think having that tire test was beneficial. I think that tire is better for us, like something that has more fall off. I feel like our cars always run a little bit better because we can manage our stuff a little bit more. So yeah, you got to take advantage of tests, you know, and that 22 team did a great job of doing that. Maybe you can explain this as well. It's a fun conversation in the sport, how Joe Ligano, right, will have a relatively quiet, regular season.

You know, pop off some wins, but for the most part, a lot of times kind of kind of just disappears some races. It doesn't make a ton of noise. But, man, when the playoffs come, y'all get better. Are you as kind of impressed by what Joey can do, what his team can do as the rest of us? You see it inside internally and it's not a big surprise to you. It's not a big surprise to me anymore. I've been teammates with Joey for long enough to where I know and how good he is and how kind of methodical that he goes about things. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't surprise me.

I mean, I know those guys are going to be, even if they don't have the year that, people think is impressive through the regular season, you know they're going to just get better and better. They're going to find ways to be better, whether that's thinking outside the box, maybe more from what you're comfortable with, from a crew chief of driver's side, driving differently, taking different chances,

like they're just going to figure it out. And it's pretty impressive how good those, that two people of Paul and Joey are together and just how they're, they kind of playing on things and stuff. Yeah. It's got to be it's damn impressive. It is. It's frustrating as a person in my role because we try to predict or we try to guess or we try to think we know what, you know, what's going to happen or who's going to advance and who's, you know, and who the favorite might be. And he spoils all of our ideas.

Well, not anymore. We're having to put them in there now. Yeah, we can't. Yeah. It blows my mind, honestly, of people who like the outside world that doubts that duo of like, no, no, just write them off. Like, no, they're going to be there and they're going to be really, really good. It's just they're very, that's a very talented team, you know, and it starts with those two guys for sure. In your organization, y'all have went into the finals and raced each other in the playoffs in the playoffs in the finals at Phoenix, nose to tell. And so how, I guess, you know, how far into this process does the working together continue? you. At what point, I guess, I mean, maybe it's already, maybe, you know, you already have that confidence and you're kind of looking across the table at the comp meeting going, it's you and me, bud, you know, we. I guess I'll, yeah, I'll put it into perspective for you of like, I think our team,

all the team Penske and the Wood brothers, we work better than anybody else together. Like any other team, I feel like our communication line from the drivers, engineers, crew chiefs is 10 times better than everybody else. And I can just speak on that just because I don't, I got buddies and other teams and we kind of compare it and it's like, well, it'd be like we do a little bit more. But a great example is Joey and I race for the championship last year at Phoenix. Same comp meetings, same discussions. How are we both going to be better? Like, nothing changed. You know that's your competition, but we're trying to figure out how do we run one, two in this deal. Roger doesn't care who runs first or second. He just wants to run first and second.

And that's just how it's always been. And I think that's the expectation that Roger's always put on us is if we have one car or two car or three cars in this deal, like, we're going to try our best to all finish one, two, three or something like that. Yeah. And that's just the way it operates over there. And that all comes from Roger. And I'd say the racing around each other, there's never like, there's no team orders ever. The only thing that Roger has ever said is just don't wreck each other, like trying to win the race, right? He doesn't like that.

Don't be foolish and be running one, two, and wreck each other out of first and second. Yeah. You know, he has an expectation. Race as hard as you want. Yeah. Like, have at it. I don't care who runs first or second, but please just do not wreck each other doing it because then we look like a bunch of fools. You talk about not wrecking teammates.

We saw just that very thing happened this past weekend with Denny and Ty. And I think everybody understands the common sense approach to this. but it's still fascinating, I think, to see it play out in front of everybody on such a big stage. Yeah. I wonder what that meeting was like. Yeah. Well, imagine it might be happening right this minute for all we know, but that's a tough situation, I think, to try to help Ty understand, you know, what would have been the better choice to make in that situation. Yeah.

That's tough. I feel like, you know, the guys who are not, just in general, the guys who are not part of the playoffs, I feel like they genuinely will be more respectful to guys that are in it in certain situations. Some situations race hard, I get it. Like we're coming down to a finish or something like that. Like, yeah, I fully expect to get raced hard. When it's your teammate and he's not in it and you guys are in it, that's a little bit different to me. It should be even easier.

It should be way easier. But, I mean, I can't, I don't know what all is going on there. I don't know the relationship with that. And, you know, White Tai decided to run him super hard like he did. Hey, and Bell, you know, Hamlin and Bell. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't think that would happen in our camp. Hey, guys, welcome to Actions Detrimental Post Loud New Hampshire.

Early in stage two between you and the 54 or what happened there? We were racing really too hard. and what in my mind was entirely too hard. And I know this is going to trigger some people about, oh, racing hard. When you're racing a teammate, you know, A, a teammate and B, a teammate with nothing to gain. Like, we're not, I agree that everyone should race to win the race. However, we're not racing to win the race.

We're racing at the time for 11th place. We're battling me, the 20, the 19. We're all battling and scratching and clawing to try to get some stage points, which is going to be life or death for us. It's our air that we need to move on. I felt as though, you know, a little bit wronged in the sense of, you know, my teammate out of the playoffs should not be the hardest, car on the track to pass.

I mean, for God's sakes, Ross Chastain let me by. If there's anyone that probably, you know, he's on the cut line. But even in the first stage, like I pressured him. I pressured him. He's like, well, you know, he's, more

unlikely what he thought was that, well, I'm not going to hold him up for this entire 60 lap run. I might as well just get back in line. You know, try to keep it from someone else joining this party and passing me along with you. And so it's just, this is the racecraft that I feel like is missing, that understanding

the situation. And certainly I felt as though this thing is hard enough to win anyway. But if you're going to have to race your teammates harder than anyone on the racetrack, then this will be really, really tough for any one of us to win. Is there a philosophy within these race teams or even just in JGR on how teammates should race each other in these situations? Or is it not like a clear thing where everyone's on the same page about it? Well, first, I don't think we're on the same page. I have always went back to what is the last thing Joe has said when it comes to non-playoff cars and playoff cars?

He has had this conversation multiple times with everyone in the room, but I think it probably needs to be said again. And so what I've heard is that if you're a non-playoff car, any break that you can cut your teammates, please do. Me and the 20, we're fighting so hard to get around the 54 that we ended up fighting each other. And then finally when we got singled out, we both ran him down again. And we're thinking, and I'm thinking, okay, I'm just going to go on by.

I'm clearly faster. And it was just arrow block this corner, arrow block that corner. And then when you get beside, it's like, okay, like what else do I have to prove that we're clearly faster? I'm definitely going to pass you. We got 60 laps to the end of this stage. What are we doing? You're not going to hold me off for 60 laps. The 20 is right behind me.

These are your two teammates that need these points. I just didn't, I didn't understand where the mindset was there. And I still don't. But if, you know, it's possible, Ty feels like he doesn't know us anything. And that's just a different mindset. And it's okay to have, but you would think that one day the roles would be reversed

and certainly he probably would be upset if we did not let him go if the rolls were reversed and he was fighting to move on to the next round. Were you going into turn one, were you just trying to move him up out of the groove and get by him? Well, it was twofold because I was pretty much there into turn one. And then he moved down to the middle lane to like cut the nose. off. If you cut across someone's nose, especially if they're running really close to you, it'll make their car kind of lift up and take off. So I think he was just trying to cut across my nose to make me lose air, you know, just to further arrow block me. And I was so close to him

and I'm like, hell no, you're not going to do that. And so yeah, I tried to shove them up to the next lane to get my position. And unfortunately it spun them out. You all are going to have. You all have your competition meetings this afternoon. How does this get resolved ahead of that or during that is a conversation with just Ty? Chris Gabhart is obviously in this now who you have a great relationship with per past years. Yeah. I mean, what I'm asking, what I want to happen is just leadership step in and tell us what do you want us to do? If you want us all to just race each other cut throat, no matter what your position is and stature in the standings, we can definitely do that.

Like, I expect myself and the 19 and the 20 to race really, really hard because we're all battling each other to get above this cut line or maintain our status above the cut line. if I get eliminated or the 19 gets eliminated or the 20 gets eliminated and then we've established this no rules you guys just do whatever you want to do that's just we're none of us are going to win you're racing against where we have seen

year in year out and it will continue to happen more and more like it or not teammates are going to start giving spots this time of the year. This is just, this is the time of the year. And it's just going to get more and more. You're not always going to see it. It won't always be on TV. But starting with about five races to go,

you're going to see those that are out of playoffs or those who have affiliations will start heating spots to those who need it. And so if you're going up against that, and not only not being good teammates but yet being the most difficult ones to pass, none of us have a shot. We might as well just hang this thing up because it's just, it's too difficult to win naturally,

much less if we're going to have the, well, everyone just races for themselves, and it doesn't matter whether you're racing for a championship or not, which, you know, for my stand, I would think that, you know, Ty would want one of us to win a championship. It's his, his names

on the building. You said that you wanted them to, the higher ups to, you know, handle us, but Joe said, this is the drivers. So, is that you and Ty just having a conversation, or the four drivers getting together or? Yeah.

The challenge is, I think that me and Ty are going to be on different, we'll have different opinions. Therefore, you need, leadership to step in and say well this is how we want it done and then we will play by those rules whatever those rules are I will I will play by those rules but I've been told in the past if you're not in it you do everything you can to help your teammates that are in it

hey guys Dale Jr. and I are in the Dirty Moe Media Studios again this week for another round of bless your heart one of my favorite hunting stories I always like telling stories about how big of a badass my dad was and so if you haven't noticed i try to slide it in there every now and then um and not be too obvious about it but there's a picture that i have on my phone of my dad and i always show it to people to because it speaks clearly to how fearless and determined he was. And he's, it's a picture of him in a deer stand and this picture is taken from 150 yards away, right?

So you get the ground, the field, the entire tree, and dad up in the top. And he is literally 50 feet, 40 feet in the air, like twice the height that you truly needed to be, certainly too high to bow hunt. He would have to screw the pegs into the tree individually. and climb this tree, screwing in one peg at a time. As he climbed up. As he climbed up with the stand, and then he would have to mount the stand up at this tree, 50 foot into the air, right?

He's got the bag of pegs. He's crawling to the tree, he climbs up the tree, and then maybe he goes down and takes the stand back up there. But this picture is just really a – speaks to just his crazy. The first time I went hunting with Dad, I don't remember climbing the stand, but I remember we were in a chain up, and the bottom of the chain up

is about twice the size of the seed I'm sitting on. Okay. Like it's... And it's just like a grate, right? It's a great. And it kind of spreads out, if you sit on it and put your feet down, your toes are at the edge of the grate.

And it was cold as hell, and early in the morning, and I bawled up, I was six. I bawled up under his legs, under his seat. This story makes me... So uncomfortable. I can't believe this.

Layed on this thing and slipped. Yeah, under his legs. Under his legs. You know, we hunted in the morning. We got out of the tree standing at 11 o'clock and went on about our day. The next time I go hunting with him, we walk up to this tree. And this is the first time I ever shot a deer. We were in Alabama.

We get up to this tree. and it's a tall-ass tree that there's not a limb on it. Right at the very top this tree split and he had a couple two-by-fours with a chain up in this tree. We get to the bottom of this stand

and I'm just going to do whatever he says, right? So we get to the bottom of stand and he goes, all right, you start up and I'll go up behind you. I get going, I start climbing up. I'm like, I can barely reach the pegs.

They're so spread apart. He put these pegs as far apart as the pie. So he didn't have to do so many. So he didn't have to put so many in there. Yeah. But I can't get my foot to the next peg all the way up this tree. I'm crawling up this thing and he's having to push each foot.

That is insane. He's having to, because I would get my foot up and I'd be about six inches or so short of the next peg. And he would push my foot from underneath to the next peg. Oh my gosh. It was terrifying. We had no safety harness. Nothing. Like we hunt with safety harnesses now

And you don't get in a stand without one And so But then there was no safety harnesses Nothing So we got our guns on our backs You know and we're So you had a gun too? Yeah

I had a gun he had a gun Oh this is your first year Yes Yeah okay And so we go up in this We go up in this stand We finally get up in there When we get to the top

I am I've been terrified All this way up I'm scared You're already traumatized I'm scared not I'm scared more for him, you know, than me.

Like, I'm, I'm, and that goes back to, like, my empathy, I guess. It's like, I wasn't really, I'm like, yeah, whatever happens to me, happens to me. But I was worried about him. Why? Because he's the breadwinner. He's, like, the greatest thing on earth. You didn't stop to think, how am I going to get the hell down from here? I didn't worry about it.

Oh, my God. I was worried about the greatest man that I knew existed having something happened to him. And so, it's a hard. thing to explain or understand, but I wasn't really worried about me if something happened to me. He was there, right? If I fell, if I got hurt, the greatest man on earth was going to be there to take care of me. If Daddy gets hurt, what's going to happen? But if daddy gets hurt. We're both screwed here. I'm not just now, but, you know, long term what happens, right, if he's going to break his back or something. Yeah. So we finally get up there and I'm so relieved.

We sat there for a couple hours. We shot a deer. I shot that deer at 150 yards. It dropped right where it was. He was as happy as if he'd shot his own deer, which is awesome. Yeah. And then we had to get down. And he had to go down underneath me and take each foot and help me find the next peg. Because I had to kind of drop down to the next peg. Yeah. Yeah. It was the, I will never forget it. It was terrifying. That's something I wouldn't forget either. But I mean, of course, it's this great memory. Our guest today is Robin Pemberton. He's been on the show before. Do you remember the Indianapolis tire debacle? Oh my God. I did the tire test. I did the tire test. for that one yes for that race that's me and vickers yeah that's my fault me and vickers and somebody else

we showed up for the tire test and it was common to like go run 20 laps and getting the cords you know we didn't see them doing it in 10 laps right but you'd run a tire and get in the cord get a little bit of cording on the right front or something in 20 laps or something like that that was I'm up in the tower and this just shit's hitting the fan It starts out at like 35 laps or something like that. So Mike says, you got to go down there. We got to, you know, go down there and see what's going on. It's like, okay.

So I went down there. And I'm walking around. I'm looking and I, you know, radio back. I said, it's bad. And, you know, I said, they're going to have to, you know, may run out of tires. So then there was a, then Goodyear had the inventory list and they had the list of who had tires and who didn't dad right you can't make this my my brother i think blaney was driving so ryan they didn't practice and save tires

so they had extra for the race because he saw it already so i had to take tires for my poor brother that played it good on friday and saturday and you know and give them to somebody else right So I'm walking up down to you there, and it is looking like, they're thinking about there's, there's, Goodyear always had a backup tire out in somewhere. Trucks, you know, trailer those. And so Jeff Gordon gets on, in Jeff's pits, Jeff Gordon gets on, you know, gets on the radio to Steve and says, you better tell NASCAR we got a show, whatever he said, you know, you got to fix us. and Steve said Robin's standing in the pits

he goes oh oh god you know what I mean but it was that it was horrible yeah I think we got to where we were throwing the caution every 10 laps yeah it's right there near the end of the race just to get them home you know you gotta save everybody from themselves right you weren't gonna pit no yeah right that was crazy you would run as hard as you thought you could

if you knew somebody was gonna shred a tire and turn right on a cord panel off you know you know it was going to happen you just didn't know who You didn't want to be you. I blew a right rear tire, I guess, leading the race on lap 26. Oh, Lord. Yeah. The 2012 Daytona 500, you said in a documentary that fire teams that were trying to not extinguish the truck that was on fire, but rather the racing surface to keep it cool and keep it from burning, this is when Juan Pablo hit.

the jet dryer. Hit the jet dryer. So, one had been in some sort of an accident or something, had a little bit of crash damage they were repairing. Trailing arm was broke. That was when you had, they didn't weld the trailing arm so they would flux more. Yes. You've heard of that, I'm sure. He's been in an accident and it has now damaged a piece that was already intentionally compromised.

Yes. And he's going down the back straightaway and the rear end basically come out of the race car and send him into the, for you send him into the car crash or and uh i have that car in my race car graveyard oh wow okay yeah so i got a race car graveyard yeah you know that yeah i do and um basically just i need to get over there they just been given to me i'm not yeah i've never bought a crash but in this race um i remember this we all parked on the back straightaway while you guys guys figured this out so the track hadn't the track just been repaved yes we're on a fresh paved track right and so you're trying to not only put out a fire of the truck itself,

but also save the surface of the racetrack that's trying to melt and slide down the hill. Darrell criticized us on national TV for not putting out the fire. They're not shooting at the fire. I didn't give a shit if the truck burned to the ground. We were trying to save the racetrack, so we're going to run a race.

Yeah. It did make a, uh, yeah. It did do an impression on the surface. Yeah. And it was, it was, remember listening to Boyer, because we used to listen,

a lot of drivers. And he said you could hear the ground, you hit, you'd go across, you can hear the gravel, right? Yeah. But it was funny, so all that stuff's happening. Mike sends me down, he's like, you've got to go back there. I said, oh, okay.

So they called. You always had to go back there. Yeah, it was good. Sometimes I needed a field trip. It wasn't fun in the tower. But so the police come and got me and run me around to the back because they turned the lights on and I'm back there. And I am telling you, there is, it was like,

It smelled like a 747 crash back there, well, the fuel all over. And it rained, right? And it all laying on top. The thing that saved it is it was all laying on top of the water back there. So I kept the pair of dress shoes that I had on that night. I kept, I had to get them resold because I couldn't get the smell out of the closet. Anyway, so I'm back there walking around and just checking and radio and back to Mike. And my cell phone rings, and it's Ryan.

Your brother. Yeah. Well, Blaney, him and Blaney, they're leading a race. Yeah. They're leading a race. And he says, he's like, how are you guys doing back there? I said, it's okay. He's like, you know what's raining?

I said, I'm standing 200 yards from your fucking car. I know it's raining. Oh, oh, oh, I just thought you needed to know. I said, I know. I got it. I got it. But we would do that fun and around. Yeah, sure.

So I called Mike in the tower. I said, Mike, it's raining back here. Yeah, how bad is it? I said, you know, it's not too bad, but it's, you know, it's rain. And he goes, okay, I know who's leading a race and hanging on. So I was like, I, we were all out of our cars and we were all standing on the back straight away. And I think it was me and Biffle and a couple other people. And we were laughing like, hey, man, fuck it.

We're good. Let Blaney win. Yeah. And we're all, we're good. You're ready to go. You're checked out, right? And Carl Edwards walks up and he's like, no, huh? I'm not, I want to finish this race.

And I'm like, of course you do. What was the night that, I forget the race, Tony Stewart and Kyle Bush got into it on something. And then we called him to the hauler. Yeah. So. Might have been maybe Daytona. There's a night race at Daytona, maybe?

Yeah, yeah. Maybe. Or was it Kurt? Tony and Kurt. Because apparently the remember was Tony popped Kurt in the holler. Yeah. So we're in, Mike says, okay, you, you guard Tony and I'll take Kyle. This is Mike.

Kurt. Yeah, or Kurt. Yeah. You know. And I said, okay. Well, you know, so they come in and they're sitting and they're talking and they're not getting very far with the conversation. And it's not, nobody's bending. Right.

and they're starting to lean up. They're leaning, lean and lean, and they stand up. So I stand, you know, I get up, and I got Tony behind me, right, and I'm kind of keeping them away. And Mike's got Kurt up here, you know, just a little bit. And Tony comes across with a left hand and just drills them. So now, I mean, the Shiner's, it's going to, it's happening already, right? And we said, you know, well, we're not getting anywhere.

You got, you know, we're going to talk about this, whatever, whatever. So they walk out and I turn the mic I said you didn't tell me Tony was left-handed I'm balking him like he's right hand you didn't tell me he was left hand he said hell I didn't know you know it's like oh my god watch Tony's left Jesus oh man it's oh was that as bad as it ever got yeah in the hauler yeah yeah I think so yeah yeah yeah yeah sure the um were you there when um when uh Kurt and uh Spencer were going at it at Michigan Michigan? No. No, I think I was on the bottom. I think it was in Ford. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was trying to think of some other. Michigan and Indie, they wrecked Indie.

Well, he got wrecked. Yeah, that was the beginning of it. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.