Dale's Back Behind The Wheel For The CARS Tour & So Are Two BIG Names

- 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. That pissed y'all over the weekend, or? - I'm still sowered at all what the best man at your wedding. - Who is your best man, Dale? - TJ. (laughing) - TJ. - You don't need a cool best for that race. What are you thinking? - Get 'em, TJ. - Hellboy, it's starting to show. All right then. (upbeat music) - Hey everybody, it's Dale Jeter back again for another episode of the Dale Jeter download. We're in the Arby's studio. This episode is presented by Arby's. Don't forget about their new meat and three bucks. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats and we've got my co-host here, TJ Major's. - Yeah, thanks. I got Arby's right behind me. - Yep, we got a new Arby's sign in the studio. Sometimes it's some certain camera angles that may appear that TJ's wearing the Arby's hat. - Maybe I really am. - Last night, we played a little hell at loose. - We did, yeah. - We did. - The new Vietnam's out. - Were you gonna be able to play or did I help or hurt your situation? - I was probably gonna bail, but your, he texts Amy and said, "Can Dale play?" - So, that helped. - I actually, I actually sent like a, I made a graphic. I had AI make a graphic. - He had chat. - Yeah, chat. - Create a graphic. - For a hall pass. I said, "Dear Amy, can Dale please have a hall pass "for a couple hours?" - To play with his nerd name. - Yeah, can play some computer nerd. - Can you come up and play? - Yeah, I probably wasn't gonna play. I was probably just gonna lay on the couch. I was super tired. I went to Florence to test a pro late model. Tony Jr. has been picking at me a little bit about driving one of his cars. He works over at GMS, building chassis, pro late models, and supers, and all kinds of other stuff. And so I went over there and I said, "Hey man, let's go run Florence." So we went to test yesterday and I'm sore all over. - But. - Yeah, just from being in the car. - I don't know. Maybe not using all of them muscles. - You don't use all of those muscles ripping packs? - Yeah. Well, I've been working out a little bit. I've been doing some lifting. But I don't know. You use these certain muscles when driving a race car that you don't really use. - Were you driving harder than normal? - Nope. Well, I did go test at Newport a couple of days before that. - Your body's been through it then. - I'm telling you. When we tested at Newport, we must have ran 200 laps. We tested for 12 hours. It was probably 10 in the morning until 10 at night. - And Newport's like high-banks and fast, right? - It's super fast. - Yeah. - 13-second lap. But we worked our guts out at Newport. And then I went to Florence yesterday and was running. And it was 95 degrees. And I drank a ton of water, but I got home, man. And I was locking up. 'Cause I guess I needed some electric lights. - Yeah. So I started chugging some pickled juice. That'll help. - Yeah, a little bit. She had mustard. - Mustard, huh? - Yeah, really. - Yep, mustard helps. - A little spoonful of mustard? - Yeah. - I knew a football player on the sideline who kept mustard just interesting. - Squeeze some in. - Well, I've been drinking electrolytes since last night. 'Cause my feet, everything was cramping up, my toes, my damn, everything. - Yeah. - I'm old. - You better start a couple of days before with the electrolytes. - I got a real bad, no, this is no boy, man. I got this really, really bad pain right on the outside edge of my elbow. I don't know what the hell that is. - You got tennis elbow? - Maybe. - Yeah. - Wow, I don't know. - I think it's like 10 or 9 is, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - It hurts. - And so like if I drive in that car, makes it mad. - Oh, yeah. - And it hurts a couple days. Lifting weights makes it mad. And then that. - If you had that and I went and saw Ryan, he just said, he's like, oh yeah, your wrist is out of alignment. And that's why it was hurting back here. - Man. - It's right on the outside of that bone right there. - Yeah. - And it just hurts to touch it. - I don't touch it. - But it don't hurt anywhere around it. - No, it's pulling it off the bone. - It does hurt all down through my forearm. - Yeah, it's pulling it off the bone back there 'cause wrist, I mean, that's what he says. - Okay. - Well, I don't know. - One more go. - Man, get to check it out. Um, I just assume it go away. - That's probably not going to do that. - Yeah. - That's how I am. - That's the motto. - It'll eventually go away. - It will eventually go away. - Yeah, yeah. - I'll drink enough water to go away. - Something else will start to hurt. - So, that's the announcement. I'm gonna race the pro in the cars tour this weekend. We'll be back at the race track Thursday to practice and then race on Friday night. Well, it looks pretty good. And Tony Jr. has been, you know, working. Tony Jr. was at Fury now. He's at GMS and they're building these great cars. And they've got this new chassis. And they've been racing them all over the country out west in the cars tour. - He designs these too, right? - Yeah. - So, we've been in touch, you know, over the years. And I was sitting with Amy the other day. And I was like, you know, only got one race left this year. And I just don't feel like I race that much. And kind of now that I'm out of the broadcast booth, I can start thinking about other things. And I wouldn't even care about driving a race car when I'm working the broadcast. I just want a broadcast and not do anything extra. But now when I got done with that, I was like, man, I kind of want to race now. Like, I don't want to wait for new ports in October. And she was like, would go. I was like, I had a text Tony Jr. said, I don't race somewhere, he's like, where are you thinking? I'm like, Flores, it's coming up. I know that place pretty well. Go try out your pro there. Probably would be maybe 20 cars. Field there's kind of small over the last couple of years. And so, he put a car together and we're going to go. I think Tony Sr. is going to come out to bear. So kind of like a family reunion. - That'd be fun. - Look forward to it. I told him, I was like, he's like, what do you want it to look like? I said, don't care. Leave it just like it is. Don't even put my name on it. I'm just going to show up and drive it. - Show up and drive it. - Love it. - It's black with a 23. - Oh. - Yeah. - I like it. - Throwback to Spencer Gallagher. Because it's a GMS. Get it. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Also, should we go ahead and break the rest of the news? - Let's hold that off to later. - All right. Well, there's a reason behind it. - Listen to the rest of the show. - Yeah. - Breaking news. - Yeah. I broke, did I break in that part too early? - No, no, that's fine. - That's fine. - Yeah. - Okay. - That's good. - All right. Let's get into dirty air. This week's dirty air segment is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops North America's Premier Outdoor and Conservation Company. To plan your next adventure at Bass Pro Shops near you or online at BassPro.com. It's about time to get into Deerstein. I have my first hunt planned. I'm excited. - Bo. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, yeah. - I like the Bo. I got a new Bo from Bass Pro Shops. They had a sale that went through August and I took advantage of that. But new Bo, new release, everything. Let's get into Daytona. First off, a couple of things. I wrote a lot of notes in my phone and I'm just going to go through those. The host of our racing aggressively dirty mo media, social media post. I love it. So anytime host of our gets in, gets in, gets going or doing something. I don't know. Takes the lead. Darren passed for the lead. Buses ass trying to pass for the lead. Whatever, right? Does something cool? Does something not so cool? That's probably going to be the tweet. And fans are like a little divided. Yeah, they are. I don't get it. It's a freaking tweet. It's hilarious. I think the host of our fans are getting a little defensive because I feel like it's like a relentless attack on them. They see that. Yeah. They see that that tweet of host of our racing aggressively and they assume immediately that it's a knock. I don't get it. Calm down. We're all, we've all, we're all noted, documented host of our fans. And we're all good with it. I mean, maybe not you. Try. I don't have no problem with that. Okay, see, all right. We're all, we're all down with host of our, we want him to do well. But he's a lightning rod for, you know, he's always, he's always doing something, which is great. And so when he does do something, which he's always going to be doing something, we're going to be talking about it. Whether it was him or somebody else, I mean, that post from Dirty Movedie is, is the post. You'll see a lot. Yeah, I agree. I like it. It's just trying to have fun. I mean, it's just like perfect. Whether it's him doing something amazing, passing for the lead or busing his ass, passing for the lead and taking some other cars out that. Well, when someone does bust their STJ, there is collateral damage. - There is. - You signed up for that when you entered the race. - You did. - You did. - That does happen. - Yep. - You don't want to like it. - You don't. - But that's, yeah. I deal with that in the car store, man. Guys get their ass wrecked and man, they get so mad. Like, hey, you know. - They kicked doors into everything. - Well, yeah, let's start. - Take it personally. - I don't want to single anyone out. I'm just saying, you know, you get, yeah. - I've been wrecked and I've been mad about it. - Oh, yeah. - It happens and it'll happen in every race going forward. - I want to try to be mad about it. - Yeah. I know, but I mean, it's just, it is gonna happen. One of the things about that particular accident was, so we'll talk about the package and all of that stuff later, but with the way that cars, with the way the guys were racing all night long, I host of our pull to move that hadn't been really pulled a lot over the last couple of years. They haven't been racing this way with this car. - No, this was new. I mean, it's hard to say. It's hard to tell you how new it is, but it's definitely not normal. - Right. So, moves throughout the night were more aggressive. - Different than the past. - Yes. And they're doing it with less rear spoiler. They're making these moves based off of the knowledge they have internally from how the car's driven at that track before. But now you're going out there with less rear spoiler, less downforce. - Less side force when you, because he was on somebody too, I think when you started making the move. - He's a little close. - But he doesn't know any other cars either, right? - I'm just, all I'm saying TJ is, he made a move that he thought was a stick and move. And he's like, man, I've seen this, I'm doing this. I feel comfortable with this. - Yeah, no problem. - And how the car busted, how the car came around, I think was a shock to him and everyone else. All of us. - Yeah, I was surprised. - Yeah, pretty wild. - So. - Yeah, different for sure. - Yeah. That was one thing that was interesting about the packages handling. Handling was important and maybe drivers weren't, maybe you thought you had grip and too. You didn't kind of like Hosevar, where other guys throughout the first couple of stages were saying, I can't be offensive, I can't be aggressive, I'm not comfortable, fix it, I'm too loose. I don't have trust in it, fix it. - Which is good. - Yes. We need more of that. - That's exactly what we need. - I think Danny mentioned that on his show talking about how Handling played a role. We need to, that was the right direction. If I'm here and drivers complain about their cars and needing their cars to drive better, we're definitely moving in the right direction with something that we changed. This is my overarching sort of opinion about the whole thing. Teams are gonna morph back into their past habits of aggressive fuel saving if the package is left alone. This was a good move in the right direction, but if you stop at this particular point and sit here for too long, the teams will roll back toward saving aggressively. William Byron had some comments post-race about this. If we go back with this combination of rules, my guess is that fuel savings will increase in February or at the next restricted plate or drafting track race that we run. Q speeds or surprisingly low. I think only one mile an hour faster than in February. I'm not sure what they expected, but I'm sure that was not what they expected. I'm sure they expected to go quicker. Did he made a comment immediately after qualifying? How surprised he was at how slow the speeds were? So quite a bit of changes needed to get the single car speeds up to closer to the draft speeds. And I actually think it's worth considering allowing the teams to adjust for Q, different spoilers. So hear me out. Consider providing the teams a different part for qualifying and a different part for the race. Decades ago, teams would lay the spoilers down for qualifying, raise them up for comfort in the race, instead of going that route and allowing the teams to change a part on the car throughout the weekend, just have part A, part B. I think that's a simple solution to consider, not one that I'm saying they need to do, but one to consider is like, hey, I've seen them adjust these spoilers and I don't think that they're too challenging. If they're going to go and have qualifying days ahead of the Daytona 500, you have time to put on your qualifying spoiler. And I don't think to me as a purist, it really bothers me that they're qualifying with this part and racing with this part because as I said decades ago, they would lay the spoiler down to 10 degrees, five degrees, and then go out and race a 20 or 25 degrees spoiler. And so I see that is very similar. But I think too, they could do things with overall drag numbers and the way they're restricting the engine to improve speed as well in single car runs. I thought the pack speeds would be higher also. And I know it's hard to gauge that because a lot of guys are running, some guys are saving fuel, some guys are not. It's hard to tell. - Yeah, he never really got a true feel for him. - Yeah, I don't know what lap where I saw the pack and they were all out, maybe the last couple of laps. Not letting near the end, yes, more. But even at the end, you get guys that are like having to save, yeah. - I'm just thinking, I think they could go faster. I don't think there's more there. - There's more there. So if they do open up the cars a little bit and allow them to qualify quicker, that's gonna increase, naturally, should increase the speed in the pack. - Which is also good because if you're fighting handling, it's gonna be harder for cars to-- That comes more-- - Prominent. - Critical, yep. I think a high premium on handling could be placed on the teams, moving in that direction continues to challenge the teams and drivers to manage the balance of the car. We heard drivers asking for help from the crew, crew chiefs to make balance changes, making the cars better for them. - So as a driver though, when the balance isn't, like what's it like not having an ill handling car at like Daytona, you know what I mean? - Well, I mean, I've driven cars that were mostly, I've only once been loose at Daytona and that was in that pink-- - The bush car. - The bush car, yeah. - We drove away from the field and everyone was plowing that night and for whatever reason, we were sideways, almost wrecked it, running the wall a couple of times. But every time that I've ever had a balance issue at Daytona, it's always been too tight. - Yeah. - You're always dealing with the front and the push. And so we would, we're running in the 125s on Thursday and I'm running sixth or fifth. Jeff Burton's behind me and he's in this yellow and red 99 when he's running for Roush and man, we're lifting 'cause we're gonna hit the wall, going into one. We're like out of the gas, plowing up to the fence and then get to the fence and back to the throttle. It was that tight. - But you're not running much, you weren't running like 220 mile an hour either and you're just like, yeah, but it's still fighting handling issues. - Probably very similar speeds to what the guys are running. - Fighting handling that big. - But we're running during the day on a much more worn out surface back then, this is before the repave. - Sure. - It's the track's heading in that direction. We just need that conversation around balance and handling to get louder. I think it was definitely a concern for a lot of drivers and some may sit here right now and say, "No, I don't want it to get louder. I have my hands full." - That's more fun to watch. - Yeah, we need the whole field to be having some handling challenges. - It creates passing, it creates all sorts of things. - But Denny, Chase Elliott, Bubba, among many other drivers had some great comments about the package, the racing, the runs they were able to get, Chase was one of a handful of drivers who took runs that they had and made moves to take the lead when they could. Some drivers had runs develop and chose to do nothing with them. That's disappointing to watch as a viewer, but it's a decision that's up to the driver and not a true reflection on the package and the rules in place. I appreciate drivers who make moves and I shrug my shoulders at the ones that don't. A point for leading a lap and one for leading the most would likely encourage more drivers to use those runs for their benefit. 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Hey, everybody. The 2026 season is in full swing and we've already had some really incredible moments while we love this sport. And when it comes to capturing those historical NASCAR moments, nobody does it better than Lionel racing the official die cast of NASCAR. Their race win die casts are some of my absolute favorites in my collection. The scuffs, scrapes, confetti, the damage every detail that tells the story of that win. It's in these die cast. These things look like they were pulled straight out of victory lane. And right now Lionel racing is offering free domestic shipping just for nail junior download listeners. You can use this promo code download 26 at checkout. Head over to lionelracing.com to lock in your favorite NASCAR moments into your collection today. Sitting down at the table is the big winner from Daytona Ryan Prius. What's going on? It's going good. Man voice still gone. Why is your voice still going from screaming after the race? Probably for or screaming during the race. Probably a little bit during a little probably a lot after. But then a lot on on Sunday. Yeah, it was it was a heck of a, you know, did you throw it down? That's what I heard we threw it down. What's it? What's a what's a what's a win party hell raisin Sunday look like for Ron Prius? Well, different than it would have been probably 10 years ago. Yeah, because I got kids and but it was my neighborhood just happens to be a lot of people in racing. So my entire neighborhood came down the 60 group some friends and you know some friends and yeah, we all just I filled up an entire garbage can full of beer. And ice and I mean a full garbage can started at three and the party ended at 9 30 because we ran out of beer. So yeah, that's pretty good. It's okay. But see I'm 35. I knew I knew the next more. I didn't I wanted to wake up and be able to function on Monday. So I was happy about it. I'm pretty proud of it. It was a good one. That's important. I feel like we ran hard at 35 still. You can still going. You could go to the wee hours of the morning. Oh, no, that's it. Oh, he did all day or that's good. Yeah. All day on Sundays are tough too. Yeah, give him a little credit. Hey, I wore shirt for you. What is your short track America? Yeah. Every time every time I see him most 99% of the time I see him. I just say short track racing. And it's just the thing that me and him have. We're both big fans of it. I love that text message. You sent me. Yeah, it's just right at the end. You had to throw in the short track racing. It's it's awesome. I love it. Did you keep your neighbor up across the street? Bummy. Oh, yeah, Josh Barry did too. Really? Josh Barry had him going. Oh, yeah. Do you know Bummy lived across street from him? Uh-uh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Bummy. Bummy. It just kept probably around like 536 o'clock. He was he kept trying. All right. One more beer and Josh and I just kept going on over to the trash can and giving him one. We'd get one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a good time. Bummy's a great guy. I had a missed all that. I know. I'll send you an invite next time. Sorry. I mean, I could have slipped over there. Yeah. What was I doing on Sunday? I guess I was laying on the couch. Nothing. Nothing. Cause I text you and you're like, I'm like, what are you doing? You're like not doing. Oh, was it? So we're talking about the race. And, um, you know, I think, uh, you know, the eye test, right? I think it passed the eye test. I don't know if you've went back and watch it yet. Um, we heard a lot of drivers talk positively about the changes. We heard a lot of drivers say it wasn't no big deal. It wasn't any different. Um, but again, the eye test, one of the, one of the things that I was just commenting on before you sat down was, uh, a couple of very key moments chase Elliott gets up to second place. He gets a run and makes a move and goes around and clears, right? And then like few laps later, he gets the same identical run makes a move doesn't quite clear. It's like, all right, man, these guys are feeling confident enough in this situation to take a few runs, right? And not just sit there and, you know, um, follow the guy in front. Yeah. I really thought that that was quite different. It was, right? It was, I mean, in the other pack races, we've usually seen double file. Yeah, locked it locked right. Yeah, where this race, it's first off, it's night, tonight, time, right? And everybody migrated to the top and the top was dominant. But to your point, if you were in the first, you know, if you were the guy leading, if you were second or third at any point, if you accumulated a run, you could go up there and try to clear. The tough part about it is if you didn't clear them, you were probably getting freight train, but that's why you had to be pretty methodical about it. I just, um, you know, for me, when we go to super speedways, if you're going to try and replicate Atlanta and what we do there. Atlanta is a lot smaller. The corners are tighter, unless we're going to go 230 miles an hour, you're probably not going to get that. So yeah, I was, you know, I'm a little biased on it because it went my way. Yeah, but I liked it. It reminded me of, you know, loud and you typically don't want to be the guy leading. You want to be the guy in second or third coming to the white flag because you can just build such a run like loud and modified. Correct. Yeah, you're not talking about. I'm not talking about the cup cars. I'm talking about the mile fides. Yeah. I was, I was really pleased with it. I, the other thing though that I wonder is so we made all these changes. What stopped everyone from just fuel saving in the same manner that they did in February. Some did some, you know, the 41 several, several guys sat in the back of the field and took advantage of it and ended up some turning that into a tent through a top top 10 top 15 place finish. But the rest, the majority of the field ran harder. Yeah, didn't quite save as much. We saw all the graphs all all day Sunday, all day Monday on social media. There's factual evidence that the teams and the drivers didn't save as much. Why? Well, the way everything played out, we didn't use as much fuel with this package. I think with the 500 horsepower and the lower drag, right? So you could, you could go kind of, I mean, stage two and stage three. You only had to save a little bit in stage two. Stage three was a little bit more difficult, but stage three got got interesting because there was a cross point of where, you know, the four or five Chevy's pitted took four. What was the four seconds of fuel and then just went hard. Now I haven't looked back to see what their pace was when they did that, but, you know, they were catching, they were catching the pack a little bit. Yeah, the idea was what I understand it was, it was quite a bit faster. Yeah, they were catching them where, you know, if you look back three, you know, three or so years ago, the Daytona 500 win the 60 David Reagan was in it, and I was in the 41. We went an entire length of a stage saving and thought it was going to work out until about four laps before the end of the stage and the whole pack went by. So there's a gamble. And it's kind of like this was that first time people didn't know, you know, how they wanted to play their hands and I know we were committed to saving fuel and to your point. There's, it's a game of chess, you and I have actually had conversations of, you know, where before I would ride around in the back and play this, you know, be around at the end game. And now, you know, that I'm in a different situation. It's like I'd much rather be racing like I did on on Saturday night. So way more fun for sure. And, but yeah, no, I mean, there's a lot going through our heads during that race. So you said something that people interest were using less fuel with this package. Yeah. Is that directionally the right way to go to eliminate fuel savings as much as possible? I don't, I feel pretty confident that you'll never entirely eliminate it. Every race has the potential to be a few miles race. Every race does. Yeah. But, yeah, you said something that was pretty interesting there. If you're using, if you found a, you know, if this package just uses less fuel, then again, you would, you're not as relied on trying to minimize your time on pit road. You're not using as much fuel. So, you know, it's directionally maybe that's a good way to go. Yeah, and I, you know, the way I look at this, that part of super speedway kind of makes it fun right now. And it makes it interesting because you see cars going forward, risking not getting as good fuel mileage. And you see, you see cars going forward, risking not getting as good fuel mileage. And you see cars going forward, risking not getting as good fuel mileage. and it's. the other guys that are just getting up to the top and they keep getting freight train back. And when it's time to go, well, everybody's trying to go. And then passing track position already comes a lot harder. And the way I look at it is, it's no different than going to Richmond or Martinsville where you're trying to save your tires. Am I going 110% at lap two? I'm not. I'm taking care of my tires because I want it to-- - Better not. - Exactly. So the super speedway world and just what we've, what we're dealing with, it's no different. You just got to be smarter than the other guy and understand the situation and play your cards right. And-- - One of the things that-- So I was really happy to see guys like I'm going to mention chase. I'm sure you, multiple people, not just Chase, but his instance was one that stood out to me. Taking runs and taking the lead with them, getting lead going into the lead. Not sitting there going, man, stage two, I'm second, I'm just going to push-- I'm not attached the entire time too. You could get a big run and carry it and clear cars and come up. - So I was really happy to see that. If you brought back, giving away-- if you brought back, awarding a point for leading a lap and awarding a point for leading the most laps, don't you think you would see everybody trying to get up there and at some point, passing for the lead? - Yeah, without a doubt. There's something on the line there for sure, right? So that's-- - Definitely what that is. - Yeah, right now our eyes are set on, where do I want to be with two to go or one to go, right? It's not, man, I want this one pointer. Man, that extra, you know, leading the most laps could be worth something. So, yeah, when you dangle that car in front of you, yeah. - I think taking that out of the sport probably didn't affect most races, probably didn't really move the needle except at Daytona and Talladega. I think it would encourage guys, chase Elliott's in second place, has his hell of a run down or not chase, but Larsen, he's running down the back straight away. He has a really good run. I don't think that it wasn't at each of his car in first, it might have been a Chevrolet, but he has this great run and I'm like, and he just pushed the guy and I was like, game. You know, you had this perfect run, you dive off into three, you run, you wrap the bottom a little bit and you clear him, you got the lead. - Does he pass? - Yeah, and I'm thinking man, we need to bring back, given that point away, 'cause he passes in that moment. That's another pass that I get to see as a fan. Now I got Larsen, if I'm a Larsen guy, he's leading, that's my guy leading the race. So, what's going through in my head in that moment is I don't have a ton of friends. So, if I do that and I don't get up-- - Yeah, help me, I get up. - You know what I mean? You're gonna lose that track position, so like, I'm not-- - But you know, you know when the run's good enough. - Yeah. - Don't you? - Yeah. - But not every run, but you know, that was a good run that he had and he pushed the guy and I was like, damn, man, I wish you would have went, but you know, it took the lead there. - You guys topped off a lot at the end of cautions and stages and stuff. You topped off and sacrificed track position. - Yeah. - And so before you couldn't really do that a lot because the field is gridlocked. - Yeah. - And you couldn't make it through. What makes that doable now? - I don't know, that's a great question. To be honest with you, I think it has some part of the fuel savings, 'cause-- - There's always a little bit, but it's not, we weren't saving as much as before. But it looked like, I'm not saying it was easy, but it looked like when Blaney wanted to drop the hammer and drive around everybody at bottom, he just drove to the front. - Yeah. You know, I think the Daytona that we saw on Saturday night is definitely gonna be different from the Daytona 500. And I say this because it was nighttime. At the end of stage three, guys were starting to fight, the wandering up coming off the floor. Now you add in track temp, you know, a little bit hotter. It's gonna be worse. There's gonna be lifting moments. There's gonna be some of that separation. So I think, you know, like I said, I'm probably biased because I won. And I was on the good side of everything. So my perspective on it is phenomenal. - What do you feel, what do you feel should be the path forward to Daga and most maybe importantly the 500? Do you continue to adjust? Do you stick with this? What would you like to see happen? - Man, I don't know. Honestly, I have nothing on the top of my head right now. - Do you go to Talladega first and just see what it does there? Because Talladega is a different animal. - Yeah, it's during the day too. Yeah, I mean, I enjoyed what you were talking about. If you were the guy second and third and kind of navigated your way up, you could get a run, you can clear and get to the front. What I don't wanna see is the leader has this big bubble and just constantly goes left and right. Like that's what we don't want. We don't want the slingshot. We wanna see guys back off, get a run, get by him and get up and do, you know, everybody, we all, whenever I'm from New England. So I like to bring up the modifides. And, but that's what makes that race so great is the guy out front is sitting duck. The guy in second gets a massive run, slingshot's by and then they keep on. You just keep on, you know, train the lead and doing those things. I haven't been in a cup situation yet where we've been able to do that other than this past weekend. So, you know, I'm sure there's other people with other opinions, but that I like that. - Yeah. - Well, let me ask you about pushing real quick. What was the pushes, how were the pushes different than before? - So I, there was less tandem, more slam. - There's definitely more bump traps. - It's pushing away like it would hit and I saw that early. - Yeah, early on I kept trying to just lock with Chris or lock with whoever and it took too long to get through that bubble. And by the time you got to that bubble or through the bubble to their rear bumper, the whole pack stacked up behind you. So what I noticed is, you know, when you started slamming people, as long as you were centered, it just moved them forward. So, I mean, the cars could take a push, a bigger push than I would have initially thought. - Yeah. - What do you mean by that? - Well, you would have thought by taking rear spoiler away, the car would be a lot more unstable. But what I think it did is it balanced the car mechanically with your front to rear percentage. Now. - So it was okay, still. - I thought it was. Now what I will say is when you went from dirty, clean air, like we saw Carson do and got big loose. I had big loose moments by myself. Yes, there was about three or four moments when, you know, I was following Chris and kind of go with him and he'd peek down or the leader would peek down so he'd follow when I wasn't expecting it and that right front would catch the air, it would just pull the front. And I love it. - I'm okay with it. - Yeah. - Just drive it. - That's awesome. Yeah, we heard drivers on the radio talking more about needing help with their balance. And I thought that, you know, if we can make that conversation get louder, that's good for everybody. - That's right. - I know the drivers don't love being uncomfortable, but when the whole field's kind of challenged with the balance of the car a little bit and always kind of working on it, I think it, you know, to your point, I like to see guys, you know, I like to see some guys having, having a hard time with it. - Yeah. - You know, out of the gas. - That's how it should be. - Chasing it up the track and trying to figure it out. Some guy wrapping the bottom and kicking ass, you know? - That's right. Well, the, you know, I think that I wouldn't expect NASCAR to make a big change to your point, TJ Talladega is quite different. I'm not really gonna go to Talladega and give you a package that makes the car handle bad. The track's just wide and it's just completely, it's interesting how much different it is than Daytona Daytona handles where Talladega's just kind of wide open. But hopefully, you know, when we get there several weeks from now, the cars that sort of sling shot pass opportunity that started to present itself. - Yeah, it's forming a little bit. This weekend is still there because that was really, really cool. So, we wanted to congratulate you for bringing back win and you're in. Everybody thought that was going. - Yeah, way to go. - Oh man, there was some upset people. - Yeah, why were they upset though? - I don't know. - You did everything. Like we have, we set the points up. Everybody knew the rules. Everybody went throughout the entire season, knowing the rules. And like, you know, you did this incredible thing. - Yeah, that was fun. - You know, you not only won this race at Daytona, that's special. - Yeah. - You know, you're winning in NASCAR, living your dream, you got out, you explained that to us. - Yeah. - But. - He scored 67 points at Daytona. - Yeah. - Up front all night. - You made this points system in the change that we all went through. You made it legitimate. You made it, you added credibility to, this is what we wanted. - This is, you earned it. - Thank you. - Yeah. - You didn't come from 30th in points, right? To take this position. You like. - Yeah, you didn't bump out like this. - You did it in the most legitimate way possible. - You know. - You're a nerve-wracking way for you probably as well. - No, I live for those moments. (laughing) I live for it, but you think about it. Like, there's defining moments in everybody's careers. Mine happened to be like the Iowa one. No one knew. I didn't tell anybody. I remember GGR Steve D'Souza asked me. He's like, man, you had to borrow money. I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna tell you that, like. But it's just high pressure situations. Everything about my career has been high pressure situations 'cause, you know, there is no tomorrow if it doesn't work out. And I'm not saying that wasn't the case. case for this past weekend, but there was a lot in the line, you know, and what we wanted to do. So yeah, I'm really, really proud of it. I was happy that my family was there, my wife, my kids, my dad. That was a big deal for me. And yeah, like you take out May and June, May and June were catastrophic for Brad and myself. We just every weekend, it was something, you know, and we kind of got back on the horse at San Diego. And then Sonoma, we had a good run. It's easy to try to knock you off that horse. He did. He didn't. And you want to know what Shane in that race, like, I don't know, I've gone back and watched Super Speedway races. And I was like, when you look at Shane and I's average at Super Speed ways, they were both terrible, right? But we both said we had that attitude of, we can't ride because if I ride, he was digging. He was. And he did everything right in stage one. And then from there, it was, you know, I had to do what we had to do to try and he would actually have started off. It started off really good for him in state. Didn't he? Did he win the state? Yeah, he won the stage. Yeah, I'm going to say, I was busher and I were flying through the midfield. Might have been off his bumper to the five, too. Yeah, maybe I don't know, but I don't know. But yeah, that was wild, man. You know, I, I will never, it's, as we've gotten further and further away from Saturday, it just keeps like, I've gone back and I've rewatched a lot of different points in that race. And I think to myself, like, sometimes it's meant to be, man, like, and all you can do is just attack. And yeah, that's all. They do these play races are like that. You just got to be in the right, right, right area. And there is, you'll get it. There is not a perfect strategy at race in Daytona. There is not a perfect strategy. There's a, there's a 60 to 80% chance that you're going to crash in any race you enter there. And so, and that's just, that's, that's, that's the way it is. But there's no perfect strategy. But I think the one that prevails more often is that one. The one that you're attack, attack, attack, take every run, not literally take every run, but the mentality of, I'm going to work forward. I'm going to try to stay toward the front. I'm going to try to lead when I can lead. I'm going to, you know, because I think that's the safest place to be. Absolutely. And I just feel like if you're on the offense, man, when you start being conservative or you start playing defense, man, you get yourself in trouble. Yeah. So easy. Yeah. You snowball. It's a snowball. One, one poor judgment move or, you know, like not taking that whole or second guessing that run. It's too late. Yeah. And then it just snowballs from there because it leads up to whatever else happens next. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough, man. Super speedway racing, especially when it comes to, you know, the, we all have to try and play nice to a certain extent on the OEM side and all of that. It can be challenging, which is what was nice about that final restart because I knew the allegiance of where the other fours were. And I said, okay, well, I know what I have to do. And I got to do what's best for me right now. So is there even within the, your own manufacturer, there's some, there's some people you can count on and some that you really can't because you know, they have other responsibilities. To be honest with you, I have a really good relationship with a lot of the four drivers. So it's, there isn't a time where, you know, I feel like this one won't go with me. I just knew in the situation, like I'm aware of everything enough to know the two is probably going to be close. If I won, you know, could the 97 potentially bump him. So yeah, front row has a has a, you know, an alliance with Penske. So he's got to go with them or they have to push him to make sure that I don't win. So it was just, it was nice to be aware of that. But yeah, I mean, the nice part about when we sit in our meetings, they aren't telling you, like, don't push, you know, another OEM. It's, you know, just try not to hurt each other along, along the whole process. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah. He's got a lot of, I got a lot of that. Oh, it's right. Sorry, tough Tuesday. Yeah, no, it's, we're going to talk about that later in the show. But Ryan, what was your thought process when you spun out? Did you, were you worried about? Did you think it was over for you? Like, what was going through your mind there? When I was sliding through the grass, I was thinking, it was, uh, I mean, I was hoping I wasn't just going to overcorrect and go into the field. That's what I was worried about. When I saw it, I was like, they're going to come up. They're going to come up. I knew once that right rear was going to catch on the asphalt, that was going to catch. So I just tried to straighten as much as I could and I actually went back and watched that clip over because Larsen, like, hit the grass, hit the asphalt, just kept digging. I'm like, I hit the asphalt and I'm just swatting the thing trying to get it going straight. But, um, yeah, I mean, in that moment, I was pissed because I thought we were at least going to get four to five stage points, right? Oh, yeah, probably. It was a worst case scenario for us. It was changes. Got all 10 at, at first, I had heard that we didn't get any. Uh, so I was like, well, and then they put you back up. It's like, whoa. Okay. That was a little bit of a, yeah. So, yeah. Thank God for photos and, yeah, I would end up in slime. But, um, yeah, I mean, in that moment, I don't know. I don't get down, man. I'm like, I don't, I'm very, very passionate. If anybody's listening to my radio, I don't know if it's a Ryan thing, like, Laney, but, you know, I'm from a very passionate part of the country where we give it everything we got. And, um, so for me in that moment, like, when I feel not, when I feel like there's a big mountain to climb, like, I'll just start climbing, you know, climb it until you can't climb it anymore. So, yeah. Is that where you say I'm just going to drive the car, you guys tell me what's my new way of not swear or trying not to swear and trying, you know, sometimes it comes out. I hate, I hate it, but it's just, yeah, I'm very, passionate. I'm just going to drive the car, you guys. You guys tell me, yeah, you guys tell me the situation, the strategy. I'm just going to drive. That's just like, see, but Brandon, like my spot, Brandon B. Wilkes, he knows, and he's known long enough, like, that's my way of letting this demon, you know, whatever out. And then just focusing ahead. Yeah, because you definitely left some demons out earlier in the year. That's probably. Yeah. So in victory lane, we saw Bragg Hazlowski and how proud he was of the result and, um, recognizing what you accomplished and how you'd put yourself into the chase. What is the really relationship like with Brad, the owner? What does he bring to the team to make things better? Well, I don't know if you guys, you probably have, but it's press, press conference afterwards says a lot. You know, they're a really challenging part when you, you get down here is you can feel attacked at times, you know, with all the different data we have in SMT. It can be used two ways, a productive way and then a non productive way. So you almost feel attacked at times, which I feel, you know, at RFK, I don't feel that way. And Brad went in there, you know, where he talks about meetings that he has. And the first thing he says in those meetings, and these are his words is, I don't want to hear about the drivers. We, you know, I want to hear about the cars. How do we make the cars faster? Or what do we want to do this? And that's, that is, you know, us drivers, you know, we are always, if we can go to the lead, we're going to go to the lead. We're not going to ride around and take it easy on the day. And, you know, it's just, you know, it's collaborating with your team, your engineers, your crew chief, and getting on the same wavelength when it comes to communication. And Brad, as a team owner, as a driver, and a teammate, like, that says a lot because he also, he sacrifices things for himself to see Chris and I succeed at, you know, and I, I can't go into specifics, but it's like, I appreciate that because he's given me a huge opportunity to live out my dream, you know, and he doesn't get as much credit as he probably deserves. And, uh, yeah, I've, I've really enjoyed racing, working with him and being there. What was it like coming from, you know, where you were to a, to teammates like Chris and Brad because I feel like they were with open arms, you know what I mean? You were, you had, like, not that you didn't have real teammates before, but you had like real teammates to help on track because I feel like before, you're kind of competing for, for, you know what I mean? You guys were all, yeah, knew it was going on. So what was the difference? Um, well, yeah, I mean, I feel like whenever we're around each other, Brad and Chris are great teammates. That's right. And we all get around each other. And like, when Chris is going to make a move, I'm ready to go with him or Brad or the same thing vice versa. So we all, you know, um, I was just watching Darlington over from the spring and Brad got under Chris and Chris isn't going to race him into the corner. He's going to let him go and and both of them roll on up. And, you know, in the past, if you're racing for the win with, you know, 20, 30 to go, it's completely different. Oh, for sure. You know, stage one, stage two, you don't want to hurt each other, hurt your organization. And I feel like that's, uh, that's something that we, we have, you know, where we can, we can work with each other and, uh, keep making our cars better, keep helping our track position. And yeah, it's, uh, it's been, been great. But, you know, what I will say, as the personalities. All our personalities kind of get along really well. Oh, for sure. What I've learned is, you know, Texas with Chris is very, very even keeled. Oh, he got excited. He got excited at Darlington one time. Yeah, he did. But I was joked with him when I go, you know, into the gym. And I'm a big pre-workout guy and caffeine guy. And I was joked that I'm going to put some pre-workout in him, you know, get him, get him fired up. And then there's Brad, he's a Michigan guy, which is very similar to like the Northeast just without without the, I like to say, passion, like the big passion moments. You know what I mean? He's very even keeled, but he's, he still got that, um, that Northeast style in him, at least what I think anyways. And then there's similar. You're right. From your, on the East Coast more, they are a little, yeah, Tommy Baldwin. If I get fired up, come out. Yeah. Tommy's a good example. Yeah. And then there's me. I'm on the 9,000 chip all the time. Like bouncing off it. So is this like the first, I know you the clash, we were, we were getting ready to go into Disney Cruise. And we're watching the clash from, from the hotel room. Yeah, like, and you got the win there. Yep. Is this like what's the difference? Is this like, you know, I don't, like this is Daytona cutoff race. Obviously, there's way more on the line here. Is this like your first cup win? Uh, no. Bum and gray was pretty bad. Oh, pretty cool. I know, but that's a cool place, too, but like this is, this is, it's a completely different feeling where Daytona has absolutely beaten me, man. We've talked about there's 60, 80% chance you're going to wreck every time you go there. I joke with you and I don't need my, any of my belts changed, but man, when you wreck at Daytona, you're crotch like, you know, right there. Yeah, yeah. It feels it. And there's no, there's no other way around it. Like you're, you're wrecking at 200 miles an hour. It's going to happen. But, man, just, I think it was really the hurdle, you know, everything that we had to overcome that day. And, you know, the point situation, everything had to go right. And you couldn't, I'm very aggressive in the way that I explain it, but it's like having your, you know, your, your finger on the pressure point and not letting up and just, just going with that. So, for me, it was like, yeah, I did the burnout, which I wish I would have done it a little different. I tried to go from, I tried to go from first to second and it kind of got tight. So I couldn't get it in right away. So I'd probably roll up a little different and put it right in second and then do the burnout, but that's about the only thing I would do different. And then the crowd, I mean, yeah, I mean, you got to get out at Daytona. You got to get out of the car, stand there and look at everyone in the crowd at Daytona. That's pretty cool. I guess what I'm trying to explain is Bowman Gray was special to me because short track race in life. I grew up like a, you know, a quarter mile guy like Riverhead in Long Island. You know, I would, it was just that's my bread and butter. You know, that's what I come from and modified the nerf bars, the bumpers and the hard nose racing. So for me, that was special doing that. But then yeah, Daytona, like just the whole season, the win and you're in the not having to read. He's never won a points pain race. And now the next one's going to be he's never won a non super speedway race or whatnot. It's, uh, to me, it's just like, has a race car driver. When we end our careers, we want to be proud of what we did. When I left the Northeast, I left giving up chasing championships, chasing track championships, trying to be a Ted Christopher or Mike Stephane. But you were well on the way. I mean, as many modified wins as you were getting at the time. But I stopped. You know, I had a, I had a fierce rivalry going with Doug Kobe and, you know, Justin Monson, you're in Keith Rocco and a lot of the guys up there. And I chased after this dream. The dream was to win and succeed at the couple level. And somebody reminded me, I've run, I've won in the NASCAR Wheel of Modified Tour, the K&N series, the trucks, Xfinity and Cup. And I did all of, all of all of them except for the modified tour in the Cup series, part time. Like, K&N, I didn't run full time. I ran here and there races, trucks. I was part time. I only ran, you know, however many races and Xfinity, when I won those races, it wasn't full time. Yeah, I get a short schedule too. So yeah, I mean, I'm pretty proud of that. It's cool. People talked about it. Got to be top six. Got to be this for the chase. What's your mindset going in? Anything's possible. But I think we learned that with Tony Stewart in 2011 now. Oh, yeah. That's a big, big mountain climb. But do I feel like I'm standing on Mount Everest right now? I do. And, um, you know, when you look at, look at these races, we got momentum on our side. I got, I got a crew chief that is just ready to conquer the world right now. I was going to do rock. How Derek was the Derek come over on Sunday? Oh, yeah. Oh, Derek was good. He doesn't, he doesn't drink a whole lot. But, um, that guy is just so cool and even keeled and, and passionate and, um, I'm proud a little bit here. Well, yeah, but that's good. It's nice to have that and have those perspectives. People think I'm a little weird too. And everyone is right. Everybody is. And we all, we all have different ways of looking at things. And that's what brings value. You know, any, you know, if you have that at your company, right? So, but for me, I didn't realize that was Derek's first win as a crew chief in the cup series. He's been around. He's been around for a long time. And a lot of guys on our team, I want to say there's probably only two guys on our entire team that have won a cup race before. Probably. Everyone else is new. And, um, yeah, that's special. Yeah. Because seeing the pureness like it's hard to explain people to people why we all fall in love with racing, especially when you get to this level, it can be, it can be so challenging to keep perspective. And I, the ones that, you know, friends of me, I told them when I did that, New England 900 race last year with Cletus, it reminded me why I love racing so much because it's, it's easy to fall into the trap of I got to make my, you know, just hyper focusing on your race car, hyper focusing on winning and doing all those things that you lose sight of why we love it. And, you know, seeing everybody on Sunday and how happy everybody was like, it was pure. So it was cool. Man, I've worked with Derek a little bit back in the day. But, uh, where'd you work it? Where'd you work with him? He worked it. He did work. He did. He's on a Bud deal for a while. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was seem like a couple of years. Yeah. Yeah. He was one of the first engineers in the sport. I think he was. Yeah. He told me all about a guy who was, who was maybe not quite, quite as welcome then. Yeah. His most engineers weren't popular. No, not. Especially around, you know, there I say the year he's, they were like, oh, yeah, give me more engineers, you know, just like engineer. Yeah. Yeah. I can see with. Yeah. Derek fit in really well. Yeah. He's a good dude. He's funny, man. He's just got his personality is just so unique compared to others like. Yeah. But maybe that's why it works with me. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It is good to see him. After all the years that he's been around the sport is good to see him, you know, find some, some, uh, something consistent. Find somewhere that he, you know, he's making it work. And it's good to see you and him believe in each other. Yep. Well, good luck. Uh, going into Darlington, going into the chase, um, always they'll always like to compare the, um, you know, the opportunity to make the chase and the, the effort that goes into that is like being part of a fraternity. It's a, when you're not in it, it sucks. Yep. And when you're in it, man, it is cool as hell because you feel like you're, you're, you're, you're definitely, you know, you feel like you're one of the best race car drivers out there. That is add credibility to that idea, uh, that you belong. And, um, it's a good work there, man, and have fun over the next 10. It's going to be a grind. Hopefully you go out there and you can make it happen. Appreciate it. Thanks, buddy. Ryan Priest on the Del Juno download. Hey, this is Delhart, Jr. And for all the latest Del Juno download gear, including the I'm going to drink some beer T-shirt. We've been talking about here around the office. Head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch. Cool for Ryan to come through. Yeah. Um, let's get right into the O'Reilly race. I know a lot of folks watch the, uh, the end of that and that was pretty, pretty disappointing. Um, junior motor sports, uh, had the race under control for five, six laps to go, um, Carsten Hoosvar, uh, Carsten Quoppel leading the race, um, Raja was second and Justin was third. And, um, the way I saw it was, with about five or six to go, Raja started backing off and backing up and trying to sort of test what he could try to do to put a run together to pass, um, Carsten. And while he's doing that, Carson's trying to protect his lead. And instead of, you know, just holding it wide open and driving away from Rajah and letting Rajah get this huge run on him, Carson's also lifting. So they're both lifting first and second place are running, you know, part or a portion of their laps, not full throttle. And that's backing up the two cars on top of the nose of the seven, and then pushing the seven back into the pack. And it just wasn't, wasn't good. So our cars were the best cars there. I think that the, the junior motorsports cars were a lot of raw speed. The best. Yeah. I mean, there might have been some of the cars just as good, but we had plenty of speed. And if you're running the top, which we were, and if you're in a line, which we were, and the leader's wide open, second place can run wide open without ever having to lift and never get within a car link to the leader, third place would also be able to run wide open without ever getting within a half a car link to our car link, the second place he would never have to lift. The fourth car may get a couple of runs randomly, very rarely where he would maybe lift a little bit or get to the back bumper of the third place car, but my point is, is like, when you run the top like that, you all can run wide open without having to lift and never really need to worry about anybody getting a significant run that you'll need to defend. It just doesn't happen. We see it over and over and over. This has been going on since 10, 15 years ago, when you get to train to the top, it really takes a lot of the runs and the cordy-in effect that creates runs out of the pack. That's what we had. We had that opportunity, but with about five or six to go, Roger started lifting, backing up to the seven, trying to figure out how he could create some runs. That's what Roger thought he needed to do in the moment. The junior motor sports, there has never been a meeting that I can recall or one that I've been a part of or a discussion with drivers that I've been a part of where I have told them, here's the rules of engagement for junior motor sports with five laps to go, 10 laps to go, 15 laps to go. I've never handcuffed our drivers and I felt like that. That was a good thing. I felt like it was good to say to them, look, I'm a lean on y'all to be creative, smart, try to win the race without ruining the race for the company or without crashing yourselves or your teammates. In the past, we have destroyed ourselves multiple times at Daytona. We have destroyed ourselves, but I've always tried to say, hey, I'm leaving it in the driver's hands. I'm not going to tell y'all what to do, but I think it's time to change. I've seen, I'll say this, like we've watched over the last 20 years, I can name multiple teams, Joe Gibbs Racing, Pinsky, Colleg, Hendrick Motorsports, there's tons of teams, almost every one of them who have sort of this understanding in the back half or the back end of these races that there is some responsibility to take care of your teammates and work with them. I've never, I always expect our drivers to try to take care of each other, to try to help each other, try to work together, but I've never told them or wanted to say to them, man, you know, with 10 to go and you're in second, you're not allowed to pass your teammates. You're not allowed to try to create runs on your teammates. I've never said that to them, and it might be time to clamp down and actually have a little bit of a better understanding of an individual's responsibility. And the reason why I've never felt good about that, because I was selfish. I was going to make the moves I wanted to make for me, but I'll also say this. If I'd raced all race long driving Rick Hendrick's car, if I had raced all race long and tried my hardest to put myself in the position to be leading the race with 20 to go and I didn't do that. I was actually now second to Jimmy, second to Jeff Gordon, second to a teammate. There was no way I was going to do something that would cost us both the race. Because I knew that that would be awful for my reputation within the company would suffer so heavily. If I pull out a line with five to go or if I'm backing up and getting runs and the field goes by both of us, or if I do anything, late in the race that cost me and my teammate the win, that was going to hurt my reputation in the company and I couldn't afford that. Didn't want that. No one in no other driver really wanted definitely didn't want that no, no other. And so there there was this sort of unspoken culture that controlled us and kept us from doing that from doing it and kept us making the right decisions. And so, you know, it's being a good teammate's part of it, but it's also like you knew the expectation from from above, from Rick and everybody above you. So we don't have that here and it's time for us to get it. It's time for us to go in that direction because and it probably will, it's probably a little bit late. It's probably should have happened many, many years ago. But I was thinking man, given, given the drivers their creative liberties and allowing them to kind of just race their race, I wanted them to, I thought, you know, man, I'm a let them be selfish like me and it hasn't been a big, big benefit to us. And I mean, it's not, you're not really doing a lot different. You're just, I know, I, I, what makes this okay with me today is that I can say, look man, you have all of stage one, all of stage two and a majority of stage three to be, to put yourself in the lead position if, and if you're, you know, and you, you'll have all of that time in the race to do your best to put yourself in the position where you're, you're in control of the race. If you haven't done that for whatever reason, then you're now, your responsibilities had changed. You know, looking, this only really comes into play when we have the numbers up front. Yeah, three or four, one, two, three, you know, one, two, three, four, whatever. This really, really has to come into play in those moments. And he wanted to want, you could have two up there and still try to make it work. That's right. I mean, yeah, when you only two, when there's only two of you up there, you need to be more like, oh, absolutely, right, but when it's one, two, three, when it's one, two, three, four, that's when it gets harder to actually get these guys to fall in and do, and, and, and it's, and it's, it's harder to let, let it, when it's harder to let, let, leave it to them and them do the right thing, right? And so, you know, I think going forward, we'll probably have some conversations and say, look, man, you know, you get the whole race to kind of put yourself in the best position to try to be in control of the race at the end. If you have done that great, you're going to, you're going to have confidence in your teammates to support you. If you haven't done that and your teammate, two, teammate, three, and we have the numbers, we're controlling the field at the front, there's new responsibilities, there's new expectations upon teammate, two, teammate, three, to do, to do things a little more, you know, company oriented instead of, you know, self-motivated. So, I think it's just going to be the way it's going to have to be. Not every race falls, not every race, you know, we're not expecting to go to Talladega in February, Daytona and all these plate races and end up, you know, one, two, three at the front of the field every time. It's so hard to do that. It's not always going to be that way, but when it is, we should absolutely have a different outcome than what we had this past weekend. And so, I was mad. I went up to Carson and I was mad at him for lifting and he's like, well, I'm just trying to protect my position and I'm like, I don't, I don't ever lift more. You know, I know you come on the radio and told me and I was hard because I know, I know. And I, you know, I'm telling Josh spotting for Roger, I'm like, don't lift. Don't be backing up. Don't lift. You know, and it's just we, we don't need to have, we don't need to be having those conversations in the race with seven, six, five to go. They already ought to know that this is what it's expected. Well, before we drop the green flag, I'll take responsibility for not tooling everybody up, but it'll be, it'll be quite understood going into Talladega. That's for sure. Um, still a great night for Roger. I got the points he needed to be able to get himself into the chase, which I thought was incredible considering how he bounced around from car to car throughout the season. And of course, it didn't happen without the, the, the bad luck for the, for the Joe gives racing drivers. That was just out of their control. But it was fortunate for us. So Rajah gets to race for the championship and Justin and Carson and Sam here in really, a really good spot. And look, Sammy's moving on and won't be at junior motor sports. That has been obviously, you know, a relationship that I wish would have buried, you know, better results. We worked really hard. Sammy worked really hard when, you know, if you go back to Martin'sville where he, he, you know, he tries to take out the, the great kid. That was a low point for sure. And I'm gonna tell you, man, we asked him to do the work. We asked him to get better. We asked him to make better decisions. And he did. He said, Sammy's done a lot this year, I think, he, he might, he might rubble some feathers with competition on the racetrack, those type of things, which is fine. He's a race car driver. I'm saying in the meeting room, at the, at the, at a, at a driver's appearance, at a meet and greet, he's buttoned up professional and he's getting better and better at all, you know, just being a race car driver in and out of the car every day. So, I'm, I'm anxious to see kind of how he does going forward, but he's still young too. He's very young. We worked really hard and, and he worked really hard. And, and I wish it, I wish it could have, have went better. And there's still some racing to do before the end of the year. You could pop off a win or so to finish this off on a good note. But I will say that I enjoyed having Sammy in, in the building announcement time. Yeah, I think it's announcement time. We got a, we got another announcement for the cars tour this weekend. Pretty awesome. You like this one. We're sitting here drinking a couple red bulls. We got two red bull athletes that are going to compete in the late model stock race at Florence this weekend. SVG and Conor Zillich will be behind the wheel of two very competitive cars. It's going to be a pretty big field. They're going to have their hands full, just trying to qualify well. Let alone the 125 laps Friday night. So they'll both be in red bull sponsored identical late models. Nice. Carson is going to be driving. Or I'm sorry, Conor Zillich is going to be so many cars drivers with C's, Conor's, Carson's Conor Zillich is going to be driving the number eight late model stock car. Actually, my car that I race, we're going to wrap that thing and send him up or down the road with, with Brian and the guys. And SVG is going to be racing with Headinger and who put a very competitive car out on the racetrack as well. That group called me many weeks ago, wondering if, you know, I had any ideas on a driver that could could get in a car. And so I reached out to both of these guys and they both said yes. So I had to find another car. That's awesome. I was sitting in a, and I was sitting in a meeting with Red Bull the other day and I said, Hey, by the way, I got both these guys, both through your athletes, they're racing it at Florence. Why don't, you know, why don't we make them Red Bull cars? They're like, no problem. So just like that. I don't get lying out and make these a die cast. Well, they'll go out there and run well. There's no question. They'll be a die cast. Um, I appreciate that guys jumping in there and doing this. SVG is going to be number 51. Nice. Both the cars are identical aside from the numbers. And it's just going to be pretty, pretty cool. I mean, obviously, I'm going to run the pro race, which is a hundred lap feature before the, before the late model stocks, the late model stocks then run 125 laps. All this happens on flow on Friday night. If you're in the area at Darlington, come on out to Florence. It's only about 10 miles away from the Darlington motor speedway. Um, it's a bullring. It's, it's a throwback classic. It's authentic. Very classic. Yep. I've run a lot of races there and had a lot of fun there. Um, it's going to be warm. Um, but it'll be doable. So excited about that. Looking forward to, I know Connor has raced in the car store for four. He's aware of what he's gotten himself into SVG on the other hand. He's becoming quite the short track racer, um, on the, on at the couple level. But I'm curious as to what he says. Once he gets his, once he finishes the weekend and or the Friday night gets out of the car. I can't wait to see what he says about it. I'm going to close out dirty air here and move on through the next several segments. Ask junior and, um, dirty mode, though. But before we do, we want to tell you, the Earnhardt family's always relied on Bass Pro Shops for our outdoor adventures. And that tradition continues with me today. I grew up shopping at Bass Pro Shops. And now it's a place where I love to share with my own family, gearing up together to go out on weekend, getaways, maybe fishing in the pond over by the house, whatever it is, um, we're really incredibly grateful for the support that Johnny Morse and the entire Bass Pro Shop team has shown across all of our business ventures, whether it's the race team, dirty mode media, my late model stock car, they believe in what we're building. They've stood behind us every step of the way. They're not just great partners, but great friends and great people. Be sure to check out all they have to offer, whether you're going fishing, camping, hunting, you can find everything you need at the nearest Bass Pro Shops store, or you can shop with them online at basspro.com. All right, we're live. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Junior for another episode or segment of Ask Junior here at, uh, at the Dale Junior download. We had a really good show this morning. Ryan Priest came into the studio, said at the desk and talked to us. We had two big announcements for the car store, um, uh, that you'll, you'll hear about later today when this, when this episode comes out, we're not going to talk about it. Uh, Xfinity is waving the red flag on internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. You get the Wi-Fi and the speed and reliability that you need locked in at one price for five years, one price for five years. It's pretty good. Um, no surprises, no late yellows, just straight shots to victory lane. Just like that, folks, we have a winner is Xfinity. Imagine that. Um, I opened up a pack of wheels. We got a lot of car boxes over here. People are sending us in car boxes and ask car stuff from the nineties because it's pretty much worth, uh, pennies, but it's still fun to open up. I got a top of nine, um, Ernie Irvin kissing his wife and victory lane. Rip a nine, rip a nine, back to back two breaths. One gold, one silver watch out. Oh, um, Ed Whitaker. I drove a race Fred Whitaker. Two races for Ed Whitaker, one at Bristol, one at Fontana in the busheries, speaking of NASCAR cards, uh, T Crawford and the chat wants to know, is there any, is there a NASCAR card that you would like to have Billy Stable? Um, I, um, buddy of mine, who is a very, um, the buddy of mine, who is a, a singer that y'all, y'all know, I don't want to drop his name. It feels weird. He has a gym. He has a 10 PSA 10 downtown of mine. Oh, 2021, I think downtown. Hmm, pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I was going through my dad's cards and, do they have Dale Earnhardt senior downtowns? I want to Dale senior downtown. Do they have a, really? I don't know. Chat, do they have downtowns of Dale senior? I know they've got downtowns for me, but man, a Dale Earnhardt downtown. That'd be kind of cool. Pretty cool. Yeah. I don't know if I've even seen one. Maybe I have one day. We'll pull on what you did. No, you didn't. What'd you get? Would you pull it one time? I got a kangaroo down. Chat says no. Wow, they don't. Well, that's a miss. Well, it means possible. They don't. Yeah. Um, anyhow, um, we, uh, yeah, I kind of want to tell them what the announcement is, but they're going to have to wait. Yeah, I'm not going to tell two big announcements for the car store. I was in the stream. And, uh, yeah, priest came in here. We talked about Daytona. Um, we talk a lot. The, um, listen, the dirty Modo segment, uh, even if you don't gamble is really funny. Uh, this weekend or this week, we, uh, rust up this game a little bit. We change how we kind of did the dirty Modo segment and big thanks to Russell for some of the content that he brought. Super funny. But, um, who you got of there quickly, TJ man, I got three Mark Martins, um, a rusty and a glover. Jim Bell. Look at the hair on it. Yeah. Nice. All right. So let's get to some more questions. Uh, first question came from Facebook. They want to know, where did the ring the bell for when come from? Well, Rick Hendrick and, and their group, they have a bell that they take around to all of the departments. Um, it's on a cart. And it's a big bell. And you just, you know, the, they push the cart around to all the employees. They literally literally bring it right up to your station. You ring the bell. Yeah. Uh, it's a pretty cool tradition. Yeah. So. We just hung a bail in the middle of the shop and you run over, you know, we'll have a beer toast. You started winning too much We're we're beer drinkers, you know, and we're easy So we have a beer toast right around four o'clock After wins and everybody gets in line you ring the bell Yes, great because you get at the end you get at the bell And he gets a fist bump shake hands with all the employees that come through They're all coming through to ring the bell so they're right there and the crew chief to driver Everybody gets to say thank you to each individual. It's perfect. It's good atmosphere. It is. No, it's pretty cool Yep Not a question, but speaking of fans and some stuff in we have Snacks and also TJ there I believe are some cards in there for you. You better be real careful with the bottom of that bottom is Yeah, holy smokes. I got a friend of mine that That comes down here from from Canada, and I They have things up there that that we don't have Catch up flavored potato chips. That's one here right there's a wonder if we got the pickle ones to make the so yeah, we talked about this They got catch up flavored Doritos. Yeah We got a Nashville hot Conte style Nashville. Oh, that sounds good. Yeah, and then there's a lot of French words Mr. Maple mm-hmm that sound dude maple syrup. Yeah, I don't know. Where's the bag? There's a little bag with some That's for TJ. Yeah, here you go TJ. Thank you This there's like go Catch up flavored amazing Cheetos Canada loves their ketchup. They do I'll be honest. I mean, there's a lot more in there. I don't think y'all want to see everything, but this my friend so What's you got there? Oh Josh Allen? I Clay John he's a big Ed kissing about it. No All right, so I'm a big I Used to watch much music you know MTV you had MTV MTV 2 and VH1 all of that and then much music was like the Canadian MTV and you'd hear bands, you know that you didn't really get to hear all the time, but So I used to used to and then we would go up to Canada every now and then and Race or shoot commercials. It was We shot y'all remember the old The outlaw fuel additive I did this commercial where I'm in this Camaro doing a donut inside this Like industrial plant shot that in Ontario Just went all the way up there to shoot that commercial. It's cold miserable, but It's like an hour from my house where I lived up there. Yeah, thanks So anyhow, my buddy that lives up there he comes down here man. I mean he comes down here a lot But he brings me five alive. That's what it started with. There's two cases of five alive Can you so could somebody hand me some of that so I can just see people can see it and this is important because My dad Just just like it's the best. Yeah, I don't think I've ever tried it So these are in the juice boxes like can we have teachers try one kid's drink and so you have this five alive and this is the French side on the back but My dad used to buy five alive in the jug big jug this big we this guy sends it in his juice boxes, which is kind of nice because He just use them individually to mix with vodka My dad either drank beer or he drank five alive and vodka back in the day and so this guy He heard me talking about that and he said hey, we they don't make five alive in the states anymore I don't know why they just don't make it but they still make it up in Canada So he started bringing just five alive down and then he's like hey man try these catch up Take it so I'm like man. This is good. So now he's like just keeps bringing more and more and more stuff But they also collect sports guards and every now and then it'll Bring some of those down, but very thankful Speaking of Canadian food Matt Forbes wants to know have you ever tried Poutine? No, oh that doesn't sound that no, it's good. It's like gravy and cheese curds I want to say correct me from wrong map But it's like you get French fries and you get like gravy and cheese curds melt it on top. Yeah Really good, huh? Okay This other person said Buffalo fans are practically Canadian hashtag tj sucks Buffalo's else Buffalo everything What's next question? Next question. I saw people will know your reaction to Days of Thunder. Oh, yeah, dude. I met with the The guy who's sort of Developing the story for Days of Thunder 2 back at Phoenix at the end of last year and A lot of a lot of people he came to Phoenix and a lot of us met with him and I met with him and and and so It's this has been going for a while This this fellow that I gave my number to we've been in contact and communication He's come out to the Western town and we've sat down in my Western town just talking racing great guy super nice And so he's like man, I need to talk to you about racing. I need I got questions and I'm like Anything you need call me come down to Charlotte or you know comes to the Western town. Whatever So he comes Western town. We sit down there in a West town for an hour or two probably longer and him just What's this about? What does this mean? What does this do tell me about this? What if a driver did this? What if I got what if I haven't read a guy wrote a guy into the story that was like this? What would he do? What would he say? You know, so it's been super super fun to feel like you're helping these Folks understand don't they want to get right. Yeah, and so but I've had some great meetings and conversations with them around the movie and have known that it's been coming together for quite some time I've met Tom Cruise twice That I that I remember the first time was when he came to my dad's shop before they shot the first days of Thunder back in the 80s Him and dad went into the office and sat down and talked for an hour or more And and I was I was there. We were all excited that he was coming. He this is just right after risky business I assume he's just now kind of hitting the thank you. Yeah, and so we I remember Dad and Teresa saying Tom Cruise is gonna come over Y'all are all gonna, you know, we're all gonna be there to greeting you know, not like shoe go away. Tom Cruise is coming over Like no, we're all gonna be standing here when he walks through the door, which is super cool and He was great Um, and then the next time I remember meeting him was at Fontana in 08 I or yeah, I think it was 08 Me and Tony junior are just now starting this season with Hendrick things have been going pretty well with Daytona and so forth and We go to Fontana and we we didn't even get to run a lap But it had the weepers and everything and they were trying to fire the race off and it was wet and Casey Mears got loose in the in in the water and clipped us and It ruined our day, but we're in the garage working on the car trying to get it ready To go back out and Tom was there for that race and so he come down in the garage while we're working on it and Talk to him a little bit there, but We fixed that car. Yeah, we did he's they're like hey man. I was gonna go to the O'Reilly race I flew out to the Freedom Factory the the morning of the O'Reilly race and you can watch that video With clearest on his on I think Dirty mode media and clearest collaborated on that but clearest didn't have to do that so thank clearest But you can see the video we did some Drifting and all kinds of stuff he took Amy for a lap around the race track Lot of fun to see what what all he's got going on there then we went to the O'Reilly race Well, NASCAR was like hey man Tom wants to meet you You got to spend the night and get up in the morning you can and Tom wants to meet you So We went probably nine thirty nine forty five in the morning on on on race day for the cup guys uh We go out to the NASCAR hangar Tom Tom flies his own plane Tom comes lands his plane they tell him he taxis right up to the hanger We walked out to the plane he gets off and we sit there and talk for probably 20 minutes Uh, he and I and Amy and I got to meet his Family and folks that were with him he had his sister and a couple of folks with him and all these people that he was coming out to You know talking to drivers meeting and and Um, you know kind of do more without announcement around the days it's under two. I'm excited about it I am thrilled uh, that they're wanting to do this uh And so there'll be some things that they can't lean into with the old movie But there'll be some things that they can and I told him I'm like man, you got to lean on that original film as much as possible people We're gonna want to see Easter eggs and and like Kind of these hidden stories or yeah, you want to remember it. Yeah, it just needs to kind of tie into the original as well as possible and it should and I mean I'm with what I've heard about it Man, it's it's gonna be a lot of fun. So I Can't wait to see See it come together because they filmed the barn right when when they were filming days of thunder Though barn scenes that barn was at the end of the road that I lived on It was six miles from my house Or no, it was probably three miles from my house. So I could get on my I was 16 years old. I had my black and silver 88s temp pickup truck and I could drive my truck Up into this big giant field that was across the street from the barn I'd park my truck throw to take a tailgate down and sit on my tailgate and watch them and I'd be I'd be like two football fields away And sit there and just kind of watch them, you know people I'm watching a movie set You know, and I don't know what they're I'm not actually watching Tom or anybody. I never saw Tom But I'm like I know they're working down there. I know they're filming I know they've got they got it all lit up. It's 10 o'clock at night and they got it lit up like crazy and they're filming on this bar And I'm just sitting on my truck watching them. That's cool. So you got to yeah, you get to the scene where they're making the car You get no idea what I was watching you do now though, right? You know, but that's how close it was to home. That's cool and That was a big deal. So I think that barn's still there. The barn has to make it an appearance. Yeah, it has somehow Yeah, and so Even you know the the back when they were filming days of thunder that barn was surrounded by farmland Mm-hmm, and I know this is a joke me and Amy say all the time is everywhere I drive around more as I go It used to be farmland. It used to be farmland Well, now the barn is surrounded by an advent sort of part to Buffalo Wild Wings the best by and all this all this It's a four-lane road, which was used to be a two It's it's so it's incredible that it's still sitting there because literally every piece of property Around it within about a three mile radius has been developed in the commercial property Oh, that road's grown up so much in there. Yeah, and so that barn's still sitting there Not only is it cool because of its connection to the movie, but the fact that it actually just hasn't been taken down Due to development is is wild So and when you when you see the barn you can tell if you know the movie you can look at the barn and know that's it right away Yes, you know that's it To the chat, I see you talk about Cletus and Amy. We're gonna hit that on blush your heart So that's why we're not really diving that yeah, yeah, you'll we'll talk about that that trip to Cletus's Thursday with Amy final question. I know the racing. Oh One more thing we're gonna talk about with Amy Guess what she did Saturday Well, I know cuz I can let's see the She started a what not account. Oh, yeah She she's get she's give me nothing but a hard time about buying these cards getting back into sports cards and She says I'm gonna look over there and like what are you doing? She's like I'm just trying to start a what not account I'm like why she's like well, there's this girl selling this purse on there, and I won't it. Oh, and I'm like Courager welcome to the team. I'm like just use mine and she goes, but what won't you get suggested a lot of things that I'm looking at I'm like, yeah, just start your own. I don't I don't want to be suggested all of those things But I'm like, oh man, you know messed up your hook, you know messed up. That's kind of crazy that I mean that that somebody's Take briscoe. Yeah, your fault chase briscoe. You need to hear this man. My wife is on kind of what not account He will not know what to think about that. Did she get the purse? Oh, I don't know find out on Thursday We we we decided in that moment. We were never gonna judge each other again about our purchases on what I've narrowed mine. I got two sell it two people under the do with do do you know auctions and stuff in their mind Those are the ones I look at really yeah, I've narrowed it down. Oh, man. There's too many like I just go for the vintage cards I go shot I go if you're selling vintage cards, I'm gonna check it out Yeah, there's one guy from Rochester. I think right guy and another guy is like prestige You don't want the current cause you don't know what they're gonna be my last couple of cards that I bought I've been buying some Manels mm-hmm. Yes, sir Smile to get some mannels final question. I know it didn't the race didn't go your way, but Ryan Seagann is first when just thoughts. Oh, yeah Oh, man, you know what? That was a really cool deal, you know, it's he'd been racing in the series forever and they had been doing it on On a tight budget for a long time now they even their program has improved for sure They have gotten themselves and they came so close that Texas with Sam air that one race. Yeah, obviously we were fortunate enough to win but He has been overdue they work hard. He's a hell of a race car driver Hard racer clean racer, you know, yeah, he's gonna tell you when you piss him off, but he's also a guy that you can race door to door with without problems Been in a series a long time just you know very deserving. Yeah, you know if you were gonna lose it. That's Kind of that's a guy. There's a few guys in the field. You don't really mind losing to yeah, yeah That'd be one of them scenarios. Well, that's it for today. We've got a awesome roundtable show coming up next that we have to record Yeah, yeah, tomorrow we have a big roundtable conversation kind of leading into the chase and just kind of a state of the sport and Got a lot of got a lot of great voices coming to the table to get that going so it's going to be a good week here on dirtimo Media is finity is 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 and We've got a winner folks. It's Xfinity. Thank you Xfinity for everything you do Lace your bets ladies and gentlemen. Lace your bets All right y'all it's time for dirty mode dough brought to you by FanJule Coming out of Daytona. Do y'all remember did we do good Daytona? We don't remember hit her mess. He had a chalkboard in here. I don't think it was bad. Yeah, to draw. Yes, I'm dry racing I think we had trees. Yeah, in some bets we talked about 10 house Yeah, yep, yep. Host of our or do we have host of our or something or will you stay away that? I think we did have host for something. Yeah, yeah, I can't remember that ended up ball of flames was it with Bowman? How about Josh Barry? Oh yeah, Bowman, Josh, Josh yeah, five top 10s in a row Thankfully, that was on the last lap because that would have hurt he wouldn't have finished after that Yeah, because he had bad damage. Yeah, little contact. Yeah, but uh, he's had five top fives in a way for the road for the wood brothers only two drivers I guess the last time that was done was 94 with Morty Shepherd and Compat, he did it in 87 really. Yeah, that long. Yeah, wow Yeah, pretty cool. Yeah Let's move on to Darlington who's a who's our hot drivers and sleepers. Yeah, the There's a lot of information. You're just so much information. Yeah, I hear you're you're great at creating categories Yeah, so we got our hot drivers didn't him when chase brisco Tyler reddit didn't he's won five times at Darlington? Chase briscoe has won the last two southern five hundreds. Would you believe that no? I wouldn't either but he's done it Yeah, it just clicks with a man like something about Darlington chase. Yeah, reddit wanted Darlington in the spring scoring a total of 70 points a reddit was I Don't know if I've seen a car that strong. I like all three of those guys strong Who do you like the most out of those three? I? Think chase briscoe for me real. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree You don't think Danny gets back on his hot street. Um, he can but he struggled there the last two I wouldn't say struggled, but it was undenny like the last two races there for me I don't even see Danny and Daytona was he out there No, well, you had no camera. He was just chillin the back. That's all Take that camera out of there boy We need to get that camera at all of course. Yeah, that's that'd be amazing. Yeah Well I'll be curious. I think that's probably the number one thing. I'm curious about for this particular race is what does Danny Hamlin look like we've seen NASCAR has made changes since Wilkesborough to the front structure of the race cars But we haven't really kind of seen them On a lot of mile and a half so on some of the tracks where the the advantage from the Toyota's earlier in the years really shown I don't know that Darlington is Okay, I think Darlington is a place where that advantage would continue. I would think so yeah So it'll be interesting to see a Are the Toyota still you know going to go up there and be the top three or top five? Well, they litter out through the top 10 of the field and I run most of the other manufacturers and will Danny Hamlin be the best Toyota Which is what he's been all year so that's kind of a big question Let's look at some cold drivers you got Joey Legato and chase Elliott really really cold. Joey the last top five of Donaldson was in 2022, eight races ago. Only one top 10 finishing the last five races for Chase, but I always think Chase runs up front at Donaldson. Maybe just crashes out or has some bad luck. I don't know. I don't know if I see that as much. Do you? Do you, Russ? I don't. I think he's thinking back in like the like four or five years ago. Oh, who's in the background? Four or five years ago is not that far. Who's in the background? But it's pre next year. What's in the background? Yeah. Look over your right shoulder. Who's that? I get him. Penny. Penny. Penny made an appearance. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about our sleepers. Eric Jones, obviously a two-time Darlington winner. Every time you go to Darlington, you got to have Eric Jones as a possible guy to just slip up in there and have a great night. Were both those cars fast there? Yeah, they weren't John Hunter. Yeah. I think John Himchick run third. Yeah. Yeah, he was up there. Austin Cindrick. You got him as a sleeper. His wash start and finish in the last four races at Darlington is 13th. Yeah. That's surprising, isn't it? It is. What about Baba? But I mean, Austin's a workman like guy kind of goes about it. You never even knows there till the very end. There he is. There he is. I like Baba. I think Baba could have a really good way now. Damn it. You're dropping ahead. Oh, sorry. We haven't gotten a feast in famine yet. One last sleeper, William Byron, six top 10s in the last eight Darlington races. Now, he's a sleeper because he just hasn't been anywhere this year. Yeah. Like we're just not talking about him. Yeah. It's just been an odd year for him. Yeah. All right, we're going to go to category. Ain't as good as he once was as good as he ever was. That's Brad kesel ask you last. How are we going to run, Russ? Last career when was it Darlington in 2024? His last runner finish came at Darlington in the spring. Yeah, spring race. Darlington's a great track for Brad. Last time he won stages was there. Yeah, last race there. I'm throwing Brad kesel asky into the top 10 bucket. Something about Brad just mixes well with Darlington. Yeah. So what is what is it about Brad and Darlington? Ah, just the way you got to race the racetrack. And it's not just all. Okay. I'm I mean, I like you. You can get in trouble there. Can we get back on track here? I'm asking a question. Yeah. Question I care about. Well, I'm the host. Hey, I'm trying to sit here and feel up my top 10 bucket. So I forgot who I'm putting my parlay. Damn it. You have a fans want to know why this driver is good. That's what this segment is about. So Brad kesel asky is going into my top 10 bucket. I may I may put him in a parlay by the end of this. Let's get to the needs Darlington group of group group of drivers here. That's Chris busher. His he's finished top 10 in six of the last seven races. I know I'm going to tell you that. TJ, he's been good. Well, here it is. Here's the real here's here's the real information. Finish top 10 in six of the last seven races of Darlington and crew including the last four. That's the longest streak active streak. He's tired of somebody. Redic. Redic. Um, but he's only had one top 10 finish in the last nine races this season. So he needs Darlington. He needs. Yeah. Do we throw busher in our top 10 bucket? He's good at Darlington. TJ said. I'd put Chris in the top 10 there. He's just been there. He's just been in the top. He's been steady there. I like him there. I can't risk a parlay with two RFK drivers in the top 10. Who do we pick? Brad or Chris? Chris. I mean, I don't know why you wouldn't put both of them because they both have been up in the front there. Like you're not like going out on a limb. Yeah. Okay. You're looking for high odds, right? You won me over TJ. All right. See, that's what I'm here for. All right. Now we're going on to our drivers who are blah. That's Christopher Bell. Only four top 10s in 14 Darlington starts. Wow. You would think Chris for a bell would be dominant at Darlington. That's right. Quite. Yeah. Just just to kind of racetrack. Maybe just really be good at. Um, six position, his six position average finish advantage in the spring compared to the fall. So he's better in the spring compared to the fall. And he's only led 59 laps there. I mean, is that pretty low comparable to most of his up? I mean, yeah, it's pretty low for him. Yeah. Okay. Well, and his top 10 percentages, that's like us a speedway percent top 10 percentage for him. I wish Christopher Bell all the best, but we're just going to steer clear considering that he's blah. He just wish him the best. Yeah. That should be next week's category. Wish him the best. All right. Now we're going to move on to can't take the Southern 500 heat. And that driver is tie Gibbs. Oh, man. Top 10 finishes in the last three spring Darlington races, but it's best finish of 15th in the Southern 500 in 2022. Best finish in the Southern 500 driving for JGR is 20th. Geez. Yeah. You wouldn't think that, you know, you would you wouldn't think that drivers would be any better in one season than the other. And I'm talking about spring versus fall. So there's so many guys that are like that that have a way bigger difference average finish wise in the spring versus the fall. That's so interesting. What do you know? What is it? What do you think it is? Oh, yeah, I thought about it. I don't know. I'm just the numbers guy. I'm telling you what the numbers are. Okay. All right. I wonder what that is. I think it's just circumstantial. I think it is too. We probably just use it, but we're moving on to better in the spring. There we go. This is Ryan Blaney. Finish top five in the last two Darlington spring races is only top fives in 19 starts at Darlington. His average finish of 14th in the spring at Darlington versus 20th in the Southern 500, which is this weekend. Maybe he knows. Should we ask? Well, I mean, that sounds kind of like can't take the Southern 500. Yeah. Maybe that's it. So Ryan Blaney and Tiger. Good point. Share some similar habits at Darlington. Oh, man. I can't answer that riddle. I don't know why they would run good one in early in the year. Darlington and not good in the back half of the year. Is it the longer races? Just to happen stance that there's more that could go wrong. Maybe so. Now we're moving on to used to be good at Dawson. That's Kyle Arsons. Boy, people aren't going to like that. Average finish in his first eight races at Darlington was 5.5. Incredible. You're going to make some enemies off his now russies. There's so many categories we got here. His average finish in the last nine 21.7. What? Not good. That's not good at all. He's only finished on the lead lap in two of the last five races at Darlington. He used to be good. He used to be good. Why do you think that is? What's been biting him? I don't know. I really don't know. Well, the number don't loss us and we're moving on to feast and famine. Finally, bubble Wallace finished in the top 10 and five of the last eight races at Darlington. Pretty incredible. Especially when you hear the statistics from guys like Larsson Blaney bailed and so forth, but 16th or worst in the other three, including a 34th in the spring. But he had issues with the car, right? He's still finished there. I mean, it's not like he's this is another. This is another situation where it's kind of like, you know, as the race goes longer, it gets harder or more difficult. Where Bubba has finished better in stage one than his stage two or race finished in the last four events. So he's firing off good, probably qualifying really well, running up front, but something along the way derails the day. I'm taking them. I'm putting them in my top 10. All right. In the last 15 races this season, five finishes of sixth or better and nine finishes of 20 or worse. So staying in, according, staying in line with the feast or famine. Yeah, description that he was given. So you asked for it, Dale, I gave you more categories. Come on. Can we get this there week? This is really entertaining. I think this is our best dirty mode dough yet. All right. So after all that, who are you going to bet? All right. I think for, I think for top 10s, I would do a parlay with Kizlowski and Boucher together just for fun. He's pulling for RFK as a whole to win the bet would be pretty interesting on race day. I just find it hard to believe that Larsen and Seabale are going to continue this trend and even Blaney or Bubba. I mean, you could you could pair up any of these guys. I would have to go I guess and look at the odds of Christopher Bale, Larsen Blaney, Bubba Wallace, Byron, find the guy who has the worst odds for a top 10 and pair them up. Put them in there. Yeah. Because I think they're due. I feel like Bubba's probably got what have their odds aren't out right now, but I feel like Bubba will have a good number. I think the cars will be fast too, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what about Josh Barry? What's he going to do this weekend? Man, another top 10. All right. Now that's three. to cool his own streak. Yeah. Yeah. Pre-soft a big win. Does he carry them at him? What do you think, Russ? Josh Berry run third here at Stuart Haas. Yeah. And his results are pretty pretty dismo over the last couple of trips. Yeah. But he's his running position is probably probably pretty decent. I think yeah, Josh something about, I mean, he had a shot of winning that race. At a few of, at a few of the races I recall his running, you know, his running position was decent. Yeah. He wrecked out. Yeah. 24 Southern 500. He was running top 10 all race and wrecked out. Yeah. He should have a fairly good qualifying. Yeah. Number this week. So, oh, just just just just his draw or whatever. Yeah, where he goes out now it's going to help his, his pit stall and things like that. So it all that matters. We'll see. We'll see if they could roll in another top 10, man. I mean, this guy's on a heater. Yeah. I think Josh Berry, you know, his, his cup level. I know a lot of people are like, gosh, put him in your car, put him in junior merge sports. I think the goal for Josh is to stay at the cup series. So he's completed here. Yeah. So, but there are some other opportunities out there. I think if he continues to run as well as he has. But things kind of in the last five weeks reminded people of his, his potential. So that's been pretty awesome. All right, man. Well, uh, I think I'm going to pick to win the race. Denny Hamlin. I do think it'll be tight. Chase Briscoe. All those guys absolutely could get up there and make it happen. But I think Denny goes out there and wins. And I'm going to do a keselowski busher top 10 parlay. And then I'm going to do a Ryan Blaney Collarsson. And then maybe a bail bubble walless. Three different parlay for top 10s. So you like bail huh? That's an interesting. I just, I don't, I love the Toyota's. Uh, and I just feel like it's. Yeah, he's due to pop. Yeah. He's not. He's a great race car driver. This is a, this is a slick worn out race track. It just feels like it should be something that he could, you know, he could produce on. We'll see. Well, apparently, but apparently he is black. No more top top 10. Christopher Bill. Yeah, I don't think Larson and and Bell are going to be too happy with your categories, Russ. Well, I mean, he's got four top 10s and 14 starts. Yeah, you could, I mean, you could argue that's 30%. Yeah. So it's not, it's not terrible. Not that great. Either though, not that great either, but I'm trying to win some money. Yeah, fake money because you can't gamble. Everybody knows that. Well, look, I mean, if they want my freaking, if they won't access to, they can act the, the law can come access. I know. I'm just reminding folks that you're not actually bad. I mean, they wouldn't even have to. I think Fandall would just hand over the information. Yeah, I'm just reminding folks. Do you have a championship favorite other than Denny? That's a great question. I mean, I think everybody, look, Denny was clear, the clear, clear favorite. And then we went to knew, then we went to North Wolfsboro and ever since then, it's not been as clear. But those also a stretch of oddball racetracks that aren't really consistent with what we're going to see here in the, in the chase. So I, again, I feel like I want, I can't wait to watch this race this weekend to really see where the speed is across the board for the field. And I think Denny's going to have some challengers. Denny's going to have some people that are going to get, they're going to push him. But, you know, I don't know if I've ever seen a season go so hot and cold, which drivers so quickly. Yeah. Like it looked like Tyler Reddick was running away with everything. And then like I said earlier, Denny runs him down. Then it looks like Denny can't be beat. And then Joey Lugano gets hot for a little bit. And then it's like, I don't know if I remember it ever being this wide open. Yeah, I agree. I think that can, you know, there's, if Blaney can get out of the gate with a decent couple of races. He could be really. And get through that little mile and a half stretch. Yeah. Yeah. Damn. The rest of the races really line up well for him, right? Yeah. He was, the problem he had was this year, he was average in like 19 points less than Denny on the intermediates. I know it. That's what I'm saying. If he can go to those mile and a half and have a couple of good days, there's races in the back have a chase that are so good for him. Yeah. That gives Blaney the shot. Chase briskos back in fifth. Chase could make a run. Yeah, he might. He's a little bit of a sleeper. Yep. You know, C. Bell. I honestly look at it, man. And I think Denny, I take Denny over most of these guys. I really do. Yeah. But I see, I think it's tough. It's more of a guess of who's going to be the toughest competition. More so than who could actually outright go win the championship. I think Blaney, brisco, Bell's got a little percentage there. Tigers could sneak around and still be alive, right? Still be numerically alive, laid in the chase. Do we see experience like we talked about consistency like now is when you need it, right? You can't afford that big mistake. If these guys start spinning out by themselves and taking themselves out of race, this is like with the time. I mean, I really feel like Denny's got to be the favorite because he doesn't make a lot of the mistakes. I think what the mistake that drivers are going to make won't be visual. You won't see it. It won't be, you know, tie Gibbs or, or Joe Legano's spinning out. It'll be a mental breakdown in the race. They'll, this happens to guys and a lot of times we don't even know it's going on. It's rare. Honestly, that the TV picks it up, puts it on the broadcast and we get to live through it in real time. But if one of these guys, every multiple drivers in this group, multiple drivers in this 16 will have a moment and in one of these races, when they inside themselves realize they have lost the championship or they are losing the championship or man, if this race doesn't, if this race doesn't turn around, I'm out of it. They're, whether that's real or not, they're going to have that sort of emotion at some point in the chase. And for some guys, it could happen in race number one at Darlington. They could just be having the worst night. It could be the worst car they've ever drove. They could just, and they will smoke themselves emotionally and mentally and they'll be done. So you're saying when, when they're faced with some, what the advert, they're going to come up with some adversity at some point. And it's how they manage that can, can, can they, when it's all, when you, you know, you say you're midway through the chase and you go to, go to a Kansas or a Charlotte or something and you're sucks and you're just slow and you're running 25th all night. Yeah. Are you going to implode? Yeah. Can you grind out that 12? Can you grind it out and maybe pop off a 15th? Yeah, exactly. Just save the night. Just still give yourself a shot at it. Or will you, you know, will they implode? Are you with the spotter? Are you with the crew chief? Um, you know, may start, start making up, start making mistakes, getting into pit box, getting on the pit road, start doing things like, you know, and just unravel. And a lot of times this is happening and, and we're not really even picking up on it as this sort of implosion. But it happens. And I think, you know, that's going to be what, that's going to be the fate of some of these guys. Mentally, you have to be strong here and realize if you have a 15 place car that day, try to run 15th, you're going to end up 10th. That's one guy. Don't worry about that one guy that that will not happen to is chase briscoe. Chase briscoe is never out of it in his mind. And I mean, there may be a couple of other guys in there that are as that are same, the same mentality as him, but I've seen it all year. We'll, we'll be racing. There was a race somewhere. I don't remember where it was. I mean, I can't remember what it was, but he's running 20th all day. And just bang, there he is. There was all kinds of, you know, every, every third stage, there's all kinds that starts happening. And then there's a hand, you know, there's a handful of, there's a few more cautions, few more restarts, few more chances of line up in the right line and fire off and grab a couple spots on that restart. And the next day, I know this guy's running 11th. The problem is with that is sometimes when you take that opportunity, the whole closes up, something happens, you know, there's a lot more risk when you take them lose. But, you know, Denny is more likely to, okay, I'm going to get through one and two and then I'm going to make the pass. Risk goes like, oh, there's a hole. I'm going to go for it. When there's a 40 to 6% chance that he gets caught up in something, but, you know, but that's what that's what we do. It's what we, you know, it's why it's going to be entertaining and fun. Yeah, for sure. We got a great roundtable tomorrow for the guest show. So for more chase talk, man, we've got to tune in to see that. All right, thank you, Russell. Thanks. We appreciate you, man. Thanks everybody for tuning in to another segment of Dirty Modo brought to you by Fandall, the premier gaming destination in the United States. - That's the show for today. TJ, thanks for coming through. - Sure. - Thanks for joining us everyone in the Arby Studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box. You get more mule for your money at Arby's. We have the meats. (upbeat music) - Check out Dirty Mod Media on Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok.