What Does Spire Really Think About Hocevar's Antics?

Hey everybody, I'm Dale and Hart Jr., and this is the Dirty 30, the best highlights from all of our podcasts this week, 30 minutes, every single Friday, the Dirty 30, coming into you. Let's get right to it. This episode of the Dirty 30 is presented by Arby's new Meat and Three Box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meats. We ran Florence this past weekend on Friday night. It was 94 degrees. It was hot. It was hot. I ran a pro late model for the first time, had a blast. There was, you know, Florence is a track that I ran many, many times back in the 90s, know it well. I only had Newport scheduled on my calendar to go race later this year, and I was talking to Amy. I said, man, kind of want to run another race, want to race more than that. I can't figure out where I want to go, what I want to do, so Carl Tony Jr., I texted him. I said, man, you want to go racing? He said, yeah, where? I said, Florence is coming in two weeks. You think you got something you put together fast enough? He goes, no problem. I'll call you back Monday, call me in a couple of days. I got it all organized. He's got cars going everywhere. He's got cars on the west coast. He's got cars racing down in Alabama and so forth. He's got this new GMS chassis that he's been working on, and Spencer Davis is a driver that he's spent a lot of time with, trying to improve the chassis and so forth to make it good for customers, but it's a new program. And Tony Jr. has been working on it for maybe almost two years. When he started building the very first chassis, he started sending me text messages saying, man, I need to get you in one of these one day. And I like the way Tony Jr. builds these chassis because all these new, all these chassis builders in the short track racing on the payment side are dropping the door bars, getting to wait down, and a lot of it's a little bit egregious. And he's got the door bars up in the right place, it's safe chassis. So I was excited about the idea of maybe running it one day. So he got a car together. We went up to test on Monday. It was super damn hot. And car drove pretty similar to the late model stock, to be honest with you, it was so hot. Really didn't do everybody's like, oh man, the pro is going to be so different. It wasn't a ton different, of course, Florence is worn out, slick, small, flat. So for that people, the pros are a little bit faster car. Pro is a left handed chassis, it's all set straight rail. The right side frame rail is the straight as hell from the back bumper all the way to the nose. And a late model stock car is a chassis that's kind of similar to the truck or a rally series. It is not all set. It's got the frame rails way out to the body and all that stuff. And it shouldn't be all set, you shouldn't be building it all set anyways, I'll say that. But anyways, the pro is a left handed offset and a little more left side weight. It does everything better, better brakes. More weight on the left side turns different, turns better, runs about three tenths faster probably at some race tracks, maybe a little bit more than the late model stock. I like the late model stock because it's it's similarities to what I was going to try to race as I grew up, right? My dad's like, you know, we're not going to, when I started racing back when I was 16, dad's like, you're not going to drive a left handed offset car in the NASCAR series. So don't drive it now, drive this late model stock. It's like it's got the trailer arms and all the same suspension steering and all that that you're going to race in the rally and cup series if you ever get there. So run this car. And so that's why I went in that direction, dad kind of steered us there. But so I never ran offset cars at all when I was younger. We, you know, we got together and got it, got it, got it organized. Tony Jr. and his guys were amazing. We go to the race track and we were fast. We ran first, second or third in every practice. There were about six sessions on Thursday and then a couple more on Friday. Yeah. You like your practice? Well, we only actually ran, I'd say 40 laps total and all of that. But, you know, we go out, run a couple laps. Yeah, feels good. All right. Come back in. Sit while, sit awhile and wait. It was nice. Tony Jr. knows how to practice. I don't think I practiced on tires older than 10 laps all weekend. So we had good speed and the car was driving good. Then we qualified. We ran a 59. I think the pole was a 53 and we were fifth. So it's a little disappointed that we didn't do a better job in qualifying because I think the car had to. That's close field. It was race starts and we just kind of kept the rear tires on it. And as some other guys started to struggle with balance, we were able to move by few and get up to second. Kaden Honeycutt was leading the race. Kaden has won six pro late model races now this year. Yeah, it's a car store. Super. Yeah, super good. Hard to beat. I could match him. I'd run a little better in him, one lap he'd do. He'd do a little better in me the next. And then with about 10 laps ago, I was about three seconds back, maybe a little less. But I wasn't going to catch him. So I started trying to save my tires just in case we got like a green wide checker by chance that my tires would be happy. I had him pretty pissed off with about 10 laps to go because I was pushing it as hard as I could to try to catch him. And I thought, man, I'm not going to do that. He's running. He's pretty much matching my times. And so I kind of calmed down a little bit to get some temperature out of the tire and hope for a late yellow boot. We didn't get one. I think if I could have gotten the outside on a restart, I don't know whether he would have given me that. I'm not sure. And I'm pretty solid. I don't think he would have. I don't know. But we might have had a chance. I was a little tight. So I wouldn't have wanted to start on the bottom. He would easily beat me. But anyhow, I ran second and I had a lot of fun. There's always pressure in the sport right to perform and even like, or even just the last six weeks, obviously, like I went from, you know, having, you know, we had such a run of terrible results that it's completely changed the perception of who I am as a race car driver, right? Like it completely went from, you know, this guy that's, you know, been, you know, that they come from the short track ranks built up through the ranks had success. One races and now basically I'm getting treated like I'm a bum, right? Like just like that. It's just changed, right? And so there was the, so that was the biggest frustration I think for me is I'm just like, I don't, like, I felt the pressure of obviously wanting to find an opportunity wanting to keep, keep racing and I want to do that, but I wanted to, I just, what I wanted more than anything was not to be thought of like that. You know, however it ends up, it ends up, but I wanted, I felt like that we had the potential to turn things around and we just needed to, I mean, we just needed to have, have some things go our way. We had to be, obviously we had to be faster, which is the biggest thing, right? Like when you get, you take that next step and you're running in the top 10, you're racing with a totally different group, right? Like in that, and that helps you stay out of trouble and helps things go easier. You know, you get better pit stalls and better pit stops and all those things. But I mean, even as I went through, it's like, once we had a couple of good results, then everybody's like, yeah, well, he, that's just because it's a short track, he can't, he only runs good at a short track or whatever. And then, you know, we go to, which most, you know, what, we started at Andy and then we went, you know, through a couple of short tracks and then you, then you're carrying the pressure of just trying to keep it going. And then there's the whole top 10 streak that like keeps getting blown and way out of proportion, right? Well, we're going back to the sixties and there's all this debate about who was driving the car and how consecutive we're and then you're like, trying to keep that up. And then even like I told my wife before this weekend, I was like, man, this is the most nervous I've been for a race in a while. Yeah. And she's like, why? And I'm like, well, now you got the pressure of, you know, well, first we didn't practice or anything. So you're like, got the little bit of the uneasyness of like how's the car going to feel housing on drive when you start this race. You have what happened to me last year in that race, which was when we missed the heights to start the race and I wrecked in the first corner and still never lived that one down, even though it bottomed out all the way to the corner, right? But so you had that. And then plus, yeah, like this deal coming together with Jimmy. I'm like, man, this is, you know, everybody's kind of knows what's happening now. Like I don't want to go out here and, you know, I want to make a good impression because now you know that, you know, everybody that that's at Legacy Motor Club is watching my performance and how I do and how I handle it now. Okay. Now he's going to be in that car like, how is he going to do now that he knows that? I mean there's, it's always, there's always pressure in this sport and it's just how managing it, you know, that is, that is the most important, no matter what you're not going to get away from it, whether you're, you know, winning every week or you're trying to prove yourself, there's always the pressure of trying to handle that and just, uh, so I feel like that that's something for me that I'm used to because we've just always had it. There's always felt like I've had to race for my job and race for my career. And I think just learning to navigate through that helps you when, you know, times are really tough like this season or that you're not, I'm not changing anything, right? I'm confident enough of myself that I haven't changed anything about my approach or what I'm doing and not overthinking it just trying to stick it out. and just turn things around as well what you're trying to do. - So where are my team owner, half-for-minute, just something I haven't shared with them. I was in their shoes trying to make it to cup and yes, ended up in the perfect storm, but we were great friends back then, and you know all the struggles that I was dealing with and trying to keep a job and trying to find that opportunity to go cup racing. And so where I feel I can help them is I've been there. In addition, the team is in a very similar space as well. And so people that are fighting for their job always under pressure and also starting with a new company and having that opportunity to build a team, that was something that was so special and I think such a big part of the 48 success, we were all putting our fingerprints on that car number. And yes, there was an established system, but within legacy and what we're trying to build, everybody's there to gather, and Eric, a veteran in a builder, another builder, the young guy to bring along. So the pieces of the puzzle are there, and we're also aligned. You know, from a team under standpoint, I feel like I have the same pressure they do trying to perform and be out there. They certainly feel that inside the car. And you know, through the end of this year and into next year and as we go racing, that's an area where we're all gonna bond and be aligned and make sure that we meet our objectives and go out on the track and drive, you know, with the right objectives in play, and not looking for the walkoff home runs. I mean, if we get lucky and really connect with one, we got it, cool, but that's not our objective. We're building and we're gonna build together. - What was the reaction within the organization to the idea of bringing Josh in? - Very, very strong reaction. The way we operate and how close we all are as a team. You know, not an easy decision with John Hunter, but you know, we are where we are now and where Josh can bring in a lot of experience in building maturity, know how, you know, these things that a 35-year-old can bring, it's just different. And having two veterans in a sense and then Riley is, you know, the younger development driver coming along is the environment we wanted to create. (upbeat music) - All right, it's time for Reaction Theater where fans can call in and voice their opinions from this weekend's race. I'm interested to see what they've had to say this weekend and I feel like it was either really exciting for some or pretty lackluster for others. - Here's one about Freddie. - Oh good. - Freddie, you fat (beep) it's funny you talk about Dale and Danny butchering the English language when you can't even say act. - It acts. - Act, act, act, dump, (beep) - Acts me if I give a (beep) you think. (laughing) - Next. - Tommy, I'm over here at Cartara County. Why are you hiding in the (beep) - trailer while I was running, everybody else is working, you lazy (beep) because everybody else is working. I know what your pick crew looks like. - That guy needs to hang out. I've watched Tommy. - That's what Tommy works is. - Yeah. - That's what everybody can do. - He likes to, he's probably having a heat stroke. He's a break. His whole pick crew is 85 and older. So he has to go out there and work. That we're in loud enough spot and practice and he's like, can you hear me? Can you hear me? And I'm like, who's he yelling? And he's like, can you hear me on the radio? And he's like, can you hear me? And I'm like, and he's at forest. Forest is 137 years old. I said, he can't hear you ever. So like, he's even wearing a radio is impressive at this point. - Yeah, I had woody and forest this week. - Woody, structure I would. So the average age actually came down with woody. - They come down to 70. 65, 84, so average is 71, whatever that is, 72. And half the time at Carterette, they were in the trailer because they had heat stroke. Both of them. - I was like, I had a couple of moments in Carterette. - You did when you stood up there one time. - I was like, give me a minute to pass out, yeah. - And now begins the host of our hour of people calling in about him. So buckle up, get the popcorn and yeah, we'll see how it goes. - I can't watch the ball game without seeing a (beep) host of our hat. I can't watch the race without him racking my (beep) driver. Carson, I like my stakes, medium well. And I love red wine because if you're gonna (beep) you might as well feed me, you (beep) (laughs) - Medium well stake is a choice. - I got a feeling that guy was a host of our fan, at one point, now he's trending the other way. - I think his girlfriend was at the baseball game. Is that what the guy's referencing there? - No, and no, there really was a guy I saw this weekend on social, there was one of the sports networks zoomed in on somebody at the Tennessee game and he had a 77 hat on. - It's sad that the state of NASCAR at the moment is we have a raggedy stank ass (beep) Carson host of our that has no problem finding a ride but you got Josh Berry struggling to find one. I'm at a loss for words, I'd rather (beep) hand and clap round of applause for that (beep) (laughs) - He'll be happy if they're listening to the show. - I love, that's (beep) your hands and clap, that's a good one. - Berry fan at least. - What do you call him, a raggedy (beep) - He asked (beep) - Put that on T-shirt. - These are real, these are real fans, yeah. There's hundreds of them, really? - Yeah, we, yeah. - There was a 179 on that ride. - Yes, I listened to them all. - I probably listened to 120 of 'em this week 'cause I can read the transcripts, so I weed a bunch out. - Time for Brad to allow us to take that (beep) out of storage and shove it up so far up, Carson host of ours at that comes out as big (beep) out. (laughs) - Call of the year, call of the year. (laughs) - Oh my God. - Oh-ho. - The cane. - Oh yeah. - Oh. - That was a collapsible cane. - That was the dumbest frickin' thing I've ever seen in my life. - Jesus, James. - Pull guy out and broken leg. - Speaks. - Parking lot. (laughs) Hey, somebody was going skiing. - For Michael McDowell, he's out there doing his best driving with the bad case of host ofitis 'cause he's just running in everything, like a dart without feathers. - You think it's contagious? Maybe that's the problem. - Hey, this is Dale Hart Jr. and for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear including the Amel drink some beer t-shirt that we've been talking about here around the office. Head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch. (upbeat music) - This incident with Michael McDowell, what are you feeling from your perspective in the race when this happened? - What I was feeling in the race, I was definitely, I didn't know exactly, I knew how it happened but I didn't know to what extent. Obviously needed to see like from his in car, like what did he see to understand a little bit more about which, you know, 'cause I only saw it from my perspective, right? And that is okay, clear, look in my mirror. All right, I'm clear by aways. And it's not like, you know, I was at the time almost one car length. And so it didn't, I didn't feel like I was, like, shutting his nose off. And there's lots of slide jobs that can happen to where someone comes in there and they, you know, you see in sprint cars, they really take your nose off. They force you to lift. I didn't think that I did that with McDowell, which is why I said that we were nearly car length clear, you know, almost a car length at our biggest point. And then, yeah, I had a bobble off the turn four and I knew I had the bobble. I just, I thought at the time that, man, that I thought there was enough time for him to react to that bobble. It wasn't like I was on his hood pins right away. I thought he had time to react, but I mean, I certainly felt like, you know, I had some responsibility in it being that I did lift off the corner because I had a moment. I just thought that McDowell could have been a little quicker with the trigger of not throttling up as he's seeing him getting closer and closer and closer. That's just, you know, given the benefit of the doubt, I don't, you know, I believe I'd earn that from him. We've raced in the past, no issues, anything like that and try to make sure I'd be respectful of my competitors and, you know, I don't think that he wanted to be part of the story and, you know, his side of it was that, man, I didn't think he needed to slide me to clear me. I thought you were going to clear me anyway. Obviously, it wasn't what he's telling me. He's not intentional in his part. So, you know, I think my job is to give him the benefit of the doubt as well and say that that's just one of those racing incidents that I put myself probably in a tough spot. Absolutely in retrospect, being a money morning quarterback, I would say, yeah, just hold your car low there. He's going to come back on the outside, that's fine. We'll just have to, you know, give up a little time here to get around this car. But in the moment, there was no doubt in your mind or it's like, yeah. I don't know, maybe I'm not. - No, I know because again, I knew I was clear by a chunk, not by a nose, you know. You slide someone right across their nose and you ask them to lift, that's a tough ask. I just felt like there was enough space between us to where, even if I did have a bobble moment, he had enough time to react. But again, for all I know, maybe his goal was to push me down the front straightaway. And when I had to check up, you know, it got me out of shape, we'll never know. But I'm done analyzing it for sure and we gotta just move on. (upbeat music) Danny Hamlin, who saw how Carson was, I guess, after the race had to say this on action's detrimental. There's no adults in the room, clearly in that building. No adults. That's my opinion. Because how can you honestly think that that's what's best for your company? If you're running a serious organization, I think they're unserious. Anything else? - This might not be what you're expecting or the industry is expecting, but this would certainly reflect the conversations that we've had. You know, if anybody thinks I'm gonna come on this show and say, "Denny doesn't know what he's talking about," that's not going to occur. That's not how I took those when Bill Anthony sent me those or whoever the first guy to send me that on Sunday night or Monday night or whatever it was. That's not what, my first reaction wasn't, oh, Danny doesn't know what he's talking about. Danny knows absolutely what he's talking about. Because I can tell you how I took it, I took it as a warning, right? And because Danny knows what it looks like when you don't confront things like this, right? I mean, we ended up with Chris Gavehart because of things like this, right? Like Danny lived it. Again, I just want to, you know, put it backwards to the last year, right? We're talking about like what happened at, you know, at Loudon when their own situations internally came to a head and he publicly challenged Coach Gibbs. Are you gonna talk to him? Are you guys afraid to talk to him? That's essentially what he's saying to me. Are you guys gonna talk to him or not? You know what I mean? And so, so I'm not gonna say Danny doesn't know what he's talking about. I think Danny's got a PhD in this. And I'm not gonna have what happened at JGR happened to Spire, right? And it hasn't. We talk about these things every week. You know, again, we don't put out a press release every time we have a talk with Carson or we discipline Carson on something, right? But I can tell you that I walked in first thing on Tuesday morning, right? When we, you know, I mean, first of all, I want to congratulate my whole team. We, you know, we had, you know, felt like half of our organization working after a night race on the holiday. But when we assembled everybody, you know, on Tuesday, my first thing wasn't, oh, Danny, you know, ha ha, Danny said this or that. My thing was, this is what we're guarding against. This is what we're guarding against. We're not gonna be what happened to them. This thing is not going to, you know what I mean? Like, because everybody saw what happened at Lowness year and what was occurring for the summer. So that's not gonna be what happens at Spire. So I'm not gonna come on here and say, Danny doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. He does. And so I took it as a warning. Now, he could have texted me that. Like, he could have, he could have called and said that. But however he sends me the message, Danny message delivered, buddy. Message delivered. We're not, that's not what's gonna happen here. So if he's talking again about unserious people or things like that, it's like, I don't, what do you want me to say? I don't care. I mean, that's not really, he knows who we are. He knows we're not afraid to talk. You know, I'm not, it's just, you know, sometimes outside things have an effect on relationships. And I just think that that the court case is wonderful. - Well, again, though, where's, where's the message getting lost? 'Cause you're saying, hey, I'm not gonna let that happen in our team. I'm gonna talk to Carson. You even use the word discipline. You're, you are saying that you back him wholeheartedly, but I guess why, why isn't it, where's the message getting lost that you do care about how he's being perceived that you don't want him to run into people that, you know, I guess all those things, because again, it just seems like from the, from an outsider standpoint, we're not really, we haven't really heard that from you guys, I guess. - Yeah, well here, a couple of things, Jeff. I don't, I'm not looking at this over a four week. You know, I mean, like I look, with Carson, I'm looking at this over three years, right? And the improvements that he's made, both externally and internally, I'm super proud of him. Again, I don't, again, we're not, I don't know how, I don't know how we're supposed to get that message out. I don't even know that I wanna get that message out. You know, that's not even something that probably occurred to me till, you know, yesterday. But it's, when you look at how far he has come in three years, I'm absolutely proud of him. And absolutely proud of how far we've come. And remember, I don't, you know, obviously, you and I know each other, and I just, I should probably be more on top of, you know, what's being said and not said. But I don't know, man, like a month ago, when we were fifth and eighth in points, I don't know, is that being nominated for like team owner of the year? I don't know, you know what I mean? Like, so it's just, I just take it with a grain of salt. Like, but you know, the other part here is, is, is, we're just spire, I mean, to us, this is just another thing. Like, remember from the beginning with us, it's just like, we keep being told what we are, right? And it's just like, that's just not, it's just, I'm telling you, we just develop such thick skin and we've assembled a group that really just focuses on, probably because we're not big enough still. But it's just like, we just go race, we're just racing, like, what are we doing, right? So, but for us, it's just another, it's just another thing. But I, I, it just starts with, oh, it's a cash grab or it, hey, it's this, or hey, it's this, you know what I mean? Or you guys are that, and now we're, somehow, in the middle of our best year ever, you know what I mean? We're, we're, we're, we're non-serious. There's no adults, you know? But I just, again, I want to point out, like, this kind of weird spot that Spire is in, right? So when we run well, right? It's well, they're a Hendrick deal, right? And hold on, and we are, and we are proud of that, right? I mean, our guy is contribute. It's, you know, it's a two-way street now. But it's like, we are, yes, we are. So we're either, we either run well and we're just the satellite Hendrick team or worse, we're a satellite JGR team. Okay, so just think about it for, from our organization. So we're that when we're running good, but when we're bad, we're unserious adults that don't care and apparently don't have tough conversations with anybody in our building. And we are just like, you know, like people don't know who Bill Anthony is. Does Bill Anthony look unserious? So has anybody seen the quarter zip that he wears? Like, has, has anybody seen Matt McCall? I'm just saying, it's just like, you know, or Chris Capehart or any of these guys, are any of these guys unserious? But we're unserious because, you know, we have a driver that is going through it every week and in a very public fashion. So again, I don't know what does progress to everybody mean that he, that Carson starts wearing a cardigan? Like, what are we? Is it just, you know, some of these things aren't. The progress that we see is not gonna be the things that other people see. But, you know, again, if I have to come on here and be like, yeah, I, I don't want Carson running and anybody. Carson's good enough to not run into anybody. Okay, is that need to be said? Okay. All right, that was another episode of the 30, 30 presented by Arby's new Meetin' Three Box. We had the meet. (upbeat music)