Best of the Bus: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Is A CFB25 SICKO + The Cost To Get A Car Into The Daytona 500

Summary

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Bussin’ With The Boys: Best of the Bus — Dale Earnhardt Jr. on CFB25, Daytona 500 Costs, and Racing Life

Episode Date: February 21, 2026
Guests: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Hosts: Will Compton & Taylor Lewan ("the Boys")
Duration: ~2 hours, 45 minutes

Episode Overview

This marathon episode welcomes back legendary NASCAR driver and racing team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr.—a true "CFB25 sicko" and passionate racing lifer—for a high-energy, story-packed hang with the Boys. Covering college football video game obsession, behind-the-scenes NASCAR business and culture, the emotional and financial stakes of the Daytona 500, Earnhardt family stories, coaching and leading young drivers, car collecting, and the passion of sports fandom, it’s a deep and wide-ranging session full of laughs and memorable perspectives.

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Key Topics and Discussion Highlights

1. The Bus Is Back, and So Is Dale! (01:02–04:00)

• The show's iconic bus has been freshly unwrapped and gets Dale’s stamp of approval, “A little character. It’s nice, man.” (01:25, Dale)
• Dale celebrates the Boys’ new Bud Light partnership and opens up about his enduring ties with Anheuser-Busch: “Those cans can become collectors.” (03:32, Dale)
• Nostalgia for vintage cans and logos, including 80s-90s commercials, with everyone agreeing it’s time for those “Bud Bowl” vibes to come back.

2. Inside Racing and Sponsorship—The Budweiser Years (05:37–10:15)

• Dale on being chosen by Budweiser at 25: “That Bud was taking a chance on me…was really cool.” (06:08)
• Tells how August Busch rolled into his shop with Clydesdales to seal the deal.
• Reveals how Budweiser insisted on car “continuity” — fans instantly recognize and emotionally lock into cars (09:15):
  “You build equity in a brand, in the way it looks. I don’t mind modernizing a logo, but it’s got to still look like the original.” (08:07, Dale)

3. Racing Mentality: Thrills, Disasters, and Silver Linings (11:04–14:44)

• Dale’s favorite “non-win”—Martinsville 2004: badly damaged car, fought back to a top-5 finish.
  • "We just didn’t stop trying, and the car actually was badass. The fact that the fender’s missing…it kept the right front tire cool and allowed the tire to really outperform everyone else.” (13:15, Dale)
• Wondering about “accidentally" creating car advantages, like a fender falling off.

4. Superstition, Surviving Bubble Guts, and Bodily Indignities (15:36–23:00)

• Racing superstitions: Avoiding peanuts and green cars (“old heads” believe in that stuff), drivers wearing the “same pair of underwear” (16:58).
• Extensive, hilarious debate on bubble gut strategies, fart physics, and bathroom emergencies in a race car:
  • “There’s an art to always finding the limit. There’s an art to getting the gas around the poop.” (18:14, Dale)
  • On peeing in the car: “It’s kind of hard to piss yourself…you gotta do it under caution. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to piss driving in green flag conditions.” (21:45, Dale)
  • His orange Gatorade trick: He pours it over himself post-race so no one could spot accidental pee stains on his white suit.

5. Handling Pressure, Rituals, and Mental Warfare (23:30–42:19)

• Pre-race pressures, hand-shaking, and mental anxiety before jumping in the car: “Anything happening, like in that two hours before the race…feels like just a big, big obstacle.” (36:28, Dale)
• Comparison to the NFL: Both worlds involve anxious warm-ups, the relief of the first play or lap, and the need to “have a goldfish memory” and move past mistakes (41:41).
• Coaching and self-reflection: Dale, now an owner, tries to guide young drivers—“I just gotta go out there and experience it right. And see the wrong and the right and adjust and fix and, you know, just learn by doing.” (45:26, Dale)

6. Ownership: Getting a Car in the Daytona 500 (69:00–80:41)

• Emotional first entry as an owner in 2025:
  • “It was a dream…to enter a car as an owner in that race once…There were eight or nine of us that weren’t guaranteed a spot…all the industry is on pit road…and you walk back like, we failed.” (71:55, Dale)
  • “Coming to the finish line…we’re ahead of the guys we needed to beat…and that was…the moment where if you talked, you were going to have a hard time not crying.” (74:22, Dale)
  • “If we cross the finish line when the checkered flag waves…we’re blessed.” (75:30, Dale)
• Cost to enter: About $750,000. “You're going to need three-quarters of a million dollars.” (80:41, Dale)

7. The Business of NASCAR & The Path to Cup Series Ownership (84:26–88:37)

• Junior Motorsports pride: “We’ve won 90 races, five championships…at least a third of the [Cup] field raced for me on Saturday.” (81:31, Dale)
• Costs of going Cup full-time: to buy a charter/franchise, cars, engines, and staffing, you need upwards of $100 million cash to start (85:38).
  • “If I was a person that had that kind of money…buying a charter would be an easy yes. That is not going to lose value.” (87:18)

8. Team Culture, Leadership, and Emotional Intelligence (52:11–63:34)

• Why screaming at crew rarely works and the importance of positive communication:
  “You have to talk to them in a way that they want to fix your problem. And if you piss them off...they’re going to be like, 'Screw this kid.’” (54:56, Dale)
• Learning from mistakes: “My cousin Tony Jr.…said, ‘Hey, you called the car a piece of shit. Don’t do that. All the guys that build that car and work on that car are listening to you.’” (56:47)

9. Dale the Gamer: CFB25 Dynasty Madness (113:00–131:16)

• Dale’s college football video game obsession on full display:
  • Runs a 23-person online dynasty with custom spreadsheets, player scouting, detailed call sheets, and deep strategy:
    • “This is my playbook…these numbers are the average yards per use...I will customize my playbook to ensure I’m running the plays with the highest probability for success.” (116:17–119:33, Dale)
  • “I wrote him an ebook…here’s everything I do with scouting, here’s my playbook.” (126:51, Dale)
  • His league victory—taking underdog Charlotte 49ers to a national title: “Who would have thought Charlotte, taking them down.” (148:00, Dale)
• On Amy’s reaction: “She hates it. Hates it.” (125:43, Dale)

10. Sports Fandom & Passing It On (148:00–154:26)

• Earnhardt is deeply, emotionally invested in the Washington Commanders and the joy of passing that fandom to his young daughters:
  • “It was so nice to be happy and, like, really, truly, genuinely cheering about your team.” (151:07, Dale)
  • “My little girl Isla, 6, is like, ‘Commanders playing today? We got to wear the jerseys?’…She’s invested.” (150:48)
• Stories of sharing game days and big moments with family highlight how sports fandom is made.

11. Odds & Ends: Cars, Collecting, and Life Philosophy (92:02–110:23)

• Dale’s car collection is intentional, not excessive:
  • “If I see something [new], I have to be willing to sell one of my 12 and buy it…If I will, I’ll sell one of these.” (94:30)
  • “Regret buying, never selling.” (92:02)
• On spending priorities: Blows money on gaming computers without a second thought, but sweats the cost of a new couch (“You want to raise hell about this couch but you’ll just go buy…a $5,000 GPU.” – 99:52, Dale)
• Clothing rants—pants fit, suits, pale legs, and the triumph of elastic-waist sweats.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On racing nostalgia:
  “Those cans…can become collectors…It would be cool to throw back the Bud label, bring the frogs back, bring the OGs back.” (03:32–03:59, Dale)

• On emotional highs as team owner:
  “It was almost…that moment where if you talked, you were going to have a hard time not crying.” (74:22, Dale)

• Advice for young drivers:
  “Everyone that matters toward a young driver’s career is paying attention to the things he’s doing and it’s the details…Being present, being in person, filling out the notes after the race—be precise, be descriptive.” (48:52–51:55, Dale)

• On learning how to talk to your pit crew:
  “You gotta talk to them in a way that they want to fix your problem. If you piss them off…it’s ‘screw this kid.’ I learned that the hard way.” (54:56–57:29, Dale)

• On video game strategy: “I love the data…when I raced, it was all the info I got from the ride…Now, mental gymnastics in my CFB25 league keeps my mind sharp at 50.” (123:00–123:33, Dale)

• On what he'd do anything for:
  “I want to be more invested in what happens between now and my kids graduating school and moving out…that they are equipped with all the tools. I would do anything in the world to make sure that’s what situation they’re in.” (145:19–146:28, Dale)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Bus reveal, Bud Light nostalgia: 01:02–04:00
• Dale’s Budweiser story: 05:37–10:15
• Martinsville “greatest non-win”: 11:13–14:44
• Superstitions & bathroom confessions: 15:56–23:00
• Race-day pressure, rituals: 36:20–42:19
• Daytona 500 entry—emotion & cost: 69:00–80:41
• Cup Series business breakdown: 84:26–88:37
• Pit crew communications (“never call it a piece of shit!”): 52:11–63:34
• CFB25 gaming sickness (Dale’s process): 113:00–131:16
• Passing fandom to his daughters (Washington): 148:00–154:26

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Wrap-Up

This episode stands out as both a technical master class and a warm, hilarious, human story: from the rush and heartbreak of racing, to lessons in leadership and legacy, to the joy of obsessing over college football games and forming family traditions. Dale’s candid reflections, operational insights, and “open notebook” humility make for an episode that’ll hit with racing fans, sports nerds, and anyone who’s ever cared way too much about their team—real or virtual.

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Big hugs, tiny kisses. Don’t forget to subscribe, and as always:

“You gotta look at the bright side…grab some Jim Beam and lemonade to make the rest of the postseason just a little bit sweeter.” (Jim Beam spot, 00:00–00:42; recurring)

Transcript

[Will]

The postseason is upon us and there's really nothing like it. But the postseason can be stressful. Crushing losses, wild upsets, your unhinged six game parlay falling apart at the literal last second. Things can get rough and it can leave you feeling a little sour. But you got to look at the bright side. Once your team is out and headed to decompress, you can finally relax. Now you can actually enjoy the postseason with all of the heart palpitations. That's why we're partnering with Jim Beam. We want to help you turn that lemon of a loss into delicious, tasty Jim Beam and lemonade. Because it's really the perfect bevy for the offseason. It's refreshing, it's got the perfect sweetness and a little bit of tang on your tongue. Best paired with stress free watching when your team is out. So gather the boys and grab some Jim Beam and lemonade to make the rest of the postseason just a little bit sweeter. Refresh your season with Jim Beam and lemonade best enjoyed together. Please drink responsibly. Jim Beam Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. 40% alcohol by volume 2025. James B. Beam Distilling Co. Clermont, Kentucky. Fellas. Yeah, we're here. We are here.

[Steve]

We did it. We just did the reveal of the bus. The bus looks fantastic. A little backstory on that. It was obviously wrapped before and then we had some guys come in, come in, shout out, wick customs. They came in and they were kind of giving us like, hey, this 50, 50. When we start to take this thing off, it could just ruin the entire paint.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

So seeing it for the first time, it's pretty pristine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

I don't know, but the eight out there has got a little wear and tear.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's all right.

[Steve]

But I kind of like it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

A little character. It's nice, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Bus looks great. It's good to be back. Thanks for having me back. Um, I'm excited about Yalls new partnership with Bud Light. I've worked with Anheuser Busch for years. Still. Still got a relationship with them here. The. The diecast car. And you're.

[Will]

But heavy though.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So we do. We call them blue coats, red coats. Yeah, blue coats and red coats. But the. But heavy.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So. But I enjoy. I enjoy plenty of Bud Lights in my lifetime. Yeah. So it's cool you guys got that relationship. So glad that that's kind of what has allowed you to kind of get back to your identity and bring the bus back and all that. So.

[Will]

Yeah, man. And thanks for coming out Too. Like, yeah. I was telling. When you were over here taking a Tuesday, he came in and he had all these gifts. I'm like, yeah, you're like the best guest. Like, you're. You're flying in for the boys. You're coming with gifts.

[Steve]

Very rarely do guests come and they bring gifts. Yeah. Us giving out stuff. But, yeah, I was like, really running over here. Take my little afternoon Tuesday. And you were like, pulling up and he had, what, multiple helmets in your hand? A bunch of stuff. I was like, oh, man, he's bringing some cool stuff. I didn't think it was gonna be for us. Yeah, the helmets weren't. The helmets weren't. But I got these dope. This dope koozie. Your dad made these. So I.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I remade my Dad's Koozie from 1981. And back in 81, that was a koozie, like the foam boat float in the water kind of thing. Thick. Yeah. So I had a company remake those for me because I just love the nostalgia and all things. Earnhardt from back in the day. And. And I brought you some more modern. The Bud 8 Koozies that we had made. We drove. Just some gifts, some drink, some. Some fun. Yeah.

[Steve]

I wonder when. Because we were talking before this. This started. Jack McPherson had a nice little tweet about the 2004 Bud Light can. Like, when are we going to bring these back? We need to talk to Bud Light about what does bus with the boys have to do to bring back a vintage can.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve]

But just in general, like, I feel like the 80s and 90s, that vintage type. Type of style needs to make a comeback in some way. And we might be the podcast and you might be the individual as well to help us get that done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I think it's. I mean, it's recognizable. All those. All the logos, they kind of change and evolve over time. Some people come in and put a new modern take on.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

On. On Bud Light or something like that. But it is kind of cool. Those cans can become collectors. You know, Bud Light always does this annually where they'll. Where I live, they do Panthers cans. Carolina Panthers can. So it's all black with the Panthers and all that stuff. And. Yeah, they did that for Washington one year. I still got, like, a case of Washington cans. Right. That I'll never drink. And so it's kind of cool, all the things that they do. But it would be cool to throw back the blood label, bring the frogs

[Steve]

back, bring the OGs back. Like, I feel like if you did A callback. A couple of those commercials.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

People.

[Steve]

Yeah. Standing applaud in their living room. So pause it. Be like, let's just get a round of applause.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So back in back when I was working with Bud hardcore was 2000, all the way up until 08. And I was at the national sales convention every year where they would unveil the commercials before anyone else got to see them. And Bud and Bud Light specifically had the best super bowl commercials. You know, you mentioned the frogs and lizards. The was guys. I mean, every year we would go to these national sales conventions. There would be probably 50 celebrities. Everybody they were working with was there. Singers, bull riders, actors, and we all sat in the same. Same spot. There would be 5,000 people in this room, like bottlers and retailers and all their people, all the Bud people for all of their brands. And. And we all sat down and we're like, can't wait to the commercial part. Right? We're gonna watch all the commercials. And they were great because they were really, you know, it's funny as shit. Some of the best commercial. Remember the Bud bowl, the, like, the football bottles out there playing during the Super Bowl. They had like the Bud bowl, like, as a kid, that was cool as shit. I know. I wasn't even old enough to drink.

[Steve]

There was one they did for the super bowl that was like a bunch of horses playing football. And then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Steve]

And one of the guys, one of the cowboys out there is like, that ref's an ass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Nope, I believe that's a zebra. And I thought that, what a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What a commercial. I'm a. I'm a teenager watching the Bud bowl and I. I'm like, I'm watching a Super bowl and I'm like, I can't wait till the Bud bowl comes back. I want to see if Bud Light wins. You know, you're like, legit, like, bought in this damn thing. That's just a gimmick, right?

[Steve]

Yeah, but, dude, it's. So when you first start, when you get into NASCAR for the first time, everyone always has a presenting sponsor. Yours was Budweiser. Was that like, pretty clear cut, easy to get done?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Or was like. Were other people trying to get you before?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, I don't know. I. I was. I wasn't involved. I was so young, and my dad was doing the wheeling and dealing in the background and he. The Bud deal that we did, that at that time in 2000 was 10 million a year. It was the biggest deal that anybody had. They were coming from Hendrick Motorsports, where they had Been for quite a while. And. And so that was pretty unique because Hendrick Motorsports is. I would drive for them down the road. They're well respected company. And so to kind of pull a brand like Bud from them to, to. And that Bud was taking a chance on me to, To. To be good. And so it was really cool. I remember August Bush rides into our shop on, on with the Clydesdales and the. And the dog on top of the Bud, you know, the big wagon and the stagecoat, whatever that thing was. And they roll into our shop and they. He comes down, hops down. August Bush, the guy that owns the company, shaking my hand. And man, I remember going to the brewery or the business downtown in, in St. Louis and walking through there and just being amazed to be connected to such a massive iconic brand back then.

[Will]

Did you ever get to influence, like a decision with your. Them sponsoring you? Well, something. Anything creatively.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, not really the car. No. No, no, no.

[Will]

So, hey, bring the vintage cans back now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The one thing. So they were funny because. There's some healthy competition between Bud Light and Budweiser and all their other brands. Like, they compete inside the business and kind of like teammates racing teammates competing in each other. But it's healthy. Right. Raises everybody up, and you don't want to get beat by your teammate. You want to be the best teammate. Right. And so there's a little healthy competition inside the business with Bud Light and Budweiser. And so I went to them one time. I didn't know about that. I went to them one time, I said, you know, be cool. I was like, what if I drove a Bud Light car one race? I always drive the Bud car every week. What if I did a Bud Light car? I think that'd be cool. And they're like, hell, no. You're never running a Bud Light car.

[Steve]

Like, shut it down immediately.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. They were like, no.

[Will]

It does sound crazy. I think of it as just like Budhead, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We.

[Steve]

We met with them in New Orleans during the super bowl, and I think I said something about Bud, Budweiser and Bud Light to one of the guys, and they kind of looked at me like, we're not going to do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No. And they're. The other thing that, the other thing I learned from them that was really, I've hung on to this. I don't know right or wrong. I thought this was, hey, they're successful. So I'm going to believe in this idea is they. They rarely wanted to change the car. The way the car looked. They Loved the continuity and that you could look out in the field from the grandstands and immediately see that car. And it looked the same all the time. And they, they love that continuity. The car being the same where, you know, there's, there's different sponsors, different, you know, your favorite driver's driving a different looking car every week and it's, it's tough to sort of follow along and, and there's no, there's no equity built up in a, in a, in a low look of a car. Right. But man, when I drove Budweiser, like you can show fans this car and they, they're like, right away that triggers their nostalgia and they're like, oh man, that was my car because I ran that car and it looked like that for five, six, seven years. And we never changed it. They just, we would bring them all kinds of ideas and we did some one off stuff with baseball and other people here. You know, they had an all star car and they did, they, they did some music stuff with different bands, but for the most part, like they didn't want to change the look of the car too much. I adhered like, I kind of like believe in that idea of building equity and continuity and in a, in a brand that, in, in the way it looks like. I don't mind modernizing a logo, but it's got to have, it's got to still look like the original.

[Will]

It's got to have some tide.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. Yeah.

[Steve]

Just like you're saying like if a casual fan goes and watches a NASCAR race and they're able to point out a vehicle that they've seen to get seen before, that's like, I'm feeling they're more a part of it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Okay. I know they feel like they know a little bit more about the race now. Everything. But if you're changing colors, like when we're at your shop.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Seem like you guys had a different,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

lots of paint scheme, modern nascar. Today everybody runs a different looking car because you need so many partners, so many sponsors. You can't have one sponsor that can fund the entire season. So we have to run a different sponsor almost every other week. But like, if you look back in the history, everybody remembers the black three car. Dad had the same sponsor for many years. Jeff Gordon in the rainbow 24 all. You know, you remember those cars because they were in that same car every week, every year for multiple years. And they built a, they built equity and value in that. They still lean in into that today. So we do too. Like I ran this Car, this little late model stock car. I ran it, place called Florence, South Carolina last November. And, man, we unveiled the idea that we were going to do this and people went ap and just ball right into it. Right. And all the people started, you know, everybody on social media sharing stories about their experiences watching, you know, the, the. The cup version of that car back in the 2000s run and where they watched it race, and it was really a great experience.

[Will]

Dude, that is awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

Did you ever have, like, in your racing days where you might have finished, like 12th or middle of the pack and it felt like a big win?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah. So there's this one race I always talk about, so it's always great to celebrate the wins, obviously, but I'm sure y' all had games where maybe the overall outcome wasn't what you were looking for, but you had. There's. There's moments, right. Maybe it was a sack or an interception or something like that, or. Or you just had a great game that nobody's going to remember but you. There was a race at Martinsville, North Carolina, or Martinsville, Virginia, probably 2000, I don't know, four, 2005, we start to race. Big crash in term one. I'm in it and tear the right front off of my car and damage the back of the car. There it is right there on the screen. So by time, we got the car kind of repaired and able to get back on the track. That's what it looked like. I'm out there getting ready. It's like five laps into the race. It's a 500 lap race at this tiny little bull ring. And I get back out there and I'm like, God dang, this is going to be a long day. I'm a. Car's wrecked. It's not going to be competitive. I'm going to be in the fricking way all day. This is going to suck. We get to running and running along there, nothing's really happening. But as the run, as the laps start clicking off, start passing a few cars, start going by a few more guys. My car is feeling good, guys are getting worse. And I'm just starting both. I drive through the field, all the way up into the top 10. I'm like, shit, we're good. This is gonna be. This car's great and got. Yeah. I drive up into the top 10, I spin myself out right here underneath the 12 car. Have to go right to the back of the field again, Drive right back to the front. Ended up finishing like fifth, fourth or fifth in the race. I'm in this. I'm in the photo as we're coming off turn for battling for the win. I'm there. I'm there, right? And you know, I just always. I got a. Somebody made me a custom die cast of that car. It's like the size of this thing that I have in my collection. I got a little modest collection of. And so somebody made me one of those, and I'm like, this is like my favorite race. I didn't win because of all the shit that went wrong and how bad it should have been, but we just didn't stop trying, and the car actually was badass. So the. The fact that the fender's missing, it kept the right front tire cool and allowed the tire to really outperform everyone else who had a tire that had a big fender on it that was in there getting cooked by the brakes and the engine and everything else. And so the fact that my car's out in the wind actually was an advantage over long course of the day. And that's why the car, I think, actually ended up being really more competitive than it should have been.

[Steve]

But there's obviously rules and regulations of, like, how cars are supposed to be set up and all that. But you ever, like, think, like, I wonder if there's way, like a tear away kind of like the pants we

[Will]

talked about, if it's like a disadvantage,

[Steve]

maybe just like hit the wall real quick and kind of clips. All right, baby boys, it happens. That's the cost of doing business with the pads.

[Will]

You take out certain parts of your shoulder pads to be.

[Steve]

Michael Bennett used to do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There is. There's a. There's an advantage if you lose the tailpiece of the car. NASCAR won't let you run that. NASCAR makes you come down pit road and reinstall the tail. If the whole tail comes off. So the back bumper, if that. That back bumper being on there creates a lot of drag underneath it. Air comes from under the car and gets into the back bumper. So if that were to come off, that's kind of an advantage in some scenarios. And so NASCAR makes you reinstall that. But we. After this happened, I joked with my teams for the rest of my career, like, hey, when we go back to Martinsville, you know, if the. If the front fender falls off, it's okay. Like, don't.

[Steve]

Yeah, don't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know if there's a reason nudge.

[Steve]

Like, hey, the footballs are actually better when they're deflated. Not telling you what to do. But if we could have a little. I wouldn't be mad.

[Will]

Why is Dale driving into the wall

[Steve]

acting a little weird, huh?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Just. So when you went back there, you're kind of hoping.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I just knew. And there's. There was a picture of a guy named Harry Gant, and he won that race in 1981 at Martinsville. And he had the right. He had damage on the right front, the right front tires exposed. He won that race again in 1991 with the right front fender completely gone. Same guy. And then probably a handful of years ago, I think Martin Trix Jr. Or somebody else ran really well with, with a lot of damage and some in the right front tire, the left front top, right front tire, I think exposed. And so, I mean, it's kind of common knowledge now. You can't, you can't build a car to where the shit would just fall off for you.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Catch you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. It wouldn't be tough to do that.

[Steve]

When you have success the way you do, they're like, I don't know about you, but like in the football world, like a lot of guys are superstitious. Some guys lay their stuff out, they listen to certain music and stuff like that. Did you have like a game day ritual that you would hit every single, every single week or you just got, you just woke up pissed? Excellence.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I. My superstitions were all the general, traditional, common knowledge superstitions like walking under ladders, breaking mirrors. The number 13 in racing, people used to say the color green, that was like a widely hard adhered to superstition. The color green was bad luck. Now that didn't make any sense to me because there were green race cars. Money is green. There's green. You know, there was, there was moments where green didn't seem to bother my luck. Right. And so I didn't really buy into that. Peanuts. For some reason, Peanuts around a race car, there's people that are old, old heads kind of believe peanuts is bad. Okay.

[Will]

Like just having peanuts around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Don't eat peanuts. Eating them. Get away from my car.

[Steve]

Doesn't matter if they're shelter, unshelled or just in general.

[Will]

So these are pistachios.

[Steve]

Let them go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But that's a bit of an older wise tale. But man, I was one that kind of believed in like the traditional stuff and like. Yeah.

[Will]

So what's the weirdest superstition you've ever seen from a different driver?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The, I think the, the ones you hear about, I don't even say they're even hard to believe, is like Race car drivers wearing the same pair of underwear every race, like, they got a specific pair of underwear that they have to wear that day. Yeah. Or. Yeah. I don't. I've heard some kind of strange stuff like that, but nothing too crazy, to be honest with you. I didn't. I. I was more worried about, like, don't eat anything that's gonna. Your stomach up, you know? Or like, have you ever gotten the

[Will]

bubbles, like a bubbly, like, bubbly gut, bubble gut? Like.

[Steve]

Yeah, yeah.

[Will]

Bubble guts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Steve]

Hold those cheeks tied in so you've

[Will]

had it when you're out there racing. I mean, yourself.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I never. My pants.

[Steve]

Have you missed yourself?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah, brother.

[Steve]

Hell yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So on the hot days, you got bubble guts, bro.

[Will]

There's no. I mean, you could hold it in, but it's gonna. You have a slight release, like, let me try to get some air out. But you're like. There's no room for.

[Steve]

I think for like, the normal population people. You're very aggressive with getting the air out of your butt. You'll take a chance that most people. I remember being in the airport with you and being like, I go to the bathroom real quick, I just shit myself. You know, I feel like you kind of don't possess the quality of thinking like, oh, poop might come out here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There is an art. There's an art to always finding the limit. There's an art to getting the gas around the poop. Yeah. And getting that out.

[Steve]

I agree.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But when you got. Well, no, no, no. So, like, the shit's coming. You're gonna. Right. But if you can get the air around the. That buys you a little time. Yeah.

[Steve]

You just. Yeah, that's like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's, you know, that takes the pressure down.

[Steve]

The ship's going down. You got to get some weight off to slow the. The ship from.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That buys you about 10 minutes.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

Wrapping around the turd almost kind of pushes it back up a little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It just takes the pressure down.

[Steve]

That's basic science, is what you guys are talking about right now. That's hydraulics.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

Basic.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So if you're. I was pretty good at just, you know, making. I could fart if I needed to shit. I could probably, you know, I can relieve the pressure without shitting my pants, and so I never shit my pants.

[Will]

Okay, but with bubble guts, you were able to hold it in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean, the problem is, is, though, do you. I mean, this is funny. We're talking about this, but do you know, does I. My problem was is that when the, you know, whatever the moment is, right. Whether you're in a race or you're driving home and you're like, holy shit, I got to get the toilet.

[Will]

It's coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Your body knows when you're near that toilet.

[Steve]

Isn't that crazy?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Cuz, like, you, you're like, all right, I made it into the driveway. I'm gonna be fine. And then as soon as you get near the front door, it's like, no, we gotta go now.

[Steve]

Gotta sprint.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's like the, the time is now. Yeah.

[Will]

And you fortunately just get your pants down right in time. Like as you just start going into.

[Steve]

There's now a couple of those situations where you're literally flying by the seat of your pants where you're like unbuckling and kind of like doing this, this hip maneuver.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

To jump onto that toilet just in time is you're hitting toilet the same time things are coming out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. That's a wild deal. Your body knows. It's like, hey, man, you're not fooling me. You're near a toilet. Yeah. Happening. I gotta go.

[Steve]

But pissing yourself, that's status.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So this is the thing with pissing yourself.

[Steve]

Can I. So, yeah, I basically, I want you to explain this, but then I also want to know probably on a percentage on a race, how many have wet pants?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To be clear, we're not ourselves regularly.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But we do ever. We do pee on ourselves sometimes. This happened to me probably half a dozen times in my career. So you. The inside of a race car is a good day. 120 degrees. 125, 130. As on a bad day, 150 degrees, super hot. So when, when you know, you know beforehand, like on a Thursday or Friday, you're like, it's fuck, man. Sunday race day. It's going to be 95 degrees. It's gonna be so miserable inside the car. And so you start thinking about that and you start hydrating, right. You're trying to do a little extra hydrating in the morning. You're drinking water and everything. And there's a lot of things that are happening right before you get into the car. Driver's intro and a couple other things. Handshaking and gripping and grinning. Photos that, that are. They're the roadblocks to pissing. Like, you can't get to the john and so you. You don't get to use the bathroom. And make sure you're good to go before you get in the car. You hop in the car, you buckle up, start your engines. You're in. You're committed, right. You're going to drive this thing off pit road and start this race. Then you're like, shit, I got a pee. And it's. I got a three and a drive in this car. I got a piss. You can't focus if you're holding a pee. You can't. Like, you, you know, you're miserable. Caution comes out, you're like, shit. You're, you know, sometimes when you're driving in the race, green flag, there's enough debt focus that it can take your mind off of it. But you're, you know, caution comes out, you're like, it, I'm just gonna piss. And so it's kind of hard to piss yourself. You over hit it.

[Will]

Trying to like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

Relieve your.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's like doing it in front of somebody.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know what I mean?

[Steve]

You have to be fully relaxed. The minute you try to flex hitting a turn, you got a. A little bit like it closes about.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You have to do it under caution. I don't think I've ever been able to piss driving in. In green flag conditions because you're focusing so much and thinking about driving the car, you know, but there's the times that it's happened, you just can't get. You're not going to get to the finish. You're not going to. You're. You're going to piss yourself. It's going to happen. You got to, you got to, you know, accept the situation you're in. It's not a big deal because you're sweating your ass off. It's miserable in there anyways. It's, you know, it's already gross.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so when you go, the only problem is, is so you get done. And I always had white suits, right. And so, so I'm thinking, like, I got this white suit. I'm like, I'm. Shit's gonna be obvious, right? When I get out, people are gonna look at me and go, pisses himself.

[Will]

Like, it's gonna be obvious like Waterboy sheets over there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so what I would do is I would, I would say if I had pissed myself, I figured it out. I got, I'd say, hey, bring me an orange Gatorade. When I get done here, when I pull up, when I'm done, I pull up onto the pit road and I'm gonna get out, like, bring me an orange Gatorade. And I would pour that orange Gatorade all over to like, blend it in so you couldn't see.

[Will]

Yeah, that is some dehydrated. Piss?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's change. It changes the color of your clothes. And so I get. I'm just. You know, I don't want people to go, look, dude. And so I would kind of blend it in, and then I would get out of the car. And then you have to tell the interior guy. There's a guy that's responsible for the interior of the car. That's his job. He works on that part of the car all week long, and he's got to clean up the interior, and then he's got to get it ready for the next race. And so he's. He's. That's his role, and he's your buddy because he knows everything about what's going on inside that car with you, and he knows everything you touch, and you and him talk all the time about, let's move this knob. I can't reach it. Or let's put this over here. That'll be more comfortable. And, hey, man, I need to change my seat. It just don't feel right. And so you and him are close, Good buddies. Texting pals, right? And you got to tell him, man, hey, man, I pissed the fucking seat. You know, you're gonna. Monday morning. I'm sorry. You know, you're gonna take this seat out, and it's gonna fucking smell. I'm sorry. You know what? You can't. I mean, you feel bad. You kind of want to go and. And help him get this seat out. Sometimes that's not possible. But. Yeah, he has to pull the. There's an insert. The seat has a foam insert. That's phone. That's made perfectly for you. So he just has to pull that out and then, you know, steam it down or hose it or pressure wash it or whatever.

[Steve]

Hang it up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, but that's tough. Telling a guy, look, you gotta. You gotta put up with this.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

Have you ever puked yourself? Never while driving.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No. No, I know.

[Will]

Like, you just. You got the helmet on. You're like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So that was.

[Will]

I'm not feeling right. You start puking down your.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So there's some guys, actually.

[Steve]

Pretty badass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I know some guys that have done that. And I can't imagine being so miserable that you're. You got a full face helmet on. Right. And you may be comprised. I mean, when you got a puke, a lot of these guys are puking during the race while they're. They're battling. Right. Running in eighth place, and all of a sudden you'll. I had this one guy that was driving My car. And he's racing along and we're having a good day. He's running like seventh or eighth and it's coming down to the end and he just kind of goes high and loses a couple spots. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? He was throwing up. He just got sick. And he's like, push. Pushes his helmet up just a little bit and he's like throwing up all over himself. And it was like shredded chicken. Whatever. He'd ate something that just was bad news. And it just was everywhere. When he pulls in after the race, it's just every. It's one of them things, you know, when your kid throws up, it just goes everywhere.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you're like, ah. You know, you're the one that has to clean it up. You're looking in there and you're like, God dang, man. That's just. It's everywhere. You don't touch anything because it's all over the place. But so that luckily never happened to me because I was specifically like, my morning meal. I usually wasn't a breakfast guy. So my meal before race was bread and like ham and mustard. And like, this is basically. I wasn't gonna.

[Will]

It's a ham sandwich.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You ain't gonna grill me a piece of chicken.

[Steve]

Sounds like separate. Bread is bread. Ham, ham, and then I'll have the mustard on the side.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was gonna do like a grilled chicken. I wasn't gonna to risk, you know, eating something that was not cooked properly or just you just. Even though it was like, highly, highly unlikely you were going to have a problem, I just wouldn't risk it. So I ate something very basic and just get something on, get the foundation in there and then. Then go to work.

[Will]

Like, just like rookies being super nervous about their first NASCAR race. Yeah, you're kind of getting in the elements are kind of getting to. You just start to get a little dizzy, like, yo, I gotta puke. Yeah, the guys are. Puke. Like, guys puke before games.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know guys that Noah Gragson drove for us, and he's in a cup series now. He had a situation or an issue where I think he was holding his breath a lot at the end of these races. And so if you. You know how, like, if you guys maybe like went a little bit too hard in a sprint or something and you get done and you, like, your body, like sort of has this sort of moment where it's like you fucking overdid it, you know, and you get a little sick. Maybe he would hold his breath, I think, late in these races, and he would win these, you know, he. He would win a race, get out, you know, and you get the other thing, too. I wonder if this has happened to y' all guys in football. But there's no. He's a wild one. So.

[Will]

Nice air.

[Steve]

We're going zoom in on him real quick. This guy's got a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's a wild man.

[Steve]

He's got an attitude about him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He does. He's like a modern day Tim Richmond.

[Steve]

He's got that Paul Swan with the zip down.

[Will]

Yeah, yeah, Paul Swan. He's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's great. We're. When a sport that need. You know, in a sport that succeeds on personality, he brings a ton.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So he would get out of the car and I think he held his breath a little bit in the last few laps trying to win these races. And then he would get out and expel all of this energy over being excited. And then it would hit him and he would just bend over and throw up right on the front straightaway, holding the checkered flag. He's like, yeah, look, there he is. That's. That's after winning a truck race at Martinsville. He's throwing up on the track.

[Will]

How do you get to where you're holding your breath at the end of the race? Like, you're just so focused. So you're just, like, not breathing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I think that you. Because when you go into the corner, you sort of every. But when you go into a turn, you, like, flex every bone, every muscle in your body. Like, you just. You're. You're pushing against the seat, you're pushing against the steering wheel. Like, if the steering wheel was made of aluminum, man, you would just probably twist that thing right off the steering shaft. And so, like, every time you go into the corner, your legs are going against the leg braces, and you're just. Every muscle is just flexed all the way. And you. You. You know how, like, guys, if you ever go up in with the. With the Blue Angels or any of those guys, they have those grunting practices when they get into the G's.

[Steve]

Fighting G's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you do that, too. Not because of the same reason they do, but you just. You go in the corner just driving this car, and so, like, you don't breathe for a minute, like for a brief 15 seconds, right. Then you might breathe down a straightaway. Then this corner comes again, and you hold your breath. And I think that he was probably doing that to an excess, and then he gets Out. Wins the race, gets out and goes, yeah. You know, and just goes. Expels all of this excitement. And then his. And then he goes, you know, he just gets sick. I mean, I wonder like, if, say, take yourself to like, you know, a moment in a game where you're, you're playing hard. You're. You're using, you're. You're. You're using all of your energy, right? You're pushing yourself almost to that limit, you know where that limit is where you can ride all day. And you're right there. And then you have a great play that you expelled a little more to get that play to happen. Right. And you, you're like, fucking, I went a little hard there. And then you maybe celebrate, you know, and there's this sort of. Your body sort of says, fucking calm down, man. You know you're about to throw up.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Or have you ever had that happen?

[Will]

I've never had it, but I know guys, Guys do throw up. Like, I mean, when you're exert all that energy anyway, it's like even, even with workouts, guys would be puking after like GPP or something when you're doing like work capacity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Steve]

Yeah, I never, I. I only threw up. I don't remember ever throwing up in a game. I know what you're talking about though, with like the like exertion of energy. For me, it always came like long drives and you think you score and then you're getting hyped with the boys, you're celebrating. Then there's a flag or they actually call it back and you have to do another play and you're like, oh, yeah. Because your, Your. Your body has a sense of being like, okay, it's over. I've expelled rest right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Because you know, you have a break coming up that's perfect. And it's like, oh, no, no, no. You got to go one, one or two more plays.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's perfect.

[Steve]

But I've never ran into a situation where I threw up. We had a. We played a game in London, and I think. I think it was 2016 against the Chargers. And my left guard got hurt. And then Corey Levin shout out my. The boy who just actually resigned. He didn't think he was playing. So he's having pints in London with the boys. He's. He's enjoying London a little bit. And I remember, like, right when he got in the game, we had like an 8, 9, 10 play drive. And we're in the middle of the field and we're in the huddle kind of waiting. I think it was like a TV timeout or an injury timeout or something like that. And he just starts puking. I'm starting rubbing his back. Hey, you gonna be all right? Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

But there's nothing worse than. I can't imagine the feeling of being in the middle of a game.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I'm not a puker. I don't. I can't. Like, I can.

[Steve]

I had one situation.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can get hammered drunk. And yeah, I. I feel like I want to throw up. And I know that I will feel better if I do. I had a stomach bug last week and I'm laying on the couch like, God, if I could just throw up. But I ain't got it. I'm not like that. Can't do it.

[Will]

We had some bad oysters in New Orleans and it was like, I'm laying in bed and I'm thinking the same thought you are on the couch. Like it, man, I just gotta throw up. And I'll just sit there and gag myself until I don't think.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can't see even trying that. I don't. I've tried to do that back in the day. I just can't. It's got to come out the other end.

[Steve]

Yeah, I mean, you go, that's so.

[Will]

You've never. You've never puked.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not many times. Like, I did get real up one time. And I remember the last time I threw up.

[Will]

Puking Rally Dale.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I remember last time I puked drunk. That was a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah.

[Steve]

Did the drinking. The drinking always gets me. When we do beer Olympics, I do. I can hold myself for a while.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can't do.

[Steve]

But once I know, like, the game's

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

over, I'll even tell, like, I'm. I'll go on a trip with some buddies and I'll tell them, like, in a text message before we leave. I'm like. Like, don't even fucking talk about shots. We're not doing. I got. I drink. I drink beer all day. I know my thing. I got a. I got a damn plan, right? Yeah. I know how. I know my pace.

[Will]

Yeah. And especially you get up there when you're getting older, you don't be giving matters.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Don't throw a shot into the middle of the day or, you know, 8 o' clock at night after we've been going for eight hours. Don't be throwing a shot in there because that. That ruins it.

[Steve]

That's when you've been going for eight hours. I am a villainous friend to have when you're.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When you're out.

[Steve]

Because I'll start to get a little. Little cooked up. And then when I put the on switch on, I want to go. Yeah, but I don't want to go alone. It's not fun to go alone. You want to bring your boys with you. So I'm definitely the guy that's like,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I will always buying shots.

[Steve]

I'll buy out. Like, I'll buy like, hey, let me get 20 of them. And then I'll just start dishing them out. Yeah, I'll go to. Will you take it? I know Will is big on, like, I got you, buddy. And then 1, 2, 3. Or he'll like, sit in the corner.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

So I gotta stay on. I gotta stay on Will.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm watching, I'm watching. Yeah, I can see somebody. Somebody's getting a frickin shot. They're getting shots. Fuck.

[Steve]

You got that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chug my beer so I can spit the shot in the beer. That's my. I'd rather chug a full beer than to take that shot. But usually, like, there's a couple sips left in the beer and I'm like, I'll see it coming. I'll be like, all right, I'm ready

[Steve]

to take this shot. Yeah, put it in your mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, dude. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The.

[Steve]

The whole. The drinking thing. Eight hours in, the boozing with the boys, though, and shots get brought up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's kind of.

[Steve]

It always sounds like a good idea.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

I mean, if you're drunk, there's really. No. You're not really in the mindset of saying no anymore.

[Steve]

Yeah. Real maturity is realizing, like, around 11pm you stop drinking.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Like, you're like, let me try to. That's when your brain starts to be like, hey, there is a tomorrow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

If you're lucky enough, there's gonna be a tomorrow.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

That's when it becomes tough, man. You were talking about, like, all this stuff that happens before the race. So I won't speak for Will, but for me, like, the most anxiety I would have before a game would be you jogging out. They're doing announcements. Hey, how we doing? Everyone's kind of dapping up. Guys are in the corner praying. Then all of a sudden, the national anthem happens. And when that national anthem happens, it's like my heart rate is probably higher than it'll be the entire day. Like, I'm just thinking about all the possible things that could go wrong. How. Like what these plays are, these specific ones. So my anxiety is so high.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

What's it like for you when it's like you're doing the announcements and then you have to go shake the hands, kiss the babies. Like, I can't imagine being social before competition. Is that a very difficult thing for you?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Very difficult, yeah.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was our sport. Pratt. Pratt. Our sport prides itself on being really accessible. So we, we did it because it was like a. We're boasting on our sport, right. In our industry. How, how, how people can come up and shake our hand or say, hey, hey to us right before climbing in the car. But it was hard mentally to like, really listen to a conversation. If somebody, somebody wanted to tell you a story, like, hey, man, we met once.

[Steve]

Oh, that's how it always is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm like, yeah, I really tune in right now. I'm gonna sit here, wrinkle my forehead, nod, yes. I really don't.

[Will]

You hate when people too are like, hey, you, do you remember me?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we've met before.

[Will]

You're just thinking, bro, the postseason is upon us and there's really nothing like it. But the postseason can be stressful. Crushing losses, wild upsets, your unhinged six game parlay falling apart at the literal last second. Things can get rough and it can leave you feeling a little sour. But you got to look at the bright side. Once your team is out and headed to decompress, you can finally relax. Now you can actually enjoy the postseason with all of the heart palpitations. That's why we're partnering with Jim Beam. We want to help you turn that lemon of a loss into delicious, tasty Jim Beam and lemonade. Because it's really the perfect bevy for the offseason. It's refreshing. It's got the perfect sweetness and a little bit of tang on your tongue. Best paired with stress free watching when your team is out. So gather the boys and grab some Jim Beam and lemonade to make the rest of the postseason just a little bit sweeter. Refresh your season with Jim Beam and lemonade best enjoyed together. Please drink responsibly. Jim Beam Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 40 alcohol by volume 2025. James B. Beam Distilling Company, Clermont, Kentucky. Let's jump in this car right now to go race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

You want me to recall, Remember the time that we met?

[Steve]

People better have a little awareness.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Like if you're about to go jump in a car and do 500 miles,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

it's like, yeah, any. All of this, all of the. Anything happening, like in that two hours before the race, before you're climbing in that car is. Feels like just a big, big obstacle. And you cannot wait to. To get in the car because you can't be reached. You can't be. No, you're. You're in there and you're. No one's coming in there with you. Right. And you finally like get some. And you're sitting on your ass. Right. So you're like relaxed. You're in your seat that's custom made for you. Everything feels good and comfortable and sometimes on them hot. I don't know if you guys ever did this. Thinking about the hot days that we had, I would get a water bottle, multiple water bottles, and poke a hole in the end of it, and I would soak my entire suit before I got in the car. And so my thought process was my body sweats to cool me down. If I'm already wet, I'm already kind of beating it to the punch and it's still going to sweat. I'm still going to burn, you know, lose some water. But I'm. But I'm like, it don't have to rush to do that job or get that started in the first hour of the race. Right. And so if I soak the suit now, it's not poor. It's just wet. The whole thing's wet. Like you put it in a bucket and ring it, wrung it out, man. I'd get in the car and I'm pretty comfortable even on like a 95 degree day. And as soon as I get moving, any kind of air moving, it's like coat cool and.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And like it's breathing the water bottle

[Will]

and just squirt it all over.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Before a game. Yeah.

[Steve]

I feel like when you first start sweating too, like, like if you get in the sauna and that first five minutes when your body begins to sweat, you have like an irritation. Almost like you're like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Kind of itchy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

And then finally you get into a good sweat and you feel good. So I like that move. Yeah, I like that move down to that. That's so the point you sit in the car is when you feel like relaxed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Steve]

Because for us it's. It's the first hit. Like, let's get the first play done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

You get your first play of the way, then you feel.

[Steve]

Let me, let me put my hands on somebody real quick how we really feel in the day. That's when, you know, started what kind of day it's going to be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Because you get the first couple plays in. It's like you might maybe mess up on the first three plays of the game. Yeah, that's a different. That's a different mental warfare right there.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How long. How were you, remember games where you were, like, struggling to find yourself, to fall into that, like, comfortable space?

[Will]

Not like a. Not like a full game.

[Steve]

Yes.

[Will]

Yeah, I mean, I guess we're in alignment. It feels a little bit. It feels a little bit different because I feel like you're kind of in sync on doing the same thing. Like, if you're blocking well, you're blocking well. But I like, between, like, if you have a bad run play or a pass play on defense, it wouldn't really be something that it just like consumes you, like goes into your play the rest of the day, but it's more so like it's that play that's just sitting in your head the entire time. You go back to the sidelines so you might make a play. You're not even really caring that you made a play.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

Because you're just thinking about what you played before.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

For me, how coach is going to coach you when you get in the film room and everything else?

[Steve]

Oh, yeah, that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

I wish there was a way to, like, combat that because I feel it goes through every player's mind is like, what are the coaches going to say about this on Monday? And you're in the first quarter game, you're like, oh, I can't wait to get past. Yeah. For offensive line, it's very like, there's a lot of precision that goes into it, especially with pass blocking. So for me, it was like feeling out the speed of the individual. I'd watch them on film like, okay, this person's faster, they're. They're a little slower, but they're more power. It was really just like feeling them and understanding like, hey, what is. What does my tempo have to be against this person all day? And that first couple of pass plays, whether it was in the first drive, luckily, hopefully you don't go three and out. But if you have a good like six, seven play drive in the first, first series and you're able to kind of put your hands on them and feel it, that's when you feel a whole lot better. The tough is that first third down, like the first thing you brought up. I remember we were playing the Saints. This had to be like 2021 or early, like 2020 or 19. And we played the first series and, and I overset a guy, big guy from, from University of Texas El Paso. But I Overset him. And that was the first third down of the game. And you just get in your head, you're like. And we got off the field after that, and you have to think like, okay, what did I go? What went wrong there? How do I have to fix this? Don't be sure. Should I get out a little bit more? And then you start second guessing all these things you're doing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

From a technique standpoint, that was always, like, just the mental game that was going on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. While playing, I didn't think about that. Like, that's crazy because, like, when I'm watching a game and there's a three and out, especially the first drive, you're thinking about the. The. Yeah, the. The confidence of the quarterback. God damn. Is this the. Is this a omen for the rest of the day? Can we stop the other team from putting points on the board, getting behind you? Don't even think about, like, the individual. Other individuals on the field and how they're, you know, Because I can't see the details and go, damn, though my. Oh, lineman feeling pretty shitty about that. Right. Because he did this or that and the other. You don't even think about those guys walking off the field and how that affects their. Their confidence.

[Steve]

Yeah, it's a. It's an interesting. It that's. We talk about football, obviously, the football podcast, but, like, 11 guys in the field have to do their job. And especially with the offensive line, like, it is such a. A mental game that goes along with the physicality of it, especially in pass pro, because that's how you get paid.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

The less sacks you get up, give up, the more money you make. And so, like, those are like. It's like run block for show, pass block for dough. And if you can get in there and. And really just feel confident early in the game, it makes everything so much easier.

[Will]

And you just know, too, just being a competitor and being an athlete with the nascar, like, if you take a turn wrong, it's more about, like, you having the goldfish memory of thinking, all right, this is correctable. I got reached on this run play. I was in a bad position. I took a bad first step. Like, you just got to correct the process. And you were like, yeah, you know, your preparation to be in a better position. But if you end up letting that stuff consume you, like, oh, I'm taking these turns wrong, or, oh, I'm just not playing well today. It just kind of consumes your entire

[Steve]

being and you have to slowly start stacking and stacking.

[Will]

Yeah, you have to be able to put. You have to be able to put those, like, plays behind you if you're going to get out of whatever that said run is. Because usually it's just like a technique

[Steve]

thing, but when you. When you're talking about, like, you don't think about the offensive lineman. Like, when I watch nascar, being a casual fan, like, I know how to drive a car. I can drive stick. But I'm not thinking about the technique that you guys are going through. I'm just seeing, like, hey, they're breaking pretty hard in that turn, it seems like. But, like, what are.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Moving forward this guy.

[Steve]

Yeah. What are like, the small pieces of game that you would like, kind of focus, like what were like, kind. Your mental hurdles you had to go through.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So, yeah, the. In the conversation we were having, your. Your. The car is a really big part of the success or failure that you're going to have that day. And so your guys. It's your body and it's your preparation and all the. You're. You go out there, and if you're talented and. And you've prepared and you know your opponent, you go out there and it's you. Right? But in. As a driver, you kind of. A lot of times are at the mercy of the ability of the car. And if it can do it or not, and you'll go and start those. You'll start the race and run like a handful of corners, and you're. You're judging the car. You're going, is this damn thing any good? Is it going to be better? Is it. Is it better than that guy? I'm catching him. I'm Caught him there. Yeah. Okay. I'm doing this right. It's doing that right and. Or it's sucking and you're out of control and you don't have the grip and you're losing positions and guys are on your ass and breathing down your neck. And your confidence in the car determines whether you spiral down or continue to do well. And so as the. In the very first handful of laps, a driver is really just judging this car and. And critiquing the car and. Okay, if it's not great, we're gonna have a chance to fix it on the first pit stop. Pull down pit road, tell the crew chief everything you can to get. Give him all the information you can to make so he can make the best choice to fix the car. Improve the car. He gets a chance to improve it. You go back out there. All right. Did he fix this? Son of a. We're gonna start the group, we're gonna get the green flag and start, continue the race. Either it's improved and you're happy, hey, great job, man. You fix my problem, I'm better. Or he didn't fix it at all. It didn't, it didn't make a damn bit of difference. And now you're like doubting the ability of your team and yourself to even make the day better. And sometimes it doesn't get better. Sometimes you just have a car that doesn't do what you want it to do and you got to drive the son of a gun for three and a half hours and it sucks. But some days you start with a bad car, make it better, and you have a great day and you're proud of that, you're proud of your guys and you're. And some days you start to race and shit's badass and it's awesome all day. But you're always reliant on this car to like, do things. And you can be the best race car driver, smartest guy, know everything you need to know. And if your car sucks, you can't overcome that, right? You can't, you can't will that car in, into, into being what it can't do. Yeah, yeah.

[Will]

With your drivers. Have you ever been like in the, with the crew on race day? Like, are you went from driver to the stuff that you do? Obviously you do media stuff. But have you ever experienced like, like, you know, taking the chance to be like, put yourself in as like a

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

coach, like Coach Earnhardt a little bit? Not a ton. But we ran the Daytona 500 this past February for the first time as a team. So my team that I've owned as an owner runs in basically kind of what is what, what I'd call the college level. And we have four full time teams and they race on Saturday before the big boys on Sunday. And so that's what we've been doing this February, this past February, we entered a car in the Daytona 500, which is the biggest race of the year for the, for, for nascar. And I was, I had a, I had a lot of fun because I was way more plugged in, way more vocal. I was on the radio during the races talking to the driver and I worked on the car a little bit in the garage. And like, it was just, I was able to be more, I was able to be more hands on. And I don't necessarily coach, coach the drivers all that much. It's hard. I was talking to one of my drivers this morning about a race coming up this weekend. And I'm sitting there and I'm, like, trying to explain some things that are unique about this particular racetrack. And you're just wondering, you know, like, how much of it they're picking up because they're young. And I remember being young and, damn, you could tell me all kinds of awesome freaking information, but I might not be, like, processing it and taking it in. I just got to go out there and experience it right. And see the wrong and the right and adjust and fix and, you know, just learn by doing. But so I try to coach, but a lot of times, man, they just look at you with this bewilderment, and they're like, young and like, yeah, I know what you mean. And you're like, I'm not sure. You know what I mean, and we'll see. But, you know, my dad, you know, tried to help me a little bit with some advice in driving, and it was really good. And so, I mean, I try to talk to my drivers sometimes, but a lot of times they just got to go out there and see it and do it.

[Will]

Is there ever a time where a driver comes in and you got to get hard on them?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I mean, you know, there were some. There's definitely times when they're just not, you know, they're making. They're doing things that are detrimental to their success. They're getting frustrated and arguing or fighting with other drivers or doing things on the racetrack with the car, physically with other drivers that this. You're hurting yourself, you know, and you're deleting your. You need to have your focus on trying to win this race today. And I know you're pissed at this guy and you want to get his ass back, you know, but. But that. That you can do that, but it's going to keep you from trying to win the race.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so there's some times when they. Or, you know, maybe they're not putting in the week. Week to week work. The work, studying, prepping, taking physical care of themselves or things like that. Sometimes you might get on a driver about his focus, like week to week focus, because they got a. It's competitive, man. The. Everybody that matters toward this guy's career. Every. Everybody that matters toward a young driver's career is paying attention to the things he's doing and it's the details. And is he studying? Is he. Is his. Is he got himself in great shape? Is he all fucking around, drinking beer with his boys all night long every, you know, during the week? Do we Know where he is, right. On a Monday night, on a Tuesday night, you know, and so they're. The people that matter are paying attention. And that's what I try to tell them. Like, you know, if you're. Everybody's watching, right? Everything you do, so do the right.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

You know, in your mind, what does a weak routine look like that you're like, okay, that's a good routine to have. Well, you race on Sunday.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, they race on sun. They race Saturday or Sunday, but they're going to be in the sim, which is basically. We don't have practice. We can't. We don't have a lot of practice where you actually go to the racetrack and take the car out and run it around. So we have simulators, big giant multimillion dollar simulators that you climb into and you drive in a virtual world. And the manufacturer, Chevrolet, Toyota, Ford, they spent millions of dollars on these simulators. And getting a couple hours in one is very valuable. And anytime you get an opportunity to do that, you do it it. And there's got. You got to volunteer to be in that simulator, right. To be able to work on your, your craft. You can work on the setup of the car, new ideas run and practice different lines and stuff like that in the simulator and it transfers over into the real world. So on Monday morning, I think you either need to be working out. There's a group of drivers that work out together. All of the Chevrolet guys work out together. They have a Chevrolet program where there's this coach that, his name's Josh Wise and he, he coaches all of the Chevy drivers on. They do reaction time games and shit where the light on the wall and they're doing.

[Steve]

Yeah, those are all right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're doing all of that shit. And they'll go, they'll go jump in the lake and swim across the channel and do ridiculous things. And he never tells them what they're going to do. You just show up and you might go ride a 20 mile, 40 mile bike ride. Just be ready. And so that's Mondays. That's every morning, Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning. And when you're not working out or doing those things with Josh, they need to be in the simulator. They need to be meeting with their crew. They got to meet with the crew chief, go over last week's race. What went right, what went wrong, what did we learn? Go over the next.

[Steve]

You watching film?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Then they'll watch film of last year's race. They'll watch the whole race. They'll say, okay, here's eight guys that tried eight different strategies, and this one worked really well. We may do that. So, you know, get the driver's mind kind of prepared on what kind of strategies might pop up during the race. So he knows what you're asking him to do when you're telling him to come down pit road and get tires and fuel. And so then that. That's several hours on a. On a. On a Tuesday or Wednesday. There's tons of meetings. And yeah, I mean, that. That's. Those are the most important things. And drivers need to be there in person. I know they can zoom in and they can. They can kind of. They can kind of half ass it a little bit. And I know there's places they got to be, too, for sponsors. There's requirements for them to be out and doing things. Y' all know what I'm talking about there. But being present and being in person and filling out, we give them note. You know, the teams give them a note. A big sheet or one sheet or to fill out after the race. Like, fill that out. Be. Be. Be precise. Be descriptive. We're going to lean on that note next time we go back to this racetrack in six months. So give us everything you can give us. Right. And so those guys. Sometimes I remember being half ass about some of that, like filling the notes out going, I was annoyed the car didn't turn. That's what I wrote down. Right.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I need to tell them, like, why didn't it turn? What did it feel like? Why. What did I think the problem was with the car? Specifically the details of the. Of the car's mechanics and try to give them some route to a way to solve that problem. Right. Instead of just being frustrated and mad about it.

[Will]

Now do you get. Do you get. You kind of come unglued or get the parent voice going on with some of these guys? Like, you have a very calm demeanor.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I don't. I don't. No, I don't get too mad. I want to. So sometimes.

[Steve]

I mean, that's the perfect Dale explanation ever. Like, stays calm in every situation.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

However, there's been a couple times now

[Will]

passing through his head. I want to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I.

[Steve]

You know, he's thinking about one guy right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's a couple. There's a couple times.

[Steve]

There's a couple.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, no, there's a couple times when they're there, things didn't go well in the race. And, And I mean, you know, you could go into the room with. With when they're meeting the teams and the drivers and the crew chiefs, you can. You could go in that room and you could slam your hand, beat, you know, fist down on the table, and, you know, what the hell are y' all doing? Why'd y' all do it that way? Why? You don't let everybody let that happen again. They don't. People don't. People don't absorb that, right? They don't go and fix it. They go, damn, we got our attitude today, you know, or, damn, Dale was mad. And. And they don't. They. You gotta. You gotta go in there and. And say, hey, why did. You know? Why did that go that way? Why did. What are we. What are we gonna do about that? How are we gonna fix it next time? Or. I know. Y' all got a plan, right? Y' all got a plan, right, to fix that?

[Steve]

Do you ever listen to the plan, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

Are you ever listening to the driver? Knowing that you've had your experience on the road and you're listening to a driver and you understand the team, like, what they're doing for the car and everything else? To where a driver comes out and they might be complaining about the car, they're saying something in a way to where it's like, hey, bro, you're full of shit right now. You need to figure it out. You know, X, Y and Z out there on the road. You're trying to blame too many other things there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think the one thing that happens, and I know this because I did this, is a lot of times the driver has one line of communication, and that's the crew and the team and the crew chief, right? And. And so when you're mad as a driver, you have only one. One line of communication. Like, anything you say, right? This car's a piece of shit. I'm fucking doing all I can out here. I'm busting my ass, y'. All. This thing drives, like, all of that information is going directly to the people that actually put that car together that actually are there to help you and the ones that will fix it if it gets fixed, right? And so a driver gets. We get confused because we're in that car. We're hoping. Stop. We feel like we're on an island. I used to say I felt like a castaway out there. Like, I'm all by myself, man. Y' all don't have an idea what's going on. I'm all out there by myself fighting this damn thing. Y' all don't know what it's like. Yeah. And I'm like, this car is a piece of. Biggest piece of. Ever drove. That is the worst thing to say. These guys are the ones that built it. They brought it to the track. It's their car.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, you can't call a car a piece of. To the people that brought the car and fixed it and ready. Readied it for you. And so. And you. You. You can't. You. You can't sit there and rant and cuss about. I'm busting my ass, you know, they know already that you're busting your ass. They're watching it. You don't have to tell them. You don't have to come, you know, And I did this. I did this like, I can. And so I'll hear a driver today. He get. They get. They. They. They need you to know, Like. Like, they're giving it all they got, man. They are. They're suffering. They're. They're hemorrhaging confidence, you know, and they're getting insecure. The car's not good. They're hemorrhaging all of these things, and they need you to know they're. They're fighting and they're hard work. They're trying. They're trying to make this car that you. You built work. And they. But we have a terrible delivery, and we end up really saying things that are detrimental to that relationship between a driver, crew, and crew chief achieve. And so sometimes I will have to say, or. Or I remember something I did, and I hear another driver say it, and I'll go, hey, you got to remember, these guys are here to help. They're the ones that are going to fix it. They're the ones that you gotta. You gotta talk to them in a way that they want to fix your problem. And if you piss them off or you talk to them in a negative way and not, you know, not a supportive way, you come down pit road, they're gonna be like, fuck that guy. Guy, you know? And so when you're. You're coming to get help and service and get your car adjusted, they're gonna be like, screw this kid. You know, he's just a punk. Yeah. And so, you know, I learned that the hard way a few times, and I thought, you know, oh, I know these guys well enough to tell them their car's a piece of. But it's never a good idea, right?

[Will]

Because it was somebody that pulled you aside to be like, hey, man.

[Steve]

Yeah. How'd you learn that lesson?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was Jerome, Tony Jr. My cousin Tony Jr. My. My. My Uncle Tony Senior. I worked for them on the Bud car back in the 2000s. And they told me, they said, hey, you called the car piece of shit. Don't do that. All the guys that build that car and work on that car listening to you, not only the guys that are in the pits and were at the racetrack that day, also all the guys that are sitting at home. The guy that painted that car is sitting at his house on the couch watching you run, hoping you win and it's gonna paint your car next week. He's the one that heard you call that car piece of shit. This. You know, all the mechanics that are not travelers that are sitting at home with their family, you know, all of that information, they might not hear it in the moment through the airwaves or through tv, but they're going to get that information. They're in. No, you said, yeah.

[Steve]

Word travels quick.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And so, you know, you just don't want to get this reputation within your own team of somebody who just kind of comes unhinged in the toughest moments and that and that and is. And is. And is combative or abrasive. Right. In those moments. But it's hard, man. You're out. You feel like you're out there by yourself, and you feel like that nobody knows how hard this is but you. And you feel like you're. You are feeling a sense that you're letting your team down, but your reaction, in your words, are, guys, I'm doing every thing I can with this thing. It won't do anything. Right? And what they hear is, the car sucks. I'm. I'm not the problem.

[Will]

And you're thinking, too. The audience is watching the race or seeing me not perform as well. It just means that it's just gonna be me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

They're sitting there blaming. They're not seeing that because the casual

[Steve]

fans not thinking about everything that goes in the week before. They're thinking about this driver, that car. Car. The car's got to be perfect. The top of the line. Yeah. This.

[Will]

This week.

[Steve]

And Dale's really down this year, huh?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Getting it done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is he. There's what they call you YouTube this, but there. There's what they call radioactive and that. There's. Every driver has multiple YouTube clips of themselves that fans have put together of all of their worst moments. Beautiful. There's some good Radioactive, like, hey, this one's funny. This is 88 minutes of Dale Jr being funny on the radio during a race. And then there's like, you know, here's Five minutes of him being a complete asshole to his team, you know, And. Yeah, and there's your drivers just completely coming unhinged, just screaming curse words into the middle distance over the airway. You got to mash that button, because if nobody hears it, it don't. You don't get. Yeah, the relief. Yeah. Right.

[Steve]

So there's a no talk button you have in the car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You got a button that you mash to talk to the team.

[Steve]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And like, you could be in there matter in hell, and you could scream, it don't feel good. You got to mash that button so somebody hears you, you know? And that's the worst thing, right?

[Steve]

So when you smash that button, that's the same thing that the fans can. They can buy the headphones, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

So people are you. If you're talking. So all these YouTube hears it. People. You consciously went and be like, people, someone needs to hear this right now.

[Will]

Yeah, I gotta get this off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I gotta get this.

[Steve]

I feel good just saying into the abyss. I need somebody. I need to hurt somebody's feelings today over this situation.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then the. The TV sometimes takes it and puts it on the. The actual broadcast, you know, and then now it's there. It's, you know, common knowledge. And then you gotta. You get up. You get up Monday morning, you're like, damn, I shouldn't have said all that day that the.

[Steve]

The next day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

After you make a couple of actions you wish you didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I said, there's.

[Will]

I'm sorry, Steve. I haven't listened to a damn word you said. The last.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There was one. There's one clip on there where I. I'm driving around, and I had had a couple of loose wheels, and the wheel fell off a wheel. I'm the. Didn't get the wheel tight, and the wheel come off the car and wrecked hard as at Atlanta. And that. We're. We're at another track, and I got a loose wheel. And I was so mad. I was like, y' all, like the loose wheel. The wheel comes off at full speed. You just fly into the wall. And it's nasty. It's a hard rift. And I. I come over the radio, I was like, if this wheel comes off, I'm hitting every one of y' all in the hand with a hammer. I was like, I don't know how to make y' all understand. Like, this is. This is not fun for me to be out here wondering if this wheel's gonna come off or not. And I'm gonna fly into the fence, out of control.

[Steve]

What is that? Is that, like, a inexcusable mistake, though, if you go in?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, but it's keeping. It happens. It happens rarely, but I was like, y' all got a damn stuff. You can't leave my wheels loose. You can't.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that was my only way to, like. I thought that was a great analogy. Like, I'll hit y' all with a hammer.

[Steve]

Like. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I see that clip. I'll see that clip on you on YouTube. And I'm like, God, that's stupid. Why did I say that? That was so rude.

[Steve]

And it's a crazy shot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Necessary.

[Steve]

Yeah. It's a crazy shot to say, I'm gonna put. I'm gonna hit your hands with a hammer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I bet the guys in the pit going. I mean, imagine the guys standing there, even though I know that they're my guys. Right. We're a team, and I know they're probably standing there going, well, right? Yeah, he gonna hit me with a hammer. Right?

[Steve]

Is there. Is there, like, with the wheel being loose, is there, like. Like in football, there's, like, basic one on one that the coach will get up and be like, lawan. Like, this is basic one on one football. You can't be doing this. Is there something, like, in the pit crew standpoint, they're like, you. This is something so basic that you should not be messing up, that they deserve an ass cheer. Gotta fill with gas.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Steve]

What are we doing?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know. I mean, there's everything in. Everything that I can think of is, like, it's a human error. It's a. It's a poss. It's a possibility at any moment.

[Steve]

Very forgiving individual.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean, some guys are, like, zero tolerance. But, I mean, I've lived it long enough to know that there's. To have zero tolerance is an expectation. Is not realistic.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

When you were.

[Will]

There's his.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's the line.

[Will]

If the wheel comes off and I hit the fence real hard, I get to whack every damn one of you with a hammer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

That is hilarious.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Is there.

[Steve]

Is there a specific individual that comes to mind from, like, your generation of racing that, like, was, as in, just a known hothead with his pit crew?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I mean, I. There. There's some guys that were pretty. Kurt Bush has some good radioactives on YouTube. Kyle Harvick was pretty. Pretty vocal about his team. Like, he demanded he was. He was one of the guys that would. Would publicly say, hey, our pit crew has to improve, you know, and he would talk on the radio that would end up on the broadcast about his team needing to be better on pit road. I did. I wanted to say all those things. You know, I have felt those things and wanted to say all the things that they said, but I was. I didn't want it to get into the broadcast. Yeah. I didn't want it to be fodder for the media. Yeah. That layer. Right. And so there was something slipping your finger off the bottom. There was times I slipped up, but for the most part, I don't have too much radioactive out there.

[Will]

That's funny, dude.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

If you could change any rule in nascar, what would it be?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just any rule. I mean, I. I wish we could figure out a. A new package for the. For the Daytona Talladega racetracks. I would probably work on the rules that affect how the cars race at those two places, Daytona and Talladega. So we go to the Daytona 500 and the cars. Yeah, the way the races. Sort of the way you watch the races, you guys might not pick up on it, but some of the details of how the cars race and why they do. Some of the things they do are. Are kind of. It's not as great as it used to be, or it's. It could be better than. Than what it is today. And I think it. It's. And I don't know the answer, the specific, like, technical thing that needs to change, but I would love to be in the process of how we can make the cars do different than they do there, how they race together. But I. I'll be honest, man. Racing right now, the race, I'm no, like, I'm. I'm. I'm a critic of the sport. I. I hold them accountable when I believe I know what's right.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But things are really good right now. Things are really, really good.

[Steve]

I did not think that's the direction

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

you were gonna go.

[Will]

Yeah, I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I gotta do.

[Steve]

I was like, oh, who's about to put.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I gotta be honest. I was. We ran Daytona and I was there, Right. We had a car in the race. I was really frustrated with the way the cars raced and the way this. The. The product on track. Product. I was frustrated with it. A casual fan would have watched the race and not seen the things that I saw. That. There's that. But I saw things that. I'm like, I wish they would fix this shit. Everything. From that moment on, all the races that we've ran have been fantastic, spectacular, and. And we have this Sort of very informal poll that goes up on Twitter after every race by a guy named Jeff Gluck, who's in, who's a journalist in our sport, very respected. It's the good race poll. And it's, it's a yes or no. Was it a good race? And there'll be thousands and thousands of people that vote on this poll every week. And it's very informal, normal, just for fun. But our, we've been doing this poll for debt for, for years. And so like a really, really good day is a high 80. That's like a really great, that's like. Everybody's happy with that, right? Everybody. Like this. And so our races have all been trending in the really, really good high 80s and 90s. And you know, there's rarely a race where people are just like, eh, if that sucked, you know, 50%. 50, 50, yes, no. And I know that's very rudimentary, but I, you know, hey, it's, it's a, it's a small glimpse into the public opinion of something. I know it's, you know, on X, it's not the entire world on X, but it's a, it's a, it's an idea. Yes.

[Will]

But you might thinking, oh man, these are the few things that I would change. I wonder if other people are catching it too. You go and just be like, hey, was this a good race? You see like 85.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Like, hey, loved it. That's. I know. So the, the racing's, the racing has been highly complimented. And so when that's going, sometimes you got to go, hey, maybe I don't fucking know what is best all the time. Right? If fans are loving what they saw Sunday, maybe, you know, I'm, maybe I am a, I am a traditional. I am nostalgic. I am like one of those people that go, oh, those are the best. You know, the 80s, the 90s, so, so awesome. And you can't, you can't never put the tooth.

[Will]

The postseason is upon us and there's really nothing like it. But the postseason can be stressful, crushing as wild upsets, your unhinged six game parlay falling apart at the literal last second. Things can get rough and it can leave you feeling a little sour. But you gotta look at the bright side. Once your team is out and headed to decompress, you can finally relax. Now you can actually enjoy the postseason with all of the heart palpitations. That's why we're partnering with Jim Beam. We want to help you turn that lemon of a loss into delicious, tasty Jim Beam and lemonade because it's really the perfect bevy for the offseason. It's refreshing, it's got the perfect sweetness and a little bit of tang on your tongue. Best paired with stress free watching when your team is out. So gather the boys and grab some Jim Beam and lemonade to make the rest of the postseason just a little bit sweeter. Refresh your season with Jim Beam and lemonade. Best enjoyed together. Please drink responsibly. Jim Beam Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume 2025. James B. Beam Distilling Co. Clermont, Kentucky.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's back in the tube kind of thing. So sometimes I have to kind of check myself with my, my nostalgia and my. My hanging on to the history of the sport so tightly and go, look there. You know, it's small, it's more modern, it's different than I remember it. But people today, the fans that are tuning in, love it. Yeah, they love it. And so I'm, I'm bullish on the sport and think it's heading in a really good direction.

[Steve]

I feel like more men, more men than not are guilty of that though. Like finding the nostalgic piece of billiard. It used to be great. Then you can go in any genre, any category of anything, and someone's gonna have an opinion about. Back then, it was better because of X, Y and Z. You brought, you brought a couple times targeting. Bring it back, bring it back. The old kickoff rule. Yeah, that needs to be changed immediately, you know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

But anyway, you talked about, you. You're. For the first time your team had a car in the Daytona 500. I feel like that first off deserves a round of applause. Like, that is massive. And we kind of did just rush over that. Dude, that is huge.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Awesome. Yeah.

[Steve]

So congrats on that. Like, what is, what is the process of being like, okay, we feel good enough to put a car in the biggest race of the year and all nascar.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So Traveler Whiskey was a. Was a brand that came. Came to us. Yeah. And so I got a shout out. Traveler Whiskey. Shout out high rock Vodka,

[Steve]

shout out neutral Seltzers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So I, they came to us and they were like, hey. They came to another program at Hendrick Motorsports and they were like, hey, we kind of want to do the Daytona 500. Hendrick's like, hey, we. We don't have any room. We're full inventory. And so. But my, my buddy Rick Hendrick, he's like, I know my friend Dale Jr. Wants to enter the Daytona 500. It's a dream of mine to enter a car as an owner in that race once. Just to go. I wanted to go to the track and do all of the things as an owner and push a car out on the grid and go, there's my car. There it goes into the race. And so they hooked us up with Traveler, and. And we took Traveler to. To Daytona, and it was really emotional. We weren't locked in. So there's cars that have franchises or charters, and they are locked into the race. They. They know going down there, hauling their car to the track that they're in. There's a handful of cars. In this instance this year, there were eight or nine of us that weren't guaranteed a spot. We were gonna have by either qualifying really well or running well in what's called the. The duel, which is on. The duel is two races, and if we do well in the duel, we lock ourselves into the race. So in the duel, we're running. We didn't qualify well, so we couldn't lock ourselves in that way. So now we got the duel to run, and we're trying to. Okay, we're gonna go out here, and we got to beat a couple of guys.

[Steve]

What's your. What's your stress level?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Very high.

[Steve]

Fire doesn't go well.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, really?

[Steve]

This is our last shot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was embarrassed. So we. You. In qualifying, all of the industry is on pit road. All the. All the engineers, crew chiefs, everyone that matters, and everyone that knows anything about the sport is standing on pit road. All the cars are lined up, going out, qualifying one at a time. And you. You're with your car, and you're pushing your car as it's getting closer and closer to the front of the line. And. Right. You know, you get down to the end, and you push your car off, it cranks the motor, pulls away, and he's going to go run his lap. And you stand there and you watch him run his lap, and there's a couple of big, giant Jumbotrons, and you're watching a little bit on the Jumbotron, and he comes by, and you look at the lap, and you're like, that ain't fast enough. And now you got to walk through that entire group of people that all know that you didn't make the race yet. Right. And it's embarrassing. You know, you got the equipment that you think is good enough and something y' all didn't do. Right. Right. Didn't help the car run the lap time. And so it's a. It's a bit tough. Kind of walking back through that whole mob of people toward your garage, like, we failed. And so, yeah, like, we.

[Will]

We. We weren't good enough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

Like, everybody looks at us like, damn,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Junior, just great driver.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's kind of. Yeah.

[Steve]

Who knows, man?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It might be similar to going into the tunnel at a. At an opposing stadium after a loss. Right. With the fans going, get out of your. You know.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Philly.

[Will]

Or just like, say you're a middle schooler, high schooler, and you're going to see if you made the team or not. Your boys are standing there and you're like, hey, is my name on there? It's like, you should check it out. Maybe I didn't see it. You turn.

[Steve]

What a feeling.

[Will]

That's a tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kind of similar.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

You've had that happen.

[Will]

No.

[Steve]

Movie scene. To me, I was like, that's crazy if that's happened.

[Will]

But you know how, like, before you even go up to look, it's like, man, what if I don't make it? Like, I'm going to feel so stupid. You just kind of have an idea. Idea of probably what it feels like.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It just seems okay.

[Steve]

If you weren't good at sports, what would it be like? If I sucked at sports, that's probably a bad feeling.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So we ended up qualifying in the duel, and we ended up racing our way.

[Steve]

How does it so basically work?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're. We're in one of the duels. There's two. They split the field in half. So we're in a duel. There's about 20 some cars in that race. We only have to beat, like, two guys. There's two guys that we just got to finish ahead of, and we are in the race, and they're out. And so coming. Coming. This duel's like 50 laps, and we're coming to two laps to go, and we're not in. We're. We're behind those guys and the car. The. The field's a big blob. All tight together. Within one second, they're just all together. Run around the racetrack through two and three wide. And I'm like, justin's our driver. I'm like, damn it, Justin. You got to figure this out. I don't even know what he's going to do.

[Will]

Do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know what he could do.

[Steve]

Are you saying this to yourself?

[Will]

In my mind, are you saying this to him?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Steve]

Yeah. I thought you hit the button.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. But he just. He just figured it out, like, in the last lap he just, just figured it out, got the run and, and diced around and. And when we crossed the finish line, we're ahead of the guys that we needed to beat. And so that was when it was like almost, you know, any. That was the moment where if you talked, you were going to have a hard time not crossing. Crying. You ever been in those moments? Like, oh, yeah, I'm not gonna cry as long as I don't have to talk. Yeah. You know, once I start talking about this, it's gonna get hard not to cry. Right. And so I got. We're doing some media and I'm like, I know I got about 10 words before my voice is gonna crack. So I was trying to say something like, we're in the race. Yes. And before I started, like losing it.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But it's just that emotional. And you want. I've lived this, I've lived this sport my whole life. This was a dream of mine. And we had finally really. This is like on a Friday, I believe. And so that night we're like, we get to race on Sunday. We don't have to go home. It was either, you know, the way that race turned out was like, we're loading our up and we're going home or we're gonna race on Sunday. And so it was a big relief. The next couple of days, man, we're in there looking at our car sitting in the garage and we're massaging on it and fixing it and tweaking it and messing with. I'm on, I'm hands on, I'm working and piddling with the car and we're just went all proud and getting it right and. And then, yeah, we pushed it out there for quad for, for the race on Sunday. Went through the whole pre race ceremony and just the pride of being out there and then getting on the pit box and watching your car pull off pit road and you're like, we're doing it. Yeah. Moments here.

[Steve]

Was that a win right there? Yeah, like we did you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It didn't matter. It didn't matter. I told my driver.

[Will]

Sounds like you didn't want.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When ninth. Yeah, I told my.

[Will]

I said, no, it doesn't matter.

[Steve]

It doesn't matter.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I told. If you're wondering, I told my driver, Justin, I said, I said, hey, you know, this is the way I am with Justin. I'm like, all right, man, look, I don't. Let's not worry about, let's not worry about like a top 10, top 15. That'll be a great day. Let's not even have that conversation. I was like, let's cross the finish line when the checkered's waving. I don't care where we're at. I want. If we. I just want to sit here and watch the race and my car be out there. And we won't have a. We won't have a. Like a high hopes or a. Or oh, darn. You know, we'll just say, hey, man, if we cross the finish line when the checkered flag waves, if our car is finished the race and we've ran all the laps, we're blessed. And so it's coming down to the last couple of. We're making it through all the problems. We had a couple of dust ups and gotten a few scrapes, but we're our car. We're patching it up. It's still pretty good. And it comes down to the last lap, and there's a big wreck on the back, back straightaway, and he missed the big wreck. And we're standing there like, all right, we're, we're.

[Steve]

We're.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's coming around like, where are we going to be? And he crossed the finish line, and you look at the score monitor and his name goes ninth place and you're like, top ten. That's awesome. You know? Yeah. Not only did we come here and like, get in the race, but we ran ninth out of all. Out of the 50 that tried to race run it, that came here. This. We're ninth. Like, we're a brand new one race team. We're like one race sold. We're like, we're like brand new.

[Steve]

Yeah. Every time your team has been in the Daytona 500, you guys have been top 10.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

How many other programs can say that?

[Will]

What do you think when. When Dale's given the little speech to Justin, you think Justin's probably like, Justin's

[Steve]

probably trying not to piss himself. Sounds like he's. He's full of water.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Justin's an older driver like myself and. But he, he. Me and him both get nervous easy. Like, we, we. And so I can tell, like, I need to talk this guy down a little bit. He's nervous as shit. He was so nervous. And he told me, he told me like, he told me. He's like, dude, I was terrified in this moment. In this moment. I never been that nervous in my life.

[Will]

And I'm.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We've raced for championships. We won championships in the Xfinity series last year, and we've raced together for over a decade. He's drove for Our team at Junior Motorsports for a long time won a lot of races. And he's. I'm like. He's like, dude, I was so nervous. So much pressure, so much responsibility, being the driver of your car for the day, 2500 for the first time. He was like, it was awful. And so I knew that, like in that moment, I was like, hey, no, let's not even worry about where we're going to run. Let's not even set a goal or an expectation and worry about being pleased or upset. Let's just say, hey, cross the finish line, checkered flag, let's feel good about that. And that's it. I don't, I don't want anything else. I wanted him to know, like, I don't want anything else. You go out there, you have your own expectations. That's you. But you don't worry about me. Don't feel like everybody here in the pits is going, hey, Fogger, all right, come on, Justin, when are you going to pull the trigger? Let go. You know?

[Will]

Hey, that's a hell of a speech.

[Steve]

That's a great speech.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I just wanted to let him off the hook.

[Will]

That's a fire speech.

[Steve]

Yeah. Now, Justin, he's been racing for you for so long. Has he ever raced in the Daytona 500 before?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A long time ago, yeah. Yeah.

[Steve]

Okay. I mean, that's got to be what a feeling, man. And for him, I mean, that give. I bet receiving. I pictured that speeches him and he's already in the car. In my head. Not yet, but no, I'm just telling

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

you where my head moments ago is.

[Steve]

Like, they're about to start the race and before he tails off, you're giving him this, like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, this one. It was literally right before he climbed in and I was like, just don't worry. You just go out there and do you, man, I'm not. I have zero expectation. But I do want you to finish. So don't. So like don't get wrecked. Don't get wrecked early. Don't, don't wreck out, right?

[Steve]

And there was that one last little part of the race where there's a

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

big, big crash and he weaved through.

[Steve]

Really? Other than that, it was pretty smooth, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's a couple of dust ups, couple dust, couple closer, couple close calls.

[Steve]

Mentioned dust ups a couple times. I kind of want to pry a little bit more.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, there's just some wrecks that happened where he had to kind of knife through and maybe you got dinged up a little bit on the corner of the car. Got beat up a little bit, but it was still in relatively good shape when we finished.

[Steve]

Top 10, maybe. That's awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, take it. That is cool. That paid good, I bet. Yes. That matters now.

[Steve]

Is this whiskey? Is this whiskey company sticking on?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, we. We only had plans to run that one race. That was it.

[Steve]

Have they called since?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're excited and happy with everything that happened. We'll see what happens. It's a dicey thing, so there's some. We had a little damage to fix, but we did. We fixed it. It's a d. It's a little bit of a dicey thing because me and my wife started the High Rock Vodka. Right. And that's ours. We have equity in it. And we're. And Traveler came on to Travers, like, hey, we want to help you realize this dream. So I had to call my friends at High Rock Vodka and say, hey, y' all mind if I do this thing with this whiskey? And they're like, well, it's not really a vodka, so it's not competing directly. And they're like, we don't want to get in your way. We don't want to get in the way of you realizing this dream. This is really how. This is only going to. It's only going to happen because, you know, the. The traveler came in with the. With the check that it was going to take. It was going to take a lot of money to go to Daytona, and so they. High Rock. High Rock. Folks were good.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To let me do that.

[Steve]

We can bleep it if you want, but how much does it cost to get into the Daytona.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To race in the Daytona 500? You're going to need three quarters of a million dollars.

[Steve]

Okay. All right. Three quarters of a million dollars.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right. Minimum.

[Will]

You got that math?

[Steve]

Yep.

[Will]

We wanted to say it out loud.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

We can just leave it, you know, Bygones. We.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bygones. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Steve]

No doubt.

[Will]

Having the Earnhardt last name, you're obviously involved with a lot of different things off the track, on the track, everything in between. What is the first thing you kind of dove into to where it felt like this is mine? Outside of having. Carrying the. Because you carry the legacy of your old man and you have the Earnhardt name. You're Dale Earnhardt Jr. The son. Son. What was the first time you realized and felt like a sense of pride? All right. This is a thing that I see is, like, something I've done, probably Junior

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Motorsports, the race team that we have, we've ran in the Xfinity series, which is, again, that's the kind of the college level. We've ran there for seems like 18 years, a long time. We've won 90 races, five championships. Me and my sister run that together. Together. And she's hands on. My sister is. She is a. She's tough. Really, really tough. Businesswoman, savvy. And. And so, like, in negotiations, she never loses. That's. That's her. And so she's tough. She knows what to value.

[Will]

That's badass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. She knows the value of everything and understands what. What's realistic and just sharp. And so I'm very fortunate that. That I. That I got her as a teammate. And so we have ran Junior Motorsports together. Our dream or our idea. The idea was that me and her would be involved in dei, which was my dad's race team, Dale Earnhardt Incorporated. Our thought was that that would be what. What we would do all of our lives. Right. And. And so a lot of things happened. Dad passed away, and. And we ended up leaving the team over the course of the six or seven years. And so that didn't happen. And we started this other team and started it with one race car. Four. Three or four employees. Very modest. And we've grown it into a really successful deal. We love being at that level where we graduate people up into the top series, right. So drivers come through our program. Crew chiefs, mechanics, engineers, even people in our office, marketing, license. They all come and work at our business, get educated, get it. Get a great experience, get. Get a reputation. And then they get a call from a Cup team. It sucks to lose great people, but it's also like a big reward. Like, we're doing it right. We're doing something right where people are wanting to hire our good people. And so when. When a driver gets a phone call, they'll call me. I remember one guy called me and he's like, I got some tough news. He's like. One of the cup teams called me, and I got to do it. I was like, that's not tough news. That's what we. That's like winning a race. That's. That's a victory for you. For me, that's why we did this. I did this so that you would get this chance. Not that you're going to be a career Xfinity race racer for me. Right. Hopefully, if everything works out, most of our drivers are only there for a year or two, and they move on to a. You know, to the cup level and race on Sunday. And so that's. That's A fun thing to do. I can look in the cup field today, the field that runs on Sunday. I can look in that field, and there's at least a third of the field that raced for me on Saturday. That's big. At some point in their career, there's mechanics, crew chiefs, tons of people in the industry that have came through our race team to get to the top level.

[Will]

That's badass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's fun. So I'm proud of that. That's mine.

[Steve]

So do you ever want to get your race team into the Cup Series?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do. And so to race full time in the Cup Series, you need a charter, which is basically a franchise. Look at. Think about it as like a franchise. You. There are only three dozen of those. Nascar. There's a rule between. There's an agreement between the teams and NASCAR that there is only a certain amount of charter. So to acquire one, you got to buy one from somebody and they're selling for anywhere from 25 million to 40 million bucks. And so you got to buy the charter and then you got to buy the cars. They're $350,000 a piece. You got to have an engine program. You gotta, you know, you gotta upscale employees. So to. To race full time in the Cup Series, you might be able to do it on $20 million a year. So it's $100 million probably to get started. Right, Right. To buy a charter or two and then have the funding annually to run at that level, you gotta have a massive commitment from corporate America somewhere to be able to fund, run the team annually and long term. And so our. Yeah, to. To go from where we are now. And our business model is a massive jump and a huge commitment. Scary.

[Steve]

Sounds like.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

I mean, $100 million to get started is wild.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

You've been close. Is it anybody?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, we've had some really fun come

[Steve]

out of the woodwork.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We've had some really cool conversations with some met. We've had a. We had a conversation with a. Met with a. With a. A. With one of the largest or most popular sports franchises in the. In the. In the country. So, I mean, there's interest out. So the interest that I believe a team like mine or a person like me to be able to get into. There's. It's going to have to be. It's going to have to be like a, an investment firm or a current, like a current entity that's owning sports teams. Right. And so,

[Steve]

yeah, so I think of a couple. Yeah, I can see a couple of my eyes Right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And so there's been, there's interest, there's and, and the, the, the investment firm thing is kind of new, but it's getting, it's gaining some popularity. There's been a lot of, there's been a lot of these sort of groups that have started to invest in, in ratings race teams. So like certain race teams have taken on investors and sold equity in the ownership of the program. So that's kind of promising for somebody like me that's like, hey, I've got the. I know how to run a race team, Kelly and I know how to operate this thing and be successful. We know how to do it and not lose money and we know how to be successful. We have a lot of equity in our, in our name and our reputation. And so we're, I think I feel like we're very appealing feeling for anybody that's like, hey, I'm brand new to this. I don't know anything about racing, but I think owning a charter is going to be very valuable. So the charters have doubled in value annually. So like if you bought a charter six years ago, you might spend six to $12 million. Now they're worth $40 million. 35, $30 million. I believe charters in 10 years will sell for 80 to $100 million a of piece piece. So I mean I think in. If I was a person that had that kind of money to throw around buying a charter or investing just in a charter got getting some equity in a charter would be easy. An easy. Yes. Right. Because that is not going to lose value. It's think about Dan Snyder bought the Washington Commanders and whenever, whatever year, not 89 or whatever for 600, $800 million and sold it for 6 bill billion. And so NASCAR charters are similar as they are a franchise, a sports franchise. And now they won't ever get into the billions or maybe not even into the, you know, you know, 500 to 700 million dollar range, but they will increase in value from, from 30 to 40 million dollars. Now I think realistically it's 150, 150 million dollars value. I would put that on. I would, I would say I would confidently expect that to be the value of one in 10 years. Years. And so why wouldn't you, if you had that kind of money, invest in it now? Because it's sounds like you need some,

[Will]

some bus with the boys backing.

[Steve]

Yeah, get a little bank of busing open. High interest rates, small investor.

[Will]

Yeah, this is our team

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

back here. Serious.

[Will]

That's awesome, man. Congratulations.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, hey, it ain't happened yet.

[Will]

Yeah, it hadn't happened yet. Yeah.

[Steve]

Congratulations on it happening in the very near future.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That'd be nice.

[Will]

Knowing just very surface level stuff about those conversations. I. It seems like it's very hard to just even be in those rooms and have those conversations.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean, I've. We've had some fun conversations with some people that were interested in, but it's got to be perfect. You can't. I'm not a risk taker with my finances.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so, like, when I had kids, I was like, all right, I gotta

[Steve]

be a little smarter.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, I was gonna bounce my last check. That was the way I was gonna live. Right. When I was a single dude just raising hell and doing my life, I was like, I don't want to. I ain't leaving behind. But then when I had kids, I was like, now it ain't mine no more. Yeah. This is all theirs right now. Now I'm spending their money.

[Steve]

They're a massive curveball for them sitting there, getting the will read out to them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

By the way, he didn't leave anything.

[Will]

Your guys's facility is so badass. It is like, going out there. There's people. Like, there's people out front waiting for you to just get done with work.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

You bring up the equity of the name, and it's like, yeah, we walked in. We were there on a Tuesday.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

And there's a bunch of people just went out there to catch a glimpse.

[Will]

Gating.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Yeah. Do you think he's in there right now? And we just walked in. You would have thought we were royalty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wonder. Like, oh, yeah, I'll say this. I'll say. I'll admit this. Your. Your podcast and your. Your brand is incredible. And do people not know where you are physically right now? Do they not are. If they knew where you were, they too. And if they knew when you recorded, if it was a. If it was a consistent, like, hey, we record every time Tuesday, there would people be standing out there like, we appreciate that, Dale.

[Will]

I don't know. I mean, there have. There have been.

[Steve]

There's been a couple of people. Oh, it's not up there anymore. We had a Tannehill sign like, somebody broke in on one of our old places. We were at. Broke in and didn't steal anything, but left a gift.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Nice. Yeah.

[Steve]

I think they were wrapped, too, right

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

there.

[Will]

He would go to work. There's another cat. He'd be going to work, and he'd notice that when the. The doors Slid up. He'd see the bus inside. He's like, so I know you guys have been here, and I was just waiting to get, like, an off day or something. He would just go and just sit and wait.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ran.

[Steve]

Shut up.

[Will]

Just kind of guessed.

[Steve]

Ran. When he was the GM for the time. He just sent somebody over here one day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

He just randomly.

[Will]

What's up?

[Steve]

And we're like, oh, hey, how's it going? Rand told us we can come by.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Oh, okay. No text or nothing. Just, like, showed up.

[Will]

But it is. It is cool, though. It was kind of. It was cool to witness just people. I think that was during one of your guys's weekends, too.

[Steve]

Well, the race was in Charlotte.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, that was. That matters. Yeah. Everybody comes into town, but they know we record on a specific day. Yeah, they know that.

[Will]

Is that each time you record every Tuesday.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

You got people sitting out there waiting. That is.

[Steve]

They know you're just in there. But even your studio is awesome. Like, you. I love the setup. The back, all the viewers you can

[Will]

see the portraits of.

[Steve]

But then there's the window with your dad's car sitting right out there. And you can see all the guys working. Like, it's a. It's an awesome setup.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Thanks.

[Will]

Super clean, too.

[Steve]

Right now, it looks nothing like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, not mine neither. My house is a mess, but it's got to be nice.

[Will]

You're in the game of collecting things. Has there ever been a car you sold that you regret selling?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hell, no, I regret buying cars. That's like, crazy. Everything with wheels, as soon as you buy it depreciates, like, half as soon as you drive it off the lot. But I shouldn't say that, being in the car business, but. Oh, man. I bought a Callaway Corvette. That was kind of a thing back in the day. Callaway Corvettes. I bought one of those, and I never. I was so. It was the dumbest thing. I had it for a while and finally sold it for, like, a fraction of what I paid for it. But my buddy had a motorcycle and dropped his motorcycle on the nose of this cowboy Callaway Corvette, and it. The. The foot peg went straight through the nose. And he. Luckily, he owned a body shop. Fix it up for me, but. Just a bad experience. But no. I mean, I had a. A Biscayne that I maybe should have hung on to. Kind of a. Kind of a rare car.

[Steve]

What's a Biscay?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's my callaway that the bike fell on. That's it.

[Will]

Oh, that's It.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. I was stupid to buy that I did not need it. And it had this like. It had this little weird noise in the. In the rear one of the wheels, a brake caliper, something like tick that wouldn't go away that I wasn't smart enough to really with.

[Steve]

But to be in your mind, like when I hear noise.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That green truck. Crazy. So this is my daily driver, that green truck right there. And it's the 48. And I did a lot of own. I did a lot of my own work on this truck. And so it has a. It has a modern Vortech engine in it. It's nothing crazy or special, but like I put them rails and wood rails on the back, but in the inside of this truck. I think it was kind of during COVID I decided to cut gut the inside and redo it myself. And I put some pictures on the Internet and stuff of me working on it. But I did a lot of woodwork inside and in. Put new inserts on the seats. And my two year old grabbed a Sharpie and ruined the brand new insert. So I had to take the seat back out and redo it. But I did the. The console in the floorboard is. I made it out of sheet metal from one of my Bud cards cars. So it's like got Budweiser, like a half of the Budweiser logo in the floorboard of the console.

[Steve]

Dude, that's awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's just really kind of a grunge truck. You know what we call a grunge truck?

[Steve]

But is that the best daily driver?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's the Biscayne. Yeah. I kind of wish I'd have kept the Biscayne.

[Steve]

There you go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's kind of a cool car. That was like 20 years ago. I sold that. But I don't know, man. I. I always was weird with my. I. I was, I was. I did some foolish stuff with money. No, I'm not gonna lie. But I also was kind of oddly tight. And my, my. The buddies, my buddies that I race with back in the day always joked with me about being a tight ass. And so like I. If I. I got like 12 cars, right? I'm a guy, I'm a car guy. So I'm gonna have a little collection, right? And I'm okay. That's okay. But I got 12 cars. Cars. And if I see something that I liked and I still do this today, like, if I see something, I got to be willing to sell one of my 12 and buy it. Like, I won't buy it. And add to it, I'll be like, do I want it bad enough that I'll sell one of these? And if I will, I'll sell one of these. All right, man.

[Will]

Got one from the Rock.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had fun. That was good. All right, you're out.

[Steve]

A lot of different car owners out there, but I want to give you a try. Yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's. I got an umbrella and everything's got to fit under it. And if it's. Don't. You know, I'm not. I don't want to be. I don't know. I shouldn't. I'm probably overthinking it, but I was just. Didn't want to be ridiculous and have like cars everywhere because it wore bugs me to. To have a car that I don't drive. And that one time I get in it, it batter's dead. Tires shake because they're square because it's been sitting too long or the brake shake or something. It doesn't drive well or wrong. Right. I'm like, all right, I don't have. I love this car, but I'm not driving it. It's not. It's not doing itself any good. I'm selling this. Yeah. I'm getting rid of it. What's your.

[Will]

What's been your biggest impulsive buy? Impulsive where you've splurged too, where you're like, that was it. That was. That was dumb.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, man. I mean, the Callaway Corvette was stupid.

[Will]

That was another one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was. That was over 100 grand. That was done. Dumb.

[Steve]

I feel like being a car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That green truck, that other green. That. My square body. I want to brag on that, son. Look at that thing. Look how bad that is. Look at that freaking. Look at that damn plaid insert on that seat. That shit's badass. I love that truck.

[Steve]

Square body trucks. You can't be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're coming back.

[Steve]

They bring them back in a big way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, they're back. They're back, are they?

[Steve]

Oh, hell yeah. You got to send me the newspaper clipping, cuz I haven't seen that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, if I take this bad boy out and it, it turns some heads,

[Will]

you know, Dale's just driving to seeing, watching everybody.

[Steve]

Yeah, it's always the construction workers too, on the side of the road. They just kind of do this and they give you the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know that I have like a. I don't know that I have a, A, A bad regret on, on like a big, big time financial thing. But this is one thing my wife And I talk about is, she'll be like, hey, our couch is destroyed. Like we've, we've, you know, kids and dogs and all this couches is just up. It's time for a new couch. All right, let's get in. And she'll show me, hey, how about this one? And I'll be like, damn, that's, you know, a couple thousand bucks. And she's like, that's what couches cost. And I'm like, that's a lot of money, man. I can't believe couches cost that much. You know, every you.

[Will]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I will show you stuff. You're like, there's no way that's like a normal price for that, right? That's way too high. But if a new. So I'm a gamer and I'm a PC gamer and so like, if a, you know, the 50 90s just came out and there's like a massive shortage. And so I'm sitting there going, I'm looking at ebay and I'm like, God Dang, they want $5,000 for that 5090 Nvidia card. My buddy knows a guy at the Micro Center. Maybe I can get one from the Micro Center. Nine days, they're coming in nine days. They might get me one in nine days. I'm like, like feigning on this, like, yeah, this, you know, or new monitors, you Know, I got to get this new monitor, man. The refresh rate or the. You know, it's a. It's over. It's like 200. And, you know, whatever megahertz I gotta get, that's better than what I got. And that's gonna be like a thousand dollars. I got triple screens on my racing rig. Triple screens. So, you know, thousand dollars a monitor, and I'll be like, amy, Amy. I'm thinking about building a new computer. Computer gonna get me a 50, 90 new. New CPU, new motherboard, new case. And she's like, how much is that gonna cost? I'm like, oh, $4,000, $5,000. And she's like, and you want to raise hell about this couch, but you'll just go buy it.

[Steve]

You.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You would. I would literally just go buy this and not even tell her. Right. And. And. But I want to know how much the cows cost.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So that's how I operate.

[Steve]

Yeah. That sounds like every guy ever. You're telling me the story. I'm thinking of multiple conversations. My wife and I had stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

All the time about things where I'm

[Will]

like, dude, Charlie brings up a couch. I'm just saying, I feel like, what's

[Steve]

wrong with this couch right here?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I feel like such an asshole. And we might have talked about this on the show, but, man, when I. When we were going. When we were booking, we did a planner for our honeymoon, and we went to Hawaii. And when that lady came in, you know, the planner plans this trip, right? We're going to stay in. We're going to be in Hawaii two weeks, and we're going to be at this place, this hotel, and this hotel.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When that lady came back with the quote, I was like, ain't no way. I was like, what room are we talking about here? I gotta see. I got. They got to be other rooms. And I'm going. I go to Amy, and I'm like, why can't we go? Why can't we do these rooms? These rooms are way less. We ain't gonna be in the room. Yeah. We're just gonna sleep in the room. She's like, come on, this is your honeymoon once, and you're doing this once,

[Steve]

Literally preaching right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was all awful. And I look back on it now. I'm like, it really didn't matter. But, man, I was turning my guts looking at that price in those rooms. And I'm like. I'm like, we don't need this. We can stay in this room. If there's. And it's. Nice. I don't know. I was. That was tough.

[Steve]

I always hit it with budget stuff, man. Like when we. I built my house, I, like, had a budget, and I was like, I got to go. This is. I got to pee, too. But, yeah, we have a budget. It's like, hey, this is going to be. This is how much money we're going to spend to build this house. So I would go to the people and be like, hey, when we're looking at fixtures, show me what's in the budget. Low end, high end, but it has to stay in the budget. And every meeting I would go to, whether it was like, I don't know, plaster on the walls or something like that, they would show me two things or three things. But then they have one in the corner over here that wasn't on display, but it was right there. And either me or my wife, probably more times, not me, would be like, well, what. What's. Well, what's that one? What is that right there? Like, oh, you don't want to know about that. That one's actually outside the budget.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

And then there's always this game that you play. It's like, okay, well, if we do that, then we can move a little something over here. It's just how, like, the male mind compartmentalizes how to spend money.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

At the end of the day, you're. You're doing it the same way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. But it's just fighting a way we have to justify.

[Steve]

Gotta justify.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Steve]

It is a. It's a. It's a pain in the ass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember when. So we have bank. We have a banquet for our championship at the end of the year. This is back when me and Amy, me, we're. We're just gotten pretty serious. And I'm like, all right, man, we're getting ready to go to this banquet. I'm getting. Whip out my tux. I'm wearing this. I wear the same freak. If it'll fit. I wear the same Damn tux for 12 years. I don't give a. I don't need new tux. I'm wearing this thing once a year. And so. But she's like, I'm gonna get a gown. And I'm like, all right, yeah, we're gonna get you a gown. We're gonna get a gown. I ain't never bought a gown. You know, I don't know gown prices.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And she comes with this gown price. And I was like, what the hell? What the heck? I mean, it was crazy. I would have never Even came close if I had to guess. And man, I'm on the phone with my sister. I'm like, you believe this? And she's like, she's like, that's what gowns cost. I'm like, for real? She's like, yes. I was like, all right. I was like, damn, man, that makes

[Steve]

me feel better when you know like what it costs still when you first see the price. Like, what the hell are we doing here?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then she gets the gown, we go, she looks amazing. And I mean, again, like, this was years ago. I, I feel I, I know I was, I know I was foolish, but she, she looked amazing. And we get back and I'm like, it, it dawned on me, I was like, so she's like, I'm gonna put this away. And I was like, you don't wear it again. She goes, no, never wear it again. I was like, you know, you don't sell it. Cuz she would sell some stuff from time to time. She had a little. I was like, you don't sell the gain. Sell it. She like, hell no. I mean, selling this gown. I'm like, man, I don't understand this at all. Like you, you know, you spent all this money, you wear it once and then you're going to put it away and keep it in wedding dress, gowns, gowns, ball gowns and stuff like that. I was blown away. The first time I paid for a go gown, it was another big giant wake up was like the couch story where I was, I called, I called back up. I was like, hey, I called my sister. I was like, this down. She's like, yeah, that's, that's reasonable. I was like, horseshit. There's no way

[Steve]

you brought the tux thing about having just like one, one tux your whole life. And when, when I was playing, I was £316. Like we'd always, you know, every Sunday guys would want to get the fits going, stuff like that. So, so every couple of years I would go get a couple suits, but I would always go to my suit guys and be like, hey. When I obviously, like, eventually I'm gonna have to retire and lose weight. Like I'll be able to bring it all in, right? I can still wear these and like, oh yeah, no problem. And Now I'm like 60 pounds less than I was before. And I brought these suits to people and they're like, there's no way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Can't fix it.

[Steve]

You can't. So I've spent an absurd amount of money on clothes that just Sit in my closet. I look at them like, I could never wear this again. I had a bunch of my buddies that were still playing. I was like, hey, come over to the house. I said, like this part of the closet besides like this suit and that suit that. The suit I got married in. And then I have like a custom one that has like my daughter's names on it. They're like bedazzled or whatever. I was like, yeah, that suit too. I was like, you guys take whatever you want. And they just ransacked the whole thing. It was like Ruse and Raidens came over and did all that. But it. Some of the money you spend. Yeah. Just on dumb. Like, I look back, I'm just like, what was I buying suits for? Like, who cares?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, for what?

[Steve]

A photo when I got on the Instagram.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, yeah, when I got it.

[Will]

That's what it's for too.

[Steve]

It is exactly what like it's suits for.

[Will]

Because you don't even. I don't know how you were. But I never even fully put the suit back on. Like even on game day.

[Steve]

No, once you get the photo. Once you get the photo to get on the plane. Yeah, you like loosen the tie. You untuck it.

[Will]

Once you get that. Once you get that Graham photo.

[Steve]

Oh, my God. No one talks about suits. Like, you see like these people like you on Pinterest. I want to get a nice little suit. So you start looking like ideas and you see all these like suave gentlemen with like the suits perfectly laid, laid out. When I put that, when I put that on, it's like, it looks good for 45 seconds and then it starts like wrinkling up at the top or I get a little. Yeah, a little sweaty. So I move it. It's never tucked in long enough. It's just a pain in the ass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My biggest problem with pants or suits is the calves. Like, I can't. It can't. My calves are. I don't know. I. I have problems with the. You got some big pant lid being too tight, right? Yeah, brother.

[Steve]

We have opposite issues.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so when I got there.

[Steve]

Boys haven't seen the sun.

[Will]

He stays.

[Steve]

Oh, let me get this. Turn the lights down a little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve]

You got nice calves though. Got nice cat. Me, I got. I've always had these prey legs, man. National Geographic getting chased by a lion.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I get a new suit, get it dry clean. Now I can. I can't wear it because it's got a hold of my cab, man. I can't. It's uncomfortable.

[Steve]

That's another two. Is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Push it down.

[Will]

Are you. Are you jeans all year round, even in the summer?

[Steve]

I mean, he answered that question for us.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think I'm in pants all the time. But I mean, as white. As white as I am, you got to be careful on the color of short you wear because it can make the whiteness even whiter. So you got to be like a very tan kind of off white.

[Steve]

But you know Dale, when he takes his shirt off, like his face and is. Yeah, his face and like, from the shoulder down, he's got a tan. He's not out there even in things out in the summertime.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I'm in as a broadcaster. I gotta wear. I can't wear jeans, so I wear a lot of Lulu. Lululemon, yeah.

[Will]

Oh, I've seen that. They've had some. Some stuff come in about how their material lowers your T levels.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The hell T levels. Yeah.

[Will]

Testosterone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Steve]

You know what you should. You should look into is True Classic. Hey, Will, can I ask you a question? Ask me, dude. What do you love about the True Classic brand?

[Will]

What don't I love about the True Classic brand?

[Steve]

That's fair.

[Will]

The first thing that comes to mind is their T shirts. They fit snug. They fit right. And your boy, I got a little extra going going around the. What do they call it? The muffin top.

[Steve]

The spare tire.

[Will]

Yeah, the spare tire around the right above the belt. True Classic. It grabs you perfectly in your chest, grabs you perfectly in your arms to where it gives you a little leeway down by the low tire. So it gives you a perception of, oh, this guy's body compass went down. That is what I love about True Classic. Their jeans also nice, snug, but you can also have a looser option. And they're very breathable, so you can bend. You could hit low ass to grass squats if you wanted to.

[Steve]

Absolutely.

[Will]

But those are the. Those are the things that jump out when you ask me what I love. True Classic. What would you say you love about True Classic?

[Steve]

My favorite thing about you. I love what you say about the T shirts, and I love how there's no branding on it. I think a lot of times people get mixed up with the branding. Big, bold letterings on things. If you want to keep it true and you want to keep it classic, the best thing to put on your body, no branding.

[Will]

Keep it simple.

[Steve]

Keep it simple. The kiss method. That's what I love about it. Dude, I love these jeans you talk about as to grass. Like, I wear These babies every single day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

I got mobility out the yazoo. Yeah, It's. You can't mess around with these bad boys. And the shirt. You said it perfectly.

[Will]

Like, you.

[Steve]

You take your shirt off, you look yourself in the middle and be like, okay, Yeah, I can see where I've let myself go in a couple areas. You put the shirt on. Then all of a sudden you're like, maybe I'm. I can have that cheeseburger. Maybe I can have those little sneaky treats in the pantry late lately at night when I've had a couple of extra vitamins.

[Will]

Yes.

[Steve]

Because this T shirt makes everything just look a little bit better, dude.

[Will]

Yeah, it does. Simple, look good, feel good. True Classic. Back to this episode.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right.

[Steve]

True classic. They have a new material that just came out that is rivals Lululemon. Like, it's got that stretchy but, like, still fits good kind of feel. And their stuff is elite.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's like the. The new. That's. That's, like, kind of been the saving grace is the jeans and all the. That stretches. So it kind of. Because my body changes all year. Like, I'll. I'll go up and down 10 pounds all year long. Up and down, up and down. Holidays and like that once November hits.

[Steve]

And so November's. That's when. Yeah. You got to buy the pants one.

[Will]

So I need my.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I need my. To be able to work with me.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Move a little bit.

[Will]

Yeah. He would be incredible with true classic stuff on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

I mean, that's his style and his flow.

[Steve]

There's, like, no branding on it. It's very clean.

[Will]

Yeah, I like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I kind of like. I don't like a tapered pant done. They got that.

[Steve]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kind of. I go for the loose.

[Will]

You are. You do seem like a big time boot cut guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I'm boot cut.

[Steve]

Boot cut on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can't wait for long.

[Steve]

Make you get that baggy cowboy look.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

I mean, I ain't gonna be no queer.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

You guys got your tight tapered pants.

[Steve]

He looked at me. Looked me up and down. The first time he let me go. What is this guy up to?

[Will]

It's like, oh, you gotta check out these.

[Steve]

What you want? Metro section. Yeah. Yeah. You. You big boot guy, though. You like the boots?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No boots. I just like, wide.

[Steve]

Fair enough. Yeah. In case you fall off a skyscraper, you can parachute down something nice. I feel you gotta stay safe out here. We need you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When you sit down and your pants come up and you see your ankles yes.

[Steve]

Like, no, I'm with you, brother.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm with you.

[Will]

Now, if you got some good calves, though, and you got some good ankles.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You see my legs? I don't need nobody to see my ankles.

[Steve]

You don't need none of that.

[Will]

You don't need anybody seeing them legs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know. What am I gonna do? It's too late. I'm 50 years old. Like, getting a tan or any kind of base, it's. I'm past the point.

[Will]

Like, when you go to Hawaii, are you wearing pants on the beach? No.

[Steve]

Yeah, they make it. They make a special swimsuit for them.

[Will]

He's like, honey, come on.

[Steve]

You know. You know Dale walked into his wife's house, like, his house? Like, oh, yeah. A year ago with the pants that you can unzip. Sweetheart, look how nice these are. These are pretty crazy, right?

[Will]

He probably wears pajama pants too.

[Steve]

Probably switches out of the cheek.

[Will]

Put on some nice pants.

[Steve]

You do strike me as a guy with the buttons, too. Like the button pajama shirt.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, only on Christmas. Yeah, I gotta do that.

[Steve]

How elite is the matching family pajamas for Christmas?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Steve]

That is nice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We've got a couple of sets of matching pajamas, but I don't know the brand.

[Will]

But, yeah, it's the. The matching pajamas for Christmas.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Y' all don't. What do you. What do you mean, pajama pants? What's wrong with pajamas? Pajama pants.

[Steve]

So you wear them?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Steve]

Ain't nothing.

[Will]

We're just saying. We know you do. There's nothing wrong with them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, I don't know, man. That's. I didn't know. You just.

[Will]

You showed us the leg. It's like, okay, he doesn't show his

[Steve]

legs because legit light bulbs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If I'm not leaving the house, I'm not putting. I'm putting sweatpants on or pajama pants.

[Will]

Yeah. Big sweatpants guy. But I'm saying when I sleep, it's either. I'm just in my underwear. I got shorts on.

[Steve]

Yeah. I'm an underwear guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm an underwear guy.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Through and.

[Will]

Okay. I thought you. That's why I thought, oh, I don't

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

sleep in pajama pants.

[Will]

I would. I would have guests.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You can't. Like you.

[Steve]

I still. I'm still not sold in the button thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you get in this. If you get in the bed. Sure.

[Steve]

What are you pulling up on this computer?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you get in the bed with pajama pants on, they go. They rise up to your knees. You gotta be. You're always Pushing them down. I can't have that. No, that is a.

[Steve]

That is a fight, man. The pajama pants.

[Will]

Should we dive into the most important thing of this episode?

[Steve]

Can I please pee? Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I might do it. Take a leak.

[Will]

You need to take a leak. Go ahead. Pause.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You. Wait. I'm gonna show y' all my. Yeah, it's awesome. Preparation. That's where. What is it? Where preparation meets opportunity. But I texted him on our flight to Vegas. I'm like, he's journaling. And then you posted on Discord. You're doing your playbook.

[Steve]

And I was like,

[Will]

dude, that's awesome. Yeah, like, hey, we got to get a game in. And you're like, oh, no, no, I don't play.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I would. I would. I just wouldn't. Didn't want to make it. I didn't want to. I didn't want that. To be the dominant. That thing about this. This in this meeting, brother.

[Will]

I love simulation. Like the fact that you. You're simulating the game, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, we play it, man.

[Will]

You play.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I play the games.

[Will]

Oh, so when you're winning, you're. You're doing it User.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, sir.

[Will]

I thought you were saying you don't play.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I don't. I meant, like, I didn't. I don't like. I don't. So this is. This is. This is how I do it. I will play in this franchise with them. I'll play them.

[Will]

Are we recording, Mitch?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Okay. I don't get on there and go. I'm just gonna jump in a random game with some Yahoo Online. Yeah, I don't do that. It's weird to me. It's weird. I will race on the Internet against anybody across the country, you know, 20, 30 dudes. Yeah. But I can't. It's weird to me to play like a one on one.

[Steve]

We talk about college football.

[Will]

25.

[Steve]

This is what you want to talk about? This entire podcast a little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We.

[Will]

So Dale Earnhardt Jr. Is the most recent national champion college football coach in his league.

[Steve]

Okay. I was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, so I don't know if everybody can see this, but this is my gift from Charlotte. You know, 49ers, UNCC. I am in a 2023 person league. Friends, buddies, people I know, some people I don't. And I started as a one star with Charlotte and recruited him up to a four and a half star and beat Michigan, who's a buddy of mine. He was my best man. He's the best man in my wedding. T.J. majors. He's Michigan won three in a row. Natty's in a row. And I beat him in the last national championship. And so.

[Steve]

So unseated a dynasty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's a fun.

[Will]

Yeah. Confirm college football, sicko.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's fun. And he's a better. He's a better user. He's better on the stick. So he's. He's. He. And there are other people in the league that are just a little better on the stick. Right.

[Will]

Jukes lose with Michigan.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Jukes. Well, I recruited, worked hard, so I was going to bring you my. Since my iPad. My own personal iPad. Right.

[Steve]

So, hey, literally halfway through this podcast, I was looking, I was like, why does he have.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, well, it's the only way I can really help you understand, like, the work that goes into this. So I have a spreadsheet on my dynasty, and this is my offense. All right. And so, like, this is your depth chart. Yeah. Yes. Depth chart. Red is seniors, juniors, you know, it's color coded for players. And these are all my red shirts. And these are scouting. These are guys I'm scouting. This is how many points I've got on them where I am in the. Scouting. First. First. You know, second in scouting. And so there's defense. All right.

[Will]

Yeah. This is a full.

[Steve]

This is. This is a manifesto. This is a Connor Stallion's manifesto.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. That is my depth chart. Right. And that's how I have stuff on

[Will]

the game where you can see the depth chart, but you need it on a screen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I need to be able to take it every.

[Steve]

This is. Dale is showing why he's been great his whole life.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I need to take it everywhere I go because I'm always thinking about this and I'm always like, oh, oh, I gotta move that guy. He's. He'd be. He's so offensive. Or the outside linebacker, speed rusher is broken, right? They in the game, they can't. They can't improve. So if you've got a speed rusher, outside linebacker, you gotta move him for him to really realize his potential. So maybe there's something like that going on. And you're like, I'm gonna move him to defensive end. So I got this with me all the time. This is probably the real money of the whole. This is all the success. So this is my playbook. So these are all run plays, These are past plays, RPOs, screens, right? And so these numbers is the average yards per use. So if I've used the plays 100 times or 30 times or how many times I've used to play. This is average yards on that play. And so this is where the play is in the situation. So first down, these are all the first, these are all the run plays in first down, down this play.

[Will]

So this is your call sheet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's my call sheet. And so I will. And like, you know, there's a, you know, I don't know, 40 round plays. All of these aren't in my playbook. I do a custom playbook, but this is how I customize it. I run all these plays, I play multiple games and then I'll look at the average yardage that I get for all these plays. I will then rank them in their ability to gain yard cards and then I will customize my playbook and to make sure that when I'm, you know, on a 1st and 10, I've got it suggesting to me, I use suggestions only, which is kind of a no, no for most people. Most people don't think suggestions is the way to go, but I use suggestions. But I have my custom book tailored to suggest to me the exact play I need that's probably got the most, the play that's got the most probability to get the first down. And there's, you know, and then on second and short, second, medium, second, long, all the situations, right? Going for two goal line, pass, whatever, it's going to give me at least, you know, five or ten of the best, most highly successful plays for that moment. And every six or seven games I go through and look at all my plays and, and make sure to update the average yard per use and because that moves it in, that moves the play up and down the list, right? And maybe there's a new play that I, you know, the other thing I do I got on my, on my YouTube I've got this long curated playlist of videos. I follow about three or four, five content creators around NCAA and I watch all their videos and I write down everything that they're learning and all the tricks, the cheese, whatever you want, call to call it. And so there's all kinds of quirky broken things about the game in recruiting and player progression and stuff like that.

[Will]

Follow Kurt Bankert?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Probably not.

[Will]

He's a quarterback for the packers, but he breaks down college football 25.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really, I need to follow him.

[Will]

Yeah, I think you'd like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I follow these guys that are making content daily and always finding something new and unique and how to make the best coach build and whatever, right. And so I write all this stuff down and have all this information ready to go and make sure I'm doing everything I need to be.

[Will]

Do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Doing to be successful. And so when I go play my buddy tj, who's probably going to beat me one on one, if we just sat down and both took Alabama, I got to be all, I got to be ready with everything I can bring him right to beat him. And Michigan, he's, he'll come up to the line of scrimmage. Every damn players got a star under it all. You know, he's, he's recruiting better than anybody else with his pipeline. So I mean he's got like college amazing players and he's good.

[Will]

Your squad's got the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I got, I got, I'm doing the work.

[Will]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve]

You're doing what an entire football staff is doing just as one individual.

[Will]

So that is.

[Steve]

And so you won the national championship. You don't play.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do play.

[Will]

He does. He corrected that. I guess that's what he now means is I'm like, hey, if we got a game in for him, it's like, nah, we ain't. There's no. I don't sit down and play the football game and I pick my favorite every team and we play against each other.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I won't.

[Will]

He's thinking that iPad goes like. He plays at his spot and his spot only because he's got everything dialed in right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I play this dynasty and nothing else.

[Steve]

Like, I don't do away games.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't sit down and do. I don't sit down and do a one on one with some random. Right, right. I'm not into that. It's weird.

[Steve]

Make it to your league to even.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I go and play my league games. That's what I Play. And there's 23 of us in there and some of us. I got two teams. I got Stanford too. And so I just started using Stanford just to kind of kill the time between advances because sometimes our advances are four or five days. So there's a little bit of dead time.

[Will]

I was going to ask like, what's the cadence with this league?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, every four or five days is

[Will]

an advance and somebody commissions it and

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

there's like TJ's the commission.

[Will]

Four hours.

[Steve]

So before we started. Yeah. The podcast you will was saying that you don't play, but you actually.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do play the game.

[Steve]

The sticks.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I play the games. We don't send the games games. But I don't play outside of this dynasty. Like, I don't play just pickup games with regular folks. I mean, I think it would be fun, but it's I don't know why.

[Steve]

It's way too valuable.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's weird to me. It's weird to me to play one on one in any kind of console game with a stranger. I don't know why that's weird to me, but I do like being in like group activities. Like where you play with like in. On my PC games, I play a game called Hell Let Loose and it's a World War II shooter. So you got to squad up with six guys and y' all all got to be doing your jobs and shit like that. So put them on will and then you got to go. You go race.

[Will]

Sounds fire. You're going to play pubg.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I played pubg back in the day, but I'm. I'm on hell at loose now. But on iracing, right? You race against 20, 30 dudes on iRacing on my sim, my SIM rig. I do that anytime. I don't mind doing that. But this is, this deal here and I'll, I'll say this like, and you guys can probably appreciate, appreciate this.

[Will]

I mean, I've already appreciated everything that you've laid out for us with that iPad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, the detail.

[Will]

You have a full call sheet that

[Steve]

tells you what situation. There's a massive respect factor that's taking place right now with what you've done here. Yeah, that's crazy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The, the re. That's. It's unnecessary in, in if you're just. I know it's unnecessary, but I need to do it because I love the. I, I love the, the details.

[Steve]

Details.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I love the data. Yeah, I love the information. And like when I would, when I was working out and trying to stay in shape as a race car driver, what I enjoyed doing was road bikes. I hated the freaking ride. I hated the 40 mile ride. I dreaded it. What was hanging out there in front of me was all of the data I got from the ride. My average watts, my, you know, all of the information that I would get from my, you know, my technology and all them, all the crap you could put on the bike to tell me how I did compared to my last ride. That's what I rode for and that's what made me want to ride was to see if I was faster or better. And, and that's, you know, and I think too, like, as I've retired from racing and I don't have that consuming my brain all the time. Like these little hobbies are what keep my mind sharp at like 50 years old. Like I need, like, I need this mental gymnastics that's in this, you know, that's this bullshit that I'm playing with my buddies, right? And I take it way too far, right? And, and, but I'm like, hey, you know, that's my chance to win. That's how I'm going to beat dj is to be like, make sure that I am playing the, I'm calling the very best play every single moment I can possibly call for myself. And I know this because I've looked at all these plays and I ran them and I've. And I've listed them and I've got them right here. And I've created, created this very, you know, custom playbook. And so yeah, it's fun.

[Steve]

You need to do this to the next level.

[Will]

We need an inspiring.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know what the next level could be. I mean, I think it's already taken to the next level.

[Will]

When I was racing and it was the 40 miles and I dreaded it, I hated consumed me. But all the technology, all the details, the process, the loving it. And he's like, that's what I get out of college football. 25. He's like, I don't have that anymore. And you know, when I'm coaching. What's the, what's the mascot for Charlotte? The 49ers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The 49ers. Yeah.

[Will]

When I'm coaching those boys, the Charlotte 49ers. And golly, Samuel, he's elevated his GPA and now he can play and he is eligible this Saturday. That's what I get out of when

[Steve]

I got a guy who's on the outside linebacker spot and I know he's reaches maximum potential so I move him into defensive him and I get to see that spark in his eyes. And we've had jumping to the next level.

[Will]

We've had one on one conversations. I'm like, no, you belong on the edge. And he's trying to tell me I'm a stand up backer. And now I need to trust this data that this is giving me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I found, I showed him the sheets.

[Steve]

He doesn't believe in the sheets but eventually he did believe in the sheets. And what happened? He's a five star now. He's a blue blood.

[Will]

Yeah. And now he's a champion.

[Steve]

Yeah. Because he listened because he took the coaching. He's a champion.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I have it on good.

[Will]

Does Amy think all this?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He hates it. Hates it.

[Will]

And I got to know your cadence. So you're every okay, your games, your weeks are four or five days long.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Will]

But you're clearly You're. You're. Every day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm. I'm every. Every other day, probably in the. In the. I'm in the. You know, in the. I'm in the war room every other day working on this.

[Steve]

You know, those off days, too. He's thinking to himself, I want to be back in there so bad. There's real life work in front of him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's like, not real. Real life.

[Will]

I gotta get this not real life work. It's the time home.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

He's like, all right, we're gonna be watching this TV show tonight. I gotta stay invested. I can't be thinking of the three

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

that was last night. I was like, all right, we're not doing. We're not doing it tonight. We're just gonna watch the show, be there for my family.

[Steve]

Y' all gotta get on the simulator real quick. I guess I should work on my cars.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do have a game that I've got to play against. App State. App State's my. My co pilot. He's with me here in Nashville. He flew the plane. He landed the plane here today, and his name's Apple. Alex. And I played Alex a couple seasons ago and beat him really bad. And so I. I spent the time on the next flight that we were flying somewhere and wrote him a basic. An ebook and gave him list. I gave him my play book.

[Will]

You wrote him an e book?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wrote him an ebook. Mail. Emailed it to him. I'm like, here's everything I do with scouting. Here's everything I do with plays. Here's. Here's. I'll show you this, dude.

[Steve]

He's a conor stallions of 25.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then I sent him his psycho. I sent him my playbook. I sent him my playbook.

[Will]

He wrote his buddy an ebook.

[Steve]

He wrote his buddy a manifesto on how to become a better 25.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he's dominant now. And now, like, when I play him, it's like, I know I got to have my together because he's going to call all the same. I call and I got. I don't even. I don't even know how to stop some of the. I call.

[Steve]

Yeah. You would regret.

[Will]

You've transcended.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know, man.

[Will]

Like, if I was playing myself, could I even beat this?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my God.

[Will]

And it's so funny because the passion oozing from him. He really asked himself that kind of question.

[Steve]

Saw how good he was doing. He's like, have I. Have I done it? Have I cracked the code on this?

[Will]

He said, I wrote. I've given him everything that I know. And now I'm going to be playing again against him and he's going to be calling the same that I call. And I'm wondering can I even stop myself? And you see the look in his eye like he's got Daytona.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh my God.

[Steve]

Oh my God. Oh, that's a great question. Do you have a picture of the war room?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, it's just my house. I mean it's just my game room. Yeah, but no, no, no, it's just,

[Steve]

you got to have a court.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, no, it's just a room with a couch and a tv.

[Steve]

You got a cork board with some sort of. There's none I can't attach to pictures.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And there can be no physical evidence.

[Steve]

He prints out the smart.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Can be no physical evidence in the room.

[Steve]

God, you got to stream this.

[Will]

What time of day that this has happened for you? Like does any know when it gets to all right, kids go down by 7:30.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

She knows kids go to bed about 9 o'. Clock.

[Steve]

I mean I can't imagine you putting down your kids at 7:30, 8:00 clock or they go to. But at 9, can't imagine that. Like the pregame jitter.

[Will]

The postseason is upon us and there's really nothing like it. But the postseason can be stressful. Crushing losses, wild upsets, your unhinged six game parlay falling apart at the literal last second. Things can get rough and it can leave you feeling a little sour. But you got to look at the bright side. Once your team is out and headed to decompress, you can finally relax. Now you can actually enjoy the postseason with all of the heart palpitations. That's why we're partnering with Jim Beam. We want to help you turn that lemon of a loss into delicious, tasty Jim Beam and lemonade. Because it's really the perfect bevy for the offseason. It's refreshing, it's got the perfect sweetness and a little bit of tang on your tongue. Best paired with stress free watching when your team is out. So gather the boys and grab some Jim Beam and lemonade to make the rest of the postseason just a little bit sweeter. Refresh your season with Jim Beem and lemonade. Best enjoyed together. Together. Please drink responsibly. Jim Beam Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey 40% alcohol by volume 2025. James B. Beam Distilling Co. Clermont, Kentucky.

[Steve]

They want you to read the book. They want you to tell the story. And you're thinking clue. Hey, it's week one of the big

[Will]

season hey, great point. This brings it all back around. Dale sent me his children's book and I'm reading it to Rue and I'm thinking, this is the longest children book I've ever.

[Steve]

So he ain't reading his books to his boys. This is a wrong. This is a ruse. This is a long time. He made this book for his boys in his league that he knows his kids and now they can't focus. They gotta read this long ass book.

[Will]

So you know, we're gonna read. Go dog, go.

[Steve]

Yeah, it's about eight pages. Eight pages, dude, those are the best ones too. When you're kid, you tell your kid go and pick out a book and they bring back those real.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh my gosh.

[Steve]

But the pages are like that thick each. There's only about eight of them. You're like, hell yeah. Okay, well, we only won tonight though. Okay. Only one.

[Will]

I meant to do a write up on Twitter about your children's book because I remember being one time just being, oh, oh, sweetheart, she back. She wants to go back and see the cars in the garage.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There are some books that are. You're like, damn, I should take that one out of rotation.

[Steve]

You know, Everyone should buy that book though. Hey, everyone out here listening, please buy the book.

[Will]

See a little one go walk over to the shelf and like, God, why didn't I grab that. That one right there. Trip to Victory Lane.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My, my, how many pages that thing?

[Steve]

Well, what's that novel look like?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My, My six year old Isla is the long book person and my little 4 year old is like the cardboard hard, you know, Cardboard? Yeah, Open it up. It's like three words each page. I love it.

[Steve]

Hell yeah. My seven year old's in a Harry Potter right now. We're busting out Harry Potter, but it used to be a chapter a night. And I. You haven't seen me read on this podcast yet. But it's. It's slower moving than most. And so I go to like the five pages saying, my four year old, she's the same way with like the little pop up books. She wants to put stickers on a page. I'm like, we'll do one page.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

And I always let her do two because I'm that kind of Dad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't.

[Steve]

We get out of there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're. It's no man. I'll be sitting in there in the middle of the book going, damn this book. You know, and then I have to remind myself, I'm like, what an. You know, yeah, I'm. I'm gonna miss this. And you know, and I'm like, it's just, I'm telling myself, I'm like, like, shut up, self. Just read the book. Just enjoy the book. Get in.

[Will]

One day you're gonna wish you're back in this moment. Them just sitting on your arm.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My little 4 year old is smart enough to know I'm half assing this, right? Yeah. She, you know, and she's like, what's the deal with this guy? You know?

[Steve]

Yeah, right. How is he as passionate about this as I am?

[Will]

Where's the voice inflection?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah.

[Will]

You got to change the voices too, for all the characters I, I, I really enjoy doing.

[Steve]

I don't read enough to do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do that because I have to, I have to do the audio for our book.

[Steve]

You know what's messed up?

[Will]

Oh, yeah.

[Steve]

You're doing books.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I get into it.

[Steve]

You know how they say, like in books there's like the quotes or like somebody's talking and it says like Darla said. It's like so blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Darla said.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's annoying.

[Steve]

Darla says in the beginning. So I know to change the voice inflection.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

For that. Because I start going across these lines.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's right.

[Steve]

I'm like, what voice am I supposed to be doing here? This is Darla. And I feel like I have to go back and Reed as Darla now. And Dar's a made up.

[Will]

Sher, I'm glad you brought up the info on the children's book. I saw the age ranges four to eight. I'm like, okay, so Rue's got a couple years. I shouldn't even crack that.

[Steve]

If anything, it's inappropriate

[Will]

thinking like, oh, man, super nice of this.

[Steve]

Coincidentally, all his buddies in the league, their kids are all between four and eight. Yeah, that's how this all happens.

[Will]

You get freed up around nine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Will]

So you'll play from nine until I just.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A game's an hour. So like, if it's. But you ain't just with Alec. I know. So you got recruiting every week. Yeah. You got to go in there and go, all right, man, I got a big lead here. I can spare some points and put it on this other guy where he's in second. And now I'm at a five and a half star or four and a half star. So I'm going up against some big schools trying to beat, you know, Michigan and other people. Michigan got two wide receivers from me already in this round.

[Steve]

We're in like week four come the thing in this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're in week four and they got two like mid-90s speed wide receivers and, and. But I got one guy, you know, so there's just one guy I think I might win.

[Will]

So you'll play till about midnight?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Midnight? Yeah. I'm looking at my, I'm looking at the clock but then man, you get up and you're like, I'm gonna go sit on the couch and eat some junk food or sometimes man, I just can't go down.

[Steve]

Well, yeah, you have a big game. You got a big game.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's hard to play.

[Will]

Don't say he's coming down. It's hard for him to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hard for me to calm down.

[Steve]

Yeah, you get done playing a big 60 minutes, especially when you win.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Win. Really Good. Good. Yeah, I get nervous.

[Will]

Eat some food, send your boy a message like.

[Steve]

Yeah, how'd that go for you? That go the way you wanted?

[Will]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, yeah, something I, I be to. To get to the, to the. To get to the national championship against Michigan. I beat Texas State by with a last second field goal.

[Will]

Texas State. So there's somebody else in there good

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

at recruiting and yeah, Dominic Corelli is his name and he's probably pretty tough and he's got a fast quarterback and he knows how to use it.

[Steve]

Sounds like he's involved with the mafia with that name.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So we. I almost didn't even make it to

[Will]

the Natty because how many years has this dynasty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I won year 29. 2029.

[Will]

It took you 29 seasons?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

2029.

[Steve]

So four years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Four years.

[Will]

Oh, okay, okay, sorry.

[Steve]

And so you've unseated a Michigan team that's won three national championships.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he won one with South Carolina and then somehow or another he don't. He don't do his recruiter recruiting or used to not. And his team took a. And so Steven, you gotta.

[Will]

I gotta, I gotta. I gotta work a lot, bro.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's got a job. Yeah, yeah, I know, man. My time's lit. My time's limited, man. I can only. I can only put this much into it for a short period of time where I have to. I have to pull the plug, go do something else. Yeah, we used to have a Madden league back around 2012. He was in that too. And it was full 36 or however many 32 full member. Everybody had a team. I was Washington and I got this, I got this fictional running back. I'll never forget his name, Nick Hubbard. Insane. I pulled him off of free agency. He was like a 68 overall. But he had 97 speed. 98 speed and a lot of strength and a good. A good. A good trucking ability. And. And so I. His. His overall was so low because his. His awareness sucked. But if you're usering the player, don't fucking matter if they got bad awareness. So I blew this dude up. He was nasty. And I destroyed the league for three years in a row. Won three. Three super bowls in a row.

[Steve]

And then I was like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then I was like, this is boring. I'm out. I quit.

[Steve]

Now is.

[Will]

This is so funny.

[Steve]

Sherman, did you pull up the game? The hell or high water Wasn't even hell let loose.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's it.

[Steve]

Hell let loose.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dude, it's fun. It's.

[Steve]

Hell yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like Call of Duty, it's kind of called. Dude, it's really slow, so there's. It's kind of like Call of Duty, but Call of Duty but slower. Yeah.

[Will]

Slower pace.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. The. It's like one shot dead. You gotta really kind of. You don't. You know you're gonna die a lot if you move too fast.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you gotta. Gotta be methodical. Yeah.

[Will]

You respawn a lot or if you get one life and that's it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, you can respawn.

[Steve]

Okay.

[Will]

So Dale was gooning with us on pubg while one night.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I. I like hill. I like the. The. The. I like the real. Historical.

[Will]

Real. What you talking about? That's like 100 on an island.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I like the historical. I like the historical like World War II era.

[Steve]

So PUBG just had a. A time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I used to play on 30s. You'd be good a crap ton on this thing. I used to play pubg on an iPad. Cuz like you could take it anywhere.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And play anywhere. And it was not bad on a mobile. It was like pretty good.

[Will]

Yeah. But pubg a lot of fun.

[Steve]

Do you ever play Red Dead Redemption two?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Steve]

Give me your take on that game.

[Will]

Did you play it all the way through?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think I finished it. Dude, it's a lot.

[Will]

It is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You got to have the book. Did you get the book to finish it? Because you got to. I mean, sometimes you'll get in some of the scenarios and you're like, I really don't know what the to do right here. Like the book tells you every little.

[Will]

Yeah, I guess maybe all the side missions. But I mean I was.

[Steve]

Yeah. If you like trying to find the treasure map or go skinning animals or something like that. But if you're just Playing the storyline. I encourage you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think I did the first one, Red Dead Redemption.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

And then that was a good storyline.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't do the second one. I. What I want is. And it may exist, but I don't know. I got into red Dead Redemption 2 on the PC, and I want to, like a. I want to. I want a world that's existing all the time that you can drop into to. That's a wild, wild west. And, like, you are. You're a character, and you're always developing that character. I know that you can jump into online play on Red Dead Redemption, but it's. It's kind of cool. It's kind of quirky. It's not like a authentic realistic experience. Right. You run around shooting people, they shoot you, whatever. But it would be cool if they could figure out a way or if there is a way to, like, have a. Have a character that's everlasting. Like, that's your character. You drop in, you play this guy. You're this guy, and you go, you know, put your ass to bed. Get up the. You know, next time you log in, you get out of bed, you go run around and do some stuff.

[Steve]

And so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Does that make any sense to you?

[Will]

No, it does. I'm just thinking, like, I wonder if there's anything in VR. And then I'm thinking, like, VR, buddy. You might get consumed by this.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Dale.

[Steve]

Of all the people, I would never expect this. But I think. Dale, ready?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Player one.

[Steve]

Have you seen that movie? Put the thing on. Then all of a sudden, you're in that world, and you're. Your real world kind of goes to, yes, ye world. Because I'm the same way. I could definitely fall into that trap.

[Will]

He's like, you get up, you take your. You take your ass to bed. And I'm just thinking, you played Harvest Moon before, but.

[Steve]

So in this Red Dead fantasy you have, it's a western game, but you can, like, build a home, buy land, all these. So you can essentially live a real world. So there's a game called Arc. I tried to put Will and the boys on it. They weren't really having it, but essentially, you start out as, like, a levels of zero, and you're like a caveman. You're living in priest and dinosaur times. And you could. You're essentially just like, trying to survive for your first 50 levels. But you can learn to learn to make tools, learn to build structures, learn to, you know, can start farming things. And eventually you can get so good at arc that you can have, like, technological advances where you have like, jet packs flying on things. There's dragons. And that is a world that is everlasting. The way you're saying you can live in that and people can come to your world and take all your stuff, and you basically have to start all over.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's kind of like day Z. Or was it days we played day Z for a while. That's kind of. Yeah.

[Will]

Wild thing is, you build that thing up and you die and you get taken over.

[Steve]

It's over the Asian clans coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So that start over. Like the zombie apocalypse. You. You launch into the world and this thing's been around forever, and it's kind of. It kind of goes through these certain periods of popularity and. But you land on this big giant island and you got nothing, right? And you got to. You got to eat. You're like, your guy will die if you don't like feeding food. And you, you know, you steal from people and you build houses to hide your in. And it's kind of the same way, but it doesn't really progress beyond like the technology. Bare basic technology that you have as well.

[Steve]

What you have. Yeah. This one. This.

[Will]

You play Skyrim.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Will]

That was a great.

[Steve]

That's a fun game. I. But we need to go back to Red Dead Redemption real quick. You need to go play too. You need to play it all the way through. You need to play the storyline and fully invest in Arthur Morgan. To me, this is the. The greatest game ever created.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay? I.

[Steve]

When I got my ACL re. Re fixed in 2021, I had eight days, and I played the entire game in eight days. I had nothing else to do. I saw at the end of the game, no joke, tears streaming down my face. It's me and my wife. And I cried. And then there was a break in crying. And as I was going to sleep that night, I started to re. Cry about the game. That's how.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did your wife take that?

[Steve]

She was like, yo, what the. These pain pills you want Must be way different than anything I've ever taken.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm already getting a lot of about buddy in NCAA football. I'm playing.

[Steve]

I'm not sure it affects how she

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

might react if I cry. Ride?

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Over a game?

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

Arthur. No, just from the other room.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That might push her over the edge, man.

[Steve]

Thinking about it now, to be honest with you, I'm getting emotional thinking about Arthur Morgan right now. Well, and I know there's a bunch of tier ones right now saying, oh, you need a double Stream. I'm going to double stream. It's been a busy couple.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, bro.

[Steve]

You leave.

[Will]

Not just. They can't. They shouldn't leave you alone. You said something. You haven't even answered. Answered them.

[Steve]

I actually have. You need to focus on my Twitter account.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I've.

[Steve]

I actually.

[Will]

You still talk to Billy. You talking to him every day?

[Steve]

Bill, I don't talk to people every day, but I sent a little psa. I said, hey, I know. I said I was gonna do a double stream. I've been made aware. And it was right above the tweet you made.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, no.

[Steve]

I will eventually do a double stream.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're streaming your game?

[Steve]

Yeah, we'll Stream Tuesdays around 11. But what's that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What platform?

[Steve]

I think I'm just joining on YouTube, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

YouTube or Twitch.

[Will]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not Twitter.

[Steve]

Twitch. No, I. I don't think we've dove enough into it. We should definitely dive into that.

[Will]

Like, I just figured out I don't

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

know much about it. Oh, really?

[Will]

Yeah, yeah, because we were. When we goon on pubg coop, he does it from a PlayStation.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's what we have in our. Our college football league is a big discord. That's how we communicate every day. And everybody's in there running their mouth and bullshitting about that. Don't even matter about stuff. That's their life.

[Steve]

I'm going for a job interview today, guys.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're like, all right.

[Will]

Yeah, good luck.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, Good luck.

[Steve]

Yeah, that's. That's us.

[Will]

You better strap the up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Job interview, man.

[Steve]

Are we. We feel good.

[Will]

Yeah. We need to ask him the Bud Light question.

[Steve]

Do you have that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Will]

What he would do anything for. Yes. Our Bud Light question segment. And again, stock up now on Bud Light. Head to bud light.com locator to find a store near you. But our Bud Light question. Question. There's talks. What people would do for a Bud Light. What would you do anything for? Like, what is that for? So, for example, Steve Rinella, he gave us a. A great story. He's like, by the end of my life, like, I don't care. I will do. I will move heaven and earth to create this little docu series. And I won't say what the concept is because he told us afterwards. He's like, I can't tell you guys, but I will get this made. I don't care how many views it gets. It doesn't matter. Like, I want this story to come to life somewhere. So somehow he would do anything to get this docu. Series created. What is something that you. Anything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My life has been amazing. There ain't. I don't know. I mean, I don't want to say that. I mean obviously the traditional things I have to probably say so people on that are watching this don't go what the wrong with this guy with my wife and my kids. But outside of like I would. I think I would probably. I mean those. The things that keep popping in my mind are like getting my wife, getting my kids through college or. Cuz my life has been. I've already done all the things. I've already done everything. I did it all. I did everything I wanted. I don't. There's nothing sitting in front of me where like shit, I hope that happens. Not even the cup stuff. Like if the cup thing happens.

[Steve]

Yeah, I was going to bring that up.

[Will]

I was going to say yeah, I

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

don't want to do. I wouldn't do anything for that. You know, I'm kind of. I'm kind of 50 and good and I want, you know, I want to watch. I want to be. I want to be more excited, invested in what happens between, you know, now and my kids graduating school and moving out of the house. Right. Are they going to play sports? Is it going to be dance? Whatever the hell it's going to be. Right? What are we going to. What are we going to get into? And my goal I think is all of that. Whatever that is in that whatever happens between now and them graduating college, which I hope they do, all that's fine, they choose. But like I want to make sure that they are when they leave the house, right. To be adults, that they are equipped with all the tools and so like I would do anything in the world to make sure that that is what situation they're in. You know, I mean, yeah, there ain't nothing in front of me personally, professionally that is. That's that I'm like, oh girl, you know, gotta get it.

[Will]

It seems like, yeah, it sounds. It seems like back to back titles and costumes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna say you took

[Steve]

a generic answer and made it beautiful the way you just explained that for your kids.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dude, I'm to tell you right now if the. I got a. On my podcast this week we played a clip. TJ's My Podcast Co host, my buddy that I beat with Michigan. We played a clip from the coach of the UNC 49ers congratulating me. I got the helmet, a jersey, a hat. I told him, I told all my buddies in our discord. I Said, hey, I just booked a spot on bus with the boys to go talk about the Natty. I told him that two weeks ago and they're like, that fires me.

[Steve]

Oh yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so I've been running this into the ground and TJ is over it. And so like if I don't beat his ass this next time it's going to be hell.

[Will]

Booked a spot on bus with the boys to go talk about the Natty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If I don't win, he is going to.

[Will]

When does the next season start?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's already started. We're like three or four weeks in. So I think we'll play this, you know, we'll play the national championship probably in about four or five, four weeks maybe.

[Steve]

Oh, it's a short lived celebration and then there's a tour of celebrating your national championship in the middle of your next season.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so he's, he's, you know, he's the favorite to do to, to win next the next Natty. And he's already probably behind the scenes planning his celebration because he has some connection. He has to, he has connections at Michigan does. He knows some people. All right. So it could be rough, but I told him I'm like, live it up, man. Who would have thought Charlotte taking them down.

[Will]

I would not have thought, you wouldn't

[Steve]

have guessed that I would have lost a lot of money on fan.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Before we end, before we end this, I just wanted to. I brought this helmet. Now we didn't talk about this and there's really nothing to it. There's not a story or anything other than, you know, y' all both know that I love Washington. And when I went to in 2015, I had an appearance to go to the College Football hall of Fame. And I'm standing there to. I'm. I'm also meeting a make a wish kid there that particular day we were going to tour the facility, right? And look around all the cool shit in there. I'm standing there and Dave Butts, the lineman for Washington walks up and he goes, hey, you know, introduced himself. I was like, I know who you are. And he handed me this helmet. I want you to have this. So it was a big surprise that he was going to be there for me and somebody had set that up. And so Dave Butts walks up and he gives me the sound and he's like this my helmet from 1984. I immediately obviously recognized it was a game worn helmet. And he's, he's like, I want you to have it. And so people ask me all the Time, like. And I thought to bring this today because people ask me all the time, they're like, what's your favorite piece of memorabilia of outside of racing? And so this is it. This is my favorite piece of shit that I've got. Right. Of all the. All the Washington. I got helmets, tons of helmets. I collect helmets. I got. I got 180ish college and football helmets. Right. Of all types of teams. And this is number one out of helmets or any other piece of. Of uniform, signed jersey, anything. This is my holy grail. And Dave gave this to me and I thought y' all would appreciate it being players, knowing what this probably went through. Knowing what Dave. Battle scars, right?

[Steve]

Do you mind if I can.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I. I thought I needed to bring that look, like I wanted to bring it for like, maybe some. Some inspiration.

[Will]

That's different. Different world.

[Steve]

Different world.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

I mean, that is.

[Will]

That is sick.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He. He was so.

[Steve]

Logo, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Will]

I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, it's back, man. They kind of thought, hey, we're bringing it back. It's nice.

[Will]

Have they been bringing it back?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They talked about the logo can come back, and they're going to use the logo in some marketing and some things because the. The family that designed it was like, hey, you know, this is. This is something we'd like to have. Have happen. So I think there's been some conversations around the logo itself being used in some back, man. I don't think the logo was ever coming back to the helmet. Right. But, yeah, pretty neat, man. I just.

[Will]

Washington's in a good spot, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They are. Oh, you kidding me? They're in a great spot.

[Will]

It was fun watching them last year just make that run and beating Alliance. That was crazy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It had been.

[Steve]

They perform the entire game too.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I hadn't ran around and I was in Texas at my wife's. Had some friends and family. We were visiting, and I was running around in this. In this person's living room like a maniac. The, you know, during the game, Amy's invested. Amy's into it. The kids are into it. They wear jerseys and they get the little cheerleader uniforms. And my little girl Isla, six years old, is like, hey, Commander's playing today. Are we wearing the jerseys? We got away the jerseys. I'm like, yeah, let's get the jerseys. And so, I mean, the fact that they're good, the fact that they're winning is all, like, happening at the perfect time for me because my family's in my. My girls are kind of impressionable. And when they were Winning those games at the end of last season, I. It brought me back to my childhood because when, you know, they hadn't. They hadn't really, really kicked real ass since 91. I was. I remember where I was when they won against Denver in the super bowl, against the Bills, against Miami. And I remember physically where I was standing or what I was doing. And. And I hadn't been that happy and been able. It was so nice to be happy and, like, really, truly, genuinely cheering about your team going that deep into, you know, the postseason season. I. I know I'm overstating it a little bit as a. But I'm a fan, right. So I'm biased. But, you know, you. You played there and you know the history and the legacy of that team and. And what that means to the fans that. That go to those games and, oh, yeah, all the teams you play for, you know how passionate the fans are. And God almighty. We've been waiting a long time. I mean, there's other teams that have been waiting a long time, too, but damn, it's been tough.

[Will]

Just the story of Washington, it's been rough. The ownership.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

Out. That's kind of been there. You root for them, but you're like,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

they couldn't do anything right. Owner off the field, it was always bad news. You'd like, nobody wants to play for us. Look at all this going on. All the. We can't escape the.

[Will]

And then they get new ownership, new coaching staff, and it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It feels like turned around and insanely quick.

[Will]

Players in and them have the success that they've had so quickly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It turned around insanely fast. I've been watching free agency.

[Steve]

I will.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm looking at my phone every day. Day following JP And a couple of those guys going, hey, man, what's the update? Who is a John? Yes. Like, who's. Yes. I'm like, who? Oh, man, those are my guys. Yeah. And I'm like, what's the news? You know, let me know. Oh, you know, because we're all fired up about our GM and all. We think he walks on water.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. And we're like, hey, man, they're gonna. Now that. Now that we've shown everybody in the league that what we can do and everybody's excited about G. Jaden. It's all these players are like, I want to go there. Yeah. Well, let's see it. Let's see it. Here's free agency. Let's see who signs up. It's neat.

[Will]

Dale is. When he's just a fan, he sounds

[Steve]

Like a passionate man in general.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

The thing I love you talking about, though, is, like, your kids getting fired up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Watching the games with you. Because my. My oldest daughter has started to hit that with Michigan, like this year. Like, she. Every Saturday, like, we'd have the game on or whatever during the day, and we'd either watch it casually, visually, and I would go back and watch it or like, she would sit down and watch it with me. And when we played Ohio State this year and we won, I remember she was in the other room because she was doing something. Her, her mom and my youngest daughter, like, sprinting in the room. Like, we're all high five. Like, they were like, truly about it, which I thought was like the coolest moment. It's like, yeah, I didn't meet my wife when I was at Michigan, but, like, she knows, like, I enjoyed playing there and stuff like that. And I've like, recently become, like, a bigger and bigger fan and like, really dived into the culture.

[Will]

Culture.

[Steve]

And to see my 7 year old be about it, then hear you talk about your kids about it, putting the jerseys on, all that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Very similar.

[Steve]

Yeah. It's like this is how fans are built.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

This is like organically how fans are just made. And it's awesome.

[Will]

Teaching Rue the go Big Red chain.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

That football, like. Yeah, we're gonna watch football today, sweetheart. We're gonna have that on. We're not gonna be watching Daniel Tiger

[Steve]

tired kick rocks for just 12 hours. All right, we'll get back to it tomorrow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A little bare face.

[Steve]

Yeah, this is me and my daughter. I took her to Northwestern. And so that's the game before Ohio State. And I mean, they dropped like a 50 burger on Northwestern. So when was kind of dialed. And I talked to the team before, too, so I was like, maybe something's in the air. And yeah, technically they're undefeated since me and my daughter went to that game.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So me and Amy.

[Steve]

I don't want to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, me and Amy were at the Chicago game where they had the Harold Mary. Oh, insane.

[Steve]

That was so wild.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We were sitting there in this. We. We got fan.

[Will]

Is she football?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, she's. She likes it because I like it. And there's not been a lot to. There we are. We got to go down on the field probably about. Probably about 20ft away from us. You know that moment. Right. Everybody's gone. The whole stadium's empty. Jaden's about 20ft away doing an interview. And I would get to luckily get to say, hey, man, I'm A big fan of your badass, you know, and so that was a cool moment for us.

[Steve]

I wonder if Jaden even understands how big of a deal that is. Like, Dale Jr.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Came up to you.

[Steve]

He waited for you to finish interview.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He has other things in his mind that are big deals, right, that are cool and. And his generation and the people that he like, holds at a certain level of, you know, celebrity status or whatever. But we were. I wore my Riggins jersey. I'm like, they. They let me go sit in the owner suite. Like, that was automatic. When Dan was there, when Dan on the team, I was getting invites every week. And then the new, new people come in, and I'm like, man, I wonder if I'll get the invite. Invite, yeah. And so they sent one and we're like, all right, we're going. We didn't know where we were sitting, but they walked us in there and like, oh, hell, they done re. We did the whole thing. The whole owner suites, like a whole different color now. And we sat down on the front row, watch a whole game and ain't looking good. Everybody's leaving. Everybody's kind of leaving the. Even their owner suite. And he's like, what we're doing. I was like, we ain't leaving. I was like, you know, even if we lose, we're going to lose. We're going to stand here a few minutes so it in. We'll just wait.

[Will]

We got stand here a few minutes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We ain't leaving. We ain't leaving. And we're standing there and. And, you know, he. He's the ball up in the air and yeah, we're watching. And they caught that pass and that and what people were left. It was like pandemonium. Like, Amy, I'm watching. I was like, watching Amy go crazy, like, loving that, because I'm like, you know, my wife is a, you know, a big commanders fan now. And I don't know, man, that was a. To have been there and seen that in person. And I remember, like, watching the one guy go down the field, number 23, that was taunting. Yeah, I'm watching it. I'm like, here's an opportunity. This. This fucking guy is not paying attention. I wonder if anybody else notices this, like, you know, because he went viral. Yeah. And so I'm thinking, man, this. This. This might be a chance. There might be a chance here. And of course, you know, y' all know how it went down. But God, I'm mighty to. Y' all have probably seen the Hail Mary moment or the. The Buzzer beater. Y' all seen that because y' all are in sports so much in college, high school, NFL. You've probably been part of those moments, right? That was my first, like real like buzzer beater, like prayer. One in a million. Yeah. You know, and then for us to go on and do what we did the rest of the year. Right. Because that was kind of early in the season, but I mean, it's just incredible.

[Steve]

But especially against like Caleb Williams, who was the first overall pick, there's a. Obviously that like. Yeah, already started.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Busted this big long run off in the second, in the third quarter and I was like, here we go, falling apart. Yeah. Our defensive held them up, God, for so long and now it's like they found the holes, they found the kryptonite. They're gonna damn. Just destroy us or they, you know, they're gonna win the game. Hey, we got it.

[Steve]

That is so awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was a fun season last year. I hope this year's good.

[Steve]

I hope so too, because. Yeah. You worry about, you worry about the sophomore year slump. You. That's always a worry.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

That's always a little bit of a deal.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We've done some good getting some.

[Will]

They'll get better through the draft and

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

we only got five picks, so I don't know what that means and I don't. I keep hearing that Washington just picked

[Will]

up somebody for agency, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The. The left tackle from the Texans.

[Will]

That's right. Tunsil.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's good too.

[Steve]

Yeah, he's got good footwork.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good. Yeah, yeah.

[Steve]

Good footwork. What's that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good lungs.

[Steve]

Good. Strongest lungs in the game, actually.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

The postseason is upon us and there's really nothing like it. But the postse can be stressful. Crushing losses, wild upsets, your unhinged six game parlay falling apart at the literal last second. Things can get rough and it can leave you feeling a little sour. But you gotta look at the bright side. Once your team is out and headed to decompress, you can finally relax. Now you can actually enjoy the postseason with all of the heart palpitations. That's why we're partnering with Jim Beam. We want to help you turn that lemon of a loss into delicious, tasty Jim Beam and lemonade. Because it's really the perfect bevy for the offseason. It's refreshing. Refreshing. It's got the perfect sweetness and a little bit of tang on your tongue. Best paired with stress free watching when your team is out. So gather the boys and grab some Jim Beam. And lemonade to make the rest of the postseason just a little bit sweeter. Refresh your season with Jim Beam and lemonade best enjoyed together. Please drink responsibly. Jim Beam Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume 20, 25. James B. Beam Distilling Co. Co. Clermont, Kentucky.

[Steve]

But they gave him, they're gonna break him off. I don't know if he signed a new contract yet, but they, they. Houston got a whole bunch of picks. Yeah. They're gonna have to pay him.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Big time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh yeah. Well, they got to pay Jaden two, a couple years.

[Will]

The, the good thing is they have Jaden on the rookie deal. Yeah. Just get other for now.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Will]

And see if they can wait at

[Steve]

least two more years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Two more years. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine to watch them work, man. They're, they the, the free agency, you know, they're. Besides the left tackle from Texas. The players that they bring in, you're like, don't never heard of this guy. Who's this guy? What's his story? And, and their story's really not like he's dominated. You know, it's kind of like, well, he's a, he's a, he's a journeyman, dependable, he'll get in there, he'll do the job, you know, and that's what they did last year. They had all these one year deals. I don't know about this like you guys, but he, you know, I'm watching and I'm like, it's, it's, it's strange because everybody's, everybody's now signing like one year deals on these, you know, these, you know, these veterans that are in like the 76, 60, 70% mark of their career, they're kind of, they got a little left in the tank. But I mean, how is that the way it's always been? Because it feels like, I remember it felt like for years when free agency came, Everybody signed like 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 year deal deals. And now everyone is doing these like one year, two year, little rinky dink, you'll play here this year, maybe not next year.

[Steve]

The journeyman, I think has become more and more casual now than ever. This is, this, this free agency has been very unique in the sense that the market keeps getting higher and higher. Just in these, like this pocket of this couple of weeks, like Max Crosby was the number one, you know, highest non paid quarterback of all time. And then a day later, Miles Garrett, then a day later and then like, you know, now he's like the fifth Highest paid. So it's really interesting to see these like markets like these cap setting contracts happening. But a lot of times like you get through the first wave of that free agency, which is like your, your top guys who are able to get away from their teams, you're going to pick up and then you get like a lot of the guys that have like, you know, they're signing usually the one, the two year deals. Yeah, it's like, is he going to work out? We know he's got the talent. Can you really get it done?

[Will]

So I think too there's not as much of a market because, because the structure and the new CBA and everything else when the minimums went up for rookies, it kind of squeezed that middle class a little bit more because the rookies, they'd be on cheaper deals so you would see more 3, 4, 5 year deals of like middle tier guys. But over time it's like the, the floor has raised for the rookie deals and it's like we're going to have this rookie for three or four years. You don't necessarily pay the middle class as much. You can kind of put all your eggs into the guys that you want here long term and guys will take those one or two year deals because they're essentially trying to be on prove it deals to where they haven't seen the guarantees that they would like in a full contract. Because if you're a good player and somebody's offering, let's just say, you know, three years, $30 million, but only, you know, five to 10 guaranteed or something like that, then that player probably thinks in his head, I will just do a one year deal, get a guaranteed contract as much as I can and then hopefully try and hit a lick the next time around. Because the middle class is kind of getting squeezed out because you' just sign guys on 1 year minimums or 1 year for lower money. But you don't see those like middle tier contracts being laid out as much

[Steve]

and will just structured out with a 3 or $30 million, 10 million guarantee. Like that's, that's a three year deal, but really it's a one year deal. Right, like that. That's a prove it deal.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Or it was of, of the past because of this whole Will just said the middle class getting squeezed because really all you have is your guarantee. A lot of these guys want to look at the total contract number. Like these guys are making whatever $200 million contracts. Oh, it's awesome. But then it's like, well, you only got this much guaranteed though the guarantee is what is the most important thing, not how big the number is because they could walk away from you or they could backlit the contract and all these different things. So there's a lot of like shenanigans and like savvy things that get to take place during the free agency market.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's pretty fascinating to watch and we'll see how, how it plays out for my team.

[Steve]

Is there any like free agency type stuff in NASCAR or. You're pretty. Just built in. We're going to put pay you the X, Y and Z a year. Yeah, it's pretty bonuses based on if you win.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's, it's. They're not really a free agency now. There's some drivers that will become available or their contract comes up and they probably know they want to move to a different team and they probably. Or they're getting calls from like there's no tampering rules or anything. So like an owner can call a guy and say, hey, how many more years you got on your deal? Or would you, can you leave your deal? Can I buy it out? Can, Would you want to come to my team? I want you as my driver. What do we got to do? And so you may be able to pay that team money to get him out of his contract early.

[Will]

Does that happen very much?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It has happened in the past. It's not a very common thing but I mean there's no real rules to our. We don't have a free agency.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Period or anything like that.

[Will]

You ever poached somebody or gotten somebody?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I've not. You know, my team, My team's kind of like taking these rookies and these up and comers version. We've got more, we got more people.

[Will]

That's true, I guess.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. We got more people kind of coming to us than we have seats to have race. You know the people. But in the top tier cup level, it's probably a lot more cutthroat and a little more competitive. Trying to.

[Will]

How many times when you were a driver did you get called from other ownership?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Once in my career. So like I was. My deal at DEI at my dad's company was ending and I had two or three teams come to to court me or you know, pitch me their deal. And I, and I knew I wasn't going to stay where I was at, so I was, I was all ears and went and met with everybody in each team and kind of took the one deal that I liked. But that happened once and I was Happy to. I was happy where I ended up and wanted to stay there until I retired, and I was lucky enough to do that.

[Will]

That's awesome.

[Steve]

I know we're at up, but like, in football, when you're playing or any sport in general, like, there's things you hate doing, but then when you leave the sport, you're like, man, I missed that. Practice, like, with, like, that's what you miss.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Practice. Yeah.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I hated practice because practice was a lot of times, like, testing was. Testing and practice are very similar. In testing, you go to a racetrack in the middle of the week, way before, weeks before you're going to race there, and you're by yourself. Usually there might be another team there, but usually you're by yourself and you're out there running alone, and it's you and your team. You go out, run five, 10 laps, come in, make a change, and it's very monotonous and boring, and you're just running and running, and you almost get bored of telling them the feedback. Okay, yeah, that made it a little better. I didn't feel anything. We're just doing nothing here. I'm just spinning my wheels and. But the team's got a process and they're. They got a plan for those two days you're testing, and they are going to get through that plan and learn everything they want to learn and then. And go home. You don't realize that as a driver, you're just bored to death running by yourself. When you practice on the race weekends, everyone else is out there, but it's the same thing. You're practicing, changing things, your team's learning. It's not a race. There's no checkered flag. There's no winner, loser. You're just making laps, and it's like an hour, whatever. And I hated it. I thought it was boring, and I hated to get ready and go do it. And it was getting in the way of whatever I wanted to do, but I wanted to race. Race. The race was fun. I was excited about the race, but the practice was just kind of boring. But right in the last year, I was sitting in my car and I think I was at Kansas Motor Speedway. And we're in the middle of practice, and I sat there and it just dawned on me. I was like, one, there'll be a day in a very short period of time where we won't. I won't ever practice again. And I was like. And I was watching my guys, they were meandering around the car, changing little things, jacking the Car up, gonna adjust this, gonna adjust that. And they're just mo. I got to watching them. I mean, my garage stall, it's every other cars in their garage stall. People are pulling in and out, going running laps, and it's busy. And I was just sitting in there, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna miss this part. I hated this part, and I should have appreciated it more, but I'm gonna miss. I'm gonna miss watching my guys that I love. I love these guys. They're my guys. I'm gonna miss watching them work. I'm gonna miss coming in here and taking this car to them and saying, hey, can you find. Fix it? I got. This doesn't work right, or this doesn't turn good or it doesn't strike, it doesn't steer right, and they're going to try to fix it. I'm going to miss trying to fix that puzzle with them and work on it. And, you know, I think I knew I was going to miss driving in the race. I knew I was going to miss the competition. Right. But it was the prep work that I thought I hated that I end up missing as well.

[Steve]

Beautiful. Beautifully said.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Will]

Yeah. Do you ever remember those times, like, I can remember a few situations where you're kind of sitting there and you're kind of taking it in, just being like, as much as this sucks, because practice did, like training camp, you know, there would just be them days where you're just in the middle of the season or whatever, but you're just sitting there taking in the breeze, taking in the scene, the heat. If it's training camp here, it's like, one day, we're not even going to be able to do this anymore.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

I feel it was always, like, during camp, like, you like you for getting those beautiful situations where you got a small group of boys and everyone just fed up and everyone just wants to vent and talk about how this is just all this we're doing sucks. And, like, you let everybody vent and you're sitting there, whether it's like we're all sitting in the cold tubs after, like, dying. Like, a couple guys were cramping in the corner, and he's just like, this is such a hot day. We got to do it again tomorrow. Everyone's just completely complaining. But then eventually that conversation would turn to someone to bring it up, be like, it's crazy. This is not gonna last forever. And that's like a moment you have. You're like, holy shit. Like, yeah, this is kind of these Are. These are the good old days. Right now you're in it. Just sucking is the good old days. Because it is the stuff. Like practice sucks. Like Camp August. I wake up now in August, and I smile to myself knowing that there's about 2,000 guys out there dying.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

And I'm just in this cozy bed right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, this is.

[Steve]

I might go hang on my kids for a minute before I go to work.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like.

[Steve]

Yeah, something like that. That's kind of nice. But then there's, like, a PC. It's like, man, it would be nice to have, like, 53 guys that are just, like, embracing the suck together. Everyone's handling it a little different way, but we're all feeling the same thing, which is. This is really hard, and we're doing it together.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

That's the beautiful part about it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I agree, Dale.

[Will]

This has been awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's fun.

[Will]

Thank you so much, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had a little marathon here, man.

[Steve]

Yeah. Yeah. How long was it this episode?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

245. Damn right. Yeah.

[Steve]

Good work.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, what's. What's the average these days for you guys? We.

[Steve]

We said well above 130 mark. 90 minutes is solid. Like 90 minutes, I think, is our average.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's good. All right.

[Steve]

Maybe on the high.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'll take it as a. I'll call it a success.

[Will]

So much fun. Thank you for the gifts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

I hope everybody enjoyed. Big hugs, tiny kisses for. Don't forget to subscribe.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Congratulations to busting man and the success. Success. The new partnerships with Bud Light Fan duel. Hey, I'm on team Anheuser Bush. We work with fanduel over at Dirty Mo Media.

[Will]

Let's go. Yeah. Some more. We need some more busting with the boys. Dirty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I need an Xavier win tonight. I know that that's. That's going to get my parlay hit.

[Steve]

Who do you. Who do you got win in the national championship?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Michigan. The you March Madness.

[Will]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Well, have you done a bracket yet?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No. I'm a Tar Heel fan, and I know they're in a bad way, but they just.

[Steve]

They played last night. Yeah, they beat the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They did. That's one. They were one leg of my parlay. It was Alabama State, Carolina, and now Xavier tonight.

[Steve]

You know, Fando, you can put futures bets together as a parlay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Steve]

I got my spicy one plus 1813 plus 813 if you want.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I hate staring at that damn thing. Thing. I did that with Caitlin Clark's average points for a rookie year, and I'm like, golly, every Time I log in, I'm like, it's there. It's staring me right in the face because it's not over. You know, you got to wait months for this thing to finish out. And I'm like. So I like, I'm on the quick.

[Will]

Yeah, well, but the futures parlay with. With FanDuel and obviously this is, this is actually while March Madness is still going on, but you can parlay futures of like teams getting to sweet 16, the round of 30.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Steve]

Four.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

You can parlay together. And I got a plus 3,000 if you are interested.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

3,000. I saw that 3,300, something like that.

[Will]

You saw. You beeped it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I saw it on social media. I. I know what you're doing.

[Will]

You like it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know what you're doing. I. I did. I. I got on a parlay that you had during the NFL season and it was a rough one. I don't even want to admit what we bet. Not the amount of money I had one unit. But like the, the teams we were betting on, I was, it was.

[Will]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Now you know what I'm talking about.

[Will]

I know. Yeah. Because we were texting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

The fall, you'll see more of those parlays as well.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Will]

Playoff with those parlays.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, like, damn, dude.

[Steve]

Will and I got to this point late in the season. Last year was like the higher the plus odds, the better the parlay was. Yes. Yeah. Like you're nine legs plus 10,000.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. That's ridiculous.

[Steve]

But if it hits.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's no way to live.

[Will]

Going to be pissed.

[Steve]

That's no way to live. You bought an iPad showing your college football 25 breakdowns of everything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Steve]

We can put together some spicy parlays like my.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My spicy parlay. And I might get clowned for this, but like I'll go in. It was right before March Madness. And it's kind. You can do this now with the ones versus the 16s, but I like stack all the ones, you know, the ones to beat the 16s. So I'll build like a plus 200. 200 with like nine. Nine legs.

[Will]

See, that's a crazy way to live in, in my opinion.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But those are almost automatic.

[Will]

But you're getting. Oh, you're guaranteed to plus 200 odds with a nine leg parlay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And they all should win. I am, I would say in the past month, I am probably 18 and two with seven or more legs in my parents parlays in basketball alone.

[Will]

Hey. I was gonna say.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'll show you. I'll open up, I'll open up. My, my, where's the iPad for that? I'll open it up, I'll show it to you.

[Steve]

If you took half the effort as you do with that, that game as you, you be a billionaire.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you gotta get careful because I mean, you gotta do like 400, 450, 500 odds on seven or nine parlays to get to like plus 100, 200, 300 or something like that. But it's, you know, it's gonna usually play pay out. Yeah, that's probably not a popular way to do it.

[Will]

Now. You just said 18 and 2 the way you did it, and I'm trying to criticize like I'm 2 and 18.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, you're betting, you're at plus 10,000 odds, buddy.

[Will]

I've won, I've won a few games. That's kind of parlays. I'm, like I said, I'm betting straight up. Yeah, parlays. I'm.

[Steve]

We had a, we do a thing on our gambling show.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I want to join, I want to tell some of your bets, man, but you, you're gonna gotta clean it up a little bit. Come on.

[Will]

We will, we'll clean them up. We'll get dialed in for football season.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's go.

[Will]

I'll even run them by you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's go. Yeah, I put, hey, I'll get on. I, I'll tell you best. I ain't care. I ain't scared.

[Steve]

There you go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Will]

Appreciate you, dad.

[Steve]

Appreciate you, brother.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Appreciate y', all, man. It's fun. Thanks for having me.

[Steve]

Yeah. Big hugs, tiny kisses, three hour pod.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The damn right.

[Will]

The postseason is upon us and there's really nothing like it. But the postseason can be stressful. Crushing losses, wild upsets, your unhinged six game parlay falling apart at the literal last second. Things can get rough and it can leave you feeling a little sour. But you got to look at the bright side. Once your team is out and headed to decompress, you can finally relax. Now you can actually enjoy the postseason with all of the heart palpitations. That's why we're partnering with Jim Beam. We want to help you turn that lemon of a loss into delicious, tasty Jim Beam and lean lemonade. Because it's really the perfect bevy for the offseason. It's refreshing, it's got the perfect sweetness and a little bit of tang on your tongue. Best paired with stress free watching when your team is out. So gather the boys and grab some Jim Beam and lemonade. To make the rest of the postseason just a little bit sweeter. Refresh your season with Jim Beam and lemonade best enjoyed together. Please drink responsibly. Jim Beam Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey 40% alcohol by volume 2025 James B. Beam Distilling Co. Clermont, Kentucky.