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The Dale Jr. Download
605 - JRM's Cup Future & Daytona's Better Days
01:58:30
605 - JRM's Cup Future & Daytona's Better Days
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- [00:00]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Hey, Everybody, it's Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of the DJD. The Dale Jr. Download. My good friend. I was gonna say my best buddy. I don't know, man. My best friend.
- [00:10]
T.J. Majors
Did I piss you off over the weekend or.
- [00:12]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'm still sour, man. That I wasn't your best man. The best man at your wedding.
- [00:15]
T.J. Majors
I know.
- [00:16]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Brad Keselowski do that. What the hell?
- [00:18]
Mike Davis
Who was your best man, Dale?
- [00:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Tj.
- [00:22]
Mike Davis
Tj.
- [00:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right. He's. He's. I mean, he's my best friend. Okay. All right. Hell, way to start the show.
- [00:31]
T.J. Majors
That's all right, then.
- [00:33]
Mike Davis
So was Dill even in consideration?
- [00:35]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No.
- [00:36]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. No, I mean, what was going on?
- [00:38]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What, were we arguing? What, were we fighting?
- [00:40]
T.J. Majors
I don't know if we've ever argued. We only argued one time.
- [00:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Why was. Why didn't he pick me? I'm the whole reason you're down here.
- [00:48]
T.J. Majors
I don't know. I just. Honestly, I didn't think you wanted that responsibility.
- [00:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, you didn't even ask me?
- [00:54]
T.J. Majors
Well, I just didn't think you wanted that responsibility.
- [00:56]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Brad did a really good job, except for his. The speech at the. Yeah. We don't have a weird moment.
- [01:02]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. Really, really bad moment. I was like, gosh, I might. I'm gonna get divorced right after this speech. Yeah. That's another stuff show there.
- [01:11]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. All right. We're giving everybody who's listening to this show a lot to think about. Let's go ahead and bring it back. We got Daytona to talk about. There is a whole lot there. Junior Motorsports Racing and the race itself, that talk about. So, yeah, let's get to the show. It's gonna be a good one. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. All right, so, man, where the hell do. Where do we start? Tell me, DJ where do we start? We got a lot of stuff to talk about. What should I talk about first? What do you want to know?
- [01:50]
T.J. Majors
I mean, I think you start with your own experience.
- [01:53]
Mike Davis
Now, let's start with your gift this morning.
- [01:55]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, yeah.
- [01:55]
T.J. Majors
Okay. Yeah, the gift.
- [01:57]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
See, my brain.
- [01:58]
T.J. Majors
I'm telling you, the rest of the day, off for you.
- [02:00]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yep.
- [02:00]
T.J. Majors
Okay.
- [02:01]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Good job. Yep. You can play Xbox.
- [02:05]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [02:05]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
After we're done here for the rest of the day.
- [02:07]
T.J. Majors
We gotta hook it up, though, because we know demo. They can't.
- [02:09]
Mike Davis
I can hook. I can hook up the Xbox.
- [02:11]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I don't think so. You probably could, but the sound won't work.
- [02:14]
T.J. Majors
Internet won't work either.
- [02:15]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Don't be able to connect it to the Internet. I. I had a surprise Today there was a gentleman that owned a race car that was an RCR Dale Earnhardt car from the 90s, like 1990, 1991. And he passed away and willed it to me. We've been going through this process, the legal part of that, over the last several months. And the car is here today for the very first time. So I'm very thankful for that. Just, you know, an incredible surprise. And I think I'm already digging into the history of the car. So I'm sure people are probably shocked that someone wheeled me a car of my dad's. But it was a really nice thing. Coincidentally, not too long ago, we had a lady that had passed will donate a large sum of money to the foundation. So there's been a couple incredible things that have happened. Some people's generosity has really, you know, been incredible over the last six months or so. But. And that doesn't usually happen. So I guess that's why I'm bringing it up because it was so unique. But so, yeah, this car, I just saw it just five minutes ago for the very first time. I had no idea. I don't know anything else about it. Right. I just been told it's one of dad's old cars. And so I look into the interior and on the dash you can see some old decal residue. The sticky back side of the decal, and you can make out these letters that whatever the decal was there previously had been stripped away, but the glue was still there. And It's Bobby Hillen Jr. Why would Bobby Hillen Jr. S name be on the dash? Or why it had been on the dash at one point? So around 1991, there was a team from Ireland, a guy that wanted to start a NASCAR team, and he bought a car from Richard Childress. And they ran probably about 14 or so races over the course of two or three seasons. And Bobby Hillen drove the car. It was black, number 31. And it they. I don't know if they bought one, two, even three car. I know they did buy one strictly from RCR. And this is that car. So it was an RCR car. Still has the original orange interior. The dad raced it somewhere. I'll call rcr. I'll ask them about when they sold this car to this person. They should have the numbers on that car and the chassis and the information on what races that chassis ran for dad. They'll also know when they sold it to this gentleman in Ireland. And we can probably get a good idea of the pretty decent understanding of the history of this car.
- [05:21]
Mike Davis
What was your reaction when Kelly showed you the car?
- [05:25]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'm at the point in my life where I'm kind of collecting this stuff and taking this stuff in when it comes. And I'm also at the point in my life where I'm understanding that I don't know what I'm gonna do with it or what to do with it other than store it away. And I'm not sure if my girls are going to be interested in this stuff or not. And I'm not sure whether they want the burden of dealing with it down the road. And so. But I'll take it. I'm thankful for it. I'm. I can't wait to learn about the chassis. I. My mind goes right to that. Like, dig into the history. What can I learn? Let me learn about this car. Where has it been? What did dad do with it? What did RCR do with it then? Where's it been since then? So that'll be fun. It's kind of like genealogy, you know, for a race car. I enjoy that puzzle, so I'm thankful for that. We just videoed a little bit of seeing the car for the first time. I'm sure we'll cut that into some social stuff for you folks to be able to see. And right now the car looks like a good wrench. Number three car. It's decal and had been rebuilt, restored. I'll probably redecal it because I think some of the decals, size wise and positioning is a little bit off. But I'll probably get some. Once I learn where this car raced. I'll probably get a snapshot of the car at a specific race where I know that's the car. And then decal it identical to that photo and. And then just put it in my collection. My stuff. Yeah. So pretty neat. We had Bobby Hillen on the show last year a couple years ago and. And we talked about this a little bit. So. But yeah, I could probably call him up and. And ask him a few questions. We know the name of this race team. We might be able to locate some of the people that were involved in that from the team from Ireland. This car actually was physically in Ireland probably at one point, which is strange. Right. That has traveled the world and came back. Another weird coincidence. My uncles Robert G. And Robert G. Jr. And Jimmy worked on this car. When this team would race and damage their car. They took it to my uncle's on my mother's side to repair it. And I have the original hood from this car when they Bought the car. They took the original hood off, and it still has the rubber and debris and everything underneath it and a good wrench logo on the hood. It's the way dad raced it the last time he drove it. And then they took the hood off of that car. It stayed in the rafters of my uncle's garage for 40 years. And then my uncle was selling all his stuff. I went over there and got this hood. And now this car, a year later, comes into my life. Where this hood originally originated from. Just weird, right? Random stuff of all the cars that RCR has built. Anyway, pretty neat story. Let's move on to the Daytona experience. Man. Junior motorsports ran its first cup. Did I say xfinity?
- [08:51]
Mike Davis
You started to.
- [08:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, I did. Junior motorsports ran its first cup race in ever. The end result is great, and we're going to talk more down the road in this show about the racing at Daytona. But in the end, if you were. If you were going to tell me, man, you're going to get a top 10, I would have been just thankful to be in the race, which I was. I told Justin, I said, man, we're in the race. I'm glad we're in the race. That's what I wanted. My next want is that I see you at the end of the race on pit road, that we've crossed the finish line, that we ran all of the laps. I had no goals beyond that. And, you know, you can. You can. You know, you can look at it however you want as a. As a fan, but I didn't, you know, I didn't want to set a bunch. We had. I felt like. And this is the way I kind of live my life. I think this says more about my character or my values or whatever than anything, right or wrong. I didn't assume we'd make the race. I didn't. So we go there and we unload the car and we're practicing, and, man, we're kind of a little disappointed about the speed of the car, but we're not sure how to read into that. Qualifying didn't go well. We ran slower than we practiced. We weren't sure why we couldn't figure that out. Justin talked about the car not being very good at accelerating and drafting in the duel, but he found a way, you know, late in the duel to get ourselves into the show. At that moment, I had. I was so satisfied, my bucket was full. I knew, hey, we're gonna run some practice, and then we're gonna push a car onto the grid and crank it up and pull off pit road. And honestly, when we took the green flag for the Daytona 500, that was it. I was fine. I was done. And when the green flag came out for the race, it's like. That was like the. The final bell ringing at the end of a prize fight. That was the end for me. And so.
- [11:16]
Mike Davis
So what was watching the race like then for you?
- [11:20]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I mean, it was. It was the strangest thing because there were moments where I was like, you know, gosh, you know, okay, we get. We made some good moves, all right? We're in a good line here. We're moving forward. There were some moments where I got competitive, and I was like, yeah, all right. This is cool. Good job, Justin. You know, and then the racing, you know, we. We had decided to. I told Justin, I said, you know, just. I'm not. I don't have any. I told Justin, I said, I don't have any expectations. Don't. Don't think about what I want or what I would expect you to do or what I want you to do. In any moment you drive the car, you use your knowledge and your experience of all your career to choose what you want to do in every moment. Don't worry about anybody else and what you think anybody else is wanting, right? Because that's what you do when you drive a race car. Sometimes you're like, man, I bet my. You know, I got to do this because I bet Rick's paying attention. My boss, right? Or I got to do this because I bet latart is watching me, and I need to do this because he expects me to do this. I didn't want him worrying about all of. He had a ton of pressure, Justin did, and he was thinking about my expectations and my wants and wishes all the time throughout the whole process. And I was like, in the race, man, just lean on your own experience. Do. Don't think. Just do. And that's the way you got to drive a car at Daytona, Tallady. You can't think about what you're doing or what you need to do or what you should do. You just got to choose. You're just constantly choosing and doing and deciding and aiming the car in all different directions and never really contemplating at all. You know, there was some moments where we would put ourselves in a really good position. And then I told him, I said, you know, if. If we're coming down to the end of the stages and they're three wide and you can't go anywhere, you know, hey, we're not racing for Stage points. Don't worry about it. If you feel like you want to get out of there and not risk getting in a crash for no reason, we want to see the end of this race. And. And there was some times when he bailed out, and I had given him that right, you know, to do that. I wasn't disappointed in it. It's not how you love to race a race at any. You know, but I think that's kind of the way we had to run it. You know, there was some other people with that same strategy as well that ended up with really good results, and so we weren't really the only one. And then at the end, you know, we just had a couple of bad, bad situations that got us a little bit of damage, and. And we had, you know, we were on pit road a lot to repair some of that, and. And that put us in a really. That kind of set the tone for the, you know, just trying to survive at that moment. Big crash happens down the back straightaway, and we came around and crossed the finish line, looked down at the timing and score and saw we were inside the top 10. And it was like, well, hell, how about, you know, didn't, you know, ain't that a damn bonus? And I was pretty happy already at that point. I knew we were, you know, I knew we got through the wreck and we're gonna cross this finish line. I didn't know where the end result was, but, yeah, I go back to telling you that when the green flag came out, that was the moment where it was like, all right, we had done it. We done it all. Whatever happened, it's out of my control from this point forward. Healthy wreck going down the back straight away, and wides up the whole field, and we don't make a lap. I'm freaking. Okay. You know, and so. And that's more of a product of the racing there, you know, that didn't allow for me to have a different feeling and a gut feeling or even a vision for the prospect, you know, how the race might play out. And so. Which. We can talk about that, but.
- [15:16]
Mike Davis
And you were on the radio with him, though, which you normally aren't, right?
- [15:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No. And it's weird when we have four cars in the Xfinity race. I don't. I don't. I feel like there's this hurdle for me to talk that I can't get over. I was very, very hands on with this cup deal, and I was over Greg's shoulder a lot of the process and involved in the design of the car and I was just really hands on. And so when I got to the racetrack, it just felt natural for me to chime in. Right. And me and Justin had this understanding that I was going to communicate with him and Greg was good with it and yeah. So I felt very comfortable. But the. The way that I operate with the Xfinity team is different. I don't get in the business of what the crew chiefs are doing, how they're operating. And we have four diff. We have four different teams all competing under the same roof. And I don't want to appear as favoring one over the other and spending more focus or time with one over the other. And so I kind of stay off and let them just operate right. And don't. I don't get in the middle of it. And so when it comes to racing and we get to the racetrack and they were on the track, I don't feel like I have anything to add, honestly. Now what I have, I would have loved to have gotten on the radio and talked to Connor Zillich and Carson during the race. I thought Sammy during the Xfinity race was making some good choices and I saw what he was trying to do, and I'm not. Whether it was all working right or not, it doesn't really matter. I knew what he was trying to do, and I saw him being on the offense and trying to do be aggressive and side draft. I was like, you know, anyone at Talladega? Leave him alone. Let him keep learning, right? That didn't, you know, let him sit out there on track and go, well, that didn't work. That worked okay. I learned something there. And he's moving. He's moving and trying. So he's learning good and bad. And so I didn't. I don't need to get in the middle of that. Let him keep processing that. Justin's. Justin. He don't need any help. But I would have liked to have been able to talk to Connor and Carson at many points during the race and. But, you know, you can't. It's hard to focus on one and not the other. It's just. I don't know. So I went to. I went to the xfinity series in 98. I wrecked and didn't know what the hell I was doing for a year and a half driving at Daytona and Talladega with our xfinity cars before I even into the cup series in 2000, I still was just really overwhelmed and in over my head at what plate racing was about. And how to make it right and do. How to make it work for you. Some people never figure that out, and some people struggle with it for their whole careers and just never really embrace it or try to try to solve the riddle or the Rubik's Cube. But it took me a while, and so I'm not. You know, I could sit there and tell Carson. Like, I can watch Carson run that race, and I can go, man, do this. Get in that lane, do this, do that. But he's not. He don't know why he's doing it, and he might do what I tell him to do, but he doesn't. He doesn't. It's just such a thing. You got to just go through the process. He needs to run a handful of races, and I can. I can. I'll talk to him outside the car. We talked before the race. I'll talk to him before Atlanta. Try to help him. Try to. You know, he wants to understand what I thought about his race. So, I mean, we can do that. We can have those conversations outside the car with. The vibe with our Xfinity crew chiefs is that they are. They got this. They're in control. They're. They are communicating every day with their driver. They have them ready and programmed with instructions on what's coming up this weekend and what to do. Tj, the other spotters are on, you know, on Zooms and on the phone and communicating with their. Their drivers all week long. All I would do if I got in the middle of it would muddy the. You know, create noise. Right. They have a plan. TJ's very. TJ.
- [19:52]
T.J. Majors
You have a. I've already taught me. And Carson went over our race yesterday, right? We're gonna go for Atlanta tomorrow. So.
- [19:58]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. And I. What. What.
- [20:00]
Mike Davis
So what was it like, tj, for you with a rookie at Daytona? Was there anything different that you did or you tried to keep it the same?
- [20:07]
T.J. Majors
I mean, you always give rookies a little bit more info. You always tell them a little bit more kind of maybe a why you're doing it at a certain point in time, because a lot of times, panic can set in if they don't feel like they're in the right lane and they can swap lanes a lot. But a lot of times, if you're just patient, it comes back to you. And you want the big thing for me, with, like, Carson going to this place, you want to look like you've been there 10 times. So you don't want to be. You want people to be like, man, that guy's stable that you want to work with him, you want to work him. And I think Carson did a good job of setting how he's going to be as a teammate there and you know, and as a, as a worker be when he needs to be. But you're definitely giving them guys a lot of info and, and why, you know, you do certain things. We did a lot of work on, on. We did some work on the computer like we did for Talladega. And you put him in scenarios and you tell them, you know, areas you can get in trouble. And you talk through a lot of things. The dangerous spots on the track, the where handling comes into play so he can plan ahead for that stuff. And Carson adapts really well. I don't know if it's because he just adapts really well and he listens really well and he understands when you tell him certain things. And he told me some things that actually impressed me. He said he tried some things in practice to make it do something to see if it would and it did. And he learned from that. And, you know, Carson's doing really well. And rookies are. I enjoy working with rookies a lot just because they look forward to your knowledge. And you know, I'm 21 years into this now and have seen a lot and it's nice to have someone lean on you like just look, you know, look forward to what you have to give them.
- [21:39]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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- [23:31]
T.J. Majors
You got the team already.
- [23:32]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. And so that's a possibility. We'll see. The other side of it is otherwise, you know, I don't know that we're going to keep, you know, run another race this year. They'd have to be another partner sponsor to walk in the door and say, hey, we saw what you did. We want to be on your car for another race. Y'all going to run another race. We got this much money and we'd invest in this event and we'd like to run in this market. Can we do it right? And that's a whole. That's a long conversation. So no plans to go run another.
- [24:07]
T.J. Majors
Race, but did you. Did you enjoy the experience of your first cup race? Like, I know it's been talked about for years after years. It's every offseason thing, like, everything.
- [24:16]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, it was everything. It was awesome.
- [24:18]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [24:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Daytona is amazing. It's a great racetrack, historic facility. It feels special. And we had a good time. We did our live show on the fan stage, which was. It was goofy, but we had fun doing it. And we could talk about that a little bit. But, yeah, I mean, the whole process was good. Practice car, getting the car in the race. I mean, you know, God, it's. You're asking me to talk about something, and I've got a thousand words in this bucket. What do you want me to say? You know, I knew you were excited.
- [24:55]
T.J. Majors
Because we were texting. It. I don't. It was late, we were texting, and you were in the garage at 5. Something in the morning. I'm like, I don't even know if you slept that night.
- [25:02]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Slept? I went.
- [25:03]
T.J. Majors
Not for much.
- [25:03]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yes, I did. I went to bed. I. You know, I just wanted to be there when they.
- [25:08]
T.J. Majors
That's great.
- [25:09]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No, I think I was there when they loaded it up to go home. I helped them push it back into the garage and we put the toe. The toe. The tow shocks on it. And you know what? I. I Have. You know, what I have that is really cool that I didn't really realize would be as cool as it is when we ran the duel the next day, our engine guy brings me the. The little block with the. With the spark plugs. So all eight spark plugs in a spark plug case from the car, out of the car that ran the duals. And I'm gonna bring it in here. I'll probably sit it on screen.
- [25:48]
T.J. Majors
I was gonna say it's gonna make it in here.
- [25:50]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And I'm gonna get the eight spark plugs out of the race engine, too. And that's like something outside, you know, we'll probably get some of the. The body parts and stuff and panels and put away, but outside of that, having the eight plugs that were in that car, because the spark plugs are kind of the. I don't know. They're not. They're so essential. They're very identifiable part, right? For. For any kind of a mechanic or anybody has any kind of automotive understanding, they're the one thing that if you pull it out of the car, you go, yep. Know what that is? And so to have all eight that came out of the car from the dual and the eight that ran in the race, I think those would be cool to keep. And it'd be a little inscription on the little block that they sit in. So, you know, those are neat things to have. I know people want to know what's next, right? I'm moving on. It's time to move on. And so, you know, it was back to real. It was back to reality when we got back home from Daytona. Life. Life, you know, comes at you. Kids are. You know, kids are sick or trying to get up in the morning, go to school or whatever, right? And the trash needs taken out. Dogs need to be fed. So I was reading on social media, people are a bit confused over how this process could work for the charter stuff, right? They don't know. They. I don't know if I've just given some mixed signals about where I am in terms of what I would invest or not invest or what do I. What do I expect, right? And so here's how it. Here's how it would work. All right, So a charter. Let's just assume, and I may be naive, maybe it ain't this simple. Let's just say a charter. Give me a number. What's the charter going?
- [27:36]
Mike Davis
40 million.
- [27:37]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
40 million.
- [27:37]
T.J. Majors
40.
- [27:38]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Damn, it's a lot. I was hoping that a charter would cost me 25, but you're going to tell me the one that's available today is 40 million. We're going to be hypothetical, right? What would need to happen is an investor, somebody who wants to partner. I'm not going to give you $40 million for that charter. I'm not doing that. That's not something I'm interested in doing and that's my prerogative. Now, I would invest five or 10 in the right situation. Five, absolutely. Maybe more of my own money. Right. So there's, you know, 20% ownership. That's probably very, a very comfortable place for me to be in the turn. I don't, I don't. When I look at an NFL franchise, there are, there are majority owners, but there's also a lot of minority people as well. I believe that owning around 20% of the charter would be satisfactory for me personally. I believe that I'm also bringing to the table my sister Kelly and our history of owning and operating this race team, Junior Motorsports, our success stories not only on the racetrack, but in licensing, marketing, engagement, activation. I will promise you that most every single partner that we've ever had that has ever left and went somewhere else has come right back and said, y'all do it better. And so we're bringing all of that to the table. So the rest of the money has to come from somewhere else and that has to come from somebody who wants to, wants to invest in the idea that that 40 million dollar charter is going to be 100 or 150, 200, $250 million down the road, two years, 10 years, whatever it is. Right. Which I believe that's true. I believe that's real. I believe that's a possible. I believe I wouldn't put five or $10 million into this if I didn't think it was going to turn into something more. And so now the person that comes in here can't just be anybody. You don't partner with just somebody because they've got the money. You got to feel good about that person. This is going to be a marriage, right. You need to make sure that that person is somebody you can absolutely compromise, make decisions, communicate with for a long 10, 20 year process. And not somebody you're going to be arguing and fighting with in two or three years over management decisions. And that's not an easy thing to come to terms with or understand. And so, yeah, I mean, that's why if it happens, it happens, is kind of the way you got to feel about it. Because look, I don't know when that person might walk in the Door. There have been people that have wanted to invest that we have sat down and talked about the money and that had the money, but it just wasn't the right fit for Kelly and myself. And we're not doing it. We're not going to do it with any risk involved. And I'm not talking about financial risk. I'm talking about like, we have all of our employees out here, everything that we're in this building and this is all working well. We can't upset that. And again, we got to make sure that we're going into a partnership with somebody. We're bringing them into our, our deal that we can live with and love and want to be with and want to work with and. Yeah, so I'm not wanting it for free. Not at all. And I don't expect that. I don't expect NASCAR to, you know, I don't expect the charter ferry to walk in here one day and just drop one in my lap. That is not what I think should happen or what I think will happen. And I'm willing to invest real money into it. Absolutely. Especially when it, when I know that it's a win across the board.
- [31:55]
Mike Davis
Did the 500 make you want to go cut more?
- [31:59]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, I mean, it was nice. Look, I'm not gonna kid myself. What we did, there's still a lot more to it, you know, from what we did this weekend versus what let's say, you know, RFK or another established team did. And we'll continue to do every single. There's a lot, lot more to it. Right. And so we leaned on a lot of resources from our partners, hms and you know, there was, we, we bought the car and I own that car. But, you know, we lease an engine and we patchwork some people. We, you know, they aren't full time employees. We'd have to hire, we'd have to, you know, we, we got a, you know, we cut a few corners, lots of corners to get this deal done and make it work economically. Economically. And you, if you're going full time, you just, you can't cut the corners anymore. And so I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that what we did this weekend was the exact same thing that the teams in the other garages in that built in that at that racetrack were doing. Those are full on 100% purpose built operations where ours was. We cut a ton of corners just to get in and run one race. But it did make me, it did give me a sense of what being in that garage is like. And it's cool. It ain't no joke, man. It's cool. It's badass to be at that level. I like the Xfinity cars. I think the racing's better in the xfinity series. I think the way the cars race and drive is. Are better than the next gen cars. But that does that. That still. That cup garage, that's the top.
- [33:48]
T.J. Majors
It's the show. Yeah, it's the show.
- [33:50]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It's it. Yeah. Listen. You know, I was listening to Denny's show, and he had a lot of great comments. And me and him were texting a little bit last night about, you know, his. His thoughts and watching the entire weekend, from ARCA to trucks to Xfinity to cup. Right. I mean, there's a. There's a lot to unpack there, but I don't know that it is. I don't know that it's kind of, you know, the sky is falling. I don't. I don't. I think I'm gonna. I'm gonna be measured on my reaction with the ARCA series. I feel like with the ARCA series, I think the same approach and trying to find the same solution that would make the Trux, Xfinity and cup racing better would also fix a lot of the problems in the ARCA series. The ARCA series has a lot of very inexperienced racers. There's not a lot of places you can go to get that kind of experience that you're going to need to race at Daytona and Talladega. But the ARCA series will have and has had for its existence lots of inexperienced racers. And that's okay. But with the way that the cars operate and engage with each other on the track, with the drag and the. And the limited horsepower and the restricted plates and all of the things. Things, it's that common. The common thread for me is we've added a ton of drag to every class. ARCA truck, Xfinity, cup, we choke the motors down. And the delta or the gap between what a car will run or truck by itself versus what it runs in the draft has grown. And that's the problem to me, when I look at it. The issue that I have with the current product at Daytona and Talladega and Atlanta is that all of the series, no matter what series, arca, truck, Sixfinity, or cup, they all suffer from this. We have. We have choked everything down and put so much drag on the bodies that they can't get away from each other. A good car can't Drive away from a bad car. An experienced driver can't distance himself from a guy or a girl who doesn't have the experience. And there's not so years ago you'd bring a car down and pick any class. I'm gonna call them classes. Pick any type of racing. You bring a car down there and if you were fast, you drove away from the slow guys, you know, you break the draft and you know they're inexperienced and their car's inability to perform would separate the field. And we don't have that anymore. And so now the cars are so draggy and the engines are so stifled that everybody's all over the top of each other. And that just leads to some of the silliest, silliest crashes that are just so unnecessary. So unnecessary. And so. And it. This has been going on for a long time, over a decade. And I was mad about it 10, 15 years ago. You know the things that I hear Denny saying today? Those were my post race comments after Talladega, after daytona, back in 2012, 13, 14, 15.
- [37:58]
Mike Davis
So Denny said that ARCA should not race at Daytona. What do you guys think?
- [38:01]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I disagree. I just believe that let's not. That's a bit. That's probably unnecessary to go to that length. I believe that all of the classes they got. We need to reimagine the entire way we approach restricted plate racing. I call it restricted plate racing even though we don't run restricted plates anymore. But I just can't say the word draft track or what the ever People are referring to this stupid. So it annoys the. I mean, that's a whole nother argument. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. Yeah, but Atlanta, Atlanta will soon not, you know, Atlanta will soon be out of this conversation because the.
- [38:45]
T.J. Majors
It's getting there.
- [38:46]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It's getting there. The surface is aging. But we got what we need to do. The. What we need to do. This is. It's really simple and it's not hard. We don't need to blow it up. We don't have to blow it up. It's fine. Okay. We just need to get in a room and reimagine the drag to power ratio, how the cars react to each other and around each other. And we do, you know, need to figure out a way to allow the car. We got to change the drag to power ratio to where the delta between what a car can do by itself on the racetrack versus in the pack isn't such a Big range. What do the cars race when they go out and qualify by themselves? Right. They run several miles per hour slower, really slow as opposed to when they're in the draft. What happens is now, so when you take that car and you do put it in the draft you can't get out of line unless you know you've got a lot of help because the car has so much drag it's just going to fall on its face. And so that is, that is, that is the core of the problem. That is the core of the issue that I have with the way the cars race at Daytona and Talladega. We have slowed them down to try to keep them from flipping up into the air and they have a ton of dragons with the spoilers and the way the bodies are and the motors don't have any, don't have enough power and basically the motors probably, you know, they want to run the same engine everywhere. They don't want to run a special motor for Tallading and Daytona. They want to, they want to cost wise they want to take, you know, have this sort of same blanket package across the entire series. And so now the cars have an enormous amount of drag on them and they don't run very fast by themselves and they can't get away from each other with all of that drag that they create. I believe we need to reimagine the way that we're doing this. All the series suffer from this. And listen, it may mean that we'll see less three wide racing. It may mean that we'll see less two by two by two by two by two by two all the way through the field. But I think it might end up taking away the fuel issue that we have which we have to fix that we have to get away from fuel saving. God dang.
- [41:33]
Mike Davis
Well TJ I mean you mentioned, I think you put a Note we're running 3 wide but what percent throttle was Brad at when it was 3 wide?
- [41:40]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
0 to 60.
- [41:41]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, we were way, we were less than the leaders. Leaders were 65ish. We were probably the League 10 less than that.
- [41:47]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The lead cars are out front running 60% throttle. The rest of the field, everybody further on back, less and less throttle.
- [41:53]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [41:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That's crazy.
- [41:54]
Mike Davis
It's like fooling. The new fans are tuning in for Daytona.
- [41:58]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I, I don't like to, I don't want to say that while the race is happening because I don't want to ruin that fans experience. You don't want them to know too much but we can. But on a Monday or Tuesday, we can sit here and tell you the field spent 450 miles of that race riding at half throttle on purpose to save fuel. There was not one. You know, there was very minimal. Hey, man, I'm gonna drive up through here and try to get the lead.
- [42:29]
T.J. Majors
You know, and it was almost impossible to do.
- [42:32]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. Once they're three wide, there's nowhere you can go. You don't want to be the. That's the only one out there driving up through the middle of the pack, making it 4 wide. We have to fix this. We cannot smile and go, hey, man, everything's fine. We got to fix it. So. But the good news is, I don't believe it's a very big problem to fix. Now, in arca, for example, there's probably a great disparity between speeds from the good cars to the cars that are in the back of the pack. So getting those cars to where they could separate from each other. And a guy with a good car, that's a good driver can get away from this. This crazy person back here that doesn't have a lot of experience, he can do that. Right.
- [43:20]
T.J. Majors
As we get close to.
- [43:22]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
As we get into the trucks and further up, it's harder, right, to create that disparity because literally all of the cup cars are identical. And the only thing really different between each car is a couple of horsepower, really. And so, you know, it'll be a tougher challenge, I think, to try to figure out how to get the cup cars to. To change the way that they. They run these races. But I think it's. I think it's there. I think it's. I think it's. I think it's achievable. I don't think that it would take a ton of real hard work. I don't think you've got it, you know, totally reinvent the car. I think whatever approach we take is a math problem between drag and power. And I think that you can apply. Once you kind of understand what you're trying to do and what needs to happen, you can apply that same idea to each class and get a similar result. So, for. This is not a man. It was better back in the old days. This is just a statement, I believe, from at least the 60s all the way up until the restrictor plate came into play in the mid-90s. Right. Or the early 90s. I think the plate came in 89, 90. From that. From the. From the early, early, early days all the way up until the plate came. That's a that's a broad 40 years of racing. Different motors, different cars, different drag, different arrow, different downforce all throughout that 40 years. But the cars always kind of reacted the same. They would, they would be able to separate two or three, four cars were smart and drafted really hard. They could break away from the pack. If somebody, you know, if the pack got smart and got in line, they could chase them back down. And then there was the slingshot move that existed in multiple different variations. And generations of the cup vehicle cars would be able to get these runs down the back straightaway and one by themselves, even slingshot past the leader. And when you have the ability to know if I back up in one and two and get that run off of two and go down the back straightaway and I'm going to pass the leader at any moment, if you knew you could do that, don't you. You would. You would drive and race this car completely different. But now you can't, because if you pull out, you're going to fall on your face because Your car is 20 mile an hour slower by itself. So if it gets out of line, it's just going to tank unless three or four or five other people go with you. And so we need to understand why the cars were able to do that for 40 years. And when we changed the restrictor plate, it started to evolve in this new direction that we, you know, we are where we are. We need to untie some of that. I think it's possible. I do think it's. It's achievable. And that would take some old track testing, but also a lot of, you know, smart engineer minds in a room, you know, with maybe some aero models and stuff like that, it would take some effort and some money, but I think it's. I think we have to get away from what we're doing. I think that NASCAR should take some action on this. I think they need to take it seriously and try to. Try to find some, some try to find some new direction, reimagine kind of what this looks like. And it needs to be a blanket. Like it needs to try to be achievable in trucks, Xfinity cup, even the arca, the, The. We've got to allow these people to get away from each other. And for the good cars and fast cars to separate themselves, we.
- [47:18]
Mike Davis
We'd allow to see the drivers use their skills too. Right, tj like they could do better.
- [47:22]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. That.
- [47:23]
Mike Davis
Do more.
- [47:23]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [47:23]
T.J. Majors
I know I posted in our group there, but that's the thing that I saw the most. The only time. Well, the only thing. Time I saw it was at the end of the stage that got ended by a yellow, was, you know, Joey was leading, Brad was second, Blaney was third. And these guys there. There was actually movement. You know, there was actually head games going on. There was what. Who's going to make what move first, and, and things like that. But other, you know, other than that, I mean, like, from what I'm used to back in the day, you don't see. You don't see any of that anymore. And these. And it's. It's. It's. I don't. I miss it because we could see the guys with the craft that could do it and seeing their moves they make and. And it was an art, man. It was like you wanted people learn how to do it. Now it's. Now it's just a free for all. I could get a run from 15th and maybe have a shot at winning the last lap, and it just shouldn't be like that.
- [48:13]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, it is. It is kind of frustrating. And it's been a process that's been brewing over the last probably 15 to 20 years, and I think it's as extreme as it's been in terms of how frustrating it is to watch these cars go around the track and, you know, the trucks. The trucks were okay. I just. I wish that. I wish you just weren't right on somebody's. You know, I think the reason why. I mean, obviously the reason why there's so many crashes is because they're pushing all the time, right? Everybody's pushing all the time. Every series, all of them just push out of each other. Used to not be able to do that. Used to. Had to create runs.
- [49:00]
T.J. Majors
A push was getting just there and letting go.
- [49:02]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You used to be able to. Used to have to create the run and catch that guy by surprise and, you know, but the run would be so significant. You could make it go, go, you know, go for a half a lap or a lap and a half or whatever. And, man, now the cars are so draggy and, and so slow by themselves that you just. You're right on everybody's bumper and somebody's on your bumper, and as you get.
- [49:28]
T.J. Majors
Clear, you got to protect right away.
- [49:30]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And to go anywhere, you got to push somebody somewhere, and that's creating a lot of crashes. And we just got to totally look at this a. No, totally different way and try to figure out how to. How to get some of that drag out of the cars to where they run differently by themselves. And then they'll react and work differently with each other.
- [49:52]
T.J. Majors
And handling, too.
- [49:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Handling has to be important. Yep. There's so much drag and downforce, the cars barely have real balance problems.
- [50:03]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. You know, the end of that run I was talking about, that was the only run of the race that I saw handling issues out of four.
- [50:09]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And man, in Daytona in 2004 or five, we were lifting in the duel. Yeah, I remember, because the cars were so tight, man, I. We would go down into turn one by up to the wall, because if you. If you ran wide open, you knocked a damn wall down and everybody was plowing. And here comes Jamie mcmurray around the bottom, past all of us just turning, turning real good and nice. His car is just turning better than everybody else's. And he drove past us and nothing we could do about it. Sitting there running third or fourth like. Like, I'm tight. And you're like, you know, you get out of the car and you're like, totally junior. We got to work on the freaking rear springs. We got to do something to get this thing turned. So you know what that meant. I was going to practice my ass off tomorrow because we're going to change the rear springs. We're going to try to put a rubber in the right rear, and we got to get out there and get 30 laps on these tires and get in a pack and try this out in practice. So you saw people practicing because they had to work on their cars.
- [51:11]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [51:13]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That was another thing that I wrote in here. And I know a lot of people will probably disagree with this. If you bring handling back and you make the cars handle, there ain't no way you're pushing nobody around the racetrack because you know they're gonna bust their ass or you're gonna bust your ass. So if we could figure out how to. When you take the drag away and take some of the. Take some of the grip that the arrow creates, you're gonna. You're gonna have some handling issues. It's not a tire thing. We had some rock hard tires down there. When we ran that pink car. Remember that pink car that I broke the draft with in xfinity race? Oh, drove away hard ass race tire sideways. Car was frickin sideways. All of the rest of the field was plowing tight and they had to lift. And I was sideways running the wall in one and two, wide ass open. And that's how we drove away. And so I know that every. I'm not trying to recreate that kind of a race, but I'm just saying handling can be problematic even with a very hard tire like you're going to run at Daytona and Talladega. So it ain't a tire issue, but if they can figure out a way to get the handling to be an issue or a problem, you're absolutely going to see the field disperse and separate somewhat between good handling cars and bad handling cars over the course of a 15, 20 lap run, you know, and then. Then guys ain't gonna be saving gas anymore. They're gonna be trying to keep up.
- [52:37]
T.J. Majors
And the driver comes into play a lot more. Yeah, I mean, I like. I'm all for the driver coming into play a lot more.
- [52:44]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So with. With that, I think more, you know, you're gonna have to have a little bit more practice. Guys are gonna want more practice to be working on the balance of their cars. We have quite a bit of practice right now.
- [52:55]
Mike Davis
None of them want it.
- [52:56]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
None of them want it. They'll want that when their cars don't drive good when they go out there. The reason why they don't want practice right now is because their cars aren't hard to drive. They're very easy to drive, and so it's boring for them to practice.
- [53:08]
Mike Davis
And you can't make many changes.
- [53:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I don't think.
- [53:10]
T.J. Majors
I didn't. Practice is bad.
- [53:11]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
They can't make the cars better. So you're right. Yeah. Why do I want to do this? You're dragging my ass out here to stand in this garage for nothing. But if you get. If I was worried about my car and how it drove, my ass would be there trying to practice, and so I'd be asking for practice. I can fix that. I can fix what the drivers are saying by making their cars drive bad. They'll be begging practice. We definitely need to take this seriously, I think, as an industry, and try to reimagine not. We don't need. If they. We don't need to be like, oh, let's just shorten the spoiler. That'll do it. Or none of this little tiny. Let's look at this from a whole new angle. Let's don't change anything. Let's move forward how we are, but let's go into a room and try to reimagine how we could do this an entirely new way in terms of let's take. Let's turn the drag upside down. Let's completely reimagine the way the drag is on the cars and find other ways to get the overall speed in the pack where they want it. Because there's a number that they want and they don't want to exceed because of dangers and insurance and so forth. So let's figure out another way to get to that number but also close that delta between how the cars run by themselves and I bet you we'll have a whole different, whole different race. The way the teams approach it and everything else.
- [54:33]
Mike Davis
If we stay with where we're at and how the past few Daytona five hundreds run. Do you think it's losing some of its mystique?
- [54:39]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'm not going to worry about that because I think we can fix it if we take this issue seriously and really go after trying to make it different and improve it. Let's not add a stage or do anything trying. You know, let's not shorten, make, put a few smaller fuel cell in there. Those are, those are, those are band aids. Yeah, those are band aids. Let's not add gimmicks. Let's not do, let's not. That is not a long term solution. That is not a long term solution. Those are, those are things that'll get somebody back tomorrow, but they won't stay. We've got to reimagine how to do this from the very basics and, and see if we can't have an entirely different product. And that may take a while, that may take a year.
- [55:24]
T.J. Majors
What do you think the fan base would do if we had a race where it got strung out a little bit and guys had a hard time getting runs, you know? You know what I mean? Like had to fight their cars because when you fight your cars you don't have that three wide as much, but you do have, you have a lot of times. It does create passing though, and it creates. Like you said, you got to the good. The cream rises to the top at that point.
- [55:45]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I don't think that you're ever going to be able to eliminate, you know, cars locked in a draft. You know, if I go back and watch races at Daytona for as long as I can remember, at least as long as I've been alive, when you put the 15 top, top 15 cars in the Daytona 500 on new tires, on a restart, they all stay, they all stayed in a pretty tight draf and swap the lead multiple times over the next course of the next several laps. I mean you don't, you're not looking to eliminate any of that. But you do need to. They are, they, the way we have it now, they are just way, way too choked down and all freaking over the top of each other. It's not even fun to watch. I don't enjoy. I'm. It is frustrating for me to sit there on that pit box and watch that Daytona 500 go. Watch them go around three wide. Here they come again. Yep, here they come again. And there's just nothing happening. And I don't know what I'm waiting for. Right. I know there's going to be a damn wreck at the end. Will we get through it? There ain't going to be nothing that we do uniquely to ourselves that and.
- [56:59]
T.J. Majors
The wrecks happening because everyone's so close and so close. Got in pushing because they can't get away from each other.
- [57:04]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [57:05]
T.J. Majors
So I knew when they got pushed out off a two, when Denny pushed. I think he pushed the two out. I was telling Brad, I'm like. And we weren't even in that. But I was telling Brad that like, hey, one of their way out here, like, this is again, bend of the back stretch. This is gonna happen. Like, it's not. It's not stoppable.
- [57:20]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You know, I don't. I know this is a lot of bitching and whining. I. And listen, I think. I think I'm very positive on nascar and I love this sport and I'm thankful that we had the experience that we did in Daytona. But I mean, this isn't a new opinion about the way the cars race at Daytona Talladega for me. I mean, this, like I said, I've been. I've been a bit critical around how drafting and plate racing has been going since probably around 15 or 14. Kind of. Yeah. Back around then.
- [57:54]
T.J. Majors
So 14, I thought was pretty good still because you had a bubble, you could control things like the 514. We were able to control kind of what we needed to control. Sometimes runs happen, you couldn't stop. But it took two, three guys working really hard together. Yeah, but at the end of the race when you're leading, it's almost. We wanted to be leading because they started racing so hard behind you.
- [58:12]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oddly, man, when I got out of it, it has changed since then to something that's unrecognizable to me. And so, I mean, hell, I could get out there and ride around 20% throttle in the back of that pack. And yeah, hey, I'm in the Daytona 500.
- [58:28]
T.J. Majors
So the stat we had before the founder Cody, where Cody Ware's average finish for the last handful of players was 10.5.
- [58:34]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [58:34]
T.J. Majors
Because he just smart. He.
- [58:35]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Well, I like. I mean, that's a great approach. He knows it is Playing the game.
- [58:39]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [58:39]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You know, and that's what we did. We just, we just were like, hey, there's no reason for us to race right up. Everybody's asked for, you know, 450 miles for no reason. There's no reason. They're all strategy. 30, you know, or 70% of these people are going to wreck. If we can dodge most of that. Yeah, that's. No, but that's. No, that's not how I want to go race. No, that's how you have to go race.
- [59:01]
T.J. Majors
It'd be. I mean, I wish that's not how.
- [59:04]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I want to go.
- [59:05]
T.J. Majors
I wish it was. Let's get the car driving good and drive through the field. Naturally.
- [59:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That, that was the other thing too, man. Now we're going to Atlanta, which this track can't change fast enough because basically we're going to go to Atlanta and are we doing the same thing all over again? Are you going to Atlanta and are you saving fuel and doing all those things kind of the same way?
- [59:25]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't see how. You don't.
- [59:28]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. I don't know, man. You tell me.
- [59:30]
T.J. Majors
Well, I mean, if you're going to, you got to minimize the stop, the stop time and the only way to do that, save fuel. So I imagine there's going to be some team cars that get up front, control the pace. Atlanta is a little bit more of a handling track. There's going to be a little bit more of it.
- [59:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So every time we've gone back, it's, it's reared it's head a little more.
- [59:47]
T.J. Majors
Each time and I'm looking forward to that because I want to see guys go to the corner into three and be like, I got a lift here, man. I hope he does too. You know what I mean? Like, that creates opportunity.
- [59:56]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So if I was, if I was Atlanta and who and NASCAR and whoever makes the decisions on competition, man, I would, I would be looking for the very first opportunity to distance the package that we run there from what we run at Daytona, Talladega and, and I know we kind of do some, I'm sure, but I guess what I mean is not so much the package or the, the specific parts and pieces, but the style of racing. Like I would, we've kind of, you know, when we went to Atlanta we had to kind of govern. Drag the cars and yeah, keep the speeds down. But man, at the first sign of being able to open these things up, man, I would, I would start to doing it because I would start to pull the rear Spoiler off the cars. Little by little as this thing ages, as the track surface starts to lose grip, I would start to take some of that drag out of the car.
- [60:46]
T.J. Majors
Gonna have their hands full.
- [60:47]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. I mean, dude, this thing is going to be amazing.
- [60:51]
T.J. Majors
I.
- [60:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Once it gets the age on it and you got them, they're driving off in there and they're backing in the catching it. Holy moly.
- [60:58]
T.J. Majors
We haven't seen a cup car back it in.
- [61:00]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, man.
- [61:01]
T.J. Majors
In a long time. Like. And I do think anytime the drivers. The more the drivers kind of complain about the handling of the car, usually the better the race in my. I mean, because they're driving it.
- [61:11]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
But if this race is going to be the second race coming right off of what we see at Daytona, we. I don't want to do two weeks of this. Let's talk about the end of the race. I guess. I mean, I don't. What do you want to. What can we say but what do.
- [61:25]
Mike Davis
You make of Cole Custer there? Because it looked like he could have gone, made it 3 wide and had a push from Byron instead does what he did.
- [61:32]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [61:33]
T.J. Majors
I mean you could line these things up and do it all again and they're all going to make different decisions.
- [61:38]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [61:38]
T.J. Majors
I can tell you that right now. I've watched so much restart film and tried to figure out what guys are going to do. And we had a wreck in the beginning of the. Or near the beginning of Daytona 500 with. In the outside lane at stack that till end of the race. The outside lane rolled. So which lane? You know what I mean? We chose the bottom.
- [61:54]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [61:55]
T.J. Majors
And the outside lane. We chose the top. It stacks. I mean, you just never know.
- [61:58]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No.
- [61:58]
Mike Davis
But I don't think Cedric and Denny are going to really make anything different. It would be Cole right.
- [62:04]
T.J. Majors
To me on the back stretch. I question when Briscoe is pushing. Briscoe is pushing him. Right.
- [62:09]
Mike Davis
He was about to. He was getting ready to push Denny and that's when Cole.
- [62:12]
T.J. Majors
But Briscoe left. Left the 41 to go get Denny.
- [62:16]
Mike Davis
Correct.
- [62:16]
T.J. Majors
And I don't. I'm not sure I understood that because he left momentum to go with no momentum, in my opinion.
- [62:21]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Well, he's.
- [62:22]
T.J. Majors
And I get it.
- [62:23]
Mike Davis
I get it.
- [62:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [62:25]
T.J. Majors
But if that's me and I'm. And I'm pushing you and we got momentum. I'm sticking. I'm trying to get you clear and clear so I can make a move my big one.
- [62:35]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
If you say what's your biggest regret at Daytona? I'm sure I've got many, but there's one specific one. We had a late restart, and I think this was 16 or so. Might have been 15, I'm not sure. But Jimmy's leading, and I'm running second, and I had a. We had a restart, and I had. I had enough momentum to get beside Jimmy or do something with the speed I had, and I chose to push him, and 22 jumped on my right rear quarter panel, and I was like, what the hell am I doing?
- [63:10]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [63:11]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And so, you know, I think that what I say that because the manufacturer loyalty and the teammate loyalty is. It's tough, man. And has taken. It is. Look, if I'm a car owner, gosh, I want my teammates to work together. I do.
- [63:38]
T.J. Majors
Oh, for sure.
- [63:39]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. And if I'm. If I owned Chevrolet, I would be like, yeah, I expect all the Chevrolet guys to help each other. Why wouldn't they? You know? But as a fan, I'm like, golly, man, I remember when these guys didn't give a. What car they were driving or who you're pushing, who you're pushing. And, dude, they just work together. Like, me and Stuart weren't teammates, and I worked with him there for about two or three years more than anybody, and we were great with it. Nobody complained. No manufacture. Manufacturer didn't complain. I don't know. He might have even been in a damn Pontiac at that time. I think he was driving a Chevy, but, you know, it didn't matter.
- [64:17]
T.J. Majors
That didn't matter. Yeah. And that's the way I look at it. So if I'm pushing you off a two, I'm. I'm trying. I'm trying to put myself in the best position we can still. And I. I want.
- [64:27]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I would. So there's. So me and maybe Denny and some other people, like, we could come off that corner, push whoever the hell we want, and when the race is over, we can look at our owner and go, look, man, I made the decision I needed to make, and. And I'm. I'm. You know, we're gonna have to. We got to figure out a way to live with this, you know? But there's some drivers that aren't in that position. They're under. They're not able to. They're not able to have that kind of leverage. And they've got them jobs, and they're. You know, they're fearing for their job security. Right. And so they're trying to do the decision that they think they need to do to keep that job.
- [65:13]
T.J. Majors
You know, how the difference you can Hear it in Joey's and Ricky's interviews.
- [65:17]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [65:17]
T.J. Majors
Because they're not worried about that. One of them said, I saw an opportunity to put myself in a better position to win, and that's what that. That's what they did.
- [65:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. So that's how you got to race these races. And I'm sure that's what I would tell every driver, regardless of your situation with your owner or whatever is. Look, man, you got to be selfish and, like, you can go around helping everybody and being this great guy and being a good teammate and all that, but you're not going to be standing in victory lane as often as your teammates.
- [65:44]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [65:45]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And, you know, nobody's going to remember all them favors. You freaking.
- [65:48]
T.J. Majors
There's a time to help your teammates, for sure. There's times for that. But if you want to stay in a victory lane, what is the true.
- [65:54]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Reward for that, though? I mean, being a good teammate in those scenarios. Like, I think being a great teammate is. Hey, man, I heard you say something in the competition meeting about your car. I did this to my car or I changed this about my driving style or the next gen car. I had to do this differently. That's being a good teammate. I. I want to let you respond here, T.J. all of the things that anybody's ever done for me on the racetrack, they. They were great. I appreciate them. But there's no. There's no reward for that down the road.
- [66:30]
T.J. Majors
No. I think good teammate is during the race, at points like that, you help each other. When you can, you help. You help at that point. But the end of the race. Right. There's no reward. You just sit there and think about the rest of your life.
- [66:40]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I know.
- [66:41]
T.J. Majors
And should I have done that differently?
- [66:42]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 years down the road, are you getting any kind of benefit from that decision you made on the racetrack? Being a good teammate?
- [66:49]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. At the end of the race for a win. Yeah.
- [66:51]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No, but I mean, you getting anything in the mail from that manufacturer that you were good to two years down.
- [66:57]
Mike Davis
The road, is Joe Gibbs gonna say, we're gonna renew your contract because on your first race, you let you help Denny get.
- [67:02]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You've always been such a great teammate on the restrictor.
- [67:05]
T.J. Majors
I do think that. I do think that being good teammates and helping each other on track does make those meetings more productive as far as, like, you want to work with each other more on that. Because if you don't work with each other on the track, well. And your enemies, you're not going to work in the meetings together very well.
- [67:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I don't know, man. You know, some of that also can be motivating. Sure. You could drive each other to perform. I've seen teams that, you know, teammates don't have to be best friends. And now that they can still be successful, look at like Joey and Brad weren't. Didn't always see eye to eye when they were at Penske together, but they, they competed hard because they want. They were one. They wanted to be the A guy.
- [67:44]
T.J. Majors
It definitely pushed both of them harder.
- [67:46]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I struggle with that. I talked to my. I told my guys, listen. Now, I know at jrm, we've got a, you know, we've got a good track record at Daytona, but we also got some dad. Bad days, man, we wrecked out each other. This is the way I feel about that. If I was a cup teammate, I probably. Or cup owner, I'd. I'd say the same thing. My approach to it is this, Take care of each other when you can, but at the end of the day, you're a driver. You've got a crew chief and a team. You've got partners, sponsors. Your car's got logos all over it. All those people want to win this race. So I want you at some point to decide. I'm in this for me. I want, I expect you to race selfishly. I don't, you know, you don't wreck your teammates and race to win. You know, there's a, you know, for the majority of that race, you're going to try to be smart and you're going to try to help your teammates when it works out for you. And I saw, I told them too, I said, never help your teammate if you know it's going to be bad for you. It is such a tough balance. But if you have, you know, if you have multiple cars and they're all good, they're all going to race against each other and around each other, and sometimes they're going to run into each other. It's inevitable. And nothing, it ain't. It ain't always going to go perfectly. But I kind of like to let the guys try to. I said, look, man, can you. Can you go out there on that track and be selfish and try to win this race, but then also walk into this shop on Monday and stare, look everybody in the eye and feel good about what you chose to do? If you can, then that's all good. We'll talk about it. Hey, and if you don't make the right choice, we'll talk about how to make that right choice, the next race, the next time we go to Daytona or Talladega. But I. It's my belief for a driver to be successful at Daytona, Talladega, they have to be mostly selfish and very egotistical. And so that's what I think. I tell.
- [69:50]
T.J. Majors
And that's how Austin Hill.
- [69:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [69:52]
T.J. Majors
He likes to lead every lap.
- [69:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, he does. And he.
- [69:55]
T.J. Majors
And he wins a lot.
- [69:56]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. And he not. This ain't a knock. This ain't a knock. And he's not always looking to be helping people. He's. He's like, hey, man, I'm gonna use you. I'm not helping you. I'm using your ass because I'm old. I'm gonna use your car and your draft to do this and then make this move. And bam, bam, bam. I'm leading the race. And his. Listen, Austin Hill, the way he's got a really, really good race car, but the way he races so for himself is. Is that. Is the, that's the code.
- [70:30]
T.J. Majors
He's figured it out.
- [70:31]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
He has. That's the code. It watched how decisive he is, and he's like, hey, man, sorry, I got a great run. I'm. I'm going. I'm all, you know, I'm going by. There was a couple of moments there he was running third in that race this weekend.
- [70:48]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. I was just thinking about it.
- [70:49]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And he pulled out, got the draft off of the guy in the outside lane, pushed that guy to lead and then dove under him.
- [70:55]
T.J. Majors
And then he's leading to take the.
- [70:57]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Lead and it's like, sorry.
- [70:58]
T.J. Majors
And he's controlling the race. And he's doing things up front in that race, too, to keep everybody behind him racing and jumbled up so he doesn't have to really.
- [71:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
He's not blocking.
- [71:07]
T.J. Majors
No. He's just. He's manipulating things behind him purposely, though.
- [71:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That was the other thing too, man, is I told my guys, and this is what. This is some of our problem, I think it's. It's a problem across the board in our, in our, in our sport is the blocking. So I go to where I was mentally in Talladega, I think in 2007 or six or so when we got wrecked by Vickers down the back straightaway with Jimmy. So I'm leading the race, and I think we're, you know, we get the white flag, we go off into turn one and two, and we've been running the top of the racetrack, and I've been pretty happy with the speed and the distance and the bubble and everything that I got to the. But I see them, they're putting a run together. I know it's coming. So we come off of turn two. I'm leading the race and I know that the run is coming. I feel like that the code and the etiquette for me as the lead car to defend this run, I get to move one lane. It is against code to block the entire racetrack. I'm going to move down or up whichever way I feel like I want to go to block you. But I'm going to go one lane, you know, give or take a few feet. But I'm not coming all the way down the track trying to drive you into the grass. If I block you and you still get, you know, you still carry that momentum, I'm going to give you some race track and I still got a mile and a half to go to try to figure out how to get my ass saved or get some help or side draft a second place car and figure out a way to get another run on the leader. So what we got now is guys, when that big run comes off of two, they block the whole damn track. They drive down right in front of the car that's coming 6, 8, 9, 10, mile an hour faster than them. And they don't give that guy, that guy's got got to keep going. He's got a whole damn slew of cars behind him.
- [73:12]
T.J. Majors
There's a train.
- [73:12]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
They're driving through you. They are. And so I think you know my mind and I tell my drivers this. When we were racing Sunday, I was like, if you go, if you're leaving that race late and you're gonna be blocking, you get one lane. Don't drive them people into the wall or down into the apron and get yourself turned around. Learn to live through the rest of the lap and give yourself a chance off turn forward. Coming to the finish line to try to win it. Perfect example of this would be Denny Hamlin, the wreck with Newman where, yeah.
- [73:51]
T.J. Majors
He let him go.
- [73:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Denny's leading off of two. There's a little clip on social media about this where Latarte describes everything. It's really well. Denny's leading the race for the Daytona 500. Coming off a turn two white flag lap the six and the 12. Got a big run. Denny knows it. Denny probably moved down a half a car, maybe a lane, maybe nothing. But he knows they're coming and there's nothing he can do about it. And his decision wasn't to try to block them and have them wreck the out of each Other, and maybe he gets lucky and doesn't crash. His decision was to let them go by. And he gets in behind the 12 and locks onto the 12 into turn three and then pushes the 12 into a run on the six. And when the six, you know, tries to throw that block that he throws late in the race, him and the 12 get together and Denny wins the race. So that's the way you've got to run these deals.
- [74:46]
T.J. Majors
Two of his five hundreds were similar to that.
- [74:48]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. And so Denny made the decision on the back straightaway. That gives him the chance to win that race. And so that's kind of the mentality that we need to have on these final few laps. It's like, look, man, I can't throw this block right here. This is going to kill us. This is going to crash us all. And so let me. I can be somewhat aggressive with my move. I can try to put myself in front of somebody and force them to push me. But if that guy's coming 6, 8, 9, 10 mile an hour faster than you, you gotta let that go. You're lost. You have lost in that moment. You've gotta recognize that that is a bad decision and that you need to let that line have the track. And so because you don't know what might happen in the next mile before the finish line that could help you, you know, regroup and fight back. You got to give yourself the chance to do that. And that's what Denny did. Perfect example. Every die hard sports fan has a collection of memorabilia reflecting their fandom. This season on the Dale Jr. Download, we are on the search for the ultimate racing collector presented by Lionel Racing, the official die cast of nascar. We're looking for the most legendary NASCAR collectors collections. So whether it's die casts, sheet metal trophies, shirts, or a mix of everything, we want to see it. Each month collectors will have the opportunity to submit photos and videos through DirtyMomedia social posts for a chance to be selected and recognized. During an episode of the Dale Jr. Download. I was a little bit nervous about getting Justin's die cast before the 500 until he made it into the race. And once he got in, it was a must have for me. The first post goes out Wednesday on February 19, so get your photos and videos in. Follow dirtymomedia on Facebook and X so that you don't miss your chance to be named the ultimate racing collector. All right, we're on the Dell junior Download and we've got William Byron on the line. William, how you doing, buddy?
- [76:59]
D
I'm good, man. Thanks for having me. I'm in New York, just really around.
- [77:05]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Doing a few things. Gosh. What's on the. What's. What's the plan today?
- [77:10]
D
We. Well, we started in some. A morning show, Kelly and Mark, and then we're just doing. We did the Empire State Building. I think now we're going to. Where are we going next? New York Post.
- [77:20]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right. New York. Cruising around. When do you. When are you done?
- [77:24]
D
What I get done around five.
- [77:27]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And you're going home?
- [77:28]
D
Yeah, I'm going home tonight.
- [77:30]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So what'd you do last night?
- [77:32]
D
Last night we went to Monday Night Raw. That was pretty fun.
- [77:35]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Where was that?
- [77:36]
D
That was in Charlotte. So we kind of came back for a couple really just like five hours and did that, and that was fun. Got a little happen.
- [77:44]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What happened on Monday Night Raw? I missed it.
- [77:47]
D
I. I couldn't tell you, man. I. I think it was. There was a lot of fighting going on.
- [77:54]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You drove the car into the parking deck or the loading dock. You and a wrestler jumped out. You had the belt.
- [78:03]
D
Yeah, that was awesome. Me and aj. Yeah, me and aj. That. He was a cool guy. Yeah. He ended up winning his fight, so that was. That was fun.
- [78:12]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Well, it was cool to see you, man, already. You know, it's really cool that NASCAR, you know, takes the Daytona 500 winner and puts them in. In these sort of positions to be able to showcase that it's an important thing. And I'm thankful you're out there representing the sport the way you are over the last 24 or 48 hours. But I text you congratulations, and you said, and text back to me. I wasn't sure how to feel about that for a minute, and then it finally started to sink in. Expand on that for me.
- [78:45]
D
Yeah, I mean, that was me and Rudy both, like, we, like, we put ourselves in that position, but just the way that the. The way that it unfolded and coming out the other side was crazy. I mean, I haven't had a race win like that before, so I think that in the moment, it was hard to process, but a win is a win, and you never apologize for winning a race. So I think that, you know, that. That, to me, is what sunk in after the fact was like, you know, it's. This is awesome. You know, I'm going to celebrate this with my guys and. And really think about all the hard work that they put in and they, you know, they just. They want to win. And so, yeah, it was awesome after the fact. It was amazing. Just in the moment, in those, you know, 30 seconds after I took the flag, I didn't really. I was having a hard time processing it.
- [79:33]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, I bet. So once this all settles in, what's the, you know, I. There was a 10 year gap between my two wins, so I had a long time of like wanting to win another one and man, it was amazing feeling to finally get back there and you didn't know if you were ever going to, but you're doing it back to back. Not many people have done that. What is that feeling like?
- [79:56]
D
Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I think sets in the fact that you've got to really take in this moment. And if I knew, I told myself after last year, if I ever had a chance to win it again, I would really, I would really make sure that I was present in everything I was doing. So that's just what I've been trying to do and really get a chance to be in the garage after the race with the team, see the car. All that stuff was really special. And then obviously these last, you know, 24 hours have been amazing. So, yeah, to your point, I think that you got to make sure you enjoy it because we'd love to be back here next year and hopefully we are. But yeah, it's special.
- [80:37]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
One last thing I want to ask you before I let you go, man, is I'm seeing a bit of a change in you. I mean, it's nothing unusual. I think you're just growing up, but there seem, you know, you each, over the past probably two or three years, you have, you have evolved, I think, and matured as a driver. And I wonder if you feel that and if you feel like you're really starting to kind of, I guess, peak in terms of not only being where you want to be on the track, but off the track as well, mentally and personally.
- [81:09]
D
Yeah, I do. It's taken a lot of work and I feel like just getting comfortable with myself at the racetrack and who I want to be. And also you can't stop working on yourself off the track. Even though you are a race car driver, that's not the only thing you are. So just trying to always work on that process. This offseason was a big, big one for me, just in being able to travel a bunch and see a lot of different things and really, really unplug. So, yeah, it's a never ending process, but I feel really comfortable at the racetrack now, so that's a great thing.
- [81:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Right on, man. Well, I think it's going to turn into a good year for you. You've had a couple over the last couple of years. But I think you're wanting to get closer and closer to trying to secure that championship that you're seeking. And I feel like you're doing all the right work to get there and hopefully the cars and Rudy and the team will have everything where it needs to be to allow you to go out there and do what you need to do. Man. Thanks for giving us some time today. Know you're busy. Have fun in New York and we'll see you when you get back.
- [82:08]
D
Yeah, man, I appreciate it.
- [82:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So that's pretty cool to talk to William. There was some notes in our team here at Dirtymoo Media wanted us to ask William what he thought about the racing at Daytona and what we thought about the changes should be made and if people thought, you know, what he thought about his win. People saying it was lucky. Did you want to ask him that? I didn't.
- [82:32]
T.J. Majors
I would not want to ask him that. I don't want to rain on his parade.
- [82:36]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I wanted to ask him, dudes in damn New York celebrating the Daytona.
- [82:39]
Mike Davis
But I want him to say no, I'm not.
- [82:42]
T.J. Majors
I don't know if he. I don't.
- [82:44]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I, of course, I of course want him to say that. But I'm not going to be the guy that asks him that. I'm his buddy.
- [82:50]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. I mean at the end of the.
- [82:51]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Day and I don't care what anybody thinks about that.
- [82:53]
T.J. Majors
I mean, I wouldn't want somebody to ask me that if I just won the 500 like that.
- [82:57]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Hey man, I'm dealing. Imagine.
- [82:59]
Mike Davis
So should I change it to. Do you want to respond to people and give him the platform?
- [83:04]
T.J. Majors
No, I wouldn't even. I just celebrate it, man. Like.
- [83:08]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right. No, no, no.
- [83:09]
Mike Davis
I'm saying like I get why you don't want to.
- [83:11]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, yeah. We're a friend to everybody. Unless we're not. Now we can ask those people questions.
- [83:19]
Mike Davis
So we're gonna find out who's Dale friends with. Depending week by week if he asked the winner a hard hitting question.
- [83:25]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'm really. If I don't like you, then I might ask you that question. Like, hey man, everybody says your win was lucky. What's your take? Yeah, I mean we doing that to William?
- [83:34]
T.J. Majors
Nah, William's a good, good dude, man. I've always respected him.
- [83:38]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, I thought that was funny. All right, man. Good chat with him.
- [83:42]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. Good win. He's in the record books.
- [83:46]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I found. I'm glad that they still do that in New York. Yeah, like everything Else is. Everything else is, like, stripped away and change. Less practice this.
- [83:57]
Mike Davis
Did you hate it in the moment, though?
- [83:58]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, man. Yeah. I didn't want to. I mean, I wanted Daytona 500. I wanted to go celebrate. I didn't want to be in New York City doing media.
- [84:07]
T.J. Majors
But now your thing is still cool now.
- [84:08]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I like it. I'm like, that's why I think that's so that's why I thank him for doing it, because I know that it's necessary now and I know that he probably would rather be home playing Legos. But I'm like, thank you for being there, man. Thank you for doing this. You're doing. He is out there doing. Making noise for the sport.
- [84:28]
Mike Davis
You could be building the Millennium Falcon, but you're talking to.
- [84:31]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You went to. You could be building the Statue of Liberty, but you went to it.
- [84:37]
T.J. Majors
It's a good problem for him to have. Yeah, that's a good problem. I gotta go to New York. Why are you in there? Because I want the Daytona 500. Oh, okay.
- [84:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Maybe they got cooler Lego stuff in New York too. So there's a bonus if he goes to the LEGO store and finds something that he can't find in North Carolina.
- [84:51]
T.J. Majors
Speaking of Legos, real quick, I found an app. I know you're. You're surprised that you can take a picture. You can lay all your Legos out, take a picture of the Lego and I'll tell you what you can build and how to build it.
- [85:03]
Mike Davis
Oh, I like that.
- [85:04]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I think I'd rather have a gigantic tub of Legos and show and.
- [85:08]
T.J. Majors
And step on them.
- [85:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No, and have. And. And say, hey, man, I take a picture of a real car. Like, I take a picture at car out there and then it would tell me the leg how to build it. That's what it. You're do. We need to reverse engineer.
- [85:22]
T.J. Majors
Maybe it can. I don't know.
- [85:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
App that you have.
- [85:25]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, that. It's. It's pretty neat.
- [85:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I bet William has that app.
- [85:28]
Mike Davis
He's the only one that has it.
- [85:30]
T.J. Majors
If he don't, he's gonna.
- [85:31]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Now. William created it. William Byron Incorporated. Tj. So we ran. We ran the duel and we got ourselves locked in. Go and do media and all kinds of crazy stuff. We're having a great time. And the second duel is running.
- [85:59]
T.J. Majors
That's me.
- [85:59]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Huh?
- [86:00]
T.J. Majors
I'm in the second one.
- [86:00]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. And I'm walking through the bus lot and somebody goes, hey, Erik Jones won. And I sent Jimmy Johnson a text. Congratulations. And I mean, literally, they're probably just still Coming around the cool down lap. So I know that Jimmy's not got his phone. And then they were like, oh, nope, Austin Cindric is the winner. And I was like, shoot. I grabbed my phone and I went to that text and I held it down and I said unsend. And it goes poof. So Jimmy saw that I haven't have an unsent text message to him, but he has no idea what it was.
- [86:39]
T.J. Majors
So has he responded to it yet? Well, now you could text them. I mean, finished thirds. Now you got a reason to text them again.
- [86:46]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, I was like, thanks for this feature. This is nice.
- [86:50]
T.J. Majors
It should take it completely out of their list. You know what I mean?
- [86:56]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Notification that you haven't.
- [86:58]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. Like it should be gone because it.
- [86:59]
Mike Davis
Depends on when you. How fast you remove it. Maybe.
- [87:03]
T.J. Majors
I don't know.
- [87:03]
Mike Davis
Here, do you want me to send you a text and then.
- [87:05]
T.J. Majors
No, I think it's going to show up as an unsent message still.
- [87:08]
E
It says unsent.
- [87:10]
D
Yeah.
- [87:10]
T.J. Majors
No matter what. Which is sketchy.
- [87:13]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You unsent a message. At 10:10pm Thursday.
- [87:19]
Mike Davis
The YouTube chat open.
- [87:21]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, I don't.
- [87:21]
Mike Davis
Oh, yeah, you had one job.
- [87:23]
E
You know what's terrifying about the unsettle. Yes, we are live. What's terrifying about the unsent text messages?
- [87:29]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
If.
- [87:29]
E
If they haven't updated, like say their computer.
- [87:32]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [87:32]
E
It still will go through. So there's a chance you still congratulate Jimmy on one of his other devices.
- [87:37]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, that's probably true.
- [87:39]
T.J. Majors
Good to know, Andrew.
- [87:40]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Well, thanks, Andrew.
- [87:41]
T.J. Majors
You definitely haven't been any sketchy situations.
- [87:44]
Mike Davis
It sounds like Andrew had an incident recently where he sent a message.
- [87:47]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. All right, so I got the chat open. Hey, everybody, looks like we got about 350 in here now. So let's get to it. Andrew, you got some questions about the. The week or whatever? I guess everybody wants to know.
- [88:01]
E
Yeah, about everything. That the top question. There's a very clear number one question from a bunch of people I saw. Brandon and Dan specifically on X asked this, but they wanted to know where to get that Osterlin hat that you were wearing all weekend, but can't get it. I'm pretty sure you made it right.
- [88:18]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. The Osterlin hat that I wore, that was intentional. I was waiting for somebody in our camp, maybe Kelly or somebody to go, hey. All right. You've worn it. Sorry. I think I got a little audio. Let's. Let's put something else on, but. So the Osterlin was dad's Team that he raced with in 79 for his first Daytona 500. Rod Osterlin gave dad a chance to race in the full time cup series. And I think without that, none of this is possible. And so I wanted to wear that hat just as a reminder to me, really, every time I put it on or saw it, to enjoy this week. Right? Just me, man. Remember, remember how dad must have felt when he came down here and how that whole experience must have been for him. And just try to make sure that, you know, you don't get too wrapped up in the. The machine, the industry, all the things happening. You can kind of lose if you're in the muck of that Daytona 500 weekend in the garage, in the grind, you kind of lose, like, focus of like where. Where you are, like, you know what's going on and what you're trying to do and how cool this is because you just. You're racing that. That you get down in that garage, you get competitive, and you get to racing in your mind. And so that hat was just kind of a help for myself to keep the folk, you know, keep the priorities or perspective.
- [89:47]
E
That's cool. Someone, I. I was talking to someone over the weekend. They're like, did Dale only pack, like one hat? Like, did he just forget to, like, bring his other hats?
- [89:55]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It was a cool story. It was easy just getting up every day and just looking for one hat.
- [90:00]
E
Yeah, that's all.
- [90:01]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You had some other hats?
- [90:02]
E
Did you.
- [90:03]
Mike Davis
Did you. Did you pack to be there through Sunday or was.
- [90:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Okay, I had a Filter Time hat and I had a Bass Pro Shop hat and I had a Cars Tour Z Max. Z Max Cars Tour hat.
- [90:17]
E
Nothing.
- [90:17]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Didn't wear those.
- [90:18]
Mike Davis
We need to get you the DJD skeleton hat from the. Our shops online.
- [90:23]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right, look, I'm at the point in my life I'm not chasing down that stuff. If y'all want me to wear a special hat, your ass better just give it to me. I'm not gonna get up on, you know, Sunday and go, hey, where, you know, anybody got a Junior Motorsports hat? It's race day. No, them years. Them days are gone. I'm gonna put every. Put on whatever I want. That's too bad. If I'm supposed to be wearing something else, you better be handing it to me.
- [90:47]
E
You told a good kite story. You remember that one?
- [90:50]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yes, I used to have.
- [90:53]
Mike Davis
Please explain this, because you put it on the note sheet. I had no idea what it was.
- [90:56]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, really? So I. When I lived with dad on Irvin Road in Mooresville. There's a big development there now, but it used to be a giant farm field. And who was it that we were sitting there talking about?
- [91:10]
E
You're telling this to Keller?
- [91:13]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No, but there was somebody that was telling me about that field and how they would. Oh, they were.
- [91:18]
E
Well, because you were trying to avoid an ass whooping in that field, right?
- [91:21]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That's right.
- [91:22]
E
So I told that story on the show. I'm pretty sure. Yeah.
- [91:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So I. Somebody was talking about that field with me and how dad was out in that field one day sighting a gun and how they were with my dad that day, and they're just sharing a story. You know, one of them. One of the time, you know, somebody comes up, goes, man, I got to tell you the story about you and me and your dad. So I was listening to that, and it got me thinking about that. That field. But I used to have this kite, and it was probably as wide as this table, really big for its size, but shaped like every. You know, shaped like a normal kite. Right. And. But it was pretty tough. And I would fly that thing out in that field. This is probably when I was, you know, 12, 10, 11, 12 years old, I'd take it out in that field, and, man, I let all the string out all the way to the very end, and I'm like, I need more string. So I kept adding string to this thing over and over and over. And I bet you it's. I bet you the string it was probably three, eight of a mile.
- [92:27]
E
You said half a mile.
- [92:28]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, I'm thinking about it now. And I was probably a bit. Still probably not that straight. Yes. So I would stand. The field went the entire length of the road, and the road was probably about a quarter mile at minimum. And I would stand on one end of the field and fly that kite all the way down, parallel with our road, over the top of this tree line. And I knew it was over the tree line because every couple times it get down in there and get in the trees, and I'd have to go get it out, but. So I would literally wind let out about a quarter mile or three eighths of a mile of rope or string, and then have to, you know, when I was done, I sit there and wind that all back in. Took forever. But eventually it got to be that the string, the weight of the string made it difficult for the kite to.
- [93:15]
T.J. Majors
Keep, you know, to keep up pulling it down.
- [93:18]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, the weight of the string. That was when I was like, oh, can't add any more because I get to certain where it's not, you know, 9, 10, 12 mile an hour winds. Wouldn't even keep the kite in the air. But that was just a story we were telling the other night. It was pretty fun. Yeah, I like to fly kites, man, because it's like the simplest thing in the world. And now I wasn't. I haven't flown a kite in forever. But now that I got these girls, we'll go out on the beach.
- [93:42]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, Good wind there.
- [93:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What is the fun about flying a kite?
- [93:45]
Mike Davis
Yeah.
- [93:47]
T.J. Majors
I don't know.
- [93:47]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I don't know.
- [93:48]
Mike Davis
That feel like, go fly a kite's like telling someone to get off. Like, go away.
- [93:51]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Like, yeah, kites. Got a bad rap when that phrase came out.
- [93:54]
Mike Davis
Like, what's fun about flying a kite? Answer this.
- [93:57]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, it's like flying, flying up anything. I don't know. It's just an activity. Like when you go out onto the beach, you know, you take snacks and. And. And toys and buckets and you build a sandcastle and the water washes it away. And I mean, there. That's not.
- [94:13]
T.J. Majors
I think it's just physics for a kid showing them something.
- [94:15]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It's just an activity to do when you're.
- [94:17]
E
Feels soothing. Feels like it'd be relaxing.
- [94:20]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I wouldn't say. I would describe it as soothing.
- [94:22]
T.J. Majors
I've never.
- [94:23]
E
Well, I've never flown a kite, so.
- [94:25]
Mike Davis
If you have kids.
- [94:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So you choose soothing.
- [94:27]
T.J. Majors
I don't know.
- [94:28]
E
It seems like it'd be relaxing, you know?
- [94:30]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Okay, watch.
- [94:30]
E
You know, just watch the air. Watch the wind.
- [94:33]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It's. It's all right.
- [94:34]
E
Maybe that's how you prepare for super speedway race. You learn.
- [94:37]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Kids love it like they do.
- [94:39]
T.J. Majors
You take it out there, it takes off and it's.
- [94:41]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You hand it to them and they're. And they're like. Nicole's like, let's go of the strings. No, you gotta chase it after it. You gotta hold it. You know, you can't let go of it. It's gonna go away, but. And then they. They're burnt out in seconds. Like, you know, two minutes, they're like, on to the next thing. And you're like, well, damn. You'd think kite would get about 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
- [95:02]
Mike Davis
Oh, no, it's boring.
- [95:04]
T.J. Majors
Kites are fun till you gotta bring it back in. No, that's why you just.
- [95:11]
E
I'm done with this.
- [95:12]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, no, the. The. You'll probably end up doing this some point, but if you. You put the string on a stick, they can go on the end of a dewalt drill.
- [95:20]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And you just, oh, this Dad's flown to me kites.
- [95:24]
T.J. Majors
You should fly a kite.
- [95:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Go fly.
- [95:27]
E
Wait, T.J. that's actually brilliant.
- [95:29]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [95:29]
T.J. Majors
Why would you not do that?
- [95:30]
E
I think that's. Yeah.
- [95:31]
T.J. Majors
Put it on a.
- [95:32]
E
Then you're bringing a drill to the.
- [95:33]
T.J. Majors
Get a screwdriver, stick it in there. That way, when you're ready to bring.
- [95:38]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Drill to the beach to put a hole for the umbrella, because I got the.
- [95:42]
T.J. Majors
He takes a whole cart to the piece of stuff.
- [95:45]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The drill has a bit that drives the bit down in the ground, pulls the. You know, drives a bit to be able to stick to sand, stick the umbrella.
- [95:53]
T.J. Majors
And what I'm doing is wrong.
- [95:55]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [95:56]
T.J. Majors
When you could just turn it by hand.
- [95:58]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Ah.
- [95:59]
Mike Davis
Why would you want to turn it by hand?
- [96:01]
T.J. Majors
Why would you want to wheel a kite in?
- [96:03]
Mike Davis
I'm okay with you using the drill, though.
- [96:05]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I did get out there and I'm like, man, freaking A. I can't believe I got a drill out here. This is. I mean, it's just not a place for a drill, you know?
- [96:13]
E
What is he working on?
- [96:14]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
If I looked over and I saw a guy with a drill putting his umbrella in the ground, I'd be like, hey, get a little. This guy.
- [96:20]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [96:21]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
But then that was me that day.
- [96:23]
T.J. Majors
I think you're the guy that would just go help the next guy do it, because, hey, man, I got this for you. You know what I mean?
- [96:28]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [96:29]
T.J. Majors
So.
- [96:30]
E
So you're like the helpful neighbor on the beach. Hey, let me drill.
- [96:33]
T.J. Majors
Well, I'm saying you would do that if you saw somebody struggling with it.
- [96:36]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I do. I do help people on the beach.
- [96:38]
Mike Davis
But if you help your neighbors, then when you're playing music louder, they're like, oh, well, the guy's nice. So I'm not going to complain about the music or anything.
- [96:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. It's weird, man. When you're on the beach, you can't hear other people's music.
- [96:49]
E
It does, like, the. Just the ambient. Yeah. The wind and the waves.
- [96:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Like, it washes it when blows the sound. Yeah.
- [96:58]
T.J. Majors
And they have those. What do you call those things that. It's just, like, makes the u. I.
- [97:02]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Think we all just would rather be at the beach right now.
- [97:06]
E
Yeah. Yeah.
- [97:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Can we go to the Next question?
- [97:07]
E
It's 38 degrees here in Mooresville, North Carolina.
- [97:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
We don't want to be here. Yeah.
- [97:12]
Mike Davis
We about to talk about the tents or the new.
- [97:14]
T.J. Majors
Just those things. You know what they are?
- [97:15]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What?
- [97:15]
T.J. Majors
That you got what they call those.
- [97:17]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, yeah. The blue ones.
- [97:19]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. It's easy.
- [97:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Everybody the blue, the little tents. It's got the arch post down in the ground.
- [97:24]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [97:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And it's a blue kind of white wind.
- [97:27]
Mike Davis
The shimby shade.
- [97:28]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Shimby shade.
- [97:28]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. Those are nice.
- [97:31]
E
Boomi James is saying.
- [97:32]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Really?
- [97:33]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. That's what it is.
- [97:34]
E
He was very confident.
- [97:35]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
When you go out onto the beach, that's like those are 9 out of 10. 9 out of 10, 10 are going to be that shade.
- [97:43]
Mike Davis
The person who ever invented that is no longer working.
- [97:45]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No.
- [97:46]
T.J. Majors
It's so awesome.
- [97:47]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And the only thing is, like, let's get some other colors. Like, I know, let's get some orange, some neon, something. Let's change it up. It's all blue, white, whatever it is. But we have one of those. And they're really easy. They do make a little bit of noise.
- [98:00]
T.J. Majors
That's what I was saying with the noise. You hear a lot of that stuff.
- [98:02]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. But I, I like to see other people struggling, putting those up. I'll go help them.
- [98:09]
Mike Davis
It's just too.
- [98:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Especially if it's like the, the moms are out there with their kid and they're. They're trying to put it out there and I'm like, got it.
- [98:17]
E
Let me help you.
- [98:18]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Cuz.
- [98:18]
T.J. Majors
You got to get me strong, man.
- [98:21]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You got to get the shovel and put a little sand in the bag. And there's a process.
- [98:25]
T.J. Majors
You know what they could do is put some, some RGB lights in them too.
- [98:28]
E
RGB lights?
- [98:29]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. And you have to get this. You have to get the stick down in there pretty far. You do that takes a lot of force.
- [98:36]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [98:36]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And when the sun moves, because that thing's gonna. That thing's coming out, the sun moves.
- [98:40]
T.J. Majors
It's easy to move one side of it too. And it's actually really adjustable.
- [98:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You do have to move it like a sandow.
- [98:45]
T.J. Majors
You do.
- [98:46]
E
I'll end this with this. Just one quick comment because I want to get some more questions. Oh, there's nothing better than a beach nap.
- [98:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The last time there. There is nothing better to be. I don't think there's a lot I'm worried about.
- [98:57]
T.J. Majors
I'm worried about there.
- [98:59]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'm worried about the shade moving because the sun moves in the sky and the shade moving and waking up from my nap with a bad, weird summer trying to do that.
- [99:07]
Mike Davis
You gingers have to be careful.
- [99:10]
T.J. Majors
Oh, my gosh.
- [99:14]
E
James wants to know, have you ever locked your keys in your car?
- [99:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- [99:21]
E
That's. That's not fun.
- [99:22]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. I mean, who hasn't?
- [99:25]
Mike Davis
Me.
- [99:25]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Bull.
- [99:26]
E
I have either.
- [99:28]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Really?
- [99:29]
E
Yeah.
- [99:29]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Well, you're young.
- [99:30]
T.J. Majors
You got time.
- [99:32]
Mike Davis
You know what harder to lock your keys in your car.
- [99:34]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I suppose it is like I have. The last time I did it, it was my 48 pickup truck. And so it's kind of tricky how to get into it. It's. It every nothing. None of the door handles work like they're supposed to, so you can accidentally lock it really easy.
- [99:50]
Mike Davis
That's why I never got locked out as my Buick Sentry that I first had.
- [99:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [99:54]
Mike Davis
You could turn it without like another key and it would open. So. Yeah, was good to go.
- [99:58]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, I just got. I got locked in my. I got locked out of my truck. Man, it's probably a year or two ago. Yeah.
- [100:05]
Mike Davis
What truck do you drive in today, Dale?
- [100:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
My 48.
- [100:08]
T.J. Majors
Yep, I did lock my keys in my car. It's been 20 years ago though. But I bought a. Pete Wright had a kit to like a Slim Jim, whatever, and I used it to get in there. And then I bought one off the tool truck the next time and I've never needed it since.
- [100:22]
E
Wait, what kit was it?
- [100:24]
T.J. Majors
So it was like a kit that you had?
- [100:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It's just a kid so young, he.
- [100:28]
Mike Davis
Doesn'T know what Slim Jim is.
- [100:29]
T.J. Majors
It's a bunch of things that have that. That can slide down between the windows and like grab bar like. Like how cars used to lock and you could like pull.
- [100:37]
E
That helps you get yourself out of.
- [100:40]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. Oh, yeah, it did.
- [100:41]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That's cool.
- [100:42]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, it did. It was nice.
- [100:43]
E
Howard in the YouTube chat, wants to know, have you ever gone fishing in Lake Lloyd?
- [100:48]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I believe so.
- [100:49]
E
Daytona.
- [100:50]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, no, I don't.
- [100:52]
E
That's like Lloyd, right?
- [100:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yes, it is.
- [100:53]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, it is.
- [100:54]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I think I've fished in there once, but I mean, not successfully. Me and the kids were supposed to go, but they. We went to Bass Pro Shop and got a rod and reel and everything, which I ended up bringing home. But this.
- [101:05]
E
You're supposed to go this trip.
- [101:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Well, we went to. We went to Bass Pro Shop.
- [101:08]
E
Yeah.
- [101:09]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And bought all the stuff.
- [101:09]
E
Yes, I saw that.
- [101:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I took the rod and everything over to. Over to Truex because he's parked next to me. I'm like, put. Put this together. So. And we were all ready to go, but then the girls went to Disney.
- [101:23]
E
Oh, you didn't go?
- [101:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I had to stay for the race.
- [101:28]
Mike Davis
Were you happy that you had to stay?
- [101:30]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I think I missed. I missed. I mean, they. I saw the videos of them riding roller coaster and stuff. I wish I'd have been there.
- [101:35]
Mike Davis
Okay, sure. If you're one of those, like, so Denny's families at I Wish I would have been there. They don't want. He doesn't want to be there. He despises Disney.
- [101:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Y'all. Y'all never heard that song. I Wish I would have been there for that touch song. Nevermind. All right. Does anybody in the chat know I'm.
- [101:51]
Mike Davis
Talking about who sings it?
- [101:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I forget the guy's name sings Seminole Win.
- [101:56]
Mike Davis
Oh, Anderson.
- [101:57]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [101:58]
T.J. Majors
It's different when kids go, though, especially when they're that young.
- [102:01]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Great song. Now I'm gonna want to hear it.
- [102:03]
T.J. Majors
Kids are fun to watch there when they're that young, so.
- [102:05]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Especially, like, they rode to roller coasters. And. And yeah, I got a video of Nicole on a roller coaster. It's freaking. Really?
- [102:12]
E
So she's, like, into Kitty roller coaster, right? Yeah, but, like, they're not afraid of.
- [102:18]
T.J. Majors
No, she wrote one that was pretty aggressive for a kid.
- [102:21]
E
Which one?
- [102:22]
T.J. Majors
I think she ran, like, the mine train or something. The seven Doors. That's pretty aggressive for her. And she liked it, so.
- [102:29]
E
Adrenaline.
- [102:30]
Mike Davis
Are you guys junkies? Are you guys good with the big roller coasters? Are you?
- [102:33]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'm good with them.
- [102:34]
T.J. Majors
I don't ride any of the big ones.
- [102:35]
D
Really?
- [102:36]
T.J. Majors
They go upside down. I don't ride them.
- [102:37]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What? What?
- [102:38]
T.J. Majors
Just never have.
- [102:39]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Never heard that.
- [102:39]
T.J. Majors
I've never been on an upside down roller coasters. Yeah.
- [102:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'll tell you, if there's things I've learned about the last couple of weeks.
- [102:47]
T.J. Majors
There'S ever a goat coaster. I'm done.
- [102:49]
Mike Davis
Wait, so only if you're upside down.
- [102:51]
E
The goat coaster?
- [102:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [102:53]
T.J. Majors
I've never ridden an upside down roller coaster. I just never have. Well, like, I don't want to.
- [102:59]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Why?
- [102:59]
T.J. Majors
I just. I don't know. Never done it.
- [103:02]
E
Is that just like you have? You've been presented the opportunity?
- [103:06]
T.J. Majors
Well, yeah, I've been. Right. I. Plenty of ones.
- [103:09]
E
Everyone else would go, you're like, no.
- [103:11]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, I'm not doing it.
- [103:12]
E
Sit out.
- [103:13]
Mike Davis
They're the best.
- [103:14]
T.J. Majors
Yeah. I mean, even, like, my mom and kids wrote it, the Aerosmith one at Disney. I'm like, yeah, go, guys. Go ahead.
- [103:19]
Mike Davis
Wait, so you let your kids go and you're like, I'm staying back?
- [103:22]
E
Pretty much, yeah. Tj, just if this makes you feel better, too, I'm seeing in the YouTube chat that there are some other people who have not been on upside down roller coasters.
- [103:31]
T.J. Majors
I didn't figure out. I didn't figure I was alone. They're all seven year olds, but yeah, Real funny, Travis. Real good.
- [103:38]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Same height. Hey.
- [103:39]
T.J. Majors
Hey. Speaking of cars tour, though, congrats to Butterbean.
- [103:42]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, yeah, Butterbean, our car store champion, went and won at Daytona. He was on the show yesterday.
- [103:47]
E
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was awesome.
- [103:49]
T.J. Majors
Now we can buy an Xbox to play college football.
- [103:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Good.
- [103:52]
T.J. Majors
Finally, Butterbeans.
- [103:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I want to know why you've been.
- [103:54]
E
Trying to get him in the league.
- [103:56]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What is. Did you ask him? I know you didn't, but did they ask him yesterday why he was wearing a cool vest for the freaking ARCA race at Daytona?
- [104:05]
Mike Davis
No.
- [104:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Good Lord.
- [104:07]
E
What's wrong with that?
- [104:08]
Mike Davis
What's wrong with.
- [104:09]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You don't need a cool vest for that race. I mean, it's not hot.
- [104:13]
Mike Davis
But what if he was hot?
- [104:14]
E
Hey, they're in the car for a long time in that ARCA race, all right, with all the red flags and all the caution labs and it's.
- [104:22]
T.J. Majors
I'm with you, Butterbean.
- [104:23]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It's ambient temperature.
- [104:25]
Mike Davis
What is.
- [104:25]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
But if.
- [104:26]
Mike Davis
What does it bother you? He. If he's hot, wear cool.
- [104:30]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I think if you're running under 300 miles, you don't need one. You don't really. You don't even really need them for those night races at Bristol and stuff. I mean, we used to never wear them. And they're not a necessity.
- [104:43]
Mike Davis
Shoes aren't a necessity.
- [104:44]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
But we luxury.
- [104:45]
E
But if it gives you that much more of a competitive advantage.
- [104:48]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It didn't.
- [104:49]
Mike Davis
He won.
- [104:49]
E
You don't think so?
- [104:50]
T.J. Majors
He want.
- [104:51]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It's drawing amps, taking power.
- [104:54]
T.J. Majors
He didn't. Yeah, but he Daytona, he had more power himself.
- [104:58]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
He can't turn his alt. He can't turn his alternator off and get a little extra speed.
- [105:02]
E
He was so focused to their point though. He did win with the less amps as everyone else though, ran more amps.
- [105:09]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
He used, right?
- [105:10]
E
Yeah, he used. Yeah. Still won the race, though.
- [105:13]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And he didn't need to be wearing that.
- [105:16]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, I mean, whatever makes him comfortable.
- [105:21]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
If he was driving my car, I'd have been like, what's that? You're not getting the cool vest this week.
- [105:25]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, I do think you can get.
- [105:28]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
One in May, June, definitely in July and August.
- [105:32]
T.J. Majors
It's got to be 90ish to really probably put that in there. To my opinion, seeing a lot of.
- [105:37]
E
Congratulations in the chat and BW from NJ in the YouTube chat says you can never be cool enough.
- [105:44]
T.J. Majors
So I'm going to tell you, TJ on the roof, it makes a difference when it's 90 degrees, I'm sure.
- [105:50]
E
Yeah. Well, that is a good place.
- [105:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right. Past generous week this segment on Dirty Modeau is brought to you by FanDuel. All of us have FanDuel accounts, and we enjoy the product. It is a blast trying to, you know, learn the app and. And go through that process and having those bonus bets to do it with. Pretty cool deal. So. And there's lots of promos, like, every day, always. There's like, a 30% profit boost here. All kinds of cool stuff to do. So you're always kind of checking in on the app, finding ways to make the most out of that experience. And I'm really enjoying it, but. Tim's, man. What the.
- [106:30]
T.J. Majors
Tim's did it, man.
- [106:33]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What are you thinking?
- [106:34]
F
Usa.
- [106:35]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [106:35]
F
Oh, man. Well, I didn't know they were going to rest all their players.
- [106:38]
Mike Davis
Wait, what did he do?
- [106:39]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right. He made a bet that just was, like, a high risk.
- [106:47]
F
They were minus 190 favorite.
- [106:49]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That is not. That's like, even.
- [106:52]
Mike Davis
But it's not.
- [106:53]
F
It's like almost 2:1.
- [106:55]
T.J. Majors
It's like, even.
- [106:57]
Mike Davis
Clinch their spot.
- [106:58]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
They'd already cleaned.
- [106:59]
F
Well, I made the bet, like, a day and a half in advance, so, I mean, it was a little bit.
- [107:03]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
More of a risk.
- [107:03]
F
So. Dale is right on that.
- [107:04]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
But it was a huge risk. I bailed. I bet. I bet us. And then I had a lot of legs on Canada's game.
- [107:14]
F
Yeah.
- [107:14]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Canada came through. I had like five different legs, and it was two to one coming to the end of the second period, and I still had a cash out at like.
- [107:26]
F
That's good. Positive.
- [107:28]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yes.
- [107:28]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [107:29]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I was like, damn. I'll take it.
- [107:30]
F
Take. I should have bet the USA Canada game. That's Thursday. That's the game I should have bet.
- [107:35]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Dude, I. I had a good win last night. I want to tell you about it. Dude, I was pumped.
- [107:42]
F
Was it your college basketball?
- [107:44]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Good Lord, dude.
- [107:45]
Mike Davis
It's a dumbbell.
- [107:47]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Why is it dumb? Tell me why it's dumb.
- [107:49]
Mike Davis
How many legs was it?
- [107:50]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Eight.
- [107:51]
Mike Davis
And what was your odds?
- [107:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Plus 110.
- [107:54]
F
That's a lot. But it hit. But it hit. I'll tell you.
- [107:57]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What do you want? What's the problem?
- [107:58]
F
I'll tell you what. I. I used to think that's a dumb one. But I'll tell you what, Dale. There's nothing like hitting eight Lake Parley. I don't care what the odds are.
- [108:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'm not. I'm not putting eight legs up at, you know, 150 plus 150 each. That's never going to win.
- [108:14]
F
No. The heavy, heavy favorites. What you're taking. Yeah, but those in college sports, those hit more.
- [108:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Oh, it's like easy money.
- [108:20]
F
It's not like NFL where the heavy favorites could lose at any given Sunday.
- [108:23]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It's.
- [108:24]
F
It. It does hit.
- [108:25]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I. I mean, the. Trying to get in my freaking phone here so I can figure this. Yeah, yeah, you're verified. Oh, here it is. The.
- [108:38]
F
So you had McNe State. I'm like, oh, he's. He did some.
- [108:41]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
He's. He's. I'm looking. I'm telling you right now, I'm looking at my balance and I'm pretty happy about it. I don't care what you say, Travis.
- [108:49]
F
You know how long you got to scroll over on ESPN plus to find McNe State?
- [108:53]
Mike Davis
Howard, Alabama State, McNeese, South Carolina State, Nicholl State, Duke, Norfolk State, A and M. Corpus Christie.
- [108:59]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
A and M. Corpus Christie was tight. That came down to the wire.
- [109:03]
Mike Davis
Where were you watching it? Like ESPN13?
- [109:07]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I was watching it on the app. Just the game. Oh, just.
- [109:10]
F
Just the. Like this 2D ball just going back and forth.
- [109:13]
T.J. Majors
Yes.
- [109:16]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Hey.
- [109:19]
Mike Davis
The entire time, Dale's like, I hope Amy doesn't ask me what I'm doing right now.
- [109:22]
F
Yeah. It's just dead quiet. It's not even sound. It's just watching the ball go back.
- [109:25]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Paid three to one.
- [109:27]
F
That.
- [109:28]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [109:28]
F
I mean, it hit. Hey, a win's a win.
- [109:31]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. So let's talk about racing. Apparently, Tampa Tams wasn't mad about Denny Hamlin being wrecked.
- [109:38]
F
No.
- [109:39]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Why not?
- [109:39]
F
Because I had his over finishing position. I think it was at 13 and a half.
- [109:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Wow.
- [109:43]
F
Yeah. That's the strategy on these tracks.
- [109:45]
T.J. Majors
Travis is not happy with you right now.
- [109:47]
Mike Davis
I didn't sign off on this.
- [109:49]
F
Well, I'll tell you what. The Rex I had also had Logano, Keselowski and Bubba, and they all kind of got taken out.
- [109:54]
T.J. Majors
You're the reason. Yeah. Okay.
- [109:56]
Mike Davis
But now, I mean, that's both mad at.
- [109:57]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Let me ask you a question.
- [109:58]
T.J. Majors
Not me, not you.
- [109:59]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So let's talk about that. So there's a. There's a lot of fun bets to make in a lot of different sports that are quick hitters. One of. One of the fun bets during Major League Baseball is no score in the first inning stuff. Little things like that that like you can. You can get in and out before the game's even over with. And this is kind of reminding me a little bit of that. You found a way like, you know, kind of betting. Betting the winner and betting the standard bets can become somewhat tedious. And even in the restrictor plate or the. Or the Drafting that they do at Daytona, Talladega, it's almost a crapshoot.
- [110:43]
F
Yep. 50.
- [110:44]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
50. Right. But you found some bet. You've found a bet that feels a little more predictable.
- [110:50]
F
100% right? Yeah.
- [110:51]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You've never told us about this. I've asked you. We've came to this table and talked about Talladega, Daytona. What do we do? Tell us what to do. How do we bet? So you never said anything about over on the finishing position.
- [111:05]
F
These are very.
- [111:06]
T.J. Majors
Yeah, I never heard let us know.
- [111:08]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You were doing this.
- [111:08]
F
They're not always. Last year they were not offered every week and it was very. It was a lot of drivers in the back of the pack. Not a lot.
- [111:14]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Do you think the sports books are sort of learning and offer having more offerings because they're starting to understand the sport now Because NASCAR is still new in the betting space. Right.
- [111:23]
F
I think most of the this year there's. I've seen fastest lap because of that new rule. There's fastest lap.
- [111:29]
T.J. Majors
We almost got it too.
- [111:31]
F
Yeah, almost. There's a. There's a season win totals are up still and I thought they were going to go away after the first race. Nope, they can go all year long. Now it looks like finishing position there was like 13 drivers. Never seen that many. So that they are getting. Applying more prop bets and it's going to be real fun this year.
- [111:46]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Well now we have, you know because we always go into Daytona and Talladega and maybe Atlanta to some extent with not a ton of direction. Right. Because it's just too unpredictable and it's too much of a guess. But this, that bet as far as the overall finishing position when provided is not a bad place to go.
- [112:09]
F
No, not especially on the. On the drafting tracks it really is. One crash and these will all go over.
- [112:14]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Right.
- [112:14]
F
I wouldn't even risk an under and that's what happened. I was four for four because of that.
- [112:18]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Damn.
- [112:18]
F
Yeah.
- [112:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Awesome job. You also cashed in on William Byron to win.
- [112:22]
F
I did. So the other strategy for me was picking a live winner. Betting live on the winner.
- [112:27]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
When did you bet that?
- [112:28]
F
That was before the final restart. I bet him and Chase Briscoe they were. Briscoe was plus 2000 odds. Byron plus 2500. They were the best odds of guys that could really again if they. If the seas parted those guys were in good position. They have strong cars and the seas parted and Byron was the winner. So I got lucky on that one.
- [112:45]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Headed into Atlanta next weekend. Another track. It's hard to bet what's Your approach.
- [112:50]
F
I'll probably look into more of those finishing position props if available. I'll probably look at, you know, some longer shot top 10s, top manufacturers stuff that won't be really available during the race live, but I'll do the same thing. I'll probably look to live bet the winner later on in the race.
- [113:03]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Who is the. You got a dark horse?
- [113:06]
F
I do. I have a couple actually. I'm very high on AJ Almendinger. He finishes well when he finishes. I know his engine broke like lap 30 or something, but very good average finish here. And this one might surprise you because the history won't say it, but Carson Hocevar, he's plus 10,000 to win. And spy, I mean Corey the joy has brought Spire's name there at Atlanta a lot. And you know, Josevar I think is the best driver at Spire now. So I wouldn't be surprised if they bring some hot rods and pretty good odds.
- [113:33]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So that's interesting. Now what about Mike, you know, you like spire? Mike McDowell's decent at Daytona. Talladega. Maybe that transfers over to Atlanta. He's in a different car now.
- [113:44]
F
Yeah, I mean McDowell, Haley, they both have, you know, they're so long shots to win too. But I mean else of our is like up there with, you know, BJ McLeod, John Hartnemachek. So I think you're just getting a lot more value with host of our. But if you go McDowell or Haley, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say no.
- [113:56]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right, well, hey, thank you, fanduel. Thank you. Tampa Tim's.
- [114:00]
F
Thank you.
- [114:01]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
We'll see what you see, what you come up with this weekend. Follow Tampa Tim's. On social media, you do a lot of commenting and sharing with people kind of your thoughts and what you're doing in the moment, which I think is great. So people, you know, take some of your advice that they get from this show. They can continue to follow you throughout the weekend and see what you're up to. Because you do make some of those on the spotlight bets and share that with us, right?
- [114:26]
F
Yep, yep. I'll try to do better and tweet them out as I do it. But yeah, I usually interact with everybody who reaches out. So yeah, follow me on Twitter.
- [114:32]
Mike Davis
Just don't take us hockey advice.
- [114:33]
F
Yeah, no hockey advice.
- [114:34]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right, this Dirty Most segment was brought to you by FanDuel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. All right, it's time for the white flag here at the Dale Jr. Download. We're closing in on the finish line of this episode today. I want to tell you. We sell T shirts. That's right, folks. If you didn't hear us last week, Dirty Mo Media has a new e commerce store where you'll find the newest apparel from all of our shows. We got a whole new line out. Go check it out. Shop dirty mo media.com shop dirty mo go to shop.dirtymomedia.com that's freaking confusing. I know. But listen. Shop s h o p.dirtymomedia.com we make it as hard as we can. All right. We had a great time in Daytona with Sirius XM for the live show with Jeff Gluck, Jordan Bianchi and Andrew. As a matter of fact, it's time to announce the winner of the Dale Jr. Download trucker hat. Congratulations to Hrystal B88 from Buffalo, New York.
- [115:50]
Mike Davis
Yeah, they finally got a victory.
- [115:51]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Enjoy. Enjoy that hat and thank you to everyone who helped promote our show. Also we have the tear down Live on YouTube immediately following the Daytona 500. Their reaction to everything that happened. If you hadn't checked that out, you need to and door Proper Clear was on Monday morning. And joining them this week was Bubba Wallace to talk about his weekend and what it was like now that he is a father. Me and Bubba were neighbors at Daytona as we have been over the years. Actions detrimental also dropped on Monday. Denny clearly upset after the race and gave us his immediate reaction. He was so close to winning his fourth Daytona 500. And let me know, do you agree with Denny's take on, on his opinions? They're pretty, pretty, pretty open about the way he feels. I listened to a lot of it and I think I can agree with, with some of it. But yeah, tomorrow my interview with Cletus McMahon. Farlane will drop and you won't want to miss that. Everybody's been requesting Cletus McFarlane to, to come on the show and he's probably got an interesting story. So looking forward to that. And then Herman Schrader and Speed street also drop on Wednesday. You won't want to miss those two shows. And then Thursday. Bless yous Heart is Back with Amy and myself. We took a week off. We were in Daytona and Amy took the kids to Disney. So we weren't able to do that. Look forward to get back in the studio and having fun with that. That's the show. I had fun tomorrow, Cletus. And then, yeah, we're going to Atlanta. Are you ready?
- [117:39]
T.J. Majors
I'm ready to go to Atlanta.
- [117:40]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Ready to go to Atlanta.
- [117:41]
T.J. Majors
I'm so excited.
- [117:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right. You better prepare them boys. Get them ready. We need some wins.
- [117:48]
T.J. Majors
TJ, listen, I'm here for the wins.
- [117:50]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
TJ's a full time spotter and xfinity series for junior motorsports on that one. Guard Carson Quapple. Yeah.
- [117:57]
Mike Davis
I want some victory toast this year. Tj.
- [117:59]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I wasn't it. I wasn't impressed. I wasn't impressed this weekend.
- [118:03]
T.J. Majors
With who?
- [118:03]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
With you. You and Carson.
- [118:05]
T.J. Majors
Well, I'm sorry.
- [118:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [118:06]
T.J. Majors
Sorry about your only time.
- [118:07]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I know what you guys only car.
- [118:08]
T.J. Majors
In the top four. The five that she had.
- [118:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I don't know what you guys are talking about but you know.
- [118:13]
T.J. Majors
Yeah.
- [118:13]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It looked like you guys had a big plan. Well, the plan he had a little damage early lost.
- [118:19]
T.J. Majors
Oh yeah. That was. Wasn't in the plan to start with but now. He did a good job, man.
- [118:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
He did. I give you a hard time. All right, last of the show. We'll see you tomorrow. Take it easy.