Mike Davis (6:11)

Danny called it white knuckle racing.

TJ Majors (6:13)

That's the way. That's the way that we described every race at one point in time in this sport.

Mike Davis (6:22)

What's that feeling like when you're in the car and you are white knuckle and it's just full throttle, go.

TJ Majors (6:28)

I used to, even before the reconfigure, man, you go to Atlanta, the tire, even though the track was worn out, the tire was going to have insane grip for about three or four corners. And you go out there and just barrel that thing down in the corner so fast. Look, there's some videos on social media of us qualifying in 2008. Cars just screaming around the racetrack and you're not out of the gas long and you are. It is edgy, edgy, loose. When that thing's turning and it's fast, it's hanging the right rear out, it's in big yaw through the corner. And it is a damn. It's scary, you know, but it's the only when it. When it's kind of fun, thrilling, but also one of the rare moments where you really come to face to face with how fast you're going. It's like, you know, you kind of get. You lose. You lose that. You know, as you race at all these other racetracks, everything kind of slows down and you almost. You almost lose respect for the danger. Boy, you are reminded with it. It's in your face at Atlanta. And so, you know, that track's always kind of had that, you know, kind of way about it for the drivers, but even more so now. But I just want to say, like, you know, I don't, you know, I think what I saw at Daytona was great. We had a great way to start the season. But this is how. I mean, it can be better, right? We got. It's okay to say, look, man, I want it to be better. I want. I want it to be different than what I experienced. It's okay to say that. And that's all I was trying to do last week. And so we go to Atlanta and we saw like the peak. That's peak nascar. What we saw at Atlanta is as good as it gets. And that's not an overstatement. I don't know if you can replicate that exactly at Daytona. Talladega, the extra mile in length on the racetracks makes the tracks a little bit bigger. And the. The, you know, the runs and the way the cars interact with each other is going to be a little bit different. Denny had some comments about taking drag away from the rear spoiler, like taking half the spoiler off. And he had a good question. Would the pack go faster? It's worth trying. Well, me and him were talking a little bit on the side. And before the. Before the next gen car, the pack operated during the race at about the same speed, 200 miles an hour. 199. Somewhere around that range. Right. Not too far off. At least that's what Denny was sharing with me. That's kind of where they run now, but the cars run 10 miles an hour slower by themselves today versus pre next gen. Right. And that's kind of the problem, I think, is the delta between how a car runs alone versus how it runs in the draft. And I think when you close that gap, you might have a little bit more of what you saw at Atlanta. But listen, you know, I don't want to. I'm really talking about this more than I want to because I want to move on from Daytona and really celebrate just how fantastic Atlanta was. Incredible truck race. And we saw Kyle Busch just use all of that incredible experience that he has and smoked them and schooled them guys in that truck. And so that going down the back straightaway, what's his face in the 52?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (10:18)

Freezing.

TJ Majors (10:19)

Freezing. Thank you, TJ. So as they go off into turn three, Joey and Brad Keselowski, who are in the booth, they're sitting there going, oh, man, Friesen's in the pocket. Friesen is in position for a side draft. Kyle is edging ahead. A lot of people on social media said that the reason Friesen lost the race is because he didn't get a help down the back straightaway. There was a. There's another driver that wasn't going to push him because of manufacturer conflicts. And so forth. Even if the guy chose to not push Friesen, Friesen still had a shot at this because he was in the pocket on the right rear quarter panel of Kyle Busch in the middle of three and four. And Joey and Brad saw it immediately and they're like, they knew exactly what they would have done if sitting in that truck, that 52 truck. You sit there and you, you wait, right? And you want to time that side draft as you're coming toward the flag so that you're ahead. It's very simple. But Friesen side drafted him way too early, got out in front of him and Kyle just did it right back and beat him to the line. And so, I mean the way to do that I think is either add feet to the racetrack so Friesen maybe can go higher. He doesn't want to lose the quarter panel on the fifth on the, on Kyle's truck, the seven. But he can add feet to the lap to take some time before he is going to side draft at the right moment. Or he could just lift a little bit and just sit right on that truck's quarter panel so that when they're coming down the front straightaway, he gets the advantage of the side draft and gets to the line first. Look and Friesen will probably replay that over and over in his mind. And he might not love to admit it today, but I think down the road, at least in his own mind, he knows what he probably should have done different. What do you think, tj?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (12:09)

I absolutely think he timed it wrong. I think he was in, I mean, he had Kyle beat and he, Kyle was running the bottom waiting for the opportunity to see his, the door of reasons truck, hopefully earlier than later because if he doesn't see it till the start finish line, he lost the race and he saw it early and just pulled him back. And perfect, perfect timing by Kyle. He did everything, you know, it showed up and he took advantage of it perfectly.

TJ Majors (12:34)

I agree. Still though, great run by those guys. Stuart has, you know, they've kind of, they came on a couple years ago and I think everybody was kind of pulling for them because they were, they were a new young team and he come from a unique discipline in terms of the, the modifieds dirt mods and he, you know, they, I think people want to see, I want to see that truck run well and it's been, it's been a bit of a struggle. They've lost a little performance over the last couple years. Good to see him run good. But Kyle goes out there and smokes them and then in the XFINITY race, you know, another great race, Austin Hill. There's a lot of chatter on social media about Austin Hill leading more laps than me and dad and all that stuff at the, at the drafting tracks. And. Well, he, you know, and somebody makes a great point, you know. Yes, me and dad didn't run at Atlanta and dad didn't have Talladega either. But this, this kid. Austin Hill's done it in a shorter amount of races, right? So like my, I ran 30 some races, I guess, and he's done it in 20 something. So I ain't taking nothing away from him. He has the right mentality that makes a great racer in that style of racing. And he does it. He just does. He doesn't think about it. He just keeps his foot on the damn gas and he just does. With that said, he has the fastest car and he's great at taking advantage of that and winning races with it. Richard Childress Racing should be commended for how good their cars are in the Xfinity series at Daytona and Talladega. And I tell our guys every time that we go to those races, if you push that 21 into the lead, you're basically going to, you're signing up to run second. And I don't tell them to take him out or. But if they're going to, if they, if they're in a situation where they get to choose between, okay, I can push the two into the lead or a different car. My gut would tell me not to push the two into the league because he's hard to pass once he gets it. He's very smart, controls the lanes, has enough race car that not many people get runs on him. And yeah, I mean, you just kind of, you're making it easier for him, I think, when you, when you push him out there and get him in the lead. The other thing was Justin, you know, hadn't really had a chance to really talk about it because. And we will. I didn't. I'm just not really not sure how I want to approach that conversation. But he gets pushed out into the lead and that was fortunate. Nobody had passed the 21 pretty much all day. He's pushed into the lead with a few laps to go and chose to stay low in front of his teammate. I think everybody felt the obvious thing was to. Here you've got Austin Hill passed like you pull up in front of him, right, that I thought, I'm sitting there screaming at the TV like, all right, let's go up the racetrack and Get. Get him. He's more than likely going to have a run and be trying to pass you back one way or another down the front straightaway. But that was the move, I think, you know, and I'm sure Justin has a, you know, a long explanation of why he chose differently. He had a couple comments in his post race, you know, and he, you know, he did have a teammate on the bottom, but I think in that scenario, at least the way I feel about it, in that scenario, I would have not. I would have not been upset had he left his teammate.

Mike Davis (16:16)

Well, and correct me if I'm wrong, tj, but the bottom lane kind of got strung out, right. Like they weren't connected.

TJ Majors (16:21)

They lost numbers. It was just Justin and eight down there. I didn't, I don't remember really anybody else being up behind Sammy.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (16:28)

Yeah, I thought Justin did a good job of trying to, you know, he knew he needed a teammate to probably beat the, beat the 21. But at that point, I mean, I agree with you. You kind of gotta. I'm coming up.

TJ Majors (16:42)

I'm.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (16:42)

I'm putting myself in front of Austin Hill because. And second of all, Austin's won a lot of these races not by, not by coming all the way to the start finish line. Austin's won these races because he knows if he's out front, these guys get together behind him. And I don't know how many. What the stat would be, but I'll bet it's. I'll bet it's a good portion of them have ended under yellow.

TJ Majors (17:01)

Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (17:02)

Because he's leading on the white flag lap.

TJ Majors (17:03)

Yeah, that's a good point too. You go up there and get in front of him, you don't know when the costume might come out and declare you the winner. But the other thing too is, is like you didn't. You don't know what. Putting that 2 car in dirty air at the end of the race when he's on the oldest tires he's been on all day, you don't know what that might do to him. That might, that might sort of neutralize him to a, to an extent. You gotta, you, you gotta wonder, right?

Mike Davis (17:27)

Well, Denny said the two got shucked and he was no longer, you know, up there at the top.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (17:32)

The two, he, I will say the two in the top four. When he's running with Austin, them. He controls the race very well, but he does struggle to me still in the pack a little bit. But like you said, once the two are the, Once he gets. If he's out front he's really hard to get around. But he. I did notice last night or on Saturday that he was. He was. He struggled to get back up there a little bit also. Austin Hill. Yeah. Austin's just gotten so good at it, man. He knows.

TJ Majors (17:59)

Oh, yeah. I think what.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (18:00)

He's so good at it.

TJ Majors (18:01)

I feel like the 2 and the 21 are relatively even equipment. And it's just the difference between Austin having so much confidence and experience. Right. And, and, and Jesse. Love. Will. Will. Will get there. And he's.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (18:13)

I mean, he's learning.

TJ Majors (18:14)

Oh, God.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (18:15)

He's definitely learning from him.

TJ Majors (18:16)

Yeah. And he's going to be. He's going to pick up the torch and probably be just as tough in the near future. But I misspoke, I guess, when. If Justin pulls up in front of the 21, Austin Hill, you know, maybe there's a possibility that he struggles with the arrow at that point in the race. Yeah. And it, and you know, he's not quite as dominant as he had been most of the afternoon.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (18:40)

If Justin takes the air just for a second, Austin has to lift.

TJ Majors (18:43)

You have to try. Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (18:44)

And.

TJ Majors (18:45)

But Justin made his. Justin committed to what he wanted to do. He did it and didn't work out and he only saw the finish. Yeah. Still a decent day.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (18:53)

And don't forget, Jesse did win Talladega last year as well. So. Yeah, he's not, he is not a. He's not a slouch on speedways.

TJ Majors (19:01)

Not at all. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Davis (19:03)

So do you, as an owner, do you. Do you meet with the drivers or do you have a conversation with Justin or kind of. I don't want to ask what you're.

TJ Majors (19:09)

Going to say, but like, I mean, I'll probably talk to him about that later in a few weeks and just say, hey, you know, I would have done X. And I don't think there's no, there's nothing to gain, I don't think, by having a conversation. Justin's a veteran. I'm not going to educate him or teach him something that he doesn't already know. And I feel pretty good that I would just go tell him and say I would. I wanted you to go high. I think that's fair to say and leave it at that. You know, it. It's a long year and, and we've. We've got a reasonable start for a couple of our cars. Connor Zillich has been doing well. Just had an unlucky situation where they lost the door foam and they park, you know, they park you if you can't keep the door foam in the car and it was so cold that the bear bomb wouldn't stick to the door to stop the foam from coming out. Carson Quapple has just ran his first two, you know, super speedway restrictor plate.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (20:12)

Style races and well, we ran Talladega last year though.

TJ Majors (20:15)

He did, that's right. But he's still very inexperienced and you can see his hesitance. So when you go run those races and it's, it's, it's like an acquired thing. It's. I ran into everything for three or four times, like the first in 98, 99. I don't think I finished a restrict plate race at Daytona or Talladega wrecked on all of them. And it just, it's an acquired, not an acquired taste, but it's an acquired skill. What I learned over time is that, and I say this over and over, but you can't, you can't plan. You got to just be moving and doing and instinctually choosing how hard is that?

Mike Davis (20:52)

When like your spotter says to go up or down and you, you just have to do it. Like how hard is that to stop?

TJ Majors (20:57)

You don't have to do it, you just, it's a suggestion.

Mike Davis (21:00)

But how hard is it to trust them when you first get started to just do it bluntly, you know, it's different.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (21:06)

The style racing is different now though. You can, you can't control the things like you, you could before. And you know there is. And I've had this conversation with Carson before. I'm like, Carson, if you see something and you feel like you want to take that run, even if I'm telling you they're lined up there and you feel like you want to take it. I said don't hesitate, just do it. I'm going to adapt right away and we're going to make that work. We were going to try to make that work right away. And I'm not going to go back and look at it again and be like, well, you shouldn't have done this. Because there's going to be times when I say stay up or stay down and then a guy moves a different lane or doesn't move. I mean we're, you work as one team the whole time with him and I don't want him to second guess stuff if he feels like he needs to go. That's a conversation. We've already had three races now at big tracks and you know, we just go with it.

TJ Majors (21:49)

Yeah, you got to just go with it and you got to learn from what Works and you got to learn from things that don't work. And TJ and his ability to spot a race and his knowledge and experience up there is really valuable. But I think if Carson goes to the racetrack and just says, hey, I'm gonna just do what TJ Tells me to do, that might be, TJ might be making some good choices and telling him, you know, seeing the lines and the runs that are materializing and saying, hey, this line's getting ready to get a big push. Why don't you jump in front of it? Those are good things that a spotter can do for you. But the driver isn't learning anything if he's not trying his own ideas, right. And kind of learning what did and didn't work. But it's. Again, I'm not gonna be too hard on Carson. I joked with him about not being more aggressive, I guess at Atlanta, and he had a good car and he had a good result in his first stage, but when he lost some track, track position, he sort of seemed unsure how to, how to maneuver back there and what, what to do with his car. And so, and you see that a lot in, in the Cup Series as well. And so, and, and plus, when you get back in 10th, 15th, 20th position, that thing drives worse and worse and worse. So you, you can't always do what you want when, when you get in dirty air like that. But again, you know, Saturday, the truck and the Xfinity race double header, really exciting, a lot of fun to watch, and it had me really looking forward to the Sunday race. The one thing that I noticed initially right out of the gate for the, for the cup race Sunday was how dark the track was getting, how well the Goodyear tire was putting rubber down. We, we don't, you know, we can have, we suffer, I think all of us from short term memory. And I think we need to remember and think back to even just a short period of time inside the last 24 months where we're begging Goodyear to soften up the tire to get the tire to put more rubber on the racetrack that these, you know, we needed a tire that would put rubber down and allow the cars to get on top of that and slide and move around, right? And they've done it and it was, they've created a tire for the short tracks that's heading and trending in a very good direction in terms of fall off and wear. And they put a tire at a very high speed racetrack like Atlanta that actually rubbered the surface really well. And so I had Guys take two tires still. You still did. Yeah. You had got. And you. And you had guys that stayed out, guys that come down pit road, got two tires and would drive through the field. So tires mattered. They were, you know, if you were running 15th and calls come out and you're like, I'm coming down pit road, I'm going to take advantage of the new tire that's 20 or 30 laps better than everybody else, and try to gain that track position. You did it. Chase Elliott and a couple other guys made that work.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (25:01)

Laney at the end of the cup race didn't.

TJ Majors (25:02)

That's right. And so I'm very happy with, with, with the work Goodyear's been doing across the board. We come. We. You know, I think for the last five years, we've, We've complained a lot about tires and as. As a fan and drivers as well have made a lot of comments about tires. We'd go to Martinsville and have a tire that would last 5,000 miles if you wanted. But they've made some really, really aggressive changes that have been great, and I'm proud of that. I'm happy about that. So kudos to Goodyear. We've talked about how great the racetrack was, and so I want to know.

Mike Davis (25:44)

From TJ's standpoint, what was it like spotting this race with it being so aggressive? Obviously, unfortunately, you didn't get the.

TJ Majors (25:52)

They didn't get to spot too much.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (25:54)

Yeah, it. This race, Atlanta's hard. I mean, it's different. Like when he mentioned a minute ago that once you get back in that 10th to 15th range, it's still. You're kind of. You're still stuck there a little bit, and it's hard to get out of that area. That's why you see even trending last year. You see the cars that qualified up front pretty much controlled the first two stages. And then you have everybody at the end of that second stage that swaps it and then that splits the whole. It's like. It's like putting everything. All the numbers in a hat and jumbling everything up, which makes it exciting. But it's still really hard to get through the middle of the pack. You kind of have to time, and I've watched a lot of it, and I can't find a concrete path that gets you from the back to the front. But I can tell you right now to your tire point. I. If I'm 12th, 15th on back, and they got 10, 15 laps on their tires and they. The leaders don't pit, I'm Pitting. I would like to see, I would like to see it trend a little bit more in that direction. But it was a cool race and I think when we go back there at the next race, it's going to be, I mean where everybody's talking about handling already when we go back. So I'm excited about that. But it's still, it's challenging getting through the pack, man. And I, I thought Atlanta was a lot of fun. Frustrating at times, but you weren't, you know, there weren't three lanes to stopped up, not moving. It was actually you could get a run and there wasn't, there was a lane to take. Did it work out a lot? Not all the time, but you actually had opportunity. You know, last year Martin Truex was really good at getting up by the wall, making passes, getting on guys right rears because he could run up by the fence and he was, he was really successful with that. And it was hard to do this year, you know, a few guys were able to do it, but it's tough to do. And that to me, I like seeing guys have to drive the, you know, have to fight handling when they were getting a turn. Three of those big runs, they're all lifted and sliding up the racetrack and you got a guy that backed his corner up a little bit. He's got a big run on the exit. It was a lot of fun. But it is, it's very challenging, very hard. I forgot how hard you work at Atlanta spotting compared. You know, you think of Daytona and you're like, oh, Daytona plate track, you're going to be real busy there. And, and you are. But you go to Atlanta and it is like, it's like you're, it's like Atlanta had an energy drink, you know what I mean? Like it, it's nuts, man. Like I was worried about running out of battery.

TJ Majors (28:20)

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TJ Majors (29:30)

Let's talk about some of the incidents that happened during the race. Chase Briscoe, Ricky Stenhouse collided. That sent Briscoe or Stenhouse up the track into Chase Elliott. Chase pretty disappointed. That's the one that you guys got swept up in.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (29:42)

Yeah, I squared Brad up for that.

TJ Majors (29:44)

Yeah. You told him multiple times to go low.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (29:47)

I'm glad we didn't go low because there was a line of cars going by on the inside.

TJ Majors (29:52)

Well, you don't know what would have happened. You basically just drove right into the.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (29:55)

I know. Well, Chase, when he hit the wall originally, he didn't start spinning and he was, he was still going. And then I look up again and he's going out towards Yasa walls wrecking. And I'm like, oh no, this is not good.

TJ Majors (30:07)

What's the deal with the Briscoe and Stenhouse there? I mean, looking at that wreck, I know Chase was critical of Ricky, but was ricky crowding the 19, not giving him enough room? The contact, was it avoidable?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (30:21)

I just think as that race goes on, man, you're racing for inches and there's, there's two or three times we dove into three, three wide and if we, I was about a foot from clearing Brad and I couldn't do it. And guys, guys start figuring out like, you know, as, as they do every race, they, you start putting the guy in more wake. It washes him up the track. Well, he puts another guy up the track and that guy has to lift out by the wall like that, that same lap behind them guys. Well, the reason we were, we were all the way up against the wall like that by ourselves is because then he. Denny had moved the. Denny had moved the 34 up the racetrack and he was just. And that was kind of guys were doing that to pass.

TJ Majors (31:03)

I know. But just watching that wreck, how it started, I thought the 19 was as low as he could be and the 47 just on his right front, you know, as hard as he could be.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (31:12)

Yeah.

TJ Majors (31:13)

Just kind of seemed a bit Seemed to be a bit of an avoid or avoidable. But you think Daytona's close.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (31:20)

Yeah, like Daytona's close racing. But Atlanta is on a whole nother level on these guys threading the needle through holes and stuff. Like, it's a whole nother level of doing that. And these spotters are. Man, it's. Brad was moving in the holes that I. They were opening up as he was getting there. And I'm like, I don't know if.

TJ Majors (31:38)

I gotta do it.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (31:39)

You have to.

TJ Majors (31:40)

You just got a sense where the front and back of your car is. And judging by the speed that you may be going by somebody, you gotta. You're like. You can time it in your mind. All right, I believe the right rear bumper cover is clear. You know for sure.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (31:53)

And they're leaving. And you know this with plate racing, when you're three wide and there's three lanes, sometimes the guy in the middle doesn't move all the way to the bottom, and sometimes the guy on the top doesn't stay all the way on the top when you're running the bottom. So you got to be really aware how far they off, how far a car is off your door. And you're really relying on your spotter at that point. You know, if the middle's open or not, then by the time you go to close, hopefully the other guy is not meeting you there and there. It's not just front and back, it's side to side, because the side draft's so important as well.

TJ Majors (32:20)

Carson Hocevar had a pretty eventful day. I posted a tweet on social media that they just put a camera on him, and we would all be entertained because, you know, there was a lot of watching the front of the pack. But I knew what he was getting himself involved in as he was running, you know, 8th to 15th at some point. And he was upsetting some drivers with the moves and things he was doing. And I wanted to really see it right and kind of understand, like, why Kyle Busch was as upset as he was.

Mike Davis (32:50)

Here's Kyle Busch's quote. Go tell the 77. He's done the same move 10 times. I don't care if I wreck the whole field. I'm over him. He's a. I'm going to wreck his ass.

TJ Majors (33:00)

Yeah. So a lot of people had a lot of comments for Josevar. And let's see, Ryan Blaney was upset, obviously, Chastain upset. And I, you know, there's. This is the thing. So the sport needs personalities. It needs things that Stand out. It needs drivers that we can depend on to kind of go against the norms. And we had that in Ross Chastain. Right. We had that in other drivers as well. They improve. They polish the rough edges. They become more well rounded, complete race car drivers.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (33:47)

Ross got polished quick.

TJ Majors (33:49)

Ross, yes. Ross has changed a lot as a race car driver. He doesn't put himself in situations that are upsetting other drivers as often, if at all anymore. He's still one of the most aggressive defenders of his position in the field. He is absolutely through looking at statistics, real data, the best defender, there's nobody better. So he still has the skills that he always possessed, but he just doesn't make as much noise anymore. He doesn't want to be the guy that we're walking up and interviewing in a rain delay going, hey, man, who have you pissed off today? He hated that. He hated that attention, and he didn't like that narrative about him. Josevar sort of has that same thing, if not a little bit more going on. Here's the problem with. And he'll just have to own this and understand that it's going to be a little bit noisy for a while, but this is the reason why. So I want to believe the best in people. I want to believe everybody's got a good intention or a good agenda or whatever. Right. And I want to believe that about Carson. I think he actually is a good person. Having conversations with him. He's not a brat, not a little. Not a punk. Now, when he drives a race car, he may get a little punky, a little bratty, a little, you know, but so does Logano and some other people. They change a little bit when they're beside, you know, between being out of the car and in the car. The personality changes. They drive you. They race differently than you would expect as how they act off the track. Right. Logano's super nice guy, awesome, great with the media, but when he's on the racetrack, completely different person. He's not your friend, not your friend. And I like that. Josevar had those comments. He's like, hey, I'm not here to be buddies. He has speed. He is impressed with his speed. He is overachieved since he's gotten into the Cup Series. And as long as he continues to do that, there'll be a little bit of a longer leash in terms of if he's. If he's truly, genuinely making mistakes on the racetrack. As long as he's fast, his owners, people around him in his camp will say, hey, man, we're gonna, you know, you're gonna get better, smarter. You're gonna clean up some of this stuff and the speed will be there and then the race wins will come. The problem with him is his past. I believe that he did some things that he shouldn't have done when he was racing in the truck series and so forth. He turned a few people on purpose and it was a bad look. And he. He stood out because he was kind of the only guy really blatantly doing this. That stuff will follow you for a while, you know, and the reputation that he created from those moments where I think he did two or three times, I can't. I know there was the IRP wreck on the front straightaway and a couple other moments where he. It was like obvious that he just hooked the guy of Phoenix for the points. That was just wild, you know, all the things he was doing at that race in the truck race at Phoenix and so desperate, you know, to try to do whatever he could. And he crossed the line a couple times. If you. If that never happened, I think we're really not as hard on him today. And I don't think the drivers would be as hard on him either. They wouldn't love what he's doing. They would still have comments post race, but I think they would be softened a little bit. But since he has this sort of, you know, since he has this sort of history, even though he says, hey, I've changed, I'm no longer like that. I don't like, I'm no longer going to be doing those things, that's great, and I believe him. But it still is his past. And since he has that sort of history, he's not going to get the grace that he's. That. That maybe some other drivers might get in this scenario. And so, you know, I think that that's probably why he's spotlighted a little bit more and there was a little more heat on him after this race. Honestly, man, I'm not on the racetrack and I'm sure if I was in Kyle Busch's car and saw what Kyle Busch saw, I would probably have the same frustration. But as a viewer and a fan, I just see a guy trying to do everything he can to win. Yeah, he knocked the hell out of some people and he's moving on. You know, he's changing lanes and door and people and. But he's wild. But he's a rookie. He's young. Well, he's not technically a rookie, but he's young. And, you know, I just Feel like that he's fast. He's going to be here, he's going to stick around. The veterans need to get him, you know, in the headlock in the garage and say, look, man, you, you're great. You got talent. You need to clean this up, you know, and, and he will, he'll. He'll want to earn the respect of his peers. Even though he says differently post race, you know, I ain't here to make friends. He does want his peers to respect him. We all want that.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (39:29)

Do you think having, like, now that he's teammates, he's got McDowell over there.

TJ Majors (39:33)

You know, I think they can help him.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (39:34)

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, like, having McDowell, who's a while he can.

TJ Majors (39:38)

But I got, I got to tell you, though, I, and I, I hesitate to say this because I don't want to really annoy the other drivers, but, man, as a, as a broadcaster and as a race fan, I wish there were some more guys like him out there.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (39:54)

I, I, Yes, I agree. They're fun, man. He just, I hate when he's around the car that I'm spotting most.

TJ Majors (40:00)

Sure. Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (40:01)

But, man, we need that in our sport. We need the guy that's going to make the move that, that these other guys aren't comfortable making at times, and he does. There's been. There was two or three races last year where we all left saying, you know, marked safe by the. From the 77 car this weekend, you know, like, because he had run into a lot of cars. Martinsville, the Roval. He just, it's almost like when he decides he's going to have a bad race, he just, Well, I don't know, like, has a really bad race.

TJ Majors (40:30)

There may be a part, there may be some truth to that, tj, where he, he may wake up in the morning, depending on the weekend, and go, I'm, I'm over it today. I, I ain't taking care of anybody. I'm going for what I want. Right. We'll. We'll learn whether that's truly in his personality as we go through this season.

Mike Davis (40:53)

Do you think, though, that this backlash will be similar to what happened with Ross and kind of. He'll kind of depends on who he is. He was apologizing. His first apology was to Larson and hms, who I don't think he owed an apology to.

TJ Majors (41:06)

I think he was apologizing to them because he didn't help them at the.

Mike Davis (41:10)

Danny said he could. He wasn't going to be able to push Larson.

TJ Majors (41:13)

I know, but I Don't think he was saying, hey, I'm sorry, Rick, for being a menace on the racetrack today. I think he was literally apologizing for a very specific choice he made that he thinks that they might have not agreed with. So there, that tells you how much conversations are going on behind the scenes between teams that have allegiances or alliances or connections in technology and also the manufacturers. They all are directed or instructed to like, do when they can, to work with each other, help each other. And when you get in that car, you know whose engine you leased, you know that, you know in certain scenarios, you don't need to make things harder on that person. That's also that you're leasing that engine from or what have you. Right. So that there's nothing really.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (42:06)

I commend him for making the decision to try to win the race, which he thought he was going to do the best. I commend him for making that decision.

TJ Majors (42:12)

I do too. I only think that he was apologizing to them for not pushing Larson to the win and being selfish and going for it himself. And I think Rick would say, dude, you go for the win. You know, don't, don't. You know, I appreciate the sediment, but I'm gonna be.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (42:32)

He's still gonna be there. Don't worry.

TJ Majors (42:33)

Yeah, there's plenty other races where he'll be able to help his friends on the racetrack, but in that scenario, you go, you gotta go for it.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (42:41)

If he wins that race, I mean, incredible. Huge.

TJ Majors (42:45)

I think we don't appreciate like how far spires come and it's moves like hiring a guy like host of our. That have helped them really be able to take their cars to the racetrack and perform. You know, he is Josevar, when he got in that car at St. Louis, remember him running 17th when the rotor come off of it?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (43:02)

Pretty sure that's what got him a job.

TJ Majors (43:04)

Yeah, dude, he was running 16th with that.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (43:07)

I was watching him.

TJ Majors (43:08)

Yeah, it's crazy. That car hadn't ran into top 25. So every time he's drove, he's impressed just at us, just in terms of lap and speed. He'll clean the other stuff up. I'd say this to his face, he's a little goofy. And I think he's fun and good for the sport. Got great personality and he does want to be appreciated and respected. And he's young and he got that SIM rig up in the holler at Daytona and he's on there twitching and.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (43:43)

Streaming and he loves rain delays now, I'm sure.

TJ Majors (43:46)

Yeah, you Know, I mean, he's just. Yeah, he's good for the sport because he's different. He's just not the norm.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (43:53)

You know, Noah, him. Them guys that are just.

TJ Majors (43:56)

Yeah, yeah, Noah, Yeah, yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (43:57)

I mean, their own people, man. But it's fun to see them come in here and, and get to know them and stuff and watch them race.

TJ Majors (44:03)

Yeah, Like I won't know. It'll run great so he can stay. You know what I mean? I mean, I know he's a sponsor's dream because he's, you know, he's done such a great job kind of cultivating partnerships and relationships that have continued to keep him in the cup series. He was supported by his family coming into the sport and earned his way out of that role into a driver that has true partners that just want to sponsor his race cars. It's really impressive what he's done now. He's made some missteps, but, you know.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (44:40)

There'S a few drivers like that, like Tyler Reddick did the same thing. He's kind of came into his own now. He's a, he's a full time race car driver paid by, you know, 2311 and. But it is fun to see guys like Noah and Carson and them guys come in and, and you know, their interviews are. You never know what they're going to say. And they're good people too.

TJ Majors (45:02)

Yeah, I think so. Well, the great thing about it is I hope this, you know, I hope this kind of story of Josevar and his, you know, imperfections and how that ruffles a few feathers and annoys a few drivers continues. You know, it's a story arc that you want to be part of the season because it, you know, it'll get people talking and people tuning in to see how that progress goes. So we'll see. Hey, Andrew Dalton. You guys heard about Community Coffee? Yeah, I had it this morning. You did? I sure did. Oh, did you know it was family owned? I did. Fifth gender box. Yeah. Fifth generation roasters. The story from those guys began from a simple belief that great coffee has the power to bring people together. 105 years, that's how long these guys have been roasting smooth, rich coffee. And they build that community one cup at a time. Community in every cup since 1919. That's crazy. Wow.

Russell (46:04)

Long time.

TJ Majors (46:05)

They've got this breakfast blend that is one of their best sellers. It's a bright and smooth medium roast and with a full body taste. They also have Mardi Gras King cake coffee. Fancy. It sounds festive. It's got a little cinnamon spice and a sweet vanilla flavor in there. That blend from Louisiana based community coffee is available year round, not just during the. Not just during Mardi Gras time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can get that anytime you want it. I do drink coffee from time to time. Amy drinks a little coffee at the house, and I'm always jealous. She'll make herself a cup and. And I'm like, damn, I want a cup. We, we got some of their coffee sent to us, and I made some of the king cake and you can smell it throughout the entire office. The cinnamon and the vanilla. Everybody was like, what is that? I'm like, it's skin cake coffee.

Russell (46:51)

You got to try it.

TJ Majors (46:52)

Their breakfast blend is really good. Yeah, it's just a good cup of coffee. Nothing better. Simple. Well, you can visit communitycoffee.com and you can use this code Dale20D A L E20 for 20% off of your first order of this great tasting community Coffee. That's code DALE20 for 20% off only@communitycoffee.com.

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TJ Majors (48:08)

We got to talk about the caution late in the race. Honestly, you know, there was a ton of conversation around this, but I didn't understand it. The way I see it is, and I said this to some friends, so nascar, you know, they, they, they threw the yellow during the duel that they shouldn't have thrown because the, the cars were just a couple feet from the finish line. You just let them cross the line, then throw the yellow. Right. It's just 100ft or whatever. And you know Erik Jones would win that duel. That'd be incredible for the 43 team. And Jimmie Johnson and all that. So that was kind of a thing that, you know, it's unfortunate, but no big deal that happens. There was an uproar, and then they may have, you know, they went a much more conservative route and they let a race play out and let the fin, you know, they do something the complete opposite the next day, and then there's an uproar over that, and then they dial it all the way back and throw the yellow early, and then there's an uproar over that, and then they let another race play out to the finish line and there's an uproar over that, and then they over officiate the next night. And, you know, just kind of this rubber band effect between NASCAR trying to make a good choice and the fan reaction to it. And honestly, I was totally unbothered by how the cup race ended. I do not have eyes on the back straightaway to know if somebody's sitting broadside in the racetrack. But I've seen enough things in the 30 years I've been around this sport to know that if there's even the potential of that, it's deadly. And we don't even need to have that conversation. So, you know, the, the. And we don't even need to make it guesswork. Right. Well, maybe they're, maybe they're all through it. Maybe, you know, it's at the back of the pack. Everything should be okay. I mean, it's.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (50:10)

What if it's not?

TJ Majors (50:11)

I know it's a human choice. I'm leaving it up to the people in the booth. I do not love every choice they make. But in that scenario, you know, I think Denny said it best. Safety prevails. Right. And he took a shot at the.

Mike Davis (50:26)

In the 500 that maybe wouldn't have had they thrown the caution out.

TJ Majors (50:30)

Yeah. Well, I, I just don't think we need to get too caught up in or make too much of an uproar. Right. Because we got to choose the safe, logical route. Now, can they, you know, could we have the conversation around, you know, does that just extend overtime if a caution comes out after the white flag? Sure. You know, and I'm sure. And we've had that. That conversation is not a new one. And there's probably reasons, good reasons why NASCAR didn't choose to do that or doesn't do that today.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (51:04)

We went away from it for a reason.

TJ Majors (51:06)

Yeah. And so, you know, I just think I was unbothered by the finish of that race.

Mike Davis (51:12)

What about the Blaney caution that was.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (51:15)

That's the only thing, one that I.

TJ Majors (51:16)

Was kind of where he's spinning across.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (51:17)

The apron, he's down the track out of the groove. And I mean, I can see caution.

TJ Majors (51:22)

Did the caution come out when, as he was sliding or after he had come to.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (51:30)

It's like three quarters away through his slide.

TJ Majors (51:33)

So the word thing that I thought was going to happen in that scenario was he was going to over correct up, back up into the racetrack. Because this damn race car is weird as when it gets loose. And we see a lot of times guys get, guys get too far on input, on steering input and overcorrect for sure. They may be getting smarter and getting some muscle memory and understanding about how they drove race cars with the steering box on it, a manual box on it for, you know, all their lives. And now they got a rack and pinion, which is a little quicker. And so they're trying to learn the muscle memory to how much do they need to steer into these slides? And they're getting better. I was really shocked that the 20 or the 12 didn't overcorrect back up the racetrack. And I think when that car gets sideways down across the apron like that and it's not coming around, I would have thrown the yellow right away to get everybody slowed down for the potential idea that that car is coming back across the track like the five did at Talladega. Right. He gets drove into the door by priests. So I, you know, if he's, if they, if, if they waited too long or. Either way, I don't. I think it's a yellow car spinning across the apron in front of oncoming traffic or down below oncoming traffic. You don't know where that car is going to go. I think.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (52:54)

Let me ask you this.

TJ Majors (52:55)

Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (52:56)

Say that's the white flag lap and you end the race like that. That's a tough one for me.

TJ Majors (53:00)

That is a tough one. Yeah. Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (53:02)

That's tough for me to end the race like that.

TJ Majors (53:04)

You know, maybe, maybe on, you know, and not that I love doing things differently depending on what part of the race you're in. I don't love that. I like things very, you know, if you're going to do it on lap one, do it on lap nine, do it on lap 200. But I think in that scenario, maybe you hold the flag. If it's the last lap and the 12 goes across the apron. Yeah, I would.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (53:25)

It's tough. I mean, you got to be okay with it either way.

TJ Majors (53:27)

Yeah. But we saw Priest driving to the door that Five. And what that did to that car and how hard of a hit that was for him. And I don't want to put any driver in that situation where they've got to make a choice. Choice of lifting to lessen the impact, or I got to stay wide open, the caution's not out right. And driving into a potential dangerous situation. These cars are all. These cars are pretty damn rough in terms of collisions and hits. Drivers say that even after all of the changes that we've done or that NASCAR's done to the cars to improve, they have improved, absorbing more of the impacts. They're still pretty harsh. And the way the cars. You know, the way the drivers feel the impacts is. It seems like they say they're still tougher than the old car, but.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (54:18)

So, yeah, I think you got to let Blaney's. I think you got to let that one play out because, okay, even if you do throw the yellow right there and say he does come up the track, those guys are. You're not stopping a wreck.

TJ Majors (54:29)

I know. That doesn't bother me, though, that that's a car spinning out of control. What, the ones that pissed me off.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (54:35)

Honestly, he had really good control of.

TJ Majors (54:36)

It, the one he did. But I didn't. I didn't think that it was gonna stay. I didn't think it was sustainable. I really thought the car was over correcting.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (54:43)

But looking at it from my point of view, he, like. I didn't think he. I could see him, like, literally driving it sideways, trying to get going still.

TJ Majors (54:50)

Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (54:50)

But there is that moment it can snap.

TJ Majors (54:52)

The ones that make me frustrated are when a car brushes the wall and it's still going. It's still going. And there's no debris. There's no visible debris or no obvious debris, and a car just brushed the wall. Those aren't yellows.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (55:08)

I think they've gotten a lot better at that. They don't let you know a guy.

TJ Majors (55:12)

Well, I mean, I don't know that we know that for sure. You know, you might go to Richmond and be 180 laps into a green flag run, and somebody pops the wall off the right. Off the two with the right rear quarter panel and carries on and the yellow comes out. You just. You never know. So we'll see how it goes. But I didn't have a problem with Sunday.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (55:33)

I didn't either. It's not a problem until it is a problem. You know what I mean?

TJ Majors (55:37)

Like you said, I think people are wanting more consistency. I could see that argument after how we. You Know, basing off of the bucket of Daytona and Atlanta, I could see that.

Mike Davis (55:50)

But NASCAR came out and put out a statement, so, like, you knew that these calls were going to get made.

TJ Majors (55:54)

That was the other thing, too. So. That's a great point, Travis. NASCAR owned what happened Saturday in the Xfinity race and said we should have did something different. And, And. And what they said they were going to do is what they did Sunday, you know, and so, in my opinion.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (56:11)

Race, it went too long.

TJ Majors (56:13)

They prepared us, they forewarned us about if the situation is similar, we're throwing the yellow. And they did. And it just so happened that, you know, the 20 cars in lead, when that happens, and he's the winner, and that's the end of the. That's the end of the race.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (56:29)

I mean, he. If the cost came out and there was 10 to go, he was still going to be the leader.

TJ Majors (56:34)

Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (56:35)

You know, and he's the one. That's. That's just part of the strategy, though, if you got. If you. You want to lead on that last lap.

TJ Majors (56:41)

Yeah, yeah, I didn't really have. Have an issue there. We can talk about Larson squeezing the two. We've seen that before. I think, you know, he's been. Been the kind of driver that he's gonna. He's gonna try to force you to lift in some certain situations and use a lot of racetrack. He is leading the race. I. I think that we kind of know that that's his. That's his M.O. or that's sort of something in his toolbox. The two could have checked up a little bit. That would have caused, you know, caused him to lose a lot of spots going down the back straightaway. The one thing that was interesting to me was William Byron. I think if the two's not there, William Byron drives right into the wall. His angle of attack on the exit of the corner, the way that two and the 24 came together, I was just like, where were you going, William?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (57:42)

Yeah, he misjudged that.

TJ Majors (57:44)

Yeah, they just slammed into each other. I know the two come off the wall, but I didn't know that he. I didn't know it wasn't enough. It didn't come way down the track. So that was kind of interesting to me. But it was all, you know, it was. Everybody was. Everybody was driving. It was white knuckle, like. Then he said in that moment, everybody was driving with their hair on fire. And that's some of the scenarios you can get yourself into.

Mike Davis (58:06)

That's what I want, is a driver to put another driver in a position that you got to make a decision. Are you going to let up? Are you going to. We're going to go.

TJ Majors (58:12)

Look, if it's, if I'm a Cindric fan, I hate it. Right? Yeah. But I, I mean, think about it, Denny.

Mike Davis (58:18)

Put Kyle in the same position. And so like, you give it and you take it.

TJ Majors (58:21)

Yeah. Chase Elliott won us a race at Daytona and Xfinity series doing the same thing. I think to maybe Austin Cindric, it might have been Joe Logano, but I mean, he literally just, you know, chopped him and he's like, you know, you, what happens is what happens and we got the win. So, I mean, when it's your car and your driver's driving the five, you're not, you're, you're fine with it. I did text Larson and I said, hey, you know, there's been this sort of narrative that he doesn't enjoy the Daytona and Talladega style racing. And, and maybe he doesn't excel at it because of his disposition toward it. And I text him after. The unfortunate part, I believe, is that Kyle Larson's never really raced in the heyday of great restrictor plate racing like 2004, 2003 and on up. He never really got a chance to be in that style of racing. Maybe a little bit when he came into the series.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (59:20)

Just a little bit.

TJ Majors (59:21)

Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (59:21)

But he struggled his first 500. He wrecked off well.

TJ Majors (59:25)

I mean, it's your first 500. I probably worked in my first 500. But the, I text him after the race and I said, what you did today, it looked fun, it looked badass from where I was sitting. But what you did today is exactly what Daytona and Talladega used to be back when you know you could do whatever you wanted and take a car and make moves and show your skill. And he, I said, I believe that you would have been great at it had you had the chance to race in that era, but what you did today is pretty much what it was like. And he, he said, man, today was fun as hell. He had a blast. And I like that. I want, I want. Our Kyle Larson is arguably the best driver in the series overall. Yeah, there's a couple other names you could throw into that bucket. I want him to like racing at Daytona. Daytona is our cornerstone. It's, it's, it's a. The Daytona 500 is our most important event. I want our best driver fond and of that event, fond of that race, fond of going there. I want him to be excited about it. Right. And when he's not that thrilled about it because he doesn't feel like he can do what he wants to do, that's, that's, that's frustrating for me. And so I was really glad to hear him get out of the car and say, damn, Dayday was fun. I enjoyed this.

Mike Davis (60:49)

If I'm the field, I'm worried.

TJ Majors (60:50)

I am, too, like, because you think.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (60:52)

It'S more fun if he has, you know, to handle and, and manage runs and lifting and things like that.

TJ Majors (61:00)

You're out of control. You're in control and being able to make some choices and do something for yourself.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (61:06)

That's still different to me than, like, did he think, does he think going to Kansas is fun where naturally their cars are some of the best there is? And it's, it's more of a. You're not, you're barely lifting. You know what I mean? Like, I want him to enjoy, like, what you said, the using the air. So I'm using your driver. Seeing the air, I guess, is what you would say, you know, and use things like that.

TJ Majors (61:28)

I know. I was, I was sad a little bit when I heard that he wasn't too big a fan of, like, Daytona and Talladega for a handful of years. Rightfully so. I mean, I've, when I watch it, it looks frustrating as a driver, but I was glad to hear him get out of that car because I know that if, you know, if Dayton Talladega can trend in that direction. Oh, my gosh. So fun, man.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (61:49)

I can't even.

TJ Majors (61:50)

Yeah. Yeah. So that was, that was pretty neat. It's great.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (61:55)

I want the 500 to be Atlanta so bad.

TJ Majors (61:57)

Yeah, well, I don't want Daytona. I don't want to move the 500 to Atlanta. No. But I want style of racing to get more similar. Both tracks. Yes. Yeah. The final restart. So I, I, I'm not going to, you know, deny it, man. I'm a massive Josh Berry fan. He had a great run this week. Weekend in the Wood Brothers car. I was texting with Leonard and John a little bit during the race. Yeah, he would lose some track position, and then he was able to get it back. One of the few cars that can, I, like, commit to running a certain, you know, running the bottom and kind of making his way back up, and he drove his car to the lead on a couple occasions. Really, really impressive. The last lap, he got, you know, got used up a lot. But, you know, I guess there was a. What, I mean, at the end of those races, a Lot of the fans I saw on social media were saying, man, why can't these guys just stop wrecking? Like, why can't these? These are the best drivers in the world. It's hard to say. It's hard to do that. I mean, these green white checkers or these short roll sprint runs to the finish and these in these races at Atlanta and Daytona and Talladega are, you know, going to put these guys in tough situations where one tiny little mistake or a misjudgment or, you know, one inch or two the wrong way is going to create a big problem. And that's kind of what we saw near the end of that race. It was like just a bunch of dudes going for it.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (63:24)

When you were watching on tv, when they would go off into three, when a guy would have a run, like spotting it is ridiculous because you have no idea what lane the guy is going to cover. And they're literally making a last second decision on the entry to the corners. And man, you're on the edge of your seat. I don't know what it looked like on tv, but from the spotter, from the spotter, Sam, you're like, I don't know where this guy's going to go, but we're running 8 mile an hour faster and he's getting ready to find out.

TJ Majors (63:47)

My whole body was like sitting there on the couch. The whole body was tensed up like I was moving and leaning and trying, trying to drive the cars around the corners for them, talking and cussing and frustrated. That kind of wraps up our race coverage from this past weekend. There's some big news. It's not new news, but this is the first time that anyone outside of NASCAR has really reported on it. Jordan Bianchi from the Athletic reports that Dodge is eyeing a return to NASCAR. We had heard that OEMs may be interested in the sport. A lot of talk, whether that was Honda or who. There was some rough, you know, comments about Dodge and whether they would be able to come back. But Jordan says that it's possible they'll have a truck in the Truck series next year and cup as soon as 2027. That's very aggressive for the cup effort, which I don't. I don't think they'll be able to do it that quickly. But NASCAR is reviewing Dodge's submission to field a truck through its Ram brand and an answer is expected soon, sources with knowledge of the plan said. While there was no guarantees, sources expect that the league will eventually approve Dodge returning. It would need to happen Within a few months to allow them to effectively test its ram truck before potentially hitting the track with an actual race next year. They last race in the cup series from 2001 to 2012. And yeah, people with knowledge of the discussion said Dodge is returning with the intent to eventually put together a full cup program that will be operational, As I said, in 27 or 28. I think this is awesome. Oh, man. The hemi Dodge has got such a cool reputation. And I know that they've. They've had some ups and downs over the past several decades, but in my eyes, they're still a true muscle car brand. The dodge charger from the 70s, a beautiful vehicle, historic. The Challenger. A lot of great vehicles come out of that brand. And the Ram. Yeah, the ram truck. Yeah. I mean, it's just a cool brand. So I'm thrilled they were. They're considering a return and. And I hope it's a successful one, to be honest with you.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (66:13)

Good for the sport, I think.

TJ Majors (66:14)

Oh, hell yeah.

Mike Davis (66:15)

That's great.

TJ Majors (66:15)

Yeah. So that's pretty interesting. There's a bunch of conversation around how, you know, what are the. Who are the teams that would. Would help them on this journey and where, you know, what would their cup programs look like? And so we'll keep our ear to the ground and maybe it's Jordan and these guys, you know, digging in some of the. Some of the. Some of the information that might help shape what this program eventually looks like. So very, very curious.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (66:47)

Come on, Jordan, get some news.

TJ Majors (66:49)

I'm sure there's a lot of cup teams out there that are thinking if that's a great opportunity for them or not, right? Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about Lionel racing. It's time for this month's selection of our ultimate racing collector. This is presented by Lionel racing, the official diecast of nascar. They're your go to source for all your racing diecast needs. Check out the latest pre orders@lionel racing.com. i. I finally got two new towers. 40 car.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (67:21)

Oh, you got them, huh?

TJ Majors (67:22)

I did. I've got them up in the house. Not sure. Amy didn't seem to complain or mind, but we now have four 40 car diecast towers in my office. They're not full. You got to take your time. But I've got some. I've got them about probably 70% full. So I've got a little bit of room. I want to take y'all over to my house, man, and bring a camera. And let's show these folks some of our. Some of the Stuff I got. I got some really, really cool pieces. But. And I'm anxious to do that. But anyways, our first winner comes from at Forever the Manned. Forever the Underscore man. Shout out to all our fans who submitted their ultimate racing collection. Travis. This guy's collection is insane. It's ridiculous looking at these photos.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (68:15)

Oh my gosh.

TJ Majors (68:17)

He's got a lot of cars, a lot of different cars and some pretty nice cases to display them.

Mike Davis (68:22)

He's. I mean he was one of. We had over 300 submissions. Like some of people their. Their fan caves is some people they recreated races and like put the cars in the order that they finished on the track.

TJ Majors (68:36)

Yep.

Mike Davis (68:36)

This dude, clearly an Earnhardt fan. He's got some. Plenty of.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (68:43)

The track above the TV is awesome.

TJ Majors (68:45)

Yeah, I like the track above the TV with the banking and the Daytona.

Mike Davis (68:50)

Yeah.

TJ Majors (68:51)

With the cars and the grandstands and the catch fence.

Mike Davis (68:55)

He made his own confetti to put over one of the Dale Senior three good wrench cars.

TJ Majors (69:01)

Very nice. I see that. Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (69:04)

Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Mike Davis (69:05)

This would be a fun place to watch a race.

TJ Majors (69:07)

Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (69:07)

He's put a lot of time into this. You got to appreciate that.

TJ Majors (69:10)

Yeah. Our fans are incredible and their passion for collecting has. Is inspiring to me. And it's actually fired kind of kicked in to gear. My. My passion for collecting die casts and we had a bunch of die casts in here that I took home and have put in my case. And so anytime we get an autograph, I've got a few autographs cars in my case at home. I got a Joe Logano and a Ross Chastain and Noah Gragson. I got a Brad, I got Martin to sign a rookie of the year Bass Pro Shop Xfinity die cast from. It's like 20 years old. While I was in Daytona, that's one thing.

Mike Davis (69:55)

So I used to collect a lot of sports memorabilia but with like football, it's like it could be a football sign but it's losing air. It's a helmet or like it's. But die cast, you can. You can make it very uniform in your collection and just looks very classy and clean. That's the one thing I do like about that.

TJ Majors (70:08)

Yeah. Well, look, if. If you sent in a submission and you didn't win, don't worry. There will be a new winner next month. You can resubmit what you have. If you missed it this time, you can try again the month after that. So we're going to keep doing this. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for our next post in March for your chance to win. Thank you, Lionel. If you're a die cast collector like me, then you're excited about the start of a new race season. That's because now is the time when race teams are unveiling their new paint schemes. There's a lot of new die casts on order and it's also when new cars start to deliver from Lionel Racing, the official diecast of nascar. Whether you have Junior Motorsports first cup series die cast already on pre order or you're excited about Noah Gragson's move to front row Motorsports, or maybe Chase Elliott's new sponsor, Amazon prime, there are a ton of exciting things happening in NASCAR this season. And what's so great about a die cast collection is that it can tell the story of it all like no other collectible can. To help kickstart your 2025 die cast collection, Lionel Racing has a special offer for Dale Jr. Download listeners get free US shipping on your next order when you use the promo code download25@lionel racing.com that's free shipping with the promo code download25. That's download with the number 25@lionel racing.com. hey, Andrew Dalton. You guys heard about community Coffee? Yeah, I had it this morning. You did? I sure did. Oh, did you know it was family owned? I did a box. Fifth generation roasters. The story from those guys began from a simple belief that great coffee has the power to bring people together. 105 years. That's how long these guys have been roasting smooth rich coffee. And they build that community one cup at a time. Community in every cup since 1919. That's crazy.

Russell (72:10)

Wow. Long time.

TJ Majors (72:11)

They've got this breakfast blend that is one of their best sellers. It's a bright and smooth medium roast and with a full body taste. They also have Mardi Gras king cake coffee. Fancy. It sounds festive. It's got a little cinnamon spice and a sweet vanilla flavor in there. That blend from Louisiana based community coffee is available year round, not just during the. Not just during Mardi Gras. You can get that anytime you want it. I do drink coffee from time to time. Amy drinks a little coffee at the house and I'm always jealous. She'll make herself a cup and I'm like, damn, I want a cup. We, we got some of their coffee sent to us and I made some of the king cake and you can smell it throughout the entire office. The cinnamon and the vanilla. Everybody was like, what is that? I'm like, it's King cake coffee. You got to try it. Their breakfast blend is really good. Yeah, it's just a good cup of coffee. Nothing better. Simple. Well, you can visit communitycoffee.com and you can use this code Dale20D A L E20 for 20% off of your first order of this great tasting community Coffee. That's code Dale20 for 20% off only@communitycoffee.com.

Russell (73:22)

Travis, you know what the most important part about my morning routine is?

Mike Davis (73:25)

What's that, Carl?

Russell (73:26)

And you know, because we were talking about this actually on the show last year. I'm an evening shower guy. So it's like I gotta make sure I smell good. Leaving the house, going into the office.

Mike Davis (73:35)

Don't want to be a smelly guy.

Russell (73:37)

You don't want to be the smelly guy. And let me tell you one thing. And let me tell you one thing. When I'm smelling fresh, I feel confident the rest of the day. And let me tell you. Dove men plus care whole body dio spray. It's the move.

Mike Davis (73:49)

Tackle whole body odor with dove men plus care whole body dio spray. Dove men whole body dio defends against all your odor zones from pits, privates to feet with long lasting 72 hour odor protection. You'll be covered from morning kickoff through triple overtime. I need that. I'm going to all these football games they're showing you on tv. I can't have pit stains on tv. It's bad enough how they make me look. Dove men whole body dio goes on instantly dry with an aluminum free vitamin E infused formula.

Russell (74:15)

Tighten up defense against those odor zones. This season five Dove men whole body dio at Walmart today. And we are live. Dale.

TJ Majors (74:33)

All right, everybody, thanks for tuning in to today's ask Junior presented by Xfinity Mobile. I have, you know, we've been dealing with some illness in my house. My little girls were. Were had a fever and were sick over the last week. And Nicole had it, but she's finally better. But it appears that I have gotten it from her. So I am doing my best today and we're, we're gonna have a great show out for you.

Mike Davis (75:07)

This is like Jordan flu game performance that you're putting.

TJ Majors (75:10)

Yeah, it is. Yeah. I'm telling you, man, I'm kicking ass. But tough. You know what I mean? I. Let me see. Let's bring this chat up for everybody. Can I bring the chat on my phone? Yeah. Internet here.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (75:24)

I'm gonna try to bring it up up here. I like to watch the chat too. Can I bring it up?

TJ Majors (75:27)

We need the Xfinity Internet because I don't know.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (75:30)

Oh, Andrew's down there. Andrew, can I bring that up?

Mike Davis (75:33)

Yeah, you can.

Russell (75:33)

Yeah. T.J. you can certainly bring this.

TJ Majors (75:36)

Just Google. You're on a computer. D.J.

Mike Davis (75:39)

Literally on a laptop. D.J.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (75:41)

There'S funny guys.

TJ Majors (75:42)

There's everybody. All right, so, T.J. you're the tech guy. Dude.

Russell (75:46)

You should figure out how to get it.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (75:47)

This is not my computer, and I didn't know. I don't want to mess up your.

Russell (75:50)

Record for not knowing technology. Ridiculous.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (75:52)

You didn't plug an ethernet cable in. That's ridiculous.

Russell (75:55)

All right, we're good. Dale. It's actually. This first question might be perfect, given the circumstances. It's from Dan. What's the best soup out there? Especially, like, when you're sick down, like, what's your favorite soup that gets your back?

TJ Majors (76:11)

Oh, gosh. All right, so this is going to be the brand, and this is strictly coincidental. The brand is Amy's, and it's Amy's. No. Amy's. Amy. I think it's called Amy's. No chicken noodle soup.

Russell (76:30)

No chicken noodle.

TJ Majors (76:31)

Amy's. No chicken noodle soup.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (76:33)

Oh, geez. I bet her no grilled cheese is good, too.

TJ Majors (76:36)

It is so good. And it's hot. It's. They rarely have it in the store like that. She. There's all these different types of soups from the Amy's brand you can get on Amazon, but when you go to buy it, I mean, the chicken. The. No chicken noodle soups almost always sold out.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (76:53)

Isn't that supposed to make you feel better?

TJ Majors (76:56)

Sorry. What?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (76:57)

Isn't, like, chicken noodle soup supposed to make you feel better?

TJ Majors (76:59)

Well, I just. It's also just my favorite soup. If I'm just.

Mike Davis (77:02)

That's your favorite soup.

Russell (77:04)

No chicken noodle soups.

TJ Majors (77:05)

Amy's. No chicken noodle soup. There's a little chicken noodle. There's a. Just. There's a. Look it up. I'm not trying to explain this to you.

Russell (77:14)

I'm sorry.

TJ Majors (77:16)

I also love traditional Campbell's tomato with the grilled cheese. Sure. I mean, it's really more important how you make the Campbell's tomato. You got to put milk in it. So a lot of people.

Russell (77:33)

Yeah, I've never heard that.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (77:34)

I've never heard of that.

TJ Majors (77:36)

So you take the. You take the. The tomato, you put it in the thing, and then you got to pour water or milk, and I think milk's better than the water.

Mike Davis (77:46)

Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (77:46)

It's never. Never.

Mike Davis (77:47)

That's not a crazy. That's not.

TJ Majors (77:48)

It's not a crazy idea.

Mike Davis (77:49)

Like, when you make eggs, you add a little milk in there. You add oatmeal instead of water. You do milk. Like it. It elevates it.

TJ Majors (77:57)

The other thing that I like to do is there's this stuff called succotash.

Mike Davis (78:06)

Oh, that's not soup, though.

TJ Majors (78:08)

Yeah, it isn't. But, I mean, it comes in a can like soup does.

Mike Davis (78:12)

So wait, you're getting canned succotash? Not, like, fresh?

TJ Majors (78:15)

Yeah, yeah, I think it's good.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (78:18)

Sounds like Popeyes or something.

Russell (78:21)

John in the chat said Amy's soup is legit.

TJ Majors (78:24)

It is. I'm telling you. I mean, the. The. No, chicken noodle is great.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (78:28)

Amazon rates it high. I just looked it up.

TJ Majors (78:30)

I'm not all that good. I'm not all that into soup in general in terms of. Oh, you want to know something? This is gonna. My wife doesn't like this, and maybe so, you know. Sure.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (78:41)

You want to say we're live.

TJ Majors (78:42)

Dale. Other people. I'm just saying it's a brand of soup or type of soup that she's. She's not interested in. And a lot of other people more than likely will not find this very good. But my dad used to make oyster stew, and. Oh, my God, it was so good. And so it's also made with, like, milk and a lot of pepper and. And a lot of salt, and oyster stew is freaking good. And honestly, I mean, it's. It's gnarly. Think about eating it. But it's good.

Mike Davis (79:14)

Do you eat raw oysters?

TJ Majors (79:15)

Oh, yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (79:16)

Oh, yeah.

TJ Majors (79:17)

Hell yes, dude. I mean, it's free calories. I would go to the. Let's. Hey, I'm gonna tell you, right?

Russell (79:23)

That's one of the ones that counts.

TJ Majors (79:24)

I will go to the raw bar in Key west and sit down and eat as many dozen oysters as you want.

Mike Davis (79:31)

Do you doctor them up or do you just eat them?

TJ Majors (79:33)

Yeah, I like. I like to put the. The sauce on them and then horseradish and put them on a cracker. Maybe eat them just plain. I don't care. I mean, I'm going to eat multiple dozens.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (79:46)

And I've seen it.

TJ Majors (79:48)

Tons of beer. I could sit there all day. That's one. In places where you can sit down, you have lunch, and then you drink a lot and have dinner without moving.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (79:56)

Oysters and get drunk.

Russell (79:57)

That's kind of awesome.

TJ Majors (79:57)

It is awesome. You don't know what the hell you're. When have you ever done that? Have you Ever sat down and had lunch and dinner at the same place? No. While drinking that.

Russell (80:08)

But can't. I think that could be awesome. Can't one dream, Dale?

TJ Majors (80:12)

Yes, they can.

Russell (80:13)

Thank you.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (80:16)

That's usually a good trip.

TJ Majors (80:17)

You know what else don't count is shrimp cocktail. Boy, I will eat the hell out of a shrimp if I see shrimp cocktail on the menu. Yeah, that. Getting ordered. St. Elmo's don't care.

Mike Davis (80:28)

Have you had their horse?

TJ Majors (80:29)

Of course.

Mike Davis (80:30)

Okay.

TJ Majors (80:30)

Yeah. It kicks your ass.

Russell (80:32)

It'll wake you up because it, like, clears your sinuses. That's what you need.

TJ Majors (80:35)

No, no, no.

Russell (80:37)

I mean the shrimp cocktail at St.

TJ Majors (80:38)

Elmo, it just burns your sinuses. It don't clear. Oh, it just.

Russell (80:42)

It's cleared mine.

TJ Majors (80:43)

What, you just all of a sudden all this starts falling out of your sinuses? Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (80:48)

No, there's a. There's a funny story about. About you look like you've been gassed. Like Cole Custer went there for the first time and. And dug in real deep and. And regretted it a few seconds later.

TJ Majors (80:59)

Yeah, this stuff burns like hell.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (81:01)

I don't.

TJ Majors (81:02)

I like it. I like horseradish a lot in my sauce for shrimp cocktail, so that's all good. That's a good question. Way to start off on the right foot there.

Russell (81:14)

Yes. It was a solid one.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (81:16)

You know what's coming up? Amy's oyster stew.

TJ Majors (81:20)

Hey, if they had it, I'd order it. I gotta tell y'all, I have another item that I brought with me today.

Russell (81:26)

Oh.

TJ Majors (81:26)

And we'll pull it out of this box. Just one second.

Russell (81:28)

All right, we're getting an unboxing here on Ash junior Live.

TJ Majors (81:35)

So. All right, so this is very delicate. This is still.

Russell (81:40)

Can you move it to the other side? We've got our Xfinity mobile bug.

TJ Majors (81:43)

All right, I see Just a little bit. So just like that. Look. This is a. There we go. Wow. This is a hat. That is from 1954. And if you go on YouTube, is all this good? This is good, right?

Russell (82:05)

This is good.

TJ Majors (82:05)

If you go on YouTube and watch any of the races from, say, just pick Darlington, for example, or watch any races from where there's footage. And look at the people in the pits. They must have been, like, handing these out or they. Everyone up and down pit road is wearing these hats. Everybody. And. And so when I was given this, I was like, holy crap. I've. I've seen these in the. In those old videos from Darlington and so forth and this. And. And I guess, you know, racing at a Darlington style racetrack On a blacktop in the heat of the summer was kind of a new thing. You know, nascar, for the most part, had been racing on the beach, had dirt tracks, not a ton of paved ovals. And so racing out there was probably in the garage and in the pits, unbearable. You know, just. And so they were passing these hats out, I think, as a way to help people kind of, you know, protect their skin and so forth, and weather the heat of the day. But anyways, this thing has so many autographs on it. They're all. It's written in pencil. Pencil, yes. Yeah. And so you got an eraser. It's not even funny. Right here. Fireball Roberts.

Russell (83:32)

Wow.

TJ Majors (83:33)

Incredible. Sarah Christian. There's Buck Baker. Fireball's wife even signed this.

Russell (83:43)

Holy cow.

TJ Majors (83:45)

Lee Petty signed this. Jim Pascal. Herb Thomas. And so there's. Yeah, there is a ton of names that. Yeah, I've got to go through and just kind of look at all of the names, but right here is Fireball Roberts. How many Fireball Roberts autographs are out.

Russell (84:13)

There in pencil, let alone too.

Mike Davis (84:15)

Well, you need to get a case to put that in.

TJ Majors (84:17)

I hear you. I just received it, so, I mean, I'm in the moment. I'm in the process.

Russell (84:23)

You need to be wearing gloves, handling this thing.

TJ Majors (84:25)

Big, weird bag. But.

Russell (84:26)

So how did you. How did you get that?

TJ Majors (84:28)

A friend of mine gave it to me. It has been kind of passed down to a few different people during. During its. I'm getting a little anxiety, so I'm gonna put it. There's some really great names on there, but the Fireball Roberts one is most unique because obviously his life was cut short, and, you know, there can't be that many surviving examples of his signature and especially coupled with so many other influential people in the. In the history of the sport. So I've got a couple of little booklets that people have given me with similar, if not the same autographs in them, and I have those kept in a safe place. So it's kind of stuff I love to have. And. Yeah, so I was wanting to share that. I brought that today.

Russell (85:21)

When you have something that cool and fragile and historic, like, where's a good spot for that?

TJ Majors (85:27)

So I will be. I will probably put it. Putting. Be putting that in a safe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I want to protect it from any kind of hazards or anything like that. And also just. It's very delicate because of it. 70 years old. And so I'll probably. Yeah, put it in a safe and leave it there for a while.

Russell (85:52)

People on the YouTube chat. Now, you could say this is a good idea, bad idea. I'm just reading what the comments are saying to clear coat it that I'm.

TJ Majors (86:00)

Worried about, like the pencil reacting it or anything. Right. That would be tough. Yeah.

Russell (86:06)

Yeah.

TJ Majors (86:07)

But hey, yeah. I mean, I. I've been very lucky to have some things come in my possession and very, very thankful that the person that gave this to me wanted me to have it as they were kind of clearing out some of their collectibles and. And I'll certainly take care of it.

Russell (86:28)

Definitely. Let's see. Let's do. Got a few options here. I kind of like this one. And tj, you could chime in on this too, coming from Robert. What's the weirdest group chat name you have in your phone? Do you have any weird, like, out of context. Oh, what the heck is that?

Mike Davis (86:50)

The coin boys.

TJ Majors (86:51)

What was that?

Russell (86:51)

Coin Boys.

TJ Majors (86:52)

So we have a group, TJ and all of us called the. Where did we get the coin?

Mike Davis (86:56)

Because you guys are talking about bitcoin one day.

TJ Majors (87:00)

Yes.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (87:01)

You changed it back and then Travis changed it right away.

Mike Davis (87:04)

No, I didn't. It got. Dale changed it and then changed it back the other day.

TJ Majors (87:08)

I didn't change it back.

Russell (87:09)

It was.

Mike Davis (87:10)

Oh.

TJ Majors (87:10)

Oh.

Russell (87:10)

There was one point that chat was. It was Dale, Dalton, Travis and TJ talking because it was just. Those were the people that was chiming in.

TJ Majors (87:20)

Yeah. Yeah. There's this one that's actually. It's active as we speak. It's called Four Friends Plus Brad, and it's me and three buddies. And then this guy Brad that we know that he moved away, so he's not a friend anymore. He's relegated. Four buddies plus Brad, and we give him a hard time.

Russell (87:47)

Oh, that's good.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (87:48)

We've got the. The racing group, too. That gets interesting.

TJ Majors (87:52)

Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's one called Talking Racing. Those guys are gonna love that. They.

Russell (88:06)

They got a shout out.

TJ Majors (88:07)

Their group got mentioned, but that's all that's in there. There's a lot of talking. Talking. Just racing stuff out. Yeah.

Russell (88:13)

I want to know what the YouTube chat. I want to hear some. Do you group chat names.

Mike Davis (88:18)

Do you mute your. The chats, though?

TJ Majors (88:23)

I never mute my notifications.

Russell (88:27)

Every text you get notifications.

TJ Majors (88:30)

You good?

Russell (88:31)

Oh, I would drive.

TJ Majors (88:32)

Well, I'm on silent, but I see it. I get a. I get the icon and I respond.

Mike Davis (88:37)

You do respond in a timely manner.

TJ Majors (88:38)

I hate people that don't respond to text messages when I. When they. When they've. What they've looked at it. And they've got a minute to respond. And I'm. I'm aware of that. It's really. It's really rude.

Mike Davis (88:48)

That's why I don't have my read receipts on.

TJ Majors (88:50)

That's. I mean, it's. I don't have my read receipts. I used to do read receipts. We talked about. I do.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (88:54)

I leave.

TJ Majors (88:55)

I do it with Amy.

Russell (88:56)

That's fair.

TJ Majors (88:57)

I do read receipts with certain One. One certain person. But I. Yeah, it's.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (89:05)

I learned a lot about. We had our fantasy football dinner last week, and I learned that when you will just block people instead of.

TJ Majors (89:12)

I did. So. So a friend of mine annoyed the hell out of me, and I blocked him for like a couple weeks.

Russell (89:19)

A couple weeks?

TJ Majors (89:20)

Yeah.

Russell (89:21)

That's a long time to be on the outside. Is that Brad?

TJ Majors (89:25)

I finally. I finally unblocked him. Amy said I was being petty. Thank you, Xfinity. Xfinity Mobile customers get exclusive access to the most powerful WI FI network on the go with speeds up to a gig. Now, NASCAR fans, that means faster downloads for turn by turn action. Smooth live streaming with fewer pit stops. You love the word puns. And a strong connection from the parking lot to the grandstand. So for more laps and less lag, stay connected with Xfinity Mobile again. Man, it's awesome to have Xfinity back and part of our program here, and they do so much for the sport, so thank you, Xfinity. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, this segment of Dirty Modeau is brought to you by fanduel. Been enjoying my fan dual app, dudes. I've been sending y'all some of these bets. I've been winning.

Mike Davis (90:18)

You hit. You got one that hit for me?

TJ Majors (90:19)

I did. I've been telling them I got another one tonight. Do you want it?

Mike Davis (90:22)

Yes.

TJ Majors (90:22)

All right. I'm doing some parlays on college basketball, taking basically the best favorites and piling them up into 6 and 8 player or parlay legs and, I don't know, doubling my money.

Mike Davis (90:33)

That's all matter.

TJ Majors (90:34)

I've enjoyed it. Hey, some of those gimmes or guarantees aren't always gimmes and guarantees.

Mike Davis (90:42)

McNeese State.

TJ Majors (90:42)

Geez, I had one that way. They had a 15 point spread and they lost. Tampa. Tim's is here, as always, but we are also joined by Russell the Professor. Russell, how's it going? Look at him. Dude, my man. I miss you, buddy.

E (91:02)

I miss you. We'll see you soon, though.

TJ Majors (91:04)

I know. Hey. All right. It's been too long, Russell. Most of y'all know, but he works in the booth for the races, racing insights, and gives us so much great information, makes us all look so smart. We have. We have. And I'll tell you this. I mean, getting into broadcasting introduced me to a lot of people I probably would have never really met or spent much time with. And Russell is one of my favorite people that I've gotten to become friends with since becoming part of the broadcast teams. So looking forward to seeing him this summer, but it's great to have him on the show today. NASCAR's headed Dakota this week, and we have a new layout. The changes that people are talking about is basically just shortening up the course, right?

E (91:52)

Yeah, it's. It's just over a mile shorter. There's going to be 17 turns instead of 20 turns, and then we'll go extra laps. I think it's 27 extra laps from last year.

TJ Majors (92:05)

Does any of that, like, steer you in a. In any new direction in terms of who might do well this weekend?

E (92:15)

No, I don't think so. Because you're still having the same turns. Overall, you're just, you know, they created basically two new turns.

TJ Majors (92:23)

Oh, yeah.

E (92:24)

Overall, you're going to. You're, you know, you have the 15 of the same turns.

TJ Majors (92:29)

Really? All right, T. T.J. for spotters, what does that do for you? Just makes your job easier, doesn't it?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (92:34)

Honestly, Easy job just got, you know. You know when they go out of your site for the 45 seconds or whatever, and then you're like, good, you got some time. Now I don't have that.

TJ Majors (92:43)

You got some time to eat your crustable.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (92:45)

I got. I got some time. I got some time to count the lead changes like Russell did at Daytona.

TJ Majors (92:50)

You got some time to text me and see what I'm doing?

Mike Davis (92:53)

Yeah, I mean, worked hard last week.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (92:54)

Dale, do you remember the. A couple years ago?

TJ Majors (92:57)

I don't know if Brad needs to know about that. All right, professor, you have the predictor model. When we're at the road courses, SVG is the first name that everybody says. Is he at the top of your model?

E (93:10)

He's actually third behind. Yeah.

TJ Majors (93:14)

Your model's broke the disrespect.

E (93:18)

All right, well, who do you think's above them?

TJ Majors (93:22)

Oh, my gosh. Damn. Reddick, he's.

E (93:28)

He's just below him. Larson and Chip Elliott are above him.

TJ Majors (93:32)

Oh, my gosh.

E (93:33)

Well, Larson, two of the last four road course races.

TJ Majors (93:37)

Yep. He's.

E (93:37)

He's tied for the most in this next gen car chase. Elliott has the Most wins among active drivers. He's won at Coda. He's been so good on the. In this car. And then SVG. SVG's only won one race. Like.

TJ Majors (93:49)

Yeah, you're right. He's kind of. Yeah, he kind of lost the. That, like, epic advantage he had at Chicago has been somewhat. It's leveled out, Normalized leveled out. I mean, he's still freaking svg. Yeah, man. I don't know, man. I think so. Those three are in tier one alone. Is that what I'm led to believe? Who are some of the other drivers that you like this weekend outside of those three?

E (94:16)

So I really like Ross Chassis and his average finish at Code is fourth. He's won there. His worst finish there, seventh. Yeah, I like Bell again.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (94:24)

He's, you know, C. Bell's been good.

E (94:27)

Yeah, he's been. I think he's got two top threes at Cota and coming off that win with momentum. And then like you said, Redick, he's won at Cota. He also has three wins in the next gen car and road courses. And then we have last year's winner, William Byron has been really good on road courses lately, too. And then I.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (94:51)

So no Almondinger. Did you not say aj?

E (94:53)

Nope, Nope. I think your sleeper, though, is Chris Buescher, like a top 10 bet.

TJ Majors (95:00)

Oh, I like that. For a top 10 bet, you know, the outright winners make me nervous because it's just you just named, you know, almost over a half a dozen guys that could. Could easily win. And so is it maybe smarter to maybe bet that live mid race, the outright winner?

E (95:24)

I just don't know what your odds are going to be like. That's more of a Tim's question, because that's going to be hard because when they start showing that dominance, I think we know pretty early who's going to be good. And I just don't know how well the books are going to adjust for that.

TJ Majors (95:42)

What will you be doing there, Tim?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (95:43)

Well, I actually think the books are really covering their ass on SVG and Connor Zillich making his first start because they're the. They're the top two favorites really across the board. So I think there's a lot of value pre race with a lot of guys. I mean, the top two guys on the professor's predictor are Larson, he's 11 to 1, which is like sixth best, and Elliot's 13 to 1 below him. So I think if they're top two on the professors list, those are two guys I'd target now Pre Race.

TJ Majors (96:06)

All right. There's your advice. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Davis (96:08)

Russell, where's Connor Zillich on the model?

E (96:11)

I knew this was coming.

TJ Majors (96:13)

So he's got.

E (96:13)

Remember, he's got no starts in cup. This will be his cup debut. I know he won in his Xfinity debut, but that was in spectacular equipment. Right.

TJ Majors (96:24)

What do you think he's driving now? What kind of equipment is he driving today?

Mike Davis (96:28)

Hey, Justin Marks.

E (96:31)

Well, didn't he win for you, Dale?

TJ Majors (96:33)

Yeah, well, that's. That's why. I mean that. I was just saying, man, that was a hard. That's a hard lick. Justin Marks just took. We need to go send a safety car out, check on him.

E (96:45)

So we will update the predictor after practice and qualifying so that the. It does take into account that information. So he will. I expect him to jump up. But just having no information, it's really hard.

TJ Majors (96:57)

Yeah. Where is this predictor information?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (97:00)

Yeah, it's an app or something.

E (97:02)

It's actually on NASCAR.com does an article with it.

TJ Majors (97:05)

Who's a dark horse?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (97:06)

The guy that the books thinks the dark horse is. I don't think it's a dark horse. Austin CK 37.

Mike Davis (97:11)

1.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (97:11)

And I know he hasn't really shown up probably since he's been full time on the road courses, but he's a good road racer.

TJ Majors (97:16)

Yeah.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (97:16)

And I think that's a really, really low price for. For him. That's. That's a good pick, I think.

TJ Majors (97:23)

Let's say you professor, like I said.

E (97:27)

Earlier, busher, I think.

TJ Majors (97:28)

Yeah.

E (97:28)

Bush my guy. He's been the best.

TJ Majors (97:30)

He's not really a dark horse though. I mean he's like a. He's like a capable B driver or like a top. You know, he's going to probably finish in the top 10.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (97:38)

26 to 1 on FanDuel.

Mike Davis (97:40)

Who's the driver to avoid Russian here. What's his road course?

TJ Majors (97:49)

My goodness.

Mike Davis (97:50)

Next gen record.

E (97:52)

In the next gen he's got one. One top 10 finish. I believe in the next next going.

TJ Majors (97:57)

On Denny and then the other. This next bad at road courses.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (98:02)

The next gen car and then. And the veteran drivers is different. They're just not. It's just harder. There's no. I mean if they could make the tires fall off the thing where you could. You could really hurt them bad. I think those guys would. Would definitely rise to the top more.

TJ Majors (98:18)

Yep. All right. Well. Hey Russell, thanks for tuning in helping us out today. Tampa. Tim's appreciate you showing up for Birdie Modo. Thank you. Fanduel make every Moment more with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. We talked NASCAR today, which I can. I can't bet, but me and the boys been enjoying some NBA bets and telling on each other's bets as well. All right, everybody, it's time for the white flag. The teardown was live on YouTube reacting to the race. If you haven't already taken a look at that, you need to check them out. Them boys going live right after the race, giving their instant and raw reaction is some of the best stuff in NASCAR content today. The tear down Live on YouTube post race check it out. Door Bumper Clear Drop Monday, they were joined by Noah Gragson. I saw Noah when they came into the office. Him and Tommy had a debate on how the old school drivers used to race versus the new era. You got to check that out. I think they the title was agree to Disagree. So maybe they didn't come to terms or find any common ground there. But Tommy's been a great new addition to Door Bumper Clear and really approached this with a. With a great attitude and putting a lot of effort into it.

Mike Davis (99:43)

A different perspective, too.

TJ Majors (99:44)

Yeah.

Mike Davis (99:44)

With his role.

TJ Majors (99:45)

Yeah. He's still heavily involved over at Rick Ware and knows what's going on in the sport and I really enjoyed him become part of the family. So. Actions detrimental with Denny Hamlin also dropped on Monday. Denny had high praise for nascar. Hey, give him credit when they deserve it.

Mike Davis (100:02)

Yeah. He said, listen, let their 1 and O right now on the calls and let's focus on the positives.

TJ Majors (100:07)

He's always shining a light on nascar.

Mike Davis (100:09)

Probably their biggest cheerleader.

TJ Majors (100:11)

Hard to believe sometimes because he's just always so. So pro nascar. So take it for what it's worth. Another actions detrimental where Denny Hamlin just goes on and on about how great it is tomorrow. Herman Schrader and Speed street will also drop. Connor Daly kicks off the new IndyCar season. So it'd be great to be able to tune into Speed street and see how he sees the season starting. A lot of excitement around IndyCar this year. Now with the move to Fox, the commercials been crushing. Commercials are crushing. Yeah. So there's a bunch of excitement around IndyCar season and I think they're gonna have a great year. Bless your heart. With me and Amy. We'll be out on Thursdays. I'm gonna go home, try to get this. This cold out of my system and get back in here on Thursday and have some fun with Amy. Been loving that show with her. We've only done two episodes and I have been really interested or surprised, I guess, by the feedback that we've gotten. People that were. They were kind of surprised themselves that they enjoyed the show. They really didn't know what to expect. And a lot of people that are seeing some common commonality in their own relationships and, yeah, that's what it's all about. I mean, it's our, you know, our marriage is something we work really hard at and we are very proud of the work we've done and how far we've came together. And so it's fun to have those conversations. It's a bit therapeutic.

Mike Davis (101:49)

And these episodes, they're evergreen. They're not really. Not NASCAR dependent.

TJ Majors (101:54)

They're not dated. Yeah.

Mike Davis (101:55)

So if you haven't listened to them yet, you can go back and listen to the old episodes and they're gonna be fresh.

TJ Majors (101:59)

I agree. We got a new YouTube page for bless yous Heart. So if you're, you know, if you're into subscribing to all of the Dirtymo Media YouTube pages out there, make sure you go to Bless yous Heart. There's, I think last time I looked, we've. We're at 3500 or something like that, so don't let me late to the bus. We're gonna try to continue to grow that channel and put all this content, you know, exclusively there for Bless yous Heart with me and Amy. So anyways, we also on Thursday will have Kenny conversations with Kenny Wallace. Really enjoying the new kind of partnership relationship we've got with Kenny. And he is his own man, that dude. He goes on and on and on and tells you his take on everything going on in the sport. As soon as something happens, he's creating content around it. He's a hard worker.

Mike Davis (102:46)

He does not have a filter. He gets like breaking news. He is the first to act on it.

TJ Majors (102:50)

You got to give him a lot of credit because he could be just, you know, mailing it in with the YouTube channel and so forth. But he. I mean, when something happens, he's on his phone talking about it, giving his perspective, his opinion. And yeah, he's. He doesn't. He doesn't have much of a filter. Spares no one. But anyways, enjoying all that. Thank you for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed our show and I hope you'll be back again. When we're back at the table. We'll see you businesses that are selling.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (103:26)

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