608 - New COTA, F****** Amazing

Summary

The Dale Jr. Download - Episode 608: "New COTA, F**** Amazing" Summary**

Release Date: March 4, 2025 | Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr. | Produced by Dirty Mo Media, SiriusXM

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Introduction and "Dirty Air" Segment

In this episode, Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes listeners back to another exciting installment of "The Dale Jr. Download." The hosts, including co-host TJ Majors and Mike Davis, dive straight into their segment titled "Dirty Air." They discuss upcoming throwback races and share their anticipation for nostalgic moments that honor NASCAR's rich history.

Notable Quote:

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [01:14]: "Throwback weekends are one of my favorites. I love the ideas that people come up with, and it's cool when they bring back classic elements."

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Cars Tour Season Opener and Historic Wins

The conversation shifts to the Cars Tour's season opener, highlighting a significant milestone—the first female winner, Jade Evadesian. TJ Majors expresses pride in her achievement and acknowledges her roots in dirt racing, emphasizing the importance of skill development.

Notable Quotes:

• TJ Majors [06:08]: "She's trying to gain more skill at her craft and develop over in the Cars Tour. Congratulations to her."
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [06:19]: "She was right on his ass. She earned it."

Connor Hall's victory in the late model stock division is also celebrated, showcasing the depth of talent within Junior Motorsports.

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Upcoming Race in Cordel, Georgia

TJ Majors announces his participation in an upcoming race in Cordel, Georgia, scheduled for April 12th. He discusses his preparedness and the strategies he'll employ, including leveraging his points from the previous year and opting for a provisional if necessary.

Notable Quotes:

• TJ Majors [07:52]: "I'm racing in Cordel, Georgia, because I've got the eight car points from last year."
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [08:16]: "That Florence stuff scared you?"

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New COTA Configuration and Its Impact on Racing

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing the newly reconfigured Circuit of the Americas (COTA). Initially skeptical, TJ Majors shares his transformation from disliking the track to appreciating its new layout, which promotes more engaging and competitive racing.

Key Points:

• Track Shortening: Removing a mile from the original layout made laps quicker and easier for viewers to follow.
• Enhanced Racing Dynamics: The new configuration allows for more passing opportunities and side-by-side racing.
• Track Limits Debate: The hosts delve into the complexities surrounding track limits, particularly in turn six, and how NASCAR's regulations affect driver behavior.

Notable Quotes:

• TJ Majors [12:25]: "New COTA is great. I can't say it enough. It's amazing."
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [13:52]: "They took a mile out of this course and made it an awesome track. How smart was that? Amazing."

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Right Hooks and On-Track Incidents

The discussion turns to specific incidents during the race, notably the "right hook" maneuver executed by Austin Centric. The hosts analyze the repercussions of such actions, emphasizing the importance of maintaining sportsmanship and the potential consequences NASCAR may impose.

Key Points:

• Safety Concerns: Regardless of the race segment, any aggressive moves pose safety risks.
• NASCAR's Response: The hosts speculate on how NASCAR will address these incidents, balancing punishment with the drivers' reputations.

Notable Quotes:

• TJ Majors [46:04]: "Should he not have threatened it?"
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [46:34]: "The right hook doesn't matter where it's at on the track. It’s just part of racing."

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Connor Zillich's Xfinity Race Win and Team Dynamics

Connor Zillich's impressive win in the Xfinity Series is a focal point. TJ Majors discusses the challenges of balancing competitiveness with being a supportive teammate, highlighting the importance of fostering a collaborative environment within the team.

Key Points:

• Teammate Relations: Emphasizing the need for drivers to support each other to achieve collective success.
• Learning Experiences: Mistakes on the track serve as valuable lessons for both drivers and team members.

Notable Quotes:

• TJ Majors [32:34]: "Connor has to improve on being a good teammate, and these are learning experiences for him."
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [35:28]: "We learned from our past mistakes and strive to prevent situations where teammates interfere negatively."

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Ask Junior Segment: Listener Questions and Personal Stories

In the "Ask Junior" portion, listeners submit questions ranging from collectible memorabilia to personal racing experiences. TJ Majors shares anecdotes about collecting panini cards and reminisces about his school days, including a humorous incident involving a Playboy magazine in a Christian school.

Notable Quotes:

• TJ Majors [84:20]: "You brought a Playboy to the classroom. That's wild!"
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [85:28]: "I really messed up. I brought trouble, but thankfully it was handled."

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Dirty Modeau Segment: Betting Insights and Promotions

The "Dirty Modeau" segment focuses on sports betting, with hosts sharing their betting strategies and favorite picks for upcoming races. Sponsored by FanDuel, this segment emphasizes responsible betting while providing listeners with insights into potential race outcomes.

Notable Quotes:

• TJ Majors [103:36]: "I like Briscoe. He's got a great track record at Phoenix."
• Mike Davis [110:15]: "Bet responsibly. Betting should be for fun."

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Closing Remarks and Upcoming Guests

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wraps up the episode by teasing future segments and upcoming guests, including a feature on NASCAR legend Jack Sprague. The hosts encourage listeners to check out their merchandise and stay tuned for more engaging content.

Notable Quotes:

• TJ Majors [111:55]: "We'll talk to Jack Sprague tomorrow. He's a nominee for the hall of fame and has had quite a career."
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [112:08]: "It's incredible to see Jack's legacy in the sport."

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Conclusion

Episode 608 of "The Dale Jr. Download" offers a comprehensive look into the evolving landscape of NASCAR, team dynamics, and personal anecdotes that enrich the listeners' experience. From celebrating historic wins to navigating the complexities of new track configurations, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his co-hosts provide valuable insights and engaging discussions for both longtime fans and newcomers alike.

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For more detailed discussions and the latest updates, tune into "The Dale Jr. Download" on Dirty Mo Media, SiriusXM.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[TJ Majors]

Young guy that I met at the shoot, he goes, my dad and you and two other guys. He named these two other kids. He's like, y'all hung out every day. Y'all were friends and y'all spent a lot of time around each other. He's like, my dad told me one of the times that you got in big trouble, you'd brought a Playboy magazine to the classroom.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Now.

[TJ Majors]

And I was like, all right, there it is. Jaw hit the floor. I was like, no wonder you were so cool. I was like, yeah, I don't remember that. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. And we're back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. And it's Tuesday, so we're doing Dirty Air. And I was just texting back and forth with some folks about a throwback that's going to be running on Sundays that I can't wait for, can't wait for it to be revealed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Throwback.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, there's some throwbacks out there, some Earnhardt throwbacks coming for the throwback race. And sometimes when people do throwbacks to dad, they just do them. Sometimes they. They reach out to me and go, hey, what do you think? Look good? And so this particular instance, they've asked.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Me, I would reach out to you and ask you what would be cool to run.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, well, they've already got the idea. They just asked me if I think it. Things are in the Right place as far as the way the car looks. But.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But do you like when they ask you about the throwbacks or do you like to be surprised?

[TJ Majors]

I mean, I don't have a preference.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, it's got to be cool to be like, oh, I didn't know that was coming. That's cool. That's a good, you know.

[TJ Majors]

Of course it is. Yes. It's. It's pretty cool. I mean, you know, I don't know. Throwbacks are the throwback weekends. One of my favorites. I like the. I like the ideas that people come up with. A lot of things have been done, but it's kind of cool sometimes when they're done again. Yeah, man. I would have ran that gray ghost every year. I would have. I would have. I would have ran it every year and not given a F what anybody thought, you know? You know, when I was. When I was trying to dress up for Halloween As a 6, 7, 8 year old kid, all I wanted to be was a football player. So I was a football player every year for at least three or four years. Didn't give a. Buddies and friends, they were whatever they wanted to be. I was what I wanted to be. And so, you know, maybe throwbacks kind of like Halloween, man.

[Mike Davis]

What was the football player that you wanted to be? Was there a certain player? No, I didn't know if there was a. What do you mean no?

[TJ Majors]

You really give a.

[Mike Davis]

Well, I didn't know if there was a certain like player that was like your idol. I don't think it's a crazy question.

[TJ Majors]

It's not a crazy question, but do you really give a. About the answer?

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Really?

[Mike Davis]

Like if you had a favorite player?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, well, my uniform was a piece of generic red one. Didn't even have numbers on this, on the shirt. Way to bring up. Way to bring up a really touchy subject.

[Mike Davis]

They all wanted to be a walk on player.

[TJ Majors]

Dude, I was. I wanted to be a rock star.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You wanted to be Rudy before Rudy Washington.

[TJ Majors]

I wanted to be. I wanted to be a badass. But I got the damn store brand shirt in jersey. It was a whole. It was a full kit.

[Mike Davis]

But still was it the plastic comet with like the kicker face mask that every kid had?

[TJ Majors]

Man, they didn't make anything else back then. This is the 80s. Sorry.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They definitely didn't make anything else.

[TJ Majors]

What do you think they made in the 80s back in 1982?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He would know. What do you like?

[Mike Davis]

I just.

[TJ Majors]

What kind of helmet do you think was going around on the Walmart?

[Mike Davis]

I know in early 90s, all the helmets.

[TJ Majors]

We weren't shopping at Walmart yet. What do you think we were getting from Roses?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kmart.

[TJ Majors]

What do you think was happening at the Kmart?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, Kmart.

[TJ Majors]

We're getting a freaking awesome helmets.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He wouldn't know. He's not from the 80s.

[Mike Davis]

I mean, I was born in the 80s.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What year? 89.

[TJ Majors]

88.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, because you remember him.

[Mike Davis]

Hey, you said I wasn't. I was bored.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, but you got to remember something from the 80s.

[TJ Majors]

All right. Hey, I can't wait till our dirty modo segment later. I had a good week. 2, 3, 4 parlays hit last night. Last night?

[Mike Davis]

Wait, you had some last night, too? You've been crushing it.

[TJ Majors]

We're hot. We'll talk about that. Dirty modo is still alive and kicking, man. It lives inside of this show.

[Mike Davis]

And we post the videos on the YouTube channel.

[TJ Majors]

Well, I'm just saying, you hearing the feedback, people are like, oh, dirty modo's.

[Mike Davis]

Gone thriving right now.

[TJ Majors]

Not gone, dummies. It's in the show, people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's thriving.

[TJ Majors]

Come on. We do miss Latart, but hey, still got tims, Travis. Me, I don't bring much to the table other than winning. I usually parlay, but I don't bring much to the table except for I don't lose.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I usually lose.

[Mike Davis]

Dale's carrying the team.

[TJ Majors]

Hey, for 10 days, I've been giving you guys my parlays, and you've been on them. Travis.

[Mike Davis]

I give you a hard time, but.

[TJ Majors]

I ride them, okay?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know about that.

[TJ Majors]

We're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about it. All right? So right before we go to coda, man, I just want to say real quick, the cars tour had its open season opener this past weekend. The cars tour is off and running. If you don't go to a race, watch it on flow live. We had a historical moment in the pro late models. The first female winner in the cars tour, Jade Evadesian. And she apparently comes from the dirt.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

World and kicks ass midgets and stuff.

[TJ Majors]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And so. So, hey, we're thankful that she's trying to gain some more skill at her craft, develop development and all that good stuff over in the car store. And so there was a little issue in tech. She was second when they crossed the finish line, but the leader got thrown out for left side weight. And.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But don't let that fool you, because she was.

[TJ Majors]

She was right on his ass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They had many resources where she was racing side by side. For the lead.

[TJ Majors]

Hey, man, she earned it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[TJ Majors]

Put yourself in position. No matter how it falls down, you know, she. She earned it. She'll probably, you know, definitely want to go out there and cross the finish line first. And she keeps it up, she will. So congratulations to her. Connor hall, driving for Junior Motorsports, gets the late mile stock version or portion of the night. And that we have a very talented female in that field as well. Laney Bice. So pretty cool. The series looked great on tv on flow. The booth was awesome. The race cars looked great. Yeah, everything was. Everything was good. So great kickoff to the season. We got a couple of weeks off until we go to Wake County. And then after Wake county, we're going to Cordeal, where I race. I just learned it's Cordeal.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, it's not Cordell.

[TJ Majors]

I thought it was Cordell. Some people say you can. It's both, but we're going to Cordel, Georgia, April 12th. I'll be racing in that one. And I am racing. You know why? Because I've got the eight cars points from last year. So if I need a provisional, I'll take a provisional. So the work, you know, that, that I'm talking about being nervous all the time. No more nervous.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That Florence stuff scared you?

[TJ Majors]

Scared me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. But that last time I went, I went to Florence to watch race. That last race. Holy cow.

[TJ Majors]

Look, man, qualifying hard and this. We had 40 cars at the race this weekend.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, there's a lot.

[TJ Majors]

I don't know how many will be in Cordeal, but there probably enough for somebody to go home.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Probably 41.

[TJ Majors]

Now I'm racing.

[Mike Davis]

When will you start mentally, like, getting ready for the race?

[TJ Majors]

Can you not tell I'm mentally ready? I'm talking about it.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, but you're. But I'm like, are you already, like, thinking about, like.

[TJ Majors]

Is that a real question?

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Cordeal is one of the toughest tracks y'all go to.

[TJ Majors]

Hey, T.J. are you mentally getting prepared for.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

For which one?

[TJ Majors]

For your next race?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think I'm still in coda. I don't know. I mean, what kind of question is that?

[Mike Davis]

What do you mean, what kind of question is it?

[TJ Majors]

Am I mentally prepared or getting men?

[Mike Davis]

Like, when you start thinking about the race?

[TJ Majors]

I don't. I go get, put my suit on, I climb in and crank it up and drive. I don't know.

[Mike Davis]

There we go. That's what I want.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, what do you do? What is mentally prepared?

[Mike Davis]

I don't know. I'm asking you, like, is there anything that you Would do specifically to get ready for a race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, I would probably go watch last year's race there or recent race.

[Mike Davis]

Oh.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And just kind of see how they race and how they drive.

[TJ Majors]

That's just what I call preparing, not like mentally preparing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't really know. This isn't like you got to go out there and run and I just.

[TJ Majors]

Call that getting ready. Yeah, I am getting ready. Like, I don't know what mentally preparing is. Maybe that's why sometimes I don't kick everybody's ass. Maybe I'm not mentally preparing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I would think you. There'd be a little.

[TJ Majors]

Maybe I'm missing that part.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Maybe there's a little bit for qualifying. Mentally preparing yourself, Kind of thinking it over.

[TJ Majors]

Mentally psych yourself out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know you can.

[TJ Majors]

I know how to do that. The less mentally Anything I'm doing for qualifying, the better.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got an idea.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Maybe you should just take the Xbox and right before qualifying, just play football and. Hey, you got to go get in.

[TJ Majors]

All right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm going again.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I think maybe I should just wear a blindfold. I'd probably have just as much success in qualifying. Nah, no bull, man. I'm giving you a hard time. Travis. I. I got. I need to talk to. Let's see. Bubba Pollard asked him some questions. So, I mean, I've got a. You know, I'm going to call him because he runs at core deal a lot, and I'm going to go and see what he can do to help me. I might call a couple other folks that race down there and just sort of. And then, you know, I went over to the shop yesterday, Helped them unload their cars from this past weekend when they raced it Jacksonville and. And we got a new trailer for our late model or our car store team. We were in bad need of a trailer. Our trailer was banged up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I liked that trailer. Thought I was all right.

[TJ Majors]

Well, we still got the old one, so that's the one I'll be using. But the new. The number. The 18. The 18. Connor hall and his guys, they got a new trailer. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Oh.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Same size or bigger?

[TJ Majors]

A little longer. Really, really awesome trailer, though. God almighty. But anyhow, I'm excited about all that. Let's get into the. The coda race everybody cars tour. Y'all got it. You're going to tune in next week?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Two weeks.

[TJ Majors]

We are tuned in. Two weeks. Wake County. I want to see record numbers. I get the numbers from flow of how many people are tuning in. We're Growing. We're going up. Every race better than last. This opener was better than last year's opener. All those things are great, but come on, let's get it going. Let's really kick ass in and get the viewership. Way to hell up there. I think it could go way up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, it's still rising. It's rising a little bit at a time.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I don't know, man. I'm ready for a big jump. It's good, and I don't want people to miss out while it's here. It's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is good racing happening, man.

[TJ Majors]

Enjoy it now. It's here. Good short track racing. Some of the best in the country. Koda. So we had the Xfinity. So let me first say this, man. And I've. I've shared my opinions a little bit on social media. I try not to do that, Travis, because I know you want me to save for the show.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, save it.

[TJ Majors]

But geez. All right, so I didn't like Coda. Didn't like it. Didn't like the long track. Boring. Cautions take forever. Course limits, track limits. Bull. I hated. I hated the track. Didn't like it. Bunch of paint. Red and white and blue and everywhere.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Formula one.

[TJ Majors]

Yep. Not into it. So, you know, they go up the hill into turn one. That was cool. But soon as they get out of turn one, it's just a big old flat piece of asphalt with paint all over it. And they just trying to. You know, it's like. It just doesn't look like a racetrack. Didn't enjoy it. Can I. Can I have made that clear?

[Mike Davis]

Clear.

[TJ Majors]

Clear. New Coda. Awesome. I love it. New Coda is great. I can't say it enough. I mean, it's amazing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What. What it would have changed.

[TJ Majors]

Can't believe it. Tj. They didn't do nothing but take a mile out of the racetrack.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. It was definitely way better in my opinion, as well.

[TJ Majors]

Not to say the word. Why not? I just. I'm saying it too much. But it's just. I'm so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, you're emotional about it. It's understanding.

[TJ Majors]

I can't help it. Guys.

[Mike Davis]

We've got a sensor button that we can't.

[TJ Majors]

Yep, sensor.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't think 6 would be a passing zone like it was, and it actually. Actually turned out to be a really good passing zone.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, that was. That is a great point. But they just literally took a mile off this stupid track and made it an awesome track. Yeah, I'm shocked because I would have never thought that I would like it. And man, did I. I gotta. I am just trying to eat some crow here. This is why I don't build racetracks, and this is why sometimes, you know, I just need to stay in my lane. I mean, I didn't like it at all, and now I love it. It's like this little short track road course. All the road courses that we run in the NASCAR world are relatively traditional links. And that, to me, is why I don't love. Love road course racing as much as I like the ovals. And my favorite type of oval is going to be the beat up and bang, short track style racing, right? And the road courses are the biggest departure from what I really love about the core or the core part of the sport that I really love. Everybody has a different opinion about what's great about nascar, and I can appreciate that, and I can appreciate what you love and what you love, but I love the short track stuff and I love the tempers and the beating and banging. I love the way the cars tell a story when the race is over. And I get. I just don't get into the road course stuff that much. The left and right and the technical and it's a lot of, you know, it just doesn't turn me on, man. So they go to Cota, and I was frustrated about Texas, the oval, and what. How we were struggling as an industry to really kind of get Texas right. You know, they'd reconfigured turn one and two. It was a. It was a brave effort to try to make that track better that failed or at least failed in the short term. We didn't love the new Texas, and, man, it's. It's taking some hits. Would you agree? How about King? Nod in agreement. Thank you.

[Mike Davis]

All right, TJ Nod.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, Somebody agreement.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I agree.

[TJ Majors]

So. Because I know I'm telling the truth, and it's hard for me to say that because Marcus is my buddy, but it's his racetrack, so that's why I need someone in the room to nod in agreement. So here's Coda now coming onto the scene. I'm like, well, damn, I don't like road courses. And here's a really long one. And these track limits, what the f is that all about? We don't have. I've never even heard track limits until now, and that's really annoying. Cota to me was just another. Another hurdle or roadblock to figuring out how to get Texas oval back to good. Because if Dakota goes and has success, Texas ovals further and further into the back of our minds and fading into the middle distance. I was worried about that. So, you know, I wasn't a fan of Coda. I didn't, I didn't want Coda. I didn't want it. I didn't ask for it. Selfish. Just me. Lots of people love Coda. I get it, dude. They took a mile out of this track, something that I didn't think would make a hill of beans. And it turned into an incredible race all weekend, every lap. And you know what? I thought there's a lot of great reasons. Now I do want to. I have been bull, but I do want to get serious. So why this was so smart. I've been sitting in meetings about Mexico City with our Amazon team, and one of our things that we're going to try to do some. One of the things that we're going to be mindful of is trying to help people understand with this relatively new track for a lot of people, some people have probably watched races that have been there, but some people will be seeing this race course for the first time when they watch the races this summer and helping people understand where the cars are on the track. Okay. And that's, that's important. And for new fans, is I. What turn are they entering? Is this a passing opportunity? What. What the frick am I watching? And so that's kind of the, that's one of the challenges when you're going to a new road course for a television audience. And so when they shortened up this course, I know it still had a lot of turns, but literally the laps were so quick, and it was. And the laps were short enough for you to really, I think, mentally pick up on exactly. You knew kind of where they were on the track at all times. As you watch the race, you learn the course yourself as a viewer, and as they're having these late race battles, you know, oh, man, they're in that turn. It's not. There's, there's only one or two more turns to the finish line. You were very aware of where they were on the racetrack. That was something that I wasn't really experiencing before with Cota because there were just too many turns, too, too much track. Now, I could, if you said, hey, man, where are they on the track? I could probably say, yeah, they're, they're on the far end. Or, you know, they're. They're. They're about halfway through the lap. But still, that, to me made the racing experience for the viewer much easier to enjoy. So I thought that was. That's kind of an insignificant thing to some people. But shortening up the course to make the course easier to digest and therefore, especially when you have these badass races at the end, it was so much funner to watch play out. And the intensity was up because the laps were shorter and you knew like 6A was a passing zone. An awkward, an awkward one, but a very unique kind of moment where they were kind of cutting this course in turn six and then the guy could switch back and jump to the inside. We saw a lot of great cool passes happening there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Some wrecks.

[TJ Majors]

Saw some wrecks, but. And so you didn't have long to. As you anticipated them reaching that part of the track again when they're having this, you know, one on one battle for the lead in multiple points of each race. You didn't have very long of anticipation to see them get back to that point and would he be in position to make a move and that. There was several instances on the racetrack, like the last, the braking zone into the final turn, coming on the first straightaway, things like that. So it just really, really changed this course. Something that I thought would have no bearing. How would taking a mile away from this course really change it? It did. And bravo. Whoever thought, you know, I'm sure this was a long conversation with a lot of people giving input. It wasn't just one person stood up and go, hey, just take a mile out. This was a conversation probably started around, hey, when we have a caution, the cautions are too long. Let's shorten the course. Can we shorten the course? Okay, let's look at the course. Where could we shorten it? I mean, this is probably something that was a process, but the team of people or the people that got all that figured out and true in they. Bravo, good job. Coda to me is now, believe it or not, a guy who's not a big, massive road course fan. I am excited for them to go back.

[Mike Davis]

Well, we need a contract.

[TJ Majors]

Well, now it's something that I hope returns or hope stays part of our schedule. I could have give a crap about it before this weekend. I would have not cared had Cota went away and never returned. But now it's like it's giving me what I love about short track racing in the form of a road course. I want more of that.

[Mike Davis]

What was your perspective though? TJ up in the spotter standing with the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was in turn 12, which is after 6B at the end of the old long straightaway there and I can see majority of the Track there except for 1920. I can see when they get into one. But it is a way different racetrack now. Way more fun. I was there last year as well in same section and just miss like they would get spread out going up that hill where the dirt was getting on the track and there wasn't as much passing in that hairpin and stuff. This. The way this configuration is now keeps them bunched up.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And man there's a. I'm not going to lie man, there's. There's. What I like about Coda is there's consequences around the whole racetrack in. In the S's obviously got track limits there. The guys are getting much better with the track limit stuff. The drivers are getting really good at it. 6 you got a little bit of dirt on the right. Pretty. A barrier on the left. Yeah there was wrecks there guys. And when you leave 6A there's a wall on the right and those guys are inches off that wall. And if you mess up 6B also a tricky corner. How many times you see guys throw dirt up off of 6B because they're off the racetrack over there a lot and then the whole stadium section there. Those guys are within a half a calling of each other a lot through there and they can dive and make passes on either side. When guys are making passes it brings the other guys up to them which creates more racing. I really enjoyed this layout as well. The guys couldn't just get away from each other as much. Lots of opportunity for passing and man a lot of opportunity for side by side racing like throughout the whole thing. And I really enjoyed that race as. As far as like how the guys. Most of the time it was pretty clean. Obviously you have a few incidents. Turn one still invites a lot of. Invites people to make moves which is entertaining. Sometimes your car's on the wrong side of it but it's a good track. I really enjoyed it as well.

[TJ Majors]

Hey everybody. You want the latest Dale Jr. Download apparel? Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com we're always adding new stuff all the time. Especially like when we say something silly on this show. We'll put it on a T shirt again. Check it out at shop.dirtymomedia.com True work.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Mike Davis]

Upgrade to TrueWerk for a major change in the way you work. TrueWerk helps you be the best when your best matters most. The T2 work pants are perfect for working outside, whether you're laying mulch, mowing, trimming bushes, or anything else you can think of. Unlike jeans, these pants are tear resistant and stretch, making it easier for you to get the job done. The M1 zip up hoodie is also perfect to wear when it's cold outside. But there's work to be done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Check out the full lineup and get 50% off your first order at truwerk.com Del Jr that's 15% off at T R U E W-E-R K.com DaleJR you mentioned track limits.

[TJ Majors]

That was something that used to be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A really big topic.

[TJ Majors]

Used to be a really big topic. And it was only a topic at Coda. And it made me want to vomit. Well, this new configuration has dropped the amount of corners where they're regulating this or governing that to a minimum of three, Right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And so it's like turn two, three, four, or three, four or five. And so it was tolerable.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

As a viewer, I will say this. I don't know if you notice this or not. They did put like a little when you had, when you, if you missed the corner and you broke the track limits.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So that they put that runoff, which is way better than running the whole pit road.

[TJ Majors]

It became clear on Sunday during the cup race, which I wanted to talk to you about. The turn six, we saw teams cutting there and, and then the TV and the drivers and everybody seemed to like, realize, oh, they're not governing it, you know, Are they not governing turn six? So what is, what is your opinion about turn six? Did NASCAR make it clear that they were not going to have track limits in that corner before the race? Because it's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because a lot of not. No, it started in practice and qualifying. You seen guys get further over there and further. You're like, is that going to make it or not? And then you hear no penalty. So you're like, okay, well, we're going to try a little bit more next time.

[TJ Majors]

I'm watching SVG and a couple of the drivers and they were cutting that corner a lot early. And I'm, and then. But you know, and I'm watching it without sound. And I was in a meeting and so I'm watching this race at the same time. But I'm thinking, he seems to know something the others don't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I think everyone just kind of. Everyone was kind of feeling it out as you went and waiting for somebody.

[TJ Majors]

To question is, is there was the information that they would not govern six out there before the race started? So that. Were there drivers that did homework and drivers that didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think it was released anywhere that they weren't. To my knowledge, it wasn't publicly put out there saying, we're not governing this. I mean, I never saw any.

[TJ Majors]

What's your opinion about that, though? If. If they're going to say, okay, we're going to have track limits.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I would have liked to have known before because we could have used it earlier.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, if you're the race, everybody's.

[TJ Majors]

All the way over on the blue, like a whole car length away inside the curb.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And I. I mean, we pretty much figured out that it was 3, 4, and 5 that were.

[TJ Majors]

How could you not figure that out before the race?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, you just. We just wait for somebody to get penalized for it.

[TJ Majors]

But why don't somebody ask nascar, which corners are you. Are the track limits governed?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I don't. I don't know.

[TJ Majors]

I guess just never crossed anybody's mind.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I guess everyone's kind of feeling it out and just kind of waiting.

[TJ Majors]

Would you. Could you have done that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Probably could have reached out. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

When you go to Mexico City, will you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's just hard. It'd be more to me, it'd be more on the driver's part because no one can really see how far you're getting out there. Like, I can't.

[Mike Davis]

You just go the crew chief and go to NASCAR and say what turns have track limit?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm asking.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

I got you. Dale dancing.

[Mike Davis]

I agree.

[TJ Majors]

And nod with you dancing around the bush. He won't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think that somebody could have. Say it, T.J. yes, you could have asked. I mean, sure.

[TJ Majors]

Are you going to ask what corners?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I. I don't think we should have to ask. I should just think we should know before.

[TJ Majors]

All right. I love what you think, but I want to know what you're going to do for Mexico.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean, if there's any corners. And I'm not. I'm not sure from what I remember that racetrack. I don't know if there's any.

[TJ Majors]

Here's what I would do, T.J. i would call your buddy at NASCAR and I would say, hey, man, are there any corners at Mexico that are going to have track limits and see what he tells you. I mean, if he's like, I don't know yet or probably not or whatever you say, I would keep pressing for more details.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If anything, it opened up the door more.

[TJ Majors]

Right. It's still. It still was a pretty. It still was a pretty cool dynamic part of the racetrack, even though the drivers were taking advantage of the. Of the limits. So.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

But anyways, good, good old NASCAR restart.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Zone seems to be well placed, I reckon, because you. I mean, there's still some diving one, but it's not the whole field. So the, you know, from probably about row seven or eight on bat, they move it. Yeah, it's like down right towards the exit of the corner. So you still have a little bit of straightaway, but it's right off the exit. So only the first handful of rows get a really good jump.

[TJ Majors]

Let's talk about Xfinity race. Connor Zillich gets the win for Junior Motorsports, but not without.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Super fast.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, super fast. Not without, you know, upsetting a few people, namely his teammates. His own teammates. We, you know, I talked to Connor after the race and I said, you know, I trust you'll. You'll clean that up. He felt pretty, pretty bad about, you know, how that all went down. We had the beer toast here the other day. Of course, he did not have beer, but we had the beer toast here yesterday. The apple juice and, you know, it's a. He's young. He's navigating, you know, the, you know, navigating the missteps. And these are good problems for him to have. Yeah, I mean, listen, he, you know, he's a talented kid, going to have a bright future and, you know, learning how to be a better teammate, that's just part of it. He's going to have teammates all his life and, you know, he's. You. I really didn't know what even being a good teammate meant or that it was even necessity. A necessity or an even, Even important right in the first half of my career. And I mean, I was friends, such good friends with Truex and Michael, but I never went out of my way to say, hey, I see you're struggling with this, man. This is what we did. Or here's my, you know, here's my notes from the race, if any of that might help you. Yeah, didn't do any of that back then. So, I mean. And you learn over the course of your career, I think, to be a good teammate and try to help your teammates when you can, because that's going to come around and help you. Their crew chiefs See it. Their crew chiefs then want to help you. And anyways, that's. That's something that Connor has to improve on, and we've dealt with that in the past. And I'm sure, listen, the shoe will be on the other foot. There'll be a race somewhere else where another, you know, it'll be. It'll be another teammate, and Connor will be on the bad end of something going down on the racetrack. And that conversation is never ending. And I've always said this, too. If you put. If you got four, in this case, five cars that are very good cars and five very capable race car drivers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They'Re going to hit.

[TJ Majors]

They're going to hit. They're going to run up front and they're going to have to battle each other for positions and they're going to have to battle each other hard. And. But we talk about it. I talked about it in the. I will. This is where I'll close. I'll close the xfinity race. We started. We have a kickoff. We have a kickoff luncheon for our whole company at the beginning of every year. And my main message to everyone was, let's try to do a better job this year of being good teammates. And I'm going to be paying attention to that. I'll be. You know, we've had some great driver lineups here in the past, but we always haven't been the best of teammates, and we're very selfish. A lot of times, everybody out there trying to, you know, you got Justin allgaier, who's a career xfinity series junior motorsports racer champion. Right? Yeah. Right now, I mean, but this guy's living his life and making a living as a full time driver here. Then you got guys that are like, hey, I'm only here for a year. If everything goes well, I'm only here for two years. You know, I'm not. This isn't where I'm going to live.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And so they're. They're thinking. They're not sitting there thinking, like, yep, me and Justin, we're going to work together for the next 10 years. I got to be his best, you know, best teammate. They're like, how do I get to the. They're like, how do I get to the next step? Doesn't matter what collateral damage there is. Right. And so we've dealt with that over the last decade or more where, you know, guys are just out there trying to do their best and not necessarily teammate or not a teammate mindset. Right. Because it doesn't feel like they're going to be here for that long anyways. But, you know, it. It's a. It's a. I don't want to say it's a good problem to have, but it's a. It's a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is a good problem. Means they're all up there competing.

[TJ Majors]

It's what's. It's what's gonna happen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Mike Davis]

It's much easier going in and apologizing when you win, too, instead of.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

Doing something dumb and getting a fifth place.

[TJ Majors]

That's the thing. I'm like, dude, you got this. So that's another tough part, is God just won the race. How the hell do you ever. How do. How do you. How do you complain about anything? The guy just won the race in your car. What's your. What the hell you got to complain about? Right? Nothing. Right. But. But hey, come on, you know, let's.

[Mike Davis]

Tj, what was your.

[TJ Majors]

I got. I gotta go talk to the other guys. They're pissed, right? The other teammates, the other crew chiefs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I agree. I mean, we've been on. We've. I've been spotting for cars. When we've had things go really bad before. Whenever everything was lined up and, you know, like Daytona a few years ago, we really kind of messed that up pretty bad. And that ended up being embarrassing. Yes. You know, and we all learned from that, you know.

[TJ Majors]

No, we didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, for the most part, learn from it. I, you know, I think like what he said, like the beginning of the year, you talk to him and you try to explain to be a good teammate and you don't want to. Man, the worst case scenario is going there three wide and a one and clean out two of your cars or something and, you know, boat, two of flat tires and someone Austin Hill drives by. Everyone goes and wins the race. And you want to really prevent situations like that. And, and, you know, Connor might have, you know, I, you can understand making the move, but you got to make the move kind of stick and not really. Not use people up, in my opinion, as much, especially multiple times in a race. You know, I think Connor had two incidents with teammates and one with another competitor that he, that he spun out. So. And Connor, in my opinion, probably could have settled in second or third or fourth out of that corner and still won the race because he was just that fast and that good. And, and, but he'll learn. And these are learning experiences for him. And these are. Thankfully, you know, it didn't take any other cars out at that point and, and everybody Rolled on and, and, you know, I don't think we all got the finishes we wanted, but a lot of speed.

[TJ Majors]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Lot of action.

[TJ Majors]

A lot of action. Ross Chastain dives to the inside, cleans out the nine. A lot of the cars beating and banging through that corner, getting spun around, damaged. Chase talked about how that affected the handling on his car. And they had to work on the left rear a little bit to try to get it in front, but it never drove quite as well as it did the day before in practice and qualifying. And so he. But he did work his way back up through the field and get a reasonable finish. One of the things that I thought was, you know, I get obviously Ross. So that happens. And I'm thinking in my mind, man, if they ever get around each other, we better get a camera on there because it's. Because you heard the radio comments from Allen, Chase's crew chief.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not happy.

[TJ Majors]

Basically was like, hey, you better. You given the opportunity, you better take care of it. And Chase is like, all right. That's all I needed to know. I wanted to. I want to go take him out, but I didn't want to do it unless it was definitely necessary. And so I'm sitting there going, all right, well, I guess, you know, if he gets around him, he's not Just going to drive past him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's gonna make life hard.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, well, I figured he'd just dump him, but so they. We get that opportunity later in the race. And Ross saw the nine. So, yeah, the nine catches SVG and sends him up the racetrack in turn one and two. And he's like, all right, here, There's Ross. Ross is right there in front of me. And as soon as Ross saw it, Ross was probably getting some warnings.

[Mike Davis]

They told him that he's coming, Let him. They said let him go.

[TJ Majors]

I know, but Ross is probably. I'm saying laps before. Oh, yeah, like, hey, man, the nines back. He knew, right? Yeah, of course.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And so it wasn't like Ross looked up in the mirror and went, oh, I'm pulling over. Like he was probably thinking he had laps of warnings and comments to think, what am I going to do? What are my options? All right. And Ross says, coming out of term one, you know what? I'm going to let him go. To hell with optics. I don't care what it looks like, but I'd rather finish 9th, 10th, or wherever I'm going to back up to, then get turned around and be backwards and finish 28th or 30th or whatever last place was on the lead lap. So Ross chose the better finishing position.

[Mike Davis]

12Th.

[TJ Majors]

He chose that and took. And knowing the optics, right, because it looks. It looks a little.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A little bit of a wuss. I don't know.

[TJ Majors]

Looks a little chicken. Yeah, but does that fix it? No, no. But Ross. Ross is like, hey, I'm telling. I don't want to get spun out because I'm going to finish last on the lead lap. I'm going to pull over and get a. Get a finish here today. And he didn't care what the optics look like. He didn't care if it looked like he was being a wuss about it. And then after the race, I guess he didn't have a comment. They asked him.

[Mike Davis]

Declined to comment.

[TJ Majors]

Decline comment.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't like that either.

[TJ Majors]

I think he got a comment.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do, too.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I mean, what, what, there's no harm in it. I mean, I guess you could say, man, messed up. I went down in the corner and my shallow entry, I got loose. Yeah, just he. He was way offline and dirty racetrack down there on the inside and made a mistake. Lap one, I should know better. Heck, you said all that. He could have said anything, and that would have probably been better than a no comment. No comment is just not. No comment is just probably not the not ever.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The best option, especially that makes people talk about it more.

[TJ Majors]

Is there ever a time where you're like, you know what? The guy should have probably said no comment in a post race.

[Mike Davis]

No.

[TJ Majors]

Right. Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

You can always say something.

[TJ Majors]

Something. Yeah. And so especially like Ross Bush beer. I mean, he's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ross is usually pretty good in his interviews, too.

[Mike Davis]

And this is coming off the heels of you, you know, talking to Carson Hosfar about how he raced and then you go and do something dumb.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like if it's me, if I'm Ross, I let Chase race me. And if he spins me out, he spins me out. Because at that point, what if it's not even now, when Chase catches Ross again next week, two weeks now, a month from now, Is it worse?

[TJ Majors]

Well, he's hoping that he can defuse it by then. Ross is hoping that he can defuse it before there's real, you know, there's. There's a very. Before he has to pay a price on the racetrack like Chase had to pay. You know, you could say, well, Chase got back to the top five, but he might have had a chance to win that race or race for the win had he not gotten spun out on that first corner. So Chase is very good at Cota, but, yeah, I think. I think you. I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, Chase might not even have wrecked him.

[TJ Majors]

I am, of course, I'd rather Ross not had pulled over. I wanted to be frickin entertained. And Ross pulling over basically took away my chance as a viewer to be entertained. So I didn't love it because of, you know, in that aspect, that's not.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The Ross that we know either.

[TJ Majors]

And he ain't been the Ross that we know for a long time. And you'll say, Darlington, I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, I mean, Ross didn't move over Gateway Ross and move over at Pocono. And I mean.

[TJ Majors]

Well, yeah, I don't know. I mean, he's.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, Chase, after that incident, you know, they're talking about wrecking him. And so the one team heard it and then they let him go. So is it worth on the radio.

[TJ Majors]

Should he not have threatened it?

[Mike Davis]

No, I'm saying, is it smart to threaten a driver on the radio knowing that they might then be scared and move us away from you and let you go?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think Ross already knew the consequences before anybody told him.

[TJ Majors]

Perfect scenario is the driver says nothing and the crew chiefs tells the driver instruction to do something. Right. Or, you know, we know that spotters aren't Supposed to do that. So they probably shouldn't. But for. I liked what Allen said. If the driver says it, then NASCAR can react if something actually goes down. Just like a driver. You know, a driver can't admit or preemptively say he's going to wreck somebody or spit himself out on purpose. We've seen that in the past. I think Chase. Chase is the kind of guy that if Allen doesn't say anything, if Chase catches him, Chase is probably going to race the. Out of him by passing. Right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And I agree. And in Chase's mind, he's like, I showed his ass. I just passed him. You know, I showed him. Either Chase might think I showed him that you don't got to rough people up or wreck them. I showed him how to pass somebody because you don't know how to pass people. You know, Chase is going to think the way to get this guy back is to pass him, you know, and beat him in the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Look, I already caught you, and now I'm passing you again. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Alan's like a. I think Allen's more like knowing Chase. Alan's kind of like, look, I know Chase's thought process here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I need another level.

[TJ Majors]

I need another level. So Chase. Not today, buddy. This is what I need from you. And Chase is like, all right, got it. Chase doesn't need to be more pissed off because he gets pissed off pretty good. But Chase won't do it dirty. He won't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Probably not anymore.

[TJ Majors]

Chase is not. Well, he did. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's probably not gonna do that again that back.

[TJ Majors]

But, you know, speaking of right hooks, we had.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Had another one.

[TJ Majors]

Had another one in the race. What do y'all think about that?

[Mike Davis]

Austin centric tight Dylan for those people that night?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I don't know how the tone. The. The. The bar has been set for this. So I'm interested in seeing how this plays out.

[TJ Majors]

If. If it happens in the back of the pack, you know, does NASCAR turn a blind eye?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Or. I don't know.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, dude, if that's the racing for the lead, absolutely. They can't ignore it.

[Mike Davis]

You can't ignore it.

[TJ Majors]

Wherever.

[Mike Davis]

If it's on the track, it doesn't matter where you're at.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, that guy's race still matters.

[TJ Majors]

Saying what? I'm not saying which. What's right or. I'm not asking y'all.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I know you're saying, is it right up here or right back here?

[TJ Majors]

No, no, I'm not asking you that. I'm asking you, does NASCAR react to this one?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think so.

[TJ Majors]

You think so?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do. I mean, a right hooks, the right hook doesn't matter where it's at on the track, what position you're running in. Or right hooks or right hook.

[Mike Davis]

The speed of that. They're on a road course and not.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Going as fast as if you'd move multiple lanes.

[TJ Majors]

We've heard them say, though. That's true. We. That's a good point, Travis. We have heard them say that the sever of the crash sort of plays into their. Their reaction. Right.

[Mike Davis]

That's one thing I think shouldn't is just because.

[TJ Majors]

Well.

[Mike Davis]

Right. The wreck didn't happen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like if there's intent.

[TJ Majors]

I'm just trying to guess.

[Mike Davis]

So what do you think NASCAR will do?

[TJ Majors]

That's.

[Mike Davis]

That's what I'm asking you, though.

[TJ Majors]

People.

[Mike Davis]

People don't want my opinion on. They want yours.

[TJ Majors]

I'm trying to get my opinion based off of yours. Jeez, man. I think. I mean, I think they have to. I think they will. I like cost.

[Mike Davis]

I know it's a big punishment too, if they, if they suspend it.

[TJ Majors]

Austin. I got to hang out with him over the off season at Blaney's wedding. And man, I. He is so funny.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And he's a good. He's a good dude.

[Mike Davis]

Is he? My perception of him just from on TV is he's like a bit of like a oddball, kind of goofy. Is he like that in person or what's he like?

[TJ Majors]

He's not oddball. Goofy's. He's actually very smart. Smart. Very smart. Smart. Clever. Funny.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Way smarter than what you're probably like. He's very clever, witty on things.

[TJ Majors]

I always looked at him and thought he's book smart, awkward, but probably harmless and probably cool to hang out with. Whatever. We go and hung out at the Blaney deal and he's actually. He is book smart, but he's actually pretty clever about self aware what's going on around him in the room. And he can see things going on in the room and make a snide remark or a witty comment about what he's seeing. And you're like, that's hilarious. Because I see that too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he is pretty funny.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. And I get. Got to give him credit, man. And he hung in there, partied. Hell yeah.

[Mike Davis]

It's important.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I've never seen him do that, but I've never hung out.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, we're at. We're still going at, you know, 1, 2 in the morning here. He's right there with us.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good.

[Mike Davis]

I would never guess that.

[TJ Majors]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wouldn't either.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, he wasn't, he was in good form. He was, you know, calm and being respectful about his level of partying. But he was there and he wanted to be there. And I just, I just really, my appreciation for him and all that went way up. We were with him last year, calling him Blippi and all that. When he got them, when he started wearing the glasses, like, like I got room to talk.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But he's actually really fun.

[TJ Majors]

He's funny. And you know what? In those, in those moments when we've given him a hard time, like he, he, he spun out at Nashville Super Speedway last year, and we were like, we were like, Austin, you couldn't finish two more laps yet ruined the race for everybody. Remember all that Kyle Busch up in the wall and all that. We're like, that's your, your, your fault. Austin, he had fun with it. He's like, hey, that a flat tire. You know, he's got such humor.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he continues. Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

So is it maybe fine worthy, but not a suspension.

[TJ Majors]

We'll see, man. I think NASCAR is in a situation where they'll have to. Have to handle it somehow, some way. And Austin, I mean, honestly, if I'm, if I'm sitting here talking to him, if he's at this table, I'd be like, dude, you got it. You can't do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you got to be smart. And normally he is. He's normal.

[TJ Majors]

I know, but I'm very smart. I'd be like, look, we're gonna sit here, we're going to hold host of ours feet to the fire, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And tell everybody that, you know, he needs to, you know, clean up his. You can't. You. That's Austin, who's been in the series for quite three, four years. Four years now. You know, he's got to set the example for these guys.

[Mike Davis]

So if you guys both agree it's the right hook, why are you hoping that it's not a severe punishment? When right hook has been.

[TJ Majors]

We don't want it to be a severe punishment because we like Austin.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I don't think it was very. I don't think it was like a dog, like a, like a dog leg scenario like Charlotte, like, that was bad. You know that there's always opportunity. This is, this is on a straightaway, right off a corner exit, a big wide straightaway. You know, I'm sure, I'm sure the 10 car probably thinks it was really severe, but, you know.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to debate the severity of the speed space, part of the track. Whatever. I think it's all bad because you just, we always say like, you know, cars will crash and hit anything. You know, don't, don't think a car can't end up here because it will. So I'm never going to go, well, you know, that wasn't that bad of a deal or that was, that was in a very, you know, non dangerous area of the track because that doesn't exist. Every part of the track is potentially dangerous. Right. And that, you know, when he gets turned, he could get hit in the door broad, you know, wide open by somebody not paying attention. Somebody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They were in the, they were like all the way in the back, but still.

[TJ Majors]

I know, but there could have been a guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Long way it could have happened.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. And so, you know, we won't, I won't, I won't debate that type of stuff. But I would, if I was nascar, I would, I would have to probably say if I was NASCAR. And I've done this and that's, I've. NASCAR's done this to me. They'll sit you down, they'll go, we like you and we don't want to, we don't want to do this, but we have to. You know, there's been like the, When I said I got a call from Hilton, he's like, dude, when. With the world the way it is now because they had that thing with the super bowl with Janet Jackson and all that and then and Johnny Sauter said the word on TV the week before and they penalized him. He's like, I can't not do it because you've all. There's this, this, this and I can't not do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, the bar has been set and.

[TJ Majors]

Dude, me and Hilton are tight. And he's like, you got, you're getting a penalty okay here. That's what it's going to be. And so I think that's what they'll do with Austin.

[Mike Davis]

What'd you make of the ending?

[TJ Majors]

Kyle Busch trying to get a win. He had to battle SVG there for a while and all race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Great battle.

[TJ Majors]

Dude. I was so surprised at SVG's car and how it just sort of failed him. Like he had no speed, he didn't like drive back. You know, he lost. You know, he was bad on new tires. I don't know what they were on, air pressure or whatever, but he could not go. But in stage three, usually he was able to rebound. Right. In stage three he wasn't. He faded, faded and faded and faded.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Mike Davis]

I think you said the last set of tires he didn't like.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Which can happen as well. And I noticed that throughout the race some cars got better later in the race and I don't know if that was maybe the track conditions changing a little bit and the sun was kind of setting some and maybe some guys cars got better.

[TJ Majors]

Yep, yep. Well I anyways back to the finish I was, I loved the fact that we had those moments in the race where the leader Kyle Busch in most instances was being tested and challenged. And then late in the race, I'll be honest, we were watching the 20 car stay out and I'm thinking, man, how much time are they losing before they came down pit road for their last set of tires? Like how much time are they losing? I'll be losing too much time to be able to make this back up. And when he gets back out on the racetrack, he's 4/10, 5/10, 9, 10, he's way faster than Kyle Busch. He's definitely going to run him down. I was a little bit surprised by that he was going to get to Kyle Busch and be able to, you know, and have the newer tires. The question was is would that equalize, would the tires equalize in terms of how they were falling off or because Kyle was going to push his car a long ways on tires, would his car just drop off a cliff in lap time and fall off? Which it did ultimately. So I mean that was the difference maker and we saw, you know, we saw a lot of people get up into the battle at the end of this race that I never would have guessed would have drove up in there, Byron and Redick and I mean we got a four car battle for the win.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Next thing you know is four cars.

[TJ Majors]

Racer was wild, exciting and they did a good job of not wrecking each on each other. Right. And dicking each other over. So quality racing made me a very proud fan.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[TJ Majors]

We're live. Hey, really?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

That was quick. All right. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ethernet.

[TJ Majors]

Let me see. This is the Ask Junior portion of the show and thank y'all for tuning in to that. Want to thank Xfinity for being a great partner here. The Ask Junior portion is presented by Xfinity today. As you see right there. Nice little mobile. Xfinity mobile. Nice little graphic there, guys. And we've got some great questions. Andrew has come into the studio. Travis, we've been talking about coda. We've been talking about right hooks and all kinds of stuff. Everything, the cars tour, everything else going on in the world. But hopefully we got some great questions today.

[Travis]

Yes, Todd Bob on the YouTube chat is asking, is this live or pre recorded? And Todd, we're happy to tell you that this is live.

[TJ Majors]

Todd Bob.

[Travis]

Todd Bob is his name. I don't know if that's. That's a cool name.

[TJ Majors]

Two first names name.

[Travis]

Yeah, he's got two first names. This first one's from Kevin. He saw your tweet, I think it was over the weekend, about the panini cards that you would just write random things on there. And he wants to know what's the most random thing you remember writing or what were some of the things that you would write on some of these.

[TJ Majors]

Cards, I'd have shared that in a tweet, because I would have just told the whole story there. But I'll be sitting there, and Nicole does this. Now they come climbing my lap. I'm sitting at the kitchen table, and I'm signing these cards, and I got all this stuff laid everywhere, and I'm signing cards, and Nicole climbs in my lap, and she's like, I want a color. And I'm like, well, I'm not color. And I'm signing my name. Why? Why are you signing your name? Well, these cars are gonna go, and so. Well, I won't do it. That's what she'll say. Well, I want to do it. And Ali used to do that too. And I'd be like, all right, here. Write your name. And they'll write their name on a card and draw and doodle and color. And I'm like, all right, you're good. You did one. And I'll sign my name on it, throw it in the pack. And I've always wondered, like, I wonder what panini does when they get them. Cause I know when some are ruined or smudged, they'll just throw them out. Throw them out. Or they'll send me another one, say, hey, we need you to do five, because five were messed up. And. But some of these are like. So the pack. They'll pack, the panini pack will come and say they got a card, right? Some kind of specific style of card. And there'll be the bronze version, the silver version, and then there'll be, like, one gold, and that's like a one of one. And so it's pretty neat. And I think card collecting is kind of like diecast. It cycles. It has its. You know, it has its moments, its eras. And I don't know, for whatever reason, it feels like card die casts and card collecting and just memorabilia in. In general. Feels like it's fun again.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know, but I've been collecting cards a little bit lately.

[TJ Majors]

Have you? Yeah. Yeah, I've heard that from football.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Baseball.

[TJ Majors]

I've heard that from a few different people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

But I've got. I've got some old stuff from way back in the day, early 80s. Baseball and football cards. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, we're gonna have to. We're gonna have to compare them here soon.

[Travis]

Where do you keep them? Like, in a booklet, the ones that I've been getting. That's how I did it.

[TJ Majors]

I have some stuff. Some of my best cards are in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Books, but I never had the Hard cases.

[TJ Majors]

You'll have like the whole, like I've got. If you got like a full set, like I got an 81 Donrus or something like that. You got that in a, in the, in a, in a box. Sleeve.

[Travis]

Okay.

[TJ Majors]

Carbon box.

[Mike Davis]

I. I went back home and I was cleaning some stuff out. I have a lot of starting lineups. Did you ever collect those?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, the stand up guys?

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Yes.

[Mike Davis]

The football players.

[TJ Majors]

I remember them.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, I had, yeah. Boxes of those.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got a lot of like, stuff like that.

[TJ Majors]

That's some old stuff. Yeah, you got, I mean, yeah, Roberto clemente and early 70s and late 70s stuff.

[Mike Davis]

I got a Bo Jackson tops baseball card I'll start on today.

[TJ Majors]

I had a lot of boat, so we. I was doing. I was getting into baseball cards probably in the early 90s. And a lot of the popular stuff that people were messing with was like the 83 Tops. 83 Tops was a pretty good year. Yeah, there was a Bo Jackson there. I think it was his rookie card.

[Travis]

All right, this next question is from Katie. She wants to know how is the production day? I think he was at Charlotte Motor Speedway with.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, Steve.

[Travis]

Yeah. And Chase was there too. Was he?

[TJ Majors]

He was there a couple days before me. I was supposed to go work this production for Amazon. We're shooting commercials kind of to promote our little five race summer stretch. And I was supposed to go Wednesday and Thursday. But I was so sick. Like I was.

[Mike Davis]

I've never borderline, like deadly.

[TJ Majors]

I was sick. I get a traditional head cold or something once, twice a year, maybe a sore throat. Just a standard old thing. And you know, it's annoying as hell, especially sore throat. Nothing worse than that, but it's no big deal. I don't ever get the flu. I don't ever get fevers. I ain't ever in the bed. I mean, it's been 10 years since I've been so sick. I crawled in bed for the day. It's been a long time. And so Nicole was really sick and I was like, you know, you're a little concerned as a parent, but most, most of the time they kind of weather the storm and work through it. But she got pretty quiet and like, you know, not wanting to walk or go or get up, wanting to lay, wanting you to carry her everywhere. And so, yeah, we took her to the hospital Saturday and luckily everything's okay. Got her some meds and she's fine. But I got whatever she had and it knocked me on my ass, man. I was feeling I had about 103 and a half temperature. It was spiking to that. It was like 100 steady for three days. Could not kick it. And, yeah, I was in the bed. I was awful. Awful.

[Mike Davis]

Just firing off bets.

[TJ Majors]

So, yeah, I would have these moments where I'd feel good enough to taste.

[E]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

I was in.

[Travis]

I can lift a few fingers.

[TJ Majors]

I was in such a bad, bad shave at points, it hurt to text.

[Travis]

Oh, my goodness.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Travis]

How did you communicate?

[TJ Majors]

I mean, it hurt to move when your body aches.

[Mike Davis]

It's the worst.

[TJ Majors]

And so I had to cancel the shoot, and I called Amazon, and I'm like, y'all, I'm bad. And I'm like, I. If. I'm like, if you want me to come in and do this, I. I will, but I don't think you do. And everybody's like, ah, stay home.

[Travis]

Yeah, get away from me.

[TJ Majors]

And so they. They kept. They worked Chase, he was booked on Thursday, so he came in and done his stuff. And then they moved me and Steve to Friday, and I think, yeah, so we knocked it out Friday. I was good by then.

[Mike Davis]

Are you mentally prepared for the call races?

[TJ Majors]

We've been sitting in a room for the past two days watching. We watched Coda as a team.

[Travis]

Oh, really?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. All of my Amazon, my producer, and all of our folks are Adam Alexander.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How's the flow, Steve?

[TJ Majors]

We just sat there and we're like, yeah, that's cool. We like that. We like this. Thinking about this, thinking about that, Just different things. And we did that Sunday, and then yesterday, we sat in the same room and watched an old race that we did at Road Atlanta, and we're thinking, like, we're kind of focusing on Mexico City and, like, how we're gonna present that race and how we're gonna do it. Huh? Why?

[Travis]

Just because it's gonna be a big new track. New. Yep.

[TJ Majors]

One will do a good job.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Road America.

[Mike Davis]

What?

[TJ Majors]

I say Road Atlanta. Yeah, yeah, Road America, so.

[Travis]

Oh, okay.

[TJ Majors]

Okay. Sorry. So we did. We watched last, you know, probably 20, 22 or something.

[Travis]

Yes, that you did.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, that we did it. Yeah. And so we've been. That's. We're prepping. We're getting ready.

[Travis]

See. Next question is from Twitter. Ryan wants to know what's maybe your least appreciated victory, most forgotten one, like, one where you kind of flew under the radar, but you're like, damn.

[TJ Majors]

That'S a question for the people that are watching, watching. Like, I don't have. At least. I don't have one that I least appreciate any.

[Travis]

That, like, maybe you shouldn't have won. But you kind of snuck in. You might be able to help too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's probably one I. The first one I could think of is when it rained in Phoenix.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Oh, yeah.

[TJ Majors]

We were gonna run second.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We were gonna run good that race till. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. We were running Carl second to Harvick, and we cycled in front of him under a green flag. Pit stop.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And then it rained.

[TJ Majors]

Caution came out. Or the rain. Yeah.

[Travis]

Okay. Yeah, it was. I remember something weird to do with pit road.

[TJ Majors]

Harvick was faster. We were going to run second. There was fuel mileage at Michigan in 2008.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

So anytime you win in a fuel mileage kind of deal where you. You weren't the best car and.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, hey, you like it. You don't give a. You're going to victory lane. But you know that you're like, you know, lucky. More lucky than good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'd still take. There's. Man, we ran out of gas at Charlotte that one time. That was bad.

[TJ Majors]

That was a holding Vegas. That one haunts me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Vegas.

[TJ Majors]

Vegas is bothersome. But I would have Charlotte.

[Travis]

Which one are you talking. Which Vegas are you talking about?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't remember. Brad end up winning.

[TJ Majors]

We ran out of gas. Damn it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, off a turn too.

[TJ Majors]

Well, I mean, you know, you really shouldn't. TJ brought it up do that. I would rather. Out of those two. I would rather have. I would rather have Charlotte. We're going Charlotte.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Davis]

That's the thing about athletes is you always hear about the ones that they didn't get don't like. They don't remember the wins as much.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, that's true. You know, we're always. I think where do you human.

[Travis]

Where do you sit?

[TJ Majors]

Ain't athletes. It's a human nature thing.

[Travis]

Do you sit on more of the ones that got away or do you like, remember the good moments?

[TJ Majors]

I remember the good moments more so than. Than anything else.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, for sure, man. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, I'm sitting here right now trying to think of like a least appreciated win, but.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't take them all.

[Travis]

Yeah. TJ this next question's for you in. Jim wants to know just how is Brad doing? I know he had to go to the infield care center. I saw RFK put an update out that he's doing a better. But have you spoken?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, no, Brad's good. Yeah. Just. Just a long day with these cars are super hot inside still. And when these guys stuff fails, it's hard to keep them cool. And there's no real. The only break at Coda is down the front stretch for what, eight seconds maybe from the time you leave 20 to the front, the turn one and the rest of the track. You're working really hard. So tough day to have that, you know, something malfunction like that. But, yeah, no IVs that there's. There's so many things you can do now to recover and. And the medical team being there as quick as they were and getting fluids and. But no, he's all good.

[Travis]

When did it happen? During the race?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was from before the, like, pace lapse.

[Travis]

Oh, really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Travis]

He knew he was in for a long day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Dang.

[Travis]

Yeah. The broadcast, I don't think touched on that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. It was all day. Yeah, it was all day. Yeah.

[Travis]

That's miserable.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Dale, have you had anything like that or just after a race, just completely beat? Had to go to the infield care center. Just.

[TJ Majors]

I will tell you in the one time, I think the one time where I was toast after a race that I can remember is the Iraq, Michigan race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[TJ Majors]

I know, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I want to pick that one.

[TJ Majors]

I know it. So, I mean, I ran. I've. This is a 50.50lap race, something like that. And the only thing that I can. I got out of the car, went to victory lane, saw dad, and then I got. I had to go to the infield care center, like, immediately, and they gave me a couple bags of IV. I don't know if I'd been partying too much that week, but honestly, odds.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Are that it was a.

[TJ Majors]

No. No. No. Honestly.

[Travis]

What do you mean, no?

[TJ Majors]

Well, I'm. I don't. I mean, because I partied all the time, and I never really had any problems. It was a 50 lap race.

[Travis]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I ran Michigan long straightaways.

[TJ Majors]

I know I ran the xfinity. It was not a hard car to drive. I believe that since we. Me, I was running behind dad the whole race, and then I came down to this sort of last lap, little shuffle where I almost beat him. And I really believe that I was holding my breath to. Yeah. So drivers will hold their breath for, like, qualifying runs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You don't even realize it.

[TJ Majors]

You don't even realize you're doing it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And. Yeah, so, like, you'll. You'll. Like you're hauling at. So you're driving. So you're driving a car. Let's say you're in Atlanta, where it's white knuckle. And, you know, you're like. You're excited, you're Wanting to do it. But you're also at the same time fearful because you're going to have to drive this thing right to the edge of the limit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And it's not easy.

[TJ Majors]

No. And so you're going down the straightaway, right? And you're hanging on the steering wheel and you start to turn off in the corner, and you might go, and you're holding your breath all the way through the corner, and you'll hold it down the back straightaway. You might breathe a little bit, but then you'll do the same. You'll keep doing that in corner after corner after corner. And I think that, you know, that would happen quite a bit in qualifying. And you'd get across the finish line and you'd be like, out of breath. Holy crap.

[Travis]

One lap killed me. How am I going to do 300?

[TJ Majors]

Yes, you would. You'd go, man, I've got to relax in the race. You'd be fine because you just kind of would.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And the pace sales. The pace slows down, too, in the race.

[TJ Majors]

But I. I would. I would say that that day I was probably holding my breath for a lot of the last few laps because we're getting inside, 10 to go. You're. The thing about it, too, is in the IROC car, you don't have a radio, you don't have a spotter, you don't have anything. You're by yourself alone. Yeah. And so you're doing everything that you're getting, you know, you're doing everything by yourself. And I'm. And I'm trying to beat my dad. Just me. I'm in this car with nobody giving me information, no crew chief, nothing.

[Travis]

Just trying to beat him straight up.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. And it's just a straight up battle. And I think for the last probably 10 laps, I wasn't breathing enough. I was probably breathing enough to stay alive. Oh, my God. So we get done and I get out of the car and I run over to Victor Lane, and adrenaline gets me there. And I wanted to see dad and go. I wanted him to see me immediately. And go, you almost had me. Because I did. But he was like, yeah, good run today.

[Travis]

You're out here dying.

[TJ Majors]

I know, but I'm like. I'm like, what do you mean? Good run, your ass. What do you mean? He. I know. He's just like, oh, hey, good job, Good job. Good second.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I'm like, that's so classic.

[Travis]

And so did that piss you off?

[TJ Majors]

Yes. And so. But immediately.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Can you tell?

[TJ Majors]

Immediately, I'm just. Yeah, immediately after that I'm like, oh, I feel a little dizzy. Oh goodness. So I go to infield care center and got a couple bags of IVs and was rocking and rolling. 30 minutes later I was fine.

[Mike Davis]

Those IVs will change. Like it's.

[Travis]

I've never had one.

[TJ Majors]

I drove a 10 lap race at a dirt track with Schrader messing around the match race stuff or something silly. And I was so Damn tired after 10 laps on a dirt track. I'm gonna tell you right now, dirt track racing is serious freaking, seriously physical. And it. That was another like I wasn't breathing. I was like, you know, driving this dirt car and I'm like, holy crap. Dirt racing is. I've wondered like, man, wonder why the dirt guys don't run like really long races. Dude. You can't like, you know these short races they run is. Is physically tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Especially like them outlaws and stuff. That is game on. Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

So where do you feel it at in your butt? Like is it just everywhere? Is there a certain spots where you feel it all?

[TJ Majors]

It's just your whole being.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Your whole.

[Travis]

Yeah. You just overall exhausted. I think now that you mentioned the holding the breath. Isn't that like Noah Gregson would get sick after his like truck series wins.

[TJ Majors]

That's probably part of it.

[Travis]

Because of that.

[TJ Majors]

Because he get. You get out of the car and adrenaline and you've won. So your mind is saying, hell yeah, this is awesome. I'm excited, I'm happy. And all of a sudden it's like all the blood just fall, you know, rushes to your feet. You just go like.

[Travis]

It just like hits you like a truck.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Tingly and numb and you just.

[Travis]

And you just know you're not feeling good. Damn.

[TJ Majors]

Wow, it's fast.

[Travis]

Yeah, that's.

[TJ Majors]

That actually it's not a fun feeling. Him when he was sitting there throwing up. He was miserable.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Till it would finally calm down and he'd get his breath.

[Travis]

And even if you're, even if you're not holding your breath, is that still common after every race to feel that adrenaline fall or like.

[TJ Majors]

No, that's not common.

[Travis]

That's not common. It's only if you're really just tense.

[TJ Majors]

And white knuckling 19 out of 20 races. You're gonna more than that. That would happen once a year somewhere.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

But no.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

I mean you'd be racing your ass off somewhere and you weren't doing it. You weren't holding your breath.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, some of them tracks were intense qualifying, man. Where you're on the edge qualifying.

[TJ Majors]

Atlanta, man, was always wild. And Texas, like 2008 at Texas, you knew, like, all right, my car's good. I think I'm gonna have to run. I know I'm gonna have to run wide open in three and four. Yeah, I know it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

For a good lap.

[TJ Majors]

To run a good lap, I'm gonna have to. And so you go down in there and you're like. You're like something is going to happen where you're going to go, you know, jump out of the gas a little bit, but you can't. But you can't. I mean, you will and save the car. Right? But you'll run 10th or 15th even in Bristol. You're driving it out in there, full throttle, 8,000 RPMs, you know, 180 miles an hour, maybe 185. And you're like, we're going to load this damn thing in the track, and it's going to lock in, and I'm going to stay in this throttle and just wrap this corner. But you don't know. It might not do that, you know?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean, even people hold their breath at Bristol qualifying because it used to be you're on edge there.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Davis]

And how long is that lap again?

[TJ Majors]

Just time wise, 28 seconds at Texas. Yeah, probably 20. Roughly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Same real close to Atlanta as well. But people hold their breath for qualifying for two laps in a row at Bristol. I mean.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I remember when Ryan Newman ran in the 14s at Bristol. The very first time anybody ran in the 14s in that 12. Oh, my God. All of us were standing there in the infield watching him run that lap. And that damn car flew through the corner.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And they said 1492 or something. And I was like, unbelievable. I mean, he already had the reputation as being the rocket man, but that was the moment where you're like, yep, you can't. You can't. It's not a. You know, it's not a gimmick. He really did something that a lot of people didn't think was possible to run that kind of a lap.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is there Charlotte, Atlanta, and Texas, where he was just like, okay, let's go watch Newman get the pole.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Like they had something figured out. That something figured out in that car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They did.

[TJ Majors]

What was this? Crew chief Matt Borland. Borland.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, they were.

[TJ Majors]

They had something going on, and it worked everywhere.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There was like big right rear springs or something back then. I don't remember what it was.

[TJ Majors]

You were asking me about that. That shoot, this will be the Best thing we do today. We, we were the prime shoot. That prime shoot.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

So I'm at this Amazon prime shoot Friday and when I was. And this, this young guy walks up to me that's working on the shoot and he goes, hey, man, you went to school my dad? I was like, really? He goes. I was like, what's his name? Because I probably, if I. It might ring a bell. He mentioned his dad's name and I was like, yeah, can't say I can remember or even put a face with that. He goes, Southview Christian School. And I was like, damn. So I went to a lot of schools, right. And right around I'm gonna say this was seventh grade. At the very beginning of my seventh grade year, there's a Southview Christian school that's on the way to the Statesville airport. I pass by this school twice a week at a minimum. I pass by it all the time. Dad and Teresa sent me to that school with Kelly beginning my seventh grade year. And I had been going to another school in Statesville for a couple years and I don't know why that ended, but probably something I did. But Southview Christian School, I believe that's the name of it. So I drive by it all the time. And I only went there six months, but I remember, and I've said this to Amy, I'm like, that school in that six month period was my favorite experience as a kid in school. Because every other school that I went to kind of had little groups. Yep. You were part of this clique and you weren't part of that. And this was the popular kids and the preps and the jocks and the, you know, and everybody had their little space and, you know, you just wanted to get in one. Right.

[Travis]

Especially moving around from school to school. That has to be really tough.

[TJ Majors]

Yep. So you just wanted to be in some group. Right. And. And have your little group of friends that you saw every day and hung out with every day. Not in this school. In this school there was probably, I don't know, it felt like There were about 18 to 25 of us in a class. In our class, everybody felt like they had the exact same level.

[Travis]

Wow.

[TJ Majors]

Of stature or. And as soon as I got in there, man, everybody was fun, friendly. We all goofed around and joked around and got in trouble and talked in class and you know, but it was like I was, I was brought in and accepted immediately and it was just a really great class.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And I remember where our classroom was up in the top of the gym and I remember having immediately connecting and making like 10, 12 friends right away and just having a great time. And I got. I was going to get expelled because if you get rote. If you.

[Travis]

That just took a turn.

[TJ Majors]

It was going really good and I was having so much. I was having so much fun and making so many good friends, like, easily.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And I was probably trying too hard and being too much acting out, too much talking in class. If you got rode up eight times before the. The winter break, that would you. That was. That was it. You'd have to leave. I get rode up just right before the break. It wouldn't process till we got back. My thought was I was gonna be expelled when we returned from Christmas break.

[Travis]

So you got your eighth right up right before break.

[TJ Majors]

And in my mind, I'm going. I'm going on Christmas break. My parents have no idea that when I go back I'm getting expelled. And so my gut is, I'm getting an ulcer worrying about this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[TJ Majors]

Well, little did I know that they had already planned to send me to military school. So when I get home, they're already going through pamphlets for military school on the floo. And they're. And I'm like. I'm kind of like, well, I can embrace this military school idea and not have to ever tell them about. Get in trouble about getting expelled. They'll just pull me out. I'll go to military school, not expelled. No problem. Don't love military school. Don't love that idea. But it wasn't expelled. What is it? Yeah, well, so I remember the last time, the last thing I got wrote up for was a simple. I was having a conversation with a guy in a chair behind me, and the teacher wrote me up. And I was like, gosh, this is so trivial, but this is number eight. I'm going to get kicked out. And he's like, I don't care. I was like, come on, man, this is going to expel me. This is such a small thing. I remember making a case for myself. You fought it. But this gentleman, this young guy that I met at the shoot, he goes, yeah, my dad and you and two other guys. He named these two other kids. He's like, y'all were. Y'all hung out every day. Y'all were friends, and y'all spent a lot of time around each other. He's like. I was like, yeah, man. I was telling him the story about getting rode up and getting in trouble, and he's like, you got. My dad told me one of the times that you got in big trouble. You brought a Playboy magazine to the classroom.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Now.

[TJ Majors]

And I was like, all right, that is jaw hit the floor. I was like, no wonder you were so cool. I was like, yeah, I don't remember that. And he's like, yep, that's what dad said. Dad said you brought it to.

[Mike Davis]

Who was.

[TJ Majors]

Who's on the COVID He's like. He's like, you brought it to the classroom centerfold. You've whipped it out, and we're looking at it. Whoa, whoa, whoa. The Playboy. Yes.

[Travis]

Okay.

[TJ Majors]

Stop it.

[Travis]

Sorry.

[TJ Majors]

So you pull. You pull the plate. I'm like, I don't. I can't believe that this is even possible.

[Mike Davis]

Brought us reading material.

[TJ Majors]

That I would do this in a Christian school.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can't believe I forgot about this.

[Travis]

I remember.

[TJ Majors]

I can't believe it is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No wonder you had all that friends.

[Mike Davis]

What do you think the other six write ups were for then? One was for talking to somebody. One was for a Playboy. What were the other six?

[TJ Majors]

I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Smoking cigarettes. I know. That's what I was saying, dude.

[Travis]

So many friends.

[TJ Majors]

Chat.

[Mike Davis]

What do you think Dale got in trouble for? Give us the six reasons. Chat.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my gosh.

[TJ Majors]

I just can't believe that. I can't. I forgot what a wild menace I was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When you said I got. I was gonna get expelled, I was like, man, what could you have done Now? I. It's fully understandable.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. So that's what I meant. Like, I was. Things were going so well. I was having so much fun, and I was. And so I was trying too hard, and I knew dad had that stash in his bathroom. And I'm like, man, I'll take one of them to class.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was gonna ask you, did you, like, talk about it beforehand?

[TJ Majors]

No. I'm like, my buddies are gonna love this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They did.

[TJ Majors]

And so I am assuming if it really did happen. That's. What. That's.

[Mike Davis]

What do you mean, if it really did happen?

[TJ Majors]

I'm not. I don't remember this. I don't recall it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you remember your dad's stash?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It happened.

[Mike Davis]

It happened, Kelly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It definitely happened.

[TJ Majors]

It might have happened, but I couldn't believe that, man. So I don't. I'm pretty sure that that was not the eighth and final punishment.

[Mike Davis]

That was probably, like, number two.

[TJ Majors]

That was probably in the middle.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was four through eight.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That counted as a bunch.

[Mike Davis]

Every time we showed it.

[TJ Majors]

I really messed up. I really messed up.

[Mike Davis]

So did they.

[Travis]

I appreciate you owning up to it.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

Did they ever find out, though, that you were gonna get expelled? So that they never found that out?

[TJ Majors]

I don't believe so.

[Mike Davis]

Well, that's good. That's a win.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. My. My whole reason for like sharing this story and continuing the conversation with the young man at the photo shoot, I was like, hey, for. So I bought some. I bought some. I bought some yearbooks from my dad's high school days because I don't have. I mean, it's just cool to have an old yearbook from his fourth grade class. And there's dad and his little fourth grade classroom. You know, it's funny to see Dale Earnhardt dressed up as a little, you know, 10 year old school kid. And I found some of his yearbooks from his high school, from his elementary school, because he quit school in eighth grade. But I found some of his yearbooks from like 5th, 6th, and 7th grade. And I bought them on ebay and kept them. And I've been looking for the yearbook for this school, Southview elementary or Southview Christian Academy, from my seventh grade year, whenever that might have been half of it. I do know that Living on a Prayer had just came out. Oh, like, we were all singing that song up and down the road, going to school back. So like Bon Jovi had just blown up with Living on a Prayer. I do remember that.

[Travis]

That's, that's cool.

[TJ Majors]

So, hey, you know, we had Bon Jovi living on a prayer. We were taking Playboys to school.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I just realized I was living on a prayer.

[Travis]

I'm jealous.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Brought a Playboy to a Christian school. It's not just a regular school.

[Travis]

That's rock and roll right there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dude. You were at the most popular kid.

[TJ Majors]

What, what I want is to be able to get the, the yearbook from the school. Relatively around the time I was there, I was. I left the school before we did class photos. So I'm not in it. But I do want to see my class.

[Travis]

Yes. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Because I drive by this school twice a week at the minimum. And every day since I was a seventh grader, I've thought about this school and those kids in that class that I was with and how great my experience was in a very brief time I was there. And I just want to see their faces because I remember. I know when I see them, I'll go, that, that was one of my friends. That was one of my friends. I remember those two. They were great.

[Travis]

And then. Do you ever, like, what are they up to now?

[TJ Majors]

Of course.

[Travis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Too bad you're not in the picture though, because they'd be like, that's the guy that brought the Playboy.

[Travis]

Yeah. Yeah. Dale took the picture.

[TJ Majors]

I did reconnect with some. I got my yearbooks from my, you know, 10th, 11th, 12th grade, senior high school days, and I did reach out and reconnect with some of those. That's awesome. And I'm, you know, hey, man, let's meet for lunch.

[Mike Davis]

The Dale Jr. Download is sponsored by Better Help.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[TJ Majors]

H-E-L-P.com dalejr all right, so here we are on Dale Jr. Download. We got this week's winner and last week's winner, Christopher Bell. Thank you, Christopher, for joining us today. I know you're busy. Back to back wins, man. I mean, this is. This is where this is the way you want to start the year.

[E]

It's hard to get much better than this, that's for sure.

[TJ Majors]

So doing it at two different racetracks, two different completely unique styles of racing has to be something you're proud of, I think, knowing you and I believe the, you know, being, you want to be a guy who's a master of a lot of different disciplines and you're getting to run your dirt stuff again a lot more this year. But I'm sure you look up to guys like AJ Foyd and Andretti for, for their ability to jump in about anything and be incredible like Tony Stewart and even Larson to an extent. So, you know, is this is that kind of come into mind when you go out there and you win in Atlanta and then you go to Cota the next week and do the same thing?

[E]

Yeah, absolutely. Junior. As a. As a driver coming up, I felt like the way that you separate yourself from your competitor, the young guys coming up in the sport is being able to win across multiple disciplines. And, you know, I growing up dirt track racing and specifically open wheel racing, like, I remember you had wing smart car guys, non wing smart car guys, and they didn't really go back and forth. And, you know, I was just like, I wanted to be able to be good in both of them and be able to win Wing be able to win non wing be able to go run a midget car or whatever, and that the NASCAR cup series. One thing that I love about the Cup Series is the schedule is so diverse, and you have different styles of racing that are completely different than one another. You have the intermediates, the short tracks, which are kind of in one bucket. You have speedway racing, which is another one, and then road course racing as well. So the fact that I've been able to win in all of them is something that I take a lot of pride in.

[TJ Majors]

So as you're battling late in the race, I kind of need to know. We were watching the broadcast and Harvick and those guys were doing such a great job trying to help us understand what your challenges were. When you were behind the 8 car, you had an advantage on tires to an extent that was really big. Were you worried about that neutralizing itself at some point? As you're following Kyle so closely? Is there a clock that's running in your head? Is there the hourglass, the sands and Hourglass, not so much to the end of the race, but your car's ability, your ability to really kind of get around Kyle. Are you thinking that that's something that's clicking away, that you need to get more and more urgency in you to get it done?

[E]

You know, honestly, I. I never really thought about my car deteriorating. I certainly. Whenever we started stage three, I had that a little bit where I was behind Kyle and pressuring him there for a while. And then he started to gap me a little bit. But then after the pit cycle happened and he pitted a couple laps before me, I felt like I had the upper hand as far as car speed and tire life. And I was just trying to be respectful of making my move on him, and I didn't want to get overzealous and push the issue too quickly. And coda, it's shorter now, but it's still super, super long laps. And I remember Adam did a great job on the radio just saying, hey man, there's plenty of time. There's still eight layers laps left, six laps left and I'm like eight laps, six lap. At Bristol you don't have much time, but at Cota you got an eternity. And honestly I felt a little bit more comfortable being, you know, the, the chaser than I then I, you know, getting out front and, and having to defend. So I was just with buying my time. I had a couple runs down the front straightaway where I felt like I could potentially outbreak him. I was able to outbreak a lot of other guys who early in the race and turn one was my preferred passing opportunity. But Kyle was the strongest car that I had gone up against as far as outbreaking them getting in the corner. He was pushing his entry so hard. You know, we saw me have to bail out getting into one once because I was going to clean him out if I attempted to, you know, get it in there. So yeah, I just, I wanted to make sure that I, I didn't rough him up. He was racing. He probably had the most hunger out of all of us with, you know, being Kyle Busch, his winless streak he's on. I know he wanted to win really hard or really bad and it was not going to be an easy pass by any stretch of the imagination.

[TJ Majors]

So speaking of road courses, you were in Mexico City last week with nascar.

[E]

Yes, sir.

[TJ Majors]

What were you doing there?

[E]

We got to check out the racetrack there and it was, it was a phenomenal facility. I, I don't, I had never been to a road course that the, the venue, the, you know, the amount of the size of it, like Cota is a world class facility. But the grandstands at Mexico just put Cota like it made Coda look like a middle schooler. Like the place is set up to hold so many people and that stadium section is just immaculate. Like I can't imagine, you know, having the race that we had at Cota at Mexico City. Coming down to the closing laps in that stadium section with the place just packed out, like, you know, Bristol is the closest thing that we have to it, but having a road course with grandstands around there in that section of the track, I think it's going to be an amazing atmosphere.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, we were, we're start. That's one of the Amazon prime races and we're starting to sort of prepare for, you know, how we're going to cover that race. Were you able to really look at the track enough to kind of be able to compare it to anything else or what would you say that that track may remind us like, I mean.

[E]

It'S hard to not compare it to Cota. You know, there are similar tendencies. There's no elevation change, so it's really flat. The whole course is. We got a little mixture of a super, super, super long front straightaway. Like I imagine it's going to be top of fifth gear all the way to close to bottom of first gear. So massive amounts of decel getting into turn one. You have a little chicane there and there's a mixture of, you know, good braking zones, really hard braking zones. And then you have a section of S's that lead into the stadium section as well. So no elevation, but you got a little bit of high speed corners and slow speed corners and plenty of opportunity to root and gouge.

[TJ Majors]

Well, one thing I wanted to ask you before we let you go and again, I want to appreciate your time here. You've gotten the green light to go back racing outside of the, you know, your regular responsibilities on your NASCAR cup schedule. What does that mean for you? What does that mean in terms of your schedule? How much of that do you want to incorporate into what you're already doing?

[E]

Yeah, I am just so incredibly thankful to have the opportunity to go run some sprint cars, some midget cars. I really look forward to getting back on the dirt. It's been a lot of fun so far throughout the off season and I, I'm going to try and be really respectful and make sure that I, you know, make. Don't take anything away from, you know, my, my responsibilities as a NASCAR cup series driver for the number 20 car at Joe Gibbs Racing. And just, it's. I'm not going to be making a schedule, I'm not going to be making a schedule for, you know, races way out there. But I am committed to, you know, the Las Vegas High limit race. And I'll be picking and choosing some midweek stuff that doesn't interfere.

[TJ Majors]

Some would say based off of this year's performance, it's made a difference. Do you think that racing that way or in those type of cars does make you any different in any way for your cup stuff?

[E]

Well, Junior, you know that we don't have. Our sport is so unique because we don't have a lot of practice time. And even in practice, you're not in racing situations where you're making split second decisions. So just being able to race more has certainly it's made me feel more comfortable in my decision making and probably made me feel sharper. So I think the more you race, the better you get. And you know, having those events during the off season certainly I think has made my decision making a little bit better. Whenever we got to Daytona and Atlanta and now, you know, starting into the, getting into the meat of the schedule, everyone, the cup series drivers are too good to have an advantage over them for all the time. But certainly going into the early part of the year, I don't think it hurt me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I have a quick question. How cool was it winning at Volusia earlier this year? That, I mean it looked, that had to be pretty cool.

[E]

Oh, dude, Volusia, it's one of my favorite racetracks in, in the world and the, it has one of the coolest trophies too. You get like a little gator. Yeah, I wanted one of those so bad whenever I was, you know, a full time dirt track racer and I finally got one, so. Yeah, that was freaking awesome. Car was fast, it drove amazing. Driving sprint cars, it's so, so most sprint cars drive good. Whenever you show up, the tracks wet and, and the thing turns left. But the, the hard part whenever you go sprint car racing is whenever the track starts to dry out, you have to tighten the car up to have grip in the car. Well, whenever you start tightening it up, some cars stop turning left and they get really evil to drive because they don't want to turn left. You have to turn the car left and then it, and then the wing catches the air and it starts sliding and you're still loose. But Don Kreitz is an amazing crew chief and he did a great job of giving, just applying grip to the car. Whenever the track started to slick off, he was able to apply grip to the car without changing the balance, which was amazing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it was a great race too.

[E]

Thank you.

[TJ Majors]

We appreciate your time, man. Thanks for giving us a few minutes today. Congratulations on the early success this year and in your quest to go out there and win a championship. It's going to be fun watching you this year and hopefully we'll have you back on the show soon. Soon. Christopher, thank you. Thank you, buddy.

[E]

Thank you, guys.

[TJ Majors]

We'll see you, man. That was a pretty cool insight on his dirt racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I was watching that race earlier this year.

[TJ Majors]

It was, yeah, I mean, so cool to watch. I think that he, you know, him being able to share like how being behind the wheel of any car and Any. You know, being able to race helps him be more confident, feel sharper, feel. Feel more mentally tuned up. Makes tons of sense.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm not going to lie. When he first came in, I didn't peg him as being a road course guy and he's gotten really good at it.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Yeah, he's doing a good job. Got a great race car. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Lace your bets. All right, it's time for Dirty Modeau and Tampa Thames is here. This segment of Dirty Mode is brought to you by FanDuel. We're thankful for FanDuel and everything they do and Tampa Tims. I saw that you had a tweet during the race that made it sound like things weren't going as well for you. And what was. What was going on?

[F]

I posted a gif of the A guy just sitting on a pile of trash because all my bets were trash. Oh, yeah. I just bet, you know, bad practice. Bad betting practices. Basically I got guys at their absolute high and then so the value was all gone. It didn't work out.

[TJ Majors]

So in this value had some scheduling conflicts. Right. That weren't allowing you to bet. Except for live.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[F]

I had some things come up, so it was really just live betting. But I bet them at the absolute worst time.

[TJ Majors]

Should have just bailed. Should just. Yeah.

[F]

Should just washed as a fan more. But, you know, it's okay. I bet Christopher Bell live and that kind of stopped the bleeding, I would say.

[TJ Majors]

Awesome. Well, so that saved your. Saved your day. We're head to Phoenix now this weekend. I know it's only Tuesday, but what I mean, obviously you got to look at Pinsky, of course. Christopher Bell on his hot streak. Yep. Who else stands out? I think Byron.

[F]

Byron in the favorites category. Yeah, he's. He's the third option. Chris Buescher, he's always overlooked. I think I like the four finished.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Third there in the fall.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Somewhere, didn't he?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I mean Penske his quietest third place finish ever.

[F]

I know, but that's good though, betting. I like when they're quiet.

[TJ Majors]

The books don't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good point.

[F]

The books don't. Don't have them on their radar.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[F]

I mean, Chase Briscoe is another guy too. I think the books are. He's in a great equipment. But I like Briscoe at Phoenix too.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I do too. I think he's a guy that have the odds caught. I mean, do they favor him the way as if, say, Truex was in that car?

[F]

Yeah, they're starting to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[F]

Which But I think, like, it really just depends if he qualifies. Well, I think he goes. If he doesn't qualify well, he goes back to where we've seen him typically. But if he qualifies well, it's like that. It's a JGR car.

[TJ Majors]

All right, what's the bets you're going to make today?

[Mike Davis]

Well, I've got a question for you. Maker bets. What's your thoughts on Reddick?

[F]

You know, I don't know. It's like hit or miss with Reddick for me.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, he's.

[F]

It's either he's going to really, he's going to qualify up front, it's going to be good, or it's going to be a mediocre day. And I don't think the price for him dictates that kind of fluctuation. What bet are you going to make for NASCAR today?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, for this weekend. Give me some bets to make.

[F]

Well, I think Chris Buescher At + 2,600 to win is a bet. Yeah, there's a guy. Also, if you want a real, real long shot, it's kind of like, I don't think the price really matches what he. What he is. Daniel Suarez, it's not really running that great, but his average finish at Phoenix is better than Kyle Busch, Bubba Wallace, and Chase Elliott, and they are miles ahead of him in the books. So, I mean, if you're looking for a guy, a real long shot with some value might be something. Phoenix at Phoenix.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, man. I don't know about none of that. I think they're sitting on trash bags again.

[Mike Davis]

Okay, Dale, like, obviously you can't bet anything, but who are some drivers that you would have your eyes on that you think are going to perform well?

[TJ Majors]

Well, I mean, it's obvious to me you're gonna, you know, looking at the statistics you can go by, the Penske cars look good to me, but Blaney is probably the only one out of that group I'd probably be willing to bet on. And I like the Toyotas, and I also think Chase, Elliott and Larson, to an extent, I just feel. I feel like that the Penske dominant at Phoenix has to normalize at some point. Right. And who is the ones that then rise to the top? I do like Briscoe. I think Briscoe is going to outperform his past history. Right. And if the books are looking at him the way they always have, then that's good value, because I think he's, you know, I think he's the kind of guy that's going to go out there now that we're kind of going to some more traditional style. And he's got great success at Phoenix. Good, Good track record at Phoenix. So Briscoe would be a bet I'd be willing to make.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My long shot would be Josh Berry.

[F]

Yeah, it's not a bad one, too.

[TJ Majors]

Why is that? He's in a Penske style car. Good. You know, it's not a short track, but it's close. Close enough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. They should have good speed. And I think Josh adapts well to attract that. Yep.

[TJ Majors]

Needs to go bad call for it. Give you a top 10, I think a top 10.

[F]

Josh Barry. That's the way to go. He needs a good run, too. So this is a good weekend to cap.

[TJ Majors]

I'd do that. I'd make that top 10 bet for him. I do Briscoe in the top five or if they let you do a top three bet. Did they let you do it?

[F]

Yeah, of course. Probably good odds on that.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Long shot. Speaking of Noah, Noah last week, really good. Yeah.

[F]

Surprising.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, he did run good.

[Mike Davis]

And it's not like he lucked into his spot either. Like, that was just a good race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, he earned it. I mean, he missed turn one completely one time and still rebounded from that. And I mean, a good run for him.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. So I think that's a good. That'd be kind of some fun bets to make. I had a lot of success over the past week with NCAA basketball and lacrosse. Even lacrosse? Yeah, lacrosse. Crank lacrosse is cranking.

[Mike Davis]

Sorry, I failed you guys on my lacrosse parlay.

[TJ Majors]

You're too aggressive.

[Mike Davis]

What do you mean, too aggressive?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Mike Davis]

Are you saying, like, my odds were too small? Like you like to go with minus 500?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I had a good. I had a good night last night. So let's see. Duke, North Alabama, McNeese, Lipscomb, Texas A and M, Corpus Christi, Jackson State, Portland State, South Carolina State, Montana, Colorado State. And I got Colorado State in Arizona tonight.

[F]

Okay, okay.

[TJ Majors]

But I had all of those in one parlay. And Colorado State in Arizona tonight to finish it off.

[F]

It's not a bad one, but I.

[TJ Majors]

Had four parlays win last night.

[Mike Davis]

You're a leader.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You are getting.

[TJ Majors]

Well, I'm not betting like you. It's hard to win when you bet like you win or when you bet like you bet. But you know, when you win, you.

[Mike Davis]

Win a lot, and that's what you've been doing lately.

[TJ Majors]

Well, I'm betting pretty even odds.

[Mike Davis]

Hey, if you win. It doesn't matter.

[F]

That means he's supposed to hit.

[TJ Majors]

He sings a different tune. When we're live. We're on.

[F]

What do you mean?

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

When we're talking in the hallway, you're like, yeah, that's. What kind of bet is that?

[Mike Davis]

I've tailed all of your bets. What are you talking about?

[TJ Majors]

You're just trying to be nice.

[Mike Davis]

What do you mean?

[TJ Majors]

All right.

[Mike Davis]

Do I not tell your bets?

[TJ Majors]

You do.

[Mike Davis]

I think there's some that are crazy.

[TJ Majors]

Yes. You chuckle when you see them.

[Mike Davis]

Of course.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He always chuckles at him.

[TJ Majors]

What's funny? What's funny about this? Oh, is it funny because you're like.

[Mike Davis]

McNeese and it's not. It's. You notice how you pause Texas A M. Yeah. There's a pause in Corpus. No, those are. That's one school.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, I know it's one school.

[Mike Davis]

No, but you like, there was like a pause like, you're making. No, it's. Texas ain't in Corpus Christi.

[TJ Majors]

That's what I said.

[Mike Davis]

I know, but it was like, oh.

[F]

I laugh when I see 16 leg.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know thing.

[TJ Majors]

I'm like, oh, my God.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When he says those screenshots, like, you gotta scroll down and see all of them.

[Mike Davis]

I gotta open up my computer to get the full. Look at my phone. I gotta scroll to see it. Well, I can't wait till NCAA tournament comes around though.

[F]

As be fun. Two weeks.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

We need to do a parlay for every game on that Thursday. Every game on that Friday.

[F]

We got conference tournaments coming up now.

[TJ Majors]

Weeks. Yep. It's gonna be fun.

[Mike Davis]

Get some player props going.

[TJ Majors]

College basketball. College sports is fun.

[F]

It is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bet on college basketball.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, I just like, you know, I just like stacking a bunch of legs of big time favorites into one parlay for even money.

[F]

It's like, it's fun.

[TJ Majors]

It's like 90% foolproof.

[F]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

I think. I think for folks listening, bet responsibly.

[F]

Yeah, but doing that. Doing that brings the fun back into it.

[TJ Majors]

Don't bet it. I'm an. I'm a novice.

[Mike Davis]

Well, we put some bet out a couple of weeks ago and someone's like, I'm following it. And they put down a. What I consider a substantial amount of money. We're like, oh, Lord. Like, we're. We're having fun with these bets, people. So don't.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[F]

Betting is for fun.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

Don't be put down. I think they put down like $100. Like, no, no, no.

[TJ Majors]

I should not say that. That's too much. All right, Dirty Modeau. The segment's brought to you by FanDuel. Make every moment more with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. We talked NASCAR today, which I can't bet, but me and the boys, we love making some NBA bets and telling each other right now we're heavily in the NCAA basketball stuff. @ least I.

[Mike Davis]

And check out the, you know, the boost bets and all the different things that FanDuel offers. That's the best part too is you can make that bet a little plus money action.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I forget about that.

[Mike Davis]

Just hit just of course, claim them all.

[F]

Yeah, I should 50 boost on FanDuel today.

[Mike Davis]

I know. I saw that.

[TJ Majors]

Nice. All right, it's time for the white flag. The teardown was live on YouTube following the awesome race at Coda.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And on Monday, DBC was joined by Connor Zillis to discuss his first win of the season. Action is detrimental. Also dropped on Monday.

[TJ Majors]

Herman Schrader and Speed street will drop tomorrow. Can't wait to hear what Connor has to say about the first race of the IndyCar season. Bless your heart. Will drop on Thursdays with me and Amy. Thanks again to Jamie for filling in for me last week and also a reminder to check out our merch store. Head on over to shop.dirtymomedia.com to check it out. Hope you all enjoyed the show. Thanks, Christopher Bell for coming in. Thank you, TJ everybody here at Dirty Mo Media and all you fans out there that listen and joined us today on our Ask Junior segment. It's a great show. And Jack Spraggs is the. Jack Sprague is the guest for tomorrow. Old Jack Sprague, Truck guy. Truck Champord guy, Concord guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One track Jack.

[TJ Majors]

He had a nickname called One track Jack. And now look at him. He's being. He's a nominee or being talked about in the circles for the hall of fame.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's incredible.

[TJ Majors]

Quite a career.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

We'll talk to him tomor.