Atlanta: Will Hocevar’s Driving Cost Him?

Summary

The Dale Jr. Download – “Atlanta: When Will Hocevar’s Driving Cost Him?”

Episode date: February 24, 2026
Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr. with TJ Majors and Russell
Network: Dirty Mo Media, SiriusXM

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Episode Overview

This episode, hosted by legendary NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., dives into the drama and fallout from NASCAR’s recent Atlanta race, with a sharp focus on Carson Hocevar’s aggressive driving style and when or whether it will catch up with him. Dale Jr., TJ Majors, and Russell dissect defining moments from Atlanta, evaluate the Spire team’s progress, debate the ethics and future consequences of overly aggressive tactics, and touch on the ongoing JGR-Gabehart lawsuit. Other highlights include discussions on Bubba Wallace’s critical restart decision, Junior Motorsports updates, and an entertaining listener Q&A.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Atlanta Race Breakdown & Track Characteristics

[03:42 – 06:09]

• Dale Jr. and TJ Majors debate whether Atlanta is currently the best ticket in NASCAR:
  • Dale Jr.: “In my opinion, [Atlanta] the best ticket on the series right now.”
  • TJ Majors counters with Bristol, Charlotte, Kansas, but Dale asserts Atlanta’s consistency in delivering exciting races.
• Key insight: Atlanta’s track surface is aging rapidly (“a little sand belt” region), making handling more crucial as grip deteriorates annually.

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2. Carson Hocevar’s Aggressive Style Under Scrutiny

[06:09 – 13:59]

The Bell Incident

• Hocevar wrecked Bell in the closing laps. Multiple race incidents involving Hocevar, including with Joey Logano, reignite old debates about his approach.
• TJ: “Was Logano on his [Hocevar’s] fault?... Yes, it was Hocevar’s fault.”
• Dale Jr. analyzes the driving code:
  • “If I’m on the inside and I see you off the right front, it’s kinda my job not to run into you.”
  • Verdict: “70-30, Hocevar-Lagano” – Hocevar bears most responsibility.

Accountability and Consequences

• Dale: “No way around this... Hocevar is fully to blame for what happened right there.” [10:00]
• Is karma coming? Dale’s stance: “I get so sick of that ‘somebody’s going to get him back’... Eventually, enough’s enough, and somebody will drop the hammer.” [12:13]
• TJ: “I just don’t know... Like, if he doesn’t...what’s the timeline for this? But does he have to win? He’s got to win eventually, right? Or he’s got to run good.” [14:59]

Will Hocevar Change?

• Dale believes Hocevar is unlikely to fundamentally change:
  • “This is who he is, man. This cat’s different... He loves how he drives. He loves his style.” [13:19]
  • “He’s not going to listen to [rivals]; he’s going to do what his people tell him to do because those are the people that matter.” [13:27]
• Spire’s culture supports him:
  • Russell: “That extension is all we need to know what Spire thinks of him. They’re saying, keep doing you.” [13:59]

The Disruptor Archetype

• Dale draws parallel to Trackhouse’s disruptive philosophy and a young Brad Keselowski:
  • “He’s a disruptor... Our sport badly needs a couple guys like that in the field.” [19:49]
  • Denny Hamlin, as quoted by Russell, expresses competitor frustration and media approval:
    • “He certainly is exciting to watch... but the media loves it. As a competitor, though, it’s going to come back around.” [18:23]

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3. Insights into Race Strategy & Bubba Wallace’s Restart

[25:26 – 28:02]

• Bubba loses the lead on a restart. In-depth deconstruction of his move up the track and possible alternatives.
• TJ: “Those runs into three... are so big... That’s too far up. Only you can’t... gotta keep the guy square with you in the mirror.” [25:49]
• Both agree Bubba should have stayed in front of his teammate, Reddick, on the bottom but debate if there was any real path to victory.

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4. Junior Motorsports Recap & Lee Pulliam’s Debut

[32:23 – 38:10]

• Dale announces Lee Pulliam will debut in the #9 O’Reilly Series Chevy for Junior Motorsports at Martinsville:
  • “Lee’s a winner of over 175 late model stock races, four-time national champion...deserves and earns the chance to see what it feels like at the top three level.” [33:02–35:04]
• Background on Pulliam: Accomplished, never had a national series break, plans no further than this one-race opportunity.

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5. JGR vs. Gabehart Lawsuit – Trade Secrets in NASCAR

[38:22 – 50:44]

• Dale and crew recap the lawsuit: allegations that Gabehart took proprietary info from JGR to Spire.
• Russell: “He even had folders labeled Spire Past Setups. This obvious train of concealment... wild.” [41:16]
• Gabehart’s public rebuttal: “...found no evidence to support the baseless allegations in the lawsuit.” [42:34]
• Dale’s perspective:
  • “Anytime anybody leaves an organization, they usually get them to sign a non compete clause... because they do not want to race against that information the very next week.” [45:36]
  • “Now that we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars...that changes it a lot.” [49:56]
• Consensus: Lawsuits over info are unlikely at lower levels but plausible in top-tier cup racing due to financial stakes.

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6. Listener Q&A – ‘Ask Junior’ Segment

[55:58 – 80:25]

3D Printing at Home

• Dale discusses fixing light fixtures with custom-printed parts:
  • “I printed 24 of them... Got all my fixtures up in the closet. Ain’t gonna have to buy new stuff.” [56:51–59:07]
• Enjoyment in practical household uses, learning from the community, and engaging with fans.

Hypothetical & Fun Questions

• “If you could shoot five different liquids out of your fingers, what would you pick?”
  • Tongue-in-cheek debate about using valuable liquids (gasoline, gold) vs. sauces (Buffalo, ranch).

Retired Cup Drivers in Trucks?

• Dale would “love to see Jeff Gordon run another race... He’s a big part of HMS, and every chance I get, I rib him about running one more race.” [75:54]

Simulation/iRacing

• Which tracks should be added? Dale pushes for Winchester, Salem, and Berlin, citing their short-track pedigree. [77:15–80:25]

Keelan Harvick’s Move to Toyota

• Dale: “It’s a massive win for Kevin and Delana... At some point, [Keelan] has to get picked up, and this is a massive, massive relief for his parents.” [80:31]

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7. Dirty Mo Dough – Road Course Betting Preview

[83:44 – 101:02]

• Discussing betting odds for the upcoming COTA race:
  • SVG (Shane van Gisbergen) is the consensus favorite:
    • “I would bet it... Plus money, any time.” [90:12]
    • “He’s won five of the last six [road courses]. How could he be plus money?” [90:31]
  • Best bets: Bell, Byron, Reddick, Buescher, Chastain, Elliott, Larson, Bowman as road course standouts.
• Sleepers: Chris Buescher and Alex Bowman.
  • “Bowman hasn’t finished outside the top 10 at COTA.” [89:07]
• Betting matchups are dissected for value bets, with the team generally cautioning against overestimating newcomers (Zilisch).
• O’Reilly Series betting: SVG vs. Zilisch—expect close racing; Zilisch seen as having an edge at COTA.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Dale Jr. on Carson Hocevar’s blame in crashes:
  • “There’s no way around this... Hocevar is fully to blame for what happened right there.” [10:00]
• On being an agitator:
  • “He’s a disruptor. Our sport badly needs a couple guys like that in the field.” [19:49]
• On industry culture:
  • “The media loves it, by the way. Just ask them and they’ll tell you. Well, no question you do, because he’s giving you some content.” Russell quoting Denny Hamlin [18:23]
• Dale on track bar code for drivers:
  • “We had a code for what we thought about a driver’s mentality... like the bars of service on your cell phone. We had one bar, two bars, three bars, four bars.” [22:00]
• JGR/Gabehart lawsuit:
  • “Anytime anybody leaves an organization, they usually get them to sign a non compete clause... because they do not want to race against that information the next week.” [45:36]
• Retired competitors racing again:
  • “It ain’t about win or losing at this point. It’s about fun. Yeah. It’s about smelling the smells, hearing the sounds, getting your heartbeat.” [76:39]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------------------------|-------------------| | Atlanta track analysis & ticket debate | 03:42 – 06:09 | | Hocevar/Logano/Bell incidents + Hocevar’s style | 06:09 – 13:59 | | “When and how will it catch up to him?” | 10:25 – 14:59 | | Spire approach & the 'disruptor' mentality | 13:59 – 19:49 | | Bubba Wallace’s restart breakdown | 25:26 – 28:02 | | Dale Jr. announces Lee Pulliam’s O’Reilly debut | 32:23 – 38:10 | | JGR-Gabehart lawsuit deep dive | 38:22 – 50:44 | | 3D printing, household hacks, and fan engagement | 55:58 – 61:11 | | Listener Q&A (fun, lighthearted) | 67:10 – 74:00 | | Betting/Dirty Mo Dough (COTA odds discussion) | 83:44 – 101:02 |

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Summary

“Atlanta: When Will Hocevar’s Driving Cost Him?” showcases why Dale Jr. Download remains a must-listen for NASCAR fans: authentic, immediate reactions from people deeply connected to the sport, unvarnished opinions about drivers, and thoughtful, granular race analysis. Dale and his crew put Carson Hocevar’s reputation as NASCAR’s wild child under a microscope, debating not just his culpability for recent wrecks but also his long-term impact and the culture—good and bad—of disruptors in the sport. The episode also covers the fast-changing competitive landscape at Spire, the professional and legal risks of crew chief moves, nuts-and-bolts garage talk, and the colorful personalities that animate NASCAR both on and off track.

Disclaimer: Timestamps are approximate and mark the beginning of each segment.

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Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We know he can clean it up. You know why? We watched that truck race where he's teammates to Bush and what did he do? He pushed his teammate to the win,

[TJ Majors]

then to the duel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So we know he's got some common sense in there. He knows how to do it right, do it clean or whatever you want to call it.

[TJ Majors]

Then we go and watch that clip here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And then sometimes he's like, I'm hey,

[TJ Majors]

man, then we watch this clip here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I also will say that Atlanta lends itself to that sort of balls to the wall mentality. Dirty Mo Media Junior Motorsports and I have a new partner this year and we couldn't be more excited about this. A lot of y' all may have heard Arby's has come on board and we're loving every second of it. And Arby's has entered the chat with a meal deal that raises the bar for value. Introducing the new meat and three box for $7.99 that's filled with Arby's quality favorites. Each meat three box includes your choice of one sandwich, the classic roast beef that is hand sliced and slow roasted. Or you can go with the crispy fish sandwich. All this comes with the melty mozzarella sticks, some crispy curly fries. Everybody loves those. And a peach cobbler roll for dessert. Guys, you got to try that dessert. It's really good. And you get a small drink. It's called Meat and Three, but you're actually getting five items all for only $7.99. Nobody out there is giving you this much value for your money. This is a value meal that won't leave you hungry. You know you don't have to settle for less when you get more from Arby's available for a limited time at participating locations. While supplies last, prices may vary. Get your meet in three box at an Arby's near you today.

[Russell]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. Yes.

[TJ Majors]

I don't know if we've ever argued, did I piss you off over the

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

weekend or I'm still sour that I wasn't the best man at your wedding.

[Russell]

Who was your best man, Dale?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tj. Tj. You don't need a cool vest for that race. What are you thinking? Get them. Dj. Hello. Starting to show.

[TJ Majors]

All right, then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, everybody. We're back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. This show is presented by Arby's. We're in Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats. You know, I don't know if I'm gonna get tired of saying that. I don't think so.

[Russell]

No, never. I could go for some curly fries right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Arby's is incredibly invested in the industry, in the sport here at Junior Motorsports, at Dirty Mo Media. They have went all in to be a part of our sport, part of nascar. We should celebrate them all in. We should go to Arby's and get one of these boxes, the meat and three box. And while you're at it, check out the Buffalo chicken slider. It's awesome. I've had it.

[TJ Majors]

This box right here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There you go.

[TJ Majors]

Full of meat.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So coming out of Atlanta, Atlanta delivers again. We talked about how Atlanta's, in my opinion, the best ticket on the. On the series right now.

[TJ Majors]

Easy now. It's a good one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's the best ticket on the series. Tell me a better one.

[TJ Majors]

Bristol.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You open your mouth, Bristol.

[TJ Majors]

Bristol's pretty damn good race still.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bristol's pretty good. It ain't like this.

[TJ Majors]

Bristol's pretty good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bristol's hit and miss.

[TJ Majors]

Charlotte.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Charlotte. Charlotte. 600 is pretty good.

[TJ Majors]

Kansas.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kansas is hit and miss. Kansas. Kansas is pretty good. But it don't. It ain't. It ain't Atlanta. I mean, Atlanta.

[TJ Majors]

Atlanta's been fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, you like, you know you're going

[Russell]

to get with Atlanta and it delivers every time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You ran better Atlanta, you'd be.

[TJ Majors]

Well, we're saying we've ran good there, so. But it's. I do enjoy Atlanta. I like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Brad was up there all day.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, we were. We were okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Atlanta is my favorite track because I know, I know that this, I want to say this. The cup guys, I know they're driving their ass off. You know, that Daytona aside with the fuel saving, I know everywhere else they're driving their ass off, but at Atlanta, I see it. Atlanta, Atlanta is a fan. I'm watching. I see it. I see them busting their ass and working their ass hard.

[TJ Majors]

The big lifts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, man, it's fun to watch, fun to watch.

[TJ Majors]

I want that at Daytona so bad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. I would love it at Daytona. Atlanta was awesome and we knew it would be. They dropped the green flag and it's just balls to the wall, hard as they can go. And it's so much fun to watch. So I, this race was a lot,

[TJ Majors]

a lot more handling kind of with the cold weather than I expected.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Every year that we go back to Atlanta, you're going to have less and less and less grip handling. That place is right in the, in kind of in that. If you look geographically at a lot of the racetracks that are in that sort of area, you got Darlington, Rockingham and that little sand belt. Those racetracks wear very quickly, comparable to tracks north of Charlotte, west of Charlotte, you know, even, you know, I would say, you know, Daytona, but right in that little strip of the mid Atlantic region. I don't know what it is about the asphalt or the temperature. The weather.

[TJ Majors]

The Atlantic is some crazy weather. I get snow everything, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So that place will age quickly. The surface is going to age quickly and handling is going to be more and more and more important every time they go back and where just it's going to be such a swing or such a, such a jump from race to race. It'll be tough for the teams to really nail and be on top of it. And that's always going to be cool for us fans to see some drivers not quite land it just right and be a little bit too loose or a little bit out of control. So let's dive into that race. Carson Hosvar racing aggressively. All right. Shocker. He, he wrecked bell at the end. And everybody is, you know, everybody's wanting to hear our opinion. Everybody's got an opinion about host of our. We talk about him at length here, about his, you know, his style.

[TJ Majors]

And I mean, there was multiple incidents, too. I mean, there was a Logano incident with him as well.

[Russell]

But was that. Was Logano on his.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was that what happened?

[TJ Majors]

Host of ours fault? Yes, it was. Host of ours fault.

[Russell]

The broadcast seemed to everybody.

[TJ Majors]

But here's the thing. So the broadcast later on in the race says, well, at the three quarter mark of the corner, you kind of turn down a little bit because nobody runs the fence. At the three quarter mark of the corner, you can't. Like, it's not possible. So the whole group moves down a little bit. Right before.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, I remember that. Off turn four.

[TJ Majors]

Yes. He tried to fit in behind him and just misjudged it, in my opinion.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This ain't no bullshit. I don't think he tried to fit in behind him. I don't, I don't, I don't think he was trying to. He was.

[TJ Majors]

They were all lined up on the top.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was watching that. And especially when we're on coming up the track. I'm, I'm, I'm. I know that the 22 also is shading down. Yes, both of them are one shading down, one's coming up. But Host of our can see him. And in my mind, in my, in the driver code that I kind of know is like, if I'm, if I'm on the inside and I see you off the right front of my car, it's kind of my job not to run into you.

[TJ Majors]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But 22 was coming down a little bit, but Host of our, in my opinion, had an opportunity to not run into him. And Host of our, in my, my opinion, was coming up, coming up the racetrack, driving up the track, across lanes to get there, you know. So it was a bit, I would say it was like 70, 30. Host of our Legano. So Lugano can't. Logano's just coming down off the corner.

[TJ Majors]

He starts to make the corner.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's not chopping him, he's not. Ain't changing lanes. But did he come down some? Yeah, but Host of our is the one that can actually see him and go, all right, I'm not going to hit you. I'm going to turn more and wrap the corner, whatever.

[TJ Majors]

And there was a, there was a gap there and there was like two cars behind him, single file on the top. So if he can get up right there down the front stretch, he's going to get a massive run. So watching it unfold, I'm just saying

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

they hit one guy, got spun out. How do you split the foe? I would say it's 60, 40, 70, 30, something like that. Yeah, probably more so for Joseph late in the race though. Listen, what is Joseph are supposed to do? He's getting shoved like crazy from behind. Where is he supposed to send that? If he runs in the back of Bell. I think he wrecks bail. Let's watch. Let's watch it. I feel like that the one of Chastain is full throttle in the back of the 77, right?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I don't feel like he wrecks him. They. They were. They would hit so hard here under the front stretch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I tell you, man. Oh, he's not on him.

[TJ Majors]

No, they're not on there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where is he? Oh, now he's kind of on it.

[Russell]

He shoots it like.

[TJ Majors]

So he's aiming for that gap. Yeah, he definitely aimed for that gap and.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah, he did. He aimed for the gap, and there

[TJ Majors]

wasn't a hole to do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wasn't a hole.

[TJ Majors]

If they stay bumper to bumper, I don't think he wrecks him because those guys would get mad. They would hit each other so hard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And I like, I'm like, oh, my gosh, they're gonna wreck. And then they would hit each other hard and keep on digging. I'm like, wow, they would hit hard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Listen, there's no way around this. No, I mean, ain't no way around this. Host of our is is fully to blame for. For what happened right there. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

If the 20 moves up another three feet, he's in there. Like, it's so close. But like, I think Denny might have said, like, he's tired. Like, he's going for it. Yeah, he's going for it, but you're also ruining people's races now. And at some point it's got to bite you, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, I mean, he don't care.

[Russell]

But is anybody actually going to truly pay him back?

[TJ Majors]

I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, why are we. We going to debate this? What ifs or who will hypothes.

[Russell]

That's what TJ Saying is going to bite you back. But is it?

[TJ Majors]

I don't know. Maybe not. You can't keep wrecking people without it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't. I get so sick of that. We're. We're here right now to talk about whether this is his fault or not his fault. And I think it's clear that, you know, he's. He's. He bears the responsibility for everything that happened. Right. Right. You know, does this come back on him? We don't know. We do not know. And I'm not gonna. I don't want to waste time on this show going, well, yeah, I bet somebody gets him back. Oh, you don't think somebody will get him back? I bet they do.

[TJ Majors]

I bet they know what we're supposed to do talk about race and stuff. I mean.

[Russell]

I mean, Blaney gets a text message, and he's okay. He's cool with the talks about it. I just don't see these drivers talk a big game about, and they never really truly go, like, do something to him.

[TJ Majors]

I agree.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, all right, I'll play this game. I feel like that eventually, yes, somebody will do something. Yeah, I do. I think that there'll be a time when you know somebody, and it may be Denny, you know, says, you know, what my race is, you know, I'm not having a good race today. And you are, and you are, and it's my. It's my chance. I'm already going to finish, you know, wherever. So here's my, you know, I'm gonna just go ahead and make it hard on you. How'd you like that? You know, so, I mean, I definitely think that, that, that will happen. I know the. The. The guys will. I know the drivers get out of the car and they. They'll say, oh, he's gonna regret that one of these days. And we don't see anything. But eventually, yes, eventually, enough's enough, and somebody will. Will drop the hammer.

[Russell]

But is he going to learn from, like, do we think he changes like Ross?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Russell]

Finally change?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[TJ Majors]

It's going to take two or three times for some.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is doing this. This is who he is, man. This cat's different. I don't think that he has the. And this is not a knock at all. I just don't think he has the ability to have the remorse or listen. I mean, I know he. I think he does understand right from wrong. I think he does know when there's. When he makes a mistake or he doesn't do something just right or he makes a bad decision or whatever. Right. He. He's gotten out, done interviews. We've heard him talk. We know that he has common sense, but I don't know that he. I don't know that he's going to take a ton of advice from his competitors. He might take advice from somewhere else.

[Russell]

I mean, he told you last year he's not really friends with the other cup driver, so it's not like he has a mentor to be like, hey,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

like, yeah, but I mean, he probably listens to other people. He listens to his team owners, the people inside his shop. What are they telling him to do? If they're telling him, hey, man, keep on being you, he's going to do what they tell him to do. He's going to do what his people tell him to do because those are the people that matter. Those are the people that just gamble. Those are the people that just committed to him.

[Russell]

He had to sign that extension.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So like he, those are his, those are the people he's going to listen to. He's not going to listen to, you know, Danny or Logano or anybody else. Those aren't, those aren't the people that are signing his paycheck or those aren't the people that are responsible for his future, his opportunity that he has right now. So he's going to listen to what his team owners say, you know, and, and his crew chief and all his people that he trusts, all his friends in his circle, if they're all telling him, don't change, keep being you, that's probably what we're going to get.

[Russell]

Yeah. I'd say that that extension is all we need to know what Spire thinks of him. That they're saying, keep doing you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And I honestly feel like that he doesn't want to drive or do it any different. He loves how he drives. He loves his style.

[TJ Majors]

Do you think two or three DNFs in a, in a month hurt him with guys?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If he didn't seem to bother him last year, Remember when he come after Nashville, he stumbled all the way through the rest of the season.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And most of it was self inflicted. You know, getting into stuff like this that would end up, you know, he'd get the wrong end of. Or the bad end of the. And it didn't seem to like.

[TJ Majors]

But I'm saying if guys, if, if it's incidents that happen where guys are like, yep, I'm done with you. And he get. There's a couple of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And he gets a couple DNS and he starts seeing them points disappear real quick now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I don't know.

[TJ Majors]

Does that change him? It's got to make you race differently then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know. It might, I mean, he might start driving differently. At what point we'll just start taking him out.

[TJ Majors]

At what point does this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I just don't know.

[TJ Majors]

Like, if he doesn't like, what's the timeline for this? If he, he can keep driving like this, but does he have to win? He's got to win eventually, right? Or he's got to run good.

[Russell]

Like, it's like I would say yes, but I don't. But if Spire is happy with their car being up there and finishing where it's at and the sponsors are happy, then I don't Like, I don't know what Spire's ultimate goal is with Josevar.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Russell]

And at least for right now, I don't know.

[TJ Majors]

But definitely a good fit with each other. I like what he's doing. I mean, I like watching him. I like him. He creates a lot of headlines.

[Russell]

He's a good driver. Like, he's good, too.

[TJ Majors]

He's good. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We give fire credit. They're. They're running. This used to be a program just a couple years ago that was literally running in the back of the pack. Wasn't even putting tires on all day long. You know, they were running old. We sponsored by Darlington when Chastain was driving the car and they, they weren't even putting tires on. With the rest of the teams big improvements. Oh, yeah, it's a completely improved organization. But we still, we don't look at them like a top three. We still look at them as an underdog. I still do.

[Russell]

They're not a top four or five.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I look at Spire still with that underdog mentality. I do. And as long as he's taking this Spire underdog car and battling around the big boys up front.

[TJ Majors]

No, he just wrecked a Gibbs car at the end of the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It looks like it still appears that he's over. He's outperforming expectations. Right. And so, yes, he can stumble, wreck, he can fail in the, in, in the end result of the race, but I think his money people are going to go, damn, we are close. Keep digging. You know, we are right there, man.

[TJ Majors]

That's important, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is. And so I feel like now when that shifts, say they win a race or two and they get a little, you know, they start. If it shifts to, all right, man, now we're a winning team and now we need to go out there and knock out the top. We got a shot at winning the championship. Let's knock out them top threes. Them top fives. And he doesn't adapt and adjust. That could be when you start to

[TJ Majors]

see the is this worth it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The problems or the people in his circle telling him, all right, man, now we need to polish it up. Right. When you got to get. We got to get to where we can get to the finish line every week. With all that said, the dude's sitting

[Russell]

fourth in point and he's fourth in stage points. Like, he's just been consistent.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So even though, you know, he's banging around and tearing up cars and pissing off the competition, looking at that cheat right there with him fourth in points, I don't think anybody in the organization is going to tell him to change too much,

[Russell]

and I hope he doesn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You remember when we were talking about a year or two ago, a couple years ago, Justin Marks said about. They were like, hey, man, what is track house? And he says, we want to be disruptive. We want to be. And that's kind of this mentality of Carson. He's like, I don't know that he. He's intentionally, like, going by this, but he's a disruptor. And sometimes those that. That can be unsettling on the competition and be. Be productive. Right. I think there's one thing that I would love for you to put in a clip. Denny doesn't like it. He said so on his podcast that the competitors aren't happy, but the media is. Well, he's right.

[Russell]

The media loves it, by the way. Just ask him and they'll tell you. Oh, we love Host for. Well, no question you do, because he's giving you some content as a competitor, though. It's going to come back around. He'll be in a position where he thinks he's about to win and then someone will decide that he's not going to. And that's going to suck. You're just never going to get anyone to give you a break. He certainly is exciting to watch. If you're a race fan, those are not the moves that you have to make to win the race nowadays. I think he's missing a little bit of the craftsmanship of winning these races beyond just having a fast car. Let me ask you this. I keep hearing, well, he's going for it. If I'm three car lengths behind Carson, Host bar and I go three through the grass into turn one and then wipe them out. Is that just me going for it or is that me being an idiot? An idiot. I think we have to stop using the. Well, it's just going for it. I almost hate that we're bringing more attention to it because it's just.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think he likes that this is. While I know that this is a big, massive thorn in the side of any of the drivers that are in this guy's wake, it is great for the sport to have at least a couple guys out there willing to shoot the gap if, you know, willing to try to make a hole where there's not a hole. Willing to try to kind of like, you know, Bradski at Texas, right, when he drove through Jeff Gordon and they end up, you know, Jeff Flat.

[TJ Majors]

Very similar situation.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Very similar situation. Brad was that guy Back then, he was going for the hole he was going to take. You know, he's going to go for it. And it pissed people off and it barrels, you know, spilled out onto pit road. And we had that incredible scene. And this is who Josevar is. And our sport badly needs a couple guys like that in the field.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, it's so good to have him so badly.

[Russell]

I mean, you got drivers nervous if they see him around because they're like, oh, is he going to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I think that, you know, we listen and we know he can do it. We know he can clean it up. You know why? We watched that truck race where he's teammates to Bush and what did he do?

[Russell]

Pushed him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Nothing.

[Russell]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He pushed his teammate to the win.

[TJ Majors]

The end of the duel.

[Russell]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

End of the duel, too. Nothing. Just, you know, he. So we know he's got some common sense in there. He knows how to do it. Right. Do it clean or whatever you want to call it.

[TJ Majors]

Then we go and watch that clip here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And then sometimes he's like, I'm. Hey, man.

[TJ Majors]

Then we watch this clip here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I also will say that Atlanta lends itself to that sort of balls to the wall mentality. I mean, the way they race all day long there, how could you not be willing to just risk it all on that final restart with an opportunity to win the race?

[Russell]

I also wonder, was he getting amped up? Because during that red flag that he's doing the whole shake and bake stuff. So then you're like sitting in the car ready to go, and that happens.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And, like, you imagine that he's like, feeding him one of these red Bulls.

[Russell]

Yeah. He's just ready to go get him some wings and fly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not one at Atlanta. Well, the green, white, checkered. I would not want to see the 77 in my mirror.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, that's not who I'd want to line up to help.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that's. That's a compliment. Right? I know. You know, a lot of people are going to, you know, a lot of people are going to be on either side of this. They're going to say, hey, man, I like it. I love the wild mentality and what kind of action and drama it creates. Some people are going to be mad that he's a wild man.

[TJ Majors]

Well, that's a good thing, though, honestly, for the sport. What were you going to ask me earlier, Travis?

[Russell]

I was going to say, as a spotter, when you see him, are you telling Brad, like, is it. Are you, like, your ears perk up when you are eyes like wide.

[TJ Majors]

When you see him, you're definitely more. Yeah, I mean, one bar. I mean that's what I. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So tj, TJ and I, back in the day, I love this, man. We had a code for the ability of drivers. What we talk about, what we had a code for what we thought about a driver's mentality and common sense. And it was basically like the. The bars of service that you have on your cell phone. We had 1 bars, 2 bars, 3 bars and 4 bars.

[TJ Majors]

It was great because we knew exactly what it meant and no one else did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, no one else did. TJ be like, all right, man, one bar.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Outside one bar. That means give him a little room.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. That means watch your ass. And I told tj, I was like, you need to bring that back with Carson and all the other guys you're working with.

[TJ Majors]

I still use it on the cup side sometimes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you got to bring it back because it's very effective. It was actually, even though it's kind of funny, it was absolutely a quick, easy way to give your driver some information.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. What you're around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Actually it was probably more beneficial at the time than it started off as

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

a, as a joke.

[TJ Majors]

Screw that guy, he's a jerk or he's bad or whatever. To a you, you actually kind of knew what you were racing around more. So.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. And people would ask all the time, what's that mean? What's that mean? Yeah, all the time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, you don't want to get called a one bar. That's.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, you don't want to be a one bar.

[Russell]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Mo Media Junior Motorsports and I have a new partner this year and we couldn't be more excited about this. A lot of y' all may have heard Arby's has come on board and we're loving every second of it. And Arby's has entered the chat with a meal deal that raises the bar for value. Introducing the new meat and three box for 7.99 that's filled with Arby's quality favorites. Each meat three box includes your choice of one sandwich. The classic roast beef that is hand sliced and slow roasted. Or you can go with the crispy fish sandwich. All this comes with the melting mozzarella sticks, some crispy curly fries. Everybody loves those. And a peach cobbler roll for dessert. Guys, you gotta try that dessert. It's really good. And you get a small drink. It's called meat and three. But you're actually getting five items all for only 7.99. Nobody out there is giving you this much value for your money. This is a value meal that won't leave you hungry. You know, you don't have to settle for less when you get more from Arby's. Available for a limited time at participating locations. While supplies last, prices may vary. Get your meat in three box at an Arby's near you today. Bubba Wallace. Let's talk about Bubba. Loses the lead on a final restart. Bubba in line on the bottom in front of his teammate. Three Toyotas all lined up and just. Man, middle of the back straightaway. He pulls up.

[TJ Majors]

I don't think you can defend it. Those runs into three. Atlanta are so big. Like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, no, no. The middle lane.

[TJ Majors]

They got three wide right off into turn one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Host of ours on the outside. Bubba's now clear into the lead.

[TJ Majors]

He's got his perfect.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's got his teammates behind him. The 45 of Reddick and the 19. The outside line has the inside. Yep. This is where he moves up and

[Russell]

he went too far.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Went too far?

[TJ Majors]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's kind of. That's. I don't know, man. Like you're telling them to watch the top.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Roll it back. What kind of rumbles of 45 producing was. Was staying there an option? Right? I honestly feel like. See, the 45 is getting ready to get a push if he stays down there.

[TJ Majors]

Staying there was. I don't think you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dude, look. They're side by side.

[TJ Majors]

Watch to go to the back straightaway. All right, 45, 19 aren't connected here. 40 fives. He's on him right here. I mean, he's off of them right there. So on the outsides build momentum. So you come up. That's too far up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You don't.

[TJ Majors]

Only you can't. You got to keep the guy square with you in the mirror. You got to go second lane. But I think host of our splits him either way. And if Josevar gets to the outside

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

of him, if the 23 never moved off the nose of the 45. That's my point. Why would he not stay in front of his teammate?

[TJ Majors]

I think they get to his quarter panel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's see. Go back.

[TJ Majors]

Because the outside was coming with a run. Like, they're connected right there. The outside's connected. Inside is not.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not on his quarter panel.

[TJ Majors]

Inside's not connected. Outside's connected. Outside's connected. They're coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not on his quarter panel.

[TJ Majors]

They're coming. They're going to get to his quarter panel. And he's stuck on the bottom in the three.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, they're side by side. 45 and 77 side beside.

[TJ Majors]

Still two cars tandeming go faster down the straightaway than two cars that they

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

didn't because they're still side beside 45, 77 still side by side. I mean, five wins the race. The guy he could have been in

[Russell]

front of and, you know, Reddick's not going to do anything crazy.

[TJ Majors]

The 23 and 45 don't just get here and be like, okay, let's connect. Like, there's a. There's a. There's a time in there where it takes them like, no, the 77 is getting his quarter panel. If they're connected on the bottom, he's half in front of him. The 23 is half in front of. Or the 77 is half in front of the 45 on the bottom. Go back to the back stretch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I agree.

[TJ Majors]

So he's gonna. So he's gonna be on the quarter panel. The 77.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's gonna.

[TJ Majors]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he's gonna drag him back to the 45. The 45 is gonna push him clear.

[TJ Majors]

No, they lift too early for the corner. You can't drive in like that. On the bumper right there. Like, right there. Look where the 77 is right there. If they're. No. If they're bumper to bumper on the bottom, he's got his quarter panel. Bubba's gonna have to drive it in deep and clear him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Gonna have to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I feel like that's what he should

[TJ Majors]

have done, but I don't feel that the 77 is not gonna drive it in deep with him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So I wish you to stay low.

[Russell]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Who knows? I mean, I. I think the 77 gets there. And if you protect the side of the car here, it's usually the right side. Especially on the entry to three.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sheldon Creek gets his first win.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Good for Sheldon.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Hard to believe.

[TJ Majors]

I know. Like 15 or 16 or something. Top like second place finishes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Holy cow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. It looked like there at one point Junior motorsports had a lot of cars up in the top top five. And then we all wrecked off of. We got down into turn three. Corey Day apparently had a right front tire flat.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. After you hit. That's what happens.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But. Well, I saw a replay and the tire is flat going off into three. Yeah, I did. We'll replay bumper cam. Bumper can all bumper cam off the one car.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. After the smoke.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Look, man, I'm just telling you what I saw.

[TJ Majors]

The bumper cam shows the car driving up the inside with a tire up. When he enters the end. It looks the same on the entry to one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You think Corey Day went in there and wrecked him on purpose?

[TJ Majors]

I don't think he did it on purpose at all.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, what'd he do?

[TJ Majors]

Overdrove overdrive. The corner overdrive. Driving too hard. Trying too hard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay. I don't know.

[TJ Majors]

He wouldn't do that. Never does that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, he's got a lot of race car and he's trying to, you know, he's not got quite the experience.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. But he's got plenty of speed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gonna get there.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wrecked both. Wrecked the 1 and the 7. That sucked. The 1 and 7 were having a good day. The 7 came from the back because NASCAR didn't like the side skirt. I guess we yanked on the side skirt after qualifying or before qualifying. And NASCAR saw it and said it picked the side skirt off. You're going to the back. So that was a nice little lesson learned. Raja did a great job. Thought he had a shot at it. Sammy squeezed him in the fence there and cut his own right rear tire. Sammy cut his own right retire. Sammy's gonna have a good day. But ended up costing himself some points there and a good finish.

[Russell]

Were you coaching him a little bit during the race?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I was on everybody's pit box and I was in everybody's ear at some point.

[Russell]

What's your decision on when to like jump in there and.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I.

[TJ Majors]

Do you scan all at one time or what do you do? Just flip around?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I just. Wherever I'm at, whatever box I'm on listening to them, Raja was. Raja had a great car. He was making some great moves. But I saw him late in the race sitting on guys right rear quarter panels, just kind of waiting on them to fall asleep and leave enough room for him to jump to the outside of them. And I'm not sure that he realized. I just wanted to kind of remind him at the end of the race like, hey, man, 15 to go here. We're coming to, you know, we're coming to the green. 16, 15 to go. That's going to go by like that. That's going to go by really quick. And so we can't just kind of wait for the outside to open up on some of these guys. If you get a big run and you got to go to the bottom and take your chances on that working or not working, we may have to try to, you know, grab a few spots down low. Austin Hill would just go where the, you know, go where they're not with the big runs you can create. And we'll see where we net out here to get a good, good finish because he had a. Roger had a lot of stage points. We had. We had new tires. We had. We were on the offense.

[Russell]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

At the end you get help too. Yeah, people want to go forward.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he got himself back up in there into the top 10, got a good result. He's sitting right now, second point. So pretty happy with that. Austin Hill, you know, didn't qualify well, didn't look all that great earlier in the race. Handling issues in the first stage, but they got the car better. And is it, you know, when we got late in the day and it cooled down, their cars, the 2 and the 21 seem to be the ones to beat. The Junior Motorsports guys had eliminated themselves and Here was the 21 ready to capitalize on, on a whim. But Ross Chastain in the 32 was strong and had nothing to lose. Down the back straightaway, it looked like Austin Hill threw a block and Ross stood his ground and sent him across the apron. But anyways, just an eventful race. Wish we would have been able to get the end result that we deserved. But we're off Dakota. I think we'll, you know, I'll go out there with some good potential to get some good, good stuff. Big announcement today.

[Russell]

Big announcement.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Big announcement. So Lee Pulliam is going to be making his O'Reilly series debut driving the number nine Folsom fence supply Chevy on March 28th at Martinsville Speedway for Junior Motorsports.

[TJ Majors]

Nice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Lee is a staple. Lee's a winner of over 175 late model stock races, four time national champion, just so many track championships, done a lot of great things at the grassroots or regional level in late model stocks. And so he's that guy like, you know, that did enough, but never got looked at. Never got the chance.

[TJ Majors]

I was gonna ask, like, how does that not translate into something?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He never got the call, right, to get. To get up there and give it a shot in the Trucks or the O'Reilly series or the xfinity series. So we have always remained friends with him through the car score. We often pit side by side.

[TJ Majors]

I see him a lot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Him and Brian Schaefer that runs our program, get along great. And Josh Barry, When Josh raced regularly at the regional late model stock ranks, he. He. He would always say, you know, I. I have a lot of respect for Lee. I think, though. I think Lee's one of the best drivers out here. And that imprinted on me. I would, you know, I would. I had a lot of respect for Lee through that, you know, through that relationship that him and Josh had on the racetrack. They were. They were fierce competitors. And, you know, we. We. We had an opportunity. So Lee goes to Martin. Lee quit driving. Lee gave up driving to own. To own his car and put drivers in it like butterbean and so forth. And that was his path. Right. He's now a businessman trying to run his. Run his racing program. His father was ill, and he promised his dad he would give it another shot at Martinsville. Go try to run the 300 and win it again. He's won it three times, I believe, which is incredible. Yep. And so he goes back last year and loses the 300 after not being in the car for a long time. Loses the 300 by mere inches. Crossed the finish line side by side, but did not win the race. I called him immediately after the race, and I was like, dude, that was amazing. I was like, we have to figure out how to get you in a junior motorsports car. And so we have the fifth car. I called our team, I said, let's make this work. However we have to do it, let's figure it out. Lee has some partners that are interested in supporting it, and so we're thankful for Folsom Fence Supply.

[TJ Majors]

And they've been around racing a lot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, they've helped him. Anyway, so we ran Lee in our late model stock at Southern national at the end of the year during the Thanksgiving classic. Lee's going to run a few more races this year to sort of get his mind and body back in shape and in racing form in the late model stock and cars tour ranks. And so yeah, we've been, we've had this announcement ready and teed up for quite a while. You'll see a video on social media that our team created that I'm very excited about that will sort of show you, you know, what this dude's about. But this is Lee, this is Lee Pulliam. This is every racer that ever did everything right, won all the races, did, got all of the, accomplished all the things that would be deserving of an opportunity, but it never came. And so he's going to finally get a chance to go put the suit on, climb in the car and see what it feels like to race at the top three level. It's a one and done kind of thing. There's no plans beyond this. But I want, I felt like Lee deserves and earns the chance to go see what it feels like and do this. And so he's going to have to go up there, qualify and race. Well, we've got him in sim, we're working with him, trying to get him up to speed and get him comfortable and I expect him to have a great experience and I can't wait to be there for it.

[Russell]

How hard is that to not race and then jump in and race? Because, I mean, you've kind of experienced that when you would do your.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was the most surprising thing to me, Travis, was he hadn't been in the car in four years and he went to, he went to Martinsville two years ago, ran top 10 and that's against the best late model stocks in the country. And he didn't race anymore. Jumped back in the late model stock at Martinsville this past year and lost by an inch, literally. And so nearly having done no racing, won the, the biggest late model stock race of the year. And so pretty fascinating. And that's why I think I was, I was like, damn, man. I mean, this guy can still do it if he really wanted to, if he really could financially run every race, he, he'd contend for car store championships, he'd contend for track championships at the regional level, he would contend for, you know, the national title at the regional level.

[TJ Majors]

So this fits, I think it fits him well, this car and that track to go to and adapt to and if you know how to get around Martinsville, if he can apply what he already knows to how that car drives, which should drive pretty good. Yeah, he's going to be fine. Yeah, like it's going to take him the first stage, stage and a half, almost two stages. But if he can keep track position for that third stage, I think he can be a top ten car. Yeah, so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, we'll see. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I can't wait to be there to see it. Hopefully, you know, all our cars will run great. The JGR suing gay part drama. Whoa.

[TJ Majors]

Didn't see that on coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did we not see this coming?

[TJ Majors]

I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean a lot of good secret skeptics.

[TJ Majors]

We weren't at the right lunch meetings.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This has been going on since the end of last year and no one knew.

[Russell]

We had to know because you're right. Because he disappears, but he doesn't pop up on another roster like that. Had to be setting radars off that something.

[TJ Majors]

But you heard the, you heard rumblings of him possibly going, you know, there and stuff. You heard that. I mean, you heard rumors of that, didn't you?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well, we knew that Gabe Hart had left JGR and was going to Spire. That rumor was out there.

[TJ Majors]

That's what.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, and I didn't, you know, and I didn't. We didn't think anything of it.

[TJ Majors]

Other.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The one thing that I thought was like, well, why, what happened? I mean, he was, he was kind of promoted out of his position as crew chief for Denny. I thought he had been promoted up right into like a technical director role. And then when Gibbs, Ty Gibbs was struggling mid season. He was, he was, it was kind of. It sounded like he was like, all right, I'm going to go also try to straighten this out. Yeah, like that to me sounds like, okay, this is a valuable piece of their, their, their system. And then at the end of the year, he's leaving. I'm like, what happened?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, you don't get asked to do that. You're the save. You're supposed to be the savior for that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, what happened?

[TJ Majors]

You're gone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I mean, so then you start to like make assumptions of like. Well, did they have a falling out with Ty Gibbs?

[Russell]

Did spire off for a lot of money. That was what a lot of people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I would. That's the thing. Like, I can't imagine Spire outbidding Gibbs.

[Russell]

And they've been throwing money around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's like a new. Well, that's like a new development. Yeah, I know they throw money around and they got money. But it also alleges that during the forensic analyst. So he offered up, I suppose, his devices and so forth for analysts. They learned that Gabe Hart, who as Competition director had access to confidential information at nearly every facet of competition, of the competition side, accessed information, proprietary information, and used his personal cell phone to take photos of his laptop screen to conceal that he was accessing and taking JGR's confidential information and trade secrets, like pictures of setups, all types of stuff. Right? And I don't want to do any hearsay here, but I mean, it was like they said, he even had folders labeled Spire Past Setups. I mean, it's like this obvious train of concealment. And yeah, it's wild. He had a subfolder titled Past Setups. He had a folder, he had a drive that had a folder on it titled Spire and then a subfolder past that.

[Russell]

I mean, according to Jordan Bianchi, we're not reporting this, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And there were Google searches and online research about SPIRE in October and November. So was he, was he like doing a little bit of a personal check on that organization? And damn, dude, I am nervous but apparent. Look, he came out after this, you know, after JGR files their lawsuit and puts out all of these claims, he puts out his own little. His own little rebuttal. You know, I look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate in the court that I have not shared JGR's confidential information with anyone. In fact, I have already demonstrated that to jgr. A third party forensic expert retained by JGR recently examined my laptop, cell phone and personal Google Drive and found no evidence to support the baseless allegations in the lawsuit. We even offered JGR the opportunity to do a similar review of SPIRE system and they refused that offer and still filed the lawsuit. So he says, stay tuned. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. I don't know who to believe. I mean, initially with what JGR put out, it sounded pretty obvious.

[TJ Majors]

That's a good response, that Gabe Hart

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

was, was in trouble, but honestly, I don't really. And how do we know these days, right? We none of us really saw how the NASCAR vs J 2311 suit was going to go. I don't think we all envisioned it going too Chord and then being settled after all the things that went on in the couple of days there. That was very dramatic. My hope, again, very similar to the way I felt about the last one, is that this settles. And you know the funny thing, I don't know how funny it is, but it felt funny. All of this goes down, right? JGR files a suit very publicly, puts out that statement. Gabe Hart responds publicly. Literally the next day, Spire puts out an announcement, hey, we hired him Gabe Hart's our guy. So that was them going, all right, we're in this mug's corner and they stake their flag and now it's on. Now it's on. So what does, what does, who is liable? If there is some sort of truth that some information was, was shared illegally, who's liable? Is it Spire? Is it Gabe Hart? Is it both? I think in the end this settles and everybody and nothing changes. I think this settles. I bet money guy Spire says, you know what, let's make this go, make this go away, let's move on. And you know, I think that's what we'll never really truly know. I don't think how, no, I don't think we'll know the truth.

[TJ Majors]

Whatever happened last year, I think, I

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

think it gets, I think there's a settlement, it goes away and we don't know really how it got settled.

[Russell]

I get why a team would want this because a lot of people like, well he has it in his memory but like he doesn't have all the different departments stuff, so he had to access those things. And it's not all his, it's not like he's just taking his own ideas over there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In 1997, I had raced for Gary Hargett in the late model stocks for three years. We had a notebook about three inches thick of setups where we'd raced it probably a dozen different racetracks. I was leaving Gary take my late model stock program up the road to race out of my own shop. And I said to Gary, I was like, Gary, you're 55 years old, you got all this information and knowledge all in your head. I'm a 20 year old kid, I don't know crap, I need this book. And he was like, damn, you ain't taking my setup book. I'm like, well I don't know it, I need it. And you do know it. And you can probably put any of these setups right in the car without even looking in this book. And so I took the setup book.

[Russell]

Damn.

[TJ Majors]

He let you have it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, he didn't want to, but I took it. I had the damn thing somewhere.

[TJ Majors]

That's awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I haven't been able to find it, but it's hiding somewhere.

[TJ Majors]

Maybe he's got it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But like, you know, anytime anybody leaves an organization, they usually get them to sign a non compete clause.

[TJ Majors]

Absolutely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And the reason why they get them to do that is because they do not want to race against that information the very next week or the very next year. And so while that person does sign the non compete. They do have all that information and they. I don't know, man. I don't.

[TJ Majors]

Do you ever stop it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think this is, I don't know. I would say that you can't police

[TJ Majors]

this to an extent.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To an extent. But you know, like I would say there's two sides to this. One side is for Gabe Hart. This been going on forever. Gabe Hart's a smart guy. He's absolutely going to walk over to the next team and say, hey, here's some things that we did that worked. Who wouldn't do that?

[TJ Majors]

Not even looking at a computer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Everyone. That's what I'm going to expect if I'm hiring the guy.

[TJ Majors]

Absolutely.

[Russell]

That's why you're hiring him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They RCR hired Jim Pulliam. You don't think I'm racing against some of the, that Jim did here?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In the Xfinity or Low rally series. We know that, we expect that. And so that's, that's what, what it's all about. You know the other. But that's been the, the, the, that's been the thought process in this sport for 75 plus years. But now, now this is the argument for JGR. I went over to Hendrick Motorsport and I walk into the engine department, right. And there are multimillion dollar CNC machines and just crazy, crazy going on in there in terms of investment and the money they're spending to go fast. I imagine without question, JGR has poured millions, hundreds of millions of dollars into their program to get to where they are today. And that's what they're trying to protect. They're like, hey, you know, we've done all of this work to create this disadvantage and you just took it and handed it to somebody. That's where I feel like they've got an argument if it is indeed true that he literally just copied and pasted all this information.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Handed it right to somebody else. Does JGR have a leg to stand on here because of the money being spent to create this advantage, to know this knowledge, to develop this knowledge. If it was, you know, if it was regional late model stock or short track racing or even in the truck series, we're not probably having a lawsuit, we're not probably filing lawsuits, but when it's 150, $200 million a year.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, this is the top level.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I don't know how you assign fault. Who, I don't know who you assign fault to. I mean Obviously if gay Bart really did this, if he really did it.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, he's a fault.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's at fault and aspire kind of like the, you know, oh well, goodness. We didn't, you know, we didn't know what, what are we going to, what are we supposed to do with this? You know, are we supposed to throw this and burn this information?

[TJ Majors]

So do you think it was not because it was. Do you think it's because it was so fast? Like okay, Gay Bart leaves. Usually there's a term, there's usually a time period. Like okay, you can't work non compete for a year. Yeah, like a year and then it's okay. Whatever you got. Nobody even looks at it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I felt like I read somewhere that there was some. When he left there was some. Maybe there was a non compete that he didn't sign or I don't know.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, they weren't agreeing on something. Yeah, I don't remember it either, but I think I read the same thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I felt like I read somewhere in this about a non compete or some sort of a. That didn't work out or didn't get agreed to or didn't happen.

[TJ Majors]

That's pretty standard in the industry.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is, it is. I mean if, but I mean like no, Jim Poliam left go to. We didn't, I mean, you know, we knew that he was probably going to get asked by rcr. Hey man, what y', all, what were y' all doing? What are they doing over there? How can we use that? Or you know what, what do we add to our cars that we're not, we don't have. Right. That you're doing in junior motorsports. I mean that's just the way it goes.

[Russell]

The difference is it's just what he has in his brain. Not every little department information.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We don't know what he printed off at home. We don't know what. Hell, we don't know what he was.

[TJ Majors]

And if you let a guy go though like you, you gave him permission to go seek them opportunities like that's what you do anyway. He's going to the cup series, he's moving up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean that's the thing, like at a lower level, you just accept it for it's. Unless you can get a non compete for a year, you just accept that this is going to happen. But now that we're talking, you know, if you were. Now that we're talking about teams that are spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of a couple years to develop things and get advantages and you know. Yeah, now, now that changes it a little. A lot.

[TJ Majors]

But if like if you, if there was a. If they actually went to the period of the non compete, it's really kind of over at that point. Then everybody's gone. You know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There wasn't a non compete in this situation.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Apparently because he's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He left the end of last year and now he's.

[TJ Majors]

And I don't feel like JGR makes this claim if they're not pretty sure about what happened, you know. So it's been interesting to see what happens.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know it's that time of the month again to select our ultimate racing collector. Presented by Lionel Racing, the official diecast of nascar. Lionel Racing is your go to source for all of your racing diecast needs. Check out their latest pre orders@lionel racing.com. let's go ahead and you got a video here. Video. All right. You know the video. I see some stairs. We're heading downstairs into the man cave.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh look.

[TJ Majors]

Formula one cars on the post.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Little tablet on the table. That's kind of cool or something. Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

See a couple tires and some.

[TJ Majors]

Look at the big E pillows.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Die cast. All types of diecast.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, he's got sprint cars. Look at all yours in the case. He's got all those. All your eight cars. There's 88 cars.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Look at them all.

[Russell]

Corvette got some Miller like hands.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, dude, he's got a lot. I like that pillow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. This is a great spot, man.

[TJ Majors]

Got a little trophy there on the tire. Look at the cutout with the helmet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, damn, that is cool.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Deck lid.

[TJ Majors]

Dang.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like a Elliot Sadler deck lid. Little Elliot Sadler. So you got the deck lid and then it's like a little spoiler. The cars. That's a great collection, man.

[TJ Majors]

That is pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you notice the walls painted like the old 88 nationwide car. Yeah, I like that.

[TJ Majors]

Little stripes and stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we. We kind of ripped that off of mid-70s Kale, Yarborough. There's a quarter scheme. There's a little bit of everything. Fenders and noses.

[TJ Majors]

Little Eric Amarola. Yep, he's got everything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's good. Good collection. Love all the die casts. Love the wall mounted display cases.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Even the cars at an angle off the wall back there under that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Mini helmets here.

[Russell]

Lots of TVs I'm liking too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good. Tell it. Yeah. Sitting in there hanging out.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, that's a dirt. That's a dirt door up there above that thing. Another cutout.

[Russell]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. There's a little recessed spots are pretty cool.

[TJ Majors]

Look, Big E. A biggie cut out

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

little shrine to Big E there.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So the winner for this month is Zabs Pit Stop on Twitter. Zabs Pit Stop on Twitter. That's pretty. Apparently he has sent his video in before. He said, let's go try it again.

[Russell]

Oh, yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Nice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So this is a repeat entry and he is this month's winner of the Ultimate Racing Collector presented by Lionel Racing, the official diecast of nascar. Congratulations. Yeah, well deserved a great, great looking collection.

[Russell]

And if you didn't win, try again next month.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, dang it. That's right.

[TJ Majors]

I actually have something for you. A present I forgot at home. Yeah, I know. I really do. Oh, yeah, not no kidding.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, we'll see how cool it is. I'll trust you.

[TJ Majors]

It's pretty cool, but it might get cooler over time and I might want it back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Russell]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Have you tried Community Coffee's new first light blend and iced Coffee K cups. This is a family owned coffee company that puts community in every cup since 1919. First light is a bright, delicate, light roast with notes of honey and brown sugar.

[Russell]

Their iced coffee K cups are rich and refreshing and they stand up to ice so your coffee isn't watered down. Available in classic black and vanilla sweet cream.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Save 25% on these new Community Coffee items with code [e-mail] that's code DALE25 for 25% off only@community coffee.com. Hey, Everybody, it's Dale Jr back again for another episode of Ask Junior. Here for the Dale Jr. Download with my teammate.

[TJ Majors]

Co host.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Partner. My co host. Yeah, we're.

[TJ Majors]

We're something like that. Sure. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

TJ Majors. What's up, buddy?

[TJ Majors]

How's it going?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, pretty good. We're presenting the Ask Junior segment again today because of Xfinity. Our partners at Xfinity are waving the red flag on Internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. You get speed, reliability in the wi fi you need locked in one price, five years. No surprises, no late yellows coming out, ruining your race. Just a straight shot to victory lane. We got a winner in Xfinity. Imagine that. So pretty awesome for them to be continuing to support the industry, sponsoring race cars and, you know, having a good time with those folks. But we got some great questions that Travis is going to be asking that y' all sent in. So let's get to it.

[Russell]

Yeah, we had a few people curious. I saw you tweeting about your 3D printer. Just want to know how that's going and what have you printed yet?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I printed a couple things. This is a. This is gonna be fun. So We've got some 3D printers here at the race shop that print all kinds of pieces and parts, and they're really nice machines. My. I got my daughters a little. A little toy printer. And I've got these light fixtures up in my closet that are 18 years old, and they have these little plastic clips holds the fixture and they've get. They get hot and brittle because of the bulbs and the heat from the bulbs, so they break real easy. And I can't find. These are like from 2008, and I can't find these little clips. Well, I've been. These. All my shades for the lights in the closet have been, like, laying in the floor piled over in the corner for, like, years. A couple years, because they keep. The clips keep breaking and get real brittle. And I'm like, amy, we gotta change These fixtures, let's just take them out and put in all new fixtures, right? We're gonna spend some money. And so the other day, probably right around Christmas, I was like, I wonder if I can print these pieces. Like, man, I'm all over the Internet, some person, I find a website where you can basically find items, everyday items that people have drawn and created. And I find, I learn what this piece is called. I learned the part number from the fixture and all this crap. To be able to try to track down just buying some of these pieces. Well, you can't buy them. They don't make them anymore. But this man had created the CAD drawing of the clip and he's like, hey, man, 99 cents. It's yours. So I needed about 24 of these things. So I bought it for 99 cent and then printed 24 of them on my little kids printer. And the little kids printer is only like, you know, 8 inches by 8 inches. And but it print, I printed over and over and over all these clips, right? And I got all of my fixtures up in the closet. Ain't gonna have to buy new stuff. We're back in business.

[TJ Majors]

99 cents, dude.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm like, light bub. I'm like, I need, I need a real printer so I can print some real stuff. I'm, you know, this is my kids, my kids toy. I'm like, Amy had bought a printer that she was going to give to somebody for Christmas, but they changed their chief, changed her mind about what this person was going to get, said, we have a printer sitting there. She's like, you want this printer?

[TJ Majors]

I'm like, damn, did I make her mad?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm like, absolutely. Do what printer? I don't know. It's a very high grade unit or not, but it's, it's fine for what I'm, I don't know crap about this stuff. And so I'm like, all right, let's get to it. I got a, I've got a toolbox. All my tools are somewhat organized, but some stuff isn't. I've got just stuff everywhere in my little, my little garage, you know, and it adds up. Yeah. And I could, I could have things more organized if I was better. And you can print a ton of stuff to organize everyday household items and like battery organizers, things like that. Right. And so I'm off and running. So I put out a tweet. I was like, you know, I was worried about this and I'll speak to the folks that are listening. I have a lot of Stuff that I would love to ask on Twitter or X whatever you call it. I've had. I have all the time. Have stuff I want to ask, but I'm hesitant to ask even this. I was like, man, I really kind of want to set it out there and see what people think about 3D printing and what I should print and. But I know there's going to be some silly responses, goofiness, and it makes me uncomfortable when people are being obnoxious or just trying to make fun of. And that's fine. I need to just let that go. But I was like, I'm sending it out there and look at the responses, man. Look at all. There's some great stuff. Things that people are showing me that they've printed and they've made at home and they've created and what you can find.

[TJ Majors]

That's pretty cool. There's some cool tool stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. All kinds of great organizational stuff for tools.

[TJ Majors]

Dang.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is that track?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So tricon.

[TJ Majors]

Nice pit box.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So I'm like, this is amazing. I need. And so thank you. Anyone that posted replied with a very helpful piece of information. Thank you. Thank you so much. I love that. That's the great thing about social media, when we all can kind of help each other out. And so I'm still. I'm off to the races. One cool reply that I got.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, look, you can make me a Daytona 500 trophy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, look at that. You can make one a mini Daytona 500 trophy. And it looks amazing. Amazing.

[TJ Majors]

You got two of them. I can't even use one. Geez.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'll print you one, man.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, thanks.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Jeff Gluck was sending Me Some replies

[TJ Majors]

12 years later that I got.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I hate to put this person on blast, but the fo. So USA Hockey wins the gold.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Congratulations.

[TJ Majors]

Men's as well.

[Russell]

Suck at Canada.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was super badass. And the father of the goalie.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, I saw that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tweeted me. And he's apparently in 3D printing.

[Russell]

Oh.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And has his own YouTube channel. And he's like, I am very. He knows a lot. And so I. I've been communicating with him a little bit. He's already.

[TJ Majors]

Halle Bear. What? Yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's already told me all kinds of important information about, really, the gauge and the how, what you use certain materials for and the strength of them and so forth. And so, yeah. So, yeah, Jeff Gluck's like. I would have never probably seen it, but Jeff Gluck's like, hey, man, this is the father of the goalie He's. He's got his own.

[TJ Majors]

That's pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He wants to come here. He wants us. He raced.

[TJ Majors]

I saw that car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chuck race.

[TJ Majors]

Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

His name's Chuck. Chuck raced in short tracking stuff, and he wants to come here, take a tour of the shop. I said, hell, yeah. Come on by.

[TJ Majors]

That's awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I'll show you my 3D printers we got here. We can learn. You know, you can teach me a little bit about 3D printing.

[Russell]

And.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he has a little YouTube channel that he.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I thought. I thought, picture him. That car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. That was pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Pretty cool. Congratulations to him, his family, and the hockey team, man. Badass. That was so cool. The guy was. Tooth knocked out.

[Russell]

They are nuts. They are also, like, I get it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're like bull riders in a way. Like, bull riders are nuts, too.

[TJ Majors]

Bull riders are like.

[Russell]

They don't even, like, wear a mouthpiece. They're like. They kind of. I think they want to get the tooth knocked out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's a badge of honor.

[Russell]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know what I mean? They don't want it, but if it happens, it's kind of like, all right, that's just what this game is part of the game.

[Russell]

And they just keep playing like, you

[TJ Majors]

didn't miss any time now. I kept going. Yeah. Like, I mean, if you did that in your backyard and 40s in a game, you're getting out 46 years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think it's the miracle.

[Russell]

I cracked my tooth on New Year's and, like, for the entire week. And I was a baby putting, like, stuff in there to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How many. How many times have you seen that? You know, that Miracle on Ice clip replay used, you know, in multiple. Multiple moments in your life? Right. I've seen that so many times used in different. Different ways. And. And now they've recreated the moment.

[TJ Majors]

Were you watching it live when I had. I was watching it. It's pretty dang cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Like, it's just surreal. Yeah, it was awesome. What a moment.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Well, anyways, so, yeah, 3D printing. I'm just kind of. I'm just kind of dipping in there and seeing what that's all about and gotten some. I got a lot of great feedback on social media, so thank you very much for that and just kind of learning. So I did print. So I've got my sim rig. The direct drive wheel that I use currently is a sim cube, and I have two steering wheels. And so I printed a wall mount for the second wheel when it's not on the rig. So I instead of it just laying over on the counter. So stuff like that, just organizing. I'm going to have, like, air. So in about a year, I imagine Amy's going to come home and everything that we own is going to be hanging on the wall.

[TJ Majors]

What are you going to print for the garage? Like, what are you going to print for your tool? Like, you're going to print organizers out there. I saw some of them little drawers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chuck has a battery organizer, like, for double A's. And I've got a little soft bag organizer in my. In my. In my house. But I like the little wall mount battery organizer.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, it's a wall mount.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And you put in it. Oh, and it has a little tester on it.

[TJ Majors]

Yes, yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You buy the tester separate. But there it is right there. It's in the. There it is. Tj.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, it's a wall mount. That's nice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Walmart with a tester.

[TJ Majors]

Dang. Yeah. That's actually really good because then battery boxes they make are so heavy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

When you. They got all the batteries and you got to pull them out. Like, I can't expect a kid to go in there and pull that off. Well, you know, pull the whole box out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

That's pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know.

[TJ Majors]

I'll take a couple whenever you get done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, get you a printer. You don't have a printer? Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Why don't you skip one?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm surprised you don't have one.

[TJ Majors]

I don't need one. If you've got one.

[Russell]

Sounds like you do need one if

[TJ Majors]

you need to be able to pick it up. Might have been my Christmas present from Amy. He might have got it. I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is my question. So, like, to print that little battery holder.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is going to take. It'll take that machine about an hour, hour and a half, maybe two hours.

[TJ Majors]

That's it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A while. That's a long time.

[TJ Majors]

I feel like that's actually pretty good for now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. To print that little wall mount for the sim cube wheel.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was like 55 minutes.

[TJ Majors]

I think that's low, don't you? Things used to take days to print.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Look, I don't know. I'm just learning. I'm just learning. I imagine you can buy printers that do it faster, but he was telling me about the filament, like, why you would use certain types and all that stuff. I. Chuck was amazing. He's like, hey, dm, if you really want to know this stuff. So I DM him. He's like, here's the deal. Bam, bam. Bam. Bam. He's like my. Do you have the same printer my son has? And so I'm like, all right, I must have a decent printer. Here's the printer guru, and his son has this. We're off to a good start.

[TJ Majors]

Nice.

[Russell]

It's always good when you're being compared to a gold medal winner. So we'll take that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I had the same printer as a gold medal winner.

[Russell]

All right, this next question. I forget his name. He tweeted this last night. He said, dale, if you could shoot five different liquid liquids out of each finger, what five liquids would you choose and why? Sauces count. Now, here's his five.

[TJ Majors]

So random.

[Russell]

Water, gasoline, barbecue sauce, Corona with a hint of lime, of course. And liquid gold.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my God. Okay.

[Russell]

I think the liquid gold is cheating.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think that you can't do liquid gold.

[Russell]

Yeah, that's just.

[TJ Majors]

No way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, I'm going to do. I don't know, man. If. Wow. I don't know if I could do a condiment. Yeah, it's. I know, but it's shooting out my finger. I might not. It might make it. Not appetizing.

[Russell]

At that point, you can just lick your finger.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, but, dude, you've ate, like. You could eat buffalo sauce for life.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, Buffalo sauce.

[TJ Majors]

Definitely one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Crude oil, gasoline, diesel. Because, you know, we'd have some high test, some 93Amaco.

[TJ Majors]

I think you should keep it to sauces and stuff like that. No, it's drinks and sauces.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Are you kidding me? Gas is too. You know, a gallon of gas is two, two. Two and a half.

[TJ Majors]

But if you're gonna allow that, you gotta love gold. What's the difference between gasoline and gold? Or oil?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

These. Tj.

[TJ Majors]

I'm just saying you get to do

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

five, and I get to do five. You're not doing my five.

[TJ Majors]

Well, then I'm just going all minerals, and you're gonna be rich.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Go for it. Liquid mineral.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, I do liquid gold.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You can't.

[TJ Majors]

Silver.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They say you can't do it.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, you. He said you can't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm not doing it out of principle, because he set the standard.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, I would do. I would do Frank's Buffalo Sauce out of one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Me, too. That's the only thing. We probably have the same high rock out of one.

[TJ Majors]

No, I would.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got plenty of that in bottles. I don't.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, I think it'd be good to have a spy of water because you want. You would want that.

[Russell]

I can go to the faucet to get that.

[TJ Majors]

I know, like, but then, I mean, gosh dang, sundrop, what a waste. Sun drop be pretty good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

TJ.

[Russell]

I'd have ranch. Need ranch.

[TJ Majors]

Ranch, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

DJs, blue cheese, TJ's. This is like, hey, man, blue cheese isn't a liquid. Listen to this.

[TJ Majors]

This is ranch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is like tj. If. If you said, tj, genie's coming out of the bottle. You get three wishes. He'd go, a gallon. A ranch. You're like, what?

[TJ Majors]

I take blue cheese over a ranch,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

but some water, A couple cases of water. Yeah, that'd be my second wish.

[TJ Majors]

Another Xbox.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Give me an Xbox. So now we've got two cases of water, a gallon of ranch, and some Xbox. And now the genie's gone.

[TJ Majors]

I'd ask for another genie.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I. I think. Yeah. Crude oil, gasoline, diesel, and Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce. You need one more. You need one more. I suppose

[TJ Majors]

you gotta pick an alcoholic beverage of some sort. Has to, right? Yeah.

[Russell]

Get thirsty.

[TJ Majors]

Do you go, like, the 55s or. What are we doing here?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's the thing. Yeah. I'll just do a light beer. Domestic light beer. Let's just leave it at that. Yeah.

[Russell]

What a question from that guy.

[TJ Majors]

That's so random. But yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Could you imagine filling up your A beer? Like, if I walked up and was like, hey, man, Colbert, would you like,

[Russell]

hey, you gotta grab it off.

[TJ Majors]

I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If I filled it up, you know, would you be like, oh, thanks.

[Russell]

Which finger would shoot the beer?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That matters? That. What if I thumb? I don't know.

[TJ Majors]

Hey, man. Hey, man, what do you got in your fingers?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm not drinking a beer that came out of TJ's thumb. No. What if I. I'm not.

[TJ Majors]

What about, you know, Frank's Red Hot?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But if I walked up to you and said, fill your car up, you'd be like, hell, yeah.

[Russell]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do not care. It came out of your pinky stick, that ring thing. So I think I'm not going to do beer.

[TJ Majors]

We probably need to go to the next question, because not doing beer get bad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I don't know. I would do another. You know, to TJ's point, I do something of value, like, you know, in line with the gasoline, the crude oil, that kind of thing. What is a. What is. Yeah. Can't do liquid gold.

[Russell]

I just think I. Liquor goal. I feel like it's cheating because you're just, like, using it to sell to make money. All right, next question. If you are sitting in the aisle seat on an airplane, are you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, Wait, wait, wait, wait. So back to the. Could I. Could the water come out of my finger in like a, in, in like high speed pressure washer type? Because then maybe I would do water because then I could clean everything.

[Russell]

It's your, it's your water and your finger.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So if it comes out, if it could come out at a high velocity, like, like a pressure washer.

[Russell]

If you use it with your, your index finger, you use it like a pistol and you can do. Shoot the water.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, God. I would clean a lot more stuff than I do now because getting the pressure out, getting the pressure washer out is the deterrent to using the pressure washer. Yeah, right. But if I just was like, oh, it's right here.

[Russell]

You don't have to uncoil.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I'm just cleaning. My truck would be clean all the time.

[TJ Majors]

Everything be cool to back it down. Be like, oh, Gus, you want to drink? Little, little, you know?

[Russell]

Yeah. You. Can you control the pressure?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You got me. All right, water. T.J. you're right.

[TJ Majors]

All right.

[Russell]

All right, back to the question. If you're sitting on an. If you're sitting in the aisle seat on the plane, are you allowed to sleep? Aisle, aisle for commercial flight. So you got middle and window. Are you allowed to sleep?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think you can sleep in any seat as long as you're in your. You got a little. There's a little column, right, that you're supposed to be in.

[TJ Majors]

Armrest to armrest.

[Russell]

No, you don't get armrests. If you're. One of the armrests is not yours

[TJ Majors]

if you're there or you shouldn't go outside of it. You should stay within some of the

[Russell]

middle owns the armrest. The in the middle seat gets choice of armrests.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

First.

[TJ Majors]

You got to establish that when you get there. Like, you got to show that, like that's your armrest rule.

[Russell]

I think the middle seat, you get the armrest.

[TJ Majors]

I didn't know that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Honestly, I don't. I would prefer if I'm in a, if I'm in a bench of three, as long as they stay in their little spot, their little area. I prefer these.

[Russell]

But what if you're in the middle or window and now you got to get up to you getting up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I use the bathroom before I get on the plane.

[Russell]

I mean, flying cross country, gotta use the restroom.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's an exception. I mean, you gotta wake the person up.

[Russell]

I, I personally agree with you. You should have got the aisle seat then if you're worried about using the

[TJ Majors]

restroom, what if it's not available.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't know that. I mean, I'm not assuming that I can pick and choose, sit wherever I want. I'm. You're putting me in this scenario and I'm telling you what I'm gonna do in that scenario.

[TJ Majors]

I'll let you know next week because I'm middle seat on the way to Phoenix on Wednesday, so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah, I'm fine if you want to go to sleep. Just be understanding that you're going to be, going to be polite and get up if I need to go pee or somebody has to go pee in the aisle.

[Russell]

Next question. We saw Tony Stewart get in a truck at Daytona and I saw you tweeted at Elliot Sadler about seeing the race, who's a former cup driver. You like to see a one off truck race?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I love Elliot. Elliot's a great friend.

[TJ Majors]

Elliot would be fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dude, there's, I mean the list of that is everybody that's retired. Jeff.

[TJ Majors]

Oh my gosh. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh God, I'd love to see Jeff Gordon run another race.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I don't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Look, I, I'll be honest. Like when I, when dad and Jeff were racing on the racetrack, I didn't like Jeff because he was beating dad. He could beat dad. He was a, he was, he was a tough competitor. That disruptor. Well, he wasn't aggressive or, or anything like that, but he, he was tough competition. I didn't like anybody that was going to, you know, sure be a potential, you know, be a potential opponent. And I didn't really understand how friendly they were and how many things they did off the track in business or I might have had a better appreciation for him. We became teammates, got to know each other better, had a lot of laughs, had a lot of great times together today. He's a big, he's a big, he's a big part of what they're doing at hms. And so we work with him directly with Junior Motorsports through that relationship and every chance I get I rib him about like running one more race because he's just right at that age where you could probably still do it, go run an Xfinity or a rally or a truck race. Probably a rally. And I got great cars, man. We'd have so much fun. And I know he has no interest. He's like zero freaking interest. He doesn't. He's fine. He's over it. He's like, I'm not about that. He wants to go over to 10/10 and run his little Porsche or whatever, right. And have a Little fun doing that. He gets enough out of that. But yeah, Jeff Gordon will be one for sure.

[TJ Majors]

Does he appreciate the hood yet?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wish Jimmy Johnson would come. I know he can't because of his Toyota deal, but I'd love for Jimmy to come drive one of our cars. I love. Me and Jimmy are good pals and I know he's. I just love him to go. I'd love to win a race right. With Jimmy Johnson. That'd be badass.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, that'd be crazy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I will. I beg Jeff Burton, you know, to try to run one of our cars and a one off, you know, to race with with his son and he just, I don't know, just. They just don't. They just don't want to. They're just nervous or something. Worried about getting their butts kicked. Whatever.

[Russell]

Yeah, I mean it makes sense. Like you don't want to lose.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh man, it ain't about win or losing at this point.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. It's about fun. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's about smelling the smells, hearing the sounds, getting your heartbeat.

[TJ Majors]

Heartbeat. Yeah.

[Russell]

But are you going to have fun if you're not racing?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, the car is going to be great and maybe you're not as good as the car anymore. That's fine. But the car is going to carry you car is going to allow it to not be a job, you know, I don't know. I've enjoyed it. I ran, I ran, you know, a couple more bristols there the last several years and had blast.

[Russell]

Next question is what track on iracing. That's what track not on iracing. Do you want to see?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I've been trying and trying and trying and trying to get. Winchester.

[TJ Majors]

I was going to say Winchester.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, they got it and they. I keep hearing it's in production. Winchester, Salem. So those two.

[TJ Majors]

Can you. Can I. I mean it's not an existing track but I would like Mason Marin. Yeah, I know that's not existing anymore, but that was out there. Short track in California. It was in one of them early games.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yep. Evergreen still around?

[TJ Majors]

I think Evergreen's still around. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. There's a couple of racetracks still out there, I think still racing. The Harvick's got the cars to our west cranking up everybody. Hey, by the way, so yeah, Winchester, which I think they have the scan there. It's. It's been in production for two and a half, three years now. Steve Myers is going to hear this. Be mad as hell. But hopefully they finish Winchester and I think they need to get Salem We've had a run of road courses, European targeted content, you know, road course cars. We've done a bunch over the last couple of years to build a more global platform and they have succeeded. It has been absolutely the right thing to do. But you know, the oval has seen some, some attention, but not as much as we're used to on the oval side. So it'd be good to get a couple new short tracks and you can't mean all the, all the NASCAR stuff's built. But yeah, it'd be nice to get a couple of short tracks to drop into the, you know, the rookie DC content that we're racing on ovals.

[TJ Majors]

I've never been to Riverhead, but it interests me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think Winchester is such a historic place for sure. It's long deserving to be on there. Berlin.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, Berlin beyond my Berlin would absolutely be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And they're begging that track is tweeting, emailing me.

[Russell]

So what's like the, is it just like a lot of work for them to scan and everything or what's now

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

going up and scanning? It's a one day deal. Pretty piece, pretty easy. A lot easier now to do and, but the build is expensive. Although they would more than likely make the money back. It's not going to be a massive profitable, you know, deal for them to do short tracks, but they do make the money back. But it's not, it's not a big game changer for the company and it's a lot of resources. You, you not only the person that has to go physically scan it, but a lot of resources in the, in the company to build that, that very track, right, that are, that you're taking away from other things. So it's just a divide and conquer kind of deal. And, and right now there's been this massive shift for the last several years over building a lot of global content and it's, that was absolutely the right thing to do. They've, the businesses succeeded because of it. But yeah, so Winchester, Salem, Berlin, those three are be. Bam, bam, bam. I'd get them in in the next year or two.

[TJ Majors]

All righty.

[Russell]

Yeah, speaking. I said Harvick, what do you think of news with Keelin going to Toyota?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think it's a massive win for Kevin and Delaina. You know, think about it from this standpoint, right? They're, they're, they're, they're doing everything they can to give this kid an opportunity. They've sent him all over the world trying to race and learn and earn a craft and develop his racecraft, all of that is great. They've invested, they've spent, they've. They've poured tons of resources into this, personal, family, resources into this. But at some point, he has to get picked up, right, Called up. Somebody has to latch onto him and take him the rest of the way. And this is a massive, massive relief, I think, for Kevin Delana to have this sort of, you know, this, this somebody come in and go, all right, we got it from here. And, you know, we've got a great pipeline. Toyota has an incredible pipeline. They've a lot of great examples of drivers who have succeeded through that. And, you know, it's a. It's a missed opportunity, I think, for Chevrolet, Ford, but, you know, it's not a lifetime contract. And, you know, I think that, you know, while they, they've got a great chance to continue his progress and just. I'm just going to focus on what a, What a massive relief it must be for Kevin and Elena to know that he's now got this. This commitment to continue his progress.

[Russell]

All right, well, that's it for Ask Junior this week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Great, great questions. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something, Hope you had some laughs. That's most important. Listen up and hear this closer as we, as we grind out the finish of this episode. Xfinity is waving the red flag on Internet prices and Internet price hikes, and they are waving the green flag on savings. You get great speed reliability in the WI fi they provide, and it's one price for five years. And over the course of that five years, they may speed up your Internet, but it's one price, same price, not gonna go up. No surprises, no late yellows. Straight shot to victory lane. We've got a winner. Xfinity. Have you tried Community Coffee's new first light blend and iced coffee K cups? This is a family owned coffee company that puts Community in every cup since 1919. First light is a bright, delicate, light roast with notes of honey and brown sugar.

[Russell]

Their iced coffee K cups are rich and refreshing and they stand up to ice so your coffee isn't watered down. Available in classic black and vanilla sweet cream.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Save 25% on these new Community Coffee items with code [e-mail] that's code DALE25 for 25% off only@community coffee.com. place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, it's time for the Dirty Bo do segment. This segment is brought to you by FanDuel. We have Russell, we have Alex. How's it going, guys? What's up? We're done with super speedway racing for now.

[TJ Majors]

We can actually go normal racing kind

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

of and make some practical bits kind of.

[TJ Majors]

It is a road course, but I.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't want to, you know, look.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, it's not a free for all.

[Russell]

Well, hey, this is the best kind

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

of betting right here. Road courses.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Road course betting. Really?

[Russell]

Absolutely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right. For you, for you fans out there that are. For you NASCAR fans that have your FanDuel accounts, this is your weekend.

[TJ Majors]

This is the most predictable style racing we have, right?

[Russell]

For sure. Absolutely.

[TJ Majors]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Well, we have yet to be able to discuss the Predictor because, I mean, we don't. Russell don't even want to talk about the predictor.

[TJ Majors]

He don't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not on the drafting.

[Russell]

It's tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not at Daytona or Atlanta or Talladega, but here we go. We're going to Coda this weekend and I'm sure the predictor has some pretty interesting things to say. So let's get right to it. Who are your top five?

[Russell]

So I don't think there's any question. SVG's the top by far.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Russell]

You know, won the last five road course races. I don't know how he can't be up there. Then we got Bell, Redick and Byron all right there, right behind them. And then it's Chastain and Chase Elliott and Chris Busher and Larson all bottled up right there. So those I think are your can't lose bets right there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like if you bet all Those guys

[Russell]

top 10, I'd love, love to see how you turn out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You like bets?

[TJ Majors]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, Buescher is tough for me. I like that dude. I mean, he is a great human being, but his ability to completely freaking disappear one weekend and then run second the next, I don't. It's hard for me to see the pattern, the predictor. Russell, you're on top of it. You know where he's going to show up. But it just makes it hard to trust. Even though the. The numbers would say at Coda, he's going to be there. Yeah.

[Russell]

He's one of our most consistent road

[TJ Majors]

course guys, though I was going to say he's. I think you're. I think you're losing sight of the road course stuff with him for sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because I lose sight of him a lot. Well, because his ass is in the back sometimes.

[TJ Majors]

Check your glasses.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dang. I'm not Checking my glasses. Where was he this weekend?

[TJ Majors]

Well, this isn't a road. That wasn't a road course. We're talking about road course racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I agree it. I like. Yeah but like Larson, Elliott, Byron, Reddick, Bell, they were up front this weekend.

[TJ Majors]

It's no for sure. I mean there's definitely times. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's just hard when you talk about betting money, putting your own hard earned money behind these guys in these situations when he, when he, you know, even though Atlanta and code are completely polar opposites, it's hard to put money behind a guy who isn't showing up more consistently across the board. But you would be confident in putting money on Bush or this weekend.

[Russell]

I believe he is. He is one you want to. Want to look at for sure so you can get him plus money top 10 just on his own.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I mean I don't. You don't see. You don't see SVG shining all over the place. Some other races you don't have any problem putting money on him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This week his ass run six this weekend he was up front. I mean he actually had probably a. He had a better running position. Average running position this weekend. Probably about 10 points.

[TJ Majors]

I'm just saying. So if you go to sit down. I'm just saying.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You already sitting down. No, sit down more. Lower your chair. Stand up then sit down, sit down.

[TJ Majors]

Show you're wrong.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That show I'm wrong. Go ahead, get the stats out. The stat man's right here.

[TJ Majors]

Well, you're not not going on a one race sample here. You just said so head to head at Vegas. Who you taking, Bush or svg?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know.

[Russell]

We're not going to Vegas next week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Phoenix looking pretty good. He slid through the grass twice to finish six.

[TJ Majors]

I mean he's pretty good. Yeah, that's also true. Yeah, you get a bank on that too. I mean geez.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What he ran good.

[TJ Majors]

He's got lucky that he didn't hit anything twice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I mean he could have rode around the back all day. He could have maybe like somebody else

[TJ Majors]

could have brought the yellow out twice too.

[Russell]

So you can parlay Bell. Byron Redick top 10 for plus 319.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chris Busher, don't take any offense, but this is TJ I'm talking to. I cannot agree with him.

[TJ Majors]

I hope he show. You know, he's probably only five minutes

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

from here, so I cannot agree with him. I love that Chris Busher is not five minutes from here. That boy is further out in the woods.

[TJ Majors]

No, he's close today.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No he's further.

[TJ Majors]

He's close today, I promise.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right.

[Russell]

Tim's. Would you make that bet? A Chris Busher Top 10?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chris Busher needs to be on this show. We need to get him on the guest show.

[TJ Majors]

All right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, man. Let's talk about the inconsistencies. When are we going to clean that up?

[Russell]

That's all we need. Okay, you can leave now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's a big old boy. He is.

[TJ Majors]

You're thinking about that now. Damage is done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Listen, I said what I said. All right? So svg, you think he's just going to drive away, win this thing?

[Russell]

This is his worst road course of any of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, wow.

[TJ Majors]

Well, so he's going to win by five seconds.

[Russell]

They only want to get win last year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So. So they might actually. They might actually give him a run for his money. I think you got to look at the 20 and 45 and 24.

[Russell]

I like them.

[TJ Majors]

Who's the sleeper? Ross?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I hate to say this, but established it. Chris Busher and Alex Bowman. Bowman.

[Russell]

Yeah, he's. He hasn't finished outside the top 10 at COTA.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dang.

[Russell]

Plus 145. Top 10.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, he's been quietly good at road courses.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know why Bowman finishes in the top 10 at CODA?

[TJ Majors]

Attrition.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he. He's. So they go down there and they bowl into turn one at the end of the race.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he's that guy that knows how to not get in the middle all that.

[TJ Majors]

He never is in it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He never is.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, he never is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's just like. All right.

[TJ Majors]

He's been pretty solid at road courses though, like in general.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know he. He.

[TJ Majors]

But yes, you're right. He is smart enough. He never. You never really see him caught up in them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Now. He's not a. He's not a controversial subject. You know, he's not a controversy guy. He's not. Guys in there bowling or. Well, he's not the bowling ball or the pin. No.

[TJ Majors]

Minus little Chicago incident with Bubba. That was. That was about it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, that was after the race.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Well, he didn't. They have an incident on the track.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They did.

[TJ Majors]

But yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bowman.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Bowman's not a bowling ball.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

SVG, is it? Plus 20 to win. Plus one 20. I'm sorry. Plus 120. So that's. I'm surprised. I mean, it's not terrible.

[TJ Majors]

I'm surprised.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Plus money. Yes, that's what I'm saying. That's not terrible to make that bet.

[Russell]

So you're betting that, Tim, I would

[TJ Majors]

bet it you got until he beats him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Plus money. Anytime. Yeah, right.

[Russell]

Yep. 100.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What is it? What's it where. What's. What is the. On road courses, like the last six. He's won the last six or something?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I think five.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Jess, how could he be plus money?

[TJ Majors]

I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow. I'd bet it now.

[Russell]

I bet it's the other guys that could beat him. That's why.

[TJ Majors]

And it is

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

like four. Listen, I agree that he can get beat here, but this is the books, man. They don't usually give you a chance.

[TJ Majors]

I don't win them all.

[Russell]

Bet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tim's like, no, it's not the best bet, but it's ranks up in there in the top five. Yeah, it definitely does. Hey, I'm no expert and I can see that it's a bet if it loses.

[Russell]

Whatever.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean he's. He's won five the last six that we just said.

[TJ Majors]

There's going to be a lot of bets on him to win this week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I would take svg. Can you add a couple of top tens to a parlay there?

[Russell]

I don't know if you could.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You could bet a win, add some top tens. So you do a bowman busher with a. With a SVG win.

[Russell]

Oh, Bowman.

[TJ Majors]

And

[Russell]

plus 10, 85.

[TJ Majors]

That's nice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's pretty nice, actually.

[TJ Majors]

What about Rust? What about Ty Gibbs for a long shot?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One off for me. I know, but Ty Gibbs, look at this deal here. You can bet trackhouse to win the race and that's at minus 165. And obviously, you know, you. You mentioned Chastain's got a shot to get in there and get a top 10 run really well, but what can we expect out of Zillich? A lot of people are going to, you know, be pretty, pretty high on this guy. But is he still. You know, we've seen him at road courses. We've seen him in cup road courses, you know, and I know, different year. Got his. Now he's got his full team around him. What can we expect?

[TJ Majors]

I think good things.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I would be conservative. I'd be pretty modest on. I think, you know, if the guy goes in there, I think running in the top 10 would not surprise me.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, easily.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I do not see him challenging svg. I think he's running back. I think he's running on. On the. On the ass into third, fourth place, maybe just inside the top five at best. Betting wise. It's not worth it if he's plus 350. That is like SVG level status and he's ran, what, one cup road course.

[Russell]

That'.

[TJ Majors]

That's really.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's not worth it. Yeah. Just prove it to me. That's kind of. I know. I need another. I need this race to go really well before I start putting money on him at the next couple of road courses, right? Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. And he's not going to be able to make moves in this race like he kind of did in the O'Reilly car last year. I mean, it's going to be way more competitive right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Like, way more competitive in this race. But I do agree he'll be. He could run. If he has a solid day, he'll be right on that top five.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I agree. I think he'll run top five.

[TJ Majors]

His raw speed will be really good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I just don't think that I can confidently go. Yep, he's going to go out there and challenge SVG or whoever it may be. Larson might be the best. Elliot, you never know. Some you. That's the thing about this weekend. SVG would be the guy that we would assume probably could win the race, but Bell, Reddick, Byron Chase, Elliot, Larson, any one of those could show up and run nose to tail, first and second, bouncing back and forth between SVG all day long. Yeah. It seems like every road course race, there's one of these guys shows up with SVG speed. Yes. Like Christopher Bell has done it the last couple of times. Pushes him.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. And this new configuration at code I like, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

God, I love it.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I remember leaving that race last year. Like, that was a lot of fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. With a long course. No good. No good. Took forever to run a lap.

[TJ Majors]

It did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Didn't know where they were at. Shorten the course up. And last year, all the races were great. Yeah, man. Good job. I was like, hey, I don't. I could take or leave Coda, but now I hope here.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. We left that race last year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hope it's here to stay excited. Even with its silly track limits. I do like it. I do like the track. Well, yeah, you could bet track house to win, but that's at minus 165. Where again, SVG to wins at plus 120. Interesting there. Let's see. We got some matchups. Let's go ahead and talk about that. Reddick versus Byron. Shocking Reddicks plus 120.

[Russell]

Russ, what's the model say? Head to head. I go Reddick on this. Like, what's the. It's close. It's definitely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why do you go Reddick? It's they're.

[Russell]

They're third and fourth in the model and then. But when you go head to head, like the last. The last several road courses, they got three wins versus two wins.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you factor in the. You know, a lot of people are going to look casuals. I would say maybe look at, look at just the start of the season and the momentum they have. Do you factor that in?

[Russell]

Yeah, I think so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

TJ says that Atlanta and Daytona don't matter when it comes to Cota.

[Russell]

But momentum's real in racing, right?

[TJ Majors]

Momentum is definitely real. It's hard to. It's just weird how it works. And I do think that. I don't think it's this big of a gap between these two guys because by, you know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, Byron's kind of stumbled.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, he has been stumbling a little bit. He has been. So, I mean, I do have Reddick in this one as well.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kyle Busch versus Chastain. So the Chastain. I like Chastain here because Cobb again, Kyle Busch, I need. I need to prove it. Moment got Jim Pullman on the box. They go out, they qualify well for the Daytona 500. But since then it's kind of been more the same from Kyle Busch. I know he got wrecked this weekend, but didn't really see him whole lot up toward the front of the field for most of that race at Atlanta where I thought he had been running better there in the past. So I'm still, I'm not. I'm not down on Kyle Busch, but I just need to see more similar to. Look Zillich. Right. You know, we're not ready to bet on. We're not ready to bet on Zillich, but we're going to wait a race or two and that's kind of what I would be conservative with Kyle Busch as well to see how this crew chief pairing nets out. It needs a few more races. Figure that out.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I agree.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I think this price is based off what he did last year.

[TJ Majors]

Different crew chief. Yeah, I don't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you're getting, I think a discount with Chastain here. I would take Chastain. Good, good, good stuff. Briscoe versus Ty Gibbs. I'm Briscoe's minus 175. Gibbs at plus 130. I don't know. I don't feel good about Gibbs at all.

[Russell]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I probably wouldn't play just because Briscoe's too high of a price, but I would pick. Briscoe had just had to head straight up the whole thing with. With Gabe Hart and all the sort of drama going on around them has me pausing on Ty Gibbs for a bit. Yep, I agree. And again, same thing. Like, he's. He's. He's got a new sort of group around him or a new crew chief. And so he's. He's still like, not a. Not a. Got. Not Got a real foundation around him that, you know, as far as he hadn't been with the same guy for multiple years. Big notebook, all that good stuff. So I'm still like, hey, sure, how he's gonna. Yeah. Don't feel confident. What do you think, Russell?

[Russell]

Yeah, I'm with you. I give the edge to Briscoe here. Now, we. He has been fast on road courses,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gibbs, but I just think he has.

[TJ Majors]

That's. That's. Yeah, I'm going Gibbs on this one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. All right.

[TJ Majors]

He just has speed, and I feel like he's due to put a race together.

[Russell]

Russell, close are the numbers between those two.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're real close. Like, where were we last year? Where Ty Gibbs ran.

[Russell]

Mexican City.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Mexico City.

[Russell]

Yeah. Yep.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. He had like two or three top threes or something right there at the road courses and a little stretch there in the middle year.

[Russell]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And it.

[Russell]

He's.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, he's always super fast at the road courses. Like, right from the beginning, it just fits him really well. And I don't. I don't look at Briscoe as being road course good. Yeah. But I. I see him improving over the next year, you know, driving them cars and stuff. But Gibbs, super fast in the beginning.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, if I had. If I had $5 or spare for fun, maybe that's the, you know, the risk. The risk bet. I always kind of like to. You know, obviously I like to pile up your things, but every now and then, you know, I'll see a plus money thing. I'll go. I think I. I think I feel an upset here, you know, and that might. And this wouldn't be an upset, but.

[TJ Majors]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Getting ty Gibbs at plus 30 against Briscoe. Maybe you. Maybe you take the.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Plus 130 betting wise. Yep.

[Russell]

For fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's the only way to play it, because. Good money. Yes. Well, anything else, Phil?

[Russell]

Are we betting on the O'Reilly race? You can't bet on it, Dale. But we got Zillich and SVG back, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah. Who. Who of those two? You have that. You have that. The bet to make Austin Green top 10.

[TJ Majors]

He always finished top 10 there. What's he in this? What car is he in?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you remember 32? Right.

[TJ Majors]

As he's been in the 32, but I don't know if he's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, Ross is in the 32.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I was going to say Ross or that 32 at Atlanta, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Austin Green.

[Russell]

I think he's in the 87.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. 87. I think you could see all three of those guys up in the top five, Castane included. Yeah. I don't know who's going to win between SVG and Zillich.

[Russell]

You're not going to. You'll definitely get minus money for those.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I'm just saying people are going to ask you, who would you take over, man? And they're.

[Russell]

I think Zillich has the edge, though, Right. Like, he's been in those cars more recently. He's won the last four road courses and in the O'Reilly series.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

I don't know, though, man. He's. He's got a lot of focus on the other side now. So he's taken away from this a little bit taken away from that. So I think they're really even the nine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You. You. You made a point earlier that svg this. Out of all the road courses, maybe this one's not actually his strongest. Zillich really seems to be fast at Coda.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So maybe, you know, he has the edge here. We've seen at Sonoma and at Watkins Glen last year. Dillich, while he. Yes. Was in those cars every single week, put the pressure on svg and each and every opportunity when they raced each other in the infinity stuff for the O'Reilly series. So, yeah, I think, you know, SVG's got his work cut out for him to go out there and compete. And you got to remember, this is, you know, these same team, same same organization, but, you know, different crew chiefs, different whole package for both teams. So it'll be interesting to see how it's out.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, they're still going to be battling each other.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You got to think about, you know, as. As the race is playing out, you know, kind of. Hopefully the cw. CW will cover like the crew cheese because they had different crew chiefs last year and they raced against each other. All those things will play into pit crew, all that. There's a lot of dynamics there that have to go well for both drivers. So we'll see. Gonna be interesting. Hopefully one of them can take home the victory. All right, that's gonna wrap it up for Dirty Modeau. This segment was brought to you by fanduel. Thank you, Russell. Thank you, Tims. Remember, Fanduel the premier gaming destination in the United States. We're all big fans of of the platform and customers. All right, thanks for joining us here in the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new Meet in three box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's we have the meats why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster? I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires.

[Russell]

I knew I could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Russell]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Russell]

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[TJ Majors]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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