I Want The Tire Softer

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dale Jr. Download – "I Want The Tire Softer"

Episode Release Date: March 11, 2025 Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dirty Mo Media, SiriusXM

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In the episode titled "I Want The Tire Softer," Dale Earnhardt Jr. hosts a dynamic discussion with co-hosts TJ Majors and Travis. The conversation primarily revolves around NASCAR's evolving tire strategies, their impact on racing dynamics, and broader implications for the sport's future.

2. NASCAR Tire Strategies: Primary vs. Option Tires

The episode delves deep into the complexities of NASCAR's tire strategies, focusing on the introduction of primary and option tires.

• TJ Majors on Option Tires:

  • “NASCAR had the primary and the option tire going on in this race. I’m hoping that the option tire does succeed in each of these sort of trials where they’re, I call them trials when they’re running the option and the primary together.” [07:56]

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Tire Performance:

  • “And I might even have the Michigan marching band in here for this next show.” [02:04]
  • “I don’t think the option tire doesn’t fall off enough still.” [14:22]

Key Insights:

• Option Tires as a Testing Ground: The option tires are perceived as experimental, designed to assess their durability and performance under race conditions without jeopardizing the entire event.
• Driver Strategies: Teams leverage option tires to gain temporary advantages, such as faster lap times, but face risks of tire degradation affecting overall race outcomes.
• Performance Evaluation: Both hosts express a desire for softer tires that degrade more predictably, ensuring that drivers must strategize effectively rather than rely solely on tire performance for race positioning.

3. Analysis of the Phoenix Race and Tire Impact

The Phoenix race serves as a case study for the effectiveness of the option tire strategy.

• TJ Majors on Race Dynamics:

  • “The option tire allowed the cars to get closer together, to actually race each other a little bit harder.” [09:20]
  • “NASCAR loves it because they see people driving through the field.” [09:30]

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. Critique:

  • “I want to run that tire on all the cars all the time and the drivers be able to manage their tires.” [16:57]
  • “And then they can pyramid in the middle of the event and still have a finish.” [09:10]

Key Insights:

• Enhanced Competition: Option tires facilitate more aggressive racing, allowing drivers to challenge each other more directly.
• Sustainability Concerns: Despite the initial excitement, there are concerns about the long-term feasibility of maintaining option tires due to unpredictability in their performance.
• Strategic Balance: Both hosts advocate for a balanced approach where tire performance necessitates strategic planning without overwhelming dominance from any single tire type.

4. Future of NASCAR Tires and Track Strategies

The conversation shifts to the broader implications of tire strategies on NASCAR's future, particularly concerning short tracks and road courses.

• Desire for Softer Tires:

  • “I’d love to sit down with a Goodyear engineer... what are some of the ideas that make this tire successful.” [20:08]
  • “I want to keep going down this path of getting softer tires, making the car drive where you can drive it hard.” [68:29]

• Challenges in Tire Development:

  • “It's probably going to be too temperature sensitive. It’s going to be, you’re going to have issues with blisters and chucking.” [20:35]
  • “Having two tire compound options... makes it tough.” [69:27]

Key Insights:

• Technical Collaboration: There is a call for deeper collaboration between drivers and tire manufacturers to develop tires that enhance competition without compromising safety or race integrity.
• Sustainability of Soft Tires: Implementing consistently softer tires across all tracks presents technical challenges, including temperature sensitivity and potential for increased wear and tear.
• Racing Strategy Evolution: Softer tires would require drivers to adapt their racing strategies, emphasizing tire management and strategic pit stops to maintain competitiveness throughout the race.

5. NASCAR's Approval Process and Driver Participation

The episode also touches upon NASCAR's driver approval process, highlighting its impact on competition and diversity within the sport.

• Discussion on Katherine Leg and Mike Wallace:

  • “I think Mike Wallace getting not allowed to race really springs to this end.” [42:28]
  • “Katherine Leg was in the field this weekend. Some good excitement around her being in the field.” [41:55]

• Need for Practice Sessions:

  • “If she had had a little bit more time in the car, would you give...” [46:35]
  • “Having some practice would have helped old Catherine.” [50:20]

Key Insights:

• Balancing Experience and Opportunity: The approval process aims to ensure drivers possess the necessary skills and experience, but it can also limit opportunities for emerging talent.
• Importance of Track Time: Adequate practice sessions are crucial for drivers, especially those new to specific tracks or vehicle types, to perform optimally during races.
• Financial Barriers: The cost associated with meeting approval criteria (e.g., participating in lower-tier series) can be prohibitive, potentially limiting the diversity of participants in higher-tier races.

6. Potential Expansion and New Tracks on the West Coast

There is an in-depth discussion about NASCAR's expansion plans, particularly focusing on the challenges of introducing new tracks on the West Coast.

• Feasibility of Building in Fontana:

  • “I just don’t think that it’s feasible. It’s not a feasible path forward.” [57:16]
  • “The land got to be so valuable that they could not turn down the offer to sell it.” [61:21]

• Preference for Street Courses:

  • “The west coast market, I think is probably going to be the next new thing, likely a street course somewhere.” [61:14]

Key Insights:

• Economic Constraints: The high cost of constructing new short tracks, coupled with stringent permitting processes in regions like California, makes establishing new ovals unlikely.
• Shift to Street Courses: Given the challenges, NASCAR is more likely to expand through street courses, leveraging existing urban infrastructures to host races.
• Strategic Decisions Post-Lawsuits: Ongoing legal disputes may further delay or deter significant investments in new track constructions, emphasizing the need for cautious financial planning.

7. Guest Segment: Interview with Christopher Bell

In a special guest segment, NASCAR driver Christopher Bell shares his experiences and insights into racing dynamics, tire strategies, and his personal journey within the sport.

• Christopher Bell on Tire Preferences:

  • “Red tire ... gave the race car a ton more feel and you were able to slide the car around more.” [67:04]
  • “We need to keep going down this path of getting softer tires.” [68:44]

• Experience with Option Tires:

  • “Having two tire compound options... makes it tough.” [69:27]
  • “With planned yellow flags, I don't think you can have an option tire or two tire compounds and be legitimate.” [67:04]

Key Insights:

• Performance Appreciation: Bell appreciates the enhanced handling and sliding capabilities provided by softer (red) tires, which improve the racing experience.
• Concerns Over Multiple Compounds: Similar to the hosts, Bell expresses reservations about the complexity introduced by having multiple tire compounds in a single race, advocating for simplification to maintain competition integrity.
• Future Outlook: Bell supports the trial of option tires as a means to eventually adopt softer tires across all tracks, aligning with the hosts' vision for the future of NASCAR.

8. Viewer Engagement and Q&A

The episode concludes with an interactive segment where hosts respond to listener questions, sharing personal anecdotes and addressing fan inquiries.

• Yearbook Discovery:

  • “Someone found his South View yearbook. He got those from his uncle who was in Kelly's class.” [72:16]

• Panini Card Stories:

  • “They got one of your panini cards that has you and your daughters writing on it.” [73:35]

Key Insights:

• Community Connection: Sharing personal stories and responding to fan memorabilia fosters a strong sense of community and connection between the hosts and their audience.
• Behind-the-Scenes Glimpses: These interactions provide listeners with a more intimate look into the hosts' lives, enhancing engagement and relatability.

9. Upcoming Features and Future Episodes

Before wrapping up, the hosts tease upcoming content and future guests, maintaining listener anticipation.

• Upcoming Interviews:

  • “Our interview with Carl Edwards will drop.” [87:41]
  • “We’re going to recap from Amy. Her girls trip in Miami.” [90:31]

• Documentary Insights:

  • “It gets into who he was as a human being. That's what the Dale doc does to the fullest.” [87:00]

Key Insights:

• Expanded Content: Future episodes promise deeper dives into personal stories and exclusive interviews, offering listeners comprehensive insights into the lives of NASCAR personalities.
• Documentary Releases: The mention of the new documentary underscores the show's commitment to exploring the nuanced stories behind the sport and its figures.

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Conclusion

"I Want The Tire Softer" serves as an insightful exploration into the technical and strategic facets of NASCAR racing, highlighting the intricate balance between innovation and tradition. Through candid discussions and expert guest insights, the episode underscores the continuous evolution of the sport, driven by a quest for enhanced competition and fan engagement.

Listeners are left with a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding tire strategies, the challenges in expanding NASCAR's footprint, and the personal stories that fuel the passion behind the racing community.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[TJ Majors]

Say adulting can be overwhelming.

[Travis]

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[TJ Majors]

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[Travis]

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[TJ Majors]

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[Travis]

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[TJ Majors]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So when the grind dulls your shine, remember to kid yourself. Apple and Eve has delicious juices for at home and on the go shop today.

[TJ Majors]

I disagree with y'all.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you pit outside the box, it's not like, okay, well, just make sure you're in it next time. You know what I mean?

[TJ Majors]

Agree. I don't agree with y'all. It was nitpicky.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I would agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[TJ Majors]

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. And we're doing a remote show today. Kids are on spring break, and so I'm. I'm not in the studio, but TJ is, and we got Travis as well. Let's jump right into it.

[Travis]

Hold on. I think we have a bigger topic than nascar, though. I'd like to get into.

[TJ Majors]

You don't want to get into NASCAR right away.

[Travis]

I'd like to congratulate you. Dale.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Don't. We don't need to do this.

[Travis]

National champion Dale Earnhardt Jr Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I promise you. I promise you the next time that I win, and I will win it again. Oh, you will. Oh, it's going to happen. And you're gonna. You think this celebration is big? I am. I am tweeting and posting and tagging, and I. I might even have the Michigan marching band in here for this next show.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, then I guess I need to keep celebrating then. Enjoying this. If that's the way the next one's gonna go, I'm.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's. That's the way it's gonna go.

[Travis]

Tj, You. Dale took Unc Charlotte, I think, what a one star originally and built them up.

[TJ Majors]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well, I mean I've also entered the national championship game with Wyoming and I played myself. I just chose to play with Michigan instead of Wyoming. So Wyoming could have had a national championship as well.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, he is, he's Michigan and so yeah, that's a. There, there is an argument for that to that he got to start out as a five star team and didn't have to really develop the team but he's made the team a lot better.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I've had to develop him because I screwed him up the first.

[TJ Majors]

Second year we had 18 or we got 18 or 19 users in the league. We've got a few that have second teams. I just picked up Stanford, started messing with them. TJ has been Wyoming for several seasons now and a couple of players have picked up some second teams just to have something to do to kill the time between advances. But it's been fun. We've been in a dynasty in Madden since probably 2008 and I've been in and out of playing Xbox or console football games for a while. I kind of, I kind of dipped out of his Little League.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We took a break for a while there.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. And, but we got the, the new NCAA started up so we all got excited about it and got back into it and I picked Charlotte not only because it's local and they're a new team, relatively new in terms of their, their, their existence. And I thought it'd be fun to try to turn them into a powerhouse and nothing wrong with TJ taking Michigan, but it just didn't seem like it'd be that fun to take a team that was already relatively good and had all kinds of great pipelines and recruiting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I wouldn't say the Michigan pipeline is that good because it's really not that highly ranked.

[TJ Majors]

Oh my gosh. Okay. Of course it isn't comp Charlotte. It's relatively good.

[Travis]

I talked to a couple sources and they said that the TJ just got.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Out coached and I didn't play good. Bad game plan. I didn't play good at all. That was.

[TJ Majors]

Well, it's all. If it came down to. If you, if you said so this is why the, this is why the league is fun for me and this is why I enjoy doing it. And I don't know if I can get Amy to understand this, but I'm almost embarrassed to show you the spreadsheets of plays like I've basically in, in the game. It'll tell. It'll keep a log of your, of the yardage you get every time you use a play. So if I've ran this play 50 times, it'll say, all right, you've gotten five and a half yards every time you've ran this play on average. And so I go through my whole playbook and literally rank all my run plays, from the best, average yardage to the worst. And all of my paths, all my RPOs, which a lot of people don't use RPOs because they just don't understand them yet. But. And the screens. Screens aren't very good in the game. There's only about a couple that I like to use. I also watch about. Shoot, dude. I've got a playlist that I've curated. I watch dozens of YouTube videos a week. And so I'm always adding plays and adding ideas and trying new things. When you play TJ or when you play the national championship, I've got a custom playbook with all of my, you know, situations. Every play is going to be curated and suggested for the specific time that I need it. I don't ever really go, I have it. I have it doing the things I want it to do so well. I never have to go beyond the suggested play screen to pick a specific play for a certain situation. I'm never going, oh, it's not suggesting the right play. I need to go find it. It's always giving me what I'm looking for. I do a serious amount of silly work to try to make sure that I enjoy it, you know, and I'm competitive, but that's the way it is for me. That's the way I am with everything. Like, when I was cycling, I didn't love getting on a bike and going and riding 40 miles. That's not what was fun at all. I didn't enjoy that part whatsoever. What I loved was coming back home, downloading all the data and the. And the average power and this average, you know, average speed and how I did on certain segments of the run of the ride. Cause Strava would track all that information and I was competing against myself. So I would ride the same rides over and over and over and just see if I've gotten faster or better or did a better job in this particular segment. And that. That silly nonsense of just diving into the details is what motivated me to keep riding. Because I needed to ride. I needed to stay in good shape to race. So riding helped me do that. And I didn't love working out any other way. And so to make the game, to make that game fun, I need to. I need the Details. I need the. I need the homework. Hey, everybody, you want the latest Dale Jr. Download apparel? Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com we're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show. We'll put it on a T shirt again. Check it [e-mail] let's move on to the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There was a race.

[TJ Majors]

There was a race. All right, so the option tire. NASCAR had the primary and the option tire going on in this race. And I'll be honest, as much as I'm hoping, you know, I'm kind of one of the ones that is like, hoping that the option tire, they're basically going to the racetrack and putting this option tire up there because there is some concern that it will fail or not last or wear out too quickly. And so the race isn't lost as long as the primary tire can come in and save the day. If there is any kind of an issue with the option tire during the race, they can kind of, you know, pivot in the middle of the event and still, you know, have a, have a, you know, have a finish and have a race that probably Goodyear in NASCAR will probably tell you that I'm crazy and that that's not anywhere near the truth. But that's probably, that's kind of how I'm looking at it. And my hope is, is that the option tire does succeed in each of these sort of trials where they're, I call them trials when they're running the option and the primary together. Because I think that's what it is. It's a test.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And I'm hoping that what they're doing is saying, okay, the option tire did good. Maybe we go back with just the option tire. They've done that at other racetracks, hadn't they? TJ I think they did it at Martinsville, Bristol, where they ran the primary and the option. It worked. Then they went back with only the option. Correct?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, Bristol, we just ran that, that saw the soft tire or whatever.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. But I thought we went to Martinsville with only the option and we went to a couple road course tire road courses as well with this softer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, they tested Martinsville last year and then chose a tire and I thought it was in the right direction.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I remember leaving there wanting more.

[TJ Majors]

Right, sure. Well, my point is, is like I'm hoping that it's my hope that we don't, I hope that we don't get excited about so excited about what we saw Sunday that we Think, oh, primary and options should be what we do going forward. And I mean, I. Look, I. I could be wrong about that. I know that some people. I like the race. I thought the race was compelling. But basically, man, you put the option tire on and you drove through the field. And I wasn't that surprised by that or. Or even that. Really compelled by it. I mean, it was a softer tire, and the guy passed everybody and went.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And went up front lucky with a caution or something.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. In the end, you know, everybody kind of wandered back to where they belong and finished about where they should have finished. And as long as. I mean, the teams are so smart that they. And there just isn't enough variables for a team to really find a clear advantage in the strategy. When using the primary versus the option tire in a race, everything in my mind, in most cases is going to all kind of settle back into where it probably would have ended if they just ran the option tire or the primary tire the entire race. So you're going to have people put the option on and fly through the field in the middle of the race, but they're going to end up being in a bad spot because there'll be one set of options short at the end when everybody else has that extra set. So it doesn't really. It doesn't really affect the race in a. In. In a crazy way. For me, NASCAR loves it because they see people driving through the field. Some of the more casual fans love it because they see people driving through the field and think, wow, okay, this guy's. This guy's doing something different. He's got a different strategy. But, you know, in the end, it's not going to be the preferred strategy. All the people that have saved their option tires for the last couple of runs, which is what everybody's probably going to do for most of the races. All those guys are going to prevail. So, you know, as cool as this was, it was a great race. It was. Was fun to watch. That track's been notoriously bad for racing over the past several times. We've been there, and everybody's like, hey, get the damn championship race out of boring. It finally had a really compelling weekend across all three series. I want to commend nascar. I want to commend Goodyear. I want to celebrate them. I like the. I liked the primary option situation in this race. It's just not what I want them to land on. Does that make sense? I want them to. To go, yeah, this is cool. Our goal is to get to where we can use the option all the time because that was kind of the. If you remember, back when all of this started, the conversation about softer tires started. The driver, the teams and the drivers were like, we need softer tires. We need tires that wear it at all. These little short tracks and road courses. The racing at the short tracks and road courses was notoriously bad, and they begged for softer tires. They gave us the softer tire by using this sort of a trial run, dropping this option tire into the, into the race as a, you know, as a idea to, to see if it would work. If it doesn't work, if it fails, if it wears out too quickly, just put the primary back on, finish the race. Well, the option tire is giving us great racing. It's. It's giving us fall off, it's giving us tire wear, it's giving us comers and goers. And the original goal was to try to get us to where we could have a soft tire at all of those tracks all the time, not just a couple of runs in the race. And so with this success this weekend, I hope it doesn't divert our attention. I hope it doesn't derail the, the path forward to getting us to where we can just have a softer tire to run at all of these places all the time and get in the primary eventually goes away.

[Travis]

TJ what was. From your vantage point, what was your thoughts on?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, every time we run the offshire, everyone's worried about the fall off and how severe it's going to be. And to me, we haven't got to the point where, like we watched Joey Logano drive all the way to the lead and then at the end of the stage, he got passed by one car that fell off and it barely fell off. And he had such a big lead on everybody else. He wasn't gonna, he wasn't gonna bleed any. Maybe two, three more spots because everybody's all spread out so far. And to me, the option tire doesn't fall off enough still. And it went way too long way. It was way too fast for too long. And there's supposed to be this cliff that it falls off. And the biggest cli. The biggest separation when I was watching lap times and the biggest gap that I saw between him and Christopher Bell in clean air was two tents on one lap. The rest time, it was like a tenth, tenth, tenth and a half. And it wasn't this big, steep curve that I was hoping to see. I wanted to see him struggle, and I didn't see him struggling. Yeah, Christopher Bell made easy Work of him, but that was one car and he was the best car all day. Best car all weekend, really. And I don't think. I don't think there you can hurt him enough yet. Like Joey Logano driving through the field, Ryan Priest driving through the field, gets out front. There should be. There should be a penalty for it, and there just wasn't a penalty. The only penalty was when the caution fell. And I don't want it. I don't want it to come down to who made the right call and got lucky with a caution. I want to see a guy have to drive through and manage his stuff at the same time, then try to hang on. I don't want to see. Oh, saved by the caution because there was a point where Ryan Priest was leading the race and he got three, four seconds out front at the end there or near the end of the later stage of the race. And man, like, if the caution doesn't come out, he's gonna probably net out to a top four or five somewhere still. And I just don't. I don't know. I don't. I don't think. I don't like just being able to hang on like that. I think there should be a cliff and. Or a penalty to pay or somewhere the driver should be able to hurt the tire and pay the price for it. Kind of like what they did at Bristol.

[Travis]

There's what, two seconds of fall off?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, but I mean, compared to what overall? Because what did the. The. The primaries fall off?

[Travis]

It wasn't like 1.2, something like that.

[TJ Majors]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's no way you're going to tell me that, like, the, The. Well, they might fall off. Like if you run 100 laps, it might be a little bit better than at the end of the hunter last, but no one's going to put 100 laps on them.

[Travis]

So what do you need the fall off to be then, for this option tire, for it to truly matter how the drivers handle these tires?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I just think it needs to be, you know, accelerated even more than what it was. Like, it was still too good to. To. It lasted too long. And then I just want the drivers be able to hurt the tires, and I want to run that tire on all the cars all the time and the drivers be able to manage their tires.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. One of the things that TJ is absolutely correct. I think the. One of the things that I noticed is when the cars are all on the primary, they don't run side by side very much, and they run single file, and it's Very, very hard for them to pass. It's the tire is harder. So as soon as they get within, you know, a couple car lengths of the car in front of them, they just start chattering and losing grip. So they can't really drive around the cars very well. The option tire allowed the cars to get closer together, to actually race each other a little bit harder. There was cars sliding, slipping, chasing, battle, you know, battling against right rear shear and drive off. That was really, really good to see. And I agree with TJ I think you take that option tire and all the great things that it seems to be doing and keep going for, you know, keep going farther, more aggressively with either the softer compound or maybe there is a situation where they need to add more rubber to the tire to be able to kind of bring temperatures up a little bit. I don't know where they are on temps and stuff like that, but, you know, I know the old bias ply tires had a lot more rubber on them. And the way that our bias ply short track Hoosiers react to heat, wear, fall off, all of those things is kind of what we're looking for. You know, that's kind of the, the fall off and the wear and the slip and the way that the drivability that, that the drivers are looking for in the cup series. That's what you have in the hoosier 40 fives that we race on the short tracks and that are up, you know, ran all up and down the east coast in the super late models and prolate models. And I don't think that it's realistic for Goodyear to kind of go that direction or get that whatever the, you know, try to go after some of the same, you know, ideals that those tires are created by. But maybe there's some things to be learned from, you know, what the tires used to do, the older cup tires that were bias ply tires, what they used to do, how they used to react. It may not be possible with this tire. More than likely it's going to be too, too temperature sensitive. It's going to be. You're going to have issues with blisters and chucking and things like that. But I would love to sit down with a Goodyear engineer that was open minded to have a conversation and say, you know, okay, why do. Okay, I love this tire, you know, that I race on my little short track car and that super late models and all these guys run. I know this is a lighter car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Can you bring this here?

[TJ Majors]

What are some of the ideas that that make this tire successful. And, and how could those be implemented in what we have today? I don't know if it's even possible, but I'd love to. You know, I think it'd be a neat conversation again, man. Celebrating that. I want to celebrate a good year for even trying to get us a softer tire. God, it seemed like for a long time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Then we got spoiled at Bristol. We got really spoiled at Bristol.

[TJ Majors]

But it just seemed like forever TJ that we were just. Goodyear was like, nope, we're going to build rock hard blocks on them forever. Run them forever. We got a three. We got a tire at Martinsville that'll go 3,000 miles, you know, and Goodyear.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Can build an amazing. Like they can build a tire that can, I mean, last forever.

[TJ Majors]

Well, that's the thing that we, I mentioned that on the show years ago. One of the, one of the good years. One of the, not one of the tire manufacturers wouldn't get into F1 because in F1 they wanted tire fall off and degradation and all those things. And they're like, we're not in the business of building tires that don't last. Right. And so I'm thinking in my mind, I'm like, yeah, I guess that's a tough spot for Goodyear to be in. You want to sell tires to the general public, so you've got to find a way for your tire to look really good on Sunday in a NASCAR race.

[Travis]

Yeah, but you can't think as a fan, like, if you think that the tires that they're racing on Sundays is what you're going to be dealing with.

[TJ Majors]

It's optics.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is the optics. Exactly. Right.

[TJ Majors]

Good. Way to go. I get. My point is like Goodyear has to be aggressive, but they can't have. And I hate. I know this is tough for everybody to relive, but they can't have another Indy where we go to a racetrack and the tires won't last beyond 20 or 25 lap, you know, and there's no backup plan. We can't have a situ. Because Goodyear that we. Nobody, if that were to happen, nobody's going to go, oh, man, you know, give them a break. Give them some grace. Goodyear's just trying their hardest, trying to give us what we're asking for. They're going to get drugged through the mud if that happened. Nobody's going to be, you know, giving them a break. And so they know that they can't make that mistake. And they have to be very calculative and clever on how they give us the pack, the, you know, give us the. The. The product that we want on the short track and the road courses. I'll tell you, though, the tire is the most important part of. Of all of it. When we talk about how a race is good or bad or a road course race is not good, or the trend is that short tracks not good or, you know, when we go through this sort of cycle in the sport where we're. The product isn't good, the tire plays the biggest role in that. Absolutely. No question. That's a tough spot for Goodyear to be in, but got to celebrate them. They're trying their hardest. I'm a T.J. get more aggressive. Let's keep pushing, get softer and softer and see how far we can go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One thing, just real quick, during the race after we were out, obviously, I drove Brad into a wreck again for like the fourth out of five weeks. But I thought I saw guys putting used option tires back on instead of new instead of new primes. Like, and to me, if you put your options on, you should get 20, 30 laps out of them. And then they should be like, man, we can't run them again. There's not gonna be anything left.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Shouldn't be able to put 30 lap option tires on them.

[TJ Majors]

I think that the one car put them on and then luckily got another caution and promptly came back down pit road to take them off because they were terrible.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But even to be in the conversation of, like, hey, we should put these back on.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, like, I'm with you. They should have been.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Nope, we use them. Yep. We use the soft sub. They're gone.

[TJ Majors]

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[TJ Majors]

Christopher Bell moves Denny Hamlin up the racetrack just a little bit. Run him a little wide. Denny didn't hit the wall or anything. You know, I don't know what Denny could have done differently there. I think that he came out of there with probably a better finish than he probably expected. When the race began, Denny said he.

[Travis]

Could have gone, maybe gone behind him and gone below or something like that.

[TJ Majors]

He might have been able to do a, you know, back it up, cross him over.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think the start finish line comes up too quick off of Florida for a crossover move right there, I think.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, I, I don't. I thought that was just great racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I thought Denny was done. But then he got back on the outside of Bell on the exit of two and I was like, oh, Denny's. Yeah, then he's got a shot. And for him to even, for him to even put himself in position to have a shot at winning that race is a pretty strong run. So.

[Travis]

Well, he had Larson help him too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, just to make the corners that he did, though he didn't have Lars's help in the corner to stay outside of Bell and all that. I mean, to even, to even be in that position though, to race Bell for the win. Solid, solid effort, solid run.

[TJ Majors]

I thought the more debatable finish was the Amarola Bowman finishing Xfinity race. Arca. ARCA was pretty Bad ARCA was very similar.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I don't think t. I watched the end of the. I don't think there's a good replay of the ARCA one. There was a really, really hard door slam in the ARCA race. I don't think people saw, but it was pretty severe.

[TJ Majors]

I thought they were probably very similar, don't you think? Dark and the Xfinity ARCA was the worst.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, they were very similar. Arco was by far the worst and most egregious out of all of them. I mean, in the Xfinity race, I mean, you could see it coming. And, you know, I was standing right there. Obviously, the spotters are above Turns 3 and 4 at Phoenix, so you literally look right. I mean, everything's right there. So I saw it coming.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. The thing about it in the Xfinity race is, so, you know, you could sit there, we would. We would maybe expect this out of a young, hungry rookie.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And. And then all of us in our. In our mind would go, God, you know, he's got to learn to race with more respect. You know, wins are going to come. He's talented. He doesn't need to do it that way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

But this is Eric Almirola, who has ran his entire cup career.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He sure hope he gets a shot.

[TJ Majors]

Well, he's. He's. He's a semi retired.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. He's having fun.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. He's out there. Like, I don't give. Why would he. Yeah. And so I think a lot of us don't really know how to think about the. The Xfinity race. I know that it sucked for Bowman.

[Travis]

Here's what Bowman. Bowman had to say. I would have hoped that he would have given me a lane on exit, but he just exited like I wasn't there.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, let's be honest, Alex. Alex drove Martinsville. Like, Danny Hamill wasn't there either. So.

[TJ Majors]

TJ's got a memory. He's not.

[Travis]

TJ's not wrong, though.

[TJ Majors]

Like, he's not.

[Travis]

Drivers love to play Woe Me, but then give them. Give them two races, and guess what? They're gonna do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Nobody likes to lose.

[TJ Majors]

I agree. I. I agree that it depends on who's doing it. If that had been one of my drivers, I probably would not feel that bad about it. You know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't. It wouldn't be my favorite win of ours in our. In our. In our existence at Junior Motorsports, but I would have figured out a way to justify it or at least live with it as a driver, though, like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is there anybody that could have moved you that you'd have been happy about?

[TJ Majors]

Oh, no. I mean, I'm just saying, like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I know.

[TJ Majors]

I'm not worried about Bowman and all that stuff. It's more about, like, you know, our perception.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. How we perceive it. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

We're race fans. Right. Let's be race fans and just think, all right, here, here, let's dissect this. And. And I think that is it. O. Is it. You know. Yeah, I guess it's all right.

[Travis]

I'd be mad if I'm Dale. If I'm you and you're one of your drivers doesn't do that to try to get the win. I'm like, get the win?

[TJ Majors]

I'm conflicted.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm fine either way. If you finish second in a good race, how can you be mad at it? If he gets a little aggressive against the win? It is what it is.

[TJ Majors]

You know, I. Dad, I. I keep thinking, like, you know, man, you know, I don't know if I want. So we, you know, the Eric does this in Xfinity race. The guys that are racing in the cars tour or racing at their local racetrack or racing in the ARCA series, they see that and they go, hey, if I'm in that situation, that's a great move. I'm going to do that. I'm going to be that aggressive to try to get myself the win, and that's all that matters, is just trying to get the win and then. And it promotes it. And I struggle with that because I don't want that to be the way we run. I don't want that to be every finish in the cars tour every week, because we're gonna have a lot of disappointed and frustrated people, but every once in a while, it's okay. But I go back to, like, the way my dad raced in 1986, 87. I mean, he was as aggressive as any. And so it's hard for me to have any kind of a hypocritical thought about it, because I love. I grew up loving how aggressive guys were in the 80s and how people were, you know, how the short tracks were beating and banging, pushing each other around. There was always. Every other, you know, week, there was a fight in the pits and a disagreement. And, you know, it's a different time these days, and we don't really necessarily want physical altercations, but it is good to see a little physical contact and a little pushing and shoving, because I'd say for the past Couple of decades. It's been quite non existent at the Cup Xfinity level now. The trucks have been kind of wild.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But yeah, it's definitely tapered off in the cup series.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, the cup guys, Dan, they, they just assume, you know, I mean Christopher Bell pushed it about as far as you're going to see guys push it into in the cup series.

[Travis]

Do you think he would have done it a little more had it not been a teammate? Do you think he that went through his mind?

[TJ Majors]

I'm sure there might have been a little contact.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know. Yeah, I don't. I think there's going to be contact either way. Yeah, I would have to. I mean you're the dominant car all day. You have the fastest car, you got a shot at winning. Guy beach with been restart, you're going to get a little rough at times.

[TJ Majors]

If that's not, if that's not Denny Hamlin, the car probably ends up in the fence a little bit.

[Travis]

That's what I'm asking.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, you gave Denny a little bit of a, a break. He tried to race Denny as clean as he's possibly could. Literally. I mean, Christopher Bale did the perfect amount of aggression without wall he could have been.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's a, there's a lot of racetrack up there that we don't use in Phoenix and 3 and 4 and if you really want to wash them up there, it takes, they run so high to try to not get hit that you really have to kind of chase them up there to hit them.

[TJ Majors]

So Bale goes back to back to back first driver to three Pete or win three in a row in the next gen era.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One bad push away from almost four.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Daytona.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. So we'll talk to him in a bit. Let's talk about Joe Logano's penalty on the restart. This was an interesting one for me because nascar so at Phoenix, as they're coming off turn four and you're coming up on a restart, coming to the start finish line, you're not allowed to go below the yellow line onto the apron before you get to the start finish line. And we will see NASCAR penalize drivers because this often happens back in the middle of a pack or a couple of rows back. Drivers just peek out a little too early. They're trying to cut that dog leg going into turn one and they're trying to be the first one to get down there and get under the car in front of them. And so they get a little aggressive, control the air. They get Aggressive and they get jump down there too soon sometimes NASCAR doesn't call it. Sometimes they do call it. I've never, I'm, I do not remember the last time that they've called it on the front, you know, the leader, particularly at Phoenix. So that was pretty interesting and I thought it was pretty nitpicky. Did Joey break that rule? Yeah.

[Travis]

Well, then how's it nitpicky if he breaks the rule?

[TJ Majors]

Well, the, Because I've seen them not call it for very aggressive far, you know, guys, four tires way below the line before the start, finish line. I've seen it not get called. Listen, NASCAR can't see it all. They can't call every infraction all day long, right? They can't. They can try and we hope they do and they work hard, but they, they're going to miss some things and that's okay. And so, and tj, do you, do you agree that this infraction sometimes gets missed in the back half of the field?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, but I will also say I would a year and a half ago, two years ago, I would have said absolutely. It happens almost every restart. But lately they've been cracking down even in the back half of the field with guys and I've even warned drivers on resorts if we were restarting near the back for some reason, like, hey man, don't mess with it still because they're still penalizing guys back there for it. So they've gotten a lot better at making sure that it's throughout the field, not just on the front row, but setting the tone for even guys back there because it's such a huge advantage. Even when you're, if you're 15th, you get a big rundown there, you can really make something happen still.

[TJ Majors]

I agree. And I, I, I, I don't feel what you feel about their, their change in ramping up the, the, you know, being more strict and calling this penalty more often. I don't feel that yet. But if, you know, I'll take your word for it. You're, you're in a different perspective.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We hear, we hear all the calls.

[TJ Majors]

So I didn't think that Joey was trying to gain an advantage there. I don't think he was doing anything to block the car behind him. I just think that he misjudged it. And I felt like, considering the circumstances, that it was a bit nitpicky based off of how hit and miss it's been on calling those infractions at that particular racetrack and those moments throughout the field over the last Probably. Let's just go back five or six trips to this racetrack. It's been, you know, they. They can't get them all. I understand that. I'm not complaining. I don't expect them to call all of them because they're going to miss a few. It's just human nature to error a little bit. So you give them a little bit of grace there. But I felt like that they pounced on Joey. I mean, he literally, what, had just half a tire or maybe a 3/4 of the left front tire down on the apron when he crossed the start finish line. I didn't think it was that aggressive.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you're not like that, though, then someone else is gonna, you know, I feel like.

[TJ Majors]

I feel like that. That would have been a time to maybe give a warning to everyone. Everyone.

[Travis]

A warning.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. That would have been a moment to say, look, man, we're not gonna. We're not gonna torpedo Joey's day over about 12 inches of asphalt. He didn't gain anything from it. He wasn't blocking the car behind him. Listen, forget about who's in the car. Just, you know, Joey Logano fan or not, this is a guy just trying to run his race. He got a little aggressive. It would have been a good time to say, all right, everybody, we're going to, you know, we're. We're sending out a warning. The 22 car was aggressive there. Next time, the next car that does it where I don't care if it's a couple inches. Stop. You know, stop doing it. I think that that would have been the play, but that's just me. You don't have to love it. I just feel like it was a little bit nitpicky.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I just know that if you. I know our guys, everyone. So everyone's competing so hard that we're going to keep pushing. Like, next time, even as Joey is a competitor, he's going to. If he didn't get called for it there, he's going to do the exact same.

[TJ Majors]

Or even if he got a warning, I.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Man, you're not.

[TJ Majors]

If you get some. You give a guy a warning, and he does.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I disagree with you for. On the gaining an advantage stuff, because he's what. He's turning down there to gain an advantage by shortening the track up and hoping the guy.

[TJ Majors]

If he. If he does it like a millisecond later.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, what's the difference in a. On if he clears the guy by a foot in turn one, he's got control of the race. You Know what I mean? So I know he's doing it for an advantage and it is a big advantage if you shorten the track out and you want to get the turn one first. And if Joey gets turn one first, we all know how hard Joey is to pass.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. So.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that's what he's trying to do. But I feel like with our series, seeing how it is, you, you set the tone by if somebody is across the line, you penalize them. Because from that point on, we're all like, okay, we're not doing that now. Because if you get a warning, I can tell you right now, warning's kind of like, okay, are they gonna call it next time or not? Because we've seen that like a coda, like we could go find pictures all day of guys getting warnings or whatever a couple year or two ago. And. And until somebody actually gets the penalty for it, we're going to keep pushing until we know there's a line.

[Travis]

These drivers all said a right hook is a right hook and wanted a penalty. For Cedric, you can't. And then on Sunday say, well, he barely crossed the line here, so give a warning like you, it's a punishment.

[TJ Majors]

I disagree with y'all.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you pit outside the box, it's not like, okay, well, just make sure you're in it next time. You know what I mean?

[TJ Majors]

I don't agree with y'all.

[Travis]

That's okay.

[TJ Majors]

It was nit. It was nitpicky.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I would agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[Travis]

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[TJ Majors]

Let'S talk about NASCAR's approval process to race. Katherine Leg was in the field this weekend. Some good excitement around her being in the field. She had a bit of a rough day. And yeah, so this springs up the debate in the conversation around NASCAR's approval process. You know, what is the approval process? Right? What are the cr. What's the criteria for a driver to be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think Mike Wallace getting not allowed to race to really spring to this end.

[Travis]

We gotta stop with the comparing the two though.

[TJ Majors]

Expound.

[Travis]

When's the last time that he raced? Yeah, like they're not the same there.

[TJ Majors]

They told Mike if he was to run ARCA or do this, you know, he had a couple of boxes to check and he gets in the field, he gets to run Daytona. If he had tried to run, you know, the ARCA race prior to the Daytona 500. I think there were a couple of things that they were like, hey man, just if you do this, this or this, the approval is going to be different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I guess. I'd like to see the boxes that got checked for her to get approved for that. You know, running a road course race and an Xfinity car, does that really count?

[TJ Majors]

She ran five Xfinity races. Were they all road course couple years, I think. I think three of them were.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Look, she's given many. I mean she's got a huge resume.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, she's. She's been racing forever. I gotta say this, man, it does not help that she's in such a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Car that doesn't handle a car.

[TJ Majors]

It's A poor car. And so she's in a car that doesn't do a lot of things right and we don't have any practice. I mean that the lack of practice and the problems that that creates is glaring and it's in our face every other week. But we kind of choose to ignore it because, you know, there's a lot of drivers, namely guys that are in the top third of the field that don't need practice, they'd rather not have practice. They got great cars that are probably going to hit the racetrack and, and handle well and be fast and practice doesn't do anything but tighten the field up or, you know, give the rest of the field and an opportunity to improve.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's exactly what it does.

[TJ Majors]

So of course the top three, the top third of the field are going to probably say, yes, I don't want practice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, their cars are naturally better off.

[TJ Majors]

The truck practices would be a disadvantage for me. So. But name a series that doesn't practice. And so, you know, when you got situations like this where, look, having some practice would be really good for the back half of the field. You've got new, new teams with new cars, with new crew chief and driver pairings, trying to jail, trying to learn, trying to improve. Justin Haley and Rodney Childish, for example, Gregson in his new role with front row. A lot of. Yep, you got a ton of teams that are out there spending a ton of money to be in this sport every week that are in dire need of just a little bit more information and a little bit more time on the racetrack. And then you have the Catherine legs and the different type of people that are trying to come in and maybe run these one offs. You've got this new provisional that may spawn some really, really cool opportunities for some drivers that have never raced a next gen car to come compete with us. And I want to see them be in the best scenario to succeed. And so they're going to need time on the racetrack and practice and no better time to give it to them than in the way the race weekend on a Friday, on a Saturday, prior to the race on Sunday. And so, you know, I think if she had had a little bit more time in the car, would you give.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That time before qualifying or after qualifying?

[TJ Majors]

I don't care. I mean, I don't, I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If that, like if you were going to add an hour practice, would you do it? Would you do the 20 minutes and then qualifying or do it like on Saturday, do qualifying on Friday or something.

[TJ Majors]

And then that you That's a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You can.

[TJ Majors]

You can make the argument, T.J. that you want to do it after qualifying so that everybody's working on race stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

You know who. I don't want to have a practice where I got guys out there, hot lap set up. Yeah, yeah, let's just. Let's just be done with that. Go ahead and put everybody in race trim. I loved how back in the day, in, like, 98, 99, we'd run our Xfinity race. And as. And as soon as our Xfinity race was over, like, we're pulling off the track, the cup guys, dad and all them are already lined up on pit road, getting ready to pull off and run happy hour. And we go into the victory lane, we're celebrating our win, and it's loud because they're out there practicing the cup cars for an hour. And so, I mean, it was. That practice was important. Happy hour was a moment no one. You know, happy hour was a destination in our sport at one point.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I liked it on Saturday, kind of before the Xfinity race. You know, that's kind of what I was always used to. Whenever we would run, you'd have an early practice on Saturday, Xfinity cars might qualify, and then you'd have your happy hour. But definitely, I mean, I. I thought that was a good lead up to the Xfinity race and things like that as well.

[TJ Majors]

Look, I. I think that she absolutely gets the opportunity to come compete based off of her experience, but she's in a bad car that doesn't do anything right. She doesn't know what it needs to do. What I mean by that is, like, when you get in a race car and. And a new car that you really haven't drove before, you really don't know what it's supposed to do, and you're like, well, I don't know if it's supposed to turn better than this or not. I don't know if it can. Right. And finally, you'll drive a car that does the right things. And you're like, oh, I didn't know that was possible. Now I'm going to ask for that. Now I'm going to go to the crew chief and go, yes, this isn't turning good enough. We turned better last week. Can we figure out how to get that rotation I'm looking for? Because I know the car's capable of doing it. She has none of that right coming into this. And so she's out there driving it, going, I don't know whether it can do things better or not. And I know what I feel and what I need to ask the crew chief for, but they are just at such a disadvantage because of her inexperience in the car, the lack of the car's ability, and the lack of track time. That was just a rest. It's just not a good recipe for success. And so I think that, you know, I don't know what NASCAR's approval process is. I don't know that we need, like, this really fixed, rigid structure of, well, you need to win this, this, and this, or drive this, this, this to get there. I don't know. I don't know if we need to go that route. We used to have that. I think back when, for some reason, you know, when Brett Badine was involved in nascar. And that has nothing to do. He has nothing to do with this. I just remember him being part of the conversation at one point. But there was a. You had to run this amount of races to be able to get, you know, be able to get the chance to race in the Cup Series. There was a specific amount of ARCA or Xfinity or truck that you had to do. You had to go, like, they wouldn't let you race unless you had a intermediate start. Remember that, TJ There was this kind of.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, for sure.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. A fixed plan that you had to have.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You want to run, you need to start at the short tracks. You ran one or two there. Then once you proved your worth there, you moved to the intermediates.

[TJ Majors]

I don't know why that went away, but it did. Yeah, they wouldn't let you run Daytona unless you had an intermediate start. You couldn't run an intermediate unless you had a short track start. And it had to be in, like, the series below. So, yeah, you could run it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You could run like a play, like a super speedway. Like. Like, if you. If he would have ran, Mike would have ran the ARCA race. That'd be like, that would have approved him for the, you know, next series up or whatever. You know what I mean?

[TJ Majors]

The problem with that and. And that's. That maybe some. For people that are proposing that we go back to something like that, the problem with that is it's very expensive. And so if you're a person, say you're someone who's trying to get this one opportunity to race in the Xfinity series, right? And you've secured just the right amount of sponsorship money, you've probably came in low on sponsorship money, right? But you've got this ride secured. You've got this team to approve it and now you're going to go run this race. You don't have the funds to get that ARCA start or that truck start at that specific track to do this. That's another 25 to 50 to $75,000 before you can finally get the approval to run the race that you actually have the funds to run. And so that was the problem with that. In the past, we would have drivers in our own system, in our own pipeline that we wanted to go race at races, but we were going to have to spend $75,000 to run them in these other events. And they were more than qualified to be able to run the race if.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That race goes bad. Also, there's an opportunity that you don't get approved.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

As well.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. So I know it's probably not a popular opinion, but practice would have helped old Catherine. There was one other thing I wanted to talk about, and that was Fontana. A little bit of news in the sport about NASCAR's west regional president, Dave Allen was in the media center and was asked a few questions about the market, the west coast market, and these are his comments. The market is extremely important to nascar, so we're not abandoning the market. What we don't have is a firm timeline yet. There's some things within the sport that need to get started before we can make some strategic decisions as it relates to what we are going to build. We're going to do something. We just don't know what and when yet. And they're talking about Fontana or other options out there. There's been rumors about a street course in San Diego and here's a situation with Fontana and I was thinking about this. As we know, Fontana has been sold off. Probably about 4/5 of the property has been sold and is being developed. What's left is the front straightaway and the pit road and some of the suites on the inside of pit road. There is arguably enough property there still for NASCAR to build this short track that was kind of an original plan of theirs. I don't think that NASCAR can get it done. And I think that even if NASCAR wants to do it, they can't get it done. Think about this is something I don't think a lot of people may consider. Think about the permits and the challenges to build anything in the state of California, particularly around, you know, a sporting event or speedway or anything like that. The ex. The. Not only the timeline in the hoops to jump through to get those permits and get that building code, all Sorted. But not only the timeline for that, but the expense and the cost. It's going to cost more money to build the facility than it will be worth to have. Right. I just don't feel like that it's a financial success story. I think it will. You know, NASCAR can build it. It's probably going to cost more money than it's worth to build. It's probably going to be more a bigger pain in the ass because of the permits and so forth that you'll have to jump through to get. And even if they badly wanted to build this short track, which I always felt. I've always felt like what the west coast has always needed was a really good Saturday night short track ass kicking. You know, we take. We take. We go out there and we run road courses. We had the big Fontana track. We've done a lot of things out on the west coast that are a lot of fun. But one thing we haven't really taken to the. To the west coast market yet is Bristol or Martinsville, you know, and I've walked out of those racetracks many times wishing we could bottle that up and take it all across the country because we'd. We'd be so successful if we could. So as bad as NASCAR may want to build, I think NASCAR does want to build that short track right there on that Fontana property. I just don't think that they can do it. I don't think it's worth it. I don't think the trouble that it would. They would. They would occur. I don't think it's realistic. And so, you know, I can't blame NASCAR for the lack of movement on that racetrack. I just think that it's not a. It's not a feasible, you know, feasible path forward. What they're going to probably look at is if I had to put money on what I think will happen on the west coast, you're probably going to find. You're probably going to have us racing on a street course or a current facility, which I don't know that there's many out there that exist, like road courses and so forth. There's no ovals. I don't think that we could be racing on. On the west coast. And so, yeah, I feel like that they will not be building any new racetracks. They will not be building any new ovals out there, not at Fontana or anywhere. And so the west coast racing, anything new that happens on the west coast will likely be street course.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do agree with the street course part. I wish it was a Short track. But I do, I do think, if I do think the price is just too much probably to do it, do I think they could build a great short track there at Fontana? Yeah, they. I, I think there could be a. I think they could build an awesome track there at some point and it would be. I think it'd be great with the, with the current buildings they have, but they. I don't know, man, something. They've surprised me numerous times in the last handful of years as far as some of the track stuff they've done. I mean, we raced. If you'd have told me 10 years ago we were going to run a race in the LA Coliseum, I'd have said, you're crazy. You know, and then we raced in there and same thing with Chicago, man, what they did with Chicago and thinking about all this, the politics and stuff that has to go on there behind the scenes, that to get a race in a downtown of a city like Chicago around a. A park area, like, it's pretty, man. That's pretty. It's in depth, man, and it's hard to do, so.

[TJ Majors]

It's expensive, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

For sure. For sure. I just think, like you. I think the part that would be bad, it's just gonna cost too much to build the track. So it's gonna have to go to something that's either a street course, it can be temporary or. And the only tracks that I know over in that area, like Laguna Seca, or the temporary short track that run the indycars run there as well. Yeah, Long beach or whatever it is.

[TJ Majors]

But, yeah, I don't, I just don't. I don't see. I think. I do think that, you know, the, you know, not. I wouldn't say it's uncertainty, but with the lawsuit going on between the teams and nascar, I think NASCAR doesn't want to be built spending millions of dollars on a project until that sort of all gets sorted out. So that's probably going to stall any kind of big spend on NASCAR's part. They'll spend some money, but to an extent, you know, that's a pretty big spend, I think, to build a short track out there at Fontana. And I just. Yeah, I just feel like there's this. They, I think they lost money at Chicago or at least I don't think that NASCAR profited from that experience financially. But the, the growth that this or the excitement and the, the, you know, there was some big gains that weren't monetary for NASCAR through doing the Chicago street course. And they're going to look at that as a success and say to other cities, hey, here's the model. And so now they can probably go to a San Diego and say, this is what we did. This is how we did it. We've learned from that. We can do it better. And they also have the iracing software to where they can build these tracks virtually and almost sort of test them out in a virtual world to really. That's what they did at Chicago. That's why Chicago succeeded was because of the iracing platform was a way to be able to kind of test fire all of that stuff and make sure it was going to work.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. That sim race they did there, they all put on a great show.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. So, I mean, they can now build these tracks in the virtual world and really throw all of the best sim racers in the world at that racetrack and have them pick it apart and before they ever, you know, spend a dime on the real thing. And so with that ability. Yeah, I'm not a, I don't love road courses. Not a big street course guy. I want a short track. I want to, you know, I want to oval. I like, you know, I'm just old school with that. But, you know, I feel like that that's the momentum right now. And so west coast. The west coast market, I think is probably going to be the next thing. The next new thing, I think will probably end up being a street course somewhere. And Fontana I don't think will ever, ever happen. I end up. I bet that they end up probably selling off the rest of that land.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I really wish we ran Fontana still because with the way this package is with this car, I think it would be a. It'd be an awesome race.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I do too. But the, the land got to be so valuable.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

That they could not turn down the, the offer to sell it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, it's understandable.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Can't blame them. But I just. See, I. I think in the next five years, they'll probably end up selling off the rest of that property. I'll be surprised if they don't. When the game Tips off, the NBA action is just beginning on FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. Because FanDuel is your home for NBA live betting. So even if you miss the first few minutes of the game or you want to bet on a fourth quarter comeback, you can make your picks from the first whistle until the final buzzer. Plus you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. However you want to Play. Now's the perfect time to join new FanDuel customers. Get started off with $150 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Me and my friends have been having a lot of fun putting some parlays together and just betting a little bit to make the games a lot more fun to follow along. So just visit FanDuel.com DaleJr to join today. That's FanDuel.com DaleJr for your shot and $150 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. Still getting around to that fix on your car?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You got this on ebay. You'll find millions of parts guaranteed to fit.

[TJ Majors]

Doesn't matter if it's a major engine repair or your first time swapping your windshield wipers, eBay has that part you need ready to click perfectly into place for changes big and small, loud or quiet. Find all the parts you need at prices you'll love.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Guaranteed to fit every time. But you already know that ebay things people love.

[TJ Majors]

Eligible items only. Exclusion supply packages by Expedia. You were made to be rechargeable. We were made to package flights, hotels and hammocks for less Expedia Made to travel. All right, Christopher Bell on the Dale Jr. Download with TJ Majors and myself, Dillon Hart Jr. This is three weeks in a row and we would love to keep this going. Win as many as you want. Christopher.

[Christopher Bell]

I love it. I love it. Obviously I enjoy talking to you guys more so whenever I win. So. So hopefully I get to do this again next week.

[TJ Majors]

So you are coming off of the win at Phoenix and assuming you're staying out on the west coast for the race this weekend in Vegas, how do you feel your time, I suppose this week?

[Christopher Bell]

Well, I'm kind of a last minute planner, so we didn't really have much of a plan until the race ended at Phoenix and we ended up making a trip to Sedona. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm in Sedona. Sedona, Arizona.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, nice hotel room.

[Christopher Bell]

Gonna do some hiking, some sightseeing and yeah, we got a couple days here before I go for the sprint car race in Las Vegas on Thursday.

[TJ Majors]

If it don't sprint car.

[Christopher Bell]

That's right. Yeah. If it doesn't rain. If it doesn't rain.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. So yeah, you're getting to run your sprint car on Thursday. What's the plan there?

[Christopher Bell]

Yeah, so the obviously this year my dirt racing schedule got opened up and Vegas was actually the first race that got put on the calendar, with the NASCAR race being this weekend. Driving for Don Kreiss Jr. Out of Pennsylvania. It's a long trip from him. He's normally a local guy. He's making the tow out to Vegas. But yeah, so we ended up doing Volusia earlier in the year and that was just strictly a tune up for this weekend. He's been really excited about this Las Vegas race, so I'll be in the car Thursday night and he'll. Hopefully we can have a good result.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wait a minute. I got a question. You said your sprint car schedule opened up and now you're winning all these races. Were you holding out? I mean, no.

[Christopher Bell]

I mean, I'd love to just keep on going, keep on running more and more and more.

[TJ Majors]

What's the surface like at Vegas with the sprint car? I mean, when I think about the ground and the dirt in Vegas, I don't think that it would be conducive to good dirt track racing. Do they bring in certain. Cut certain types of dirt to really get that track to where it needs to be or.

[Christopher Bell]

Yeah, so it, it can go either way. There. There are times where it can be really, really nice. Like, I've seen beautiful surfaces at the dirt track at Las Vegas, but the ambient conditions just make it very tough. Being we normally, normally we always run there in the spring, which they haven't run sprint cars in a very long time. But with a wind, it normally is really windy, which makes it tough to keep. Keep the track nice. It can be cool. And so Vegas is typically known to get like, pretty rough and have some character to it, which isn't a bad thing. You know, it's not going to be smooth and glassy and perfect, but that's. That's okay. That's what dirt racing is all about, is improvising and making the most of what you got. So the, the track itself is a beautiful facility. The pits are all paved and, and the teams love racing out there just because. Because it is a nice facility. But yeah, the track, you just, you never know what you can get at Las Vegas. But I know everybody is excited to run out there.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I know it's a long ways out, but you made this mention on the teardown that you weren't sure about the option tire for the championship race at Phoenix. So I know there's a lot of racing that needs to happen between now and then. But knowing what you, I guess, experiencing what you did this past weekend, what would, what do you believe the Best scenario is for Phoenix going forward.

[Christopher Bell]

Yeah, so. So Junior, I'm okay with if they want to run the option tire as the primary tire, I think that would be, you know, perfectly fine. I. What I don't like is having two tire compound options which are limited, limited use and one compound is a significant advantage of the other one with. And other forms of motorsports do it. I'm aware of that. But our, our racing is different. We have the planned stage breaks. Everybody knows when those yellow flags are coming out. And if you're a competitive car, your strategy is spelled out. You have to save the fastest set of tires for the end of the race. If you are a car that is leading laps and contending for the win and all that does is, is allows guys that aren't competing for the win and it gives them an advantage because they're going to gamble and put their fast set of tires on before the competitive cars and they're going to drive right to the front like we saw this weekend. And you know, if the yellow comes out, they're probably not going to win if they're out of tires and if the, you know, and that's exactly how it played out this this week. But yeah, I mean, with the planned yellow flags that we have at the stage breaks, I don't think you can have a, you know, an option tire or a, you know, two tire compounds in a race and it be legitimate off of competition. You know, once again, are we competition or are we entertainment? And yeah, that's what it gets boils down to.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, it's my hope that the, the quest to like find this soft tire that we can use at the road courses and at the short tracks is still the game plan and that this is a trial. Right. To find that option tire.

[Christopher Bell]

I completely agree with that. And I think we are just going down the path of the right path. We're going down the right path. I mean, we saw probably the best road course race we've had in a long time with that new tire. And I think that red tire that we had at Phoenix is certainly where we need to be. I mean, it gave the race car a ton more feel and you're able to slide the car around more and not feel like you're just on this brick and chattering across the racetrack. So yes, I wholeheartedly agree that we need to keep going down this path of getting softer tires, making the car drive where you can drive it hard and step over the limit and not crash each other. But having two compounds in one race Makes it tough.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I agree with that. Looking ahead to Vegas, you know, where do you rank that track in terms of success? Is it where, you know, is it a place you go into where you're confident? What do you think you chances of being able to go and win four straight?

[Christopher Bell]

Well, honestly, I would say it's. It's P1 on my list when I haven't won it yet. It's been a great track for myself and my team, and throughout the years, man, I've had so many close calls at that racetrack. Between the truck series, I remember getting beat, I think it was by Ben Rhodes right at the line. And then the Xfinity series, I literally had a deja vu moment between, you know, that. That fall race in the. In last year, whenever Joey beat me on fuel mileage, Reddick beat me the exact same way on fuel mileage in the Xfinity car. So I've had a lot of. A lot of close calls at Vegas. Haven't won there, but been really close. So, I mean, the schedule just laid out really good for this run that I've been on for sure, because Phoenix is a great track for me. Vegas is a great track for me. And, yeah, we should. We should be competitive, that's for sure.

[TJ Majors]

Well, it's been insane, you know, the terror you guys have been on, but not a surprise. You've been sort of, you know, teetering on this type of success over the last couple of years and just trying to get all the pieces of the puzzle in the right place, and it seemed like you guys are hitting on all cylinders. Good luck this weekend. Thanks for the time you give us today. I know you got other things you got going on, things you could be doing. So appreciate you spending some time with us to. To give our viewers some insight on this, this upcoming weekend.

[Christopher Bell]

Thank you, guys. I'm gonna go climb now.

[TJ Majors]

All right. All right, buddy. Have fun. Be careful. Ask Junior is brought to you by Xfinity and NASCAR fans. Now you can get the speed you need on and off the track with Xfinity Mobile. Xfinity Mobile customers now get exclusive access to wi fi speeds of up to a gig in millions of locations nationwide. And it's nationwide coverage that you know will always come through in a clutch. Take NASCAR on the go with Xfinity Mobile. They're the proud premier partner of nascar. And yeah, we're excited that they're supporting us here at Dirty Mo Media. And Andrew, you got any good questions for us today? I hope we do.

[Andrew]

We do. We have a Lot of good ones. Rob, in the YouTube chat, starting off with Go Blue TJ, that's for you.

[Travis]

No, do not read any of those.

[Andrew]

Oh, sorry. Well, too late. I did. Dale, this is actually follow up from last week, and I don't know if you saw it on Twitter, and I'm gonna text it to the three of you guys just so you can all see it, but someone found a yearbook. The yearbook that you were looking for from last. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[Andrew]

So Ben Riddle.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Surprise.

[Andrew]

Said he found his South View yearbook. He got those from his uncle who was in Kelly's class. And there's a bunch of pictures of people that were in your class. So for those watching, I'll retweet it on mine just so everyone can go see it. Or here, you can see it right here on the camera. So there's Dale. You can see Dale's right there. Isn't that cool?

[TJ Majors]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Do you recognize any of the faces?

[TJ Majors]

Yes. Yes, I do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my gosh.

[Andrew]

So is this bringing back memories? Like what. What do you remember about some of these people?

[TJ Majors]

Oh, my gosh. Well, I mean, I just. Now looking at it for the first time, that's very blurry. But let's see. I wonder why it has me and Kelly together, because to the camera again.

[Andrew]

So y'all can see it.

[TJ Majors]

Well, because me and her were two grades apart, it looks like they just did the whole school by. By last name. I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah. Maybe.

[Travis]

Speaking of fans that reached out, we had a fan message us. Dale, they got one of your panini cards that was signed by you and your daughter.

[Andrew]

Did they?

[Travis]

Yes, Michael. I'm gonna. Matt. Just butcher the last name.

[TJ Majors]

What'd say?

[Travis]

Michael Matarassi or something like that. He received one of your panini cards that has you and your daughters writing on it. So.

[TJ Majors]

Yep, I. Y'all broke up there for a second, but I. I have let. Yeah, I think I've let Isla and Nicole sign about two or three of those. So I'm glad that somebody found one. And I wonder if that makes it different, maybe more valuable, maybe just.

[Travis]

I think so imagine if your daughter becomes famous, too. On her own, maybe.

[TJ Majors]

Well, hey, maybe just a nickel more. One. Just a bump. Little bump.

[Andrew]

They're selling it. Yeah, they're selling it for $10 and 5 cents because of it.

[TJ Majors]

So I'll have to look at these pictures, but unfortunately, it looks like they. They literally put the entire school in. In alphabetical order, regardless of grade. So there's like, you know.

[Andrew]

Oh, so you're Gonna have to sift through.

[TJ Majors]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You don't look the same age as a couple of these.

[TJ Majors]

No, me and Kelly are side by side, and we're two years apart, but.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you don't look the same age.

[TJ Majors]

But I appreciate you, Ben. Dude. Man, this is what I wanted.

[Andrew]

I think that's so cool.

[Travis]

How many people were in that school? You said it was small, right?

[TJ Majors]

It was very small, yes. That's probably why they so funny, these kids. All the. My hair is something serious, man. Good Lord.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I see a bass player. I see the guy that calls you about your extended warranty.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, man. It's a pretty interesting character. I need that book. I need to borrow it so I can photo you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Look mad.

[Andrew]

So you can copy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You look like you're mad in your picture. Like, hurry up, take this picture.

[TJ Majors]

Dude, I was jammed to some Bon Jovi in my head.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You know what you were probably doing? Hiding that playboy.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is right after you got in trouble for it.

[TJ Majors]

I think I. For some reason, I remember Charles Davis. Looks familiar.

[Andrew]

Are you on the second tweet?

[TJ Majors]

The second I'm on my page, but you asked me if there were some people that I remember. But anyways. Yeah.

[Andrew]

This next question coming from Mads. They're asking about Wyatt racing at Hickory this past weekend. Did you get a chance to talk to him after. After the race?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I did. I called him. I was. I had taken my girls on a little trip, and so I was with them and didn't get to go to the racetrack to see why it compete, but he was driving a car that Corey Day raced for us about a year ago. Corey took the car to Hickory, and we ran double 40s, and he won one of those. So it's a good little race car. But it's. It's several years old, but it's still a good, competitive, competitive car. Wyatt has been teasing, running some limited stuff, and his dad, lw has been a little hesitant for him to do that because he's so young. He's still, you know, 12, 13 years old and so. But there's kids that age that are racing in pro late models and winning in pros and supers and so late model stocks as well. So, you know, anytime a young kid that age wins in one of those cars, I'll quickly text LW and go, look, you know, this kid can do it. Get Wyatt in our car. But finally we took him and he went and tested a couple times, Felt pretty comfortable. LW was confident that he could go out there and do was a very neat moment because Kelly raced there in the 90s. Her dad, my dad, Dale Earnhardt, raced there in the 70s, and Ralph raced there in the 50s. And Ralph won so much at Hickory that they put a bounty on him, and then they eventually banned him from competing at the track, and he was just. Wasn't even allowed to go. And so. What do you mean?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you win, they try to get others to come in and beat him?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, if you beat Ralph, you got extra thousand bucks, Something like that. And so that didn't work. And then they just outright told him not to come back. And so they eventually lifted that ban after about four or five years. I can't. I've got the information. I haven't really looked into it. I got all the information back at my house about the timeline of that, but. So I'm a little rough with it. But Ralph was. My dad will tell you, and I think you'll see this in the new Earnhardt series that we have coming with, with our new. Our new project. But dad will tell you that Ralph was the best driver out of the family in the whole family. And so that. That whole, you know, the idea that that racetrack has survived to allow for that to happen is a cool thing and that it's still functioning and successful today. And so pretty special. Wyatt has no clue. He has no understanding of the. Of how monumental that is for our family or even his mother or lw. But he got out there, man, and he had a good. I told him, I said. I called him before the race and I said, it's your first race. No pressure. I don't care where you finish. All I care about is that you cross the finish line. Don't crash, don't end your day early. Don't run into the side of somebody and tear your car up. So he's out there running, and he's running like third and fourth, and it looked like he was just going to finish there. There was a good distance between all the cars. They had some late yellows that positioned him in, you know, to be able to go for it at the end. And he almost won, so he got a little closer. He got a little sniff of that lead and. Or the opportunity to win the race, and got pretty aggressive at the end. But he still came home with a car in one piece, finished all the laps, and I was real proud of that.

[Andrew]

That is awesome. So you said he doesn't really know the magnitude of it.

[TJ Majors]

No. He's a kid, and it's not A.

[Andrew]

I mean, maybe that's almost good because that's a lot of pressure to put on a kid.

[TJ Majors]

You know, there's no way for him. No, there's no way for him to understand that. Yeah, but it's cool, man. I mean, I'll be honest with you, man. He's. He. He's better than you think, you know? And, I mean, I've. I've. I've watched him race dirt forever, and it's hard for me to watch a dirt race and understand what's good and what's. What's okay. Like, I can watch an oval asphalt race, and I'll see tiny little details that help me understand that this driver is just slightly better than this other guy. And, like, I could sit here right now and I could confidently. I feel like, confidently handicap the talent in the cup series, xfinity series, truck series. I won't do that, because I don't want to tell you who I don't think is a good driver, but that.

[Travis]

Was my next question.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I'm not going to ever do that, but, like, I can do that. I can sit there and watch an asphalt race and pretty much can tell you this guy's a better driver. He's just a better driver, and I can't do it on dirt. So, like, you know, Kyle Larson or Christopher Bell, I bet they can watch a dirt race and go, yep, this guy's special. And he. And. And the guy in this car is a little better than the guy in this car. I can see him doing X, Y, and Z. I can't see that on dirt. So I've. That's all white's race, so I didn't really know just really how good. Good he was. He's done pretty good on dirt, had a lot of success, won a driller and a couple other things, you know, so. But he got in that car and. And, man, he. He rolled the bottom, turned the corner. I mean, missed a few corners and pushed up and ran wide a couple times. But honestly, he did a million times better than I did in my first race in a car of that type. And so I think that he may be starting off. He may be a bit better than I was.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that is really cool. You mentioned that Earnhardt, Doc, which is going to be on prime coming out soon. Right. Have you been able to see any of it? That question, I think, is from a few weeks ago from Joey, who's actually asking about that. So that kind of plays into what you're talking about.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I've Been. We have been. We. I have seen all four episodes. They're. They're still working on all of that. And it's. It's something. I'll just say that. And I've. Listen, the. That was a documentary. There's really only one great Dale Earnhardt documentary that in my mind has ever been made, and that's the Dale documentary that, that McGee voiced over or McGee wrote it. I think Paul Newman voiced it. And I thought, you know, for anybody that wanted to know anything about Dylan Hart, the Dale doc was the one that I would hand to him and say, don't watch anything else. Nothing else compares. This. This. This right here is what you need to know. Everything. This goes a little bit deeper. Way deeper. This goes way deeper into. This might take you as far as you've ever been into what it would be like to, to. To actually have been in the same room with the guy, lived with him, been his son. I mean, it's real personal. It. It gets, it gets into like who he was as a human being. And a lot of things have always really just celebrated the shell, the man in black, the, the stats, the championships, the wins, the success, the whole, you know, the, the, the Persona. And that's what the Dell doc does to the, to. To. To the fullest. It celebrates how badass of a race car driver this guy was. But this documentary that we're doing with the folks on prime is much more personal and, and several parts of it, man, was really hard to watch. So.

[Andrew]

Really.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Yeah. So it's, but it's, It's. We'll see.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

I hate. I don't want to say too much, but I'm like, I'm really anxious to see the response to it.

[Andrew]

I guess you're getting me excited about it. I'm. I just. That teaser alone, I'm. I'm getting pumped. And there's a lot of people in the chat, by the way, are saying Dale is an amazing movie. The one that the game.

[TJ Majors]

I think that this, this complements the Dale doc in the best way because the Dale doc, again, the Dale doc gives you the man in black, the intimidator, the seven time champion. This one is more about the, you know, who he was on the inside and how we, how we sort of expound on that. And man, I mean, it's just really emotional. The whole thing is very emotional. It's four, four part series. They're all about an hour a piece. And it was hard to get all the stuff into such a small window, but they're working really hard to put together the best product. Product they can, and I'm pretty confident that people are going to enjoy what they see.

[Andrew]

Man, I'm pumped.

[TJ Majors]

There was so much stuff in there that I didn't. Had never seen. So. Yeah, so there's. There's a lot of stuff in there that I hadn't seen. And dad. Dad being himself, you know, and, And. And, you know, we all. He. Most of the stuff that we see about dad, he knows the cameras there and he's got it turned on. But in this. They've got him in a lot of areas where he forgets the camera's there or he doesn't know the camera's there, and you get to hear and see who he really was when the cameras weren't on. And there's some other stuff with Ralph that I didn't know existed. I thought there was only this one little clip of Ralph Earnhardt talking, and it's the interview where he won at Charlotte, and Chris Economacki's interviewing him after the sportsman race that he won or modified race he won at Charlotte. And so that was all that I thought existed in the whole world. If I wanted to hear Ralph's voice and hear his manner, mannerisms, that was it, this little tiny clip. But they found some more stuff that didn't. I didn't know that was out there. And so how do they find that?

[Andrew]

That's crazy. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Damn. Damn good stuff. There's some stuff of my childhood, there's us as kids that I just forgotten about or didn't. Don't remember being available or. And they told me that they were like, dude, we're finding stuff that I know you don't know exists. And they're going to digitize all that and give it to me for me to have. But, yeah, these. This show is going to be a lot for people to. To. To take in.

[Andrew]

Carl Edwards is going to be on the show, the guest show. People are really excited about that. So what are you most looking to learn from that interview and talk to him about?

[TJ Majors]

I just hope Carl's ready to talk about everything. You know, I don't. I haven't really watched a lot of interviews that he's done over the last couple of years, and I know he's pretty much a private guy to an extent now with the hall of Fame induction. It's. He's. He's had to kind of come out of that shell a little bit to come and be here and accept that award. And now he's going to get into broadcasting, so he's sort of turned some corner to where he's a little more open to sharing himself and his family where he had been super private for so long. So I don't know what we're going to get when we start this conversation. I'm going to just dive right in. There's a lot of things that happened in his career that. There's some great things, but there's some also not so great moments that might be tough for him to relive or discuss or share or open up about, but we'll see. I've always. I've always appreciated Carl. I'll say that. You know, we. We had some ups and downs in. In during our career, but always appreciated Carl. Respect his. Respected his ability. Incredible driver. Felt like that he was absolutely robbed of a championship in Homestead that year and can't wait to dive into some of those moments that, you know, shaped his. Shaped the end of his career and how he dealt with that. And. And so, yeah, looking forward to. It's gonna be a. I got a lot. I got a lot of notes to. To get to. And I want to know what was going on with him and Matt when he made Matt flinch at the pit wall at Martinsville. Like, what were y'all doing? What were y'all. What was the argument about? What was. I don't even know what they were mad at and where they were teammates. Why were they not getting along? Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, how do you get that, Carl? And then the Carl Homestead that shakes the guy's hand as a creature just wrecked us. You know what I mean?

[TJ Majors]

I know. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Well, he even said in his hall of Fame speech how intense of a teammate he was. So that would be. Yeah, certainly would be interesting to talk about.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I mean, he described himself at points of his. In his career as. Is not such a great guy, you know.

[Andrew]

Right, right.

[TJ Majors]

And so let's. Let's see what he meant by that. And I mean, I don't know that we need to, you know, make this uncomfortable for him, but there are certain some moments I definitely want to talk to him about Michigan, where I wrecked him off, turn two and relive that and him coming to Victory Lane and all that mess, and we'll see if we can have some fun. The story about how I met his dad, we've told that story before, but there's a front end to that that I. That's never been told. And so that'll be kind of fun to share and see if he Remembers it the way I do.

[Travis]

What was it like racing against Carl?

[TJ Majors]

Carl was a. Carl, for the most part, was absolutely a clean racer. Now, he. He. If you pushed him a bit too far, he could be physical. But for the most, you know, you would expect when you raced Carl that he was going to run you hard and clean. And he was hard. He was fast. Fast. Just, you know, he got more out of the Roush stuff than I think most people would have. That he overachieved in that stuff. Probably kept Roush more competitive because of his own ability than. Than someone else in that car would have, you know, because I feel like when he left Roush, that's really when the team started to struggle and Biffle and those guys could. Couldn't keep it elevated the way they could when Carl was part of it. And so I was actually really nervous when he went to Gibbs. I thought, damn, man, he's going to be. He. I felt like when he got to Gibbs, it was going to be kind of like Harvick and Rodney. That first year SHR is just like, flew onto the scene and just won a ton. But yeah, should be a great conversation. I'm looking forward to it.

[Andrew]

Yes, it should be awesome. That is a good place to wrap Ash Jr. I saw a lot of great questions and I've got. I mean, I have a two pages full of questions that we haven't gotten to yet. So if you haven't heard your question, stay tuned for the next couple Ash Juniors. But good place to wrap it today.

[TJ Majors]

All right, Xfinity Mobile customers get exclusive access to the most powerful WI fi network on the go, with speeds up to a gig for NASCAR fans. That means fast downloads for turn by turn action. Smooth live streaming with fewer pit stops and a strong connection from the parking lot to the grandstands. Thank you, Xfinity Mobile, proud premier partner of nascar. Thank you all for tuning in today. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, it's time for Dirty Modo with Tampa Tim's. This segment of Dirty Modo is brought to you by fanduel. Tims, what was your best bet that you had on Sunday?

[Tampa Tim]

My best bet, I had Josh Barry as the top 400. He was. He was a Rocket. And Penske, a Penske type card.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're welcome because that was my long shot.

[TJ Majors]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Don't forget.

[Tampa Tim]

Yeah, I give TJ that credit.

[TJ Majors]

Wood brothers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Losers.

[Tampa Tim]

Hey, that's good in that car.

[TJ Majors]

Hey. Best finish, I think, ever at Phoenix.

[Tampa Tim]

I saw that. That's very shocking. That's tough to do something for the first time with the Wood brothers.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, buddy. Hey, kid was fast all day long. They had a little problem on pit road. He drove. I was watching his restarts. He was gonna pass. He jumped to the top, was going to pass about 10 of them at one time after he had the issue on pit road till he crashed on the back straightaway. And then he had a couple of more restarts. He went from 10th to fifth on one, went three wide middle on Blaney, and somebody else passed Larson, a couple other guys on a few restart. He was getting after. Man, Josh Barry, we got to celebrate that, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

His qualifying run. I was watching during qualifying. His 3 and 4 in qualifying might have been the best 3 and 4 I've seen all weekend. Like, he nailed his qualifying lap. When he went by, you could just tell it was a good lap, and then he finished it off with a solid race run.

[TJ Majors]

Well, I'm glad Josh Berry helped you.

[Tampa Tim]

Oh, yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Win big on Sunday. How'd the matchups work out?

[Tampa Tim]

Pretty good. I had Denny over Chase elliott at a plus 120. Surprised he was the underdog, honestly, he had him beat pretty much all weekend. And then I had Chris Busher over Brad. Sorry, T.J. heads up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I mean, I. I factored into that. So, I mean, if we keep up this.

[TJ Majors]

What's this five leg parlay you thought you went on.

[Travis]

Hold on a second, though. I want to ask tj what was with. With the Brad accident? What, like, were you seeing there?

[TJ Majors]

What?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, I mean, I saw the wreck, but, I mean, there's nothing you can do.

[Travis]

That's what I'm saying. Like, from your perspective, like, I think a lot of people, as I want to know what the spotter.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I saw the gap and I saw where. Where it was at, and I'm go low, go low, go low. And then we're going low. And then we get clipped in the right rear by the 88, and then we hit the inside wall a little bit, too. So cosmetically, the car was in good shape, but it hit the left front suspension on the inside wall, and it pushed the whole clip over, and it couldn't steer. So. But yeah, the wrecks at Phoenix are usually off a 2. The track gets really narrow, and there's not really anywhere to go. I mean, somebody spins there. You saw, you know, Suarez, they spun in front of him. There's just nowhere to go a lot. And as soon as two or three cars get involved, you really just kind of hoping the wreck doesn't come and get you. And that's what happened. So keeping my streak alive.

[TJ Majors]

Well what you had a five leg parlay tims on Saturday that you thought you won?

[Tampa Tim]

Yeah, so I, I, I did our typical since you're in South Carolina, I had a couple my own five five leg college football a college basketball favorite parlay the four first four legs hit and then I looked at the score of the last game and then I was like oh, this is gonna hit because they were up by like 15 at that point and started drinking and then did not pay attention and woke up and realized I was looking at the wrong team. So the they were losing by 15 and so I celebrated it way too early and woke up and it lost so thought I had that thing one didn't even bother to check the app.

[TJ Majors]

So that's pretty embarrassing.

[Travis]

Did you start drinking because you thought you won your bet?

[Tampa Tim]

Well, it was a plan anyway but I was like okay, we can really party now because I won 15 Idiot.

[Travis]

But yeah, I need Dale to get back into North Carolina because I need a, I need a winning parlay. I haven't hit one in a few days and it's because I've been making them myself.

[TJ Majors]

You shouldn't have been clowning my parlays. I, I now you don't have them and you wish you did.

[Travis]

I was wrong.

[Tampa Tim]

I Grass ain't always greener, Travis. It's not always greener.

[TJ Majors]

I, I still, I could still, still build you some parlays. I just can't bet them. It's true where I'm at.

[Tampa Tim]

Get to work, get to work.

[Travis]

I mean we got games starting here in like an hour.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like I'm ready soon, right?

[Tampa Tim]

12, 12 o'clock ACC championship.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm going to send you guys stats from this college season that we're about to have and I'm going to let you guys bet on the championship game next year. Some over and unders.

[TJ Majors]

All right.

[Tampa Tim]

Yeah, I like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How much Michigan wins by?

[TJ Majors]

Well, what's your picks for this upcoming weekend?

[Tampa Tim]

Well, right now all we have is the outright winners, but it's tough, it's, it's crowd at the top with Larson, Bell, Redick and Byron all pretty much in that same range. Bell might win four in a row. I mean this is kind of he's good here. Larson's good here. I'll give you some value guys that I really like. Alex Bowman, 28 to 1. He's won here before. He's seems to always find his way in the top 10. I think he'll have some speed. And Chris Busher. I don't know. I don't know what the books are thinking, man. 44:1 and this guy is. All he does is top five you to death basically now. So I could see him being surprised. But you know, to be honest, it's gonna be tough to beat the Larson Bell Redick trio.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really.

[Tampa Tim]

Whoever qualifies best I think is probably gonna win between those three.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, man.

[Travis]

I have some matchups for you.

[Tampa Tim]

Get some matchups.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ross usually runs pretty good there, don't he?

[TJ Majors]

Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean I feel like.

[TJ Majors]

And I don't trust Rosh. I don't trust him. Why? They just kind of been wonky. The.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Track house deals kind of been tough to trust for me. I don't know. Ever since the first year in the next gen car they just, they're. They're either really good or not good at all.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well, ever since Ross ran into some cars he should have run into that.

[TJ Majors]

I know. And I don't know why that even matters. I, I know Ross.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's weird, isn't it?

[TJ Majors]

It is weird. It's like I just can't. I can't imagine that a phone call from Rick Hendrick made that man adjust his career so, so aggressively that it changed his production. It just doesn't make any sense. But I just feel like that their program has been, you know, having some, you know, stumbles.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. It happens.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Growing pains.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Tim. So Joey Logano plus 150 against Bell. Heads up.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, I don't know.

[Tampa Tim]

Is that Bell is. I feel like Bell is just. He's on something right now. He is so good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. But if there's a guy that can make that happen.

[Tampa Tim]

Joey.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tampa Tim]

I mean plus 150 for a head to head matchup's pretty good odds. You might just take that just, just in case something happens to Bell.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's what I'm saying. Or a pit strategy comes into play at some point.

[Tampa Tim]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because if Joey's not in the top five they're going to do something crazy at some point to try to give him track position.

[TJ Majors]

That is true.

[Tampa Tim]

I mean Paul Wolf is big ball.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Paul for a reason.

[Tampa Tim]

So.

[Travis]

What about Denny's? Minus 110 versus Byron minus 120. Stay away.

[Tampa Tim]

I'd stay away for right now. Two head too, too.

[TJ Majors]

Even Byron.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Byron for sure.

[Travis]

Here we go. Ross Chestain versus Kyle Busch.

[Tampa Tim]

Oh, who's the underdog there?

[Travis]

Ross is minus.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I feel like Kyle, Kyle would be my long shot for Vegas because that's home track. Sometimes guys seem to run better.

[TJ Majors]

I would take a flyer on that because I, you know, they've. They've this. They've really yet to go to a proper track. I know that Phoenix was kind of that way, but they've really yet to go to a proper track to really see just what RCR has this year with, with Kyle. So I'd go, I take that gamble on Kyle beating, beating him out this weekend.

[Tampa Tim]

Yeah, they're off to a good start, too. Some good finishes, so it's not terrible.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We haven't really had a mile and a half with some characters.

[TJ Majors]

That's his backyard. He's going to want to show out in front of his hometown fans.

[Tampa Tim]

I'll tell you what, our guy, Josh Berry, I don't know what to make of him at Vegas, really, but he's plus 10,000 to win.

[TJ Majors]

Well, he won there in Xfinity series.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I do know. I mean, not that it matters, but he struggled there last year in the cup car, but that situation was not good. You know, it's hard to judge him off of that.

[TJ Majors]

So, yeah, that's a low risk, high reward kind of thing. Yeah, look at it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I think Blaney does really good at Vegas. He's been fast there. And if they. If he tends to migrate towards how Blaney is, if he's his similar driving style, similar setup, he could very well go to Vegas and be very successful. So I would not be afraid to take a gamble on Josh Berry.

[Tampa Tim]

Yeah, that. I like the. The Penske Wood Brothers background there. I think that's a difference maker for him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, momentum. He's got momentum, too, and that's hard to beat sometimes.

[Tampa Tim]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

All right, that'll do it for the Dirty Mo Doe segment, brought to you by FanDuel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. Thank you, Tampa Tim's for coming through. All right, it's time for the white white flag. The tear down was live on YouTube following the race Denny Hamlin also taped on Sunday night. Actions detrimental. Thank you, Denny, for getting that done. He's out on the road between races at Phoenix and Vegas. DBC dropped on Monday. They had some good thoughts on what to do with the option tire. And I wonder if we agree tomorrow my interview with Carl Edwards will drop. Fans have been calling for this interview for a while. Everyone's going to be checking that out, man. The. The Wednesday DJD guest segment has gotten off to a great start this year between Carl and Cletus and a few others. Speed Street. And Herman Schrader also dropped on Wednesday. Thursday, another episode of Bless yous Heart with my wife, Amy. We're going to recap from Amy. Her girls trip in Miami.

[Travis]

Seemed like it was fun.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. We'll see what she remembers.

[Travis]

Hopefully nothing, right?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I don't know. I. I had never really spent tons of time in Miami, so I have no idea. Like, I have no frame of reference. Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There was that one time, but.

[TJ Majors]

Well, we went. Yeah, but, I mean, we. We've been there. It was years ago, but tabloids liked it.

[Travis]

And how much do you remember from that trip?

[TJ Majors]

Not a whole lot. So we'll see how. We'll see how she enjoyed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Made tabloids.

[TJ Majors]

Really? Panama City, I think.

[Travis]

Oh, I love Panama City. Club La Villa.

[TJ Majors]

That's where we win. There's like five different bars in that.

[Travis]

Place is right there. Love that place.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. All right, so enjoy the show. Tj thanks for coming through. I know you were dreading the conversation around the championship loss.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, it's not the first time.

[TJ Majors]

Thanks for being a good sport.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Always.

[TJ Majors]

Yep. And, yeah, we'll see y'all next week. Ben hadn't had a decent night's sleep in a month. So during one of his restless nights, he booked a package trip abroad on Expedia. When he arrived at his beachside hotel, he discovered a miraculous bed slung between two trees and fell into their best suit. Sleep of his life. You were made to be rechargeable. We were made to package flights and hotels and hammocks for less. Expedia. Made to travel.