Only Rule…Don’t Be A D***

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dale Jr. Download

Episode Title: Only Rule…Don’t Be A D***
Date: September 23, 2025
Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Guest: Ryan Blaney
Co-hosts/Contributors: TJ, Russell, Travis
Produced by: Dirty Mo Media & SiriusXM

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his crew dive into a lively exploration of current NASCAR headlines, with a special focus on the Ty Gibbs vs. Denny Hamlin teammate saga, team dynamics, the "only rule" for teammates, race recaps, and plenty of personal anecdotes. The show features an in-depth, candid interview with Cup Series driver Ryan Blaney, covering everything from his recent win at New Hampshire, technical next-gen car chat, Team Penske’s teamwork philosophy, and Blaney’s forthcoming adventure into fatherhood.
Tone: Candid, friendly, insightful, packed with lighthearted racing banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Racing Banter & Daily Life (00:00–13:50)

• Dale opens with lighthearted conversation about sunglasses, internet algorithms, and quirky YouTube recommendations.
• Group discussion about falling asleep to monotone World War history channels and “facts to fall asleep to.”
• Parenting chat: Dale and TJ talk about their kids’ organized activities and the logistics of juggling sports, dance, gymnastics, and more.
  • Quote: “When do we get to the point where something has to fall away? When do you say, ‘You can do this, but you gotta lose something else?’” – Dale Jr. (10:00)

2. Beef Jerky, Family Health, and Random Stories (13:11–13:49)

• Light product banter about Dirty Mo Media-branded beef jerky as the crew jokes about healthy snacking.

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3. Core Racing Segment: Ty Gibbs vs. Denny Hamlin Team Drama (13:50–26:40)

• Hot Topic: Teammates Ty Gibbs and Denny Hamlin’s on-track controversy.
  • Social media poll says most fans support Denny.
  • Dale’s take: Ty’s history of not being the best teammate, referencing past incidents with Brandon Jones and others.
• Teammate Etiquette: Dale and the gang reflect on the unspoken NASCAR “rule”: Don't make it harder for a playoff teammate to advance.
  • Quote: “Like it or not, your teammates should be the easier cars to pass on the track.” – Dale Jr. (21:16)
  • Discussion on the pressures and visibility of team actions (“All the people that are at home, who work in the engine shop, are gonna go, what the hell is he thinking?” – Dale Jr., 16:12).
• Debate the wisdom of Ty Gibbs’ move. Dale: "Year three in the cup series... Where is the processing here? Why aren't we processing the obvious common sense thing to do in these situations?" (22:36)
• Leadership at Joe Gibbs Racing and the importance of internal accountability.
  • Notable Moment: Calls this a “teaching moment” for Ty Gibbs, with ramifications for the team’s reputation.

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4. Special Guest In-Studio: Ryan Blaney Interview

(28:51–64:10; picks up again after a segment break)

A. Racing Technique & New Hampshire Recap (29:03–36:57)

• Blaney explains why the next gen car can use more lanes at New Hampshire, the impact of tire compound tests, and adapting on the fly as track conditions change.
  • Quote: “I can’t tell you how we run the fourth lane... That started like two years ago… it was like three tenths faster.” – Ryan Blaney (30:22)
  • Discusses how tire selection and fall-off affects race quality: “When the tire’s softer, you have more movement, you can slide it... As opposed to a brick, that’s just twitchy.” – Blaney (35:02)

B. Penske Team Culture & Playoff Strategy (38:12–43:50)

• Dale asks about Team Penske’s ethos—Blaney emphasizes the unique teamwork across Penske and Wood Brothers, especially during playoffs.
  • “Roger (Penske) doesn’t care who runs first or second. He just wants to run first and second.” – Blaney (41:49)
  • Roger Penske’s “only rule” for teammates: "Just don’t wreck each other trying to win.” – Blaney (41:49)

C. Expanding on Teammate Rifts and Respect (43:50–46:41)

• Revisit the Denny/Ty Gibbs incident and compare it to past team frictions, including Dale’s own history at DEI with Michael Waltrip.
  • Memorable Confessional: “I’m guilty of it... I didn’t mean to wreck Michael, but I was mad.” – Dale Jr. (45:27)

D. Fatherhood & Life Changes (55:34–64:10)

• Blaney shares personal anecdotes as an expectant father: ultrasound experiences, supporting his wife through early pregnancy struggles, and nerves about parenting.
  • Quote: “Going to an ultrasound is pretty cool... we’re right at, like, two months out now. He’s the size of a piglet.” – Ryan Blaney (55:55)
  • Group gives new-dad advice—lots of humor about getting peed/thrown up on, and the surreal moment of driving home from the hospital for the first time.
• “It’s wild… You get pissed on, you get thrown up on, but that’s your right. It’s your kid.” – Blaney (63:43)

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5. Listener Q&A – “Ask Jr.” (66:51–92:26)

• Dale fields wide-ranging questions, from teammate conflicts (reliving the Michael Waltrip incident) to trading in his truck, phone habits, and card games.
• Lighter moments include debates about technology and clutter, childhood games, and collecting race memorabilia.
  • “Honestly, I would love for all of us to go back to flip phones.” – Dale Jr. (82:20)
  • “I’m starting to think I ought to start shedding [my racing sheetmetal collection]… It just sits in a shop that doesn’t see the light of day.” – Dale Jr. (92:02)
• Fans engage via YouTube chat, with Dale and team responding in real time.

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6. Dirty MoDough: Race Betting & Predictions (96:45–119:19)

• Dale, Russell, and the crew analyze the upcoming Kansas race—crunching stats, recent results, and sharing their parlay picks.
  • Use of a “cheat sheet” of average race finishes to guide picks.
    • “I have the average finishes from Kansas... I’m taking advantage.” – Dale Jr. (98:13)
• Spirited debate about who will be the top Chevy/Toyota/Ford, and matchup picks (e.g., Chastain vs. Reddick, Chase vs. Logano).
  • “You need to start falling asleep to racing facts.” – Dale Jr. (108:02)
• Each provides their own “parlay” (top driver pick), often with disagreement and plenty of laughter.

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7. Show Wrap & What’s Next (119:45–end)

• Teasers for upcoming podcast episodes (Robin Pemberton’s return, “Bless Y’all’s Heart” with Amy, and The Dirty 30 recap).
• Final jokes about resolving team differences: “Just take [Ty Gibbs] fishing. You can’t run—he’s stuck on a boat.” – Dale Jr. (46:46 & recurring as a bit throughout to lighten tense topics).

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• “Your teammates should be the easier cars to pass on the racetrack.” – Dale Jr. [21:27]
• “Just don’t wreck each other trying to win. Race as hard as you want, but please just don’t wreck each other doing it, because then we look like fools.” – Roger Penske’s only rule, relayed by Ryan Blaney [41:49]
• “This is a big teaching moment for Ty, well beyond next week.” – Dale Jr. [22:55]
• “I didn’t like come down the straight thinking, ‘I’m gonna wreck him.’ I just got to his back bumper – I didn’t think I’d spin him.” – Dale Jr., on his DEI teammate drama [45:27]
• “Going to an ultrasound is pretty cool... We’re right at, like, two months out. He’s the size of a piglet.” – Ryan Blaney [55:55]
• “I always tell myself, like, all right—you get peed on, you get thrown up on. It’s just you; it is your right.” – Blaney [63:44]
• On being a good teammate: “I was always in the Hendrick stuff, the class clown in the room, the one that’s gonna say something, trying to make everybody laugh.” – Dale Jr. [74:12]

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Important Segments & Timestamps:

• Ty Gibbs/Denny Hamlin Incident Dissection [14:40–26:40]
• Ryan Blaney, In Studio [28:51–64:10]
• Fatherhood and New Experiences [55:34–64:10]
• Ask Jr. Fan Questions [66:51–92:26]
• Dirty MoDough (Race Predictions/Betting) [96:45–119:19]

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Episode Takeaways

• Teammate Dynamics Matter: NASCAR’s unwritten rule about teamwork (“don’t be a dick”) remains critically important and under scrutiny—especially in the playoffs.
• Personal Accountability: Both Dale and Ryan Blaney reflect honestly on their own missteps and lessons learned as team players.
• Racing’s Human Side: The episode beautifully blends racing technicalities, statistical bravado, and deeply personal moments off the track—especially as Blaney contemplates new fatherhood.
• Fan Engagement: The show’s casual, conversational tone, openness to fan questions, and genuine camaraderie make it both informative and entertaining.
• Humor as Medicine: Reframing tense topics (“take Ty fishing; he can’t escape!”) both disarms and underscores the episode’s real theme: competitive spirit doesn’t excuse poor sportsmanship.

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For listeners and fans:
This episode delivers a high-energy, opinion-packed, and often hilarious look into the realities of NASCAR’s team culture and competition, while also offering a rare, heartfelt window into drivers’ off-track lives. Whether you want debriefs of racing controversies or new-dad anecdotes, Dale Jr.’s open-mic approach keeps it fresh and fun.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Maybe you can take Ty fishing.

There you go.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, I saw. Denny's a big fisherman, huge fisher.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You should take him fishing, man.

Yeah, that way he can't run or leave. He's stuck on the boat. He'll have to listen to everything you.

[Ryan Blaney]

Say because of the implications.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend or.

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

[Russell]

Who was your best man, Dale?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tj. Tj, you don't need a cool vest for that race. What are you thinking? Get him, DJ Hell. Way to start the show.

All right, then.

Hey, everybody. Hey, Everybody. It's Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. And it's Tuesday. It's time for some dirty air. And tj, my co host, is here. Got some glasses sitting there. Tj. What's up with those?

I like sunny out, man.

Are they high dollar?

No, not really. High dollar.

Oh, yeah. Local.

Local guy.

Yeah. All right. They look like some Louis Vuitton or some.

They're Johnny. They're Johnny Fi. Same thing. They're Johnny Fi's man.

Man. I was on my Internet the other day and I saw this.

Oh, boy.

You know, my algorithm fed me a video of a guy that was Snorkeling. This lady dropped her Louis Vuitton sunglasses at a pier. And the pier, there's a lot of big houseboats, like, you know, 80 to 100 foot houseboats on this pier. So it's. I don't know where it is, but it's 45 foot to the bottom where she dropped these glasses. Dude. Snorkeling. He's in full gear. She must have paid him to come out there to get these glasses. I'm sure he gets in the water, he's got this rope straight to the bottom. And he goes straight down to the bottom and finds these glasses in like less than a minute. Like, it's literally right where she dropped it. Yeah, right. And he snorkels right back up to the top, hands them to the lady. She's happy as can be. Those must be expensive if you're paying.

Somebody to snorkel down. Go get them.

Yeah. I wonder what those glasses cost. Does anybody have a clue how much those might cost? Louis Vuitton. Is that my even saying it right?

Yeah, probably. Maybe.

Yeah. What is that?

Oh, yeah, they're diving to go get them. 600 bucks.

[Russell]

No, because, I mean, the diver is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Going to cost like that, surely. Yeah.

The dive itself, I would do women's, because women's are probably gonna cost more.

Wonder what. I wonder what the dive cost. All right, so the glasses. Let's say the glasses were anywhere from 700 to $1,000. Okay.

Yeah, that's a good estimate. I don't know.

Yeah. 600 to 600 to 900 bucks. So it looked like. I don't know. I'm not gonna say. Let's say they were 750 bucks. So I wonder what retrieving.

Yeah, wait, go back a page here, Travis, real quick. And look at the bottom middle.

500 bucks for retrieving.

3400 for what? Talking about those glasses right there.

All right, that ain't him. This was more the ones to the left. That $750 pair got you to the right.

You can see, you could.

Okay, so I bet it was $500 to get them. So if it's. If it's an item that's worth 750 bucks, is it? Is paying less than what the item is worth justifying in your mind maybe that it's worth it to go get them. Hey, it's only going to cost me 500 bucks to hire somebody to get them. They're $750 glasses.

I bet it was only like a hundred bucks to go get them.

Dude, he was in full gear and he went 45 foot down. That's like a. You know, that's risky.

Yeah, but it's. He's getting. He's making content for himself to put on the ED stuff.

So he did have some content.

And there's.

Create some content.

There's a lot of people that dive down and find things in marinas and things like that.

Yeah.

So, hey, good for him.

Yeah, I was I. Pretty exciting.

Your algorithm sounds exciting.

Yeah, my algorithm is pretty good.

Wonder what else you have searched to create that algorithm.

I don't know. I have. So Amy's been sick and she's had a cold or something, and I've had a cold. And when we get sick, we divide and conquer. Like, she's going to sleep. I'm going to sleep in the Elvis room when I'm sick. She sleeps down there when she's sick. And then Junebug's had some problems too. And so we've been. We've been. I've been sleeping by myself up in the. Up in the master for the last couple week or so. And man, it is like old times. When I was alone, living as a bachelor, I would go to sleep to the military channel and they, you know, because they talk in monotone.

Yeah, they do.

1944.

You know, France just puts you to sleep.

Yeah, the front lines of France. They talk in monotone and it's like, oh, man, this puts me right to sleep. Just makes it go. And I'm thinking, you know, hey, if it's true that you kind of absorb things while you're asleep, I'm kind of learning. I'm getting smarter. Right. If I'm learning about history while I'm sleeping, I don't wake up and remember this stuff. But maybe somewhere trapped in there, it's in there.

[Russell]

Trivia night.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You'll recall it. Something will jar it loose. One day, 10 years down the road. And I go, oh, I know what happened that day.

[Russell]

Journal, patent.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I don't know if this is true.

Oh, yeah, that's how it works.

I don't.

They do say, like, if you do.

[Russell]

It right before you go to bed, you like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You're a guy. You're supposed to believe this. It's almost mandatory for a man to think this. Okay.

Yeah, it sounds great. You know, I fall asleep. The math equations.

And so I've been listening to on my YouTube, I've been listening to. There's literally a channel that makes like one and one out, one and a half hour long. Videos of facts. It'll be like, World War I, World War II, whatever. Pretty much. I guess any war you want. And it's just facts of that particular war. And I'll be honest. I'm asleep in two minutes. Like, I've really heard none of this, but it says It's World War II. Facts to sleep to or to go to sleep to. Not facts that will shock you. Or it's not like. Yeah, there it is. 24 hours of World War I. Facts to fall asleep to that.

Is it the fact that you.

Isn't that awesome?

I can't even believe you know this channel.

It's my algorithm. I didn't find it. I didn't search it, but now there's gonna be more nose man. It's like, hey, Dale, we know exactly what you want to fall asleep to. This is perfect.

So if you just search for facts to fall asleep to.

I don't search anything.

I know, but I'm saying, I wonder what a popular one is other than war ones. Like, search for.

My algorithm sent me this, and I'm like, oh, perfect. It must know that. That I'm in. I'm in the master bed alone tonight, so it knows. Yeah.

Here's some war facts for you. Yeah, Travis, Search facts to fall asleep to.

Just see what comes up. Just facts to fall asleep.

Yeah.

Any type of facts.

Sure.

Regular facts.

Yeah. I mean, life.

Okay. Three hours. World War II. Facts to fall asleep to.

There's a dream mix. Look at four more hours of incredible.

Oh, my gosh. Wow. That is even better.

See? You're welcome.

Space and science Facts to fall asleep, too, dude. Oh, man.

Beyond Earth. That's so good.

Five hours of incredible facts to fall asleep.

He's going to tell us aliens.

Is this not, like, what you want to do tonight? Is this not. Dude, this is me. This is me.

Do you want to go home and go to sleep right now?

I'm all about this. I am definitely going to Two hours of Nintendo facts. The unfortunate. The unfortunate part is, I think tonight everybody's gonna be sleeping in the beds together. So, good news. I'm not sure Amy's gonna watch.

She's gonna learn about space tonight. She doesn't even know it.

Because when me and Amy started living together, she's like, hey, can we turn TV off? I'm like, no, now we don't do that.

Yeah, I was going to ask how that went.

And so for the first little while, you know, we listen to the military channel, and she's like, man, I can't do this with the bombs and everything. Can't do it.

I mean, I agree with her on this one.

You wake up and Pearl harbor is going on like, yeah. So hey, I could deal with it.

Ancient history, facts.

I could deal with it, but man.

[Russell]

Oh, you want some Pokemon facts?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm just now learning about all of the great videos of facts to fall asleep to. I thought it was just war, but now it's space and science. I wish I would have known this, but next time that someone in the house is ill and then distancing themselves so that you know, because what happens is like Amy will get sick or I'll get sick. And it's like, hey, man, one of us got to stay. Okay. So we can do things with the kids.

[Russell]

I've got an idea. Let's do a NASCAR video. Well, three hours of nascar. Fun to fall asleep too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's no days off. We got. We got dance. Fortunately, they both go on the same day. We got gymnastics. And now heads up, Isla's gonna get into cheering. Ooh, yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking, man, when do we get to the point to where something has to fall away? Like when do we get, you know, when do we get to where you have to go, all right, we're going to do this, but you have to lose something else.

[Russell]

But they all those all kind of work together but not going to lose them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Eventually they're going to schedule over each other and you're going to have to pick.

Right?

So that's what happens. And they're going to decide they're going to might go to gymnastics and realize they don't like it and they're going to be like, yeah, I don't want right now.

I think gymnastics is the most popular cheer. Will probably get up there. Cheers. Gonna take some getting used to. Because she'll have to do stuff in front of people which she doesn't really understand yet.

Dance gets really serious after a certain age.

Dancing is actually slipping down the. Yeah, the line.

It becomes a full time job at some point and it's really.

Well, I'm enjoying them being involved in some organized activities. But I want some sports. Can we like a sport?

[Russell]

Listen. Cheering. You're moving that way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Can we get into soccer or something?

Maybe we should take over to miss episode competition. Yeah. So Stella actually told me she wants to play soccer now.

Hell yes. So encourage.

Maybe she can get out.

Encourage this. You need some competition.

[Russell]

That's your job, tj.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right.

I mean it could bleed. Blend over. Bleed over into my household.

Well, we have taken them over to Mazeppa before. Remember this?

Yes, we did. But if she sees her out competing, maybe I take her to a game. Because I've asked Islam like, you, man, you want to do a little soccer there? They're getting the team together. She. No, no, I don't want to do that. It's crazy. What are you thinking? I'm like, oh, soccer? Yeah. She's, like, doing soccer, but me and her will get out in the yard. She'll kick it around.

Yeah.

But anyhow, we got Ryan Blaney coming into the studio. Dude, he's the winner. He's going to call in, but he texted me this morning and asked if he could come in here in person because he has. He needs an autograph.

He's excited.

Yep. He's got a family member that needs something from Dirty Mo Media or Junior Motorsports. So he's coming on by, and I might give him some free jerky.

Perfect guy to give it to.

Yeah. Jerky Boys is back in stock.

[Russell]

That's better than getting a lobster.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Same day delivery. If you order.

We are rocking and rolling with this jerky. Dude, I could eat a bag a day.

It's easy to do.

It's so good. And it is. The one bag is only. It's not as big as 1800 or. Sorry. One bag is only 180 calories. I mean, that's a snack. That's really good.

All right, wait, wait. One bag is only.

One bag is 180 calories.

I would have thought it'd be way better.

Beef Jerky's Super Lean TJ and we use some really good stuff. So it's 60 calories per serving. Three servings in a bag.

Good to know.

If you eat a. You know, if you eat a protein bar or any kind of thing like that for in the middle of the day, that's going to be about a 200 to 250 or 230 calorie meal or snack easily. Yeah. Which is nothing against those. I eat those two. But jerky's just so good. Yeah. Let's talk a little racing. I guess there's a lot going on in life, but we're going to go just right to racing, so we're going to talk about that. We have Dirty Modeau coming up. Later, we'll talk about our parlays. Also, let's talk about Ty Gibbs and Denny. Some fan on Twitter this morning I saw posted basically a poll. You're on Denny's side, you're on Ty's side or you're indifferent.

Oh, boy.

And it was over 50% to Denny, 13 and 20 to the others. Something like that. Listen, I think everybody understands what happened here. And I think, you know, did Denny have to spin him out to send his message? Was it necessary for Danny to wreck him into the wall Now? Probably not, but damn it. Got to look at Ty's history of, you know, similar innocence, kind of being a little. I don't know, I don't know what the word is. I'm trying to choose here.

Not a good teammate.

Yeah, he's not been a great teammate at times. Run. You know, kind of been. Has had some moments with. Obviously one of the more popularized ones would be Brandon Jones at Martinsville, but I remember him having some run ins with some other folks that were in the Gibbs Xfinity cars. And I, you know, I have a hard time kind of trying to figure out Ty Gibbs, don't you?

Yeah. I don't. Like, why. Why would you do this?

Listen, I've been around Ty Gibbs before, and every time I'm around him, he's kind of. He's okay. He's cool.

Yeah, he's fine.

But I have a hard time understanding, like, what was his. What?

Motive.

What was his motive? So Denny is right in saying, look, man, you know, you're not in the playoffs. We are. You're our teammate. Like, he'll totally let him go if he's better.

Sure.

Well, the thing that I think about is not. I mean, look, I. If I'm racing my teammate and he's in the playoffs and I'm not like, I'm not even thinking about him in the car, I'm letting him go. Because all of this crew is crew chief, the engineer, the team owner, all of the employees of the team, like the team manager, gm, everybody who's present is seeing this. And I mean, I'm totally going to make myself a. By running him hard, even for a couple corners. Employees, all the people that are building these cars and making these cars every week are going to see you do that. The people that are at home, the people that work in the engine shop, all the people that are sitting on their couch, that are employees of this operation, that are sitting at home watching, they're gonna go, what the hell is he thinking?

Yeah. Especially in this instance.

All of their friends are gonna text them. You know, the engine guy that does the heads, he's sitting on his couch and he's like, God dang, Ty.

[Russell]

These people that. Working hard for their money, like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then his buddy's texting him. What the hell's wrong with Ty? I don't know. God dang. I'm mad too, you know, and it's just like it, you know?

Yeah. I don't. I don't know what you're.

You just. I don't get it. I don't know what his motive is. Like, I can understand. Maybe he's not a huge fan of Denny. Maybe him and Denny don't have much of a relationship. I don't know. Maybe they have a great relationship, but it doesn't seem like. Right if you're.

[Russell]

But he also did it with Christopher. He was raised in Bellhart to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Though maybe you don't have a good relationship with any of them.

[Russell]

Could be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Or, you know, I don't know.

At the end of the day though, don't you look at the big picture and be like, hey, you know that these are my teammates. Like.

Like the. Listen, that's why this feels so silly. Talking about the common sense approach to this. It's absolutely obvious, like what Ty should have been thinking or doing, but he didn't.

The only way that I could probably justify that.

I can't figure it out. I can't justify it.

Well, I was going to say if Ty had like the best car most of the day and he slipped up a little bit and he was, you know, he had the car to beat and he thought he could win. But this where they're running here. I don't see how you don't let him go.

You have to. You have to.

[Russell]

What do you make of Denny saying is. Is anybody. Are they all scared to talk to him?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I mean there's.

Yeah, I think Denny has a. Denny's very good at pushing buttons. Danny is very good. This is. This is not. Denny doesn't really. Denny's mashing a button right there.

Yeah, he's actually.

You know how Danny gets out of the car and says something to the crowd? That's what Denny's doing. Denny's like, hey, is anybody gonna tell this kid?

[Russell]

I think that. I don't think it was just a mash of the button though. I think that was a calculated, like, he doesn't just.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What is it?

That's what he said.

Okay.

[Ryan Blaney]

Sorry, I wasn't.

[Russell]

I thought you were just saying like he's just mad. Just saying.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, he's just like. He's prodding, he's poking.

Yeah. No, this is very Calculate. Yeah. This isn't an off the wall smart ass. Not.

Denny is prodding the head. You Know the big heads it Gibbs. Yeah. To do something.

[Russell]

He's saying that they sent it to Gabe Hart.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's messaged. Yeah.

Because he also said already that, well, Coach Gibbs got on there. What Coach Gibbs say he's going to let the drivers figure it out.

Yeah.

Like that's Denny not happy with that.

[Russell]

Well, and then he said, I asked him what his response to Coach Gibbs saying that and he goes, well, I think Ty and I are going to have different opinions. And that's where you now need leadership to come in. And whatever they said as the rule, that's what I'll follow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I'll say this like the dry. Like Ty Gibbs did a good job post, post crash keeping his, you know, keeping his opinions to himself. That could have. That could made things a lot worse. Denny as well, in all of you know, in everything I've seen, Denny's been very diplomatic about it. So that's a positive. Everybody's. This is, this is not great. Not a good look and a tough little scenario for Joe Gibbs Racing to have to navigate. They looked like coming out of the last couple of weeks to have all the momentum. Right.

[Russell]

13 in a row they go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And so they go into this race or go forward in these playoffs looking like, you know, a team with a real chance to take this title. You see Chris, Gabe Hart in the meeting. That was a little clip on social media saying, I think the champion comes out of this room talking about the drivers, Joe Gibbs Racing. And then you have this happen. Right. And it's. If your leadership at Joe Gives racing, you're like, guys, come on. Like we have all this momentum now. We're, now, now we're the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons. That's, that's frustrating if you're, you know, if you're Chris or somebody in a leadership role. And I think I would assume that they're all going to, they are, they are going to sit down with Ty and say, hey, this is avoidable. And this, you know, this wasn't, this wasn't your day to be doing this. If we're on race 10, fine. But this is the playoffs and these are critical moments and critical positions. And to Denny's point, like it or not, your teammates should. Should be the easier cars to pass on the racetrack.

Should be.

Absolutely. And it sucks to be out of the playoffs. It sucks to be a teammate out of the playoffs when you have the other three in the playoffs. I live that. So, you know, and you hate you're out there Running your ass off. You've had a hard year. You're not. You know, you're not happy with how your years went. You're frustrated. And your teammates, you know, now you're on the racetrack and you're having to. You're having to basically lay over for these guys and.

But they've earned that.

I know. I'm just saying.

Yeah, yeah.

Look, I'm not defending.

No, I know.

I'm just saying that it's a not. It's not a fun place to be, but you got to do it. You gotta. You gotta understand who all sees what's happening.

This is year three for Ty.

Right. I saw. I don't know. Year three. What.

I'm just saying, year three of him in the cup series, like he's season four.

I mean. Yeah, but. I mean, he. I. Yes. Year three in the cup series, but what about the years in the xfinity series? Where's the.

He's got a lot of experience, in my opinion.

You're not a rookie. No. Where is the processing here? Right. Why aren't we processing, like, the obvious common sense thing to do in these situations?

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Like, we're too far into it to be. This is just a rookie mistake.

[Russell]

Your name's. Your last name is Gibbs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You.

[Russell]

You should hold. You know, look at it differently.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I just feel so silly saying all these common sense things that should have. This should have never happened. This is a big teaching moment for Ty, well beyond, like, next week and his racing career and all of that, like, how they manage this little. This little hiccup, what happened on the racetrack. It sucks. He shouldn't have raced them like he did. He got wrecked by his teammate, Denny. All that sucks. All right? You put it in the rearview mirror. You go into the meeting, you talk about it. Ty should, I think, stand up and say I up. Should let y' all guys go. I don't know what I was thinking. That was foolish of me. Won't happen again going forward in these playoffs. You got my word. I'm going to be a good teammate. And because this has long, you know, overreaching sort of ram of implications, people are going to. People look, you know, Joe Gibbs racing, right. It's got a long future in front of it. How they manage these little issues determine the reputation of that company. Right. And the standing and credibility of that company and the integrity of the company. Right. And I'm sure they're going to nail it. I'm sure they'll handle this perfectly and it'll be fine. This won't be a big stain on their reputation going forward, but people are watching. People are going to want to see how and if and when and how it's managed. Right.

Wouldn't that have already happened after the Brandon Jones incident? I mean, you would think that that situation already would have happened.

Well, Brandon's back there racing with him.

But, you know, I'm just that.

I mean, they must have handled it.

[Russell]

Well, clearly they didn't handle it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's what I'm saying. Like.

Well, look, I'm. I don't know. I mean, there is obviously something that he needs to learn. I'm not, you know, nobody's sitting here arguing that.

But is any who this is? I think this is where Denny's pushing them to like.

[Russell]

Yeah, but the difference is now it's Denny speak it up and not Brandon Jones. With all due respect to Brandon.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Exactly. Good point. Look, I think. I think that it'll. I think, you know, gay part don't bull. And I know he, you know, when asked after the race, he was like, everybody ought to be worried about the Penske cars. You know, we're sitting, you know, hell with this little, you know, dispute. And we'll. He'll handle that behind closed doors this week. But, you know, he's like, we ought to be worried about how the Penske cars ran today. They're untouchable, and this is basically Phoenix.

Yeah.

Which is.

Right.

Yeah. Which is true. I mean, that's the biggest.

Instead of talking about the next race.

Yeah.

They are worried about this incident that happened on the track.

Yeah. They'll handle it. They'll handle it. Gabe Hart's in a different role now. He's not a crew chief. He's. He's kind of more of a general manager. He's also been more hands on as a crew chief in that role with. With Ty this year. So I think Gabe Hart has the ability and he'll be one, if not the person that sort of sets the tone and puts his foot down and says, this is the expectation. So we should be able to, I think, I would assume, see a change or see Ty Gibbs make different choices next time.

Do you think this is a big point in Ty's career? Because if he doesn't make a change right here, where does it go from here?

Yeah, I think he'll make the change because where does he go from here? I mean, he's going to drive. He's going to drive that car as long as he wants.

No matter what.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. Listen, I mean, it was a dumb thing, but it wasn't like career ending. Just raced his teammate hard. Didn't he wreck him? Said, hey, I'm sending you a message and there's a lot of fun going on in the social media and on our shows and stuff like this around it, but it's, it's correctable. Our winner is here. Let's bring him on in the studio. Ryan Blaney. Hey everybody, It's Dylan Hart Jr. If you're looking for one hell of a weekend packed with big time racing, live music, great times, you need to get to Charlotte Motor Speedway October 3rd through the 5th for the bank of America Roval 400. It's a unique track for a playoff race, a test of both strategy and skill for the drivers and teams. And by the end of Sunday's race, four drivers are going to see their championship hopes end as they get knocked out of the playoffs. I'm sure it's going to be a wild one. The weekend kicks off Friday with the Craftsman Truck Series and then Saturday you've got the Xfinity Series with the Blue Cross North Carolina 250 on Sunday before the green flag, country star Earnest is taking the stage for a live pre race concert. You won't want to miss it. And then it's time to see which 12 cup drivers will advance and who will be eliminated from the playoffs. Racing, music, camping, cold beer. It's how you got to do it every single race weekend. And it's right here at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Go to charlottemotorspeedway.com for tickets now. The NASCAR playoffs are here and so is your chance to bring the intensity home. Celebrate every pass, pit stop and photo finish with a collect collectible car from Lionel Racing, the official die cast of nascar. Built for fans who live for the chase, Lionel Racing Diecast is the ultimate trophy. Each car is precision crafted featuring authentic paint schemes and hand applied decals. Plus, each 1:24 scale die cast is part of a limited edition run, making every piece a must have for true collectors. Whether you're riding with Team Larson, backing Team Hanlon, or cheering for an underdog to take it all, Lionel Racing has the die cast that reps your favorite playoff driver. Follow along with us throughout the playoffs to see which drivers advance and which ones don't. We'll feature these diecasts on the set here at the Dale Jr. Download now through the end of September. Get free US shipping when you purchase the Cup Series diecast of a NASCAR playoff Driver, just go to lionel racing.com and use promo code playoffs. That's promo code playoffs@lionel racing.com. so Ryan Blaney is in the studio. Ryan, come by to get an autograph for a charitable initiative. So happy to do that. And thanks for being here in person, man.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, thanks for helping me out. I've had that replica helmet for a while, really. And I've been meaning to get it signed from you. And my mother has been. She made sure I got it signed. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Great opportunity.

[Ryan Blaney]

That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So coming. Coming off a win at New Hampshire, fun racetrack. I always kind of enjoyed racing there. And it's changed a little bit since the older cars. Like, you couldn't. You had to kind of. You couldn't touch a seam. And I know maybe it's probably still that way. Yeah, but you guys use a lot more racetrack now than we used to. Can you explain to me? Because I've never driven the next gen at that racetrack. I've hardly got a lap or two in the next gen period, anywhere. But why can you go all over the racetrack with that race car? Particularly, like, mainly, like, up. Up the racetrack where the old ceiling sat.

[Ryan Blaney]

Well, like, you know, I think when in the old car, like when you were running, we would only, like, we would only get to that second lane, you know, Like, I think if you were in the third lane, you missed the corner. So you were kind of limited to two lanes. And I think it started us running the third lane, like in maybe 20 or 21, they put all that. They put all that sticky stuff down in the third lane and the first lane to try to get wider. And they haven't put anything down in years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think it's been a long time.

[Ryan Blaney]

Three years or something. Four years. But there's still a little bit left, really, like, in that third lane. I can't tell you how we run the fourth lane, like, out of the main groove. I have no idea. That started, like two years ago. I think it was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Erik Jones was running one lane off the wall in the middle of the corner. Both ends wild.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. I remember. I forget who did it first, like, two or three years ago, but you were like, holy. It was like three tenths faster.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

And everyone just started bombing it off in there. And I didn't think it was as good this past weekend. That fourth lane.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I don't think it was as it was either. It was a Band Aid a little bit. If you weren't running, turning.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. You could, like, protect up there. You could just. But the fast guys weren't up there. But the seams are still really big. I feel like they've even gotten wider, but the tire is wider, so it kind of has correlated from the old car with the new car. The seams are getting wider, but the tire is wider, too. You can still get in trouble if.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You touch the seam. You get. You don't like that.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, no. You definitely want to stay off of them. Kind of like a slower Fontana, like what Fontana used to be. Yeah, you can never get off of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He would. You drive into one and you get to like the bottom. You're. That. You barely touch that seam to left front. Like the third. The third mark in or whatever, like you're arc into the corner is like. You look perfect every week. Every time there, man. Like, it goes into the corner. Hits the left front on that. Just out in the pain a little bit there and goes up and then back down. Like I saw in practice. I was like. Like your car. Your times in practice were ridiculous. Didn't have a run. I was like, yep, we're going to be racing 12 this weekend. He looked really good.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, we were. We were solid, man. It was. It's fun when you have a weekend like that of you unload, you think you're in the ball game, like right after practice and have a good qualifying lap and then just kind of contend all race and able to pull it off. You know, those. Those are really fun weekends. We don't really get those weekends very often.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How much of the. There's. There's two things at play. So how, you know, you. You think about how great y' all are at Phoenix as the organization, you look at New Hampshire as a track that could be somewhat, you know, similar. And so if you do whatever you're doing at Phoenix that's working, should maybe work there as well at Loudon. But Then also the 22 is able to do the tire test, and it is a little bit of a different tire. But how much of the test versus just being already good at that racetrack? What's the. What's the balance or the ratio there?

[Ryan Blaney]

I thought the test was really helpful to us. Those. Those guys went up there and had a great test, I guess, you know, and you never know what you're going to end up with tire wise. Right. You're running through like five or six different compounds of tire up there. But they thought that they found something just overall in general that kind of worked with a lot of the compounds that they were doing. And luckily, it was able to apply. So those tracks have kind of always been a strength of ours. But I think having that tire test was beneficial. I think that tire is better for us. Like, something that has more fall off. I feel like our cars always run a little bit better because we can manage our stuff a little bit more. So, yeah, just. You got to take advantage of tests, you know, and that 22 team did a great job of doing that because you don't have many of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

More definitely hurt Bell this weekend because he was like. I think everybody kind of had him picked as the favorite, right?

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. I think that the test was Logano, Bell, and Chastain.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

And, yeah, the Gibbs guys weren't as good as I thought they were going to be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Same.

[Ryan Blaney]

They've always been great there for a long, long time. And whether it was a new tire or what, they seem to struggle a little bit more than they normally do at that place.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There was another tire that they tested, right. That was like 40, 50 laps dead.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, yeah. Like four seconds of fall off in, like, 50 laps. And I think they were nervous to bring that to, like, a playoff race or something. But, yeah, it would be. It'd be sweet. You got some fall off. I thought it was better than years past with this tire. You could piss it off, like, if you were aggressive to it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One of the things that I Like that I see. I mean, the race at New Hampshire's only going to get so good because it's a flat race track and it's. You know, there are some different grooves, but it just. That race is always going to kind of have a certain personality to it, and it really reminded me of what I would see in the. In the early 2000s. So I think it raced really well. But one of the things that I loved was I can see the cars move around. I can see, like, we saw Josh get loose into three that one time late in the race, charging. I can see you guys, like, slipping the right rear off the corner. That isn't. That doesn't happen. Like, you can't see it to the naked eye when the tire is not soft. Like, as you start to get. As Goodyear goes softer on the tire, we start to see more moments. Right. And you guys kind of driving through those moments as you might, you know, see on a bias ply or something like that.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. And that's what you want, right? The tire softer, you have more movement. You can slide it as opposed to a brick. Like, that's just twitchy and stuff. Or if you Have a moment.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is it easier to save?

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, when they're softer, they're easier to save, which is kind of weird, right? The tires fall off more, but they are easier to save. You can just slide it more, and you can control that slide as opposed to, like a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's interesting. Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Twitchy. And now you're gone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It snaps with the hard stuff. Like, it snaps and you're gone.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, that stuff's no good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So you. You know, you had a good race with Barry at the end. Josh's team stayed out on that last yellow. A lot of, you know, most everybody else besides, I think Chase Elliot came down and got tires of some sort. You were able to get around Josh quickly on. On the early laps of the next restart to be able to get yourself up front. I was surprised that Josh was able to put the laps together to be able to make a mount of charge, but Me, too. Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

You know, I thought I was gonna drive away.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I did, too. Kind of how that you got loose. Like, why does the balance of the car kind of take off like that?

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, yeah. You know, I got by him quick, and then I kind of stretched it a little bit to, like, you know, eight tenths or something. And I started kind of riding because there was, like, 35 laps to go, and he started charging a little bit, and I was like, all right, let's pick up the pace a little bit. And I didn't really have much to pick up. I was getting really free, and I was like, oh, like, this is going to be really tough. And then it was straight into, like, I need to change lanes, like, I need to find something else, because what I'm doing and what I've been doing all day isn't working. So I got to go searching. But, yeah, that was the first time we did two all day. So I think it might have just the balance of it just kind of went away a little bit more from what we expected. That'd be the only thing in my mind, just. That's kind of the loosest I've been all day. Or the track cooled off or something. Maybe it went free.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It cooled off about 10 degrees from.

[Ryan Blaney]

The beginning, so I could see either one of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Maybe you can explain this as well. It's a fun conversation in the sport, how Joe Logano, right, will have a relatively quiet regular season, you know, pop off some wins, but for the most part, a lot of times kind of kind of just disappears. Some races doesn't make a ton of noise, but, man, when the playoffs come Y' all get better as an organization, but there's, there is something about, you know, do they get to choose this tire test? How, you know, like they are so smart at knowing everything to do outside of the car to sort of put themselves in the best position to connect the dots that need to be connected. There's a, there's a method to where you need to run your best in the playoffs and where you can take advantage as an organization of certain particular tracks. Right? Yeah. Do you. Are you as like kind of impressed by what Joey can do, what his team can do as the rest of us, or you see it inside internally and it's not a big surprise to you?

[Ryan Blaney]

It's not a big surprise to me anymore. Been teammates with Joey for long enough to where I know and how good he is and how kind of methodical that he goes about things. I know how great Paul Wolf is of how he goes about things and how they kind of pick and choose. Like, hey, yeah, we're going to go do this tire test, you know, and they got first pick of tire test. Right. It kind of goes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was going to ask.

[Ryan Blaney]

In our organization, we go by kind of previous year points, right? So he gets first pick, I got second, then Joey or then Austin. So yeah, they knew Loudon was going to be in the, in the playoffs. Let's do this. And. And they were really able to take advantage of it. I chose Charlotte because I thought, you know, mile and a half and stuff like. No, no, no, the oval, this was, this was early, this was before the 600. So this was like, you know, April or something like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just to get some mile and a half stuff.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, yeah, just the test and stuff like that. So. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't surprise me. I mean, I know those guys are going to be. Even if they don't have the year that people think is impressive through the regular season, you know, they're going to just get better and better, find ways to be better. Whether that's thinking outside the box, maybe more from what you're comfortable with, from a crew chief or driver side, driving differently, taking different chances, like they're just going to figure it out. And it's pretty impressive how good those two people of Paul and Joey are together and just how they kind of playing on things and stuff. It's damn impressive.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is. It's frustrating as a person in my role because we try to predict or we try to guess or we try to think we know what, you know, what's going to happen or who's going to advance and who's. Who's, you know, and who the favorite might be. And he spoils all of our ideas.

Well, not anymore. We're. We're having to put him in there now.

Yeah. We can't. Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

It blows my mind, honestly, of people who like the outside world that doubts that duo of, like, no.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Write them off. Like, no, they're going to be there, and they're going to be really, really good. It's just they're very. That's a very talented team, you know, and it starts with those two guys, for sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In your organization, you've. Y' all have. Y' all have went into the finals and raced each other in the playoff. In the finals at Phoenix, nose to tail. How far into this process does the working together continue? Yeah, at what point? I guess. I guess. I mean, maybe it's already. Maybe, you know, you already have that confidence, and you're kind of looking across the table at the comp meeting going, it's you and me, bud.

[Ryan Blaney]

You know, I guess I'll.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

I'll put it into perspective for you of, like, I think our team, all the team, Penske and the Wood Brothers, we work better than anybody else together. Like any other team. I feel like our communication line from the drivers, engineers, crew chiefs is 10 times better than everybody else. And I can just speak on that just because I don't. I got buddies in other teams, and we kind of compare it, and it's like, well, I feel like we do a little bit more. But a great example is Joey and I raced for the championship last year at Phoenix. Same comp meetings, same discussions. How are we both going to be better? Like, nothing changed. You know, that's your competition. But we're trying to figure out how do we run 1, 2 in this deal. Roger doesn't care who runs first or second. He just wants to run first and second. And that's just how it's always been. And I think that's the expectation that Roger's always put on us, is if we have one car or two car or three cars in this deal, like, we're gonna try our best to all finish 1, 2, 3 or something like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

And that's just the way it operates over there. And that all comes from Roger. And I'd say the racing around each other, there's never, like, there's no team orders ever. The only thing that Roger has ever said is, just don't wreck each other, like, trying to win. Right. Like, don't be Foolish and be running one, two and wreck each other out of first and second. Yeah. You know, he has an expectation. Race as hard as you want.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Like, have at it. I don't care who runs first or second, but please just do not wreck each other doing it, because then we look like a bunch of fools.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You talk about not wrecking teammates. We saw just that very thing happened this past weekend with Denny and. And Ty, and I think everybody understands the common sense approach to this, but it's still fascinating, I think, to see it play out in front of everybody on such a big stage.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. I wonder what that meeting was like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well, it's. Imagine it might be happening right this minute for all we know, but that's a tough situation, I think, to try to help Ty understand, you know, what would have been the better choice to make in that situation.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, that's tough. You know, I mean, I. I feel like, you know, the guys who are not just in general, the guys who are not part of the playoffs, I feel like they genuinely will be more respectful to guys that are in it in certain situations. Some situations race hard. I get it. Like, we're coming down to a finish or something like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, I fully expect to get raced hard. When it's your teammate and he's not in it and you guys are in it, that's a little bit different to me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Should be even easier.

[Ryan Blaney]

It should be way easier. But, I mean, I can't. I don't know what all is going on there. I don't know the relationship with that. And, you know, why Ty decided to run him super hard like he did. He and. And Bell, him, you know, Hamlin and Bell and so, yeah, I don't know. I don't think that would happen in our camp.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you think it hurts? Do you think it hurts like that? They don't have it, obviously. It doesn't look like they have very close relationships, you know, as drivers. Do you think that could be part of it?

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, possibly. Yeah. Maybe they don't see eye to eye. You know, you don't think you've seen that. And, you know, I don't know if it was ever that way at, you know, like, DEI or Hendrick or anything like that with y'.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All.

[Ryan Blaney]

Like, if you don't, you go through these little stretches of, like, teammates not really agreeing with each other or not being on the best of terms, and maybe that's something that's going on there. I'd say it's easy to get in that way in A in a teammate situation, like, hey, maybe there's some things that have festered over time and you know, they linger and you remember that stuff and I've had it before within the team, you know, and you just get past it and. And figure out how to go forward.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You just reminded me, I think of Charlotte 2000. Michael, six or seven. Yeah. Michael down the front straightaway and about six or eight other cars.

[Ryan Blaney]

So what did you do that for?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The teams were ready to fight.

We were, we were all in a tough. We were having a tough spot.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we were having a tough time at D around that time.

It was similar. This seems very similar.

It was. So we had swapped teams and me and the Yuri's were frustrated with each other. And honestly, what was going on was. I think at that time I realized that we had made a massive mistake splitting up and I wanted them back. And I was mad that they didn't want. They weren't like, they. They weren't so much sharing that same opinion. And they were helping Michael and he was running good.

So you wrecked their car.

And I'm like. I didn't like come down straightaway going, I'm gonna wreck the. Out of him. We had been racing hard for a couple laps and I think I was a little faster and I had to run off the top and just got in the back bumper. And I didn't think he'd spin him.

Out, but he denied him.

Yeah, I just kind of spun him down the straight. I thought. I didn't. I. I don't know what is dumb, but.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, well, those cars back then, like, you couldn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It couldn't. Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Bump like these, it just lifts them off the ground.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was pretty stupid, but. So I'm guilty of it, but confessional here. Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Tuesday morning.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I think that's. That's it. I mean, you know, this doesn't. This probably doesn't happen if they have a better relationship and it doesn't have to be friendship. It just more better, more respect. Right. And it. And it. There must be some disconnect there amongst the drivers. And you know, I mean, Denny's busy. Denny's off doing all the. Denny's, driving race cars, owning cars. Denny's everywhere, all the time. Right. And so he's not going to be a guy you're going to see if you're his teammate. You're only going to really see him in those comp meetings, maybe crossing paths at the race shop. And those are, those are the rare opportunities where you've Got to have. You know, you got to try to create a connection and some respect. Right.

And maybe take Thai fishing.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, Yeah, I saw Denny's a big fish.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Huge fisher.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You should take him fishing, man.

Yeah. That way he can't run or leave. He's stuck on the boat. You'll have to listen to everything you.

[Ryan Blaney]

Say because of the implications.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, well, we got. Got some breaking news. Randall Burnett, who's the crew chief for Kyle Busch, is going to track house next year to crew chief for Connor Zillich in 2026. That was kind of a rumor going around the garage, but that's now official on social media. You're going to Kansas, which was a good track for y'. All. I mean, kind of like Kansas.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. We ran third in the spring.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You've had a couple solid top five.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, we've gotten better at that place. I'd say the first year of the next gen, we struggled.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That place looks like the funnest racetrack. I mean, sort of similar to Homestead.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. Just way faster, Right. Like, way more. Way more on throttle time. I hate qualifying at Kansas. I've gotten to the age now of, you know, you're younger, you're like, oh, yeah. Hammered down. Like, no worries. I've got the age, like, if it's hammered down almost wide open, around a mile and a half against the fence, I'm like, oh, gotta do this. Like, I just don't have the stones for it anymore.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But.

[Ryan Blaney]

But it is a fun racetrack, and it's gotten. It's gotten slick enough to where it does. The pace slows down dramatically in the race, and it actually starts coming off the wall to where you could run middle hell. I was running. I was wrapping paint in three and four, I think it was last year in this race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

And it was really good. So that's. It's gotten more lane options than when it was just glued to the fence for a while.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Looks like a warm race, too.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. Like 80s.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's like 80 degrees, which would be.

Yeah, no, it looks. It's one. It's one of the tracks that I kind of look forward to and when either the Xfinity or the. Or the cup series goes. Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

What's your schedule like? What's the Xfinity schedule to the end of the year? Well, this Roval.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, they got pretty much everything, I think.

Yeah. I think we're hammered down from here on out.

Trucks are off one or two. They got, like, four left.

But let's see. We go to Kansas. Kansas Charlotte, Vegas.

[Ryan Blaney]

Oh, so it's all the races.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Ryan Blaney]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

There won't be any wrecking in the experience areas at Martinsville, though. I mean, that won't.

Or dago.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

And so though you have. You're in the round of 12 right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We don't. We do. Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Round of 12.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're in their cars.

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

You guys have how many cars in it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Three.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, three cars in it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One. The seven and the 88. Yeah. And eight. But we're all four in there right now.

[Ryan Blaney]

Oh, they're all four.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Okay. They just had a bad day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he's got.

[Ryan Blaney]

He blow up at Bristol.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He had a. We had a water leak early in the day and they filled it up, figured. They got it all figured up, figured out and tightened up. But apparently during that process of when it will leak down, it must have cooked a head gasket or something when it was a little bit low in that practice. And that came to be a problem in the race.

Looking at that. How about. How about Harrison Burton?

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. Harrison has been.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's a great rebound for him.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. You know, man, that's that team. I'm good buddies with that, you know, with Wade Moore, part of AM racing. And obviously he got to work with Harrison.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, that's right. Wade.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Forgot.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. And you know, I was happy when Harrison got that ride and gave him something to build off. Right. That's kind of a new team and building and, you know, amazing playoffs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Had a great race at Bristol. Like, they've been doing a really, really great job. That's pretty cool to see.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I agree. I always like, you know, that that's something that's fun about our sport, is when you see a guy that can take a team and make it better or a team like that kind of make a big step. And it says a lot about Harrison because he's young. Maybe you wouldn't expect him to have the tools or the mentality or the ability to tool up a team. Right. And make the team better. Just, you know. You know, young guys like that, you just put them in the seat and they expect, you know, they kind of wait for everything around them to come together and they either run good or they don't. But Harrison's had to work really hard to try to make that work. And he has.

Yeah, they've.

They've went farther than.

I think it's been great for Josh as well. Josh did the same thing that. I think it's a good fit for both of them, you know, Josh Barrett. Yeah. And John Wood. I mean, what was he gonna. When he got spun out? I was like, oh, no. I was. I thought it was like four. What does it be? Four DNFs in a row.

But, yeah, he has a way of.

He does.

Finding some. Some challenges.

He does.

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Man, I felt so bad for those guys that first round.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

I mean.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Talk about everything that could go wrong went wrong.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. And they showed what they're capable of Sunday, Right. I mean, they had one of the fastest cars and drove through the field. Drove through the field to get back to second, contend for the win, and they needed that really bad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

You know, after the brutal three weeks that they had to get knocked out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't have to do a wellness check with John Wood this week, so that was. That was good.

John Wood is. Everybody knows John runs the social media or had. Has ran the social media for years. And it's kind of a lot of fun.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Following the Wood brothers social media. But texting him during the race is the funniest thing in the world because he thinks the damn sky is going to fall any minute, you know? Yeah, he does, but he words things.

[Ryan Blaney]

Could be leading by 10 seconds, and it's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's the end of the world.

He. He. They stayed out under. They stayed out under that last. I was like, in and out of watching the race, and they stayed out under that caution. And he sends a text to me. I didn't see it. I'm like, josh is. I'm looking at my rundown on my phone. I'm like, josh leading the race there under caution. How you know, he's been running good all day. Everything's great. I get a text from John Wood. Fun while it lasted. I'm like, what did he just like, is it crashed? What happened? And I'm like. I turned on the TV and he's, like, getting ready to restart the race. I'm like, what the. He's bleeding.

[Ryan Blaney]

Leading the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He thought y'. All. I guess he thought they were just gonna go to the room.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. I don't know what you call that type of person.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, he's so pessimistic.

[Ryan Blaney]

I think it. I think it's probably.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can relate.

Glass half empty all the time.

[Ryan Blaney]

I mean, yeah, I think it'd be three quarters full, but it's half empty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, He's.

He said, I hate to tell tales out of school, but they were like. He was. He got loosened to three.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I text John. I was like, man, it'd be good just run second here, you know, Because I was like, Josh is trying to do everything to win a race, right? And he's gonna. I'm like, josh, hopefully I bust his ass here. And because they. Because the last three weeks, right? And he text. I said, he be good to run second, man. Just. I don't know, man. It's calming down a little bit. Then he goes, I know we could just launch ourselves into outer space any minute, really this up. And I'm like, what, Dale?

[Russell]

I don't. You're not talking out of pocket. He tweeted this out through your conversation out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, no. Oh no.

[Ryan Blaney]

What did he. I wonder what he draw out there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He said. Oh, he said something.

Damn right.

[Ryan Blaney]

Something for a wheat.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh yeah, he scratched something out. Yeah. Well, to be fair, we. Oh, that's him. Yes, he's blue. Sorry.

Yes, he's blue.

Haha. Well, it's fun while it lasted. Here we come. I said, we're catching. We're catching you. Here we come. I'll take a second. That's when he got loose. I'll take a second today. And he goes, damn right.

You got worried.

[Ryan Blaney]

We got to launch into outer space or figure out some other way of looking like clowns.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So let's just keep.

Close this one out.

Close this one out.

That's what texting him is like. Yeah. During the race especially, he's.

I have a similar text chain with him. I saw him in Richmond. I was like, man, you could have a good race again. And Josh had. That was the start of the bad ones the next week when Josh wrecked. I get a text after. Right during the race, says copy paste. Like it was three weeks of the same text.

He. He said, I responded. It's annoying. Happens a lot with him. He said, we're the fastest car on the track. It's taking a while for TV to notice.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. That happens a lot. It's annoying. I'm biased. Yeah, it does happen a lot. When your favorite driver, like, so you know, I'm a. You're in the race car, but you know when you're watching the race and you've got guys that you're kind of pulling for and you'll be like, damn, he's fast. You know, they're not mentioning it yet. Yeah.

You know, and you see the lap.

Time, you're looking at lap time, you're like, why aren't they talking about that? He's call it ass.

[Ryan Blaney]

You know, I know that happens a lot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Like I watch an XFINITY race or a truck race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'll be honest, when you're in the booth, it's hard to, like, watch lap times. It's good. Like, you've done it.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, like, if you can look at a lap time and go, oh, the guy that's 10th is the fastest car on the track. And nobody said anything. I'll say that because I look smart. Yeah. The guy in 10th just ran the fastest lap on the track.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But, you know, you're. You kind of keeping yourself in the habit of doing that. It's kind of tough to do, and there's a lot going on. We've had you in here far too long. Comparable to most winter interviews. But I got to ask you one more thing.

[Ryan Blaney]

I got nothing, nowhere to be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got to ask you one more thing before you get done. So you're in the middle of marriage and you're going to be a dad. Yeah. What are. What is. What is. What are the cool parts of that experience right now? Like, what is. What is the thing that's happening where you're like, this is badass.

[Ryan Blaney]

Going to an ultrasound is pretty cool. You know, we probably go to get an ultrasound once a month just to see.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

In person. The growth and like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Ryan Blaney]

Seeing that every month, you're like, oh, my God. I mean. And we're right at, like, two months out right now. So he's pretty big. We had this app. He's the size of a piglet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What about the. The kicking and carrying on? Know that yet?

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, kicking is. You're starting to see him. You can feel him pretty good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Craziest thing.

[Ryan Blaney]

Haven't been able to see him yet. Like, kick through belly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. But you can feel it.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, I can feel it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Isn't that the craziest thing?

[Ryan Blaney]

It's wild. It's wild.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, wait till you see the arm or something. Just go.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. So the ultrasound stuff's cool. Like, seeing him, like, just getting his room all situated, like, man, this is where he's going to grow up for a long time. That part's super cool. And just seeing she. Gianna just go through it and, like, struggled really hard in the beginning, like, being super sick for a long time and then, like. And hated it. Right. Like, this sucks. Like, I literally am sick all day every day for months. And now the last couple months, she's gotten over that. And it's been. It's gotten to a point where she's really enjoying it now. Like, oh, I'm enjoying getting bigger and my kid is growing inside me, and I don't. I'm not sick anymore, so it's. I don't know. It's just cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Seeing him grow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's got a lot of fun times ahead that he doesn't know. We could explain it to you. You're not gonna Real. You're not gonna know what it's like till you go through it.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, it'll be. It'll be fun because we're. We'll have a little bit of kind of after the season's over.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Downtime. Then a kid will come, and then we have like a month after that to be fully at home before we get going.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That two months away, that's pretty close to championship.

[Ryan Blaney]

No, it's December. It's December. We got a month buffer. Yeah. Just over two months.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Ryan Blaney]

Early December is her due date.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay, perfect.

[Ryan Blaney]

So we time that out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Good job.

[Ryan Blaney]

Perfect.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, no.

[Ryan Blaney]

Just got lucky on that deal.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, that's pretty awesome. That's gonna be a lot of fun to watch that process play out and, man, fun, Fun stuff. And it just gets. I know it sounds cliche, but, like, the. All of the. Experiencing all this stuff for the first time. So much fun. And it just gets better and better and better and better the older they get.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

More and more fun.

You drive home that hospital, you're going.

To be nervous and, oh, man, that was awesome. You know what? You're. You're a professional race car driver, and.

So you can be doing 45.

Yeah. When. When you're, you know, you're in the hospital for a couple nights and you finally get checked out and you're like, damn, they're going to let us leave with this?

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Can't believe they're. They're letting us take it. And you get in the car and you will. Something will flip in your mind and be like, this is what I was born to do. This drive, this very specific drive right. Right here is, like, raised to do this. I was. I was right. I got it. I'm. I'm the man for this drive. Like, I'm. And, oh, man, it's awesome.

[Ryan Blaney]

Be an interesting business to start. Professional drivers can chauffeur. There you go, people from the hospital. Dad's tired. Mom's obviously tired.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That is a great idea.

[Ryan Blaney]

Hey, no worries. We got you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

Wait till you're home alone for the first time.

[Ryan Blaney]

That's what my buddies. I've had a lot of buddies who have kids within a year. It's just that time of Our lives. And they're like, it's super weird when you get home for the first time because you're in the hospital for a couple days, two, three days, and they're.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, okay, here you go.

[Ryan Blaney]

Good luck.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Home life's not the same.

[Ryan Blaney]

And then you just walk in the door and you're like, oh, yes. We have this human being that we're responsible to take care of, and we don't. We've never done this before. They said that's a weird feeling of, like, the first week of just trying to understand how to operate is pretty fun. Time to go through.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Russell]

Have you changed a diaper before, Ryan?

[Ryan Blaney]

I have never changed the diaper.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Have you practiced? No.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, the hospital we're doing it at, they have classes. Oh, yeah, they have some. Some daddy classes I'm gonna sit in on. That's just the dads, you know, I don't know what we talk about in there. It's probably just the only rules. Like, don't be a dick. Like, that's like, the only rule. But then they have, like, you know, diaper classes or, like, swaddling classes and stuff like that. So.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Are you a phone. Get your phone out. Record moments kind of person? No, not really. So I'm not either. I don't. I don't. I don't always, like, damn it, I should have had my phone out.

[Ryan Blaney]

I get in trouble. John's like, you didn't video it or you didn't take a picture?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Me, too. Me, too. Same thing. Amy's like, you didn't. You didn't record that? You know, I'll take them to dance or something.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I'll. I just. In the. When the. After the baby is born, There'll be a moment right. After the baby is born where they take the baby and weigh it on this little.

Table.

Table. And there's like. It's like two minutes while they got the baby there and the nurse is doing something, getting the baby kind of cleaned up or whatever. That's the moment. Gotta get the phone out. And that's also your moment with the child for the first time.

[Ryan Blaney]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So.

[Ryan Blaney]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. That'll be the only moment, really, in the next several days where it'll be just you and the child. Yeah, Right. That home at all. Yeah. It goes back to mom, and it's with Mom a lot. Right, Right. And so. And Amy even told me. She's like, all right, man. When they put her on the table at your. That's your little moment.

[Ryan Blaney]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right.

[Ryan Blaney]

That's Good to know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, There's a lot.

[Ryan Blaney]

There's a lot gonna be going on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Ryan Blaney]

Right. So I could see it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That is a fun, fun few seconds.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Where you're like, holy cow. You get it. Really. It's like you and they're seeing you for the first time or. Yeah. You know, and you're seeing them. It's pretty neat.

[Ryan Blaney]

Be chaotic. I don't know where I'm going to be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

That's going to be decision what. What position I line up in. That's a game time decision for me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Are you going to be under center?

You can be. Oh my God.

[Ryan Blaney]

Well, we'll find out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You'll. You'll make the choice in the moment.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what happens.

[Ryan Blaney]

That's why I told Gianna, she keeps asking me like, where are you going to be? I said, I really don't know. I said, I have my thought in my mind where I'm going to be. But it could change.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think I asked you that question on the track walk at Chicago for street course. Yeah. Which was a probably inopportune time, but. So I'm glad you're still indecisive.

[Ryan Blaney]

Indecisive.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You'll make the choice when you're there. I didn't know. You know, I didn't know what I was gonna do. Yeah. But man, it's. It's hard not to sit here and just try to tell him every.

I know, man. I'm sitting here thinking about. We've all. I went through it kind of before you. Then you started going through.

You're gonna be like one day when you're a dad.

Yeah.

Somebody you know is having a kid, you'll be like, yeah. Tell you.

I'll tell you this, I'm gonna tell you that. What about watch this, do that.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. My buddies who have boys are like, you're gonna get sprayed a lot while you're chasing. So like. Yeah, I guess I never thought of that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

Yeah, I didn't think.

[Ryan Blaney]

You gotta be aware of that. Well, you didn't have to worry about.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we didn't worry about that.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah. So you gotta keep your mouth close. I guess when you're changing it, they.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Will throw up on you a lot too.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

You're gonna.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dude.

It's gonna get to be normal.

Taylor Nicole, my little sister. I was in the condos at Sharpener Speedway. This is like 1987 or 94 or something like way back. And then it was me, Teresa and Taylor and we were it was in the morning, like a Saturday morning on a race weekend at Charlotte. And I was playing with Taylor, and I didn't know nothing about how you're not supposed to, like. I guess I was shaking her or something, or move. You know, we were playing, but I. I was on my back on the couch, and I was holding her above me, like doing an airplane. She threw up all over me, all over my face.

That happened to me with Madeline.

Oh, my God. It happened. And I was like, oh, yeah, it's bad. I can't believe it.

I ate sweet potatoes. Yeah.

Oh, gross.

It was real bad. I was holding her above my head.

[Travis]

Next.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm like. I'm like.

That'S bad.

[Ryan Blaney]

At the end of the day, I got. I always try to tell myself, like, all right, you get on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

You get pissed on. You get thrown up on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

It's just you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

Like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

It is your right. It's not like a random person. It's not like me throwing up on you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, it's.

That is your. You don't care.

[Ryan Blaney]

Blood and flesh. Like, it's so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's not. Yeah, it's your kid, man. I mean.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah, that's what it is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. It was hilarious. All right, we could have a whole show just on.

Maybe we should have a dad show.

Yeah, we'll wait for. Get him a month in. Get him a month In.

Yeah, for early January or something.

An hour.

Yeah.

On being a dad. Being a new dad.

[Ryan Blaney]

Be cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Ryan Blaney, thanks for coming in today, man.

[Ryan Blaney]

Thanks for having me, guys.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, it's time for you to send us pictures and videos of your ultimate racing collection. We love Lionel Diecast, but it doesn't have to be just Diecast. Whatever your collection has in it, send us photos, videos, videos. Probably going to do a little bit better. In us determining the true ultimate racing collector, I'm challenging everyone to, you know, bring it. Let's do it. Last month, our winner had an awesome basement, awesome collection. We'll be posting on Twitter and Facebook. Respond to those posts with your pics, with your videos. If you've submitted before, submit again, do it again. We've picked people that have resubmitted before.

[Russell]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think the last winner resubmitted, didn't he?

You've always got a shot.

[Russell]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You've always got a chance here. Yep. At Dirty Mo Media.

[Russell]

Bring it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're all about second chances, third chances, four chances, fifth chances, six chances.

[Russell]

Yo, tj. I see you've been walking around with the New phone? Where'd you get that? New phone?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, man, I love this phone. I recently joined a consumer cellular family and they hooked me up, man. I got a great new phone and the service is awesome.

[Russell]

That's great. But like, how's it, Iowa, Richmond, some of these other tracks. Because it's great when you're at home, but like, when I'm on the road, my phone is crap.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, I travel a lot with the RFK16 and I have had nothing but success with this phone. I've actually, it has bailed me out numerous times now. I was able to flip the hotspot on and use some Internet on it. Text, calls, everything. Man, I'm, I'm, I could not be happier with this phone.

[Russell]

All right, so, but how do I go about getting this? Because I don't have time. I'm not trying to go sit, stand in line at a store, wait, grab a number, wait 30 minutes, like I just don't have time for that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's the easiest part, man. Just call their 100 US based customer service representatives and in about 20 minutes you'll be good to go. I chose the 2 for $60 plan. It's not a prepaid option. They help me decide which one was best for me and I know exactly what I'm paying each month. Everything is easy to understand. With no long term contract. Switch to consumers earlier now and get 25 off with the code DJD25. That's DJD25 for 25 off. When you switch to Consumer Cellular, go to Consumer Cellular.com DJD and use promo code DJD25. Sylvester Stallone is back as the ultimate kingpin to white man Freddy in the original hit series Tulsa King, now streaming exclusively on Paramount this season. As Dwight's kingdom expands, so do his enemies and the risks to his crew. Now he faces his most dangerous adversaries in Tulsa yet forcing Dwight to fight for everything he's built and to protect his empire. Watch the new season of Tulsa King, now streaming exclusively on Paramount.

Trimble is the technology company that connects your physical and digital world so industries like transportation and geospatial can get hard work done faster than ever. Every day brings new challenges, Decisions, adjustments. Real time moments that matter. With Trimble on your team, you're in command of purpose built tech ecosystems and connected solutions that keep work flowing end to end. Turn data points into decision points, deadlines into finish lines and possibilities into profits. Check out what Trimble can do for [e-mail] because with Trimble, you can act smarter, move faster, and lead with confidence. Tremble confidence at every turn. All right, Everybody, it's Dale Jr. And you're tuned in to the Ask Jr. Part of our show. Let's see if they if this part of the segment is indeed sponsored. It is, and you will be shocked to know that it is sponsored by Xfinity WI fi in racing and in live. Speed is an optional. It's expected. So hopefully you enjoy your Xfinity WI Fi is a. An Xfinity series team owner. I rely on things that perform under pressure, and that's why I like Xfinity WI Fi. Fast, dependable Internet and one price locked in for five years. No contracts. So that's interesting. Fast and dependable Internet, Absolutely. I've got it. I've used it. One price locked in for five years. Don't get that confused with the contract part. So they're telling you that it's one price for five years. The price won't change. But also, there's no contract. So kind of like filter time. If you want to cancel your subscription anytime, you can, you can. No contract, no slowdowns. They're not going to slow down your Internet. No nonsense. Sounds pretty good to me. And I'm not bull when I say this. I'm a customer. Listen, they don't know me from jack. They don't. They're not giving me special treatment, but one day out of the blue, I've been a customer for a couple years, they just send me an email and said, hey, guess what? Your speeds are going to double. All right? We're just letting you know. I guess some people might, you know, if they hadn't told them their speed would double and they might call them and go, hey, my speed's double. What's going on? But, you know, so they send you an email so you don't call them about the speed doubling. And so they doubled my speed and didn't charge me anything. And they didn't do that because of, you know, our relationship here. They just do that. So weird. It's cool. There are not many companies out there, like, giving you more for free. It's good customer service right there. And I guess, you know, they're like, hey, man, we're gonna boost the speeds on this block. Don't even charge them. That's pretty neat. So we have some questions. I'm sure everybody tuning in. Thanks for. Thanks for tuning in. All right, let's get to the question. Yeah.

[Travis]

This first question is coming from Blake. What's the angriest teammate has ever made.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You over the years, man, TJ probably.

[Travis]

Better not be like, TJ knows.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tj.

[Travis]

You laughed like you knew.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I think what we talked about on the show, one instance, I think that's probably the mad.

I wasn't angry when I wrecked Michael at Charlotte.

I mean, the teams were getting ready to fight.

The teams were mad at us. So we were talking about wrecking teammates with Blaney, and I'm sitting here talking about how foolish it was for Ty to run the guy hard, and da, da, da. And then I forgot that I'd wrecked my teammate at Charlotte. But.

So who is the teammate that you feel like you got the maddest at? I know who I think it is.

I honestly wasn't that mad at Michael that night. Yeah, things have been boiling, and I was mad. I was mad. I'll be honest. I said it on. During. During the Blaney interview. I was mad that I wasn't smart enough to stay with Tony senior and Tony Jr. And that I really thought splitting up with them after 2004 was the right thing to do. And so I was really mad at myself, and I wanted some. For some reason, I wanted to. I thought, wrecking that car.

Don'T fix it.

Yeah. I can't make any sense of it. It was dumb. But, I mean, I wasn't. I didn't run into Michael going, I'm wrecking you.

Yeah. So who is the maddest teammate that you get? You know, who was your teammate? You got the maddest that you think.

I had a real problem with. If I ran the high side in a corner. If I run the top in a corner, right? And I'm coming off of the top down the straightaway, and I've got big momentum. I have a problem. If you pull up in front of me, I don't care who you are. I wrecked Ryan Newman twice at Atlanta two years in a row because of that. I'm hauling ass. And he knew it. And he pulled up in front of me, and he's like, you're gonna lift. And I'm like, I'm not lifting. And so that was kind of what happened with Michael. Down the front straightaway at Charlotte. I was running the top, which he knows all well about how the top works. He runs it himself. And I'm coming up off. I'm coming off the top of all this momentum, and I'm like. And he kind of pulled in front of me. We were side by side with some cars. I was trying to, like, push him through a Little bit, but ended up wrecking me and a bunch of other people in him. It was dumb. I regret it, but I can't remember being super, super mad at another teammate. Now I'm trying to think like, I never really had a problem with park or Steve or Michael Truex. Never really had a problem with Jimmy or Jeff.

I feel like we had a couple run ins with Jeff, but we had some disagree.

No, the only problem, the only thing that ever happened with me and Jeff was he always complained about the way I raced.

That's what I was thinking.

[Travis]

Oh, yeah, he had a problem with you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And it's like, you know, when we go to Daytona, he did that even in the. When I was in the bud car. We go to Daytona, Talladega. If I push, bump, draft him in the corner, count that eight to quit bump, drafting in the corner. There's a video on YouTube of him complaining about the way I'm racing him at Talladega or Daytona or somewhere.

But that's really what I remember the most. Times like that.

Yeah. But I. And I didn't even know all that was going on. And, man, I wish I knew that was going on because I'd have been even more of a pain in the ass. But I remember one Charlotte race, I didn't have a really good car, and I would get tight, but on restarts, I hauled ass, and I'm in the bud car, and I jumped to the third groove and would pass like six or eight cars and get back in line and run. And then I'd get tight after about five laps and several of them would start going back by me. And it was grinding Jeff's gears that day. I remember him complaining about it, But I'm still trying to think of a time when I was real mad at a teammate. I'm sure there is one.

I can't think.

[Travis]

You're like, you'll like, leave the show today and then think of a few. Yeah, well, if you think of one and want to follow next week, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I'll be honest, I. I can't remember ever going into a comp meeting. Like, I don't want to see this guy today. Right. You know, I always tried to be a good teammate. You know, I probably missed the mark a few times, but always tried to be a good teammate and be easy to work with, be helpful, have a good attitude, be the. You know, I was always in the Hendrix stuff for the. For sure. In the Hendrick years, I was always the clown, the class clown in the room, the Joke. You know, the one that. Gonna say something, trying to make everybody laugh. You know, that was kind of what my role was. But in the cop meetings and stuff. Yeah.

[Travis]

I feel like I'd be the same if I were a driver. This next question, actually, is from your wife Amy, and she just texted me and Travis saying, if you gu have a break, please tell Dale they need your truck key. So something in your car that they need.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Big news. Huge news. I'm getting a new truck.

[Russell]

So can we get your truck? Our question is, can we get your truck?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, no, no. I'm getting a new truck.

[Travis]

That's awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I am so excited. So the truck that I've got. But before.

[Russell]

Can we get your truck before you talk.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They have it.

[Russell]

Who's they?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I've texted them the truck. They've all been texting me. The key is the key. She's texting me right now. I drove the truck here. It's in my freaking pocket here.

[Travis]

What do you mean they have it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, man, I'm sorry. That's so funny. That played out on live YouTube.

You've been very adamant. I know.

I've been texting him for 10 minutes. The keys in the console. I drove the truck here. I always leave, and so. But now it's in my pocket. Oh, gosh. So I have. I bought. Listen, I'm very excited, y'. All. I'm serious. So this truck. What?

[Travis]

You've had that truck for a while.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I would get ready to tell you 2021. So I bought this truck in 21. I mean, I'll be honest. I drove race cars for 20 years through that relationship with Chevrolet. They were always supplying me with a vehicle. Right. And so. Which was awesome, and I loved it. But around 2020, I decided I want to buy my. I want to buy my truck. Won't buy it, and I'm driving it. And so I've had this truck since 21. 32,000 miles on it and needs a set of tires. But I'm gonna trade it in on a new truck. And the trade in value on this 21 with 30,000 miles is like $40,000. Wow. Yes. Like, the trade in value is really good.

How many miles?

32,000.

That's it. That's pretty low.

Yeah.

I think that's really good.

Yeah. It's honestly the most miles I've put on a vehicle. I don't drive a ton, you know, outside of just back and forth to Junior Motorsports. I'm not like, you know. Yeah. But so I don't really have. I haven't really mileage doubt or put a ton of miles on a vehicle. This is the most I've probably put on a vehicle in a long time. But I am so excited. I got a new truck coming. And, yeah, I mean, the trade in value versus the retail of the new truck, I mean, it's not. Not a huge difference. So getting a brand new, same truck, trail boss, Chevrolet, black instead of white. I'm gonna go black and I'm gonna decal it. A lot of people may know that the truck I have now has a very elaborate decal wrap on it. Yeah. This one will be more subtle. Yeah. But fun.

[Russell]

What's one thing that you like, you had to have with your new truck?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Honestly, I didn't really change much except for the exterior color. My old truck was white, and this truck will be black. It's got the same package on it. Got the same everything, but, you know, obviously the dash and everything will be new, modern.

[Russell]

I wish I had seats that cooled.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah. I. You know, I'll be honest. I'm the kind of person that rides in those vehicles all the time, and I rarely ever even think to use those. It'll be freaking 30 degrees outside, and it never crosses my mind to turn on the heated seat, even though it's there.

[Travis]

It's nice. And the wheel too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'll be driving down the road and I'm like, seats getting warm, and Amy will have turned it on, and I'll go. I'll go, oh, did you do that? Yeah. I'm like, you know, thought I was getting ill. I, like, have, like, zero awareness or I'm just old school, you know, I like pretty simple stuff. I don't need the options. I don't need all the extras because I don't even, like, think to use them. I jump in the truck, I plug my phone in, I start the music immediately, and I'm off.

[Russell]

Like, you could add a wireless charger in there, put your phone, boom, charges it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I got a case and it won't charge through the case. Oh, yeah. Because I like to have my phone protected.

[Russell]

You can.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good for you. You ever see these people walking around without cases on their phone?

[Travis]

Oh, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did they do that?

[Travis]

Evan, upstairs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Stop it.

[Travis]

It's crazy. It's ridiculous. Yeah, but then he just got a case because he kept dropping it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I bet he cracked his. Got the case. Post crack? Yeah.

[Travis]

Oh, yeah, Absolutely. Yeah. You never get a case pre crack if you're no kid.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Isn't it annoying when you See somebody with a screen. It's just all tore up, and you're just like, why don't you just get it fixed? Like. And they just keep going with it.

Oh, yeah.

[Travis]

It's kind of my phone right now. It's got, like, a big crack down the front of it. It doesn't really.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One crack. One crack on the phone is okay, but you'll see some. It's, like, destroyed. Looks like it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

[Travis]

Oh, yeah. No, those don't make sense. We're just, like, completely shattered.

[Russell]

His is fine. I don't really. You can't even notice it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right.

Yeah.

[Travis]

Pamela says she loves heated seats.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is everybody getting the new iPhone? I'm gonna skip.

Wow. They're making an orange one. They're making an orange one. You're gonna skip it.

Damn it.

[Travis]

I'm getting an orange one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm not getting it. I like orange, but I'm not liking it that much. I don't know. It's like, what. What's. What's it got that I need a new camera.

[Russell]

Dale doesn't even use his heated seats. He's gonna get a new phone and not use anything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's probably gotta.

I. I'm the kind of person that, like, just recent. Like, just the other. Just last week, I went through and deleted, like, half of the apps on my phone. I'm like, I'm not using these.

It's probably got, like, a heated keyboard. Yeah, something like that.

[Travis]

Like, you'll keyboard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I. I downloaded the.

[Travis]

That's funny.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, you'll download, like, the Chick Fil A app because you're gonna. Yeah, Yeah, I need it to order this. I'm going to pick it up, I'll order it, and then. Then it's on your phone for, like, three months, and you're. You're like. You look at it and you're like, I'm not using that. I'll just delete it. And then as soon as you delete it, you'll. You know what?

[Travis]

I need to.

[Russell]

I don't delete it, but.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, I do. I cannot have apps sitting on my phone. I'm not using.

[Travis]

Why not? Just throw it in a folder.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's. I don't want it on my phone if I'm not. Why? I just don't like it.

[Travis]

I don't like clutter.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, clutter. It's like clutter in a house, but.

[Russell]

You put it in a folder.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I like it. It's like clutter in a house. Like, if I see. Like, I'm telling You. I know that this is not a very popular, popular point of view and I'm sorry. But I'll walk around in the kids playroom and if there's a toy that looks like it's alienated from the where it's supposed to be and it's like laying in the floor, not, not, not where it's supposed to be and it looks frivolous, I'll be like going in trash.

So you don't keep any. What about games on your phone?

Throw it out.

Keep any old games kind of on your phone? No games?

Nope. Deleted games.

You don't have any?

Nope. I wanted to learn how to play craps so I had two, two apps on my phone. They were trying to teach me how to play craps and I messed with them for about a week and then they've been sitting there for two or three months and I just delete them.

You should try room 40.

Say again?

Nevermind.

Honestly, I would love for all of us to go back to flip phones. Honestly. Oh yeah, that would be nice.

You can get it. Remember the push to talk?

[Russell]

Well you had to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Remember the 8 flip phone there? We used to bud. 8. There was a butt 8 flip phone.

Yes, I do remember. There's one. It was late. It's like in here somewhere.

[Russell]

Where to get to the letter C? Had to press the button three times. Like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I never see. I never did it. I never did any texting with that crap.

[Travis]

People are commenting what their most used apps are. Chess. That's an interesting one. That Danny seems smart.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I can play chess.

[Travis]

You can play chess?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I won the last game I played.

[Russell]

Who'd you play against?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Computer? Yeah. My brother in law. Yeah.

[Russell]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kobe. Kobe's pretty smart.

I mean I'm questioning that right now.

Well, we had had a lot to drink and it was 2 o' clock in the morning.

[Travis]

Drunk Chad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I still won. He had no idea that I'd even knew how to play. We sat down and he's like I'm gonna smoke this fool. And I'm like we'll see. And I dominated. I know chess. I know the moves. I know how to do it.

[Travis]

Interesting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm not. No, not good at it. But I know all the, I know what all the pieces do and I know kind of the objective.

[Travis]

You know since we're kind of on this topic, I saw a question a few weeks ago like what's your go to card game? Are you a big card player? Is it poker?

[Russell]

Is it euchre.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, love it. I don't play cards much. Really? Yeah, only. Only cards I'm playing these days is Go Fish, homemade Matt, stuff like that. Matching ones memory, whatever the kids want to play, right? Yeah, kids games fair. Yeah man.

[Travis]

I can sit down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I even play cards forever. Dude. I have to. I have to sit down and google how to play Go Fish. What? I kinda like. I don't remember the rules exactly. Who retains?

You're talking about playing chess and you don't know.

[Russell]

Do you have a two? No Go Fish.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's.

I mean what is it? Three? How many? Four of a kind. Three. Three of a kind.

You just match them in your dirt.

Yeah, I don't remember. I got other to remember. So the. The rules of Go Fish have to leave the building right? When. When all this other stuff comes in over the last 50 years.

So the rook could only move this way.

Listen, but I have not. I'm not. I ain't got a terabyte up here. We're dealing with like just megabytes. We're an old system, right? We're an old dial up Internet over there. We're 8, 88 megs of RAM in this processor here, right. I'm not. I'm not installed with the latest and greatest. So we're doing what we can. So when information comes in, new information comes in. Old information has to go away.

[Travis]

You got to make space just like them apps.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I checked the now, I checked the recently deleted. Did not see the rules for Go Fish in there. So it's been long gone.

That's because it's like two sentences. No, like.

All right, two words.

Let's try another Go Fish.

Let's try another question.

[Travis]

Bobby in the YouTube chat says his favorite game is 52 Card Pickup.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ah, yes.

[Travis]

This next question's from Eric. A fan came by, I think it was last week. They saw you posted on your Instagram with your AC Delco front bumper.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Travis]

That you never thought you'd see again. So what was it like?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I didn't even know it existed. So in. In 1998 I'd run a couple Xfinity races. One in 96 and a couple in 97. And in 1998 I'm going to go run my first season with the ACDelco guys and Tony Sr. I know they got a great car and I'm scared because it's. Here we go. We're going to find out whether we're going to actually get to be a race car driver for the rest of our lives. Because if I don't run good in this car probably won't get other opportunities beyond this. And what do I do? We go down to Daytona. And I broke the. I broke the yoke off the rear. I broke the yoke off of the rear end gear on pit road trying to get out of the pit box into the first pit stop. We qualified third. I didn't know you're supposed to haul ass off pit road for qualifying. So trying to make a long story.

Short, that's the biggest thing, dude, I'm running.

I'm Daytona for the very first time in my life. Going out to qualify for the very first time in my life. And I put the car in gear and I let the clutch out and I get rolling, but I'm going through the gears and I get. I'm kind of going around turn one and two and Tony Senior goes, what in the hell are you doing? Go. Like, I'm just going.

I can hear him doing three quarter.

Throttle through the gears. I'm going to get the wide open down the back straightaway. But I didn't think it mattered. I didn't. No one told me, look, no, I didn't have a spotter giving me back.

Then you don't know during the week, right?

So I get in the car. They didn't say, hey, try your hardest to accelerate as much as you can, because it matters.

It's qualifying. Don't, don't try hard.

We had two laps in my mind, I'm like, yeah, it'll get up to speed. So we start that. That's how we started. I qualified third, which I was happy with. They were mad because they're thinking, well, if we qualified first, if we'd have got off pit road, right, you could.

Have got the poll and they probably still would have been mad at that point.

We started the race, ran third forever. Caution comes out. We come down pit road for our first pit stop. I broke the gear, I broke the gear, broke the yoke off the gear trying to get out of the pit stall because we had these really weird first gears with the plates. And so I get. I'm on pit road, getting lapped, changing the gear. We go back out, we're 30 laps down or something, and I'm out there racing with Dick Trickle and Buckshot Jones in the lead draft. They're running like 6 and 7 and I'm like, I'm like there. I'm just. I don't know, to get out of the way, right? So I'm just kind of hanging in there with him. Well, Dick Trickle got beside Me down the back straightaway, and Buckshot was going to push him through, but Buckshot hits me in the left or quarter panel or hit. Hits me. Yeah, hits me in a little. Hits. Hit me somehow hit. I don't know how that all started, but I think he might have hit Dick Trickle or whatever. But Buckshot Jones started to. Starts to crash. His fault. But we go flipping down the. Down the back straight away, and I'm like, boy, this is the worst way to start this whole, you know, career defining season. It would turn out okay, right? We go on to win six or seven races in the championship. But starting out, it was pretty bad. Went to Rockingham, another bad weekend. And I'm sitting here going, I bet the Yuries are thinking they regretted this decision to support me going into this car. But that guy brought this nose by, and I see parts and pieces from our cars from time to time, and I'm like, oh, cool. AC Delco knows that's, you know, that's old. And I also think, man, it could be Steve Parks for all we know. I don't know. This guy thinks it's mine, could be Steve's, who knows? From 97. But he shows me the picture of the car and it's obviously, you know, you look at the damage and the marks in the grill and different, you know, different pieces and parts, and it's the nose off of the car we flipped down the back straightaway at Daytona 98.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's all. It's always something. I'm curious as to how. Like, that nose, where'd it go? Well, it was still on the car. So we come, you know, the car goes to the garage and they cut the nose off in the garage to. Before they load, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Or made it all the way back to the shop and got cut off at dei. I don't know. But then where did it go? Right? Pretty interesting. There's another, like, it'd be cool if you could track the history of these pieces, right? And where they went. Somebody. In 1984, dad won at Darlington, and they. Someone stole the pit sign out of the pit box while they were going to Victory lane. And in 2017, I get a message that somebody has a pit sign of Dad's that they want to give to me in Darlington. And I met a guy at the NASCAR sign in and he hands me this pit sign. He says, here, want you to have it. And I'm like, golly, this is from 2000, from 1984, all the way to 2017. This pit sign's been kind of hanging around in Timmonsville and Darlington, and somebody's had it. It's shuffled from hand to hand, but I've never seen a picture of it. You see everything on the Internet, if it exists. Right. So this is kind of surprising because this, too, this bumper. I didn't even know this bumper was out there. Right. What else is out there? I bet there's some pretty cool ideas.

But there is, too.

I'm on the. I'm on the. I'm starting to shift back. I kind of. I'm saying this in case I actually do this, but I was on this. I was sort of on the team of collect everything I can. Like the side for this. I'll never give this side away from the. From the Daytona 2001. So there's some pieces that I'll never give away, but I have a bunch of stuff that I've collected over the years. A lot of sheet metal, noses, hoods, all kinds of stuff. And even from other people. Like, I've got a Kenny Schrader Folgers side, a whole side of the 25 Monte Carlo from, like, 86 or 85, and it's crashed from some wreck. But I got that from Sam Bass's family. I think after Sam passed away, they were kind of going through things and giving things away. But I'm kind of getting to where I'm thinking, man, I might start getting rid of some of this stuff, because I just keep it in this shop that's closed and doesn't see the light of day. And my girls aren't going to want to fool with it. They don't even know what it is. Even when they're 30, they're going to go, I don't know what to do with this. So I'm thinking I might start shedding some of that stuff. I might put it over in the gift shop one piece at a time, see what happens.

[Travis]

Oh, that'd be neat, especially to go through that collection, see what you have.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I just kind of need to offload some stuff. It's just spray cleaning. Yeah. Yeah.

[Travis]

Well, that's a good place to wrap ass, junior. I do want to say, J, man, in the YouTube chat, he said, we ain't dealing with terabytes up here. He's going to start stealing that phrase.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Travis]

But thanks to Xfinity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Appreciate Xfinity. Xfinity, WI Fi. They do a great job of supporting us here at DirtyMome Media. It's dependable Internet. One price locked in for five years. No contracts, no slowdowns, no nonsense. Xfinity. They're a proud premier partner of nascar. They've done a lot of great things in our sport. We're very thankful for them here at Junior Motorsports and at dirtymo Media. Man, I've had a fun time being live on YouTube and always hate when it ends. This is the best part of the show.

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[Travis]

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[Russell]

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[Travis]

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[Russell]

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[Travis]

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[Russell]

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[Travis]

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[Russell]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. It's time for Dirty Modeau Tampa. Tim's has slipped on into the studio here. Hey, hey, how's it going? And Russell. Russell. Russell has tuned in as well. How are you, Russell? Good buddy. How are you? Yeah, doing pretty good. We had our parlays for the the Loudon Race, Logano, Larson, Briscoe. Guess none of those worked out.

[Russell]

Tim's is definitely didn't hit Tim's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Priest Bush, Briscoe. Holy.

We told you about C.J.

Priest Larson, Briscoe. Gosh, guys, we don't know.

We don't.

Please don't stop listening.

The Predictor was way off too. Just so you know.

Whatever. Please don't stop. Are you listening to the show the Predictor?

Even though we don't go anywhere on Bell.

That's true. It's true. We got to start doing this better, doing a better job. If we're giving out serious advice here, let's buckle down, try to get it right for Kansas.

I really thought Kyle Busch was going to hit.

They're playing around.

I really think you're a for that.

They're playing around. Well, I have. I have some unique information. It's going to help me today. Okay. It's going to help me today, make a more informed opinion. What do we got?

[Russell]

Can't wait to hear this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I have the average finishes from Kansas. Whoa. There a sheet right here in front of me. Somebody on social media. Somebody on social media accidentally sent this into the universe. Okay. And I'm taking advantage.

All right.

Wow. Let's see what you got. All right, just listen. The favorites. Let's announce the favorites going into Vegas. Can anybody guess who might be the favorite going into Kansas? It's Kyle Larson. Yeah. At plus 370. Hamlin at plus 600. Byron and Blaney at plus 700. And bail at plus 900. Interesting enough, Larson has the best average finish over since 2022. He has the best average finish. And then Bowman slips in there. He has the second best average finish. Then there's Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Blaney as the favorites at Vegas have identified. Then you have Byron. Byron, though, is sitting at 8 overall behind Ross Chastain and Chase Elliott in average finish. I mean, looking at Byron at 16, 16, 6, 3, 15, 23, 2, 24. So it's kind of hot and cold there. But let's see. Larson's the heavy favorite. Had the win there last year. He was probably going to win again. He got into the fence, remember, had the flat tire. I mean, every time he's been to Vegas over the last couple of. When he finished 26 in 2024, he was on his way to a productive top five, top three, maybe a win that day. So Larson, though, just doesn't look like the regular guy. Right? He didn't look like Larson. Do they rebound this weekend? That's. I mean, does anybody even know. Can anybody even say with confidence that you can go in there and consider him the favorite?

It's getting harder.

It's getting tougher because he's been literally the favorite on the sheet every week. I mean, he's a favorite. Last week. No, he was. He was second to Bell. Russell, you're supposed to be the one. I'm giving him one more week. You're giving him one more week? Yeah. So he dominated this race in May. 221 laps led. Just killed everybody. This is. Was on the pole, won both stages, was the fastest, fastest lap point. Yeah. This is the place where. I think you're right, Russell, Where. This is where if he don't show up, we can all really assume that the struggle is real, and I don't. I know it's like, it's been a struggle since Indy, but we try to give him the benefit of that because it's, you know, we know he's great. We know it's a good team. We know their championship team, and you're trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but goodness, they've got to do it this weekend. Do you feel like he's the best Chevrolet? I mean, the Chevrolet camp, It's kind of tough. Kind of. Kind of tough to pick the best one every single week. We've struggled, but I would feel confident giving Larson the benefit of the doubt again this weekend and thinking maybe he's the best ship.

Wasn't Chase pretty good there in the spring?

[Russell]

Look at your sheet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Look, Chase.

Yeah, but you can't just go by the finish because there was other cars that were fast that didn't finish up there.

But Chase is. Yeah, he was super consistent. Second best guy there. Chase has been super consistent. Look, I was wrong about Chase. Chase. I said Chase might struggle to get it. Get through this round. He's gonna be fine. Last week, I said he. You might struggle. Looks like he's gonna be fine. I had no idea 2311 was gonna struggle as bad as they did it. There's Hampshire. They're. They're in tough shape.

[Russell]

They've Race well Kansas, so, dude, they.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're gonna have to go in.

Yeah, one and only one of them can win. So. Yeah, one of them screwed after that.

[Russell]

Yeah, I wouldn't say screwed, though. If you get.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, not screwed, but it's.

They haven't been.

They're racing. They're racing that. Eight best drivers in the series now, you know, you're not racing the field. You're racing. These eight guys that are in front of them trying to take these eight spots into this next round are the best. So how are you. How are you going to. How are you going to go if you're one of these 2311 guys? How are you going to go in there and grab 20 freaking points over eight of the best guys in the field? And they struggled there since they won back in 2023.

They've been actually really terrible on this sheet. Like.

Yeah. See why I printed this sheet out? I know. I mean, I know what I'm doing. It's a good sheet. Yeah.

Let me look at the predictor here, Russell.

So. So let's say, does everybody feel confident about Larson going down.

I don't feel confident about it, but it's so hard to bet a Ben bet against him in a place like this.

What Chevy. Do you feel good about Byron?

Yeah, he's been pretty strong, but.

So our last mile and a half track was a 600 and he won every stage, finished second because he just couldn't keep up late. But he's been good at these mile.

And a half because you got to be. Not keeping up late is really good.

Well, that's a different, different situation than this. He has been good at the mile and a half, but Kansas is a little bit different. Kansas is that running the fence, setting it up on the cushion a little bit. Kansas. To me, Kansas is a better track for Larson by far. It's a track that I think he just. He's a. He's more in tune with that track. It's. It's similar in a way where he's confident at Homestead. Right. Because he loves running the fence. I think Kansas gives him that same opportunity where he can shine. Yeah, but Byron was second there last year in this race, and then earlier this year he was running second when he had a flat tire. So he's right there with us.

I mean, how do you not look at Chase and say Chase is, you know, been better there than him lately? I mean, that's what I kind of see.

You're just looking at numbers.

Oh, yeah, you gotta.

I'm looking at your cheat sheet. This sheet is just to steer you in a, you know, steer your mind.

In the last four races, Byron, 15th, 23rd, second and 24th.

Did you not hear him? He's running second when he ran. Finished 24. There's more to the numbers.

Okay. We were. I mean, you can say that about anybody. Yeah, you were running second. Guess what? You still didn't finish the deal. So didn't finish the. Finish it off. You got to finish it off.

Do you think Trace Briscoe is going to finish?

Trace? Who's Trace?

Chase Briscoe is going to finish 20th because that's where he's averaged.

No, I don't think Chase Briscoe has the numbers.

Look at the numbers.

He's in a whole different car company right now.

He just ran fourth once. The rest are crappy. He's not.

Yeah, the first time in that car I ran fourth. He's going to.

Chase Briscoe is going to be 20th.

[Ryan Blaney]

You are.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm just following your logic.

No, that's not my logic.

Is it not. Am I not com. Using similar Logic.

I know that William Byron and Chase Elliot have been in the same cars at Kansas, and looking at William, I mean, Chase's average is better than Williams.

Yeah.

And I feel like Chase was in a really good spot to win last year or earlier this. Earlier this year. Right? Yeah. So. And why are we not talking about Bowman? Bowman's got a better average than all these guys here.

We did. I mentioned Bowman at the top of.

[Russell]

The show because I think we think a playoff driver is probably going to be the one that wins.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, really? Is that how that works?

[Russell]

You think Bowman's going to race hard and pass one of his teammates?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think if Bowman's fast and he's up front and they don't pass him, I mean, he's got a pretty good average finish right here. So you tell me he can't do it. That's probably Bowman's best track.

[Russell]

Honestly, you can do it, but he won't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is that. Is that Bowman's best track?

You could say it's his best track. Yes.

There you go. There you go, Danny boy.

[Russell]

Okay. But he's not. He's not going to beat his Hendrick teammates.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All three of them say that he's got a better average finish than all of them, except for Larson.

It's the numbers, guys.

[Russell]

Just go by the numbers. So I'm talking about what's going to be on the track.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Larson is going to finish first. Bowman's going to run second, Then he's going to run third.

No, Denny's going to. I can tell you.

I'm going to tell you right here. The entire running order for this weekend's race. It's right here, guys. I printed it.

Well, let's make our picks and see who's right.

Yeah, I'm taking Larson as my Chevy.

While you're going out on a limb right there.

Yeah. I'm not taking risk.

[Russell]

You better pick Bowman.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're going to give the people what they deserve.

I'll tell you what.

I'll take people what they deserve. Good.

Bowman, I will take Alex. You better take Denny. I'll take Byron. I'll take the other one.

Take Chase. All four of them.

Yeah, take Chase.

[Russell]

No, I think Byron.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, Is Chase the enemy? You don't like Chase.

[Russell]

I don't like any driver that's not named any Hamlin.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, we can't tell from your Twitter, let me tell you that.

Listen. All right, enough.

[Russell]

Dale, who you taking?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I said I'm taking Larson.

That's right.

I'm assuming, Russell, you're going to go. Byron Larson. All right, Somebody on my train. Clickety clack. Down the track. Going by the numbers. Dale, Me and Russell pouring in the coal. We're going to the victory lane, man. We're gonna do this together, Russell. That is if we agree on the next two. So we have some. Before we get to the Toyota and the Ford. Let's go to some featured matchups, Mix it up a little bit. Chastain versus Reddick. I might have to go with Reddick. No, no, you're gonna take Reddick.

Look at the sheet. Look at the numbers.

He's not.

He's gonna finish 20th. Also with Briscoe. You need to start falling. You need to start falling asleep to a Racing facts.

I think he's gonna run in the top 10. I think he'll. He'll be. I bet he finishes four spots ahead of chassis. Ross is pretty good here. I bet he. Yeah, I bet he clears Ross by four positions. Really? Okay. Bets Reddick. This is a Chastain by the numbers.

Oh, yep.

I'm sorry.

I'm going. Russell, man.

[Russell]

I think, like, how heavy is it? Russ.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Here'S in the next gen. It's five to two. They are in a. I. I hear you, but they are in a must win situation. Nah, he's not. He's not as much. Not really. I think that. I think Ross isn't coming to a racetrack where he feels like he, as a driver can truly make a difference. I think Redick is going in here feeling like he's carrying the entire team on his back. This is a track where he runs the boards. This is where he's had success before. He feels like if he's got any shot to win on the schedule throughout the season, this is going to be in that short list of tracks.

Yeah, he's been good.

He's got to go. He's got to feel like he's going in there and he's got to carry the entire team on his back. They're going to give him the most aggressive car they can. They're going to have to go. You know, they're going to have to go loaded.

I don't see it.

I think he does. Do you know who won this race last year?

Not Reddick.

Let me see. It's on my sheet.

Yeah.

Oh, last year. Yeah. Chastain.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But he was 13th, 19th, and 18th in between that win. I mean, I'll tell you. Not going to convince me that Chastain. None of us took Chastain as the. As the best Chevrolet. So no, but none of us would take Reddick as the best. I know. I'm just saying, like, Chastain hadn't even been mentioned in this conversation. I feel like Reddick's gonna do it.

[Ryan Blaney]

Four spots.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'll give you four spots.

Back to the wall. I think Ross out outperforms Tyler in these situations.

Damn it. I'm making note of this. So next week, the only one on Reddick.

[Russell]

I'm on Reddick.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my God.

Well, that's. That doesn't count. You know?

[Russell]

That does not count. 23:11 at Kansas performs well.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think this will be a tiny. More. Not lately. Not anymore. Larson and Hamlin, that's a tough matchup, man.

I would go Hamlin based on the odds, plus 1 10. Not if he's got a pass to 54.

I'm going to take Hamlin as well. I don't know. What do you think about it, Russell? The shit. I mean, just. I think Hamlin, it's. It's Larson by the numbers. Dang. All right. I think.

[Russell]

But we need to also people listening to focus on what Tim said. I. You wouldn't bet Larson.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wouldn't bet Larson at minus 150.

But if.

If you want value.

What happened to Denny this year at that race? Finished 36.

Yeah. Pretty much finished last.

I think if he hadn't. If he had even ran 10th in that race, he would have the best average. He began having a clutch issue. Clutch issue.

Yeah. Pitting a lot.

Listen to his finishes, though. He 36th. Right. Earlier this year. But before that. Fourth. Second. First, second, fifth, eighth. So I know it's more about like, how have they been running here lately? But, you know, coming into Loudon, they'd won the last three races. That Joe Gibbs Racing look more dominant than any other team. This ain't a flat. You know, Phoenix, you know, Loudon track, where you're going to say that, you know, the Penske cars should have the edge. I think it's a chance for the Toyotas to get back at the front of the field. And Denny's the best Toyota, so I'm gonna go with Denny, and he needs.

[Russell]

To perform well here because I'm gonna take. Next is the road.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm gonna take Denny, and I'm gonna have him in my parlay.

I'll take Larson.

Larson. All right, let's go on and pick our top Toyota for the parlay. I'm taking Hamlin. I'll take a bell. I'm on the bell. I'm on the bell. Train Too.

I'm leaning bell.

[Russell]

Do I need to say?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, you and me, Russell. You've gotten off my train. Hope you enjoyed the day. No more cold. Hope you enjoyed the trip.

I hope you're enjoying the Denny train.

Yeah, I mean, I think you can do it. All right, Bubba. Wallace versus Briscoe. I really like Briscoe here.

Briscoe's probably the pick, but I have Bubba.

[Ryan Blaney]

Just odds based.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Again, it's minus 150 versus plus 110.

Yeah. You're taking the odds, taking the odds, trying to make the money.

I feel more comfortable with Briscoe. Yeah, I'm taking Briscoe.

All right, Brussels. It's Briscoe this season. 4 to 1. 4 to 1. Chase Elliott versus Logano.

[Russell]

That's a good one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

I like chasing this. I do, too. I like Chase.

I like Logano.

[Russell]

Something about Logano.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do.

It is.

It's tough. It's the playoffs.

It's the best one of the board.

Not going to be a fool again.

[Russell]

I trust him and Paul Wolf more.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Listen, I like Chase. I think they're. I think, like these freaking two dudes are going to finish fifth and sixth. Yeah, it depends on who's going to be in front of the other.

I think straight up speed. Chase is going to be faster, but it just matters if there's a pit call to be made that Paul can swap some track position somewhere. That's where they're going to make their ground up, in my opinion, Paul. Yeah, that's right.

Well, you know, looking at Logano's last finishes here, they haven't been. They haven't been amazing. 17, 17, 6, 5, 3, 4, 14, 9. Chases are much more consistent, but again, he's had some struggles as well. Yeah. I don't know, man. This is a tough one. One.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The 22 is worried about this one. Yeah, I'm gonna take Chase. I'm going with Chase. Elliott, not going to take Logano.

[Russell]

All right, so who is our forward?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's go, everybody. Everybody going Chase or Lugano here?

I'm going Chase. I'm going Chase.

Okay. All right, so we've got our parlays. I'll tell you Mine, Larson, Hamlin, Chase. No, that doesn't work.

[Russell]

We need to pick our Fords.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's what I thought we just did. All right, so let's do that. Let's pick our forwards. I think it's pretty straightforward for me. I like Blaney, but, you know, having the win in his pocket, does that change anything? I don't really think so.

I don't see Blaney drive differently.

Yeah. I don't know. I still feel pretty good about it.

Yeah.

[Russell]

I think it only matters if him and logano were 1, 2.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Russell]

Then he obviously is going to help Logano, but if he's third in Logano's ninth, and that ain't going to do anything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm going Blaney, so. Larson, Hamlin, Blaney is my parlay. Tj, You've got Bowman, Bale and who Boy.

I really. I think it's going to be between Priest and Brad. I think Priest is going to run.

Good, but I can't help it.

I feel like we're going to be really.

This man can't pick a different Ford outside of rfk.

I really think we can be fastest.

[Russell]

When's the last time?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. We could be talking IndyCar. And he's going to pick Priest. Priest is going to come out.

Russell top was the 6 not fast in the spring before the tire issue.

I like Priest to finish top 10 this, this, this week. Take Brad. TJ.

When.

[Russell]

When's the last time RFK was a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Top forward take Brad?

What's that got to do with the take, Brad?

[Russell]

Because we're picking top forward finish.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tj.

I'll take Brad. I got no problem with taking six here.

All right, Tim's. I got Logano. This is Blaney. All right. Russell's got Blaney.

[Russell]

Blaney for me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right. All right. There we go. Somewhere, somehow, one of them parlays is going to work.

I mean, they're quite a bit different this week. We got to have a better shot this week.

Yeah. Are there any top 10 long shots? I like a guy who run in the top two this past weekend. Josh Barry. I think he got. I think he's got shot at a top. A top 10 because of his P6 the last race, 6 place finish. Earlier this year, he won Las Vegas. This year, one Las Vegas. All very similar surface. I agree with Dale. I like that one. Back on the trade, Bowman's probably going.

To have Some decent top 10 odds based off his.

I love Bowman. Yeah.

[Ryan Blaney]

And he's so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think that's a steal two.

There's two. Right. We didn't want to pick too many because. And you're doing these singular. You're not putting them into parlay, as we were advised last week not to stack these. So if we got any more Bowman, Barry, who else could slip in there and get one?

What about a John Hunter or Eric Jones.

[Ryan Blaney]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Russell, what do you think about.

I like John Hunter over Eric Jones. But. Yeah, like, he was 10th. And why do I feel. Yeah. Why do I feel like, though, this has been a good track for Eric, is it not? It has. Yeah. But I think lately it's. It's more of a Eric or a John.

They struggled at Loudon, but this is totally different. And what's the last mile and a half that we ran?

Charlotte.

And were they very good there, Although they found some speed here in the last couple months, like I thought.

Yeah. Yeah. But. Yep.

Tmax rolling.

I like Priest. He's gonna get TJ to change his parlay.

I'm not changing.

Keep on talking. He was seventh there in the spring. And then if you look at the last. I think it's five mile and a half. Like, he's been top 10 in four of them. Him, Dude. All right. Put Priest on that list. Yeah. How about Corey Heim? I kind of like him. He.

He's always like, kind of round 8th to 15th. At the end of these things, it seems like. What about Noah? Does this place suit Noah very well?

Don't snicker. Don't laugh. Noah. He has banners in this building, boys. Oh. So we.

We can't yell at him, but Tyler Reddick.

I learned my lesson. Noah was 10th at Charlotte. The last. Last mile and a half race.

No, I feel like Noah couldn't. Well last week.

[Travis]

That's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, to these high. The high lane.

[Russell]

No, it drives the Ford out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The Ford. So there you go.

Jesus.

Chevy's only. Chevy's all the way. I like. I like all of this. Yeah. A little bit on Heim, Gregson and Nemechek individually. Little sprinkle. Sprinkle for a top 10. I like the Bowman berry. I might even parlay those. I know you don't like.

That's actually a good one.

I know you don't like it.

[Russell]

Don't do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Don't do that.

I like it. I think it's good.

God, I wish I could bet racing. I don't like that. I can't do.

[Russell]

Dale's gonna sell junior Motorsports just so he can bet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, I just want to put a dollar on these bets that we're talking about just for fun. Just so I can feel the. Feel the ride the lightning. You know what I mean?

You want to be the race. You want to be really nascar, See if we can get a exemption.

That Dirty Moto segment was brought to you by FanDuel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. All right, it's time for the white flag. As we get to the finish line, we're coming off a turn four. How many NASCAR puns can we do here?

Six, seven.

We have the white flag coming out. We're off a turn for coming to the finish line.

[Russell]

Don't run out of gas here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And as soon as we cross the finish line and win the race, they'll be tearing us down.

Tech.

That's right. And the tear down itself was live on YouTube and on Twitter following the race. It's a great name for a show that happens after a race because there is a tear down for the winner. And I believe that's probably why they named the show the tear down. If you haven't already heard the teardown, go over to dirty mo media's YouTube page and hit the subscribe button. Turn on your notifications so you don't miss anything. Actions detrimental. Dropped on Monday. Denny had some actions detrimental to his relationship with Ty Gibbs.

That's. That's accurate.

Yep. But he explains what happened and why it happened and what he hopes happening. What he hopes that happens going forward. Right. I'm assuming. I didn't hear that part. I'm not sure if he actually did that, but I was assuming he did.

[Russell]

Say he hopes that he. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He just take tie fishing. Get him on a boat. Yeah. Take him out in the lake if.

[Russell]

You can't solve your problems fishing and.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just push him over. Oh, I'm just kidding.

[Russell]

Don't do that. Advice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not that. Take him out on the boat, but don't hand him a fishing rod because he could. He. He could hit you with it if you don't like what you say.

[Russell]

Get you stuck.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So. But, yeah, I mean, sitting on a boat with nowhere to go. He'd have to listen to your opinions. And eventually you could. You could. He'd have to agree before, you know.

[Russell]

We'Re not coming back until you agree.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He would start to understand that he'd have to agree before he's going to leave the boat.

Denny, what are those cement blocks for?

Door bumper. Clear. Also dropped. On Monday, they were joined by Tyler Reddick. Now, I need to apologize publicly to Tyler Reddick because Tyler Reddick come walking out of the building the other day. I was out front signing some autographs for some fans that stopped by, and I screamed, enemy, Enemy. And he looked at me and said, what? And I said, you're the enemy. You drive a Toyota. Be gone. What are you doing here? And then I saw Freddy. And then it made sense. He was on door bumper clear as a guest. I know he's won a championship here.

[Russell]

He's literally got trophies with his name on it and building.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But my initial reaction was, geez, what.

Do you do to you?

He drives for a different team. He doesn't drive for.

[Russell]

You don't have a Cup team.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not a Chevrolet driver and he doesn't drive. Look, I just had a knee jerk reaction and I'm apologizing.

You should.

Tyler, I'm sorry. You're always going to have banners hanging in this building and you're always going to be a part of our story.

[Russell]

But you're not welcome in our building.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I had a knee jerk reaction.

Your actions were detrimental.

We're in the middle of the battle, boys.

[Russell]

You need to take him fishing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Listen, it ain't December.

Fishing trip with Tyler coming up.

It ain't quite the holiday season. We're in the middle of the battle trying to win a championship, yet he's.

[Russell]

Getting in the way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And we're racing against give drivers in that field.

[Russell]

Well, he's not a Gibbs driver.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, he knows them, talks to him, drives Toyota.

You're getting God.

He drives Toyotas, guys.

Enemy.

Hey, same thing. Hey, I'm a Chevy guy. Barely let Brian Blaney in the building since he drives a Ford. On Wednesday, Robin Pemberton joins me again. Everybody enjoyed the first time that he came through shoot about a month ago. And his insight and storytelling was just fantastic. So if you hadn't listened to the first interview, you might want to do that. But we're going to have a Robin back in and I've got a sheet of all kinds of questions. We're going to talk the playoff format that was developed in 2004, the four car rule against owners being in the sport. The car Tomorrow development. We're going to kind of go into more of that around. Oh, the Indianapolis tire debacle. 2012 Daytona 500 Michigan. 2012 tire scramble. Man, we just got a lot of things to dig into and yeah, should be a lot of fun. So that will be Wednesday. And also on Wednesday, we're gonna have another episode of Herman Schrader dropping Bless yous Heart with my wife Amy. Comes out on Thursday, another episode of that, and then on Friday, the Dirty 30, the recap of all the highlights from all of our shows. Everybody seems to really be enjoying that. So appreciate y' all for tuning in today, and thanks to Ryan Blaney for coming through. And we'll see you tomorrow.

[Ryan Blaney]

The summer may be cooling down, but the action's still full throttle.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you're looking for more excitement off.

[Ryan Blaney]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Ryan Blaney]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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