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The Dale Jr. Download
Steve O’Donnell: NASCAR's Next Big Move
01:08:38
Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell to talk about NASCAR’s latest announcement: increasing horsepower at select tracks, Playoff formats, the lawsuit, and more.
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A
Let's dive into one of the reasons why you came out here today.
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B
Yes, sir.
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A
I guess there's a change that's been discussed and been debated for a while now about horsepower with this car. And so there's a commitment going forward to go up on horsepower.
- [01:28]
B
So still a little bit of debate, but I think, you know, talk to probes about this today. So we're gonna go every track under a mile and a half. You're gonna see 750. Yeah, there was some debate. Darlington, Nashville, road courses. Road course. We're gonna see it. So, yeah, 750.
- [01:43]
A
The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. And today we got a great guest coming in here. Steve o', Donnell, the president nascar. We got a lot of questions to get to. We probably got about three hours worth of questions and only one hour with Steve. So we'll have to be selective. And we're not going to get to everything that you want to know about, but we're going to try. All right, let's bring Steve in and get started. All right, so Steve o' Donnell on the Dale Jenner Download.
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B
Great to be here, man.
- [02:23]
A
Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming through. I've known you a long time. I you've got a new role in nascar. You were appointed the nas, the president of nascar. They moved Steve Phelps up to commissioner. Has there ever There wasn't a commissioner.
- [02:41]
B
No, there was.
- [02:42]
A
Now we have a commissioner.
- [02:42]
B
Yes, sir.
- [02:44]
A
What was, what was the reason for the shuffling around?
- [02:50]
B
You know, I think looking more at the day to day, I'd say I kind of follow more of the Mike Helton role, you know, came from the competition side, try to move over a little bit to the business side and merge those two. And Steve's role, you know, looking at kind of where the sport is now, it's obviously much bigger. Moving around with some of the connections he has, you know, with the other leagues and letting me, you know, work on the day to day and make sure, make sure we're not screwing anything up, which, you know, prone to do every once in a while.
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A
You've been in this deal for a long time.
- [03:22]
B
30 years.
- [03:22]
A
Yeah. And you've been, you've seen all levels, you've worked in just about all departments. What, I guess, would you, for somebody, in basic terms, what would be the, what would be the area of the sport that you have authority over today?
- [03:44]
B
And that's a great question. So all the areas in the sport kind of report up through me, I would say, you know, started out on the, on the marketing side. Right. So I was, I was a victory lane guy with Bill Broderick, really, and I was handing out hats and, you know, selling the decals on the front quarter panels of the car. So got to see a lot, do a lot, learn a lot of the folks in the industry, you know, looked at really all aspects of the sport, but went through the weekly racing series and touring series. So that gave me a little bit of background of kind of how the sport works, what's really important, grassroots of the sport.
- [04:20]
A
I was told that you, you know, you've been to hundreds of racetracks.
- [04:24]
B
I have seen them all. So we had, when I was working on it, we had about 110 weekly tracks. I think I went to 80 of them. A lot of banquets. But it was cool because that's where, you know, the passion of the sport is, right. You got the young up and coming driver and then you got the families there just wanting to race and want to go out in their neighborhood and have fun and, you know, like the Bowman Grays.
- [04:45]
C
Right.
- [04:45]
B
You see, you know, slate coming up, you know, with the Myers family, and you see that generation, to me, if, if it's ever tough on a Sunday and, you know, it gets tough, you know, in the cup garage and sometimes it's a little bit too much about money. So when you go back to the grassroots you're reminded of what's. What's important. So right now, I'd say concentration more on just making sure we are delivering on, you know, kind of where the fans want to go. And so the direction for us going currently, Dale, is. Is really getting back to our roots.
- [05:15]
A
I keep hearing that Phelps was in. Sorry, Phelps was in here when. When I had him on, I mean, I don't know, two years ago, and he said the same thing. And so, like, when you say that, like, what are you trying to say? What are you trying to tell me? What do you.
- [05:30]
B
Yeah, so. So I think that's fair. I think, you know, over the last couple years, we've maybe gone a bit of a different route, trying to be all things to all people. That's not us. And when I say that, it's just being authentic to who we are. So, you know, when people pine for. For the good old days, right, sometimes you can look at our fan base and say, oh, that just wants to go just back to only Southern, right. And not maybe, you know, if you're a fan in New York City, you know, how do I relate or how do I come, you know, the good old days to me. Are you going around in music videos with a rap star? Right? It's Jeff Gordon on Saturday Night Live. Those are also the good old days where you. You didn't have to almost fake it. That's who we are. And so when I say that, it's, you know, we're proud of our sport, and this is who we are. Come join us. You're going to have a hell of a time. And we got to get back to that. We've got a little bit trying to be all things, all people, a little bit too defensive. And end of the day, man, we got to go have fun. There's too much. It's serious business. I get it. But having some fun.
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A
Yeah. All right, so let's. Let's dive into one of the reasons why you came out here today.
- [06:36]
B
Yes, sir.
- [06:36]
A
I guess there's a change that's been discussed and been debated for a while now about horsepower with this car. And so there's a commitment going forward to go up on horsepower. That number is 750 from 670.
- [06:52]
B
Yep.
- [06:54]
A
Was this an easy decision? What was the. What are the things that had to be sorted for this to happen? People think that you can. You know, there's a lot of people think you just change it and just do it, but with the way that NASCAR works today, it's. There's A ton of collaboration with, with the team owners and, and even the tracks to an extent, I suppose. But mainly, you know, I guess, you know, in, in the old days, Bill Jr. Would walk in and say, this is what we're doing.
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B
Yep.
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A
But it's, but it's. But NASCAR has positioned it and allowed, you know, more people to be in the conversation and particularly in this case the teams. So when you want to make a change like this, how long does the, you know, it doesn't happen overnight. Why doesn't it happen overnight, people? Because people think it should or could. Why can't you just do it?
- [07:53]
B
Yeah, it's a good question. So let's just base it on horsepower, right. So why 750? Why not 800? Why not a thousand? So if you look at where we are today, where we can go without completely changing over the industry, you know, no secret, right. It costs a lot of money to go racing. And so whatever you do, you want to make sure that if you're going to change horsepower within the car, you got to match it up with the aero. You got to match it up and you're breaking. All these different things come into play, you know that right? From, from car store, if you make a change, you got to factor in tires. Where are we going? All those things. So 750, we looked, we hear the fans, we hear the industry. Yes. We want to try and see what will work here. If you went beyond 750, we looked at almost 40 to 50 million dollar cost to the industry. And so if you look at our job is yeah, you want to make a call right away, but you got to think about the out years. And so we're looking at Dodge coming into the sport, we're looking at other OEMs coming into the sport and then our current partners, those guys like the engine today, don't want to make a change unless we're going to stick with it. So we looked at this and said, all right, we can go to 750. You guys all good? Toyota, Chevrolet, Ford? Yeah, we're good with that. But we potentially want to go to a new engine architecture that's a three year Runway. So we didn't want to like what you name could be, what you got on the street. It could be, we could all kinds of things.
- [09:21]
A
They just want the opportunity to be.
- [09:24]
B
They want the opportunity to be there. They are totally open to any new OEM coming in and looking at a new architecture, but don't want to change just for change sake. So when we looked at this we said, all right, you know, we got Dodge coming in. We know what they want to go. You know, can we put a Hemi in this? What. What can we do? Right. Honda, potentially. So any of those things. Three year Runway, we didn't want to say, all right, it's 1,000 now and then. Just kidding. Three years from now, we're changing it again. That's hundreds of millions of dollars to the industry. So that's why. And I know fans, you know, who cares about the money? Just do it. But in this case, we want to take a step. We want to marry that up with Arrow. So we're going to do a test in the off season with. At North Wilkesboro. Yeah, I think some of the drivers are happy about that. Just looking at what can we do with the tires now. Goodyear stepping up. Not perfect. Right. But they've. They've.
- [10:14]
A
They stepped up.
- [10:15]
B
Yeah. And so you look at tires, horsepower, some of the Arrow things. Let's take a look. All mile and a half and under, and then. And then go from there.
- [10:23]
A
What are some of the Arrow things that y' all talk about? Do you get in the middle of those conversations?
- [10:27]
B
I let that. I'll. I'll screw it up. So I let it, you know, John Probst and the team and. And really working with the race teams, you know, they've got. We have the smartest guys in the world.
- [10:37]
D
Right.
- [10:37]
B
Working on those cars. So I think what you'll see us do is we got the drivers with the. With the council, with Christopher Bell and others, Joey Logano talking about, hey, let's try some of these things.
- [10:47]
C
Yeah.
- [10:48]
B
Working with three of the OEM manufacturers and crew chiefs or heads of competition, putting some ideas together, going, trying it at North Wilkesboro and see what happens.
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A
When does that happen?
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B
That'll be, I think, end of the season, early December. So the goal would be if we find some things, let's go. If we don't, we've at least started that process to keep it going.
- [11:07]
A
Where will we see the horsepower?
- [11:09]
B
So still a little bit of debate, but I think, you know, talk to probes about this today. So we're gonna go every track under a mile and a half. You're gonna see 750. Yeah, there was some debate, darling. Nashville road courses. Road course. We're gonna. We're gonna see it. So. Yeah. 750. All right.
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A
Have y' all had that on the racetrack?
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B
We. Man, I gotta check. I believe we have. You know, we've done a lot of SIM work.
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A
Yeah. I'm sure it's probably been out there.
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B
Yeah, we'll see. I think it'll be good.
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A
Are you gonna run? Yeah, I guess that'll be happening at Wilkesboro.
- [11:40]
B
Yes, sir.
- [11:40]
A
All right. There was a similar test at Richmond a year or two ago that netted really nothing but. Which was kind of surprising. But, yeah, the drivers would try some pretty big swings and not really feel much. But I'm hoping for the best in terms of being able to discover some things. You know, where. Where do you fall on the. The conversation around the car? You know, I would imagine that having been a part of seeing this car get developed, and it's. Is a project that NASCAR was massively involved in and spearheading the next gen car, it's hard not to take it personally when you hear criticisms around the car and. And so forth. So, you know, everybody's got opinions. I've had a million on this show about the car. And what could. What could this be? What could that be? Where do you fall on your urgency, I suppose, and how much the car may need to change? Could change. Where does nas. Is NASCAR locked down, stubborn to change on the car? Or are you, like, wide open, whatever the teams? Because I know that, you know, there's a. Everyone believes that NASCAR is this big decider, right? And that everything that happens in the sport is because that's what NASCAR has chosen. There's other things that. There's other things that have happened in the sport, such as number placement and so forth. Where NASCAR was like, hey, how about y' all just put it where you want, right? NASCAR really just said, hey, the teams can have.
- [13:17]
B
Yes, sir. Yeah, exactly, right.
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A
And the teams are like, no, no, no. We want a specific thing. So where does NASCAR. Where's NASCAR's role? I suppose in the change in development and process and progress of the car. People are like, oh, the car's not changing fast enough. We're not.
- [13:32]
B
So there's. There's two things I would say. So there's NASCAR and what I try to do, and I think we do a really poor job of this, right? But there's NASCAR officiating and then there's NASCAR the sport. And what's tough for me sometimes is, I mean, I love the sport, you love this sport, and what happens oftentimes is, oh, nascar, what are you doing? And most of that criticism is pointed towards our officiating, which, hey, we get. That's part of it. But there's still a love for the sport, and it's one of those Things that I wish we could separate the two a little bit. Having said that, next gen car, let's talk about how we got here. Right. So the sport as I was in the competition, space, ownership, impossible to keep going. We were going down a path of destruction. Every owner was a car parts manufacturer, every part and piece. And they were spending money on things that didn't make the racing better. And ultimately said, you got to save us from ourselves. What can we do here? We also looked at the ownership that we had in place. No new owners really coming into the sport. Impossible to even come into the sport. And you're probably going down a path where two or three guys won every race. And not a path we wanted to be on. So the idea around the next gen car was can we come up with a model that brings the cost down, bring some new ownership in shores up the current owners to at least make it where you have a viable pathway to go forward? Not perfect, right. But we brought in all the race teams. We talked about, you know, RFP in every part and piece on the car. Where do we want to race? What could we do? How would this model work? And for the most part, if you look at short term, the racing certainly challenge, you know, short tracks, road courses, the intermediates. I mean, I came from a time if you put one more intermediate on the, I'm going to kill you. Right. And now why don't we have more? Why aren't we going back to the Coke 600? Why are we at the roval? Right? All those conversations. So that's good. We got to fix the short track stuff. But then you look at future, we're always open to change. So tires, I think they're moving aero. The one piece that I really look at and I think our group does is you've got this car, you've got some things contained from a cost standpoint. But what does everybody really like? It's the ability for a team to maybe tweak on the car, find an advantage, do something cool. What's the next iteration of that? That come from a race team? Now that we've got the parts and pieces, I think long term you could look at maybe a race team, you know, is making parts again, maybe some different things you can open up. Could you ever look at a cost cap? Right. So where you open those things up? But we've at least kind of stopped the wasteless spend and now we want to get it back to where, you know, engineer can come in, tweak on a car. OEM can say hey, this is my ip. I want to, I want to drive something, you know, you know, from a Ford or new technology standpoint. So we're absolutely open to continue to tweak on it. I think we just had to almost stop the bleeding of the cost and now really concentrate on. You got the baseline, make the racing better every single day.
- [16:36]
A
The car is, though, still relatively expensive. When I look at the, like, you know, when I look at the next gen, the technology is incredible. But the identity, I think, of our sport has been a sport with some physicality, you know, and while these cars and the drivers are still driving them in such a way and I wonder if it was as ne'. When I look at the car personally, I, I wish it wasn't so technology. I wish it wasn't so advanced, more old school.
- [17:20]
B
Yeah.
- [17:21]
A
I look at, you know, even parts and pieces, you know, and, and what it must cost to, you know, to, to, to, to make an A frame or, or, you know, the whole hub assembly on the, on the, on the car and I, I kind of wonder if we, if you did, if it has gotten easier for somebody to come in and, and participate and the teams will say, you know, you hear some teams say that things aren't, you know, they hadn't seen the benefits, you know, of the.
- [17:50]
B
Yes and no. Financially, I mean, you've seen Penske come out on the record for us. I mean, Justin Marks going out there winning races. 23:11, 23:11 came into this sport because of the next gen car. So that's what I. So it's not perfect by any means, but I think the baseline, when I talk about that. Could you get back to some of those old school parts or whatever? I think you can. Now, what happened with us is there wasn't a lot of great trust between our competition group and the teams. Right. We've done a lot of work to, I think, improve that, have some good dialogue. And it was at a point where we asked the teams to kind of participate in, you know, hey, do you want to make this specific part? And that financially didn't make a lot of sense. Right. And probably wasn't a lot of trust back and forth either. Fast forward now to where those conversations are happening. Like, hey, what if, you know, could, could Roush make this. Could someone else make this part? And I think that starts to potentially open it up. Not sure we'll get there, but I agree with you. I mean, getting back to that identity of what it is versus just this car over here that no one kind of Put together. There's some work to do there, but, you know, it's tough to argue with. With some of the racing that's going on, some of the drivers that are out there, but we can certainly improve. That's. That's what we want to do.
- [19:05]
A
I would say. It's like the car standing next to one of those cars physically is amazing. It's a badass race car, but it's like trying to race a Ferrari at a local short track. You know, it just. There's a bit of a disconnect, I think, in terms of the cost, you know, of what, you know, what it is to put one of those things together and then to send that thing out on the racetrack at Martinsville just doesn't make sense in my head. But work on that. Yeah, the. We had, you know, just recently, over the past weekend, we had some. Some comments on the radio during the Roval that are questionable. Nothing to the extent of what we saw at Martinsville last year that, you know, brought up the conversation around race fixing and so forth. And we've had this conversation before. Brian France Talked about the 100% rule and all that years ago. Do you guys. My personal opinion on what we saw this past weekend. I don't. I don't. It makes. I don't. It don't matter to me. But I wonder just how much NASCAR is listening to teams on what they're telling their drivers. Where. Where do you. We talked about it on the show yesterday with Robin.
- [20:23]
B
I've heard, too, with Rob Pemberton.
- [20:25]
A
Yeah, well, we. Yesterday, we talked about my team. My guys are like, where's the line? I'm like, I don't think there is a line. I think it's like, interpretation. Like, you have. I have to be okay with you. NASCAR saying that was too far, this wasn't too far, and I have to be okay. You know, I'm okay. You. You tell me. But there's, you know, are you. Are there things, I guess, that the teams cannot say, absolutely cannot say in terms of information they're feeding the driver about what the point situation may be in the middle of a race, you know?
- [20:56]
B
Yeah, no, it's. It's tough. Right.
- [20:57]
A
How do you manage it?
- [20:58]
B
Yeah, so. So we monitor every communication from every race team. Sometimes I would say that some of the race teams should be a little smarter in what they communicate. Right. Because it sometimes makes it easy to look at things, but they've certainly gotten smarter on, you know, different code words or whatever it may be. But it's tough. You know, we put a format in place, right? And we gotta. We gotta live with those rules, whatever happens. So certainly when you look back at Charlotte, you know, would there have been some. Some questions if someone got in? Sure. We would have had to continue to look at that. You know, we kind of set our eye on this one, but it is. It's a tough line to draw. We got a lot of smart folks that kind of beat everything up, look through all the facts. But I will tell you, Dale, that if we're going to make a call, we got to be damn sure we're right because there's so much riding on this. And so all the communication and everything, you know, we better be able to go in and stand in front of our peers and say, here's at least why we did this. And if we. If we lose or get overturned, okay? But we need to be able to stand up against it. And so a lot of work goes into those things. We don't take it lightly when we're issuing a penalty or having those conversations. I mean, I. I learned the hard way in competition when I. When I first came up to the R D center. You know, it's hard. Kevin Harvick told me you should be the most hated guy in the industry, right? And if you're doing your job right, tough to do, right? You want. You want respect from, from your peers and folks, but. So you go up to R D, you issue a penalty. What's the first thing that comes from a car? Oh, man, you're killing my sponsor. You don't like me, you're biased, right? So you think about that and you go, ah, maybe you need to be a little bit more lenient. Not. Not letting everybody get away with everything, right? But just, ah, you know, you're 50. 50. Let's. Let's kind of have a. Have a conversation and let that go. What happens, they see you doing it, they do it, the whole garage is doing it. And now you just. Right, it's. You're done. And so I learned the hard way coming up initially that, hey, you got to be tough. You got to draw the line. It's not going to be fun, but it's your job. And, you know, we're the government, right? People aren't going to agree with you, but that's just what you got to do. But so a lot of thought goes into it in every race. I mean, every second of every race, right? There could be a call, and you got to be ready to do it.
- [23:11]
A
Yeah, I feel Like, I agree with that. I. I've. I do feel like that NASCAR is at its best when they are very strict and stern and matter of fact, and there are some areas within the sport to. Where we have catered to or. Or dampened or softened some blows to. To. To. To. To try. To. To try to take care of some teams that, you know, for. As far as their partners and so forth, and how detrimental some things can. Can be. But I guess, you know, I'm. I'll. I kind of feel like, look, man, it's.
- [23:54]
B
Here's the rules, here's the deal, and I go back to, you know, it's old school, and when I say being more authentic, that. That's part of it. Yeah, here's the deal. Yeah, come with us or. Or not. But this is where the sport's going, and. And these are the calls that we're making. And. And one of the things we. We did in the past that was a. Maybe more difficult where you had, you know, some of the relationships fraying is we'd make some of those calls, but we wouldn't explain why. And so the difference now is, you know, Joey Logano and I have had this conversation. You know, I can get his opinion, and we go a different way, and he'll say, man, NASCAR doesn't listen to me. No, we. We listen to you. But, you know, seven other folks said that's not the way to go. So as long as we listen to someone and at least get back to them and say, here's why we made the decision, then we're doing it right. But that's what. I don't think we did as well in the past. We're getting better at that, for sure.
- [24:45]
A
Talking about the format, there's conversations. There's been a committee that I got to be a chance. I got a chance to be a part of, which was a lot of fun. I learned a ton. And we are talking about the, you know, the playoffs and how we decide our champion there. You know, I think everybody's got this expectation that there will be a change, and it might be mainly a change to how many races might be in that final round. I don't think you're here today to announce anything, but, you know, how close do you have your ear to the conversation? Do you have a preference? Where do you fall on that? You've been in the sport a long time. You've seen it all. You've seen both sides.
- [25:29]
B
I've seen both sides. I've seen. I've seen it. Yeah. I've seen it all as you have, so I'm in that conversation daily. I think about it all the time. Here's, here's where I'm at first off, right? We got rules in place for this year. What I don't want to do is take away from whoever wins the championship this year, right? Those were the rules. Everybody knew them. Let's go race. And whoever wins that championship, I'm going to stand behind that driver and team and say, that's our champion. Haven't said that, right? So what gets me to think about what, what gets me to think about it is Christopher Bell, right? So guy who will come in, have a conversation with me behind closed doors, doesn't go out and tweet about everything and say, hey, here's what I think, here's what I think, just gives me an honest opinion, which, which I agree with, of, hey, man, if I roll off 10 wins in a year, right, And I go to one race and a couple other guys get into me or whatever, and I'm not the champion, okay? Four years in a row, that happens. I don't want the next Christopher Bell, who's 10 years old right now, thinking about NASCAR, wanting to go to NASCAR, wanting to be a champion, say, huh, this is a little bit more of a chance on a one race, right? And I also look at it like, Christopher Bell, to me, is a superstar in our sport. You roll off four championships in a row with eight wins and a body of work, whatever that may be, that's good for our sport. People are talking about him. And so there's a couple things. That's one I think about, I think about the Daytona 500. I think about how big that race is. And one of the narratives, oh, he's in the playoffs, man. It's a Daytona 500, right? Yes, it's in the playoffs. I like, you have to win. Nobody can question. I will argue till I'm blue in the face that the racing has changed in terms of if you got to win the race. Some, some, some racing has changed. So there's some of that element. I don't want to go away. And then just looking at, you know, future stars, drivers coming in, having a multitude of races potentially that you gotta, you gotta, you gotta put a body of work together, right? So I think about all those things. I'm not giving away where I'm at, but I, I completely recognize, you know, where we're at today. I also recognize that a number of folks that are out there pretty vocally were part of this. Right. And everybody said, hey, here's. Here's what we're going to do. And everybody signed up for that. So I think all I would want is wherever we go, you know, we're going to communicate that. But we need the industry to buy in. We need. To me, the biggest thing is we need the drivers to feel like whatever's in place, I had the shot and, you know, we can start questioning. Right. If something happens, hey, look in the mirror. Versus maybe something happened in a one race scenario. That's where I knit out.
- [28:21]
A
Yeah. I feel like, you know, the. It's been a profound conversation really, honestly, all year long. And, and I agree. I think we. I have the opinion that I'm thankful that we're not going to announce anything until prior to the championship being decided, which is great because I too, don't want to discredit this year's champion, whoever that may be. And I don't want to discredit really the champions that won under this format. I think this format is the most difficult format. Is it my favorite? No. But it's the absolute most difficult. Like potluck. God, anything can happen. One race deal. And so I'm looking forward to what, whatever that may become. And I'm almost thankful that the, the sport became open minded to, to the conversation.
- [29:08]
B
Yep.
- [29:08]
E
Right.
- [29:09]
B
I think Dale. So I can't believe I'm sitting across from Washington sweatshirt is a Giant. But so you get other sports. Right. And so the Giants fan. Giants won the Super Bowl. They're a wild card. I think most people in football are okay with that. Like Giants super bowl champion. Our fans. Our fans aren't like that. And that's, that's okay. But I think a format was put in place. Yes. To attract new fans. More exciting. But you can't do that at the expense of, you know, kind of where your, your existing fans are.
- [29:39]
A
Right.
- [29:40]
B
And so that to me is part of the conversation too, of thinking you can do some things that may bring in new folks. But when I say being authentic.
- [29:48]
A
Yeah.
- [29:49]
B
Be authentic with who you are and those fans will come and newer fans will come. And I think that's a little bit of a different. When you say, what does that mean? To me, it's, it's more of that.
- [29:57]
A
Yeah. Hey, Everybody, it's Dale Jr.
- [30:00]
B
Here.
- [30:00]
A
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- [30:27]
E
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A
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E
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C
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E
Upgrade your day with workwear built like it matters. Get 15% off your first order@truewerk.com with code Dale Jr. That's T R U E W E R K.com let's talk about the lawsuit.
- [32:04]
A
How can we make this go away?
- [32:06]
B
Oh, man.
- [32:07]
A
So why is this not going away?
- [32:09]
B
I would say, here's what I say. I can't get into too many details, right? But. But what I can say is we didn't bring a lawsuit. We don't want a lawsuit. I've spent 30% of every day working on a lawsuit versus talking to fans and getting the sport going, which is really tough. We filed something yesterday and we asked for the court to set up a mediation. The reason we did that is because we had a mediation in New York. I can't get into the details we don't want to be in court. Don't get me wrong. We'll defend ourselves in the sport to no end, but we want to see this go away. So our next step was to try and get in front of a judge in Charlotte and just say, hey, what can we do here? Make this go away. That's our goal. Still not sure what the other side wants. We don't believe it's a case that's a monopoly. Believe it's a contract dispute, which it is what it is. But, you know, our goal is to make this thing go away and get back to racing.
- [33:06]
A
Do you think that. So in. In the past month or so, a lot of, you know, everybody's been talking about discovery, discovery, all these things that might come to light. NASCAR having to open. Open up its books and so forth. And there's been a bunch of anticipation around that. But some text mess come out. Yeah. Did you know, I guess in the days ahead that that was going to happen?
- [33:30]
B
Yeah. So let's go back to that, man. I'm, you know, I'm a big boy and not afraid to shy away from stuff. Right. So this was two years of a negotiation.
- [33:40]
D
Right.
- [33:40]
B
And you know me well enough. I'm a passionate guy where my emotions on my sleeve, probably too much. Right. But in the text messages, I'll. I'll just refer to mine. What came out was the way it was presented in court was that I said, f the teams. I didn't say that. I said in April. The context was if we did this deal the way it was, I felt like it would be an F to the teams. I was defending the teams to. To my boss, which was. Which was Jim France. And so I was a little disappointing that it came out initially without the context. Hate the language I used. Right. You never want to see that out there is what it is. But where we are today, you know, Jim France comes in my office and, you know, I'm like, oh, man, this isn't good. You know, I'm trying to defend the teams on this. And he said, look, I don't hire yes men. I hire people to tell me what they feel is right and how do we get to a good deal. So I feel like, you know, all that's out there, I knew it's out there. There's no surprises. The other side's kind of emptied their bucket of, here's all our text messages. It sucks. It sucks getting deposed, but it is what it is. And I stand by the fact that, you know, I was trying to Put a deal together that, that worked for everybody. We made some changes since I said that before we got to the end deal and, you know, I feel like we got to a place that other teams, you know, got their arms around.
- [35:04]
A
Yeah, in the last week or two, there was a lot of teams that came out, wrote, wrote some notes of support of the charter system. And I feel like while they didn't basically come out and say, hey, we side with NASCAR on this whole thing, they were in support of the charter system and very in support of something, some settlement, some way for this to be handled. Did that move the needle at all? 2311, all those guys, they came out just right after that and went, well, this basically just kind of claims, you know, makes all the claims we're making.
- [35:40]
B
So what I think that did, Dale, is it helped, you know, it's being positioned that NASCAR wants the charter system to go away. You know, we. Jim France, the one thing about Jim is charter system is. Is in place and said, I will live by whatever we signed. He had a choice. Right. He could have said, you know, we don't want, we don't want charters in the future. No, we've seen the value grow for teams, which is awesome. And what we wanted to come out there because you go to trial and we saw it written was the charter system could be up in the air. That's not good for us. A lot of. That's a lot going on there. So I think the team saying, hey, there's a concern here, if this goes to trial, that anything could happen to the sport, including charters going away. That's a concern. And I think it's position that. Oh, no, don't worry about that. We see it as a concern and, you know, if it goes away, it's not a. That's not a win for NASCAR that charters went away. We support chargers. We got 13 teams that signed up with them.
- [36:37]
A
Yeah, that I don't understand how now that charters, now that the charter system exists, now that people know there's real value and the ceiling is still unrealized with the charters. It could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars down the road. I mean, these things are multiplied like crazy in terms of value. I don't see how you put the toothpaste back in the tube. Even if NASCAR did prefer that. I don't know that that's realistic.
- [37:05]
C
No.
- [37:06]
A
In any way possible.
- [37:07]
B
Nope.
- [37:08]
A
So what is the one. What is the one thing. I'm sure there's not just one, but if you went to 2311 tomorrow and said we're going to make them permanent. Does that end this battle?
- [37:20]
B
I have no idea. I mean, I.
- [37:22]
A
How could you all not know that? How could y' all had. Y' all have been in mediation. You've had conversations. How could you not understand what might trigger real progress?
- [37:32]
B
Yeah, I'm going to leave that, Dale. I mean, honestly, to. Look, there's been one mediation, as I've. As I've said. That's it. Was that the August that was court appointed in New York? Yeah.
- [37:41]
A
So there was no. There's been no other conversation. Not. There's not been a time at any point in all of this where everybody's kind of been in the room or at least on the call to say, hey, is there a route?
- [37:54]
B
Not to my knowledge.
- [37:55]
A
Damn. All right. And so the mediation in August was managed by this dude from the NBA.
- [38:06]
B
I'm not sure where he was.
- [38:07]
A
The mediator. Yeah, yeah. Some. Some guy that's from the NBA. And you guys want a court appointed mediator? We'd like to see.
- [38:14]
B
We'd like to see. We didn't get anywhere. Right. So. So we thought, hey, let's. Someone in Charlotte can help us get some more. Let's do that.
- [38:22]
A
The mediation in August was very brief.
- [38:24]
B
Like, pretty brief. Yeah, You.
- [38:28]
A
You. You walked in with. With some terms, I think.
- [38:32]
B
So the way mediation works, and I can't get into detail, all I can say is that I think there is an understanding from both sides. Hey, what do you think? Right. Leave. Talk to the other side. What do you think? And then is there any proposal you'd like to. To put forth? I think that happened and then, you know, meeting broke up. So there. There was a conversation between both parties briefly, but yeah, no real progress. So, you know, hopefully we can get something going because our goal is there's a.
- [39:03]
A
This has gotten the other. I guess the next question, I guess is this is the way to get you guys to settle is everybody's got a Swallow pride. Everybody's got a. This has gotten personal. It's already, you know, it's very personal on both sides and the dislike is apparent. How does. You got to fix that? I suppose at some point, because look, I mean, the. In the end, no matter what happens, if you go all the way through court, you're going to be here, NASCAR is going to be here, and they're more than likely going to be here. So I mean, you'll have to get in the sandbox at some point.
- [39:44]
B
I don't disagree, but all I can say is when you get sued for something and you want a settlement with things that have nothing to do with what you sued for, it's hard to make sense of that. So that's, that's the struggle right now. And I can tell you that, listen, willing, able, our folks have said, you know, and that's why we filed what we did. Nobody wants to go to court from the NASCAR side. We want to concentrate on racing. And that's, that's all I can say.
- [40:13]
A
Well, if it does go to court, then there's no matter. I think both sides would appeal. That's another year, year and a half.
- [40:20]
B
Yep.
- [40:21]
A
Do I feel like that this has been detrimental?
- [40:25]
B
Thousand.
- [40:26]
A
I would, I would compare it towards. It's not exactly the same, but in terms of how it makes the fan feel, I would compare it to work, you know, work strikes, work stoppage that we see in other sports. Those are absolutely detrimental when there, when there aren't any games. But this, this is a turn off.
- [40:44]
B
I don't disagree.
- [40:45]
A
I know. And so, but it's, it's hurting you and them.
- [40:49]
B
It is. But you know, we're going to defend what we believe is right. That's all I can say is we put something in place that 13 other team owners signed up for. 13 other team owners are actually working with us right now to help grow the sport. And you know, we got to defend what we think is right.
- [41:05]
A
Is it, is it fair to say that, you know, without the charter system, without, when the charter system wasn't there and there wasn't a guarantee from NASCAR that this, you know, for, if I owned a charter right there now, now that the agreement's in place, I'm guaranteed a certain amount of money before the charter system for the fans.
- [41:31]
E
Yeah.
- [41:32]
A
What, where was, what was I guaranteed before?
- [41:35]
B
Yeah, no, I think it's a very fair question. So you look at the original why charter system, right? The original reason for a charter was guaranteed starting position. And so what happened, you and I go back right when we had 60 cars at Daytona 500, Tabasco would come in, right? Millions of dollars, sponsorship. Going home, going home, going home. And at the time we all thought, it's okay, it's big business. NASCAR and sponsors didn't. That was a big blow and a lot of money left the sport from potential sponsorship. So the owners asked for permanent starting positions. Now the challenge with that, if you're, if you're nascar, right. If you just are looking purely at the fans, and I don't know if you see this, but fans miss the days when the Gatorade, when those races made. Yeah, that mattered. Right. They love 60 cars. Who's going home. Right. All that went away. That's okay. Like, because we said we want guaranteed starting positions. So then the guaranteed starting positions were also okay. What money can we also guarantee as part of this? So we looked at that as well. So the original deal was, you know, guaranteed in every race and there'd be a set amount of money that you could be based on. And then the third piece was this value. So I 1000% agree. If Junior Motorsports was a Cup charter owner, you know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. Right. Put your life into the sport, you said, hey, that's enough. What did you have? And that's not good. Right. You've put all kinds of recounter all kinds of things into the sport. So if he wants to get out at some point and that value is now going up, that's great. And I think that will help, you know, someone invest because they see their value going up. So those three things were the reason for charters. Those were the reasons. When we went back in, we felt like we delivered on those. And that's, that's where we were at.
- [43:26]
A
The money comes from the TV deal. Was that money, you know, in the. Where was that money before? Was that money getting to the teams through points, through race purse money? Where was that money coming to the teams before through the purse? And so am I, Am I basically getting the same money that I was getting before, or am I getting new money, more money?
- [43:49]
B
No. So all the new money from this new TV agreement. Fans I know hate talking about money, but all, all the new money that came in went into the charters for this deal. So the new money that we received from kind of baseline to this one all went to the teams, but that's through guaranteed, like the old winner circle, those types of things. So we have, hey, you show up, you're guaranteed this amount of money. And then there's the other incentive to. You got to finish within XYZ and you get paid.
- [44:17]
A
Yeah. And so, but that has ratcheted up through the charter deal.
- [44:20]
B
Yes.
- [44:21]
A
What I would have been guaranteed or expected to earn over the course of participating all year long versus what I would get today now in the charter deal is, is much more money. So I, outside of the charter not being permanent, I don't see why I would be upset with the charter deal. Like if I don't own a charter.
- [44:45]
B
No, no, I agree with you. I think, I think that I don't.
- [44:47]
A
Own One, I've never read the agreements fully and so I don't pretend to know everything about, about them. But what when I, I'm close enough to, to some owners and close enough to the sport to go, all right, to your point, I now have a charter that I could sell $50 million if I could, you know, if I wanted to. I also am guaranteed 10 to 15 million dollars a year, you know, money that I can, I can use toward my program, and I'm guaranteed a spot. I don't know what else I would want then otherwise. I mean, the permanent side of it, I don't know if that's even a big deal. I don't know that I need it to be permanent because I don't know that you could turn it off.
- [45:31]
B
I think that's our challenge is when we looked at it, I think it's almost how you position it too. You look at other sports, you know, there's, there's renewals, right? And so we looked at it, right or wrong that, you know, you need a renewal term. You don't know what the next TV deal could be. So we wanted to be able to negotiate.
- [45:51]
A
So why wouldn't you just say, hey, yeah, they're permanent, but we're going to write a, we're going to write an agreement that your, your take on these, I mean, outside, other than you making them permanent, what are you doing? What are you worried about? I would just, you know, you could just make it permanent. Why couldn't you just do that and just say, hey, you're getting the percentage of the TV deal, whether it's $10 or $800 million, you're getting this percentage of it. And if it go, if this whole thing goes down, fails, you know, just because of mismanagement, we all, we all feel. Why couldn't you just say, yeah, they're permanent, go on, do what you want with them?
- [46:27]
B
I think a lot of things would come with that, right? Well, you know, there's, there's some open teams too, that, that part of the sport's been built on, you know, but they still not like they could still or they could not. Like you got to figure all those things out. So I think, look, short term, we got a charter agreement, we got a long term charter agreement. Do we want to look at other ways we could tweak it and both sides say, how can we make this better? Thousand percent.
- [46:53]
A
Was that one of the big things back when the teams were all pushing for permanency? Permanency, yeah. So is there anything Else that's not being discussed that they wanted, that they. They had. Because, you know, I talked to some owners and they'll say, I got a good deal, not everything, but I got most everything. What are some of the other things? Maybe just more money.
- [47:15]
B
More money was big.
- [47:17]
A
Talk to me about. So talk to me about one particular thing that I learned recently, and this is unique to our sport and maybe why we can't compare ourselves to deals that other sports have done with owners and so forth. NASCAR tracks. NASCAR owns a few.
- [47:41]
B
Yeah.
- [47:42]
A
Marcus Smith owns a few. Maybe there's some independent owners out there as well. They, they are in a different. They are not considered similar to other sporting events, arenas like, like baseball arenas and NFL arenas. And what I, what I believe I've learned is that if you wanted to upgrade or, or change or do anything to your ballpark, you have some benefits and some, Some breaks that allow you to be able to do that in such a way where you're paying us, you know, a discount, I suppose, where NASCAR doesn't have that. Our racetracks aren't considered. Our racetracks aren't under that umbrella. So if we want to upgrade the press box or the TV booth or put in a new grandstand or put in a big screen, that all has to come out of pocket.
- [48:42]
E
Correct.
- [48:44]
A
And there was a real opportunity, I think, in the last bill that went through, the big beautiful bill or whatever, for that language to change, and it didn't happen. And so the tracks are. And I think I did not know that that was the case. And I'd always wondered why our tracks at times are sluggish to upgrade. Why we. We've kind of lost. The gap has grown, I think, right. Between what I experience as a fan at a NASCAR race versus what I might experience going to a Washington game or a Giants game. Right. And I. And can. Is that a big deal? Is that, is that a. Is. Is that.
- [49:25]
B
I think that's important.
- [49:26]
A
Problematic. Yeah.
- [49:27]
B
So. So. So let's talk about, like, when you, you asked about negotiations.
- [49:30]
A
You can explain that better than me.
- [49:32]
B
Yeah, no, no, I think that was, that was, that was good. But, but when we talk about sitting across the table and in negotiations. Right. And, and, and you're told that you should never race at Darlington. Why is NASCAR race with Darlington, get out of there. Go. Go to some new city or go to somewhere else, I look at that and be like, what are we talking about here?
- [49:50]
A
Right.
- [49:51]
B
Arlington's a part of our sport. But, you know, that's said. Right. And so that's kind of a framework coming, maybe more from an other sports thought process that, you know, you can just go to anywhere city and say, hey, build us a new track and, you know, we're going to bring the Cup Series here. That, that unfortunately doesn't happen for us, so. And there's reasons for that, right? So Marcus Smith invested a ton of money in these tracks and took a bet, right, on a sport and said, I'm gonna build these tracks. Jim Fran, Independence, Indianapolis. All these folks did that, for the most part, without a lot of public funding. And then you look at our sport and you can criticize this and this would be fair of. You built racetracks, you didn't build entertainment facilities. And over the last 20 years, it changed to where you'd have multipurpose facilities. We were stuck with racetracks, and we're.
- [50:44]
A
You're viewed as just a racetrack, we're.
- [50:45]
B
Viewed as just a racetrack. So you can do some concerts and different things, but in terms of the setup of what you can do a bit challenged, and then you look at, oh, just, just leave, go to somewhere else. That's our sport. You know, that's iconic. You know, these, these racetracks are iconic. So you gotta catch up and catch up. We probably didn't do as much as we could have, you know, 20 years ago, but I think you can see the investment we're trying to make at certain tracks to catch up, and we're trying to make the tough decisions of what's a facility that, you know what, it's just past its time and we're gonna, we're not gonna invest here. We're gonna move this. So you've seen us try some things like, you know, going to Chicago, going out and doing some different things, going to San Diego. And if I go back and you, you and I go back a long time, and I know you're a short track guy. If we had some things to do over again, you know, one of my first races, you know, the old Busch Series, I'm at Hickory, right? You're at Rockingham, you're at North Wilkesboro. And some of the crowds were challenged a little bit, but. But we just. We're going to Vegas, we're going to California, we're going to Texas. And the way we did that was not the right way. Like, we kind of felt we left people feeling deserted. And so one of the biggest lessons I've learned over my time here is we can go to San Diego and we can try something new. You better be at Bowman Gray. You Better also be kind of mixing and matching, you know, with what you're doing. And so our mindset now is, is more. So can you go in and improve a short track? Can you, can you bring the cup series? Can you do something cool, modernize a little bit and then introduce some new tracks? But that is our big challenge. The idea that you're going to go somewhere and you're Formula One and they're going to write some $40 million check. I haven't seen it. And so you guess gotta, you gotta invest what you can, but try and catch up and try and do some things that are maybe different. I don't know if you've gone like if you go to SPA in Belgium, it looks like Watkins Glen. Right. When everything's gone. But when you go to a Formula one race, it's like, holy, this place looks awesome. But it's all temporary stuff that they bring in.
- [52:48]
A
Yep. I went to the Miami F1 race.
- [52:50]
C
Yeah.
- [52:50]
B
Yeah.
- [52:51]
A
All of the build outs for all the hospitality.
- [52:52]
B
Some real. Right.
- [52:53]
A
So they're three, four story buildings. They just plop for a weekend.
- [52:56]
B
So we're, we're learning some of those things too. How can you do something, you know, Red Bull coming back. Some of those things like what can we do to, to, you know, kind of fuse some, some things that are going on at the racetrack as well. But it is, it is a challenge that you pointed out.
- [53:09]
A
Yeah, I was, I didn't know that the tracks, you know, I kind of, I kind of didn't know that the tracks were basically in, in such a tough spot, you know, comparable to other sporting, you know, venues and that they weren't viewed similarly and allowed the same benefits, I think in terms of being able to upgrade and so forth.
- [53:32]
B
And we're trying like we're seeing some things like I was a good example right. Where we went out there and hey, we can bring cup race. They'll do some things maybe on Repaven or some of those things which, which is good. But not to the point where we're gonna go build you this Taj Mahal. That's right.
- [53:45]
A
It's not happening. Those days are gone.
- [53:47]
B
Yeah.
- [53:48]
A
If they change legislation that opens that.
- [53:52]
B
That helps back up to allow you.
- [53:53]
A
To be a multi use venue.
- [53:55]
B
Yeah. And I think, you know, you've seen, you know, one of the things I forgot to talk about with the playoffs. Right. One of the biggest things, at least I think our fans wanted was you got to rotate wherever you're going. Right. We want, we want to move around so you know, going from Phoenix, we're going to Miami. To me, you know, that needs to continue and I'm not advocating we're going to be at one, I'm just saying in general where you finish the same season. And part of that could be, hey, you know, let's get ahead of it now. If we're going to go to Charlotte, if we're going to go to wherever, we're going to bring you this championship, your season ending race, we need some help for that, for the industry and that will also go to the teams and the fans as well.
- [54:31]
A
Hey, everybody, you want the latest Dale Jr. Download apparel? Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com we're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show, we'll put it on a T shirt again. Check it out@shop.dirtymomedia.com this show is sponsored by Better Help.
- [54:49]
C
World Mental Health Day is in October and Better Help is shining the spotlight on therapists, people who truly make the world a better place. Because the right therapist can change everything.
- [54:57]
D
Yeah, Travis, you know, I think mental health is so important, you know, in therapy and just understanding yourself, where your anxieties come from, being able to process your thoughts that I think is so valuable. I've found a lot of benefit in that.
- [55:10]
C
A lot of times you've got these feelings or emotions but you don't know what to do with them, how to process it. You can talk to a friend and they can help, but a therapist knows what to do and kind of give you some things to how to handle it.
- [55:21]
D
Yeah, 100%, you know, better Help therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and they're fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals.
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C
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- [55:48]
D
Yeah, that's right, Travis. This World Mental Health Day we're celebrating the therapists who have helped millions of people take a step forward. If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey.
- [56:00]
C
Our listeners get 10% off the first month@betterhelp.com dalejr that's betterhelp.com dalejr Travis, you.
- [56:09]
D
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C
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- [57:35]
A
Is there anything new on the schedule to discuss?
- [57:38]
B
Huh? I'm trying to think.
- [57:41]
A
We've had a. Yeah, we've had.
- [57:44]
B
Where should we be going?
- [57:45]
A
Yeah. Well, that's the great one. Bowman Gray's badass. I'm glad you're doing that. It was pretty fun experience. Just as a, as a fan, the San Diego street street race is going to be, going to be great. That's a new market, new city we've never, never been in front of. I've got friends out there that are thrilled. Mexico was great. I enjoyed it. I had a blast.
- [58:08]
B
We, you know, when you were there, it was awesome.
- [58:10]
A
It was.
- [58:10]
B
And you guys did a hell of a job for us. But just, you know, it. Listen, I'll be honest. It was good, was good attempt, but, you know. All right, turn the page and let's try something different. Yeah.
- [58:21]
A
Chicagoland coming back. Yeah, that's going to cost some money.
- [58:25]
B
It will.
- [58:26]
A
Yeah.
- [58:26]
B
Definitely. We're not, we're not, we're not going back as it looks right now. Yeah. So, so we're putting some money in there.
- [58:31]
A
Is that like. Is that. What's the attitude around going back to Chicagoland? Is it all right, we'll do it and see what happens? Or is it is. Do you feel like it's got a long term.
- [58:42]
B
Potentially. So we're not giving up on the. On the street course either. So I think you could see. I could see something where you're doing both. I could see something where you're swapping. But Chicagoland for us, you know, we're going back to put on a heck of a race and see where we go. You know, I think we've. From the last time we were there, right, our racing was pretty tough. Bring back the Tropicana ball, right? Have that thing cruising around there. But no, we want to go there and it's going to look good going.
- [59:11]
A
Back to Miami for the finale. You left there.
- [59:13]
B
We did.
- [59:14]
A
And I'll tell you this, man. The. I can understood why we left and. But I will tell you that there is something about the vibe of being there. I'm tracking that time of year. You know, the weather's great, but being in that racetrack, knowing that all three series are going to decide their champion, it's got a feel.
- [59:39]
B
It's got to feel. And I. I don't. I'm with you. I don't know how it always felt like you're. I don't know if it's driving down from North Carolina, but I always remember, you know, Sunday night, you know, whenever Monday, you're driving back. It just felt. It felt right. I think we'll bring that back. We're doing a lot to the track. Guillermo down there. Promoters really doing a lot of cool things that I think fans will see. Like, wow, this isn't the homestead that I left. This is going to look really cool even compared to last year. But I agree with you. And that's what we got to bring to any new market.
- [60:07]
A
We go to the. There's a big conversation around the All Star race. It feels like, you know, Marcus is going to kill me, but it feels like that it was a collateral damage for, you know, everything that happened and everything that changed. Wilkesboro, getting a points race. Badass. Like, I am thrilled. And that's. That's like the final, you know, the final leg in its entire story arc of coming back, right, is to get that points race. But it feels like that the All Star race, there was really nowhere else for it to go. And that Dover. We all can, you know, we all can go. You know, man, I could think of a bunch of places that it could go besides Dover, but that's where it's headed.
- [60:53]
B
That's where it's at. Yep.
- [60:55]
A
How do y'.
- [60:56]
B
All.
- [60:56]
A
You know, and how do. How does nascar. What role does NASCAR play in making sure that that's a success? Is it as successful as it can be? I know Marcus. Having known Marcus over the last several years, I know the. His hands are all over it every day.
- [61:11]
B
Yeah. So I think a lot of conversations on that. Right. So you can say, you know, they just parked it at Dover.
- [61:18]
A
Right.
- [61:18]
B
But the initial reaction's been pretty good. Now it's our job to deliver the best race there. That race has been challenged. Right. And.
- [61:26]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [61:26]
B
So what can we do as a group, getting our arms around what could make this as. As cool as possible? Do I have the exact answer now? No. But Marcus has pushed us, and I think it's been good on. Can you use the All Star race to try some things for the future? We went. We went last year. We were. We were almost a run. What you brung.
- [61:46]
A
Right.
- [61:47]
B
And we got. We got kind of vetoed at the last.
- [61:49]
A
See, that's another. So that's another thing where I feel like NASCAR didn't get enough credit. Now, I know, you know, people might call me shield, but I. I know all these things that are going on, and I know where NASCAR is. Like, hey, man, we gave you a chance here to do this, and, you know, you didn't take it. So that was, I think.
- [62:08]
B
I think going back. Right. We can do a better job on that, too, though, just in fair, I don't want to say all the team said no. So we. We probably, you know, shorter time span we got with them. We got enough time right now to say, seem like everybody could get their arms around this.
- [62:21]
A
Yeah.
- [62:21]
B
What's. What's the thing you don't want to do?
- [62:23]
A
All right.
- [62:23]
B
You don't want to drive cost through the roof. And here we go.
- [62:25]
A
All right.
- [62:26]
B
Within the parameters, what can we do? You know, we've gone so far as to think, you know, the coolest thing that would happen for the sport. And I don't know. Yes. You know, five days before the race. You know, hero rules. Right.
- [62:38]
A
Yeah.
- [62:39]
B
You'd see a pretty badass race. Right. We. I. I learned. We used to. You go to Kentucky Open practice day Thursday, four hours practice Friday, Saturday. Terrible. The more time on track usually. Right. Create some problems. So the less we can have known at Dover would be, the better.
- [62:56]
A
I agree, man. I have a lot more stuff right here on my list that we're not going to be able to get to today. But I'm thankful for the opportunity to talk to you. You're, you've been around this deal a long time and I feel like you understand the, the vision that was created, you know, 75 years ago. And I feel like that with people like you involved in the sport, we'll stick near and close to that vision going forward. Look forward to having the opportunity to get you back in here and dig more. I know there's like, you know, the 24 hours news cycle. If we give it a month, they'll be out.
- [63:34]
B
Listen, I'd be in here anytime. There are people in the sport who I got a ton of respect for because you could do your career and then you could leave 24 hours. 7. You care about where we're going. We're not always going to agree, right. But I love the team passion. That's all I bring to the sport, too. I'm not always going to get it right, but I love the sport. I want to get back to having some fun with the industry and, you know, I think you'll see that next year. And if we go a little bit off, we'll turn it back around. But I think there's some really good things to come.
- [64:04]
A
Awesome. Well, thank you, buddy. I appreciate your time today.
- [64:06]
B
Thank you, sir.
- [64:07]
A
Steve O' Donnell and Adele Jr. Download.
- [64:20]
E
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- [65:19]
C
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- [66:04]
A
All right, so Steve O' Donnell on the Dale Jr. Download. I bet there's some stuff that we didn't ask him that you wanted us to ask him. But I had the sheet in front of me and I had an hour and we got to about 40% of the stuff that's on this sheet. So we're gonna have to get him to come back. He will come back. I've known o' Donnell for a long time and gotten a couple ass chewings from him about some things I did in the race car. But the, the guy definitely loves the sport and I mean he's passionate about it to a fault. But he's the president and, and I think he's a, he's a, he's a great guy for the job. Definitely knows the sport. I have, I've seen this in the past. We're not always going, we're not always going to love what he's, what he does. We're not always going to love the decisions. But every time that I've, that I've had a real problem with something that happened in the sport, when I talk to those guys, I at least get the reasoning behind the decision and I can understand at least if I was in their shoes, why that decision was made. I still might not love it. But I, I trust him. I do, I really do. And, and I'm, I'm, I'm glad that they, you know, kind of hire within. Especially a guy that's got so many years, he's seen so many levels. One thing we didn't really talk about because of the, you know, it kind of falls down the line a little bit of some of the things we did discuss is his connection to the regional series. He has lived in that regional bubble of weekly racing and he talked about that and I love the, that that will matter to him. He won't, I don't believe that he will forget to make sure that that is healthy and that's doing what it needs to be doing because obviously we both have. I think he does, and I do, too, have a very, you know, big place in our heart for weekly racing and short track racing and trying to figure out how to make that better every day. So that was, you know, there's just a. I don't know. He's had some, you know, he's dealt with some tough things in his life, personally, and he's. I just, I know that's made him tough and strong and be able to handle this type of deal. He will tell you what he thinks, and he'll get heated and upset about some things, but I kind of miss that about nascar, honestly. You know, I feel like. I feel like there's some areas where we do need to get a little meaner, a little tougher. And so I kind of. I kind of think that he'll bring some of that energy. And I felt like, you know, I got to ask some questions, and I know he wasn't going to answer all of them, but, you know. Yeah, I'm just anxious to see how this lawsuit deal works out. I can't wait for that to be a thing of the past, but. And I want everybody to just get on down the road. I agree. I feel like. I hope, you know, I hope that NASCAR can sort this out. And I want NASCAR to remain. I want nascar, Jim France, all of that to remain as is. I like the way that the France family has done things all these years. I didn't. I don't disagree with how they run and manage the sport and what they've done, decisions they've made. Now there's some things that happen, you know, in the season that I didn't love, and there's some things I've said about the, you know, the, The. The current car or what have you, but in just a global term of, you know, Bill France, senior junior, Jim. I know I've known Jim forever. Man, that Jim's a badass. So I just, I want that to all remain intact. I think the charter system is great. I want, I want. I mean, I don't own one, so I don't care if it's here or not. But I think for the team owners that do have them, it's great. Especially for a team like the Wood Brothers and some of these other teams that really do genuinely, this is what they do for a living. Right. They don't have, you know, Penske has other businesses. Rick Hendrick has car dealerships. He races to. To win and not for a living. So it's great for teams that do it for a living.
- [70:42]
C
Right.
- [70:44]
A
But I also want Denny Hamlin to be an owner. We need owners. We need these guys. You know, our owners are getting older, and I want Denny Hamlin to be a successful owner in the series. I won't. I love that he's got Michael Jordan involved. I love that Michael's at the races, that Michael cares, that Michael wants to win. He's. He's a real. He's the real deal, you know, as. As an owner. Not. Not just a name and a. In a face, but. So I kind of, you know, I kind of want the world to go back to the way it was, but we'll see if it does. They've got to get together and sort it out. And even if that means going through court, they still have to end up at some point ready to move forward together. If you have something that has an identity, a business, an organization, something that functions and it has earned and established an identity that everyone in it really loves and appreciates, you have to hire within. You have to hire someone who understands the vision, that understands the identity. If you hire somebody that hasn't lived it, hasn't been in it, doesn't know it, and you bring them in there, they will change with their ideas and their vision. They will change the identity. And in this case, NASCAR is a sport would change forever. It would become. People complain at times, I do as well, that it's unrecognizable in some areas. It would become completely foreign to me. And so I love that they hire within. I love that they've got this guy, and he's been in the sport for a couple decades, and he knows it. And you give him the steering wheel or the joystick or the control, and he'll steer it in the direction you expect it to keep going. You know, that's what I think is a good thing about Steve. And. And he mentioned he's comparable to Mike Helton. When Mike was in that role, nobody worried. We didn't. None of us lose any sleep at night. Mike was a badass, and he, too, had been in the industry for most of his life. And we didn't worry about where we were going. We knew it was going to be all right, you know, and so I'm hoping that Steve will bring that same energy and that same confidence back. I thought Steve Phelps did a great job as well as president. He tackled some difficult things and managed some difficult moments. But I'm equally as excited about Steve being in that role. And so yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.
- [73:34]
B
Yeah.
- [73:35]
A
So I'm glad he came in here and gave us some time and yeah, it's fun to have that conversation. One I've wanted to have. And yeah, we'll try to see if we can't have it more often. Get. Get him in here more often. Maybe every quarter. Sort of a state of the sport. State of the sport. Hell, yeah. All right, well, let's get to the white flag.
- [73:59]
D
White flag.
- [74:01]
A
All right. The teardown was live on YouTube and Twitter following the race. If you haven't already, head over to dirty mo media's YouTube page, subscribe and hit the notifications so you can get all the things that we're putting out all week long. Actions detrimental. Dropped on Monday. Denny found himself in the middle of controversy there at the end of the race with Ross Chastain and Denny gives us his side of the story. Doorbopper clear dropped on Monday. Joined by Lee Diffie. Thank you, Lee, for coming through. Dirty Air with me and TJ was yesterday. Herman Schrader, Speed Street. They're dropping today. Tomorrow, bless your heart. With my wife Amy. And then the Dirty 30 comes out on Friday. Also, we have a new Dirty Mo Making Merch. Bless your heart Fan Edition contest. Go to shop.dirtymomedia.com Click on the tab for Making Mo Merch Contest and it'll give you all the information. This is for fans to make merch for the Bless yous Heart podcast. And if you win this, you're going to get 500 bucks. The cutoff is October 13th. We'll see you tomorrow. Check out DirtyMomedia on Instagram, Facebook X and TikTok.
- [75:17]
B
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