That Was Old School Bristol

Summary

The Dale Jr. Download – "That Was Old School Bristol"

Podcast: The Dale Jr. Download (Dirty Mo Media, SiriusXM)
Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Guests/Co-hosts: TJ Majors, Russell, Christopher Bell
Date: September 16, 2025
Main Theme: Reflections on the “old school” Bristol race weekend, including detailed discussion of the evolving Bristol Motor Speedway experience, tire strategy, Goodyear’s role, playoff implications, and an insider interview with Bristol winner Christopher Bell.

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Episode Overview

This episode recaps a wild, physical, and nostalgic Bristol race weekend, diving deep into what made it feel “old school.” The crew explores Bristol’s racing history, track changes, and how recent tire strategies from Goodyear affected on-track action. Dale and TJ dissect the playoff picture, share pit crew stories from Dale’s career, and feature an interview with race winner Christopher Bell. The tone is candid and reflective, with doses of humor and deep-dive racing analysis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bristol Nostalgia & Track Evolution

• Dale and TJ’s Take: The Bristol Night Race delivered the most “old school” short-track racing fans have seen in years, including physical contact, strategy, and energy reminiscent of the venue’s glory days.
• Track History Recap:
  • Originally flatter, later reconfigured with more banking.
  • Shifted from asphalt to concrete due to durability issues.
  • Multiple attempts to optimize the racing groove (asphalt, concrete, sealer, PJ1).
  • Vario banking introduced to stimulate multi-groove racing, leading initially to exciting racing, but eventually “everyone just runs the top.”
    Dale (14:55): “Like, everybody’s... he’s on the bottom, he’s in the middle, I’m on the top—we’re all racing the out of each other. I mean, I don’t know what more you could want. This is pretty cool.”
• PJ1 and Track Prep: How targeted application of traction compound can bring “old Bristol” style racing—emphasis now on selectively narrow PJ1 for increased risk and reward.
• Event Weekend Structure: Praise for the variety (Trucks, ARCA, Xfinity, Cup) and persistent on-track activity which mimics historic Bristol atmosphere and delivers real value to fans.
  • Dale (21:00): “It felt like the typical... kind of weekend that people need to justify going, pulling their camper out there, getting a camping spot, spending three or four days...”

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2. Goodyear’s Aggressive Tire Strategy

• Changing Conditions: Practice and race tire wear divergent due to small temp drop – sudden, dramatic tire wear during the race led to blown right fronts and major strategy challenges.
  • Dale (30:02, re: Blaney’s practice numbers): “The tire was completely durable. 10 degrees cooler in the race... the tire can go 30 laps and it goes to the cords and blows right front.”
• Goodyear’s Dilemma: Making a tire that wears but doesn't harm the brand, with difficulty anticipating real race conditions.
  • Quote from Dale (32:01): “Making these tires wear out and fail... it’s a risk to their brand. Unless a race, you know... Someone that’s not as educated is gonna look at it and be like, ‘man, these Goodyear tires... they’re terrible.’ But we all know that...”
• Driver/Team Adaptation: More driver skill now involved in tire management—rewards patience and tactical intelligence.
  • TJ (34:48): “Factors. With this tire, you have more factors...driver comes into play a lot more... It’s more fun for a race fan. It’s gotta be, right?”
  • Emphasis on unpredictability, despite driver frustrations with luck vs. skill ratio.

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3. 2025 NASCAR Playoff Picture & Predictions

• Cut Line Analysis: The crew analyzes who’s vulnerable and who’s likely to advance, with lots of debate about the bubble drivers (Elliott, Bubba, Chastain, Logano, Reddick, etc).
  • Dale (42:23): “This is so tough. They’re all so good. This is really hard.”
  • Statistical breakdown of tracks and driver histories for Loudon, Kansas, Roval.
• Strategy in New Hampshire: Dale and TJ discuss how pit strategy and tire calls at Loudon can ruin a good run or shake up the standings.
  • Dale (46:55): “If it don’t turn in the middle, you’re screwed... The corners are really flat and it, it, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
• Road Courses and the Roval: Skepticism about the Roval’s role as a cutoff event and speculation about potential schedule tweaks.

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4. Stage Racing Changes & Super Speedway Debate

• Adding a Fourth Stage: Discussion on a possible fourth stage for Daytona/Talladega to increase points value and on-track urgency, using the Coke 600 as precedent.
  • Dale (61:38): “So now... there’s been this... Is the Daytona 500 still the most important race of the year?... adding this four stage and making those races mean more from a point standpoint would also make the races again mean more from a competitor standpoint.”
• Fuel Saving vs. Hard Racing: Removing stage cautions alone won’t end fuel mileage games—crew chiefs will always try to minimize pit time.
• Super Speedway in Final Playoff Round? Dale advocates for it, embracing unpredictability as part of NASCAR’s DNA.
  • Dale (86:28): “What are we doing if we’re insulating ourselves from tough moments and tough things... it’s a bit soft, I think, to say ‘let’s not put the plate race in the final round because of the unpredictability’... I’m all about it.”

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5. Dale’s Stories from the Driver’s Seat

• Pit Crew & Leadership: Approaching pit crew performance with camaraderie and support vs. top-down critique.
  • Dale (98:41): “Here’s why you wouldn’t do that: the guy on the right front of your car is one of the best guys in the garage... Are you going to go up to him after the race and critique the job?... because he can just as easily say, I don’t gotta put up with this, I’ll go over here and make a little bit more money...”
• Memorable Radio Quotes:
  • Dale (100:00): “You’ll say [stuff] like that over the radio. You know instantly that you didn’t need to say it.”
  • Story of threatening to take a hammer to his crew—regretting saying it but underscoring the intensity of pit stop pressure.

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6. Interview: Christopher Bell – Bristol Race Winner

• Post-race Chaos:
  • Bell (72:12): “That night was wild. You didn’t know if you were leading the race, if you’re running last, if you’re on the lead lap, if you’re two laps down... It was wild and chaotic and fortunately, the race played out for me.”
• Luck vs. Skill:
  • Bell frames this Bristol as a heavy luck race due to tire management and timing of cautions, preferring skill and team strength to be more decisive.
  • Bell (74:42): “With the way that the races play out... it is so much luck, Dale. It is so much luck. If you had more tires, it might make it a little bit less lucky... I just, I don’t like the aspect of so much luck as indicative of the outcome.”
• On Track Prep and Tire Wear: Recognizes unpredictability as a new variable, but enjoys “normal Bristol” for its physical demands and broad options (top/bottom lanes).
• Looking Forward: Feels good about next-round tracks (Loudon, Kansas, Roval), emphasizing preparation and execution over fear of unpredictability.

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7. Fan Q&A & Lighthearted Moments

• Chase Elliott’s Switch to Number 9: Dale played an active, almost “parental” role in the transition and lobbied Rick Hendrick for the change.
  • Dale (80:00ish): “An Elliott in the number 9 is a big win for everybody... it just makes sense, right?”
• Best Pace Car Celebrity Ride: All around fun but leans toward fellow athletes (“for them to not not know your world and go see it…”).
• Pit crew focus: Dale prefers being the “friend” and ally rather than hard-nosed critic, believing camaraderie delivers best results.

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8. Gambling, Stats, & Playoff Picks

• Betting Reflections: The crew discusses the unpredictability of racing bets, the challenge of making picks in NASCAR, and how the playoffs add another layer of complexity.
  • Standout driver picks for Loudon: Bell, Briscoe, Logano, Blaney, Priest, Larson.
    Russell: "Don't parlay those, bet them individually."
• Stat Sheet Deep Dives: Average finish stats, matchups, and historical performances drive the conversation around fantasy/prediction picks.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Dale (14:55): “This is badass... everybody’s on a different part of the racetrack... What more could you want?”
• Dale (32:01): "Making these tires wear out and fail... is a risk to their brand."
• TJ (34:48): "With this tire, you have more factors... the driver comes into play a lot more."
• Bell (72:12): “[Bristol] was wild and chaotic... there’s no way anybody was going to win without luck being on their side."
• Bell (74:42): "I don't like the aspect of so much luck being indicative of the outcome."
• Dale (86:28): "...it's a bit soft...to say, 'let's not put the plate race in the final round because of the unpredictability.'"
• Dale (98:41): "The guy on the right front... is one of the best guys in the garage... Are you going to go up to him after the race and critique the job he did?"

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Bristol Vacation & Memories: 02:00–06:30
• Track History & Evolution: 06:42–16:30
• Tire Strategy Discussion: 26:30–36:00
• Playoff Picture Deep Dive: 39:03–47:00
• Pit Crew Stories & Critique: 92:54–100:45
• Christopher Bell Interview: 71:50–78:44
• Super Speedway/Stage Debates: 61:38–65:30
• Fan Questions & Number 9 Story: 78:53–84:00
• Betting & Matchups: 104:22–117:18

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Conclusion

This episode is a must-listen for fans wanting to understand what made this Bristol race so special and different. Dale and his crew blend expert technical analysis with personal stories and wry humor, delivering rare, behind-the-scenes context and a wealth of first-person insight on what’s working in NASCAR, what’s not, and what the future holds for short track racing. The interview with Christopher Bell further illustrates the razor-edge chaos of modern Bristol, and the ongoing push-and-pull between luck, skill, and innovation in the sport.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, I told him, I said, if I have a wheel come off and I hit the damn wall, I'm gonna take a hammer to all of y' all and show you how it feels. And you know, that was a pretty stupid thing to say over the radio.

[TJ Majors]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[TJ Majors]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In Tulsa yet for forcing Dwight to fight for everything he's built and to protect his empire.

[TJ Majors]

Stream the new season of Tulsa King, Sunday, September 21st, exclusively on Paramount.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[TJ Majors]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Russell]

Who was your best man, Dale?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[TJ Majors]

All right then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, everybody. Junior. Back again for another episode of the Dale junior Download with my good friend and. And co host TJ Majors. How's it going, tj?

[TJ Majors]

It's going good. How you doing?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm all right. I was all right. I was sick last week, but I got. Oh, I mean, I just had a head cold for about five days, but got over it. Went to. Went to the Keys for a couple nights.

[TJ Majors]

Good times down there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's pretty good. It's different these days. You know, I had. Had a. Had a house down there for, I don't know, 10 years. Then we renovated another house and so we spent a lot of Time down there. But when we had kids, we were thinking, all right, we need to find another place for our, you know, our vacation spot that's a little easier to get to for one, but also maybe a little more kid friendly. So we only kind of go to the Keys once a year. It's a fun time.

[TJ Majors]

It is fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Cool. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We send a lot of people down there. A lot of people ask us all the time because we spent so much time down there. A lot of people go down the Keys and want to know what some of our favorite spots are.

[TJ Majors]

But there's some really good spots.

[Russell]

How many oysters did you have?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I had a dozen. That's it? Yeah. We did have some buffalo shrimp at the raw bar. Every time I go, like, the first thing I need to do is go to the raw bar for buffalo shrimp. And that kind of starts the day. And. Yeah, schooners for some beers. Schooners is great.

[TJ Majors]

The taco place is good. Amigos is what you can start. People watch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. I sat there and had a margarita. Margarita, margarita, margarita.

[Russell]

Do you have any hot salsa this time?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Nope. Okay. I just had to Margaret and Hanks and Captain Tony's. I had a flying monkey drink. Hadn't had one of them in a long time.

[TJ Majors]

Whoa.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I don't. I don't. That's a place where you go and have all the flavors. It's in the machines that are swirling. And I don't usually drink frozen drinks. And I can't tell you the last time I had had one of those. It's been over 10 years.

[TJ Majors]

What'd you pick? You remember?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's kind of like a chocolate vanilla swirl thing.

[TJ Majors]

Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Did you get the thing in the middle?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The shot? Yeah. No, I didn't do that.

[TJ Majors]

I like the grape eight.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah, I said that. It's not necessarily kid friendly, but I will say this. You. There are things to do with your kids. The butterfly museum is incredible. So if you have kids and you go to the Keys, the best thing to do, I think there's all kinds of. All kinds of options. But the butterfly museum is neat because. So butterflies. That's stuff that I never knew. Right. Butterflies only live for a few days. They import a lot of these butterflies into this greenhouse that's in the back. You go in the front. It's a huge gift shop. And we went and got the girls some things to take back to them as gifts. If you walk into the back immediately, you'll walk into the greenhouse. And typically, Key west is really hot. You know, it's like 85 degrees down there. Warm. Well, that greenhouse is really nice and cool. It's just kind of a break from the, from the heat. But there's thousands and thousands and thousands of butterflies flying around in this greenhouse. And they land on you. They land on your hat, your arm, your hand, your shoulder, all over you. And they land all over the girls, right? They land on them. They're big, blue, beautiful, all these colors. And so if you want to be the hero to your little girl or, or your son or what have you, that's a pretty magical experience because they'll, I don't know, anywhere else. They'll go where they'll. That will, you know, be what. What happens. So butterflies don't typically land on you.

[TJ Majors]

Please tell me there's a picture of you getting with butterflies landing on you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm sure there's one out there.

[TJ Majors]

I hope so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, we didn't go in the greenhouse.

[TJ Majors]

They can go out there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, but if I take the girls, that's what you're going. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Mr. C. Still open.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Mr. Z's.

[TJ Majors]

Z's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, Mr. Z's Pizza.

[TJ Majors]

Iconic picture of me taken there at one time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. One of my favorite pictures of TJ was taken at Mr. Z's about 2, 3, 4 o' clock in the morning. Him devouring a slice of pizza. And he looks as bad as you can imagine. Yeah, he's in bad shape.

[TJ Majors]

The general was hurting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, Mr. Z's, that's. I mean, some of the best pizza. So good.

[TJ Majors]

It was that second.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My second favorite pizza place in the world next to Pie in the sky here in Mooresville. Mr. Z's. So anywho, we. We got quite the race this weekend.

[TJ Majors]

Got what we wanted again, did we?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did we not? Sounds like some people didn't get what they wanted. Just a little short on that victory lane celebration there.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, well, short.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Bradley coming in second with a spirited run to the finish. Trying to, trying to get the. Trying to get the win. I was, I was pretty, pretty happy to see the. The contact. You know, how physical the race was.

[TJ Majors]

It was definitely a physical race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. I. So first off, before we go any further on and let y' all know that this week's Dirty Air segment is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops, North America's premier outdoor and conservation company. Plan your next adventure at a Bass Pro Shops near you or online@bass pro.com. it's a great place to go shopping. The Bass Pro Shops car almost pulled one out for, for the win. They were leading the race there for a while with Chase Briscoe. There's been this really long, you know, sort of debate conversation around Bristol and, and how to, you know, man, I miss this Bristol, I miss that Bristol. And this is what I want out of Bristol and this is what I wish Bristol was like. And it seems like that this, this weekend we kind of got as close as we've been in a long time to the traditional idea of Bristol and the product that Bristol had delivered at its peak. And that's not a nostalgia quote. This isn't about nostalgia. Basically, back in a certain time frame, the ticket for Bristol was by far the hottest ticket on the circuit. And you had, it was almost difficult to get an opportunity to get that ticket. There was a waiting list and all of that stuff. So, you know, it's changed quite a bit since then. It's no longer selling out and they've had to, you know, and it's no secret or everybody listening to this show ought to probably know most of the history of how the track changed. It was asphalt for years. Track's actually been configured multiple times. When they first built Bristol back in the, I think the early or late 60s, it was much flatter. Bristol used to be quite, quite a bit flatter. And they, they eventually, I mean, after only about three or four years, they came in and then built the track, the banking up, because cars were running all over the racetrack. You had guys running on the apron, like there was 30 foot of apron before you got to the bank.

[TJ Majors]

Use it, huh?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Part of the race. Yeah. Guys were everywhere, all over the place. It was just the strangest looking track. And, and after several years, they did the same thing at Rockingham. When they first built Rockingham, it was flat. And they did this, and this was all right around the same time frame. Uniquely or coincidentally, when they built Bristol and Rockingham, they built them within years of each other and they built them both flat. And then within four or five years, they reconfigured them to have more banking, both the same trail. So they, they reconfigured it then, then, you know, we had this asphalt version that was highly popular. And around the mid-90s, they had resurfaced the racetrack. Sir. I imagine paving technology wasn't very good back in those days.

[TJ Majors]

TJ well, it was probably good for.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The time, yeah, but you're running 16 second laps around the racetrack and I suppose when we went, maybe it was warm on Thursday, Friday, when we had practice for the Busch Series and the Grand National Series, which is a cup series back then. And the track began to come apart in practice. And all through the weekend, they had a lot of problems with the track coming apart.

[TJ Majors]

And track coming apart is not good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I believe, you know, brewton, having looked at what Dover did, decided, well, we're. We're going to fix that. And they concrete the racetrack.

[TJ Majors]

Was that the second ever concrete track?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I believe it was. Well, second concrete track in nascar's history, unless you count.

[TJ Majors]

So Dover was the blueprint, probably.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, unless you count, I would say Martinsville. And the interior bottom groove of martinsville speedway and how they concreted it as well was also probably an influence on brewton's decision to concrete Bristol because it didn't give up. They had the same problem at Martinsville. It was all asphalt. The asphalt started coming apart and then. So they decided to concrete the bottom groove and a half of Martinsville. And that's why. That's why you have that concrete there today is because of the track coming apart back when it was asphalt. And you don't want that on one particular weekend. Yeah. So they're like, all right, we'll fix it. This. We'll fix this. Won't have this problem. And I will say that that version, that concrete version, the initial concrete version of Bristol was still very similar, and the racing looked quite similar to what we saw with the asphalt racetrack. You can go back, though, and look at some of the asphalt races at Bristol, and, man, they ran way up the track. The groove would move around in the corners. It wasn't all on the bottom.

[TJ Majors]

What made the groove move around in that time? Was it the tire? Was it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, who knows? I would be guessing if I was trying to tell you what made the groove move around back then, because I thought I knew a lot about. I thought I knew a lot about things till this last couple weeks, last month with this tire and this scar and all that. A lot of people talk about Bristol as the best. You know, Bristol is a bottom groove. Beat and bang. Well, back when it was asphalt, they ran all over the corner. There was races where they'd run the top of 1 and 2 or the bottom of 1 and 2, depending on the temperature, the day, the tire, whatever. Right. So, I mean, they moved all over this racetrack. When they concreted it the first time, that's when it truly became a bottom only racetrack. There was no second or third groove ever at those races with. With the first rendition of concrete. And there was this funky little sort of dip off of turn two where you kind of had to hook the old concrete or the old asphalt with the left apron. Yes. And it was so much fun. And you had to really, you had to hit this little spot every time. And there was, you know, it was a fun little racetrack and I don't, you know, I'd have to go back and relive all of that. But for some reason, you know, they wanted to reconfigure it again and they put the Vario banking in there and that's what we have today. I half joke about them, you know, man, they should pave it with asphalt. I truly would do it if I had all the money, if I could afford to pay for them to pave it asphalt, I would do it if you could just snap your fingers and have it. But honestly, the variable banking has kind of went through these good and bad times. I remember one of the first races that we ran on the variable banking version of Bristol we have today. We were in the cot middle way through the race. I ended up running fifth in this race. But middle way through the race, Casey Kane's leading Edwards. Carl Edwards is second and I'm third. And we're all within 10 car lengths of each other or closer battling for the lead. And everyone was running on a different part of the racetrack. And I was thinking in that moment and I'll never forget it, I thought in that moment I was like, this is badass.

[TJ Majors]

Like, I didn't think, how does it get any better?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, like everybody's, he's, he's on the bottom, he's in the middle, I'm on the top. We're all racing the out of each other. I mean, I don't know what else, what more you could want. This is pretty cool. That's what happens anytime we like introduce something completely new. It looks amazing the very first time we try it, whether it's a car, a track or what have you because no one knows how to work it, how to use it. Where's the advantages? Well, we all learned eventually how to run the top of this racetrack. And that's where the steepest banking was. And so that's where a lot of the racing started to go. And it was impossible to pass. Everybody would go run the top and boy, you try to go to the inside of somebody and you couldn't, you get trained by all the people on.

[TJ Majors]

The outside line couldn't run fast enough down there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So Brewton ground the top groove to try to make it where it was unusable. Well, that made it actually better. The rubber Would stick to it even better. And we ran the top even more. And so I remember all these little moments where they were trying to figure out a way to get us to the bottom of the racetrack. And eventually they found the PJ1. And PJ1, I believe, if you live this, PJ1 ended up coming to Bristol as we were trying to get, you know, old school Bristol, run the bottom, run over each other, beating, bang Bristol that we had this weekend. And then PJ1 comes in and we're. Oh, man, that. That. That seems to be nice. Well, let's, you know, now let's take PJ1 everywhere.

[TJ Majors]

Pocono, second, third corner. Remember that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. The lane up there, well, that was brand new asphalt. Unfortunately, you know, this big PJ1 craze happened where we were stick. There were PJ1 everywhere on all the racetracks. And that was because of Bristol.

[TJ Majors]

It was tricky stuff, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was. But then, and I got in Marcus's ear and I told Marcus, I said, all right, everybody wants this particular type of Bristol, right? And if you want to know how to get it, I'll tell you. I told him, I said, go back and watch the 2004 race at Bristol. That's the one that I was fortunate enough to win. And there's anywhere around that time frame, 0203-0405, just look at still images of cars in the corners at Bristol, and there's something you'll recognize. So you still had the asphalt apron, and they sealed it. They would seal. They would put sealer down on that apron, and it looked. It looked good. They paint their logos and all over it. And the actual line, there's always this yellow or white painted line on the bottom of these racetracks to separate and differentiate the apron from the racetrack. Well, the line at Bristol is actually around 2004, was painted on top of the banking of the racetrack, almost a foot up from the real true seam between the concrete and asphalt. And they would seal all the way up to that line. So what you had was about a foot of sealer, asphalt sealer on top of this concrete grip for the left front tire. And, man, if you were smart enough to be patient enough to connect the left front tire to that sealer, the entire corner, there was a ton of grip and a ton of turn there. And so when your car's great, that's what you try to do. And I told him, I said, man, if, you know, they were putting that pj1 the entire bottom width of the car, like a full car length of PJ1, it's too much. I was like, all you need is to really, like, saturate the bottom foot and a half, two foot, three foot of the corners with this PJ1, all you need is for the guy on the bottom groove to be able to use. Use it and get his left side tires in it. And so that's what they started doing. They narrowed up this, you know, this application of PJ1.

[TJ Majors]

It's probably half a car length now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So that you can only get the left side tires in it. If I were them, I would even make it more narrow. It doesn't need to be. But only the width of the tire itself. And so make it harder to run. I know. So you would have to be so perfect to be able to put the tire in it.

[TJ Majors]

It was hard to run that one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And if you miss it. Right. You saw what happened to guys that came out of it. Oh, man, you got your ass right over. And so make that even more narrow, and you have that opportunity for guys to miss it even more.

[TJ Majors]

So give even more passers and more.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Passion, More checking up, bumping, and banging. So anyhow, that's kind of where we are. We're almost all the way back. It's probably as close as we're ever going to be to the Bristol that a lot of people love. Only way I think we can get even better is, yes, I'd narrow that application of PJ1 up to about 50% of the width it is today.

[TJ Majors]

Take another foot or so off of it. Yeah, maybe a couple.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's it. Outside of that, I mean, only other thing you could do is tear the track up and get away. Get rid of the variable banking entirely, but that's not happening. That's an unnecessary expense that they probably can't justify, especially after watching the race they saw this past weekend.

[TJ Majors]

All three races, all four races were actually pretty good. The truck race actually moved up. You had guys that could run the top, guys that could run the bottom and competitively, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Honestly. That's such a great point, tj. No matter what version of Bristol you like, I think you. You got it in one of the three events. The other thing to TJ is. I don't know why, but, you know, I was there for the Xfinity race all day, and I knew that they had ran the truck race the night before you had the ARCA race. It felt like the typical. It felt like the kind of weekend that people need to justify going, pulling their camper out there, getting a Camping spot, spending three or four days, you know, putting all that out and having the fun, grilling, hanging out, concerts, doing all the things. What Bristol provided this weekend is almost, in my opinion, what. It's what we used to do, you know, when. When we had more on track action, such as practices and so forth. It is the blueprint, in my opinion, of the. The weekend that. That are. That a NASCAR fan wants.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, the events, you can see. Yeah, we got another one. This weekend is similar to it really well. We got the structures and cup cars. You also get a couple modified race or a modified race, too, which is always a good compliment to the weekend.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that, to me, is what a lot of these other tracks could. Could work on. Like, if you're. If you're a fan, you're like, all right, I'm buying this ticket, I'm spending this money. I'm gonna go to Bristol and I'm gonna see all these different things happening. And, you know, I'm in and out of the grandstands, in and out of my seat to witness this race. This race, this race. There's always something happening.

[TJ Majors]

Does it have to be that track, though? Because I, like, look at Darlington. I thought Florence, I think, was a great compliment.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, yeah, but a lot of people might not. I don't know that a lot of people look at it that way, but that's. That's something I think we can add to the conversation. I'm just.

[TJ Majors]

I'm just saying, like, it's a great race weekend.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The fans, I think all the. I'm speaking for the fans, and I think they might agree that the value of content, they were able to experience things they were able to see and do. That's the. That should be like, the standard. Should be for every race weekend. Not the exception.

[TJ Majors]

You can justify going, like, not the exception.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, my cousin went. Didn't even tell me he was going. He camped all weekend, didn't even tell me. Is that a tool?

[Russell]

I think that's an indictment on you that he didn't want to tell you.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, maybe.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So all the other tracks, like, that's the standard. That should be the bare minimum. Right, of what you would expect if you're going to go, go physically be there. And so a lot of times we go to these races and, man, it's like, all right, qualifying is an afterthought. It's. It's, you know, it's on an app and, yeah, we don't. It's not like something you're going to go sit in the grandstands for. And so. And there's not any practices. You're going to get an Xfinity race or a truck race and then the cup race, and there might be a concert. I don't know, but it's very thin. I think over the course, if you said, hey, man, you know, we're going to try to offer more content, more on track product, whether that's more practice, you know, I would love to get some practice back. Not. And not because the drivers need it. Not because, you know, and yes, it conflicts with the idea of trying to save the team's money, but, man, the storylines that it creates and the opportunity for the fans to hear cars go into the garage, see teams working and things going on, to see action, to feel like there's a Friday and a Saturday.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, it gives you content to. Yeah, everything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It just. It makes it feel like there's something going on and I need to be here and I'm gonna bring my fifth wheel and hang out with my family, you know, instead of, you know, dragging your fifth wheel out there and it being dead silent between the, you know, the green and the checkered flag of the two races you're gonna have happen to see. I don't know. I just thought that was all. It just felt like at Bristol this weekend, there was always something going on. There was some racing noise, practice, something. It was just an action pac busy place. And it felt. It felt. It reminded me of the fun experiences of when weekends had more going on. Hey, everybody, you want the latest Dale Jr. Download apparel? Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com we're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show. We'll put it on a T shirt again. Check it out at shop.dirtymomedia.com Yo, TJ.

[Russell]

I see you've been walking around with the new phone. Where'd you get that new phone?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, man, I love this phone. I recently joined the 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.

[TJ Majors]

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.

[TJ Majors]

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 helped 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 Hellier now and get $25 off with the code DJD25. That's DJD25 for 25 hours off when you switch to Consumers Hellier. Go to consumers hellier.comdjd and use promo code DJD25.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think that one of the things to pull away from this is, I think everybody loved the direction that Goodyear's going. Maybe, maybe it's a bit extreme but you know, there's, I don't know that. I think what Goodyear would tell you is, you know, it's, we no one knows what track temp we're going to have. There's too many dynamic variables on any given race weekend to be able to say, okay man, we brought a tire that's going to run 70 laps if it's 40 degrees. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

You know what I mean?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's no. So I know Rudy Frugal had some comments on Fugal. Fugal, sorry. Frugal, Frugal, Frugal.

[TJ Majors]

Same thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Rudy had some comments on SiriusXM about like, man, you know, he's, you know, he understands like the quest to get the tire softer and make, you know, try to affect how, what the product looks like. But he would have liked, you know, what is our objective? What's the end game here? And the problem seems to be, well, we know now we had that race a year or two ago at Bristol that confused the hell out of everybody because it was cool and we had massive tire wear. And for all of my life I always associated tire wear with heat and high temperatures and if you were going to have a cool temperature, you would have less fall off, less wear all those. It would, you know, cool temperatures weren't conducive to good racing or wear. But now it's the opposite. It's the opposite. And it's My opinion that the way they make the tire and the chemicals, or the lack of chemicals, oils and different things that were part of the process and infused into the rubber have changed the tire and how the tire reacts to different surfaces and temperatures. And so we're starting to see this across the board in short track racing as well. And we had a. You know, we had tires, whether it was the Hoosier tire we race in the short track series, the bias ply, or the original, the radial that Goodyear makes, it used to have these oils and different chemicals and stuff in it. And when it would wear, the balls of debris and tire debris that would go up the racetrack were oily and. Well, you could smear it into your hand, mash it. Yeah, yeah. And you could smear it into your skin and it would rub off on you. Now, when this tire does wear, it's a powder. It's like a fine powder, and it is completely foreign to what I think we, we. We've known for years, and, and so now we're all kind of relearning what, what does instigate the tire to wear and how. What conditions do we need?

[TJ Majors]

What makes it do this to create this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right? And it's cool. It's the cool temperature.

[TJ Majors]

It's what it seems to be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What it seems to be. So we had. We've kind of had two back to back experiences of data points at Bristol.

[TJ Majors]

And what's crazy, though, is no one, in practice, it was only a very minimal difference.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There was nowhere, not much fall off.

[TJ Majors]

You know, not like this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Talking to Ryan Blaney, he said, I go out on the racetrack, I run a 1530, and it goes, you know, in a couple of laps. It's like 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s flats. But then he ran flats forever, and he could have just kept on going and going and going. Right. The tire was completely durable. 10 degrees cooler in the race.

[TJ Majors]

Not even.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. Like 5 degrees cooler.

[TJ Majors]

5, 6 degrees, something like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To start, the tire can go 30 laps and it goes to the cords and blows right front.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so.

[TJ Majors]

And we got better. Teams got better at the race. Yeah, we went 50, 55, 60 something.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Blaney went 50 or 60 the first run. Yeah, if you anticipated it. Right. So I don't know that Goodyear can take the tire to the racetrack and say, all right, man, that's what it's going to do. No matter what temperature it is, this tire is going to do 70 laps. Now, they can make you a bulletproof tire.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, they can make A hard tire that'll run forever. Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They sell them on the street every day.

[TJ Majors]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got a set of tires on my pickup truck that I need to change now. That's got 30,000 miles on it.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Go forever.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I. But they're, you know, kudos to Goodyear for getting aggressive. We asked them to. For a tire manufacturer to make a tire that wears out, that fails, that will be something you need to manage. Is not helpful to their bottom line, or it is not helpful to them selling tires at a tire store on Monday. So what we're asking them to do is almost a detriment to their actual business model. Right. They're not making. Goodyear does not make money building racing tires. They don't. The Goodyear racing tire business is supposed to be a complement to their brand and their ability to sell tires to the customer on the street. And so making these tires wear out and fail.

[TJ Majors]

Doesn'T look good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's a risk to their brand. Unless a race, you know.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Someone that's not as educated is going to look at it and be like, man, these Goodyear tires.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Exactly.

[TJ Majors]

They're terrible. But we all know that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So the driver. Yeah. And Goodyear also knows that the drivers are the big sounding board. And so if they get out and speak negatively about the tire, that then is also problematic toward their ability to sell a tire to a customer on the street because the customer hears what the driver says and says, well, Goodyear's product isn't very good, or they don't know how to build a tire, that I should probably go get a different tire. So Goodyear got very sensitive, you know, toward all of that. After Indy, years and years ago, we had the Indy tire that wouldn't go 10 laps.

[TJ Majors]

That was rough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, man. After that race, Goodyear said, never again we're going to build a hardest tire we can make. You know, we're going to be very conservative. We're not going to ever get anywhere near taking any chances of having this happen again. And so it's taken all of those years to get them sort of to come back to the board and drawing board and say, all right, man, we'll go for it. We'll try to make a tire that's going to be a problem. Right. Or going to be a challenge.

[TJ Majors]

And it's helped.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I agree. It's helped. And it's also been nice that the drivers are all understanding, I think the industry is understanding of the effort. Right. And so you don't think so. Yeah. You're not Getting out of the car and going, damn, this is a dumb idea.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, it's terrible.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Terrible tire, awful tire. So that's important. And I know that. You know, I think that my opinion is. Is, like, I think what Goodyear might say is, look, man, we're trying to make the tire wear. We can't. We. We don't know what temperature we're going to get when we get there, and we're going to have to hope, you know, we're just going to. This is the tire, and you guys just going to have to manage it. If the temperature's this, it might go 30 laps. If the temperature's that, it'll go 100 laps. There you go.

[TJ Majors]

I'm fine with it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I am, too. I am, too. And so it's not so much a Goodyear thing, it's a temperature thing. Right. And the teams will learn and adapt. Right. Just like we talked about with the racetrack, you throw them, you give them something new. It looks amazing and awesome because they don't know how to use it. They don't know how to take advantage of it. Well, they will learn that. Right. And so the teams will get smarter and smarter.

[TJ Majors]

Drivers will get better.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Drivers will get better. They'll go into these races and go, hey, we got all these data points. This tire did this, this, this, this, this. Be ready for that. Expect that. And we'll, We'll. We'll adjust as the race goes on and we learn, which I think would be really fascinating. My opinion is, is I wouldn't change a thing.

[TJ Majors]

I wouldn't either. Factors. With this tire, you have more factors when it's like this because the driver comes into play a lot more and the setup comes into play as well, because how aggressive you want to be. There's so many more factors that are there. I mean, it's more fun for a race fan. It's got to be, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I, you know, talked to a driver this morning, and they, they love the idea. They loved having an opportunity as a driver to maybe do it better than the guy in front of him.

[TJ Majors]

Exactly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's never really part of the game anymore. At a lot of races, you just fire off and you got the car you got. And if you can, you know, if it handles better and you can drive it, you know, the way you want.

[TJ Majors]

Like Chase Briscoe said, this car turns better.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You have a great day. Yeah. And so here we are at a racetrack where now you have a new variable or an old variable that's been missing of the driver feeling like, all right, if I'm smarter, then maybe I don't cord my right front. As soon as this guy up here who's being a little more reckless or a little more brazen.

[TJ Majors]

I think we missed that point. You just said a lot. I'm smarter right now. There's not a lot of that. It's just this car is usually faster.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And like hail because you just run as fast as you can every lap.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tires more tires always often a little bit too durable.

[TJ Majors]

I want that, I want them to think that, yeah, if I be smarter, I can beat this guy. That should be a thought process way more.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Well, I think it was a good move in the right direction for, for Goodyear. And, you know, I don't. You don't know. You could go back to this racetrack six months from now and have a completely different race and have a completely different wear. And so for them to sort of be chasing the temperature feels like that would be just a waste of everybody's time. Yeah, right. For them to be chasing, you know, moving the durability of the tire all around, chasing dynamic variable. That's going to be different every time you go to the racetrack. I just say, hey, man, we've, we've made you this tire. Everybody's asked for it. Surely they can tweak and play with.

[TJ Majors]

You know, Richmond was a good tire, too. And it was, it was warm.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

You know, so they're, they're, they're still.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And Goodyear will continue to tweak and play with. But I think this direction's a good direction.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, my gosh. It's so nice when we have these.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. It's such a nice change of pace from what we're experiencing at other racetracks with the mile and a half and so forth. It's kind of nice to go to a racetrack and go, oh, yeah, man, this is going to be cool. Because of the tire wear or, you know, the drivers are going to drive completely different or damn more. This will be a. I loved. You know why I've always just loved short track racing? Not because of the shape of the track or any. It's always the contact and the physicality.

[TJ Majors]

Of short tracking, the closeness of the cars.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When I was a little kid, I'm like, man, we're going to see them boys beat on each other today. It's going to be fun. And we. That's what we got this past weekend. That's why I loved short track racing. Not because of just, you know, that that was the only Reason?

[TJ Majors]

Was it hard to stop? Like, you watched.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you.

[TJ Majors]

You watched the race when it was going on, was it entertaining when it's going on? Like, there was a lot of stuff happening at one time. Right.

[Russell]

Like, the strategies. It was kind of hard to, like, figure out where. Who's where, but it was entertaining. Like, you had comers and goers and people. Like, I don't know what more you could want from a fan.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Russell]

Like, if you weren't happy with that, like, I can't help you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I thought it was, you know, it was neat that, you know, like, Bowman spins early. He's able to figure out a way to get some of that track position back at a risk. Right. That he's going to have to stay.

[TJ Majors]

Out on time of doing that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So, like, even though your guy might have ended up upside down at some point in the night, metaphorically, he could figure out a way to rebound or take an. Take it. You know, take a risk. Right. With the tire to give himself the track position.

[TJ Majors]

I'll tell you what was cool. Nine laps on our tires was like, should we come? Should we not? It was like, that's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. Awesome. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Like, it was on the fence. Like, we got to stay out here. We got to save us. Guess what? We had about a handful of guys pit, and you're like, oh, here. They're going to be coming through here. That is awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well, the playoff standings are set for the next round of the playoffs. Tj, you had Barry, Chastain, Dylan, and svg.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I had it perfect until Travis talked me out of it. Yep, I had Chastain. I put Chastain and took. Made. Had Bowman advancing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I had Cedric, Chastain, Dylan, and svg. So I didn't get it right either. So Josh, Barry, we're going to take. Take him off.

[Russell]

Yep, he's gone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. All right. These guys all autographed.

[TJ Majors]

All autograph.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Pass them over here, pal. Here we go. Little Austin Dylan. I saw where Austin Dylan, his team won the bull riding thing. Yeah. That's cool. Y. Yep. So they're gone.

[Russell]

And now it gets interesting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're relegated back to the rest of the field.

[TJ Majors]

This is getting tougher.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so now the remaining cars on the field, on the. On the table here. Denny Hamlin at +26. Byron +24. Larson +24. Bell +20. Bell adding a few playoff points to that overall total this past weekend at Bristol. Blaney minus or a plus 19. Briscoe plus 10. Then you have Chase Elliott at plus five in eighth right at the cut line, plus one Bubba and then ninth. Centric, Logano, Chastain, Reddick, all minus one, minus two, minus two, minus three. Very tight. All right, let's pick our four. Who's gonna get rooted out?

[TJ Majors]

Let's look at the tracks first. We got. We got Loudon, Kansas and what's their one?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Roval. Ho. Loudon, Kansas, the Roval Groville.

[TJ Majors]

Well, I mean the top. The top four. The top five are safe.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Russell]

Are they?

[TJ Majors]

I think so. I mean, without a mechanical issue or something.

[Russell]

So what do you think? The top four or five, like average finish? What you think?

[TJ Majors]

Top tens. They'll come around there with the top 10. Those are top 10 cars every week pretty much without minus a mechanical issue or a wreck or something.

[Russell]

But I feel like you're going to see one of those guys have an issue.

[TJ Majors]

I don't know, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He thinks seriously wouldn't have an issue.

[TJ Majors]

You're trying to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He doesn't feel it again.

[TJ Majors]

He's doing it again.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think, I think TJ's right. I'm just going to go ahead and transfer the top five in. I think Briscoe is going to be safe because of Loudon and the Roval. He's one at the Roval.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Russell]

I mean, you look at Briscoe's performance lately, he is probably the most consistent, hottest.

[TJ Majors]

I'll tell you what scares me about Briscoe and I saw this before. It happened at Gateway. He got in the pack and he started. He started driving a little reckless and that's what I'm afraid of with Briscoe is him getting a little bit behind and trying to make up for it. He wrecked somebody. Who'd he wreck it? The Gateway. He's wrecked somebody into one, but that was him trying to get back through the pack on a different pit strategy. And you. This isn't the time. You can't do that right now. But he's got a 10 point lead, Elliot. I mean, that's a tough one, man. I do feel like. Feel like Cindrick's gonna drop. I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is so tough. They're all so good.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is really hard. I'm. No scientific data here, no. No evidence or real hard study to back up this prediction. But my four that are going to struggle to make it into the next round are Chase Elliott, Cedric Chastain, Redick. I think that Logano who tested at Loudon, did he not? I think he did at a tire test at Loud And I think Burton, Jeff Burton was talking about it on our, on our door. Doorbomb clear this week. I feel like Loudon and Kansas are two good tracks for Joey and so I think he'll do just enough to advance.

[TJ Majors]

And he's still even at Gateway. He didn't have track position beginning of the race. The next thing you know he's up there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Grinding it out.

[Russell]

He always finds a way to get himself just.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't.

[Russell]

As one of the drivers competing.

[TJ Majors]

I know it's ridiculous. Like he'll be, he'll be 18th and then you look up there and he's fourth.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean I don't. He doesn't have two years in a row. Maybe you go back further and determine if it's more. But two years in a row he's, he's had a very subpar regular season. But then when we get into the playoffs and you look at the tracks and you go, yeah, could see him doing pretty good there.

[TJ Majors]

And so I think Loudon last year, he had an issue though. This put him behind in this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Look, I mean if, yeah, if they have an issue, they have an issue. But I'm saying if everything goes well and he tested there and Jeff Burton said he had some in pretty good speed that particular test at Loudon of.

[TJ Majors]

The three cars that were there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Listen, Burton knows what he's talking about.

[TJ Majors]

He does. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then Kansas is a pretty reasonable track for him. So I, yeah, I think he gets through. The margin of error here though on this is like I wouldn't be surprised if I don't if I only get one of these. Right.

[Russell]

The thing about Joey is one, he's talented enough to just be up there to compete for win. But then if he's having an off day, that's where Paul Wolfe comes in and is great with the strategy and gives him a shot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How does Chase Elliott not get eliminated?

[TJ Majors]

I feel like he's had decent speed. Just the finishes aren't there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like at the start of the year they were the most consistent team in the garage and leading points. Right. So I mean he's, he's points leading worthy led the points for most of the season. But where is my confidence? You know, I guess it's been. They've been just so quietly doing this that I don't. I look at the other names and I'm like at +5 is going to be able to do enough to sort of separate himself. I think he can out point Bubba, but I don't know, man. Bubba's really kind of turned it up another notch this year.

[Russell]

I feel like he's just like right now he's playing with house money, he doesn't care, and he's just going out there and driving.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Seems like since Indy, he's. He's sort of switched into another gear that I've never seen him really have before. Just in his pace and speed, his confidence and that he deserves to be up there. Can do it, should be able to do it. Redick worries me a little bit. Just, I don't see, I don't see the speed that I think that they're, they're capable of Again. Chastain, the track house hot and cold. You never know. They might show up at Kansas and dominate just like they did at the 600, but if they don't do that, they're what, an 18th, 20th place team, right?

[TJ Majors]

Probably.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Russell]

To your point with chase, he's got 11 starts at New Hampshire, three top tens.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

New Hampshire's that kind of track, man. Jesus. I loved running there, but I, for the life of me couldn't figure out how to consistently finish well there.

[Russell]

What was it about the track?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, if it don't turn in the middle, you're screwed. I mean, there you could. If you're just a little bit tight center, the corners are really flat and it, it, there's nothing you can do about it. But I don't know. It's always just kind of this track where I always felt like I was just a bit off from where I needed to be and what I needed the car to have. I would have races where we'd run good but just couldn't consistently put it together there. Fun track, though.

[TJ Majors]

I felt like we ran pretty good there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We might have. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

I felt like it was one of the better tracks that I knew we were going on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Always came down to this stupid strategy at the end because it's this, it's this weird race where you're gonna have a lot of guys that don't pit for tires with 100 laps to go. And so you could run fourth and fifth all day long, but at the end of the last cycle, you come out in your 12th or 15th because there's these six or seven guys that didn't come down pit road that are good on fuel. Right. That are going to try to make.

[TJ Majors]

It work, and they weren't really there all day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There all day.

[TJ Majors]

Not leading anymore.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And then you destroy your. Trying to race through the pack and get your spot back, you know, and get your finish back. That you thought you're going to deserve.

[TJ Majors]

You got wrecked by your guests last week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We talked about that.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, you did?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Me and Rudiment got up from the table and had a conversation about that.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Russell]

Here you go. Dale, you had 35 starts there. Eight top fives, 15 top tens.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There you go. Well, not one of my best.

[TJ Majors]

I feel like that was a good one now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Russell]

Average starting position, 16.1.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So qualifying, can you sort by average finish?

[Russell]

Your Average finish was 15.9.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Can you sort it at the top? Go up to top of the average finish and click at. Yep, just. There you go.

[TJ Majors]

Wow, that's lower than I thought, though.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where is it?

[TJ Majors]

Oh, wait, that's not loud in general.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's every track.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, that's. Can you click loud on the left and bring it up?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why?

[TJ Majors]

And now it's sort of by average finish. Who has the bet? I don't know.

[Russell]

No, this is just sales numbers.

[TJ Majors]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Atlanta was my best track.

[TJ Majors]

Old Atlanta.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, look at this. Atlanta, Martinsville, Bristol, Richmond. Martinsville, Bristol, Richmond. I was a short track guy.

[TJ Majors]

Vegas does not.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know Vegas does not, but Vegas.

[TJ Majors]

And Texas are similar.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I had eight. Vegas was my best, my fifth best. Average finish at 13.8. But I only had four top fives there in 18 starts, 10 top tens. Just running right, right around that average 13th. But yeah, I was a short track guy. Look at Daytona down there. Talladega right in the middle of the pack. Everybody thought I was just a plate guy, but man, I was a short track guy. We had many years where I've scored more points than anybody on the short tracks. I pointed everybody at all the short tracks.

[TJ Majors]

I felt like that was definitely a strength.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Even the old Phoenix.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hell yeah. 13 top fives at Martinsville.

[TJ Majors]

You would not like the new Phoenix.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I didn't. I don't. I don't like the new dogleg. I like the flat track.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Where you could use the apron. It was similar to Bristol where you could get the left front down there at times and stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[TJ Majors]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In Tulsa yet, forcing Dwight to fight for everything he's built and to protect his empire.

[TJ Majors]

Stream the new season of Tulsa King, Sunday, September 21st, exclusively on Paramount.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Plus.

[Russell]

If you had to critique one thing, it'd be there was a lot of caution laps.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You think that the cautions were too long? Yeah, they needed to be quicker.

[Russell]

But I don't, I can't really critique NASCAR because I don't know if they could have sped it up. But it just there it was a lot of time spent under yellow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I think that's a common, common complaint that we hear as well in the short track world. And there's a lot of reasons why the cautions are the way they are and they are, they are too long. But there's reasons why that, that extra, extra app the lap is added or I remember. And Bristol is such a small track that cleanup is tough to do because there's constantly cars coming around.

[TJ Majors]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so the trucks and the people that are trying to do what they need to do to get the track ready for racing have a tougher job. And I remember this was the, the race where me and Robbie Gordon got into it and I flipped him the bird on the, on pit road afterwards. We had ran, if I remember correctly, we had ran really well all day.

[TJ Majors]

Did you get a stage win somewhere.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Somewhere late in the race? We lost a ton of track position, fell back to like 15th or so. We had about 40 laps to go and I needed all of those laps to be green to try to drive through the field. And I don't think, I don't know, we weren't doing double file restarts and stuff at this point. So like, you know, if cautions come out now you got all the lap cars Back on the inside, and you're. If you're lining up 12th, you're really 24th.

[TJ Majors]

No chews then, either.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, no chews or nothing. So, like, you didn't need any cautions. And so I'm driving physically up through the pack. Robbie's a lap down, and I'm trying to pass his ass, and he's not letting me get through, right? And we're beating on each other. Caution comes out. I'm mad as hell, just in general. And I get on the radio, and I'm like, I don't know what the heck is going on here with these yellow flags. They either need to red flag the race or drop the green flag. So we've got like, 15 to go, 14 to go, 12 to go, 11 to go, 10 to go. I'm like, let's go. I want. I want an opportunity to get back into the top 10 here and at least salvage something. And I'm just animated as heck on the radio. And all of a sudden, they said over the radio to me, nascar wants to see you and Tony Senior in the holler afterwards. And so, okay, guess we're in trouble. So we get going, and finally, green flag comes out. I don't know where we finished. 11th, 12th, or something like that. Get to beating and banging on each other with Robbie coming to pit road. I'm mad, he's mad. And all that happened. Then I have to go over to the NASCAR hauler, and I don't really know for sure what kind of conversation I'm about to have. I sat down in the holler with Tony Sr. Tony Urie Senior is mean, fiery. He will not back down to no one. He will get in anybody's face. He's ready to fight. He's that kind of guy, right? You don't tell him nothing. And so I'm a little nervous because I'm not sure what we're going to have here. So we walk in there and sit down, and no one's there yet. We got there before Helton and all those guys have come down from the booth. Helton walks in there. We sit there for 20 minutes, waiting. Finally, Hilton walks in there, and as soon as he comes through the door, me and Tony Senior start talking like, hey, man, listen. And we got, you know, we pleaded our case. And he said, y' all ain't here to talk. Y' all are here to listen. And he said, man, there was parts and pieces of brake rotor and all kinds of stuff littered all around the top groove of that racetrack that we're trying to clean off the racetrack. We're not riding you under caution for no reason at all. There's a purpose and a reason for us to be under yellow. And there's a lot of things going on that you don't know anything about. And he said it and made it pretty clear that we needed to. We needed to be a little bit more lenient. Particular about what we said on our radio. And so, you know, that was a moment where I always. Ever since then, I've kind of, you know, even though cautions can get drawn out, and I'm definitely one of the people that feel like that the stage break is a little long, but, you know, you've got to. In the stage, you know, award the winner. Understand all the rundown open pit road TVs going to run off to commercial, you know, and so there. And you eat into the second stage. Right. The second stage is like already 8 laps old before you get back to green flag. I don't know. I don't love all of that, but. And I wish they could figure out a way to shorten that particular stage. You know, the stage breaks are, you know, unnecessary in terms of how long the caution is, but, yeah, I don't. I'm sure there's a reason. So. So do you have your four that you think are going to get knocked out of the play of the round?

[TJ Majors]

I do. I think. I think Cedric drops. Drops out. I think Bubba just. He's up and down for me, and I don't. I think this is a tough round to get through. I have Chastain just kind of being average there, and this isn't a great time for being average in. Reddick just is having an off year. I mean, he's still having a good year, but it's just an off year for him, in my opinion. And I think Logano can move up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do, too. So you and I are the same except for Chase Elliott and Bubba. And honestly, I'm. I'm on the fence between them two, but I just. I don't know. I got this feeling that Bubba's gonna. Gonna. Yeah, he's.

[TJ Majors]

He's got a different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is gonna be razor thin.

[TJ Majors]

Chase has to show up now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Like the, like the margins of, you know, between. I think between 7th and 12th, it's right now plus five and Chase Elliott, it's plus five and seventh. Reddick's only three out and 12th. I think it's going to stay this tight all the way through, I think.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, if you're a crew chief or you're looking at the strategy for this now, do you just write off the top five like you're, you're really racing these guys right around you? Right. I know you want to win, but like you're not really racing William Byron right now?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I think if one of those guys in the top five do have an issue, it's a bonus.

[Russell]

Now the interesting thing is also you have the Roval waiting as your third race too. So depending on the driver, you better get some work done now.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, Rovo is not where I want to go on a points position. You know, on the edge.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I mean, no, I don't think anybody wants to go to the Roval this year. Not after the way the oval's been racing Marcus, so hard headed. I don't know why. I mean I'm sure there's a really good reason why you wouldn't change. You can't change in like the, you know, inside of a 12 month window. Like, all right, let's just not do the Roval this year. I guess. You know, there's a lot of people that have bought tickets thinking they're coming to the Roval, right?

[Russell]

Yeah, but how many, how many of those fans would honestly, you know what, damn it, I wanted the Roval.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know.

[Russell]

I think that's the one thing the NASCAR community can agree on is bring back the oval.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think they do. And I bet there's part of Marcus that he wishes he could. I think they, he can, right? No, I think there's probably some legal, you know, there's some lawsuit that could be filed by somebody if they were like, wait a minute, you said, you know, this was on the schedule to be at a Roval. I'm not getting my Roval.

[Russell]

I mean, I get that there's contracts and stuff, but I think they can all get in a room and be.

[TJ Majors]

Like, hey, can you just text him and ask him?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, come on, he might love the robot.

[Russell]

Can you imagine if we had.

[TJ Majors]

Maybe he does. Maybe that's it.

[Russell]

The oval is the cutoff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I, I mean, I hear you.

[TJ Majors]

I'm fine with that. I'm fine.

[Russell]

Marcus.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know, man. Oh. On Holler Talk they mentioned about the idea of adding a fourth stage to the super speedway. So Daytona Talladega fans did not like this idea. I spoke of this myself on the show, guys. Don't y' all remember? Yeah. And so I, we were talking about how at the last restrict plate race we had, we had this first stage where everybody raced like hell. And it's like, well, if we, you know, if we want to try to, you know, get that style of racing the entire time, maybe we don't, you know, maybe take fuel out of it all entirely. Well, fuel out of it as much as you can and add a fourth stage. That. That doesn't sound so crazy to me because we have a four stage in the 600 and no 1 cares. Right. And so I'm like, all right, well, just. It's a. It's super speedway racing. The one. The other thing that I like about it is it adds importance to those two races because there'll be more points on the line.

[Russell]

The most important races of the year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So the 600 has the extra stage, so there's that opportunity, uniquely in that particular weekend where you can gain more points than your traditional race weekend. So now, you know, there's been this. I love Daytona. I also love Talladega. I had success, a lot of success, at both of those racetracks. The racing, the racing there over the last several years has taken a beating from critics, myself included. And drivers would even argue that. Is the Daytona 500 still the most important race of the year? Yes. Everyone wants to win a Daytona 500, but is it the most important race? It's fallen from that perch. And that is a problem for me. The Daytona 500 for all of my life has been compared to the super bowl of the NFL. It has always been this very important event that everyone did everything they could to try to find a way to win at once. And it would even be compared to a championship to some drivers like myself. Would you trade a Daytona 500 trophy for a championship? That was a legitimate question you might get. Now, no one's asking those questions now because obviously everyone would say, I want that championship because the Daytona 500 in its solidified spot as the most important race is no longer the case. And so adding this four stage and making those races mean more from a point standpoint would also make the races again mean more from a. From a competitor standpoint. Is it the best solution? No. Is it the perfect solution? Is not. I'm sure fans will tell you, well, get rid of the stages. Don't tell them when you're going to throw the yellows. Right? And maybe, you know, then they can't predict and plan great points by all of those people. But I don't know that that's on the table. I don't think NASCAR is considering that, or else I would try to use Whatever influence we have here to. To support that. But I think adding the fourth stage isn't. Is, you know, maybe not the best idea, but it's an idea, I guess, that they are. They are contemplating. They brought it up.

[Russell]

It's moving in the right direction. At least they're trying.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you think, T.J. travis, do you think if they took the stage cautions out, you still award points at a certain point in the race, Drivers are racing toward that moment. But if they took out stage yellows and you didn't know if and when a caution would come, would you still save fuel knowing that you needed to minimize the time on pit road?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think no matter what, you're going to take that, whatever the final lap, you're going to run the race backwards, and you're going to try to make your last stop as short as possible. To cycle in front of everybody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Exactly.

[TJ Majors]

But I do think it worries me doing that, though, that the Talladega is gonna have basically zero passing, maybe, because it's hard to pass when everybody's going hard and the guys in the front can control that. The front two cars, the first two cars in line, can control the third lane, whether there's a third lane or not. Right. The third lane only forms when they let. When they save.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I felt like that the passing was good in this past Talladega race where there was a. A lot of.

[TJ Majors]

But it was. Why was it good? Because they were saving fuel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

That's what I'm saying, though. If they're not saving fuel, I don't think you're having a third lane. Like, the front two cars of each line are kind of controlling the third lane, whether they want it to be there or not. And I think you run hard enough to maintain your track position, might. It. Might it give someone that just rides in the back all day a little bit more of a shorter stop at the end. But, I mean, yeah, there's. It's definitely another variable to add in there, but I still think you're gonna. I still think you're gonna have the same stuff. Talladega just. It's hard to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In Daytona.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, Daytona was good. Yeah. But it was still hard because you were. We got back there and we were gridlocked. We couldn't move even with the. And I know everyone's like, well, Blaney came from 12th on the outside lane. Things worked out perfectly. It's not going to happen every time like that. I don't think it's not going to form like that and do that every single time. So we gotta keep that in mind as well.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I just felt like at Daytona that the racing looked more like what I thought plate racing should look like.

[TJ Majors]

It did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I felt like guys were going harder, but runs and passes and things were still possible. Guys were taking chances. And I feel like if you. I think that if you add the fourth stage, you more than likely more often get that style of race. If you take the cautions away from the stage, breaks themselves, take them out, you're still going to have guys that are going to sit in the draft. Save, save, save, save, save to your point, to knock a couple seconds off of that final stop and leapfrog the field. And so we're going to. It will not. I don't think taking the cautions out is the answer. I think you're still. You're still going to have fuel mileage.

[Russell]

Yeah, these crew chiefs are too smart at what they're doing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But if you say, hey, we're going to have, you know, it's 40 laps, you don't need fuel. Race your ass off. Bam, bam, bam. I think you're going to have more action.

[TJ Majors]

There was Daytona, also had. Man, they were sliding up. And I can tell you from my point of view handling that, when I can see the car on the bottom sliding up to the middle groove and the guy on the outside being there, him is sliding up and they're all, like, in unison with each other. That tells me those guys are having to open the wheel up on purpose like they have to, or they're going to crash.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The drivers all said, like, Chase Elliott and them guys in the pack were like, tires matter, y' all don't. You know, they were all alerting their crews, like, I know that we probably don't want to put tires on this thing no more than we have to, because we're just going to try to pack it full of fuel and beat everybody all pit road. But tires matter. Like, I need to be on the offense and I need rubber on the car.

[TJ Majors]

What if we had tires that wore out more?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm sure that's another direction.

[TJ Majors]

I know it's going to be hard at Talladega to make a difference, but Daytona, I could for sure see it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I think they don't need to change the tire because the tracks are going that direction. Like, the tracks are heading, trending, trending in that direction to make the balance matter. Cars sliding around more creates heat in the tire. When the tire gets hot, it loses grip. I don't know that I need the tire to wear out at Daytona and Talladega. But if you're sliding, then you're going to lose grip, lose confidence, lose ability to hold people off. You're going to, you know, you're going to create comers and goers passing. Passing. Yeah. So. And I think that's coming just because of the tracks and sales are starting to age a little bit. And if the guys are running hard, right, they're pushing the tire, you know, challenging the balance of the car instead of sitting in line and running half throttle.

[TJ Majors]

Daytona was definitely a lot more. Running hard a lot more.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that's going to heat the tire up. That's going to make things mad and get, get the balance angry. Whereas if you're saving fuel and everybody's riding 80% throttle or even less, nobody's really going to start getting tired or start getting loose or start to struggle and slip up out of line and, you know, create the comers and goers and passing. So I don't, you know, I don't. I know that everyone doesn't love this idea of the four stage, but I'm telling you, it's. It's a nothing burger because we don't look at the, we don't look at the 600 and go, oh, damn, that four stage. Nobody even cares. Nobody even really. I don't think anybody even picks up on the idea that it's even in there. You know what I mean?

[TJ Majors]

If it adds another stop, it definitely. There's a, an under. Another green flag stop. It definitely as the element of, like, you know, what are these.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wouldn't be a green flag stop where.

[TJ Majors]

If they had another stage.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No stage, you don't.

[TJ Majors]

You know, I gotcha. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, yeah, you just race your ass off. Go get your 10 points if you want. Go get you a playoff point if you want.

[TJ Majors]

But at Charlotte, they got a pit with the four stage.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Because 600 miles.

[TJ Majors]

Yes, you got a pit during your stages there. So that to me, you got. Okay, do you short pit? Do you run long? And that gives guys that if you're running 12th, you're going to run long and you get that caution. Guess who's getting track position you're getting? You know what I mean?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's not a strategy at the. Well, it'll be interesting to see if there's more conversation around that going into next season. As we told you, this episode of Dirty Air is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops. The Earnhardt family has always relied on Bass Pro Shops. For our outdoor adventures. And I grew up shopping there. It's a place that I love sharing with my own family. Taking Isla and the girls over to the fish tank. It's the best. Oh, yeah. We love to gear up together for everything on our weekend getaways. Taking the fifth wheel camping or just hanging around the house and fishing out of our own pond. I'm thankful for the support that Johnny Morris and the entire Bass Pro shops team have shown across all of our businesses here. We've got Bass Pro logos on our Xfinity program. They're helping little Wyatt out as he goes through the process of his career. They've been on our late model program on the hood of our cars that we've raced in the cars tour for years. And so they believe in what we're building here and they've stood behind us every step of the way. They're great partners and they're great people. Be sure to check out all they have to offer. No matter what you're into camping, hunting, fishing, you just need some warm clothes for the winter. You can find everything you need at the nearest Bass Pro shops or you can shop online@bass pro.com 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. Trimble, confidence at every turn. All right, we got Christopher Bell on the show, the winner from Bristol and we've had him on a lot this year. It's been nice to.

[TJ Majors]

It's been a while.

[Christopher Bell]

Too long, Dale.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, it's been too long. Doesn't feel like it, man. Feels like you've been winning with quite consistency. But I know that you've. You probably don't feel that way, but awesome place to win races at. Being able to go up that ramp at Bristol and experience all that is quite unique. Tell us about, tell us about your night, man. Oh boy.

[Christopher Bell]

That's a loaded question there, Dale. That night was. That was wild. And I'm sure everybody, every driver would say the same thing of, you know, you didn't know if you were leading the race, if you're running last. If you're on the lead lap, if you're two laps down, three laps down. It was, it was wild. It was wild and chaotic and fortunately, you know, the race played out for me. I, I think I said it post race that whoever was going to win that race was going to get really lucky. There's no way that anybody was going to win without luck being on their side. When the yellows came out, when the, you know, the green, the long green flag runs played out what tires you were on at that point in time. So, yeah, Adam did a great job calling the race and the race fell for us, so it worked out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What's that feeling like going up that ramp? On top of that, on top of that building for victory lane? I always felt like that winning at Bristol was special. It was one of my favorite racetracks as a kid going to and I loved the energy of the night race. Does it have a, does it have a unique feel compared to what you experience in other wins?

[Christopher Bell]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that. Well, first off, the Bristol night race has been my, the top of my list for ever since I got into the cup series. Like it is just so you can feel the energy. The pre race ceremonies are always incredible. And then Bristol's victory lane, like you literally drive on the roof of the media center. Like, how cool is that? That is that, that's about as cool as it gets. And, and I, yeah, I got fortunate enough to drive up there with dirt tires on, but I was been wanting to do it with asphalt tires for a while.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So the tire was quite the conversation. A big talking point leading into the race and tended to, you know, we tended to think we might not have much tire wear after practice, but the race was a whole different outcome in the end. You know, there's, I guess everybody's kind of taken stock of what we saw. What do we want going forward? Where do you kind of lie in all of that? I know you won the race, so people are going to be, you know, people are going to be critical of your opinion because of the wind. But, you know, I really, we've talked about it and we really feel like that it's, you know, with the temperature being so unpredictable, I just kind of keep going down the road the way we're going, you know, because you never really know what you're going to get in terms of temperature and so forth. So that kind of makes the wear unpredictable and, but where's, where, where do you lie?

[Christopher Bell]

So I, I, I'll start by saying I want the Best teams and the best drivers to be able to win the races like that, that. That's what I want to happen. And with the way that the races play out on the. Or specifically this race with the high tire, dag. It is so much luck, Dale. It is so much luck. And you know it. You don't. If, I guess if you had more, more tires, it would probably make it a little bit less lucky because you're able to just put tires on whenever the yellow flag comes out and, you know, you're, you're less at risk. But the way that, that third stage played out with all those rash of yellows, like you can't put tires on all the time. And then if you don't put tires on and then it runs green, you're. You're gonna, you're gonna be buried. You're gonna lose your track, this position. And it, it, it becomes so, so difficult. And, and even in stage one, like the guys who had the one stop strategy, they paid the price because the yellow flag came out at the wrong time for them. And it benefited the guys who pitted early and were going on the two stop strategy. So I, I don't know how you, you know, we have that problem a lot at other racetracks, but the difference is, is you don't go so many laps down whenever the green flag cycle happens. And so I just, I don't like the aspect of so much luck is, you know, indicative of the outcome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's a great point. We, you know, we kind of wonder, you know, if it's hard to believe though, that like 5 degrees of temperature can affect how much wear that we see in the tire.

[Christopher Bell]

And then on top of that, it is on totally different ends of the spectrum. Like you either have zero wear or the most wear we see all year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know that's, there's. It's just hard to believe there's one single variable and it's literally around 5 degrees of temperature that determine that. You know, when you're, when you go to Bristol, what's your, what's your preferred Bristol? Do you like that running around the bottom, the contact that we saw physicality of that race? Or, you know, imagine being a dirt guy, you love running atop and getting up on the cushion a little bit, so to speak as well.

[Christopher Bell]

I mean, normal Bristol has always been my favorite racetrack. I just, I love the, the, the grind it out mentality. The, the push as hard as you can. The pace is so fast, like lap traffic is everywhere. And then especially with the track prep that They've had the last, I don't know, five years or so of being able to have the bottom. So we have the bottom, have the top. You have different options. I don't know. I thought it's been racing really well. We've had two races now where the tires have been unpredictable. And to an extent, I like that unpredictability. I think it does provide, you know, it. It provides another wild card. But, you know, on the same breath, like, we already have six superspeedway races. I, you know, I just. I hate whenever luck is a main factor in who wins the races. Like, I want the best drivers and the best cars to win.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We have Loudoun, Kansas Roval coming up in this next round. How do you feel about those three racetracks and your chance to be able to continue to move forward?

[Christopher Bell]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's all in our hands. Certainly, you know, there are three racetracks that we run really well at. I haven't won at Kansas, but. But I've won it the other two. And we have high expectations and goals of ourselves, and hopefully, you know, hopefully we can go out there and execute. But certainly there's nothing that says we won't run well. That's for sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, man. Well, hey, appreciate the time you gave us today. Congratulations on the win at Bristol. Always awesome to put one of those trophies on the mantle. And good luck going forward in this next round. Thank you, Dale.

[Christopher Bell]

We'll talk to you next time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, Everybody, it's Dale Jr. Here at the Dale Jr. Download and the Dirty Mo media studios with my co host TJ Majors for this Xfinity ass junior. In racing and in life, speed isn't optional. It's expected. As a driver and Xfinity series team owner, I rely on things that perform under pressure. And that's why I go with Xfinity Wi fi. Fast, dependable Internet with one price locked in for five years. No contracts, no slowdowns, no nonsense. Xfinity, proud premier partner of nascar. Well, we got great questions from the fans this week. This first one's from Hunter. Chase Elliott said in an interview recently with Bobby Bones that you helped him change to the number nine from the 24. So how did that end up coming about? Yeah, he explained it pretty well. Basically, there was, I think the 9 car was going away. Petty or whatever that 9 car was at the point was going away and available or had been gone for a couple years. And I went to Chase and I just said, hey, man, if you wanted to change, you better do it soon, you know, you're building some equity with this 24, but it's not too late to, you know, to change and it not be like a, you know, kind of an awkward thing. So he's like, oh no, I ain't gonna ask for that. I'm okay. And I'm like, well, would you want to? He goes, yeah, I would, but I'm okay. And so, I mean, he's young. He's only in like year two. And so I went to Rick and I said, Rick, I said, man, I was like, I was like, I got an idea. I think it'd be a pretty big deal. I was like, an Elliott in the number nine is a big win for everybody. And, and so I think William Byron might have been coming in. Yeah. Because I think he ended up taking the 24. And so I was like, you know, the 24 is very important to Rick, Jeff Gordon, the legacy. And they want it to be in Victory Circle and continue on. And there's a lot of equity built in that number. And so that was one of the hold ups I think, for everybody. But I was like, Rick, this will be insane. The fans would love this, chasing the number nine and for him to get this done now and be able to, you know, hopefully run the next 20 years with this number racking up, you know, more equity in the number and this, the history of the number. So he's like, he's like, oh, I'd be fine with that. So I called Chase back. I'm like, dude, I talked to Rick. He's, he's open to the idea. I said, I'm serious, you need to get in front of him and see if y' all can figure it out. So, yeah, because I, I knew down in there somewhere that that's really truly what he wanted. But he didn't want to disappoint Jeff and Rick and you know, he didn't want, you know, and, and I think for me, right, the number fits Byron, you know, oh, and the number nine fits Chase. Like it's very, it just seems like makes sense, right? Yeah. And it was good for everybody. But, you know, and he'd ran the nine here right now, it had been his number. Right. So, yeah, so I was, I was what small role I played in sort of kicking the ball down the hill. I was happy to do. Because Chase, Chase. I wanted that for Chase. You know, he's doing, he's living his dream racing and you know, just too good of an opportunity for it not to be perfect.

[Russell]

It's Always interesting in sports when you see a player, like, changing number and you're just like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They just.

[Russell]

You don't like it when they wear that. They just don't look like themselves or whatever. Like you just identify them with that number.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is a very difficult. Is the. Is I think for racing too, because the number is a big identifier. Yeah. Much. I mean, no, no different than other sports. Right. For your favorite player, if you got a favorite team and a favorite player and he's ran this number and for whatever reason he changes or goes to another team playing with a different jersey number, it's the strangest thing.

[Russell]

But with racing, like, it's also like the previous drivers that had that number too. So it's just like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, there's a lot of history. Yeah. Equity. Yep, 100%. This next question coming from Grant. They saw that you posted on Twitter that you'd be okay in a hypothetical 3, 3, 4 format to have Talladega in the final round, and they wanted to know why. Why not? I don't know. They wanted to know why. Yeah, like, why was the question like, yeah, what? What? Yeah, the hell what? I mean, what's the problem? Well, I don't know. It feels like it would be a controversial thing if that ended up being the format to have a super speedway in the championship round was. Should we just get rid of them altogether? I don't know, but I, I mean, super speedways have kind of been in part of our DNA and I don't know why we are. I don't know why that's so problematic to have one in a final round.

[Russell]

I think it's because, like, you could see a massive wreck and then the drivers that are.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Try to avoid the wreck try to win the race.

[Russell]

Wreck avoidance.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Try to win. Go win. I don't love road courses. I don't. But I still think that that's a. Probably a perfectly fine idea to have a road course in the final round. I mean, a super speedway, a mile and a half, a short track and a road course. Let's see what you can do. I don't. I would. I don't. Road courses are not at the top of my list, but I'm not over here going, we shouldn't have any road courses in the final round. But we've been going to daytona since the 50s. They built Talladega in the late 60s. This has been in our sport forever. And I, you know, I think that it, it's perfectly normal and fine for me for it to be one of the Races of multiple events in the final round, you know, unpredictably be damned. You know, I, I feel like, you know, if, if there's a, you know, if there's a problem with the, with the racing, if there's something about the racing that we don't like, we should fix the racing and keep the track, you know.

[TJ Majors]

And where was this when we were talking about Portland?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think I can fix the track there. You got a problem that turn one, silly. Nobody liked it. I got roasted for that take. I just, you know, I think if they figure out how to make the racing, I think if we're right, we had a really good Daytona. Right. If we can, if we can get that style of racing at Talladega, at Daytona, then I'm all for it being part of the equation of how we figure out how we determine our champion.

[Russell]

Tj, what do you think?

[TJ Majors]

I don't think it matters what round it's in. Like he said, if it's the final round, you still got to go through it to get there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Whether it's the final round, but it would kind of like, to Travis's point, if you do get caught up in something that's just not, you're doing in the final round and it kind of ruins your championship chase or something with two, you know, three race, whatever it is, that would. But I mean, it could also knock out the previous round as well, so it's really no different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And whatever happens at Daytona or Talladega earlier in the season can be detrimental to your success late in the year. I don't know. What are we doing if we're insulating ourselves from tough moments and tough things and challenging things about our sport. Right. It's a bit soft, I think, to say, oh, man, let's not put the plate race in there and let's not put Talladega in there in the final round because of the unpredictable predictability and my, you know, a driver being eliminated by a crash that he had nothing to do.

[TJ Majors]

But I like it because it puts that thing I talked to you earlier about in the show being smart, you know, you don't have to necessarily go in, but if you're, if you run a smart race all day. Yeah, that's what you need to do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I mean, I, if they, I will say this too. And, and if they moved it out of the round, I'm indifferent. I really am. I'm not, I don't, I'm not insisting it be there. If they don't change a schedule and it's one of the four, I'll support it. It's perfectly fine with me. But if they do say it's too wild, it's too crazy, we're going to, you know, it won't be in the final. I'm not going to pound the table and demand, you know, they put it back. It is what it is. But I don't have a problem with it if it's, if they do go to a 3, 3, 4, Talladega is one of the final races. I'm all about it.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I'm fine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's go for it. Yeah, let's go see who can get through there and make it happen. That's fair. It'll be interesting to see certainly what this format ends up being and if that, I don't have strong opinion about it either way.

[Russell]

But I'm, damn it, stand on the table.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I don't, I don't have a strong opinion about it. I've got other battles. Fair enough. That are more important. On a lighter hearted side, this one's from Brian. You know you do, when you were with TNT and Amazon, you were doing some ride alongs for Bleacher Report. Who's the coolest celebrity you got to take around in a pace car? And do you have anyone you would like to like? Anyone on that list that you would like to take around the racetrack? All the rides were great. You know, just getting to meet people that, you know that typically might, you know, not know much about nascar. Being able to take them out on the racetrack and give them that perspective is a lot of fun because, you know, a lot of times you have people come to the race and they're just a witness to the event itself. You hope they have a great time and they want to come back. But to be able to put them in the seat of a car and take them around the racetrack and have a conversation. Right. And also be curious about their sport. Malik Neighbors was a receiver for the Giants and plays against my favorite team and he's best friends with our quarterback Jaden Daniels. So I had a ton of things that I was curious about that I was hopeful to get to talk to him about and I did. So it's pretty fun for me.

[TJ Majors]

Like athletes to me would be fun because it's for them to not, not know your world and go see it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And getting their reaction and then the, you know, they're, they're, you know, sometimes, sometimes you'll take people out there and you don't know if they're wild or, you know, you don't know really what they're thinking. And you learn all that later, like, weeks later. Oh, man, he got out, you know, because we go on and we go do something else. I got another thing I got to get to. Or they're shuffled off to do something else. And then you'll hear from somebody that works with Bleacher Report that was tagging along with them. Man, you should have heard him afterwards. He was saying this and that and the other, and he was amazed by this. And he. He couldn't believe this. And you're like, man, you know, those are. That's kind of the payoff, I think, at the end.

[Russell]

I always like when you see the person, like, they're taking a little easy, and then all sudden, all right, we're stepping on the gas. I'm gonna give them the full experience, and they're not ready for it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we ripped around Atlanta in the Corvette. We Corvette, but yeah. Have you ever given TJ A ride?

[TJ Majors]

I've rode somewhere a long time ago.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where? I'm sure you did, but I forget. Was it Charlotte?

[TJ Majors]

Might have been Atlanta, Charlotte? Yeah, it was a long time ago.

[Russell]

Put TJ Right next to that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When you guys were working together.

[TJ Majors]

It would have been before that, I think.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Interesting.

[TJ Majors]

It's been 0405ish probably.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, there's been a handful of times we used to do ride alongs for the foundation, so I'd do about 14 or 15 ride alongs. We'd go to Bristol or Charlotte or somewhere, and all of these people had, you know, paid for this or had been gifted this opportunity through a raffle or what have you. And at the end of those rides, I would always give, like, three or four to people that were there, like my wife or. Or TJ or somebody. So, you know, you try to plug them in there for a couple hours before we finish up. This next question is coming from J.P. you know, we've seen some pit crew mistakes lately with Bowman's team and. And other kind of important stops in the playoffs. Have you ever had a conversation with your pit crew about a good or bad performance after a race? Yeah. Yeah. What do those conversations look like? I have never gotten with the crew after a race to critique the job they did. There's a couple times when I've said things on the radio after a stop that I probably shouldn't have said, but then there's times when you'll have a great stop, and, you know, it's all them, you know. You know that it's something they did, and they themselves, you know, it's nice, like, so is, you know, you're the driver out there in the race car, and you're always the one sort of either winning or losing the day. Right. And every now and then, there's these moments during a pit stop where the pressure's on someone else entirely. Right. And when they get you a couple spots or you beat everybody out on pit road, you're like, hell, yeah. You know, because you're in there, you feel like drivers are always this way, but you feel like you're on an island out there doing all this work, and nobody really understands how hard it is and really, you know, really appreciates just how difficult what you're doing is. And it's nice when the team is in a compliment to the day, but then you'll lose a couple spots or have something happen.

[TJ Majors]

And you went from wanting to hit guys with hammers to telling them, brush it off. We'll get them on the next one in your career.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we had a couple loose wheels, and I was, you know, I was dealing with some head injury stuff, and I. We were. We were at Atlanta.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, I was spotting for you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The last one, this one where, I mean, McMurray went up into the fence.

[TJ Majors]

You wrecked and hit the wall off of two. Was it in. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In the bud car.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. I did the last 10 races in the mud car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I don't remember that. Probably because of this rap. So this was the. This was one of the. One of the worst. But we're at. We're at Atlanta. Caution comes out. There's gonna be a little four lap, three lap, you know, run to the finish on the pace laps. I can. I can fee. I can feel the wheel rocking back and forth on the stuff.

[TJ Majors]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Click, click. It is. It is loose. It is. It is loose. Like, loose as it can be without falling off the car. But we're going 40 mile an hour, right under pace, and I'm like. I'm talking to him. Like, do we. Do we pit? Do we come? What do you want me to do? This freaking thing feels loose. And they're. They're kind of like, hey, man, you know, kind of up to you. I'm like, man, if we pit, the thing is, it's like they may be able to look at the wheel and say, yes, it was loose. They may look at the wheel and go, we don't see anything. And then you've, you know, they're taking your word for it, and you've came down pit road and went from 4th or 6th to 25th. And that's where you're going to finish because it's going to be a green white checker. And so are you willing to come down pit road and give up all that track position, or are you going to be able to stay in. Stay in the car and hope that it don't come off? And so I decided to stay out there. I mean, I can feel this thing rocking back and forth. I can feel it sitting here right now. And it was absolutely. I should absolutely come down pit road. We get the green flag, we start accelerating, and we go off into turn one, and as soon as I land, shoots out from the left rear wheel, just takes off, and I spin around and take McMurray and me and him just kill the fence, right? And. And it hurt. And so, you know, I was mad about that. And so, you know, we would have wheels that would be. We so fast. So that happens, right? And maybe that there was another loose wheel or two that came off and we crashed really hard. We get in, you know, we get four or five years down the road into this new era of NASCAR where they're only putting four lugs on the left side. They're only doing four on the right side. We're, like, intentionally not even hitting the fifth lug at all.

[TJ Majors]

Because you could have one. You could. You could be missing one legally.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you can miss one legally. And it was a whole second faster on the pit stop if they just skipped the fifth lug entirely. They didn't even try to hit it. And I'm like, man, what are we doing? And now loose wheels are much more common. And I'm like, I can't hit walls. I can't. I'm like, I know my days are numbered with my head and all the injuries I had over the years, and I'm like, I can't be taking this kind of risk. And so, you know, I told him, I said, if I have a wheel come off and I hit the damn wall, I'm gonna take a hammer to all y' all and show you how it feels. And, you know, that was a pretty stupid thing to say over the radio, but I was saying it as, like, come on, man. Like, what are we doing? But, yeah, so say. You'll say stuff like that over the radio. You know instantly that you didn't need to say it. You shouldn't have said. Needs to be a conversation you have later somewhere else, because it comes back, like, there's. We were at Sonoma Racing. And all the guys on this team in the Bud car are my. Their family. Tony Jr. Is my cousin. Two Beer is married to his. Or at the time, Tony Jr. Was married to Two Beer's sister. So, I mean, we're all. We all have known each other forever, and we've raced together and we're very close. And so you'll say to your friends that you're very close to that you shouldn't say or would never say to other people. You know, you'll get in arguments and you'll say things and you'll be like, I can only say that to you. I would never say that to my other friend that's just a friend from work or whatever, Right. And so Two Beer apparently broke his finger or something on one of the pit stops. Jack, man, somebody. It was him or somebody. We're grinding through a, you know, a frustrating, miserable day because I'm. I don't know how to get around this damn racetrack. And I said, we lost some spots or something. And I'm like. Or I was talking to Tony Jr. About something. He wasn't answering. I'm like, what. What the hell's going on? He's like, well, we got a guy broke his finger. I was like, who? He goes, two Beer. I was like, tell him to walk it off. You know, joking. I knew he'd be fine. But everybody hears that and goes, wow, what a. You know.

[Russell]

But you never after a bad, like, race where they had bad pit stops, talk to him afterwards or anything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Here's why you wouldn't do that. The guy on the right front of your car is one of the best guys in the garage. And nine out of 10 times, he's going to be the best guy on pit road. And he's getting a call every other week to come work for this other team. And so are you going to go up to him after the race and critique the job he did that day or be, you know, or put pressure on him or. Because he can just as easily say, I don't got to put up with this. I'll go over here and make a little bit more money. I'm here because of you. But if you're going to, you know, getting my ass after every bad stop, I'll just go ahead and take this job that they've been trying, begging me to come do for six months, you know, and I'll go over there and go do it over there. They value me. They want me, and it's. It's gonna. It's gonna make A difference in. In my quality of life because it's, you know, it's a big race or whatever. Right. So I mean that back. Back when I was racing, man, you were trying to keep all your guys, you know, and you had real friendships with them, like my Jackman, my gas man. You're hanging out with these people. They're your friends, they're your buddies.

[TJ Majors]

They're athletes, too. They know when they mess up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And they don't need.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's a coach. There's a coach and a crew chief to handle that. I don't. I didn't have to do it. Like, if. If it was a serious issue, my Tony Jr. Or Tony Senior or somebody else was going to handle it.

[Russell]

Well, I look as like quarterback talking to his offensive lineman. Like, I'm not saying, like, you're going to just berate him and just like, especially nowadays, because to TJ's point, like, you got former football players and wrestlers and like, it's a performance based. They're athletes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

They know how to handle it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I always thought I was very lucky, you know, with. I. I wasn't really. I'll be honest, man. I was more interested in, like, being friends with these guys and us being. Us. Us having each other's back because being a team. Well, I always felt like that, you know, if you could build a friendship, then they were going to try to do their best.

[Russell]

They're invested.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. When you come down pit road and they're indifferent and they're like, that guy behind the wheel don't give a if I'm here or somebody else is here. He's not reached out to me. He doesn't know what's going on in my life. He doesn't care to get to know me. Do they really fight for you? What's their motivation? Right. And so I always wanted to try to make sure, you know, we had camaraderie. You know, we. You know, everybody felt like it was all level. And if they were excited about you and trying to help you, they were gonna. They were gonna try to be the best on pit road every stop. And. And so. Yeah, that's a good place to wrap this, Ash Junior. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I appreciate y'. All. Thanks for tuning in. And, man, we talk a lot about the Bristol race. Obviously, there's a great conversation going on in our sport around whether that was a great race and what we should do going forward, if anything different. I kind of enjoyed it. But I know you want to listen to our take on what we thought of the race weekend and we're thankful for Xfinity, for the support here at Dirty Mo Media in the AST Junior segment of the show. In racing and in life, speed isn't optional. It's expected as a driver in the Xfinity series, as a team owner in the Xfinity series, I rely on things that perform under pressure. And that's why I go with Xfinity. Wi Fi, Fast, dependable Internet one price locked in for five years. No contract, no slowdowns, and no nonsense. Xfinity, proud premier partner of nascar. Travis, you and me, we work in racing. Everything needs to be quick. We need that social video quick. We need to get the podcast out quick. Well, guess what? The same thing is important when hiring quality candidates.

[Russell]

The last thing you want to be doing is sitting there waiting to try to find candidates. Jobs aren't getting done because you don't know who to hire. You know who to interview for your job.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's right. Travis, you realize you needed to hire somebody not today, but yesterday. And how can you find amazing candidates.

[Russell]

Fast with Indeed sponsored jobs? Your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can stand out and reach the people you want faster.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There are no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. That's right. I want to see results and Indeed can get you there.

[Russell]

And that's the thing is you don't want to just spend all this money. You want to pay for something and get it done fast so you can get everything done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Join the 3.5 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast and there is no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more [e-mail] dalejr.

[Russell]

Just go to indeed.com dalejr right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.comdalejr Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, here we are. It's time for Dirty Mode. O this segment of Dirty Mode is brought to you by FanDuel. We got Tampa, Timms, Russell, Travis, TJ everybody here to talk about some parlays. And anyways, the the parlay that I had for Bristol Ole Miss Hamlin, Larson, Blaney. Did anybody get close? Nobody. I only see mine on the page. So y' all Must have been pretty far off too. And you just didn't want to bring attention to yourselves.

[TJ Majors]

I don't remember what I did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Host of our was the best Chevy in seventh, so, you know, tough night for Chevy.

[Russell]

Speaking of gambling, Dale, good weekend for you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not really. You texted me and said you.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Russell]

Had a good day on Saturday.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't last night. Oh, Monday Night Football. They shouldn't have. They shouldn't have. Two games that late was terrible.

[TJ Majors]

I didn't know it was. I panicked and I bet the late game.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No research.

[TJ Majors]

And that was a bad decision.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. I usually lean on some. Some folks I followed on follow on social media. But I didn't work this weekend very well. No, I did have one. I did have one bet pay out. That was really cool. I was down in Key west hanging out with a friend of mine and my wife Amy, and so put a little money on some college games. This, that and other just to have something to kind of pull for throughout the day. And I had one unit that damn. I mean, it won a hundred bucks.

[TJ Majors]

Pretty good. That's pretty good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's a good time to pay out.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, that's a good weekend.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And my buddy's like, boy, we should have bet more. I'm like, well, yeah, you would think that all the time on the wins. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

[Russell]

That's my Texas Tech, Georgia, Arkansas State, Miami and lsu. And some of those were the spread.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I lost my fantasy football game too. I'm 02. It's been a rough run here, but getting into FanDuel and creating account. You know, when, man, you know, if you manage your. Your habits don't chase losses. Like, I lost, you know, I lost my three bets and that's my three bets. That's my day. Wasn't a good day. I closed the book and I'll get it out again tomorrow or four weeks down the road, who knows? But if you. You know, I enjoy it because. Makes the. You know, if you're hanging out with your friends and hanging out at a bar or something, it kind of makes what you're watching on TV even more fun.

[TJ Majors]

It does. Adds a little another element to it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So I would. I would probably hate betting on racing, though, because we've done this parlay and, man, we can't hit it now.

[Russell]

Tim's. How's it going for you?

[TJ Majors]

Honestly, I have been less active in the playoffs. It's. It's a little different. You have to kind of treat it like two seasons.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Because the playoffs we've Seen it.

[Christopher Bell]

Pit crews, they're high.

[TJ Majors]

It's high pressure. A lot of more mistakes. I don't know how anybody went in there knowing that race was going to be because it was one thing in practice, another thing in the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wonder. So the, so the parlay has been tough to nail. And I would probably, if I were actually betting this, I'd probably like change my habits and move away from the parlay.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One of the things that I think. Do they offer basically kind of an over under finishing position.

[TJ Majors]

Not every week. I've only seen a handful of times this week. Last year it was almost every week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But not, not that to me sounds like, all right, I might be able to determine like, is. Is Chase Briscoe going to be eighth or better? You know, or, or worse? Right. Is it. If his line's eight and a half, you know, you, you go, I think he'll finish better than that or worse than that. That to me sounds like a more so try. Like, gambling and betting in motorsports isn't new, but like, for sportsbooks it is. Yeah. And the, and what they offer, I think is this. They're still in the learning phase of. Right. What, what really is good for the player but also good for the, the book. Yeah. Sports book.

[TJ Majors]

They have to. I guess they didn't see a lot of like, people betting on that. On those to bring it back really. But I, I bet them every week. They were like you said they were. I thought they were easier to figure that out. Plus, if it was close, you could just hedge it and bet them top 10.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's like roulette, where I feel like I almost got a little fighting chance. Yeah. You know, at making the correct choice between A or B. This week's favorites going into the. Going into the Loudon race is no surprise. Bell's at 350 and then Hamlin at plus 650 and then Briscoe at plus 700. I mentioned all the JGR guys because I feel like this is a very strong track for Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota Larson's also +650. I mean, I would back away. Why did the books not give you better odds on that?

[TJ Majors]

He's one of the guys that, like, they're just not going to get beat. If you see Kyle Larson At +1000, it doesn't matter the track you're betting that. So they're just going to hedge themselves and say, I dare you to take 650. And honestly, they probably get a lot of action on like some casual people that. Don't really watch a sport like that. Kyle Larson. Oh, yeah, I'll take that.

[Russell]

It's the same thing as, like, when Tiger woods was golfing. Like, you're going to have him as a favorite just because they don't want to be at risk.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Blaney's at plus 700. Logano is on our sheet.

[TJ Majors]

That's surprising.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Plus 750. Yeah, I'm surprised.

[TJ Majors]

What does the predictor say about Logano here?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I have him sixth, and I really like him this week. He tested there, too, so. He did.

[TJ Majors]

Oh, that's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He did test there. Jeff Burton on the lower bumper. Clear said he was really fast in the test, and I just think that this is what he does.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. How is it just a crapshoot if you're fast?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The test.

[TJ Majors]

You'll show up fast, or is there really something to that? Oh, testing is always helpful.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

You. You kind of. Whether it's a tire test, you don't get to work. It's not like the testing used to be back in the day, where. But tire test, you get a little bit of time, but you can. It just helps you unload faster. You kind of know what direction to go when you come back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Can you bet the winning manufacturer? Yeah. So that. That's where another. I'd feel more comfortable betting the winning manufacturer than trying to put together the parlay, because I think Toyota is going to get it done. You know, they just. And I wonder what the numbers are on that, But I guess the line maybe aren't out.

[Russell]

Not out yet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not out yet. But, yeah, we have some featured matchups.

[Russell]

Well, hold on, Russ, what's your model say compared to Vegas Bell is the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Overwhelming favorite for sure. And then, you know, Denny again, and then I have Blaney, then Larson. Briscoe is the one that's a little off just because. Because he's, you know, new to Gibbs, and it takes a lot of New Hampshire into it. So even though he's been decent at New Hampshire, he's eighth, but I still think that's high. The other guy that's kind of in there that is really good on these tracks is Josh Berry. He's higher than he normally would be. So really, if you're looking for, like, wouldn't that be. Wouldn't that be the most NASCAR thing ever for Josh Barry to finish last in the three races in the first round and go win? I'm not saying he's going to win. I'm just saying he's higher up. Y' all remember There was not. Not a fluke, but a bit of a underdog win not too many years ago with Eric Almirola. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Dominate that race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

Do you feel. What about my sleeper here? Might be Priest.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's a good point. Yeah. This is his place.

[TJ Majors]

He ran. He ran well there last year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And I know it was the rain race or whatever, but I feel like he's got a lot of laps around this track. He kind of goes there with a little bit of an edge as well. Home track kind of in that area.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Russell, could you give me three drivers in the vein of that, you know, Preece or Barry or even Keselowski? Give me three guys I can put in a parlay for top tens. That's going to give me good odds. I would look at Barry Busher and Keselowski if you're looking at that. If I can't pick like a playoff guy. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay.

[Russell]

And don't parlay those people at them individually.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay. I like your advice because, I mean, you've. You got. You. You're basically saying there's three guys that got to finish in three of 10 positions and the odds of that really happening are pretty low.

[Russell]

Parlays are fun for like football and basketball, where they're individual games. When they're all together to hit those, that's really tough. And most likely you're going to get plus odds anyways.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Russell]

So you're not like, you know, basketball. You got heavy juice to make it plus money. You don't need to do that here.

[TJ Majors]

All right, Russell, I got a question for you. As we get deeper into the playoffs here, does the. Do the guys that are chasing the points pretty heavy there in the back, you know, like Logano, does that give opportunity for some of the guys like the Priest, the Butcher, the Brad, all these guys, does that give them more opportunity to take advantage of the. Them taking stage points and. And going for wins more? You know, does the underdog have a little bit more of a, you know, chance here? I would say trend in the playoffs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

More of a chance because of mistakes. There's just so much pressure. We see so many more mistakes in the playoffs than we do during the regular season. So I think that's where their chances for those guys to finish top 10 really comes in.

[TJ Majors]

And Loudon being an odd number, it's a weird race sometimes with the length of it. It's a fairly short race at times.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

So.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, let's. We'll do the parlay at the end of the. End of the segment. But let's get to the featured matchups. There are four featured matchups that we're going to discuss and I'm. I feel like these are pretty straightforward. Bell versus Larson, I would take Bell. Briscoe versus Briscoe versus Elliott, I would take Briscoe and then Logano and Chastain and Blaney and Bubba, and I would take both Penske drivers just due to the fact that Logano did test there and I believe that gives them the competitive edge going into the race.

[TJ Majors]

I agree. I think, and I think Blaney is a solid back half top 10 guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was kind of surprised at the matchups.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, they seem like blowouts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A little more one sided, I suppose. No disrespect to the other drivers. All right, so our parlay for this weekend, I'm going to put Logano as the top forward. I just got a feeling that he's going to do what he does in the playoffs and having tested there, and I just feel like that they're loaded up and ready to rock.

[TJ Majors]

I can't go on. I can't go that way because I feel like he's going to chase stage points all day and I think he's going to set. I think he's going to be really solid with the points at the end of the day, but I think it hurts his overall finish at the end. Maybe because he takes so many stage points in the first two stages.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You think it gives up the track position in stage three for the stage points, huh?

[TJ Majors]

I think that's going to cost him the yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who's your top four then?

[TJ Majors]

How I'm going to go. Honestly, I just feel like. I feel like Priest is going to run really good. Yeah, I have to agree with tj. I'm going Priest for top forward.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I like what you're saying there about Priest, because you're right. Like, Logano is going to have to do particular things here that may cost him a spot or two or position, at least on another manufacturer. Priest doesn't need stage points. He didn't care. He's going to do whatever he needs to do for the track position late in the race, and that's exactly how this race always shakes out. Me and TJ were talking about it earlier. You'll run 4th all day long thinking, man, I'm motoring to a top five and then come down pit road with 80 laps to go get tires and a bunch of guys are going to stay out or not get tires or leapfrog you on pit road and Try to, you know, they ran 20th all day and then they're going to try to, you know, luck out a top 10 or a top eight finish and everybody gets to beat out each other late in the race. And, you know, the guys that were running the top five, you know, might end up with 12th, 11th, 10th, eighth place finishes. That could happen to Joey.

[TJ Majors]

Joey's still going to have a strong point day, in my opinion.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. But maybe there's one or two fours in front of him when it's all said and done.

[TJ Majors]

And you think it's possible.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, I'm going to stick with Logano, but I don't, I don't hate the idea you got there on the, on the Chevrolet front again. This has been a different guy the last nine weeks. Yeah. Chevrolet is in a state of confusion for me.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who's going to help, Help, help Russell, Help us? Well, like, Byron's never had a top 10 there. So, like, like, I just don't, I don't know where to go with this.

[TJ Majors]

But if you finished, would you be surprised? But I wouldn't be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I wouldn't be. But like, Larson was top five. They're the last two. I think you, you can't. Like, he's gonna, he's gonna do it at some point. Right? Like, he's gonna, it's gotta be him at some point. So I stick with Larson. Who, what? Chevrolet was good at St. Louis.

[TJ Majors]

I mean, Larson was really fast until he had an issue there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So, I mean, I would. Could you lean on St. Louis a little bit to help you make a decision? Make a, you know, some sort of educated decision? I mean, I think so.

[TJ Majors]

I think you can any. Larson was fast there. He tested there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Are you going Larson there?

[TJ Majors]

I can go Larson. I can go Larson.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tj, I'll go with you.

[TJ Majors]

I can't trust Hendrick.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm going off, off the wall. I'm going Kyle Busch.

[TJ Majors]

If it's been different, Kyle's got to show up and be different again. This is your segment. You're going to say that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, it's Kyle Bush. That's right.

[TJ Majors]

His teammates won before him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, trust me, I know. So do you know Kyle Busch's numbers there recently?

[TJ Majors]

I don't care. It's going to be, It's a weird. Tell us. We got to know. Weird week. It's going to be Kyle busch, he's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Been 35th or worse than for the last five there.

[TJ Majors]

That means he's due.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Russ, he's due for a top 20. Maybe. Yeah. Got one out and finished 18th.

[TJ Majors]

I'm going high odds on mine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right. This week, I will say, I mean, you know, there was a time. I don't know what it's like these days, but there was a time where we compared Richmond and. And to, you know, we kind of Richmond and New Hampshire, we might compare some. Some information notes and really run similar. You know, if you kind of.

[TJ Majors]

I appreciate you searching to find some.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm trying to figure out how this could work out for you. I appreciate it. Richmond.

[TJ Majors]

What's that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is the same tire right at Richmond.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. At least one side of it is. I think. I think it is the whole thing. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's always important to factor in to your decision. I knew that. Maybe, maybe, maybe I changed Larson with Austin Dillon for my. Oh, no, I'm just kidding. Shout out to Austin Dillon. Yeah. I was a good friend of ours. I know, I know. It's a friend of the Friend of the channel here. All right. So the. The best Toyota is a real toss up for me. Denny is so good here. Christopher's good here. I really want to say Briscoe goes out there and gets it done because I just like the story and. But that's probably not the best choice and is going with your heart. You got to go with your mind, with the data, what the points are telling you. So I think we're gonna have to say Christopher Bell doubles up back to back wins.

[TJ Majors]

I'm not going.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bao, what do you think?

[TJ Majors]

What do you think, Roscoe?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know. You think about how good the 19 has been here in the past, too.

[TJ Majors]

That's what I'm looking at. And Chase is adapting. He's found. He's found something with it, and he's been good here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, I'll take Briscoe. Everybody's taking Briscoe everywhere.

[TJ Majors]

We said, well, the 19 runs good here. Can Chase do it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's. I didn't want to bet my emotion, but y' all are making the numbers.

[Russell]

He can play Russ now, so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, no, I've got emotion and data to back up.

[TJ Majors]

Has Chase not stepped up when we've called him out a little bit? Russ?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Totally, totally. He's been. He's been so impressive. Yeah.

[TJ Majors]

And this is a race where James Small could get a little, you know, pull some strategies up out and put him in the front. And when you put Chase in front, it's gonna be hard to get around him in that 19 car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, all right, I got logano, Larson, Briscoe TJ's at Briscoe, Larson, Priest, the rest of y'. All. I got Priest, Bush, and Briscoe.

[TJ Majors]

Maybe just put a dollar on that one. Not the full unit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Travis, you got any?

[Russell]

We will go. Larson, Blaney, Hamlin.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay, Russell, you want to pick three? I'm the same as you, Dale. Okay. Hey, I like it. All right, well, that'll do it for Dirty Modeau. This segment was brought to you by FanDuel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. Thank you, Russell. Thank you, Tims. White flag. All right, it's time for the White flag. The tear down with Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck was live on YouTube and Twitter following the race. If you haven't already done it, you need to head over to the Dirty Mo Media's YouTube page. Hit subscribe, turn on your notifications so that you don't miss anything that we're posting over there. Actions detrimental. Dropped on Monday after a race like we had on Saturday night. It's always nice to hear from a driver. And Denny does such a great job of giving us pretty non biased opinion. You know, he kind of takes off his driver hat and just kind of gives you a good perspective. Yeah, very honest. We're very appreciative. Dual bump Clear. Also dropped on Monday. They were joined by Jeff Burton. Jeff Burton gave us his opinion on a lot of different things going on in the sport. The mayor. Yeah, the mayor. And on Wednesday, the guest show. I've got two guests coming in for a huge announcement you're not going to want to miss. Herman Schrader and Speed street have their episodes dropping on Wednesday. Thursday, another episode of Bless yous Heart with my wife Amy. And on Friday, the Dirty 30 comes out. A new 30 minute recap show. Everyone doesn't have time to listen to all the podcasts, so we put it in a 30 minute highlight reel for you every Friday called the Dirty 30. We'll see you for a limited time at McDonald's. Get a Big Mac Extra Value meal for $8. That means two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed but and medium fries. And a drink. We may need to change that jingle. Prices and participation may vary. Tron. Ares has arrived. I would like you to meet Ares, the ultimate AI soldier. He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent.

[Christopher Bell]

You think you're in control of this?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're not. On October 10th, what are you?

[TJ Majors]

My world is coming to destroy yours. But I can help you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The war for our world begins in Imax. Tron Ares. Rated PG13 may be inappropriate for children under 13.

[Russell]

Only in theaters October 10th.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Get tickets now.