You Block, You Pay

Summary

Detailed Summary of "You Block, You Pay" Episode of The Dale Jr. Download

Episode Information:

• Title: You Block, You Pay
• Release Date: July 15, 2025
• Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
• Co-Hosts: TJ Majors, Michael McDowell, Travis
• Produced By: Dirty Mo Media, SiriusXM

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1. Introduction and Initial Conversations

The episode kicks off with an engaging discussion among the hosts about adjusting racing etiquette based on different competitors and situations. TJ Majors shares insights into how he navigates racing against varied drivers, emphasizing respect and strategy.

Notable Quote:

[00:05] TJ Majors: “...racing against Chase Briscoe on the weekend, he's someone I know is going to race me hard and push things to the limit, but he's not just going to spin me out for no reason.”

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2. Broadcasting Insights and Production Challenges

Dale Earnhardt Jr. delves into his experiences from recent broadcasts, particularly comparing performances from Chicago to Sonoma. He acknowledges personal areas for improvement, such as managing excitement to allow co-hosts space during live broadcasts.

Notable Quote:

[08:04] Dale Earnhardt Jr.: “We made some big gains... compared to the week before Chicago, it'll never be that hard again.”

He discusses the complexities of producing live racing events, highlighting the challenges of capturing multiple simultaneous battles on the track and the importance of quick decision-making in camera switching.

Notable Quote:

[09:00] Dale Earnhardt Jr.: “Chasing this snake, you're chasing these stories and these cars... it's just a lot.”

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3. Analysis of Recent Pit Road Incidents

A significant portion of the episode focuses on analyzing a controversial pit road incident involving Ty Gibbs and Chris Buescher. The hosts dissect the events, debating whether the actions were intentional or a result of split-second decisions during high-pressure moments.

Notable Quote:

[18:10] Michael McDowell: “You block, you pay right there in that moment.”

Dale Jr. emphasizes the unwritten rules of racing etiquette, advocating for fair play and accountability among drivers. The discussion extends to the responsibilities of NASCAR officials in determining penalties for such incidents.

Notable Quote:

[34:27] Dale Earnhardt Jr.: “...we should write a Ten Commandments. We can start off by putting you block, you pay on the board.”

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4. Driver Behavior and Team Dynamics

The conversation shifts to broader themes of driver aggression, team dynamics, and the fine line between competitive racing and personal vendettas. The hosts reflect on past incidents and the reputations of various drivers, including Ty Gibbs, Eric Jones, and Daniel Suarez.

Notable Quote:

[26:38] Michael McDowell: “I didn't know it went down till after a little while later, but...”

Dale Jr. shares personal anecdotes about maintaining professionalism on the track while acknowledging the intense emotions that can arise during races. There's a focus on the importance of communication and mutual respect among competitors.

Notable Quote:

[54:28] Dale Earnhardt Jr.: “He needs to put his foot down... have an edge to him.”

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5. Upcoming Races and Strategic Predictions

The hosts transition to discussing upcoming races, particularly focusing on the challenges and expectations for Dover. They analyze driver performances, car setups, and historical data to make informed predictions about potential race outcomes.

Notable Quote:

[66:07] TJ Majors: “...the line's always changing. You're always trying to find somewhere to find that speed...”

Dale Jr. expresses optimism about improvements in broadcast quality and driver preparations, predicting that upcoming races will showcase heightened competitiveness and strategic racing.

Notable Quote:

[70:19] TJ Majors: “Looking forward to that, continuing, learning, getting back into the challenge and... trying to get better.”

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6. Personal Stories and Behind-the-Scenes Anecdotes

In addition to racing discussions, Dale Jr. shares personal stories from his early racing days, highlighting memorable incidents with fellow drivers and the hands-on challenges of building and maintaining race cars.

Notable Quote:

[85:22] Dale Earnhardt Jr.: “...dad fired an arrow about 8 foot over his head...”

These anecdotes provide listeners with a deeper understanding of the camaraderie, risks, and unexpected moments that define the racing lifestyle.

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7. Audience Engagement and Future Content

Towards the end of the episode, Dale Jr. encourages listeners to suggest future guests and topics, fostering a sense of community and interactive engagement. He hints at upcoming segments related to historical racing events and personal interviews with notable figures in NASCAR.

Notable Quote:

[87:25] Dale Earnhardt Jr.: “We would appreciate maybe some more ideas on some guests you guys would like to have...”

He also previews additional content, such as the "Becoming Earnhardt" series, which delves into the history and evolution of the Earnhardt legacy in motorsports.

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8. Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with final thoughts on driver strategies, race predictions, and the importance of professionalism and respect in maintaining the integrity of NASCAR racing. Dale Jr. reflects on the balance between competitive aggression and maintaining lasting relationships within the racing community.

Notable Quote:

[99:55] Dale Earnhardt Jr.: “...we're going to watch the Daniel Suarez situation...”

He emphasizes the need for drivers like Daniel Suarez to manage their emotions and maintain professionalism to secure their future in the sport.

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Conclusion: "You Block, You Pay" offers a comprehensive dive into the competitive nature of NASCAR, the intricacies of live broadcasting, and the personal experiences of drivers and team members. Through thoughtful analysis and personal anecdotes, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his co-hosts provide listeners with an engaging and insightful look into the world of racing.

Highlighted Quotes with Timestamps:

• TJ Majors [00:05]: “...racing against Chase Briscoe on the weekend, he's someone I know is going to race me hard and push things to the limit, but he's not just going to spin me out for no reason.”
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [08:04]: “We made some big gains... compared to the week before Chicago, it'll never be that hard again.”
• Michael McDowell [18:10]: “You block, you pay right there in that moment.”
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [34:27]: “...we should write a Ten Commandments. We can start off by putting you block, you pay on the board.”
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [54:28]: “He needs to put his foot down... have an edge to him.”
• TJ Majors [66:07]: “...the line's always changing. You're always trying to find somewhere to find that speed...”
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [85:22]: “...dad fired an arrow about 8 foot over his head...”
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [99:55]: “...we're going to watch the Daniel Suarez situation...”

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and narratives from the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who have not listened to the full podcast.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Have you had to, like, adjust what your etiquette is, what you're comfortable doing in those scenarios?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Yes and no. And then you learn other drivers, right? Like, you know that guy who did that at Coda, the 21 car? He'd do that every day, even to his grandma probably, you know, but racing to racing against Chase Briscoe on the weekend, he's someone I know is going to race me hard and push things to the limit, but he's not just going to spin me out for no reason. But, you know, if the 77 was behind me on the last restart, I'm myself, you know.

[Travis]

Hey, Dale.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yo.

[Travis]

What are we doing for lunch today? I'm getting kind of hungry.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I'm already on it. It's actually going to be delivered soon. Arby's Angus cheesesteak with a side of curly fries is on the way. It's the ultimate meat and cheese combination for steak lovers like you and me. It's actually the perfect balance of quarter pound of Angus steak, melted American cheese fire roasted peppers and onions with a nice garlic spread to tie it all together. It's a must try. That's going to be our lunch sandwich.

[Travis]

Sounds delicious. But there's one thing I've learned is if you're talking about food, I got to trust you on this. You've never failed me yet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I have not?

[Travis]

No. You've nailed it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, there you go, man. This sandwich has it all. When I first tried this, I was at the shop checking on the race cars and stuff, seeing if the guys need anything. We ordered up some Arby's and when this Angus cheesesteak arrived, I was blown away by how much steak is actually on this thing. Definitely big enough to satisfy your hunger. Tastes like a true American classic. Everybody check out your nearest Arby's today to try this Angus cheesesteak. And if you want it delivered like we do, use code dale for $0delivery when you order through the Arby's app. That's code D A L E on the app, available for a limited time at participating U.S. locations. While supplies last, get the most out.

[Michael McDowell]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. I'm still sour man, that I wasn't your best man at your wedding.

[Travis]

When will you start mentally, like, getting ready for the race?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Can you not tell I'm mentally ready?

[Michael McDowell]

Travis has some dumb ideas, but I agree with him on this one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about.

[Michael McDowell]

You haven't scratched the surface yet there, boy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, what the do you want?

[Travis]

I. I just think the last few laps, it was just like, stop every time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You ain't picky. This ain't walking in and have it your way, mother. All right? This ain't Burger King. Travis is like, wrap this up. They don't have no fun around here. Hey, Everybody, it's Dale Jr. And we're back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download is Tuesday, and TJ Majors, my co host, is here. How you doing, TJ?

[Michael McDowell]

I'm good. How are you doing?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm all right. Man, we are 45 minutes late. I want to. I want to admit that up front. I am where you. I am late. Yep. Sorry. Travis. Travis is here. Yes, I am late, people. I don't know what's going on, man, but, I mean, you went to Sonoma and you're here on time.

[Michael McDowell]

But I promise you, I got back later than you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You did? Oh, yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

I got back a lot later than you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I had, you know, we both had all day yesterday to sort of regroup. But you want to truth.

[Michael McDowell]

You overslept.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dirty truth.

[Michael McDowell]

Gosh, sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was up last night working on my playbook. 26.

[Michael McDowell]

That's exactly. I knew it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Michael McDowell]

Already, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got it. I got another admission. Oh, and this is it.

[Michael McDowell]

All out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is just confession room today. More. This is more like, bless your heart, content. But I got to put this out there too. I have developed this. This habit that I hate about myself. And I used to not be this way, but so, you know, I. We. We get to a point to where we put the kids down. That's right around 8:30, 9:00', clock, a little later in the summer. But okay, when that. When that actual thing happens where we've put the kids to bed, I'm gonna go downstairs and chances are I'm probably gonna play a game that's on our schedule in college football or sit on the couch with Amy, but whatever's. She'll go to bed and I stay up and man, it's 12 o' clock and I mean, I'm just sitting there watching YouTube or it goes by quick. Yeah, like. Like, dude, last night she goes to bed. I looked at the clock. And I'm like, dang, it's one o'. Clock. Like, she stayed up pretty late. Usually. I kind of go off of her when she gets up and goes to bed.

[Michael McDowell]

There's a clock there that you don't really know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm like, all right, it's probably 10:30 or 11:30. I looked at. It's one o'. Clock. You know what my ass did? I got up, went in the living room, sat down and watched the 1993 Daytona or Firecracker 400 for no. For no damn reason. Everything in the universe is saying, yeah, it's better go to bed. You got a damn podcast to do in the morning. But that YouTube Firecracker 400, 1993, staring right at me. And I'm like, I gotta watch this, man. What happened?

[Michael McDowell]

I've done. I do the same thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you know what? Dad about busted his ass on the last lap off of turn two and had to block the. Out of Kenny Schrader. And then Sterling Marlon, who was driving the Stavolo brothers, number eight. I was. I think I was at this race, I feel like. But I don't remember him nearly losing. I mean, led most of the race. Yeah, he nearly lost on the last lap.

[Michael McDowell]

How do you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really close.

[Michael McDowell]

If you were there? What was the. How did you watch it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then I stand in the pits.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so then I get up and it's 3:30. And I'm like, yep, I regret this decision. And then I wake up this morning and I'm regretting it even more. And everything's behind. Everything's. You know, once you do that, everything's behind. But this habit of not just doing the right thing and going to bed, this habit of watching some old race or some freaking stupid, you know, college football 26 video that I don't need to really watch in that.

[Michael McDowell]

You don't need to watch any of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know.

[Michael McDowell]

Take all them off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, no, no.

[Travis]

Dale, are you prepared to actually not, like, play? Honestly, in 26?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do not play. Listen, you can't.

[Travis]

Position change like you could.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, no. Well, I'll find another.

[Michael McDowell]

No, he's gonna hack.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So listen, this is the way I compete. He's. Travis is asking me. Travis. And everybody feels like this is the way I compete. All right? If it's racing, driving race cars, if it's playing card games, if it's playing video games, I don't give what it is. I'm gonna find the shortest route. I'm. I don't. I'm Going to. You can call it cheating. I'm gonna bend a rule. I'm. I'm gonna. Now, if you say, don't do this, if TJ Makes a rule and says outright, you got to have this or you got to do this, I'll play by that. I'm not a rule breaker. If you put them in front of me.

[Michael McDowell]

I like no rules.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No rules. Yeah. I like to call it innovation. And so if it's not. If there's no rule against it, I'm.

[Michael McDowell]

Probably not making rules. Yeah, maybe just one or two, but most of them are already covered this way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'll give TJ Credit. When I told him what I was doing, and he goes, man, don't abuse it. And, of course, I abused the. Out of it. And he had to. He had to sort of.

[Michael McDowell]

When you make rolls, you have to dive even deeper to regular.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

TJ Was going to let me get away with it to an. To a. To an extent without really divulging it to the rest of the league. But once I pushed it beyond his comfort level, he had to out me to the rest of the league. We kind of wandered off the path here, but let's get back on track. Sonoma was a great weekend.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, it was fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Lot to unpack here. The first off, we had some comments on the show last week about the actual broadcast itself. I felt like we made some big gains, man. You know, I walk out of every booth absolutely critical of myself, and there were things that I. I was really excited for that race. Right. And I might have poured it on a little thick at some moments during the race, just in my own opinion of what I did, but, you know, get a little bit too. Too excited and sort of to take, you know, not giving the rest of the booth the space that they need. But, you know, that's a. That's kind of a personal observation of just my own work. But, man, I felt like compared to the week before Chicago, it'll never be that hard again. You know, Chicago is going to be as hard as it gets, so no one's tough, you know? And, man, it was. It was fun. We. Saturday, we sat in the production truck and talked to the production team a little bit about the Xfinity race and watched the Xfinity race. We watched some of our practice show back and looking at some of the cuts and things like that and how we're switching from one camera to another. I'm learning a ton in this process. I can't do another job in that. In that production Compound. I can't. I can't do their job. They're amazing at what they do and it's so complicated and doing, I think, call it, you know, producing a sporting event is tough enough, but. But a race is maybe the toughest sporting event to produce, to direct, because, you know, the fields not right there in front of you, you know, and so you're chasing this snake, you know, you're chasing these stories and these cars and man, there's five battles to show at one point. Which one are you going to show? Are you showing the perfect. The right one? Are you showing the one that you should be showing? It's just a lot, but man, we made some big gains. I thought from. From Chicago to Sonoma, that felt great. Still some, you know, you never leave any show going, man, that was as good as we're going to be. You know, you. One of the best advice I've ever gotten was with tv and I kind of think this is true with a lot of things. It's never as bad as it feels, and it's never as good as it feels.

[Travis]

And I think if the race isn't as good as what fans want it to be, then the broadcast is going to. The fans are going to hold the broadcast accountable. More accountable than if the race is great, then the broadcast is great.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, my opinion about that, Travis, is the race is always great. And I know that, that, you know, you can say, well, what about Kentucky when tricks won by 17 seconds or whatever. Or, you know, Mexico City, where SVG had, you know, won by one of the largest leads we'd seen in years. I. I'm of the opinion that the race is always great. Like there's never. We never are. We're never going to show, you know, that. I guess that's me just being a big fanboy of nascar. But. Well, you're.

[Travis]

A lot of times you're either in the booth or your passion for racing is much different than like a fan of mine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Or the average fan that's at home watching on their couch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good point. But yeah, so I guess I'll say like I never am going to leave the booth and go, well, we couldn't. We couldn't carry that. You know, we couldn't. The race was so bad, you know, we.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, you're not going to ever feel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like that, you know, so I'll give you that.

[Travis]

Your guys energy never fell off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's. I just feel like there's always something happening. And if SVG drives away and is gonna drive away after every restart and not be, you know, there's not gonna be much of a story up there. There's always something. And, you know, I felt like we did a really good job of trying to improve on what we're creating. We got a couple weeks left here with Dover and, And Indy.

[Michael McDowell]

Dover will be good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And so, you know, going to an oval and that's a little. I hope, you know, again, I'm still kind of learning being able to. I think with, you know, with NBC, I didn't really bother the production truck or the compound that much. Those. I always looked. I looked at NBC and was like, you know, I was the new guy coming in. I wasn't going to go sit in the truck and go, hey, man, I think we should do this or try this or what do you. What. Why. How does this happen? Or why does this happen? But with him t there, they're like, hey, everybody, come on in. You know, everybody, let's all talk about this and, and see what. What ideas come to the top of the surface here. But it's. I'm learning a crap ton, man. It's awesome. So I felt pretty good about it.

[Michael McDowell]

But over. You'll be back in the. You'll be able to see the track.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, man, I can't wait. Yeah, you'll have Sonoma. We could see from turn four all the way down to the breaking zone of 11. I couldn't see the cars going through turn 11, but I could see them heading there. Out of 10.

[Michael McDowell]

You know what's getting ready to happen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They would. I could see them go by us on the front straightaway at the flag stand. Then they disappear. I couldn't see one, I couldn't see one, two, three, three, a four. I could see enough. And I felt like we kind of stayed, you know, stayed on. We. I would say for Chicago, we were chasing the race. Felt like we were chasing the race the whole time. You know, when the broadcast is going really well, you feel like you're in front of the race. And I felt like we were. We were on top of it.

[Michael McDowell]

I think seeing the track, though.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You get to see the track really helps.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah. Because you can. You, you, you see what's getting ready to happen before it happens. Oh, Chicago. You can't call it until it happens.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, no, I had a lot of fun. The race itself, I thought was a good race. Um, I, you know, I. With Jeff Gluck does this poll every week. I'm not sure where it landed. I thought it was 68% or something when I looked at last. But I feel like it was a pretty solid race, you know, from just a general perspective of. Of. Of entertainment. There was a lot going on and.

[Travis]

62 is where ended.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's pretty low. I give it about a 75, honestly.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah. I mean, a guy whooped everyone's tail, so. Yeah, it's going to be hard to get a high number on that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was wrong with the race?

[Travis]

It wasn't a whole lot of what passing up there. Front there now. The strategies were kind of straightforward. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Well, look, the guy. I think when he flipped stage two and won it, that was like the holy. Right. What does anybody else. What. What can you do if a guy flips a stage and then wins the stage?

[Michael McDowell]

I thought that same thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You. That's like the. There's that state. The rest of the fields got. No. There's no strategy. Right. Unless they all didn't pit and put him in the back of the field. But eventually you get. You got to pay the penalty and come to pit road and get fuel and tires and all those things. I mean, he just.

[Michael McDowell]

So how do you. Can you fix that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, get better. Get better.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, that's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I guess, you know, there was a lot of things going on in the back of the field or in the middle of the pack and some interesting.

[Michael McDowell]

There were comers and goers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, interesting. Yeah. The tire, you know, the tire in the first stage, Larson fell off real bad. At the end of stage, Denny sucked.

[Travis]

He had no rear grip.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. But like there was.

[Michael McDowell]

Then he faded hard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There were some cars that faded really bad at the end of some of these runs. So whatever Goodyear's done with this new tire at the road courses, I know we still ain't seeing, you know, SVG kind of spoiled the opportunity to see some battles up front, but, you know, that tire has created some. Created some good racing comers and goers. It's a big, big improvement over the original tire that we were running before.

[Michael McDowell]

Absolutely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You were involved in one little situation, TJ With Ty Gibbs.

[Michael McDowell]

I wasn't involved in any situation.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You are involved. Wait a minute. Are you not.

[Michael McDowell]

I wasn't physically involved.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Player. You're not a. You're not. You know, when your boys are in the. In the muck, you ain't right there with them, even though you're on top of a hill somewhere.

[Michael McDowell]

I didn't even know it went down till after a little while later, but. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, your boy Telvin.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who is Ohio State in our college football league so Telvin carry carries tires? Yeah. Correct.

[Michael McDowell]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's the one that Ty Gibbs hit when he comes into the pit box. So Telvin is standing in the pit box. He's got both tires in his hands. Ty Gibbs clips the tire in his left hand. Kelvin's not out in the middle of the box. He's up against the wall. There's, you know, and I. So the way this plays out is. Is let's back up a little bit to an incident that happened down in turn 11. Ty Gibbs faded left or faded right to block. Breaking zone move.

[Michael McDowell]

Chris was close enough to pass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chris Busher was close enough to pass. He. Christopher faded right into the breaking zone. Ty Gibbs blocks him. Christopher just pops him in the ass and ships him on into turn 11.

[Michael McDowell]

Wait, Christopher or Chris?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chris. Christopher. He slides up the racetrack. Ty Gibbs does, and Christopher goes on. And that's a move we see time and time again. If I'm Ty Gibbs, I'm pissed off, but I'm also thankful that I didn't spin out.

[Michael McDowell]

You also took the risk of by making that block block, you pay, you pay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I saw you and all a little gaggle of spotters you had on the golf cart about 10 o' clock in the morning or something like that. Y' all were getting ready to go up to the spotter stand, and I said, hey, guys, I want to see some people get spun out today. You block, you pay. Tell your drivers if you. If they block, they pay. All right.

[Michael McDowell]

I delivered the message for you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You did. So Chris Bucher said, you block, you pay right there in that moment.

[Michael McDowell]

But he didn't do it. He didn't spin them out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I would say he did spin him out. So Ty gives. Should. You know, Ty gives. Could be a little disgruntled about it, but at the same time, go, well, I'm thankful I'm not backwards and losing 10, 20 spots here, so. And by the way, you block, you pay. If there's like a Ten Commandments in NASCAR or in racing, that's one of them. We should write it. You know, we should write a Ten Commandments.

[Michael McDowell]

There's a. There's a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We can start off by putting you block, you pay on the board, but.

[Michael McDowell]

There'S definitely a gap where, you know, the guy behind you has caught you enough. Right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

That you. You know, he's gonna. He's got you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean, if you. If you block into the breaking zone of 11 or turn 7, I think it's totally fair for the guy to. To give you a little bumper to shove you a little beyond your braking zone and up, up off the bottom of the corner so you can bend around the turn and pass. Okay. And you shouldn't right rear or wreck the guy. Maybe you bump him in the next corner and get him back. But, you know, it's, it's, it's sort of an eye for an eye in that situation.

[Michael McDowell]

It is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, all those, that, that happens all day long. You know, there's all kinds of contact and guys pushing each other through the breaking zones. Well, Ty Gibbs then immediately after that, during, I believe a green flag pit stop cycle, comes into his pit box. And Telvin is in the six box where your driver, Brad Kalaski is also pitting right behind the 54. They're pitting together. The 54 drives through the six box. That's not uncommon. You've got to drive through a box or two to get your box properly.

[Michael McDowell]

Absolutely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The 54 does have an out in front of him. Nobody's in front of him, so he doesn't really need to get pointed too aggressively to be able to exit his own box. But he does drive through your box a little more shallow than he had the stops before, the times before. But there is this red marker, there's this red stripe on the corner of the box. And I believe that is to signify, you know, where a driver, how far a driver can drive through the boxes. Right.

[Michael McDowell]

Well, that, that marks for if he's coming around us, that's the mark he has to go by if he's coming around us already.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So. Well, Ty mentioned that line right there and said, you know, that's, that's my, that's my, that's, that's kind of something he uses or something that he pays attention to to be able to approach the pit box that he's trying to get into. But that also is a good reference for like how, where he was or how he pitted prior to that. And so anyways, he hits Telvin. Telvin and the boys get a little pissed off about that because they felt like he did kind of come in there a little bit shallow. And there's a little bit of a pushing and shoving match between some of the crew members on Ty Gibbs and some of the crew members on the RFK team for numbers, the number six car. And so if you look at that thing from, you know, from a 40,000 foot view, you think, okay, Ty Gibbs did that on purpose because he got ran into the corner by the 17. You think, oh, Ty did that on purpose because what happened in turn 11. He's pissed off and he can't, you know, he's like. And his Ty Gibbs that devious, that he's like, well, it's not to 17. It is a six, though. So I'll. I'll show these. Son of a. You know, if I can't. You know, if I can't get back at Chris Buescher, I can at least show my displeasure to the 16. Well, that's pretty freaking. Pretty deep.

[Travis]

That's a bridge too far.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is. I just can't believe. Maybe he's that much of a. Maybe he's that much of a. You know, it'd be one thing if.

[Travis]

They had the same sponsored car or the pit crews were the same.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm just saying, like, when I, When I got, you know, when I got pissed off at a. At a driver, I didn't, like, get. I didn't go, you know, I didn't. I didn't start, you know, taking it out on his teammates. If I couldn't reach him or couldn't somehow affect his race or get him back, I never. It never crosses your mind to go, well, I'll. I'll teammate over. And that'll. That's. That'll show them. I don't. I just can't believe that Ty Gibbs, his mind went there. I agree. Right. Because I don't think it did, but it is possible. And I saw this comment on social media. The guy named Jerry, I believe he said that this was akin to the brushback pitch in baseball where you'll throw high and inside and get the batter to back up off the plate or, you know, a pitcher might throw a pitch. Maybe something happened in the game. There was some contact or a bad pitch from the previous inning that pissed everybody off on that team. And the pitcher for the other team goes in and gets one in there tight against the batter, and it's like a message. Right. I would say, if anything, that's what this is. Which in baseball, that's kind of part of the game. Right. And so no doubt, if this was intentional, if you could prove it to be intentional, he should be penalized because you can't use your race car in a dangerous situation around. Around bodies on pit road. Right. That. That is by far. I mean, if you could prove it to be intentional, then you'd have to say, dude, you've. And he's got a little bit of a, you know, little bit of a history here. I think he's been penalized before staying on pit road. You'd have to say, look, man, but how do you prove it to be intentional? How could you prove it? That's the question. So we can't prove it. I don't think you can prove it. He's there unless he admits it. But yeah, pretty, pretty. If it's. If this was really intentional. That's super brazen. But damn, dude. I mean, he is trying to get into his pit box. And in those situations, we're always kind of taught as drivers, if we're Brad. To give up a car length or two to allow our guys to get time to run around the car. And you can't argue that, T.J. you know that's true.

[Michael McDowell]

It is true. But there. Look at the gap. We're following him in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know, but his move to get out is right behind that 54. Yeah, right.

[Michael McDowell]

I think if you want my side of it, I think that Ty. I don't know if he got behind and surprised him when his pit stall came up, which maybe that could have happened. Maybe it was like his.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you. That. That perspective right there shows Ty turning in relatively late. I can drive. Ty could have three. I know. Three. He barely clips the second stall. Like, he doesn't even. He puts one tire on the outside corner of stall number two.

[Michael McDowell]

That's why I'm saying. I think he might. Maybe. Maybe he got behind in his count. Because we are coming around the corner right there, and I. I don't know if Ty was thinking ahead. I also know that. That Ty is very good at doing little things in the racetrack. Like, Ty does a lot of little things that you might not ever see. He does.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he does.

[Michael McDowell]

When you're side drafting him, he swerves at you. Things like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I know to your point, tj, Ty Gibbs does come across as that petty little off and show you all the time behind the wheel of the car.

[Michael McDowell]

Teammates, not teammates. He's always that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah. I mean, in Xfinity series. Yeah, he's pretty aggressive with his teammates.

[Michael McDowell]

He's wrapped him for a win.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I agree. Look, I mean, the history that he has would tell you that this is probably an intention. Like he. The history that he has would tell you that, man, this might be something that he meant to do. Like, he really tried to send a message here.

[Michael McDowell]

So we also know there's one more part to it. We had ran.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I am.

[Travis]

That's a wild to think that a driver is going to do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I agree. It's just hard for me to believe I'm that kind of person though, that just can't believe the worst in somebody, you know, Can't. I'm not going to go. I'm not going to. I'm not going to assume the worst.

[Michael McDowell]

Case scenario now, you know, I feel dealing with you in the football league, I want to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, exactly. That's a great point. Like, I want to assume that this. This good. This dude wouldn't do that. Nobody would do that.

[Travis]

I don't think there's a driver in the cup series that is actively gonna aim their car for a pick.

[Michael McDowell]

But it's like, I don't think he aim for it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think. I think it was like a brush back. Like it was.

[Travis]

That's what people are making it seem like is he was trying to hit him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, look, he's not trying to hit anybody.

[Michael McDowell]

Not trying to hit him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I do think there is an. There's. I do think there's the potential that he was definitely, you know, like a brush back, brush back pitch kind of scenario where he's like, like, you know, you, you know, get out of the way. Get, you know, get out of my way. I'm coming into my stall and. And yeah, you're, you know, he ties it. If you. You could make the argument that he tied it together between what happened with Chris buescher and turn 11. I know it's a stretch and I don't want to believe that's true. That's true. But the history that Ty has doesn't help him in this argument.

[Michael McDowell]

We had also just ran him down and he knew that we were faster than him. So do I want to get this guy away from me? So I'm going to try to get him back and have a bad side. Okay. You don't want to be passed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You.

[Michael McDowell]

Oh, he wanted to be passed on the track.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, T.J. i'm just saying I don't think he's thinking that coming into his pit stall. I think he's just trying to get in his stall, not up his pit stop. Not. I think when you're. I don't. When I'm coming on pit road, all of the things that have happened to me on the track, all the, all the I'm mad about or annoyed about, I'm not thinking about any of that. I'm just like position my car in a stall. Don't this up right. Don't. Don't get too deep in the stall. Don't get too far left so they can't jack car up, you know, land where I'M supposed to land so the. So the changer is right there at the. You know, at the perfect spot. I just trying to. I'm trying. I can't. I can't multitask.

[Michael McDowell]

See, I think a lot of them do now. I think it's advanced now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, they're better. I do.

[Michael McDowell]

Well, I'm just saying there's more layers to it now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like robots out there.

[Michael McDowell]

That's what I was gonna say. It's like a robot, man. Like you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know, man. I just. Listen, if I was. What I think should happen is that if I was nascar, if I was Hilton or the old Hilton or the new Hilton, I'd get Ty Gibbs to come into the truck next week when we go to Dover. I'd sit him down. I'd. I'd say, hey, can't prove this was intentional. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was. I just want you to know, do a little better job next time. You know, you can't. You know, those guys. Telvin's not in a bad spot. Telvin's not in a vulnerable spot. He's out of the way. You can get in your box without running into him. If you look at where Ty Gibbs is in his pit box, he could. He's got a little, you know, room to give in terms of where his car is. He set his car perfectly in his box. He did. But considering the fact. Considering the fact that there are crew members on the racetrack or on pit road in the box behind his. He had. He could have been a little. He could have made the adjustment. And again, I think Brad could have backed up a little bit. So Telvin could have made. And, you know, Kelvin wouldn't have been as vulnerable to have to get out there when he did. But these guys are taught. These guys are taught not to be giving up half a car length, the car length on pit road. In my day, that wasn't a big deal. So Brad might say, hey, Dale, I can't give up a half a car length. I can't back up and give you the. Give my guys the space. We can't afford to do that. I'm trying to beat this guy off pit road. If we have. If we beat him, if his pit stop goes the way it should, I'm going to beat the 54 to the end of pit road and take the spot. I get that. You know, I think it's.

[Michael McDowell]

I will tell you that it's. It was actively said on our radio that give a gap for the guys on the way in. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay, good. So he's still doing that. So, you know, maybe he could have any. I don't know.

[Michael McDowell]

I. I just think Ty was too aggressive with it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He was.

[Michael McDowell]

And that's it. He had open. He had open boxes on purpose. I don't. I don't. I think it all added together, and he wasn't against. I don't think he's trying to hit the guy, but I think he's trying to make it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not trying to hit the guy.

[Michael McDowell]

I think he's trying to make it hard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

And I mean, I don't like the second turn in. Like, he was late. Ty, like, you know, your crew chief tells you when you're coming up here, hey, you got your openings in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm surprised. Yeah. I'm with. So are you saying I feel the same way? I think. I think we're saying the same thing.

[Michael McDowell]

Probably.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm surprised that he didn't put drive through the second box.

[Michael McDowell]

That's what I'm saying. Like, you had three openings in the 50. One was before us. He's not sitting there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

So what's the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So maybe if he had not taken such a hard angle into your box, maybe he's not hitting Kelvin. Kelvin might actually not think he's coming that far. You know, Kelvin might seem coming at a different angle and go, okay, I'm gonna wait a little bit. Wait a beat.

[Michael McDowell]

It looks bad because he's aimed right at.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It looks bad because his aggressive on his turn.

[Travis]

That's the most believable is he was too aggressive and should have come in sooner.

[Michael McDowell]

But why be that aggressive? Turning it Turning makes the pit stop harder. I will say that. And I'm not being biased here, but Brad, to me, is over aggressive. Giving, giving, giving room for the guys because we followed guys in ton this year. We follow guys in, and he leaves.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Brad way more room than what I.

[Michael McDowell]

Want him to leave.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Look at how many boxes Brad drives through right there. Brad drives through a whole box.

[Michael McDowell]

He's like two boxes. Yes, I agree. And Ty could have done the same thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. If Ty had done that.

[Michael McDowell]

But I mean, if you're talvin, how do you react?

[TJ Majors]

Oh, yeah.

[Travis]

Are you okay with the reaction?

[Michael McDowell]

Well, like, would you be mad that just the angle that he comes in, it looks like he's aiming for you? And he said, but within his last. In 10 years of doing this, he's never had a guy do that.

[Travis]

Are you okay with one pit crew going up to another pit crew during the race and having this confrontation.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I guess.

[Michael McDowell]

Well, you. I mean, if they're passionate, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

But thankfully, everybody was okay and everybody carried on.

[Travis]

And do we need to review when we allow pit crew members over the wall?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's something that is a bit interesting because Telvin's on pit road standing.

[Michael McDowell]

I don't know what the role is for the gap.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well, I know, but I remember years ago we jumped off the wall, right. Everybody did. But now they're allowing the carrier to be on pit road as the car's coming in. And so Telvin's up on the wall with the Jackman, the tire changers, and everybody else. You know, he probably does get hit, but you got, you know. I don't know.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, probably for sure then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I. Yeah, I don't have a problem with him going into those other guys pit box, but I also don't have a problem with him reacting the way they did. I kind of think, you know, you come into my pit box, you got to be ready for whatever's coming.

[Michael McDowell]

You know, I just watched it again and seeing Ty get pointed out like he did, he knew what he was doing. In my opinion, the only. If you. When you come in and you react late, you don't get pointed out. You just get. You're like, oh, God, I just got to get in the box here straight. When you come in and get it pointed back out, he knew where he was going. He didn't have the. Oh, looked when you're pointing out, you know, if you come in late, you're like, oh, God, get it in here. Like he had, though. Yeah, like, smooth, like, to me, I mean, it's perfect.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

How he aimed out, like.

[Travis]

So you think NASCAR should have punished him?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's the question. I guess.

[Michael McDowell]

I don't know if they should punish him.

[Travis]

Well, you just said he did it on purpose, so.

[Michael McDowell]

I mean, I think he knew what he was doing. I don't think he tried to hit a guy, but I think he knew what he was doing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Nas. That's. That's another. That's another thing. I think there's a good debate online when you watch all of this. Ty Gibbs didn't do anything that you could penalize.

[Michael McDowell]

Exactly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He didn't do anything that you could penalize. He would have to admit that he did this on purpose for you to penalize him. Yeah. Because looking at the film, he did. He broke no rule.

[Travis]

I agree.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And people, you know, unfortunately get hit sometimes on pit road and to your.

[Travis]

Point, because it's Ty Gibbs. If this was, you know, Chase Elliott, someone else, we wouldn't be having the same outrage.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're right. But Ty Gibbs, that, you know, that's Ty Gibbs responsibility, not ours.

[Travis]

Correct.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ty Gibbs has created the narrative.

[Michael McDowell]

I mean, that looking at all the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Lines and other boxes, don't you feel like I'm right about that?

[Travis]

Some of it. But I also think because it's. Oh, he's Joe Gibbs's grandson. People don't believe he doesn't. So, like he gets added on hatred because of.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But he created that narrative.

[Travis]

He does some of it, but I.

[Michael McDowell]

Think he's some of it. People, actions.

[Travis]

Okay. But because he's got the ride, then they're like, oh, grandpa gave it to you.

[Michael McDowell]

So people.

[Travis]

No, but people are adding that on to it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's a little bit. Maybe if some people might feel that way. The dude is freaking talented. He's a badass race car driver, particularly on the road courses and smoked our ass in the, in the damn Xfinity series when he was there. So, I mean, he, he belongs.

[Michael McDowell]

He knows what he's doing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's earned the ride. But his actions sometimes around, you know, his actions sometimes on the racetrack just are interesting and odd.

[Michael McDowell]

And he like wrecking Brandon Jones for the win at Martinsville. That, like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, that stuff right there, that's it. It's going to follow him for a while. It's going to take a while for.

[Michael McDowell]

Him to the pit road incident before this when he got, he got penalized.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Michael McDowell]

So it's not his first offense. So when you have a guy that's a repeat offender acting like that, you bring that up on yourself, in my opinion. But Ty is a very talented race car driver and we all had him pegged to win his first, I mean, multiple wins. You know what I mean? He's had some struggles, but he's been, he started off really good in the Cup Series, so. And he's great at road courses.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do want to say, to put a button on, on the Ty Gibbs, Brad Keselowski deal, the crew chief for Brad. His comment or his quote was to Jackman Braxton Brannan on the 54, it's your right to drive through there. It sucks, but it is what it is. So, I mean, I think everybody looks at it and goes, there's not an obvious penalty.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, I agree.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Or any. Anything Nas. And because people were like, people are a bit annoyed that NASCAR called it fair. And I'm in the booth with Steve And Steve's watching and he's like, man, there's nothing illegal, there's no penalty. And I couldn't see one either.

[Michael McDowell]

He's definitely close to the line.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Travis]

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[Travis]

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[Travis]

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[Michael McDowell]

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[Travis]

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[Michael McDowell]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Josh Berry.

[Michael McDowell]

Another good one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, Josh Barry had a pretty eventful last couple laps of the race. I text Josh after the race, but. And I'll Tell you what his opinion was, but he. The 43 of Jones spun off the nose of the 4 of the 21 coming out of turn 7. That looked like possible payback from the week before Chicago. And. And you know what? You know, hey, that's. That's how you do it if. Because I was watching that Chicago race, and y' all know Josh drove here. Josh is a friend of mine. And so you call it whatever you want to call it. I don't give a. But the Pat, that is not a passing zone down the hill into turn seven at Chicago, and ironically, they're both turn sevens. Yeah. But so the 43 wrecked Josh at. At that turn in Chicago, and it's not a pass. That's not a pass. Is that a song? Is that an area where you think you're trying to make a pass?

[Michael McDowell]

Man, that's a really risky area. No, not. I mean.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so Josh is like, dude, what are we doing? I didn't. Josh probably didn't even expect the 43 to make the move into the breaking zone seven there in Chicago and do that. So Josh is a racer, and he's like, hey, perfect opportunity right here. Turn 7. A couple laps to go. So he didn't give. He didn't give Jones a break. Got into his back bumper, spun him around. Intentional or not, I don't got a problem with that one. But then we get to the top of the hill in term two, and it looked to me like this one was a. You're out of here. So if we watch this all kind of starts back in turn 11. Josh goes down into turn 11, gets into the back bumper, the 77. Nice little tap right there. Hits him in the quarter panel a little bit on corner exit.

[Michael McDowell]

They get 3 wide.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're beating and banging. The 45. Josh is banging with the 45. They're 3 wide, and Josh and the.

[Michael McDowell]

70 cent are older tires.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. And Josh is just trying to survive. They go up the hill, and this looked really intentional to me because, you know, Josh just drives in and pops the 77 in the ass, and he's gone. And so I text Josh, and I'm like, damn, dude. That was. I text Josh, and I was like, come on, man. Way to go.

[Michael McDowell]

Now it comes out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I takes Josh. I was like, come on, man. And he's like, actually, I think you missed the corner. He's like, actually, the 77, I just cooked it in there too far. I didn't mean to do that. And I was like, okay. I didn't know if he was wrecking host of our. For the community or what. But it was well received. Yeah, well received. But it got a lot of texts afterwards. But anyhow, I. I just thought that was kind of funny. Josh ended up turning a pretty sour. Josh has struggled at the road courses. He's. He's. I think he would admit that he. He's got a lot of gains to make as a driver at those racetracks. And they squeaked out a 13th place finish after probably having pretty good. Yeah. Average running position of probably 28th.

[Michael McDowell]

I was gonna say he was way back there. Yeah, he was. That's a solid run.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he took out a few guys there to turn that 15th in 15th into a 13th.

[Michael McDowell]

I mean. Yeah, obviously. I think the 43 was probably perfect scenario lined up and he wasn't going to. He could have cut him a break and lifted a little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He didn't cut me a break.

[Travis]

I'm not any issues with the 43 move. Like should he. NASCAR shouldn't do anything.

[Michael McDowell]

What?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't. I mean, NASCAR is not going to do anything unless you admit doing it on purpose.

[Travis]

Well, we saw like Austin, Cedric, Ty Dillon. I think they're a little different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. But wow.

[Michael McDowell]

One turn left to clip a guy in the quarter panel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is at coda, the two drives across the racetrack. Three lanes, two and a half lanes to get to the corner panel of the 10 to take him out. Now I would just say Josh is a racer and he knows how. He's not going to wreck. He's not going to wreck Jones unless it's the perfect scenario. And that happened to be presented to him perfectly in this scenario. It was like. Yep.

[Michael McDowell]

So off a seven, low grip, hard to get drive.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Everyone's spinning the tires, running into everybody.

[Michael McDowell]

I mean, exactly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The four of Gragson's wrecking behind them. So I mean, there's all kinds of chaos happening. And look, bud.

[Michael McDowell]

If you're Eric, you kind of feel like that was the lightest payback you could get.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If I'm Eric Jones, I'd probably be like, all right, we're even.

[Travis]

We're moving forward.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Moving forward.

[Michael McDowell]

Josh got the worst. Josh got the worst end of that deal by far. In Chicago.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, probably.

[Michael McDowell]

I mean, nose head on to the wall.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gary spun out and got to carry on. He gets drive away. That's a good point. And everybody who's sitting going, Dale Jr. And his Josh Berry fandom, of course he's going to have his back. You're right. You are absolutely right. Josh is the man, but why, like.

[Travis]

He'S on the list. We can't make fun of on this show.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's right.

[Michael McDowell]

No matter who it is, we can.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Make fun of Josh.

[Michael McDowell]

We could.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When it's warranted.

[Michael McDowell]

When warranted. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And I made fun of him for the. For the host of our deal. Yes. He. If he really cooked it in the corner and up, we can make fun of that. But the thing with Eric, with. The thing with Jones off of seven is kind of like a. Hey, man, that's kind of. Is what it is. I'm going to. If I'm. If I can get you, I'm going to get you. Because if you don't, Josh is still. Even though Josh is like 33 or whatever, he's still relatively kind of green in the, in the. In the NASCAR cup world. Eric Jones is a veteran. Erik Jones is one of those guys. It's going to, you know, hold his ground as well. He's pretty aggressive. He doesn't like to get pushed around. He's going to push back. That's the way you got to be. You got to be. If you get. If you get the chance to get the guy back, you got to get him back. Because if you don't, he's going to do this game he did to you in Chicago over and over and over. They're going to know that they can push you around. You ain't going to do nothing for sure. And so Josh has to kind of do it some.

[Michael McDowell]

Eric.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is a great scenario.

[Michael McDowell]

Eric's done this. Eric does do this occasionally.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He does. Eric's. Eric's aggressive. He. I'm fine with the way Eric races aggressive first year Chicago. I think his move at Chicago's bull.

[Michael McDowell]

You know what he's not going to do again? He's not going to pass Josh into seven again.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like that shouldn't.

[Michael McDowell]

Probably shouldn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But they probably shouldn't try to pass anyone in that corner in Chicago, but definitely not Josh. Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

So six is. I will say that sometimes guys miss six pretty bad and they get enough of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But if you can get. If you. If you can get to position on the guy door to door or at least, you know, side by side into seven in Chicago, it's still going to bottle you down.

[Michael McDowell]

Big time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Big time. Yeah. I don't know. I. Listen, you know, I think. I think that was a fun little. It was. I was sitting there in the booth laughing. I thought it was kind of a little comedic, especially, you know, the first deal. I was like, oh, yes. There's a little history there. Josh is paying it back. And then the host of our thing, I was like, well, there's nothing I can say about that. That looked, you know, pretty. Pretty straightforward.

[Michael McDowell]

You know who wasn't laughing?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Jose Var.

[Michael McDowell]

Me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why?

[Michael McDowell]

It cost us 11 spots missing. Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn. We should have went through the dirt.

[Michael McDowell]

We were passing Chase on the right, right there. Where? Door to door, chase and watch. We go all the way to the right around the 43. And then we lost 11 spots.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chastain and Suarez. Let's talk about that one. I'm watching this play out in turn 11. Chastain and Suarez are battling in the breaking zone. There was a car in front of them. 22 at Logano. Neither one of them are in position to try to outbreak Logano into the corner. Chastain's got a run on Suarez out of 10. Suarez knows it. Chastain moves right to try to outbreak the 99. The 99 then pulls in front of him to block that move.

[Michael McDowell]

You block, you block, you pay, you pay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And while Chastain is the one. While Chastain's the one who up here, he made a mistake. You can see the rear tires lock up. And he's like, I can't get it stopped. We're going in this car. I'm going to hit you. I'm sorry. You know, this is what happens. So Chastain up. Let's get that clear. But if the 99 doesn't block, he doesn't get run over. More than likely, he can battle around the outside and beat and maintain and hold the spot. Through the front straightaway, the bend to the left, through the front straightaway, and Chastain doesn't get by. But this is an absolute bigger deal because it's teammates, and Suarez is. Suarez has not the best spot. Suarez has been very professional. He has been so far publicly, and he's probably sitting here going, all right, now this is. You know, I'm going to have to handle this. And so that's the. That's the crux of the situation, I think, is, you know, Ross would probably rock. You would probably have Ross immediately say, look, that was my fault, man. I up. I couldn't get the car stopped. You know, I was going to try to get in the corner deeper, and you jumped in front of me and I was. I was over committed and I hit you. I'm sorry. You know, and. And that should be enough, I think. But. But considering that Suarez, the situation, there's some. Yeah, Suarez is out of this job, he's feeling less than unwanted, rejected. Right. He's been able to sort of control those frustrations around those. That feeling to a point. And this kind of stuff right here might make it a little personal. And I don't know, really, like, what opportunities he's got. Right. In cup to stay in Cup. What openings are there? Where would he go? That would be like a, hell, yeah, this is just as good. A lateral move at least, right? There's nowhere he's going to go. I don't think there's a ladder. There's nothing. Right. And so he may. He may be hopeful. And look, I could be wrong, and something could open up and somebody might go, yeah, man, we'll take this. But I don't believe there is a. Is a. Is a. There is a move where you could go, man, he's stepping into something better.

[Michael McDowell]

Does he have sponsorship?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He. He has support. Sponsorship.

[Michael McDowell]

Well, that matters.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He has some funding. I just don't see an opening where Suarez can go and you go, that's.

[Michael McDowell]

As good right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's as good or better. And I think as he starts to see that the lack of paths forward or the lack of opportunity, that, too, is going to add to the frustration of things like this happening. Being, look, hey, man, if I'm Suarez, you're kind of sitting there looking at Chastain, Those guys going, man, my feelings are hurt because of this situation, but I do want this to end well. Let's all work together, and let's try to have a reasonable finish to this season. I want to be a good teammate. I want this to end on good terms. And then, you know, and then you get knocked out and spun out in the corner. This is absolutely Chastain's fault.

[Michael McDowell]

He made a mistake.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

100%. He would own it. But I don't. I know it. It ain't intentional. You can see him busting his ass. He's losing the. You know, the rear tires lock up, and he starts to spin the car out, and he's.

[Michael McDowell]

I don't think he's close enough to make the pass anyway, right there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He wasn't, but he wasn't. And I think Suarez. The only other thing Suarez could have done was recognize the one ain't close enough to make the pass. Can let him go on in there and get on my right rear quarter panel. I'm going to roll around the top of 11 and beat him out, you know, beat him down the next straightaway, and I've got the inside bend advantage through turns. You Know, through the front straightaway into turn one.

[Michael McDowell]

His momentum off of 11 should clear him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And I'm going to, you know, and then I could get out and I would get in the conference, you know, then I could go to the competition meeting and I would look at this and go, damn, Chastain, what are you doing? You're not. You can't pass me there because I showed you that, you know, I was going to hold you off. You just cost me and you three, four car lengths to the 22, you know, why are you trying to pass me there? You're not in position to do it.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, there's two wrongs here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

There'S definitely two wrongs, and it didn't add up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chastain. Yeah, just a kind of mistake there. But I think the reason why we're having the conversation around this is because we have to, you know, monitor the. We're going to have to monitor the Daniel Suarez situation. Situation. Right. Where does he ended up? What are his chances and options? And, you know, can he. Can he control his emotions? I'll monitor. I'll pay attention and watch this because can Daniel keep it cool, keep it professional? Can he get over this little up here by his teammate and say, all right, ma', am, we're going to try to end this amicably. What's the word? Amicably?

[Michael McDowell]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're going to try to end this the right way. It's worse.

[Travis]

Is still trying to find a win and sneak into the playoffs.

[Michael McDowell]

So let me ask you a question. You're in Daniel's situation. How do you drive? Does this make somebody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Daniel says if they don't can have a conversation, which they will. They'll talk this out.

[Michael McDowell]

They will.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Daniel's the kind of guy, though, that he'll hold that he'll get your ass back.

[Michael McDowell]

But does this affect him if they don't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, he in and out of.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah. Put McDowell on a hood.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He did. McDowell's a big boy.

[Travis]

Yeah. That's not easy to do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Put him on the hood.

[Michael McDowell]

In your opinion, how does Daniel drive now? Does he drive like, you know, he's trying to find a ride and try. Like, does he. Is there a. Is it possible to try too hard and get yourself in more trouble right now?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. That's why we're going to watch. We're going to watch to see what he does. Does he drive harder? Does he. Does he make mistakes?

[Michael McDowell]

Does he push people around time to get smarter?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he just, you know, does he fade under the rug and disappear what happens? Right? It's. It's. He's a cast in a. In a play that has a. That has a curious role and a limited number of roles, and who knows where he ends up if he's even part of the cast next year. Right?

[Michael McDowell]

What do you think the best approach is? Just what do you think? It's. Do you think he needs to be more aggressive here? Do you think he needs to just piece finishes together or.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, that's like, you know. No, I mean, I think he has to be more aggressive. Yeah, I do.

[Michael McDowell]

Don't get pushed around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And you cannot tell a race car driver to drive, to try harder. They're all. They're all at the limit.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah. No, I always liked that. Hey, man, he a little more for me today, but.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But yeah, I think he. He needs to. He needs to put his foot down.

[Michael McDowell]

He's. To have an edge to him, have.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A little age of which he does.

[Michael McDowell]

He does a little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He can get lost. You can lose him in the story. Every race is an opportunity to stand out, and you got to stand out. And it's harder to stand out. It's harder to be the story in a good way. Right? You don't ever want to be the story.

[Michael McDowell]

How do you stand out if you're not dominating the race?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right? I mean, you gotta. You gotta find ways to stand out.

[Michael McDowell]

Do you ruffle feathers? Do you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You just gotta stand out. You know, you just. I don't know what that is or what that really means, but you. The. I think the, the problem. One thing you got to be careful of is being forgettable. You know, there's drivers in the field that when you say their name, they elicit no response. Right. I could say some names from drivers in the field to you, to fans, to anyone in this room, and you would be like, yeah, whatever. I don't know. That does nothing for me. Right? That's what you got to be careful of. Because when you become. It's kind of like falling in the friend zone with the girl, right? You can't let that happen. You can't become. You can't become forgettable. You can't become unremarkable. And if you're just out there. I think a lot of drivers find themselves in a tough situation with a car that doesn't do what it needs to do, and they just go through the motions. They're trying hard, they're working their ass off, they're seeing no results, and they continue to do that week in and week out. And it's hard to stand out in that sort of scenario. It's hard to shine, especially at like, his position.

[Travis]

He's got SVG there. He's got chest stain.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But you know what? Like, Ty Dillon is refusing to be unremarkable, right?

[Michael McDowell]

He is now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He is.

[Travis]

He's taking advantage of his bracket.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. He's taking advantage of an opportunity to be memorable and to be more than a filler. And so there's other drivers too. So there's, I guess, one way to sort of shine or be. Be. Be noticed or be. Be remarkable for a driver who's maybe in a car that's a 20th or 25th place car. Not that the 99 is that. I'm just saying when you're in a car that won't do the things you needed to do so that you. A car that you can't put at the front of the field, you got to take a car that lots of people in the industry know isn't great and at least make it a, you know, a 15th place car or a 10th place car. And then I and you, we can all come in here and do in bull all week long about that guy makes this car better. Kurt Busch would get in bad, make.

[Michael McDowell]

It run better, and you saw it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. There's drivers that would get in cars and make them run faster. Ricky Rudd, everywhere Ricky Rudd went, he was a. Ricky Rudd was not a dominant driver in nascar. But you know why Ricky Rudd continued to thrive and have people admired him. People were fans of his because he was tenacious and he never, never let anybody push him around. And he always took the. He took the Wood Brothers and made that car a competitive race car when it hadn't been that competitive. You know, he would get in cars and they ran. He took the 29 Quaker State car and made that a winning car. You know, everything that he got in got better, and he was a big reason for that. Helly helped turn Richard Childress program into a winning program that dad would take over and become, you know, synonymous with. Right. And so Ricky Rudd played a major role in helping that team develop into what it could be once dad got behind the wheel. And so, you know, that's how you kind of stand out if you, you know, if you, if you can't stand out, man, it's. It. You're. It's hard. You're less. It's hard to market, it's hard to. It's hard to drum up interest and excitement around you. It's hard to weave you into the Storyline on Sunday. It's hard to, it's hard to get excited about talking about you and get fans excited about hearing about you. So, you know, I think he's just, he's, he's in a tough little spot right here, Daniel is for the rest of the year. And so that's why I'll be watching. Because I'm curious, does he, does he.

[Michael McDowell]

How does he handle.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He find a way to like make a pop. Do something where you're like, holy, there it is. That's why he's here. How about Larson? So that's a, that's another, that's a conversation too. And everybody's careful about, like, everybody's a little careful about this one. I know what you're saying because Larson is, you know, Larson's in the conversation even today still as one of the, you know, most talented race car drivers in the world. Right. And he hasn't had a reasonable result or a Larson style performance since Indy. And maybe coincidental, right, but he, he's had a couple of top fives or, you know, had a reasonable, couple of reasonable runs. But he's just, you know, we're used to seeing Larson, you know, every third race at least, running in the top two, top three, battling for the win.

[Travis]

Laps 35, 13, 17, 7, 3, 6, 5, 8. One was his last.

[Michael McDowell]

I mean, I don't see any problem with them, but it's not Larson ish to have that many.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But so, yeah, I mean, I just feel, I just wonder if. Is it simply the quirkiness of the schedule at this point in the summer? Because that is absolutely a thing. You're right. We get in, we get into some road courses and some weird tracks, Pocono, and, and you can't like find a rhythm and, and you just can't, you know, you, if they're like, you know, they wrote, you know, and you get.

[Travis]

Caught up in a wreck, it's not your fault. On one of the races.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, I just think it's coincidence, man. I mean, he's won this race before.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Listen, I know that's why nobody's wanting to talk about it because everybody, myself included, thinks he goes to Dover and runs first, second or third.

[Michael McDowell]

If you told me right now that he won Dover, see the future, I'd be like, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And if he does, I would still look back since May and say, damn, I thought he should have been there. You know, I thought he, I thought he should have been running up front this weekend.

[Travis]

Could it be as simple as they kind of just missed the setup with the. With the tires.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They feel like. I feel like that they're a bit off. I feel like they're a little bit off. That's it. I feel like they're a little bit off.

[Michael McDowell]

But I think you have a really high standard for that car, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I do.

[Michael McDowell]

A little bit off is a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They had that standard.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, they've set it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They have that standard for themselves. Do you think they went to the race this weekend and went, yeah, we ran like we should have?

[Michael McDowell]

No, I think they went there trying to win the race like everyone, but they've won so much that the standard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is high expected like that.

[Michael McDowell]

I know it is, but I don't see any problem with. I don't see a problem with it. He's been caught up in a couple things that probably weren't his fault.

[Travis]

I mean, look at pastures. How many DNFs. He's. This is Kyle Larson.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He does kind of a Checkers or wreckers.

[Michael McDowell]

Yes, he does make a lot of mistakes like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But he's running really good at Charlotte and busted his ass.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, that's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know. And, you know, I think that he won't. He probably wouldn't admit this, and he'd probably say, I'm wrong, but I think that, you know, he went and tried to run Indy and he said, I got no interest in chasing the double. He might think that all the shit that it requires to do all that sort of has taken his focus away from his Sunday. And he's like, you know what? It's not worth it.

[Michael McDowell]

That month of May in India is a long month.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wouldn't want to do it.

[Michael McDowell]

I mean, I commend him for even doing it twice trying it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, it feels like to me that it sort of derailed their momentum, and I. And it derailed it at a time where the schedule is challenging.

[Michael McDowell]

Sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, you don't need any hiccups. Right. And it's created a bit of a stretch where they just haven't looked like themselves. Hey, everybody. You want the latest Dell 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 hey, Dale. Yo.

[Travis]

What are we doing for lunch today? I'm getting kind of hungry.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I'm already on it. It's actually going to be delivered soon. Arby's Angus cheesesteak with a side of curly fries is on the way. It's the ultimate meat and cheese combination for steak lovers like you and me. It's actually the perfect balance of quarter pound of Angus steak, melted American cheese fire roasted peppers and onions with a nice garlic spread to tie it all together. It's a must try. That's going to be our lunch sandwich.

[Travis]

Sounds delicious. But there's one thing I've learned is if you're talking about food, I got to trust you on this. You've never failed me yet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I have not?

[Travis]

No, you've nailed it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, there you go, man. This sandwich has it all. When I first tried this, I was at the shop checking on the race cars and stuff, seeing if the guys need anything. We ordered up some Arby's and when this Angus cheesesteak arrived, I was blown away by how much steak is actually on this thing. Definitely big enough to satisfy your hunger. Tastes like a true American classic. Everybody check out your nearest Arby's today to try this Angus cheesesteak. And if you want it delivered like we do, use code dale for $0 delivery when you order through the Arby's app. That's code D A L E on the app. Available for a limited time at participating U.S. locations while supplies last. All right, we got our winner of Sunday's race in Sonoma.

[Michael McDowell]

This guy's gonna. He's a regular here now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Shane Van Ginsbergen is calling in again this week. It's been a hell of a few weeks for you and, you know, you still have a lot of racing left this. This year. You know, I know you're probably excited about Watkins Glen out there in front, but I bet you're even more excited to actually get back to some ovals where you can continue, you know, to hone that skill. We got a tough one coming up this weekend with Dover concrete. I had some pretty good success there, but also some of the most frustrating days trying to get a hold of that racetrack. You know, what's your. What's your expectation this weekend? What's your feelings around Dover because it is such a unique place. High banked one mile concrete oval. Really fast, but hard to get ahold of.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, well, firstly, you're right. I'm looking forward to getting back into it. It's been a nice break doing all these road courses, but yeah, Dover should be good. I struggled there last year. You know, I remember all us caller guys were battling for 20th. You know, we're all battling with our cars, but I had fun. It was an epic track. It was. It's just amazing how fast you can go into that corner. It feels like you're dropping and then all of a sudden you're just loading up on the banking. The load around that track and how much grip it has is mind blowing. So, yeah, looking forward to that. Looking forward to Indy too. I ran, ran well there in Xfinity last year. It was a really fun track, although it was a restricted plate. It would be a bit different this year, but, yeah, just looking forward to continuing, learning, getting back into the challenge and, yeah, trying to get better.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What is the biggest challenge for you? I know I've talked to you before about this and one of the things that you mentioned to me was in practice, you're seeing some of these racetracks for the first time, or you're seeing some of these racetracks for the first time with the next gen, and you get a very limited amount of practice and you fire off really exploring the racetrack. I know that's probably still something you're working on, trying to, you know, hit the racetrack and just be quicker once you're out on the track. But, you know, what are some of the other details around oval racing we've seen this time and time again when, you know, like, Marcus Ambrose would come into our series or even guys from IndyCar might come, or Juan. Juan Pablo Montoya from F1. The. The. The way you drive a car at an oval is just different. The techniques and even the braking and everything is so different at an oval. Can you, can you articulate, I guess, what. What are, what are some of the methods that we, you know, oval racers do that have been hard for you to kind of pick up or adjust to?

[TJ Majors]

Well, firstly, probably Dover is, you know, practice will start and Bristol was sort of the same. Practice will start and it'll be just on the bottom and you'll be running your line as fast as you can and, you know, doing the qualifying line, just, you know, going hammer and tong. But yeah, as you said, for me, by the time I get up to speed, the peak of the tyre is gone, you know, and then you're just trying to learn, but then when you get in the race, all of a sudden the track rubbers up and it's very graphic to me on concrete. You know, it rubbers up so much and then all of a sudden the line moves and you're doing a different line to what you've done before. And. And this tyre, it hates itself. Like when the rubber goes down, the rubber's bad. Any other series of.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In the world.

[TJ Majors]

Any other series in the world. The rubber is good. You know, you're trying to be on the rubber to get the grip, and it's amazing the. How the track will move up. You know, the line will move up, where the grip will be and where the. The cush is. It's like a dirt track. And then. And then you're watching this track just change color, and you're trying to find light spots for grip. And then the yellow comes out. And, you know, I don't know what. What it is or whether the new tires pick up the rubber. The track just changes color and the cycle starts again. It's. Yeah, it's amazing. There's no other series I've ever been a part of that does it how variable the grip is and the track. And it's not just one line the whole time. The line's always changing. You're always trying to find somewhere to find that speed, you know?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Absolutely. That's a great way to explain what I think happens at all ovals. You know, I always thought that this was something that was more pronounced at the concrete tracks only because we could literally visually see the rubber get put down, then the rubber be removed from the track, and that cycle began again at the next restart. But as I got older, I thought, I bet this is happening at even the asphalt tracks. We just aren't able to see the optics of it because of the color of the surface of the racetrack. And so, like at a Charlotte or at a place like Kansas, I bet the same thing is going on. It's just harder for you to kind of find where that fresher or less rubbered up asphalt is because of the color of the surface.

[TJ Majors]

But it even happened at Sonoma. Like, I could exit 11 on the inside where there's no rubber and there was more grip there. It's. It's odd. Yeah. This tire is. Whatever it is, it's just weird. I think it's right. The tire hates itself. So you're always trying to find the cleanness of the road for the grip. And yet that's hard to see on a normal oval, but you can feel it. But on concrete, you can look around the corner and try and aim for a lighter spot. It's crazy to me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, absolutely. The past weekend, we saw you and Connor Zillich have another epic battle in the Xfinity race, and I was kind of interested to chat with you a little bit about it. Post race, you come up on the the podium for Victory lane and. And gave Connor a hard time, but it was a good. It was a good exchange, you know, and I. I think you two are developing. You already had pretty. Pretty heavy respect for each other. I think now you're starting to develop a friendship. But a real nice, you know, a nice kind of exchange between you two guys. Post race was good to see the Did. How much of a break did you cut the guy if it's somebody else that's not a teammate, not a Junior Motorsports car. How do you change what your decisions are on that last lap?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah. Yeah, I raced him as a teammate rather than a friend. Right. You don't want to. You try not to have friends, but you don't want to wreck your own team's cars. You know, it's. Yeah, like, if it wasn't a teammate, I probably wouldn't have gone down well, I wouldn't have gone down the outside at the last corner. You know, that's never gonna work. You're never gonna drive around the outside of anyone. But, you know, there's no. There's no other options, really. The other two options is you just follow them around the corner or you drive into the back of them and push them wide and win the race in it. Even though that would be great, it wouldn't feel good, especially doing that to a teammate, you know, but if it was anyone else in the field, you'd probably highly consider giving them a little bump, you know, so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[TJ Majors]

It definitely did change it. Like, turn seven, turn seven. I run into the back of him when he blocked there, which was okay. We could both. Couldn't stop. I pushed him wide, and I just waited for him, you know? Like, I could have gone and probably got in front before the S's, but I. I didn't want to do it like that, you know? So we raced each other hard all day, and we're giving each other the thumbs back, thumbs up on the. On the stage breaks and stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was.

[TJ Majors]

It was fun. It was proper, hard racing. And, you know, at the start of each stage, we'd sort of be cruising and managing our stuff. And then, you know, you. You'd feel the intensity pick up. We'd be hanging it out, and then, you know, you couldn't see anyone in the mirror. Like, it was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, awesome.

[TJ Majors]

The speed advantage we had and really, really fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I want to ask. I know TJ's got a question for you, but I want to ask one real quick. It kind of ties to that when you came to race the first race at The Chicago street course. Talking to some folks back in Australia where they would tell me that you were going to pass everybody. Even as the race is playing out, they're telling me, watch him. He's going to pass these people. He won't put a bumper on him. He won't touch them. He'll pass them completely clean. And that was. Now, I know that there's. There's contact in V8 supercar. I know there's. I know there's aggression in that series, but your. Your. I guess the way you were brought up as a racer was to do it as cleanly as possible. Now that you've been in NASCAR for a couple years, do you think you have to adapt? Do you think you need to change how you race the guys in nascar? Do you need. Have you needed to become more aggressive? Think about that. You know that race at Cota, the first time you went to Cota, and all hell broke loose down there in turn one on a late restart. And I think you came out of that like, these guys are animals. You know, this is. I've never experienced anything like that. So. Have you had to, like, adjust what your etiquette is, what you're comfortable doing in those scenarios?

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, yes and no. And then you learn other drivers, right? Like, you know that guy who did that at Coda, the 21 car? He'd do that every day, even to his grandma, probably, you know, but racing to. Racing against Chase Briscoe on the weekend, he's someone I know is gonna race me hard and push things to the limit, but he's not just gonna spin me out for no reason. But, you know, if the 77 was behind me on the last restart, I'm myself, you know, so it's very specific. Very specific who it is. And I like to race people with respect because most guys will do it back to, you know, and. And that's the reputation you want to build as a. I want to be known as hard and aggressive, but also fair, you know, I don't want to be just hitting people for no reason, and I hope people race me back the same way.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, that's kind of what I was going to ask. Is the etiquette the same? Because I don't know if. Was the etiquette the same in the V8 supercars? Is like. I feel like it's cleaner there than it would have been over here.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, yeah, it's cleaner. But you have a judge, you know, who's dishing out penalties and.

[Michael McDowell]

Exactly.

[TJ Majors]

It was very inconsistent. You never Know where you stood and you know, if you're in the mid pack and someone hit you, it wouldn't get seen. So they'd get away with it, you know, and then when you go to pay them back, they might be seen and you get a penalty. So, yeah, it was always blurry line there, whereas here it's pretty cut and dry. You know, you just.

[Michael McDowell]

What do you think's better?

[TJ Majors]

Can't put anyone in the grandstand, but you can do whatever else you like and get away with it.

[Michael McDowell]

What do you prefer?

[TJ Majors]

I prefer this way, you know, because you build more respect between your competitors and you just sort it out yourselves. But also, I understand we probably couldn't do it at home because you don't race enough and cars are more expensive. You know, know you don't have five cars in the shop waiting for you. You know, it's. Yeah, you have the same car all year, so you probably couldn't race like that down there. But I think here it works very well and it polices itself very well.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, you and Scott had some great battles back in the day there. I mean, some great battles.

[TJ Majors]

Yeah, that was, you know, but they were all. There was nothing ever intentional there. He spun me out once on purpose at eastern creek at rest. The racing was really, really good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it was. Man. You're always a fun interview and it's awesome to be able to talk to you. Thanks for giving us a little time today. Know you got a busy week. Good luck in Dover. We'll see at the racetrack.

[TJ Majors]

Thank you, guys.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

See you there.

[Russell]

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[Andrew]

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[Travis]

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[Andrew]

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[Travis]

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[Andrew]

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[Travis]

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.

[Andrew]

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[Travis]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey everybody, it's Junior and we're here for another segment of Ask Junior presented by Xfinity. Thank you Xfinity Wi Fi for your your booming speeds. We like booming speeds here in NASCAR and choose the right plan for you and you're off to the races. With the best streaming service for NASCAR and all your favorite sports, they don't just raise the bar, they stream in overdrive. Xfinity does an incredible job around here in NASCAR and in our industry and I've used their service myself and really appreciate it. Very dependable. So Andrew is here. He's got your questions teed up. Let's get going.

[Andrew]

Yeah, this first one, Travis and I have been joking. We've been meaning to ask this question for like weeks and weeks and weeks, but I actually ran into someone in the gift shop after one of the beer toasts, because they got to listen in through the viewing area, and they heard you had a story about an estate sale find. And they could hear, but they couldn't really hear. But I hear it's a good story.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, a friend of mine who is into sort of, you know, tracking the estate sales in the area showed me that there was an estate sale local that had a Ralph Earnhardt autograph. Oh, and there were some other autographs as well in this sort of package. You could buy the sort of. The thing, all of it together. And I don't know what a Ralph Earnhardt autograph would be valued at, but it was. I mean, you know, he passed away in 73. I would say this autograph was probably from anywhere from 70 or 69 to 73, right before his death. The car on the picture that is autographed is a Camaro, which I think he raced in 71, 72 maybe at Metrolina and in Concord. And so I was like, shoot, man, I gotta. There's not many Ralph Earnhardt autographs out there. There aren't. And I'd already have. Already have one or two Ralph Earnhardt autographs that I've collected over the years. And so I bought. I went in and made some bids and got it. Dang. And I got it for a really good price.

[Andrew]

I thought this next question. And this is the account's name. Not today, I won't. That's the name of the account. They want to know, do you have a favorite Adam Petty or Davey Allison story?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, the. My Davey. I don't really have a Davey Allison. Well, I think I told this one back when we had Brad Means, my friend Jimmy Means son on as a guest. We hid Davey Allison's jacket in the return of the H Vac. So we were hanging out in the driver's lounge at North Willisboro being kids, just goofing off. Davey Allison come in there to use the bathroom. He took his jacket off and laid it on the couch or something, right? Just throw it, threw it over the back of the couch, and he goes into the bathroom. We took his jacket and hid it in the return. And then when he came out, he's like, we're just hanging out, you know, me and Brad and a couple other guys, and we're like 12, 14 years old, and we're just kind of, what's up, Davey? And he's looking around, man. I had a jacket. And he's like, where is it? And we're all like, damn it. We didn't have. We didn't have a plan for this part. And so one of us had to. One of us, probably me, had to go over to the Return and get it out. And then he was like, damn it, this thing's dirty. He's not. He wasn't too mad. And the other thing I'll say is, when Kelly was young, she had a crush on Davey, and I used to always pick on her because when she would get around Davey, she would get all giggly. And then with Adam, one of my. Adam and I had some. We got to talk a lot. The brief time that I got to race around him when he finally gets up to Xfinity series and so forth, we went to. We were at South Boston, and for some reason, I had either. I don't know how this happened, but I needed shoes. I can't imagine that I forgot my shoes or lost them. I've been there. But we were. I needed some racing shoes, and I felt. Just happened to run into Adam, and I was like, man, what size shoe are you? I need some shoes. Do you have a pair of shoes? And he's like, I'm. I'm a size 11. It's, like, perfect. I was like, he's like, I got an extra pair. And he brought me a pair of red shoes that he, you know, perfect. So I raced in those, and I won the race. Oh, at South Boston. That's cool. Yeah. And so I think it was. 99 was the year. Yeah. In the Xfinity or the Bush series. And so I just stuck them in my. I stuck them in my closet when I lived across the street from Di. And when we did, I think, MTV Cribs, if you watch that episode of Cribs, we go into my closet and I take those shoes down and I show them shoes to you.

[Andrew]

Dang.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In that. In that. In that episode.

[Andrew]

So he let. Did he let you keep them, then?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, I kept. Yeah, they were. They were. I don't think they were brand new. I think they were used. So, like, he had drove in them, and then I put them on, and I raced in them, and I wore them just that weekend.

[Michael McDowell]

I'm sure they were his backups.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Do you still have them?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm certain. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

[Andrew]

This next question is from Daniel. You know, we were talking. We were on a roll last week, talking about the Josh Snyder stories and picking TJ up from Buffalo. They want to know, tj, Was there any prank that you wanted to pull On Dale, but never did.

[Michael McDowell]

There's a lot of pranks that didn't. That didn't get done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did y'. All. Have y' all seen this clip on social media about the kicks? Brooks. Brooks and done.

[Andrew]

Oh, we do have a question about that.

[Michael McDowell]

Good lord. That's awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, man, speaking of pranks.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah. That was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think TJ Has a great answer.

[Michael McDowell]

So there's a couple, but I don't want to give. What are they?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, we.

[Michael McDowell]

We were literally. We had. We were gonna put a jolly Rancher in your shower head. That was one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What is it? What would that even do? It just get you sticky all over. Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

For a while.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay. And then you take it out and take a shower. 15.

[Michael McDowell]

You don't know what's in there.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you wouldn't.

[Michael McDowell]

You don't know what's in there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I feel like. How many times. How many showers you think it would take for you to realize.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wonder if that really works.

[Michael McDowell]

One way to find out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, but tell. Yeah, tell. This is bad. Like, this is rough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you can go look at it. I mean. And most people that are watching this probably may have already seen it, but Brooks, I think Marty McGee. Yeah. Had a conversation with Brooks and Dunn and Kicks Brooks. Both of them, I think, are on the boat. They're fishing out in the ocean. They got. They got their wives. It's a big deal. Dad had probably about a 50 foot boat or something that he takes out there. And they're fishing, and they're. He's. Kicks. Brooks is telling the story about how Kicks is tired of fishing. They've caught a lot of fish. He's just like, I'm ready to drink some beer. I'm done. But they. They hooked a sailfish, and Dad's like, get your ass out of here. And they reel it in, and dad's all excited. It's a pretty cool story. And then they bring the fish in, take photos, do all the stuff, and then for some reason, they're throwing a bunch of chum in the water, and. And dad. And some turtles are swimming around the boat. And Dad's like, kicks, come over here. Look at these turtles. The kicks is like, oh, yeah, I do want to see the turtles. And gets over to the rail, and dad grabs him by his pants and throws him into the chum. And then tells the captain Terry, who. I remember Captain Terry. All right. Drive away. And they drove away with his. With Kicks. His wife going, what are we doing? And Kicks is in there, like, Trying not to splash. He's just like, don't move because there's blood in the water.

[Andrew]

I think he said it was shark infested.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. And they drove away. They drove away. I know, right?

[Michael McDowell]

Oh, my gosh.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, what if something really did happen? Holy crooks. And done.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn. Like, that's some. That's.

[Michael McDowell]

That's serious. That's not a prank.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's just some bull. Mean. That is some bull, Dad. I mean, if that story is absolutely true as told, I would be furious.

[Travis]

James goes. Attempted murder.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, we haven't went that far. That's pretty.

[Andrew]

And he said, harsh. He said the boat got far enough away to where, like, you could barely see it. Then it became funny.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's embellishing.

[Travis]

The fishing story is getting old.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, let's be serious here. It's still a criminal offense, but, you know, I. I remember. I remember one time there was a. There was an individual that was a tire. He was the tire changer. He was a very good tire changer. Dad's team had just hired him to change tires on the Xfinity car. This was in the early 90s. And his nickname was Yankee. His. Scott Kaluka was his name. Awesome guy. And he would eventually become a tire changer on the cup car. But I remember his, like, path to, like, becoming the changer on the Xfinity car, earning everybody's respect, getting called up, you know, like a. Like a major league baseball guy to the cup team and how big a deal that was and how much better Dad's team got on pit road because of it. But when he first came, he was really a smart ass and young guy around Tony Senior, dad, all these gruffy old veterans that knew everything. And he come in there running his mouth and being a smart ass. And I remember. I don't know how. How this happened, but dad had. Dad was in the parking lot shooting his bow and arrow, his compound bow for deer hunting. And. And at some point, some Scott showed. Ka showed up and he's. He's being his smart ass self and said something. And dad. Dad's like, whatever dad said or did. Scott turned and took off running across the parking lot. And dad fired an arrow about 8 foot over his head.

[Andrew]

Oh, my God.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. Yeah, and dad told him he was going to shoot at him. Well, it's okay then. Yeah, that's. Look, the details are sketchy, a little fuzzy. And then there was another time where there was a guy. There was a guy, the carpenter his name's Todd and Todd's an amazing carpenter. Longtime employee, Dylan Hart incorporated. Dad loved him. And Todd built dad's log cabin single handedly. Jesus. I went in there and helped him a little bit with some stuff in some of the closets and did some, did a little work. But that guy was down there every day building that thing on his own.

[Michael McDowell]

He had a woodworking shop there, didn't he?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He eventually would end up getting a woodworking shop in DEI and like he was a main figure. And dad leaned on him. And he's still around. I still talk to him. He loved Fords. Dad didn't love Fords. We were Chevy people. But Scott or Todd wanted to street stock race. He had raced some street stock stuff in his past. And we just coincidentally mean carrier building a street stock. And so right out at the deer head shop, that was really the only thing around in the property back then was the deer head shop. The garage Mahal wasn't built yet. We would get our street stocks out of the barn. Todd had a Ford Thunderbird, big box, 83, 84 Ford Thunderbird. And I had. Me and Carrie had a little Monte Carlo, seven, eight, Monte Carlo. And we pulled them street stocks over there and we'd start working on them. We're getting them ready, we're building them. We're not racing them yet. Todd's in the, in his car, tacking in the firewall for the back. So big old sheet of tin, he's tacking it into the back of this car, covering up all the holes in the back of the car. And he's in the interior. And dad had been out on his farm and he walked around with a six shooter on his hip. So he had a shot, he had a pistol on his hip at all times when he was out on his farm. And so it's probably five o'. Clock. Everybody's starting to converge on the deer head shop. There's gonna be beer drinking and pizza and bull and the Tony Senior and them been working on the Xfinity cars for Jeff Green or somebody, whoever was driving the cars at the time. And so we get our street stocks out. It's after 5 o' clock and we can work on them. And Todd's working on his and I'm working on mine with Kerry. And dad walks by and we had. We're building the cars. Dad walks by, pulls his gun, shoots a hole through the quarter panel of this Ford. The bullet goes through the quarter panel and through the fuel cell. And it scares out of all of us. And dad says, you need to get a. You got to get a racing fuel cell. So now you can't. He's like. He's like, it's dangerous to run this stock fuel cell, and I've now fired a hole in it, so you can't use it. I want you to put a good fuel cell in these cars so you guys don't get burned up, you know? And safety first. Yeah, safety first. Brilliant. It was loud.

[Travis]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's a gunshot.

[Michael McDowell]

Just shot at it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just shot a hole right through the quarter panel. And so Todd raced that car with a bullet hole in the quarter panel. It was awesome.

[Andrew]

That is badass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I raced that Ford once. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I was. A year after this, I moved on and was racing my late model stock car with Gary Hargett down in Myrtle Beach. We had an off weekend. I was up at the farm shop on, like, a Friday, and Todd's messing around, and I'm like, you going streetside racing this weekend? He's like, nah, I don't feel like it. I'm like, can I take your car? He's like. I was like, can't believe you're not gonna go. He's like, yeah, you can take it. And so I loaded it up, and I take it, and I'm practicing, and this thing's pretty simple to drive. And we all drew for position. We didn't even qualify. And Kelly's in the race. Kelly's in our old car. She's driving this old tour up Monte Carlo. Me and Carrie's destroyed Kevin Pannell. Two beer. He's in the race. He starts in front of me. Two beer. Yeah, two Beer Drove a purple Nova, number four. Purple with a white four on it. Green flag. Two Beer missed a shift, and I knocked the radiator out of this Ford first. Damn thing. Like, I didn't even get to run the race. Todd ran really good in it. Todd would run top three. And it drove.

[Michael McDowell]

You were looking forward to it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Drove really good. Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I'm like, hell, yeah. Here we go. And damn. Got the green flag, and two beer didn't go. And I just drove through him. You just weren't meant to drive a Ford, right? Two beer had that damn shifting problem we sometimes see in the car store on restart. We were putting a radiator. We were taking our radiators to Alton Boyd's. Out and. Yeah, out in Boyd's. Whose tab is his son. The spotter that was recently in the news. Well, his dad owned a radiator shop in kannapolis. And that's where we always take our radiators. Back in the 90s that we raced our street stock cars, dude, we had the radiator. Me and carrie would take the radiator out of our monte carlo every week, Having to fix a hole in that son bitch. Because we knocked the damn nose off of that car every race. Me and carrie tore that monte carlo all to hell. And then, I mean, the front horns on it. Were bent left and right so many times and pulled straight. And then, you know, the radiator was all gobbled up. With, like, welding and glue and all kinds of patchworks from. We're like, you know, Alton's like, yeah, I can fix it. All right. Keep fixing it. You know, all right. I can fix it. I mean, we're waiting on him to tell us, like, all right, you need a new one. Yeah, you need a new one. And then kelly was forced to drive this thing. Like, when she wanted to start racing, they were like, all right, you get to drive the monte carlo. And there's pictures of her driving her first race. And this thing looks like it has been through a war zone. That monte carlo is still sitting on the property over at dei. Wow. Out by a farm out by a shop, I believe. I wonder if some google earth shots or something of it Sitting beside this.

[Andrew]

Oh, so it's, like, outside.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's outside, yeah. Dang. Yeah. I'd love to have that car, but. Yeah. What kind of condition you think it's. Oh, it's terrible. Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Already to begin with, and then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But, I mean, it's in the. It's in the. Because it's in the condition it deserves. Right? Yeah. You wouldn't restore it or anything. You just love to have it, because it's like Me and carrie Learned everything About trying to get. Get around the corner in that very car. That was, like, the real first race car we raced. Man, we would burn up the. We took that car. We built it. We didn't know what the hell we were doing. And we rebuilt the. It had, like, a 283, not even a really great motor in it. We rebuilt that motor. Blew that motor up the first race. And had to get it, had to build another motor. We would burn the barrett wheel bearings up every week. We didn't know why dad wouldn't say, hey, you might want to get a spindle off of a cadillac or something else that was a little beefier for the right front. And we would burn up the wheel bearings and go to the damn junkyard and climb under some old rat infested snake infested car that had been sitting in this graveyard forever with our little tiny toolbox and get a damn spindle off of the car. We'd pull springs and we had a junkyard sponsorship and we'd get all this stuff and we'd get ball joints or lowers and uppers because we're bending all this every week. And we'd go to the junkyard and get a replacement part and get another part and we'd come back and, you know, we'd fix it and put it together and dad was never there going, you might want to think about doing it this way or might want to do it this way. You know, he wanted us to just screw up. Right. And figure it out. Right. And man, that's fun.

[Andrew]

That's a good place to wrap as soon as. By the way, Kicks Brooks, I think would be awesome if we could get him on the down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're going to. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's. He's on our list. Yeah. Speaking of which, everybody, we, we. We would appreciate maybe some more ideas on some guests you guys would like to have on or like for us to have on the Dale Jr. Download. I know we, we get a lot of ideas from social media on, on what the biggest demand is. And so, yeah, we're, we're kind of open for, for some, for some advice on who you'd like to see on the guest segment on Wednesday going forward that, that we haven't had on here because we're kind of, you know, we're eventually going to get to a point to where it's like, all right, we've had everyone. Now we've, you know, start having them on second, third and fourth time. But who have we not had that you would like to see us interview? Otherwise, thank you for tuning in. Thank you. TJ and Ask Junior Segment brought to you by Xfinity WI Fi in racing and in live, speed is an optional. It's expected. As a driver in Xfinity series team owner, I rely on things that perform under pressure. And that's why I love to use Xfinity WI Fi. Fast, dependable and one price locked in for five years. That's a first. I haven't heard that. No contracts, no slowdowns, no nonsense. Xfinity, proud premier partner of nascar.

[Andrew]

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[Travis]

It does all the hard work removing your personal online data. And Delete Me isn't just a one time service. They're constantly working to ensure your personal info stays off the web because you don't want that stuff just out there for everybody. I kid you not. These websites, it's kind of scary because I once matched with this girl online dating app. She asked if I was married. I told her no.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why?

[Travis]

Why are you asking? Well, she had searched my name and a website pulled up and said that I was married. And I'm like, no, never been married, never engaged. But it's scary that these websites kind of have information, some of it real, some of it not. And it's just out there for everybody.

[Andrew]

Well, I think that's Travis's way of saying that he's sing. But back to Delete Me all you got to do is provide them with exactly the information you want deleted. Then their experts do all the hard work wiping you and your family's personal information from data broker websites. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners today. Get 20% off your delete me plan by texting DALE to 6. The only way to get 20% off is to text DALE to 64000. That's DALE to 64000 message and data rates may apply.

[Travis]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place Your bets. All right, it's time for some dirty Mo do. We got Russell here in Tampa. Tims is back from Mexico.

[Michael McDowell]

Hey, hey, hey. About time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hola. It's dirty Mo do, amigo. This dirty Modo segment is brought to you by fanduel. I have been wanting to make some bets, and it's just not top of mind. What do I do?

[Travis]

It's that summertime. It's that long. We're getting very close. We're going to have some future bets being made here in, like, the next 30 days. So.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What. What sport is right around the corner?

[Travis]

College football.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

College football.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah.

[Travis]

40 days.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

40 days.

[Travis]

Something like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right. I had a. I've. I still have the big advantage that I gained when we coincidentally went on a trip to Key West. Us to us three and all that. All that. All that good fortune I had with the. With the college basketball still sitting on it. I ain't bet none of it.

[Travis]

Same good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well, I made much bets this summer.

[Travis]

It's a good thing you can't bet NASCAR because your manufacturer parlays suck.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, man, this. This is embarrassing.

[Travis]

This one was bad last week.

[Michael McDowell]

How bad was last week?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So our manufacturer. Our manufacturer. Our manufacturer parlay.

[Michael McDowell]

What's a farsher?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Farkshire. Manufacturer parlay. That's a big word, dude. You say it.

[Michael McDowell]

Manufacturer parlay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Manufacturer, parlay. Reddick, was he the third Toyota? Yeah. He didn't run that great busher. The fifth Ford. What's up with that?

[Michael McDowell]

He got shipped off at the end.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

McDowell, the third Chevy.

[Michael McDowell]

McDowell wasn't strong, man. Strong as I thought he was going to be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We got to turn this around.

[Michael McDowell]

We do. All right, time to start throwing some darts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's know. We've been throwing darts, apparently.

[Michael McDowell]

How'd you guys not pick SVG last week?

[Travis]

We said on the show that beat McDowell for the odds, but I think we. Like, we didn't say it, but.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're not doing this, right? No, we are.

[Michael McDowell]

SVG was a layup for making our.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Making ourselves look like, you know, what we're.

[Travis]

You know, we're doing. We're not betting how you did with basketball.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Your basketball money.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yes, they were. All right, so we're gonna head to Dover. The favorites according to Vegas are Hamlin and Larson at plus 500, Blaney plus 700, Byron and Bell. Bell's at 1,000. What does the model look like, Russ, Denny, Larson, Chase Elliot, Byron, Blaney, Bell. So where do you have Chase Elliott in the odds? Where were they?

[Michael McDowell]

He's plus 1200 right now, that is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's see, sixth. I like him the best this week. He's not the favorite, though.

[Michael McDowell]

I don't think he's the favorite.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We are. You know, we're. We're sort of. So who's your favorite this week?

[Michael McDowell]

Hard to go against a Bauer. Larson right now.

[Travis]

Tj, who does this. This track? Who does it favor? What are some drivers?

[Michael McDowell]

Larson, Bell, Blaney. Those guys are all really good here. I'm curious. I'm curious. The 19's been fast here, and I'm curious if Briscoe can carry that. He seems to be gaining a little momentum here lately, so I'm not saying he's going to be the top guy, but I bet his odds are pretty good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're not going to overthink this. All right. Our parlay for the manufacturer this weekend.

[Michael McDowell]

Blaney, Bell.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Blaney. Larson.

[Michael McDowell]

Denny Bell. Oh, really?

[Travis]

Oh, Jesus.

[Michael McDowell]

What about Bell over Denny.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Y' all think Denny.

[Michael McDowell]

I think Denny's Concrete King.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right? All right.

[Michael McDowell]

I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Going, Danny.

[Michael McDowell]

I think.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Listen, we're not overthinking it. We're going. Denny. Larson, Blaney. Blaney.

[Michael McDowell]

Anybody worry about Larson's speed for last month?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're not overthinking this.

[Travis]

No.

[Michael McDowell]

Can we do. I'm saying.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Listen, I'm just saying he's kind of sucked. I like Chase.

[Michael McDowell]

Can we do a long shot?

[Travis]

I'm on the Chase.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm with.

[Michael McDowell]

I'm with Russ. I like Chase Elliot a little better.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't agree that Larson hasn't looked like himself. I do, but I still ain't seen enough out of Chase. He's been.

[Travis]

What do you mean you haven't seen enough out of him?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I see enough.

[Michael McDowell]

What have you. What. Tell me what you see.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't.

[Michael McDowell]

Has he finished outside the top 20?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, but I think points. I think Byron beats Chase Elliott this weekend, much less Larson.

[Michael McDowell]

I was chasing Bowman. Are my top 200 guys this week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bowman will run. Bowman will be. Bowman will be the. The second or third. Yeah. Second or third. HMS car all day, but be the one that gets the result.

[Michael McDowell]

This is a Larson track.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Be the one that gets that 4th, 5th. 6th place finish. But, you know, if everything goes like it's supposed to, Larson should run top two, top three in this race.

[Michael McDowell]

This is his type of track. Yes, absolutely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Larson. I'm not going to fall into this. Listen, I agree. No, I agree with you. I agree with you. Tim's. That. That Larson has looked not good. Not good for A while since his average finish since. Since the Indy 500 is 20th. Yes. There's no. You can't argue that. And it is a problem, and no one's talking about it, but three of them are courses.

[Michael McDowell]

I agree with that. You got some oddballs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's the argument. That's the argument is that it's. This is quirky part of the season where the. The chase, you know, chasing the double knocked him off his game, derailed their focus, or, you know, just got them off their rhythm. Right. And the schedule hasn't allowed them to reestablish. And here's the weekend where you believe that they mashed the button, okay? And he's right back where he belongs. And I'm going to buy into that idea. I'm not. You can't. As much as I want to think, man, everything's telling me that Larson continues to struggle. Everything's telling me that he goes here and runs ninth all day. Everything's telling me that. But I'm. I don't want to be the fool sitting on the island because, you know, everyone else. No one else is wanting to say this. No one else is wanting to say that Larson's gonna go run 10th and just be normal, because at the end of the day, when he runs second, third, or fourth or wins the race, they're gonna go, ah, you.

[Michael McDowell]

Well, that's the thing. He's either going to win or finish second or finish 10th, and then everybody's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gonna go, yeah, y' all were all over him. Yeah. What do you think now? You know, that's what they do.

[Michael McDowell]

But those bad finishes they have, they.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sit back and play Monday morning quarter.

[Michael McDowell]

They're easy to do.

[Travis]

It's fun.

[Michael McDowell]

Those bad finishes. Wasn't he just caught up in a wreck?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What about. What about Denny? He comes out of Sonoma stinking up the show. What's.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah. Where's the hate on Denny? Where's the hate on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What leads me to believe that he's going to be this concrete king because it's a full. And he's.

[Michael McDowell]

Oh, because he's. Danny Denny, bro.

[Travis]

He won there last year. He's let them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He did win there last year.

[Michael McDowell]

It doesn't matter. He's struggling.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What do you mean?

[Travis]

Where is he struggling?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What?

[Michael McDowell]

He just ran bad at sonoma his last two races.

[Travis]

Average finishes 12th.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Russell. Yes. What were those statistics? He's finished top five and for the last six races, all but Atlanta and Sonoma.

[Travis]

Suck it, T.J. love it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's go. I love the Denny pick I do, too, Denny.

[Travis]

Welcome aboard, boys.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Larson. Now sell me on Blaney. Blaney was seventh and third in the last two Dover races. Average running position in the next gen car, 8th. I just don't think. It doesn't sound great, but your other Options For a 4 driver, this is not a great Ford track for them. So, like. All right, I agree.

[Travis]

Blaney will finish either top five or get wrecked.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's. That's reassuring. But what other Ford driver are we going to pick right now? Like, Logano really struggles at this track. He does. What's the deal? Why does he struggle so bad here? His average finish in this car here is 25th. Yeah.

[Michael McDowell]

Holy cow. I would throw Priest just because it's RFK car and he's been quietly good. I know stats to back that up. I trust Blaney more, but I would throw. Priest is maybe my second.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That would be the choice we would have made using our prior thought process. So we're not going to choose Priest. We're going Blaney. I like Blaney, but for a long.

[Michael McDowell]

Shot, you could go. You could have a long shot. I'll play that separately.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Maybe Priest had you a little bit.

[Travis]

Priest, top 10.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Priest, top 10.

[Michael McDowell]

Yeah, that's on the list for sure. So I think Chase Briscoe is going to be really good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Chase Briscoe. Watch out for Chase Briscoe.

[Michael McDowell]

I think he's going to be good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right.

[Travis]

Do you think it's a matter of him just figuring out this Toyota car? Just taking him some time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Figured it out. I think he has. I think it's there. I think he's there. It's going to qualify. And they've got. They've got some weird momentum. I know it's.

[Michael McDowell]

It is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The schedule's been. And it's hard to, like, take what they've done since Pocono and move it forward to a. To a Dover because it's such a different track, but it feels like it could continue.

[Michael McDowell]

It does.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He could blow up our manufactured parlay. Probably. Don't worry. I will. I will text him and say finish behind Vinny. Let's. Let's talk about some drivers for some top tens or long shots. You mentioned Priests. Another driver that I kind of like here in possible top 10 rebound is Josh Berry. Yes.

[Michael McDowell]

He's on my list, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good number. I think he needs it at the season. He had good runs. You know, he ran the Spire car here years ago, and that's why I think, like, Chastain had a really, really solid run a long time ago in a premier car laying number 15. I remember being in that race and going, who is this guy? And so anytime a driver goes and goes to a track and runs well the very first time they, they compete there, they seem to like attach to that for some reason and it just repeats.

[Michael McDowell]

It's weird how that works.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so like Texas was that track for me. And you know, so I see, I see this kind of being a place where if Josh Berry has a decade long career, I think his numbers at Dover will be probably, you know, for him, top two, top three numbers. Nice.

[Michael McDowell]

I like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he's on my list. Yeah. Who else?

[Michael McDowell]

How about Ricky? I mean, he's not running great. He's good here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Bowman. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Travis]

Say that again this week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This week.

[Michael McDowell]

I couldn't hear you say it again, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, no, I think Bowman's an easy top 10. This is, this is probably, you could say this is his best track. He's got five top fives here, most of any track. He's been top 10 in like six of the last seven here, I believe.

[Travis]

And then he was collected in an accident.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, can you bet seven in the other ones or just top 10? Top 10, top fives, top threes.

[Michael McDowell]

I'll tell you, I just, I feel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like that Josh Berry deals. He's going to. You're going to bet that top 10, he's going to get you an 11th or 12th. Bowman, though, I mean, I see a bad day for him as an eighth, ninth place finish here. So I think he's a secure top 10. All right. This Dirty mode segment was brought to you by FanDuel, the premier gaming destination of the United States. Thank you, Russell. Thank you, Tampa Tim's white legs. Now it's time for the white flag here at the Dell Jr. Down low. The teardown was live on YouTube and Twitter. Following the race door bumper clear dropped on Monday. They were joined by Michael McDowell and actions detrimental also dropped that same day. My guest interview drops tomorrow. It's going to be a little different. For the Becoming Earnhardt series that we've been releasing every Sunday, we had Doug Richard for a long in depth interview. We took some of the sound bites out of that interview to help with the series Becoming Earnhardt. Well, now we're going to publish the entire conversation so you can hear more from Doug about that 1980 season. Becoming Earnhardt is all available now, all six episodes. So you can tune up and listen to that if you haven't. It's an incredible series that highlights a lot of the drama that unfolded during the championship run for that number two Osterlin team that Doug was a part of. Also dropping on Wednesday is Speed street and Herman Schrader. And then another episode of Bless yous Heart. Amy joined me in Sonoma this past weekend. We'll have a lot of updates around that, so it should be a lot of fun. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you tomorrow.