Brad Keselowski’s Best NASCAR Stories You’ve Never Heard
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Term
Black Diamond
Black Diamond means a very hard ski trail that only expert skiers should try because it's steep and tricky.
Term
Strava
Strava is an app that helps people keep track of how far and fast they go when they bike or run.
Concept
NASCAR
NASCAR is a type of car racing where drivers race special cars on oval tracks. It's very popular in the U.S. and has many fans.
Concept
Phoenix race weekend
Phoenix race weekend is a car race event at a special track called Phoenix Raceway where NASCAR drivers compete.
Concept
horsepower
Horsepower tells you how strong a car's engine is and how fast it can go. More horsepower usually means the car can go faster and accelerate quicker.
Term
cup car
A 'cup car' is a special race car used in the biggest NASCAR races. It looks like a regular car but is made just for racing, with lots of changes to make it go fast and keep the driver safe.
Term
penalty
A penalty is when the race officials punish a driver or team because they did something against the rules.
Concept
Cup Series
The Cup Series is the highest level of NASCAR racing where the best drivers compete in fast cars on oval tracks.
Concept
restart
A restart is when the race starts again after a pause, and all the cars line up and speed up together.
Term
hauler
A hauler is a big truck that carries race cars and all the stuff the team needs to the race track.
Term
butt ripped
Getting your 'butt ripped' means someone is going to tell you off or give you a hard time because you did something wrong.
Term
spin out
A spin out is when a car slides and spins around on the track, making the driver lose control. Drivers try not to spin out because it can cause accidents.
Brand
Jack Roush
Jack Roush is a famous person who owns a big NASCAR racing team. He helps make race cars and trains drivers to win races.
Concept
playoffs
Playoffs in racing are like the final rounds where only the best drivers compete to win the championship. If you lock in, it means you made it to these important races.
Term
downforce
Downforce is like the wind pushing the car down to the road so it sticks better when turning. Less downforce means the car might slide more.
Term
pit stop
A pit stop is a short break during a race where the car gets fuel, new tires, or fixes. If it goes wrong, it can hurt the driver's chance to win.
Term
game seven moments
A game seven moment is like the last and most important game in a sports series where the winner takes all, making it very exciting.
Concept
Talladega
Talladega is a big race track where NASCAR drivers race really fast. Winning there is a big deal.
Concept
Daytona 500
The Daytona 500 is a very important NASCAR race that many drivers want to win. It's like a big championship race.
Car
Buick Grand National
The Buick Grand National is a fast and powerful car from the 1980s that looks mostly black and is known for going really fast. It was used in special races and is loved by many car fans because it’s strong and cool.
Concept
ARCA Menards Series
ARCA is a racing series where drivers can gain experience before moving up to bigger NASCAR races.
Concept
developmental series
These are training races where drivers learn and get better before racing in the biggest NASCAR events.
Concept
O'Reilly Auto Parts Series
The O'Reilly Auto Parts Series was a NASCAR racing series where drivers could develop their skills before moving up to bigger NASCAR races.
Concept
Cup ride
Getting a 'cup ride' means a driver gets to race in the biggest and most important NASCAR races, which is a big deal for their career.
Car
Chrysler Daytona
The Chrysler Daytona is a small, fast car from the 1980s that was made to look cool and go quickly. People used it in some races, including truck races, where it sometimes crashed because it was pushed hard. It’s known for being a sporty car.
Concept
moonshiner
A moonshiner is a person who makes illegal homemade alcohol. Some early race car drivers used to do this before becoming famous racers.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
The Chevrolet Camaro is a fast and cool car that lots of people like because it looks sporty and can go really fast. It often has bright and interesting paint colors that make it stand out. People talk about it because it’s fun to drive and looks great.
Car
Ford Thunderbird
The Ford Thunderbird is an older car that was made to be both nice and fun to drive. The ones from the early 1980s look boxy and were used a lot in racing on regular streets. People remember them because they were special back then.
Car
Chevrolet Monte Carlo
The Chevrolet Monte Carlo is a cool car from the 1970s that looks nice and can go fast. People used it a lot for racing on streets because it handled well. It’s a car many people remember and like.
Brand
Toyota
Toyota is a big car company from Japan that makes cars for everyday use and also builds fast cars for racing.
Car
Ford Edge
The Ford Edge is a bigger car that looks like a mix between a car and a truck. It’s easy to drive and good for families because it’s comfortable and has nice features. People like it because it works well every day.
Term
G-forces
G-forces are the strong pushes you feel when a car speeds up, slows down, or turns fast. They make your body feel heavy or pushed around.
Term
curbs
Curbs are the raised edges on the sides of a race track's turns. Drivers sometimes drive over them to go faster, but it can make the car bump and shake.
Term
blip the gas
Blipping the gas means quickly pressing the gas pedal to make the engine spin faster, which helps when changing gears smoothly.
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hiring, do it the right way with Indeed. That happens now. Like holy s**t, we're pissed.
So let me ask you this. Like I'm still mad at Riley Herpes over Daytona because he cost me,
not only a shot at the win, but he cost me three points. Like those three points might be really big.
The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media.
This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half.
I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend or?
I'm still sour that I was the best man that you're with. Who was your best man, Dale?
TJ.
You don't need a cool vest for that race. What are you thinking?
Get him, TJ. Hell of a way to start a show.
All right, then.
Way to go. Right off the gate.
Do you know where Dale is at on vacation?
Somewhere in the central United States.
Yeah. Skiing. Skiing.
And any advice?
Don't break a leg. We'll start with that one.
Watch for ice.
Watch for ice.
Yeah. So, you know, I broke my leg. Gosh, it's been about two and a half months ago,
but I was on a ski trip, but I was not skiing, which it makes the story way less cool.
But I think everybody immediately says, so you were skiing like, not really,
but it just goes to show you can get hurt like any way possible.
Be much cooler if you hit a jump or something.
I know. I know.
But I do think people have a, they know, like, because they say Brad skiing,
they probably immediately think of that basketball video from about 20 years ago or
whatever that was. And like, you probably shouldn't ski.
No.
But I think you're actually decent at skiing now, right?
I'm actually a pretty proficient skier.
I'm not like Colorado Black Diamond.
Well, apparently you're not Dills, you know, either, because he does like 16 miles in the
last two days or 16 miles a day here skiing, which I call.
So that's what he's told you 16.
He's told us, yeah, 16 miles each day.
So, you know how far 16 miles is on a pair of skis?
Yes. I mean, no, I'm calling BS.
I'm going to need some, some kind of evidence.
Do they have like those Stravas or whatever you wear when you ride a bike?
He needs a Strava for skiing.
Do you think he's actually done 16 miles a day, Travis?
No, I think he did 1.6 this whole time.
He just can't read forgot his glasses.
Yeah. There's no, there's no way Dale.
Listen, he may have 16 beers a day.
He's not here.
So we can talk all this we want.
He's not.
What you really need is a camera on Dale Jr.
when he listens to this.
He's like a Dale cam because I'd like to see like his eye rolls and his like, man,
you know, he gives you those eyes, those like FU eyes when you say,
Oh yeah, I mean, they, he pretty much
has them on the entire time here.
He's with Nicole and Isla too.
It's not like he's with like, he's got some teenagers that are going to go like,
Good point.
If anything, they did like some tubing.
Can you even tube 16 miles?
No.
Well, either way, Dale Jr. is not here.
So I'm in 16 miles in Colorado.
Enjoy it.
Precious time with the family.
And I'm carrying the weight.
So, you know, TJ said, I'm not a podcast guy.
I've been asked to do a lot of podcasts.
I generally say no to almost every podcast.
And it's not because I'm a jerk, but I really only do podcasts for my friends.
So, you know, Dale gave me a great start at my career.
TJ is obviously one of my closest friends for a long time.
And they asked me to join in.
So here I am.
I figured you're like the last thing I want to hear is TJ.
My ear is another day with him.
You know, it's weird.
Even though he like wants more info during the races and stuff.
So I do, you know, when I'm in the race car, I like a lot of chatter.
Well, usually not always.
And road course is not so much.
But on most races, like I like a lot of chatter.
I want to hear what's going on.
I want to be like almost like a fan in the stands.
Like, oh, this guy passed really like, I want to know these things.
Like, well, how do you do it?
I was running on the outside.
He drove down to the bottom.
Like, I want to know those things.
So yeah, I do like a lot of talk, but podcasts.
You know, I casually listen to podcasts.
I can't say like I'm an everyday podcast listener.
But, you know, I'll do them for my friends.
Like I'll call in or be a part of it for my friends.
And so this is kind of a rarity to get me on a podcast.
In fact, Travis, you might appreciate this before there was actions detrimental.
Mike Davis called me and said, Hey, I want you to do this podcast.
And he pitched it to me and I'm like, man, Mike, that sounds great.
I'm not going to do it.
I don't want to do any podcasts.
I have way too much going on in my life.
And next thing I knew, Denny was doing a podcast.
Like, you know what?
That's perfect.
I could have been a Brad bro.
Yes.
But I know you think of it.
Look, I'm totally cool with Denny doing it.
Cause Denny says all the stuff that I think in my head, but don't really say.
And I'm like, yeah, you can be the one to get in trouble.
You can get fine $50,000.
I've already ran that part of my life of like,
I feel like I had a weekly tab at NASCAR.
You're like a bar tab.
Like, all right.
You know, you'd have to cash it in.
Here's 50 K. Here's 75 K.
And I got tired of paying that.
So no more.
No more fines.
Yeah.
I don't think I've been fine now for like almost eight years, which is,
actually pretty good.
So way to go Denny.
Let's see what we can get Brad to say today.
Then you did this episode.
Then I did this episode.
I'm going to get fine for talking about getting fined.
But yeah, Dale Jr.
Download.
It does great.
I'm sure there's a lot of people that are tuned in listening.
They're like, where's Dale?
Well, you got me.
We're going to try to make it a fun episode.
And I think we got a lot of great stuff to talk about.
Coming off the Phoenix race weekend, a lot happened.
It's kind of an action packed race weekend.
And I'd like to dive into it.
What do you say you want to dive into it?
Just looking at Phoenix right off.
Obviously the heavy hitters were Blaney and Bell and they were up front all day.
Kind of thought Denny Bro would be a little stronger.
But they just didn't bring a fast car.
They had like a six to seventh place car.
Just saying.
I mean, I don't know how you do it when you,
November, you bring the best car or you don't bring it this time.
But that is interesting how you'll see like comers and goers at a race track
where it's only like two or three months away.
Like, how did you go to that race track and like clean house
and then come back two or three months later like, yeah,
bit to 10.
And it happens.
Like I've been on that too, where you'll have a car like,
oh, just bring that same car back.
We're going to kill it.
That's going to be great.
And then you go back here like, man, it never works.
Yeah.
I really expected Den to be a little bit stronger.
I thought he had the best car in the fall last year and probably,
probably should have won that race.
But do you think like the same tire and everything,
do you think that the tire is evolving?
No, honestly, I think that horsepower probably played into it.
You know, NASCAR gave the more horsepower and it's,
you know, depending on what engine ability you're talking to,
you know, it's 30 to 50 horsepower.
Denny's scared of more horsepower.
No, I think it made the car strive different.
Yeah, it definitely probably does.
I mean, you would know.
You add a little more entry speed to the corners
and it's a little harder on the tires.
You know, a stock car weighs 4,000 pounds almost.
You know, that's a lot of weight.
And if it enters the corner going, say five mile an hour faster,
like that's a lot more stress on the tires.
And you know, it's every straight away.
So it's twice, you know, twice the lap.
And I think that that does something to the tires.
And I think that probably played into what you saw on the race.
We saw a lot of blown tires.
And I thought it was interesting, most of them were right fronts.
I think maybe Brisco blew a right rear,
but most of them were right fronts.
And the cars like the performance window is right before the tire blows.
So you're like, how do we get as close to this as we can?
And when you have a field of, you know, 37 cars,
I think we had on Sunday, it's kind of goes without saying
that one guy is going to guess a little too close.
And so, you know, that was me on Saturday.
I blew out a tire in practice, knocked the wall down.
I watched.
Yeah, you were right there.
That wasn't any fun.
But then in the race, there was,
I had to be like a dozen people that blew tires, right?
Yeah, I don't, I mean, there's a lot of flat tires.
Why do they blow?
Like why do they blow when the catch comes out?
Why do more tires go down?
That is baffling to me.
So somebody will blow a tire out.
Yellow comes out.
Then we get under yellow and it'll be like three other guys
pulled to the left with the flat tire.
Like, did they all time it the same?
Yeah, I'm curious on why.
Like, I don't, I couldn't.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that they've,
they've broke like the sidewall of the tire
and it's got like a slow leak.
And when the yellow comes out, it just.
Were teams being less aggressive in the first stage
because we didn't have a flat tire in the first stage?
Yeah, I think so.
I think most everybody in the first stage was just like,
hey, let's just get through this.
And that actually builds your confidence.
You're like, ah, we made it through that.
Let's go a little more.
And then by the end of the race, it's like,
we couldn't go 20 laps.
I was like, oh, somebody blew a tire.
So I think for sure.
There's a lot of speed in it.
So you're going to do,
you're going to try to get more as the race goes on.
And obviously it bites some people,
but you get, you get more aggressive with the short runs too.
Cause you probably can a little bit.
Cause people are getting, I mean, there's just more yellow.
So, and it happened in the fall too, right?
Falls is very, it's the exact same way.
It wasn't, it seemed like the fall race wasn't as bad as the spring race.
Maybe I'm not remembering that right, but.
No, but that was the first race, I believe, with that tire too.
Yes, it was.
So people probably weren't pushing it as much.
So yeah, that makes sense.
But that's what racing is right now on the short tracks.
You know, the teams are going to push the tires.
They're going to push them too far.
You're going to blow them out.
And you have to almost have your race strategy around
knowing that's going to happen.
Yeah.
And we've kind of asked for a little bit to put this back in the team's hands
to manage it a little bit, because now you get natural yellows.
Yeah.
A little bit.
Which is good.
That's good.
And like if I'm a fan of the sport, yeah, when it's not you, it's good.
If I'm a fan of the sport, you know, like Phoenix,
you're like, Oh my God, long green flag runs, 60 straight laps, very little passing.
And then you throw in all this tire stuff.
You're like, Oh no, actually that was a classic Phoenix race.
And most of the Phoenix races, you know, Canada, they're kind of like blah,
that was not a blah race.
I think Phoenix is evolving into a pretty decent little racetrack.
It's got multiple lanes, card to pass.
You can have side by side action, restart certain insane.
So I agree.
It was, it was a great race.
I wish that was like what the championship races were.
Yeah.
Some people disagree with that, but no, Phoenix has certainly evolved.
And you know, one of the things I look at is when I think of Phoenix, I look at Blaney.
Like, God dang, he runs up front there every time.
And I got to tell you this story.
So in 2012, right after I won the championship, we had a test at Phoenix.
And Blaney was driving my truck at the time.
I want to say it was a two, it might even been a three day test.
And we go to the track and Blaney comes with me.
Now keep in mind, he's not running cup at that time.
And I remember taking him and like, come with me, man, you need to get good at this track.
This is an important track for you.
And so I remember taking, he had to be like 18 or 19 at the time.
So it's your fault.
Yeah.
And he went there and this, I'm really talking to Ryan's commitment.
He went with me to this test and he spent two days in the garage area, in the stands,
like watching and learning the track.
And I don't know, he's just been really good there ever since.
I would say it's his best track by a pretty long ways.
I'd say they're Martinsville.
I mean, he's got two or three that are creeping up.
Phoenix is probably his best.
Martinsville and Loudon now are right there with a close 21 starts in Phoenix.
Two wins, 11 top fives, 15 top tens.
That's pretty strong, right?
Yeah.
15 out of 21 times.
He's been in the top 10.
Yeah.
Well, that's pretty good.
Yeah, it's pretty good.
But my favorite part of that story of taking him to that Phoenix test
was we get like to the end of the second day.
And you know, if you ever do tests, everybody knows like the end of the second day is like
silly time.
You get like, when there's like two hours left in the test, the end of the second day,
you're like, we've ran through this list of things we're going to try on the car.
And we have more data than we know what to do with.
We're down to like our worst ideas.
Cause you know, like you prioritize your best ideas while you're there.
And you're just like, I don't know what to do.
Well, let's throw this at it.
All right.
So we get to like the end of the second day.
We're like done.
We're out of ideas.
Blaney sitting there.
And we're like, Hey, Blaney, you want to run a few laps?
And now you mind he's 18.
He's never drove a cup car before.
Yeah.
He's like back then that's a, he's like Ricky Bobby, Tele day, good night.
So I want to go fast, you know?
And you're like, all right, let's go ask NASCAR if you can get it.
Cause NASCAR had to prove letting someone drive the car.
So we walked over to ask NASCAR.
Well, that's not too hard.
The peril process is easy.
And well, we thought it would be pretty easy and they were so pissed at us.
Like, what do you mean you went Ryan Blaney driving?
He's not a cup driver.
Only a couple of drivers could drive these cars.
You guys know that you shouldn't even ask us that.
They were so mad at us that like four months later,
I want to see was exactly four months later, we got a penalty at Texas
for the rear end kind of moving on the car.
And we get this penalty at Texas and in the penalty process, they brought it up.
They're like, you guys are always doing stuff you shouldn't be doing.
Like when you asked about putting Ryan Blaney in the car at the test at Phoenix,
they were like, what?
What does that have to do with anything?
Like we asked, are you saying that we're in trouble again for asking?
Like this is the, anyway, that was my Ryan Blaney Phoenix story.
I don't even know if Ryan knows that story.
So we're in the penalty meeting and they're yelling at us about Ryan Blaney,
not even getting in the car, but just asking about him driving the car.
Anyway, that's bizarre world.
But I've got a lot of weird stories like that.
I mean, if you want to tell them about,
I don't know if you want to tell them about the time speaking of weird penalty meetings
that you got called into the hauler.
You got, what would you get in trouble for that you got called in there?
Was that when you were messing around with Denny?
Like kept running.
Man, you got to be more specific.
I got called to the hauler a lot of times early in my career.
It was, oh no, it was from Phoenix.
That's what it was from.
Oh yeah.
When he got wrecked each other.
Yes.
Yeah.
Denny went down on turn one, shipped you up the track.
You go through three and four and you spend any out.
So you go into the hauler and, and they want to meet with you.
You think you're going to get in a lot?
What you do?
All right.
So you want me to tell this whole story?
Okay.
So this is Phoenix 2009.
We're beefing.
Denny and I are beefing, you know, pretty hard.
I'm not even in the cup series at the time.
I'm in the Xfinny series trying to make my way to the cup series.
Denny and I are beefing.
I've, I'm in my last races with junior motorsports.
And we're like third in points, pretty much locked in third points.
That's about what we're going to finish.
So it's kind of like end of the school year.
Like you're not going to get a better grade.
You're not going to get a worse grade, but you still have to show up
for the last two or three days.
Yeah.
And so we go to Phoenix, which is the next to last race.
And I think we're running like fifth or sixth and Denny's running right behind me.
And yeah, he goes in the corner and he like,
there's a restart.
It's like a restart.
He nudges me a little bit, like muscles by me.
And I go to the next corner and I dumped him.
I did.
I dumped him.
He didn't like hit the wall, but he just spun out.
He spun out.
Old Phoenix.
And we had been trading kind of barbs for like a year.
He would say stuff.
I would do stuff, you know.
And so when the race was over, he went to NASCAR and basically said something like
to Helton, you guys got to do something.
That's ridiculous.
He spun me out.
And so I get a call from NASCAR and they say, hey, Sunday morning,
our hauler be there.
So I show up to the NASCAR hauler Sunday morning.
It's the cup day.
I'm running.
I'm driving the car for Roger Penske that day is one of my first starts for him.
And I go to the hauler and I'm going to go get my, you know, butt ripped.
And I walk in the hauler and it's, it's, it's Mike Helton.
And I want to say John Darby was in there and I don't remember if it was Robin Pemberton
or Steve O'Donnell, that part escapes me.
So I go sit down and, and, you know, Mr. Helton starts talking and, and he's like
working his way into the butt doing like, he doesn't just start with it.
He starts with like the, you know, hey, you know, do you want to be here?
You know, do you like this sport?
And you're like, I know where we're going.
I just, you're just like putting in your time.
And so he's like warming up this conversation to a full butchewing, right?
And I could feel exactly where it's going.
And about that time where he's warmed up into the, you know, get your straight part
of the conversation, Brian France opens door and walks in.
Now keep in mind, this is a hauler, probably like the small, the size of this table is
this lounge.
So there's like three or four people in here.
It's pretty full.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there's a small refrigerator in the end.
So Brian walks in, he like stands in the middle of all of us.
And we're all kind of like staring at him.
You know, Brian France kind of runs the sport and there's a little bit of a pause
then Mike Helton starts talking again.
And Brian's kind of like standing right in the middle and he turns around and goes
in the refrigerator.
He like looks through there.
He's like a bottle of water.
I want to say he grabbed like a small cat or something and he turns around and just
kind of stares at Mike, stares at me as Mike's talking to me.
And then he just looks at Mike and says, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Are we yelling at Brad right now?
And I'm like, uh-oh, uh-oh, what's going on?
And Brian looks at Mike and he's like, no, no, no, don't yell at him.
What he's doing is awesome.
And I'm like, now I feel like I'm in a mom and dad fight.
It's a good cop, bad cop.
Yeah.
Like I don't know what's going on here.
And, and Mike is, is, you know, Mike's kind of like, like this isn't hot.
What did this to go?
And like basically just like kicks me out of the room.
Like just go, just go.
Like you get out of here before it gets worse, get out of here before it gets worse.
And I'm like, did I just get out of that one?
Did Brian just do me a salad?
What, what happened here?
So that, that was the end of getting in trouble.
That was the end of that was, uh, that's, that's my favorite Brian France story.
No, he did me a real salad.
I'm, I was really appreciative of that.
Mike and I got over, I think Mike was really mad.
I think that made Mike Helton matter at me.
You know what I mean?
He would be more scared of being mad.
France or Brian France and or Mike Helton.
Oh, definitely.
I know he like, yeah.
Yeah.
And you know, to some degree, Mike and I have a good relationship now.
I probably call him once a month.
He's a great dude.
Different things.
He's a great dude.
But at that time it was like, I was 23, 24 years old.
Mike Helton ruled the sport with an iron fist and I was like, oh, if you had a
meeting with Helton in bad, like you didn't want to go.
No, like it was bad.
Did this help prompt to have at it boys?
It was right before that.
Yes.
Yeah.
So I'm pretty sure it was Pemberton.
Now you say that it had to be like another month later where have at it boys came out.
You know, I always wondered about that.
I've always wanted to ask Mike now that it's, you know, 15, 16 years later, like,
how did that actually went down when I left the room?
Yeah, I'm curious to know.
I probably didn't go as well as Mike wanted it to go.
No.
No.
But anyway, that's, that's my horror story.
My Denny Hamlin horror story.
Denny and I, we had a lot of exchanges at that time.
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Let's get back to...
Oh, back to Phoenix?
Well, did you notice the horsepower?
So you had it Bowman Gray, and now you've had it at Phoenix.
So are you happy?
Well, he didn't run Bowman Gray.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, he didn't run Bowman Gray.
Are you happy with the horsepower this past weekend?
Hey, horsepower's great.
You know, the crazy thing about the adding more horsepower at Phoenix is cars really don't go faster.
In fact, there's an argument being made that goes slower with more horsepower.
And we were talking about this yesterday when we had all of our meetings kind of
capturing the Phoenix race.
If you look at it like the cars are maybe a 10th or two faster at most at the beginning of
like brand new tires with more horsepower, but like the end of the run,
like let's say we're talking 60 plus laps, they're like three to four tenths slower
with more horsepower.
There's definitely more fall off.
Yes, way more.
And I think that's part of what the drivers were trying to say to NASCAR and to the key
stakeholders of the sport where like more horsepower, like when you have a discrepancy
where the cars are a little bit faster to start of the run and slower to longer run,
that just opens up opportunities for more passing, at least in my eyes.
Yeah.
And I think you saw more passing at Phoenix than you've seen in a long time because of that.
And I think that's really the argument for more horsepower, but it's super counterintuitive
because like if I just said, run the 60 fastest laps you can run all by yourself,
like there's an argument being made that having more horsepower, you actually go slower because
you wear the tires more, you do all kinds of things.
And by the end of the run, that really hurts you.
But then you're like, so if you're listening to this, you're probably like, well,
man, why wouldn't you just build an engine with less horsepower?
Well, because you get ran over, like you can't race around other people.
Like when you have a restart or things like that, if you don't have horsepower,
it'll just destroy your car.
You'll get ran over, passed, and then you can't pass those guys back.
But it reminds me when I ran late models, and I had a couple of times where we'd run at tracks
where the engine rules were fairly open and guys would show up with like 750, 800 horsepower
to late model race and then they'd put a restrictor plate voluntarily on their car.
Like I have too much horsepower.
I want to put a restrictor plate on because it'll go faster.
So it's really interesting to see.
It's kind of like reverse logic.
So that's similar to like sometimes there's big dirt races where you can bring a
like a dirt modified, you can bring a 358 modified run with the big blocks
because the track slicks off so much, you can't use the,
you don't have any use for all the horsepower.
So you can do that.
Do you think, I mean, to me, it's also with this tire, the tire obviously has to be
one you can wear out.
And I feel like Goodyear has been doing a good job the last they've been getting better and
better at just letting you guys bring tires where, hey, you can wear this thing out.
So don't, you know, take care of it a little bit.
I think when you put those things together, you have better racing.
Absolutely.
I think Goodyear deserves a lot of credit.
I hate it for him because when you have tire blowouts, like,
I feel like the fans sometimes point the finger at Goodyear like,
you screwed my driver over with your tires and you're like,
No, Goodyear's doing their part to try to make the racing the best it can be.
And that means kind of designing tires that are right at the limit
so the racing can be better.
And I hate that they get kind of like,
Well, they're in the business of selling tires.
Yeah.
They're selling tires that are blowing out that doesn't look right.
It doesn't look right.
Yeah, but if you're a fan that thinks that because,
I know it doesn't.
Chase Brisco blew a tire that my, you know, my Ford truck's going to blow a tire.
That's on you.
The problem is when they write the headlines, they're like tire issues in,
you know what I mean?
At this race and it goes right back to them when it's not really their fault.
Did you see their tweet that they put out?
I did.
Before we go racing, remember the recommended tire pressures weren't guesses.
That's actually really good.
I can promise you nobody ran the recommended pressures at Phoenix.
Like whatever they run, there's always kind of like this inside joke in the
garage area, like just subtract two and you're like, that's probably still safe.
Um, so yeah, but I mean, nobody ran those.
Why do we, I mean, why do teams do that?
Because there's speed in it.
Absolutely.
Just like back in the day when you want to win, you could over camber it,
you could, you put too much camber in it, but you can no camber with speed if you ran it.
So I'll give Goodyear a lot of credit, you know,
that the drivers went to them and said, we want a tire that falls off more.
We want you to be more aggressive.
They fired back like, well, it makes this look like crap.
And, uh, the drivers went back to Goodyear and said, kind of made like a pact.
Like we won't say bad things about you if you build us an aggressive tire and it blows out.
And like, so I feel like the sports like, that's good.
Has Kyle Bush tweeted yet?
Just making sure.
No, I don't think he has.
Oh, then we're good.
Good pack.
I mean, the pact is stuck together so far.
Yeah, that's good.
But if it comes apart, then like everybody loses.
So did you know, like what else, um, any surprises, the feelings that you saw?
Like, um, I know Blaney and Bell were fast.
Denny was decent.
Any, uh, any cars you thought, you know, did you see anything when you were out there?
You know, the thing that really stood out to me more than anything else was SVG.
Yeah.
Spinning out, spinning out twice too.
And he's still finishing 11th.
Yeah.
How did, how did he do that?
I don't know.
I see that Travis.
I feel like I need to go back and watch his entire race on in-car camera.
Like, how did you do this?
I mean, I remember looking down and seeing him spinning twice and three and four.
And I'm like, yeah, he's having a bad day.
Yeah.
And then, uh, he rebounded.
Yeah.
Rebounded really well.
And I thought, uh, one person that gets, doesn't, you know, get a credit a lot.
I thought that had a really good race was Riley.
I thought Riley had a really strong race.
He ran, did he run up top 15 Travis a lot?
He was running well until, until the, uh,
Yeah, on a crash.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
He was actually, that was one of his better races.
It was probably one of the better races that I don't think people probably noticed.
But I think Riley drove a really good race.
But I want to go back and talk more about SVG.
I got a lot of thoughts on SVG and, uh,
More road courses.
No, not more road courses.
But yeah, I guess when I think about SVG, I want to rewind like three years ago.
So he shows up in Chicago.
Kicks everyone's ass.
I had no idea who this guy was.
I got to be honest.
I did the track walk right next to him and I thought he was a fan.
I really did at Chicago.
I'll never forget this.
Like I'm walking.
I'm like, I don't know who this guy is.
He's either a fan or a PR guy.
And then the next day he gets in one of the cars.
I'm like, oh, he's one of those guys from somewhere else, like a ring.
You know, honestly, most times like the industry doesn't pay any attention to them
because they show up, they run one race.
Usually doesn't go very well.
You never see him again.
You're like, like a substitute teacher.
You know, like, you don't really think about that person.
So he shows up Chicago wins the race.
And we're all like, oh, well, you know, he's a V8 supercar guy.
It was raining.
It was a track.
Nobody's ever ran again.
Trackhouse has great cars.
Street courses where you come from.
Yeah, absolutely.
All those things.
Everything worked perfect for him.
Everything worked perfect for him.
Like, and I think for me personally, and I don't know if I speak for a number of people in the garage,
but I assume I do.
Everybody's kind of like fluke one off, whatever, move on.
But then Justin Marks is like, no, I don't think so.
Let's, let's do something more with this guy.
And this is as much about Justin as is about SVG.
And I kind of looked through that timeline of like 2023.
He wins the race in Chicago.
Justin Marks says, hey, why don't I get you a full-time deal in Xfinity?
Yeah.
Now, O'Reilly auto parts with colleague.
And he does that.
And honestly, I didn't think it went that well.
He, uh, average.
He won average.
Did okay.
He didn't run as well on the road courses as I thought he would with college.
Um, and not that he didn't win, but he just didn't run as dominant as I thought he would run.
And, uh, the ovals were just kind of black, right?
And so Justin Marks, like in the summer of 24 has to make a decision of what to do with SVG.
Now, keep in mind at that time, he has, uh, Suarez, Chastain, St. Smith.
He's got Zane Smith, kind of like on a loner deal.
Yeah. Zane won the truck championship.
But Zane was kind of like an up and coming star.
Yeah.
He's like, I got to make a decision.
I'm, I, I want SVG to be a part of my deal.
I got to cut one of these three.
It's not going to be Chastain.
Like Ross Chastain is in my eyes, like the face of trackouts.
You know, he's got Bush as a sponsor.
He's won races, almost won the championship in 2022.
Yeah. Ross is the, he's, he's a solid guy.
So he had to make a decision, all right, between Daniel or Zane.
It's like, okay, Daniel had been with the company since the beginning.
He keeps Daniel.
He cuts Zane.
All right.
So this happens really in the summer of 24.
Now personally, I'm thinking to myself, Zane hasn't gotten a fair shot.
He's been in like a third team that wasn't even a crack house team.
It was a spire team.
And by the second half of the season, he actually started running pretty well.
And his first cup start, I think it was with RFK, wasn't it?
Yes, it was.
Yeah.
And he ran the gateway really well.
So I was surprised when they cut Zane for Shane.
And I'm going to just go ahead and say it right here.
I was wrong.
I like Zane.
I think Zane's really good.
But I thought putting Shane in like, all right, so you're going to win some road courses.
This is really just a hack to get a car and not change that hack.
This is a team ownership hack to get a car locked in the playoffs.
You're now guaranteed top 16 in points.
Your charter value goes up.
Your winning races, your company value goes up.
It almost felt like SVG was a prop for the company that brought in more sponsorship revenue,
more talent to help make Daniel and Ross run better.
Like that was the way I kind of saw it.
But I got to tell you, like now that 2026 has come around and he's had such a great
start of the year, like I feel like I was wrong.
Now he's like SVG is almost becoming the face of Trackhouse.
Like he's the guy that's going to win probably three to five races this year.
And he's their, I think he's their highest car in points.
Oh, he has to be.
He's started the year out being competitive in all four races.
Yeah, he's fifth in points right now.
So where is their next car?
Ross in 23rd.
Wow.
So, you know, I know we only have like a four race sample size.
But it's pretty good.
And he like SVG was kind of like happy Gilmore.
If he could learn how to putt, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like he's got this massive drive.
He could get into the green.
Like if he could just learn how to putt, which is like the ovals.
Uh-oh.
SVG learned how to race on an oval.
Yes.
So he's gotten exactly what's going through my mind.
I think this is where the experience and like he, he was, he was getting better and
better in the rally car at mile and a half as well.
Like he was growing in them too.
So, and now he's got the cup car figured out, obviously.
So, I mean, it's dangerous if, if he gets to where he's just competitive.
Like I don't mean dominant on ovals, but just competitive on the ovals.
Yeah.
And then keeps up his road course kind of like dominance.
He's going to score a ton of points.
He's never going to be terrible at a road course.
No.
At worst, he's going to be fourth or fifth.
That works as long as he doesn't, you know, blow an engine or get back.
But I'm saying minus mechanical difficulties.
He's going to be in top five with this, but if he can just be like 10 on the ovals,
Oh, if you run 10th on the ovals, he's going to run really high in the points.
Yes.
Like he becomes like the guy at track house and starting the year off at Daytona and Atlanta,
getting through those super speedway plate races.
And he's already, I mean, another thing top 10 and point.
How many times has he spun out this year?
He spun out at Atlanta a couple.
He's that's three times this year.
And he's still top five in the points.
Yeah.
If you would have told SVG at the beginning of the year in track house,
you're going to be fifth in points after Phoenix.
So they're, they're saying we'll take it.
We don't, we won't even race.
Give us that.
All right.
I got to tell you a story out.
Cause you just made me think so.
So he spun out three times this year and still hasn't, you know,
still getting good finishes.
I got to tell you a Jack Rauch story.
I was sitting with him.
This is only a few months ago.
This is a fresh story.
And we were actually talking about Greg Biffle.
Cause Greg had just passed away and we were kind of reminiscent
about Greg and what he meant to the company.
And Jack said something to me in a story that I think this audience
would really appreciate.
Because if you circle back to like the year 2000,
Greg Biffle had won the truck championship.
Kurt Busch was his teammate.
Kurt got pushed into cup.
And Greg got, you know, a year or two of the NASCAR O'Reilly auto parts here.
Yeah.
Did really well though.
And there were a lot of people like, why did Kurt get elevated?
He didn't win the truck championship.
Why did Kurt get elevated and not Greg?
And this was something that kind of like followed Greg's career for a long time.
And then Greg makes it the cup, has a great career in cup.
So this, this isn't a dig on, on Greg.
And, but nobody ever really understood why did you promote
Kurt and not Greg the way you did.
And so I asked Jack like, so what was the reason for it?
He goes, Oh, that was simple.
I'll tell you why I promoted Greg and not Kurt.
And you have to understand what Jack's like to talk to you to really appreciate his mannerisms.
So we'd go to the race tracks and, you know, we would practice and test and we would do all that.
And Greg was like, drive this thing as hard as you can.
Kurt drive this thing as hard as you can.
And these guys would, would go to test sessions and they'd spend out all the
time, both of them, and they'd tear my stuff up.
And I'd get back and I'd yell at him and tell him, stop wrecking my stuff.
Like, you know, in, in a way that only Jack could do.
And so, and so what ended up happening is we'd start going to the tests
and they would still spin out, but Kurt would spin out and he wouldn't hit anything.
And Greg would spin out and he'd hit something.
And so I just told Greg, like, all right, Kurt spins out and he doesn't hit anything.
You spin out and you wreck and you hit things.
So Kurt's getting the cup car and that's where it came from.
Like, wow, that's, that's Jack's story on why
Kurt got the cup car in 2001 and Greg did.
Because when they'd go to practice and test sessions and Kurt would spin out,
he wouldn't hit the wall and Greg would spin out and he hit the wall.
Unreal.
Accurate.
So anyway, back to SVG.
Yeah.
He's had like three spin outs this year at least.
Yeah.
I mean, I know it hasn't hit anything.
Two is two.
I mean, two of them were at Phoenix and he had one on Landon.
So yeah.
And like if Jack Roush was sitting in the room, he'd be like, that's the guy I want.
The guy who spins out and when he does, he doesn't hit the wall.
Fifth and points.
Way to go.
So anyway, somehow I got a Jack Roush story in there,
but I want to bring this back to Justin Marks.
Because I think sometimes he gets more credit than he deserves.
I'm thinking he's brought to the sport and other times I feel like he gets less credit.
I don't think Justin gets enough credit for the vision he had with SVG.
He pulled a guy out of another country in a series that most of us know very little about,
took a chance on him in a cup car, then made the investment in him to run, you know,
in O'Reilly Auto Parts series.
The sample size was not outstanding.
And then decided, you know, I'm going to go buy another charter and I'm going to find a way
to get this guy in a cup car full time.
Like that's pretty gutsy.
And it wasn't just like an accident.
He went out and found this guy, took a risk on him.
And I really respect that about Justin.
I don't think he gets enough credit for that.
Yeah.
I think Roger laid the groundwork for it a little bit with McLaughlin.
To some degree, but that's not the cup level, right?
No.
At the IndyCar level, yes.
Yeah.
And I think like nobody was taking a chance on a guy like that.
Yeah.
And we didn't know how to pronounce his last name when he went to Chicago.
Yeah.
I think, you know, I've watched a lot of the V8 races before.
I actually kind of followed that.
That's how we went to that Australia trip, because we were following the V8 supercars
in like 07.
We were watching them pretty heavily, but nobody ever thought about,
let's bring this guy over here and let him race.
Yes.
And those guys and them supercars, man, they get so good at like, we've all seen his footwork.
We've all seen the things that they can do in them cars.
That's what they grow up doing and learning, but learning the oval.
The air side of stuff is now was his next challenge.
And obviously he's learning that now and they've evolved their road course program even better.
Yeah.
That series is perfect for developing road course drivers because, you know,
their cars drive a lot like ours, but they get testing in practice.
So if you're a young driver over in Australia, New Zealand, those areas,
like you get in those cars and you learn how to do it properly.
And when you come over here, everybody you're competing against isn't allowed to practice
or really learn how to do it properly.
Like we just get in the car and go race.
You have a small practice session.
That's it.
There's no testing.
There's no anything.
Those guys are like two races a weekend, couple hours of practice, test sessions.
That's kind of like how we develop their skills.
It's kind of how we used to be.
Absolutely.
That's exactly what cup used to be.
It used to be the opposite.
It used to be those guys had no chance of competing with the cup series drivers
because we practiced and tested every day of every week.
We tested so much.
And so if you tried to come from another series to go to cup, you couldn't touch us.
There's no way.
We, this is like second hand.
Now it's the opposite where the cup series is like you get stagnant as a race car driver
because you can't practice and test.
And it's kind of like what you are when you get there.
For the most part is about what you're going to be.
So it's a different, different world.
Those cars over there now are much more similar to a cup car too
with the sequential shifting.
Well, when NASCAR designed the next gen car, they basically went to Australia and said,
we like that.
And they went to Delara and said, make it look like that.
And the V8 supercar was the template for building the next gen car.
So I've seen SVG with his performance this start of the season.
What's your take on where things stand right now with the start of the season,
with performance and people not, they're just focused on points and not winning your end.
The top 16, you know, there's some surprises in there for sure.
But more surprise that people that aren't in it.
We talked about Ross Chastain.
And you work your way down like Kyle Busch, Buried, Chastain, Buried.
Cindrick's 30th.
Cindrick.
Yeah.
Wow.
I didn't realize he was that far back.
There's a lot of guys that have had super tough starts this season.
Where's the 19 car?
Chase Briscoe.
I don't even know where he's at on here.
He's had a terrible start to the year.
33rd.
33rd.
That one's probably the biggest surprise.
Zillich is kind of a surprise too.
I didn't.
Yeah.
Zillich is a little bit of surprise.
Yes and no.
I know he's a rookie, but like Bowman.
But he's had a welcome to cup start to the season, right?
Where you leave a series that you dominate, come to cup and you're like,
oh my God, this is really freaking hard.
So he's going through that right now.
But Briscoe, this is a guy that ended the year last year.
I don't know if there was anybody better.
I know Denny dominated Phoenix.
I know Larsen ended up winning the championship.
But if you sample size the last 15-16 races of 2025,
Chase Briscoe was the guy.
Yeah.
He wasn't a surprise anymore at the end.
And he has started off this year, not the guy.
Things have not gone his way.
It's not necessarily been his fault.
I mean, he's broke down two races.
He doesn't read the map.
Sorry, Chase.
If you just read the map, you'd be okay.
The DVP map.
Yeah.
You know, so he didn't have a great,
he hasn't had a great start to the season.
What's going to be really interesting is with this points format,
can he work his way in the top 16?
Absolutely.
No doubt in my mind.
Can he work his way in the top two or three
after having this start to the season?
It's true.
I don't think so.
I don't, no, I don't think he can.
Yeah, I don't.
It's going to, well, we're going to find out.
There's definitely some comers and goers
in this point system right here.
Yes.
Like, you're going to have guys that aren't going to be as good.
We're going to some real racetracks now, per se.
And they're going to start having tougher weekends.
And you're going to have guys like Briscoe
is going to probably really fast at Vegas.
Yep.
So he's going to start his climb.
And you're going to have guys in the top five
or top 10 that are going to struggle.
And now like, I do think this point system.
Well, the big thing is the wind bonus is so much.
The wind bonus is big.
So if you win a race, like you're going to climb
five, 10 spots in the points.
Yeah.
Do you find yourself checking the points more
than you would in previous years?
Yes.
Because it's more relevant now.
You know, before it was just, well,
it doesn't really matter because you win and you're in.
Yeah.
You just aim for the fence.
You should, I mean, try to hit home runs.
So I flew back with Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Clint Boyer,
DJ, you were on the plane and it's interesting
the different perspectives that just our small group
has on the points format.
Probably not a surprise.
Joey Logano wishes we stayed with the old system.
Shocker.
I know.
Yeah.
Very shocking.
And Clint and I spent the majority of two different
plane rides back and forth to Phoenix arguing with Joey
on why we liked this new format.
And you know, I am a staunch supporter of the new format.
I did not like the playoffs.
I made my point to NASCAR in different settings,
mostly privately over the last probably seven or eight years
about how I thought this, the playoff format was a mistake.
I remember meeting with them.
I met with Steve O'Donnell.
Gosh, this would have been like 2018, 2019.
And I told him, dude, the playoff format is killing the sport.
I liked it in 18.
I'm sure you did.
And I remember he said to me, what do you mean it's killing the sport?
Well, I had won two or three races earlier in the year.
And I'm like, I'm in the middle of the season.
I don't want to say we were like in the dead middle of the season
when I met with it.
When I said, I'm in the middle of the season,
I go to the racetrack and I'm asking myself, what am I doing here?
Like I have a practice session where I'm like 10th or 15th.
And I'm like, I'm not really a threat to win the race.
We just don't have it this week for whatever reason.
I sit in meetings and they're like, all right, Brad,
you don't get the good engine or the good car this week
because someone else in the company isn't locked in the playoff.
So they get all the good stuff for this week.
And you're like, oh, okay, I guess that kind of makes sense.
But don't worry, when you get in the playoffs,
you'll get the good stuff because you were the first car to lock in.
So you found yourself like in the middle of the season
and you'd be showing up at like Pocono or whatever.
And you'd be like, all right, so I got like the engine with less power.
I got the body with less downforce.
I'm 15th in practice.
Like I'm probably going to run 10th today if I do everything right.
I'm already locked in the playoffs.
Like it felt like weekend at Bernie's.
Like what the hell am I doing here?
You know, like it didn't make any sense.
Like I'm just running the race like and that's the deal.
And you couldn't even really be mad at the team.
You know, think, put it yourself in their shoes.
They're like, man, we got to get our other cars in the playoffs.
So, you know, this guy's going to have to eat dirt this week.
And you're like, she couldn't really be mad at them.
You just felt like trapped by the format.
And that was a lot of what was happening.
So I didn't like it as a racer.
And I didn't like when you got to the playoffs, particularly the last race.
Like if you had a bad pit stop, like that was your season.
That didn't feel right to me.
Or like Harvick had that bad race in 2020.
I think it was Martinsville.
Yeah. I mean, it cost you at Phoenix, right?
Yeah, it cost me.
I lost the championship at Phoenix with bad pit stops.
You're like, that didn't feel right to me.
And that's not a dig.
I'm like, Chase, I want to win it, but it just didn't, it didn't feel great.
So I like this format because I'll go back to what I was saying earlier.
Like there's no race where the team's like, hey, you don't get the good engine.
You don't get the good car with this format.
And I really appreciate that because I don't feel like we're quote unquote skipping races.
So I appreciate that about the format.
You know, there's some arguments of does it provide enough action later in the season?
Yeah, I think it does.
Everything feels right to me with a format like this.
I love how they gave, you know, more points to the winner with this format.
Because I think that-
You still want to win.
Yeah, because you still want to win.
Yeah.
So, you know, like a good points day, like you'll still have those,
but you don't finish second and say good points day because the gap is too big to winning.
So it feels right to me.
That's my take on it.
Now, if Joey Logano was sitting here next to me, he and I would be like arguing over this.
He'd probably be shouting at this point.
What is Joey's?
What is Joey's side of it?
What does he see?
Joey's side of it is, you know, the playoffs were awesome because of eliminations.
The game seven moments.
The game type seven moments, which I respond back by saying, yeah, but that sounded great,
but fans didn't really tune in for that.
Like now it seems like every race is a game seven.
Yes. That's, that's exactly, like, to me, NASCAR lives and dies by the ability to make every event
a big event, which means you can't have races in the middle of the season where your race teams
are like, yeah, we're just punching in on the clock.
Yeah.
That doesn't work.
And it does seem like that at times.
It did seem like that at times.
That's what was happening.
Like right now the hires are higher and the lowers are lower.
And that's what you want.
You want drivers mad and you want them excited.
You don't want drivers getting on the car going.
Yep. It was okay.
And on to, you know what I want Travis as a fan of the sport, I want to know that if I spent
three hours watching a race at Kansas in, you know, the start of the season and I saw somebody
win the race or I saw somebody wreck out and finish last that that mattered.
You know what I mean?
Yeah. Cause the fans are invested.
So yeah, I want to know that if I didn't watch that race, I missed out on somebody winning and
getting 10 extra points that might have propelled them to the championship or I missed out on
somebody making a bonehead move that cost them a shot at the championship.
Yeah. Like scroll down right here on your point list.
I want to know like when I go to a race in the middle of the year that the three plus hours I
invested in it meant something to the championship and it does now.
It didn't with the plow for me.
The two and the 21 right here, that meant something at Phoenix.
Oh hell yeah.
If I was a fan at Phoenix and I saw the two and the 21 car crash.
Yeah.
That might have been their season.
And also like NASCAR is not going to say this, but there's a chance to get more drama with the
drivers after a race.
If a guy, if someone wrecks you and you just potentially ruin their season,
yeah, this is going to get some confrontation.
Well, it goes back to what I was saying earlier.
If, if, if I had a race before where I was like, eh, I got a 15th place car with the
playoff format.
I'm not even in the playoffs on the middle season.
Somebody wrecks me doing something stupid.
I finished 30th.
You're like, whatever, on to the next week.
Yeah.
If that happens now, like holy s***, we're pissed.
So let me ask you this.
I'm still mad at Riley Herbst over Daytona because he cost me not only a shot at the
win, but he cost me three points.
Like those three points might be really big.
So does this system now change your, as a driver, does it change the way you look at
things?
If a guy like host of our messes with you.
Oh yeah.
A hundred percent.
Like I remember there.
Because it's a bigger neon.
Like if host of our, you're going to wreck with host of our.
He does something dumb, whatever.
He tends to rack in like 10th to 15th, which is that kind of no man's land where you're
just trying to salvage a day.
Yeah.
Which is your, I need to just get through here.
And you're fighting your ass off to do it.
Exactly.
And the old format, no, you're like, whatever, I'm still mad at the guy,
but I can't really look at him and say he affected my season.
Because you know, but the old mentality was what?
Because you know you can win next week and this doesn't matter.
But with this format, like, yeah, I'm pissed.
I'm like next level pissed.
And I think that's what this format brings.
It brings an energy of the race matters more every week.
And I like that.
It should.
Yes.
I think that's what it should be.
100%.
Anyway, I just ran it.
No, I love it.
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I feel like you ever watched Wind Tunnel with Dave to Spain?
Yeah.
Remember they used to have that thing where they'd rant?
They had that little character guy bobble in his head?
Yeah.
Well, you remember what?
I felt like I was on that.
You went on there a few times, right?
Oh yeah, I used to love Wind Tunnel.
So he went on Wind Tunnel with Dave to Spain,
and they would always give you a bobble head when you did of Dave.
I know.
And my oldest, you know what she did?
It's your story.
Go ahead.
Tell your story, TJ.
She came over and this is when you lived in a house that Dale owned.
Yeah, yeah.
And we're hanging out there and my oldest takes the day to Spain thing
and like throws it down the stairs and like busts his head off.
She spiked him.
Yeah, she threw Dave for Ryan.
I got to tell you, I don't think I told you just that.
That was like one of my prized possessions too.
Yeah.
Way to go, TJ.
You have to understand like I'm a guy who doesn't even keep a trophy at his house.
Like I...
What?
No, I don't have a single trophy in my house.
I don't...
Outs...
I have a Martinsville wind clock, which is technically a trophy.
Yes.
Yeah.
But it's not like a trophy trophy.
So where do you hold all year?
I keep them in my family office.
Okay.
Like I don't like trophies in my house.
Like I don't want to live that kind of life.
Like I just want to...
When I'm at home, I want to be with my family.
I want to be with my kids.
Like I don't...
And I don't want to like stare at my past accomplishment.
That said, when I went on the wind tunnel with Dave to Spain,
I'm a Dave to Spain fan.
And he gave me a bobble head.
Yeah.
And I'm sure it was like $20 made from China, but whatever.
He gave me a bobble head, signed it, and I put it in my house.
Like it was one of my prized possessions.
And TJ's daughter comes over like, oh, this is cool.
She wasn't like destructive.
She didn't like...
She was like, I hate this thing.
Bam.
It was like kind of an accident, but...
And so I got another one from Dave.
So we're cool.
But yeah, Dave to Spain wind tunnel, one of my favorite shows.
Do you think when you retire, will you move some trophies into the house?
No.
No.
Okay.
I don't know.
I just don't want to come home and stare at a trophy.
You know what gets really awkward about trophies
that nobody tells you about until you have them?
Is after a while, like not only do they become less meaningful,
but they actually kind of hurt a little bit.
Like, I don't know how to explain it, but you're like,
when I'll see a trophy that I won like 10 years ago, you're like,
I remember that day.
I wish I was winning like that.
You know what I mean?
Like, you know, like I kind of like staying a little.
Yeah.
But I think that's just natural.
I mean, like, I remember my dad's trophies, like he had trophies from like 1986.
And I remember being like 10 years old.
And by then those trophies were seven or eight years old.
And you're like, yeah, so you used to be good, you know, like,
and people would say stuff like that.
You're like, man, I don't want to hang around.
Yeah.
But I don't know, man.
I think it's good to look back and know that.
I think it's good to look back and know that some of the accomplishments that you do have,
like in doses, yeah, in doses.
But I mean, I mean, as a kid, I'm on to the next race, man.
You went, it's great.
You want like, yeah, but as a kid, you would have, I mean, your, your,
all your, your dream is to win all these things.
Sure.
So I'll probably appreciate it more when I'm done racing, but I don't want to look at,
you know, I've won Talladega six times.
Yeah.
I don't want to look at a day trophy.
Like I want to go to Talladega feeling like I've never won there before and I have something to prove.
And I feel like when you stare at the trophies, you're like, yeah, I've already done this.
I can, I can see that.
I appreciate that.
I mean, like you're wanting to.
I don't, I want to enter races and be like hungry and I don't want any,
because I can tell you when you get to the racetrack, nobody there cares what you've done before.
They don't.
They're like, once you get there, it's a fresh start, blank slate.
Like you got to go prove it.
But sometimes I think it can be the other way too.
Like I look at, you know, Daytona 500, like I've been fortunate enough to be a part of that.
I want, I feel like I almost want to win it more now again because of that first one.
Like that's kind of the way I,
everybody has your different motivations, right?
Yeah.
I mean, I look at it like I remember that night.
I want to win every day tone of 500 from now until I'm done spotting.
Yeah.
So big one to win.
So that I know maybe one time, maybe one day.
So off the track, we had a little news brought up again with Cletus going to be racing with RCR
for a three races, I believe one this year and then two next year.
In the O'Reilly Auto Parts.
Yes.
I'm just going to keep saying that.
You just got to keep saying it over and over again.
The more I say it, the better I'm getting at.
I mean, there's still people that call it the Bush series.
So it's just like grand national.
Yeah.
But what do you guys think of the approval process?
Cause I think that's kind of the bigger topic.
It's nothing to do with like Cletus as a person or whatever.
It's about it's never a personal attack against him.
Like I know, I know Freddie's been hammering it pretty hard, but Freddie doesn't have anything.
It's nothing against Cletus.
It could be, it could be you trying to come up through here.
Correct.
You know what I mean?
It could be me.
It could be, you know, anybody and like just the approval process is, do you think it's broken?
It's, you know, it's got its challenges.
Here's what I'll tell you.
This is my bigger point for you.
You're running NASCAR.
What are you doing?
Those two series are meant for guys like Cletus.
Like that's what they're for.
Arca really should be thrown into that.
Um, as long as it doesn't affect Sundays, I think it's probably fine.
Like, do I think police McFarland should be running a cup car?
No, I don't.
Uh, and I would be really pissed if he got approved to run a cup car, but he didn't.
He got approved to run an O'Reilly auto parts series car.
Those are supposed to be developmental series.
I don't like the fact that, you know, if there's four series top at the top,
O'Reilly auto parts series, truck series and arc.
Okay.
What I don't like is this constant push to make the O'Reilly auto parts series Arca.
Like we used to have four very distinct series with four very distinct identities.
The truck series was like, if you were 35, 40 year old driver who was pretty good,
but weren't quite cup level good, that was your home.
It was your truck series.
And you were good at it.
Yeah.
And you were good at it.
And they want to short tracks and they were, you know, kind of like arm wrestling matches.
It would already be the most hard nose series.
Because you raced, when you raced against Hornaday, O'Reilly.
It was the hard nose 35 to 45 year old series.
Hundreds of wins to short tracks.
Yes.
Thousands of all together.
That was the place where you went.
If you were a bad ass, but just didn't get through cup for whatever reason.
Yeah.
It wasn't the, it wasn't where you went to move up.
Now it's the place where you're like, no, this guy's 17.
He ran two races in Arco.
Let's give him a shot.
Like, yeah.
Okay.
I don't know if I really like that.
All right.
Same thing for the O'Reilly Auto Part Series.
That used to be the place where you're like, you're pretty good.
You went from Arco to O'Reilly most of the time.
Yeah.
You're pretty good, but we're not sure you're ready for cup.
So here's what we're going to do.
We're going to put you in a race on the same tracks.
The cup cars go with cars that drive kind of similar to a cup car,
but not the same.
And we're going to put like half a dozen cup drivers in the field against you
and see what you can do.
That was the O'Reilly Auto Part Series.
And by the way, if you do really well, the whole cup garage is here watching.
You're going to get a cup ride very quickly.
And then Arco was a series where you're like,
hey, maybe that guy can drive.
Maybe you can't.
Let's go see.
Put them on a race track.
It was the series for people like Cletus.
The problem that we have, this is NASCAR's industry as a whole,
is for whatever reason, we completely abandoned the identity of those four series,
not necessarily the cup series, but those four series, kind of like the pecking order
has been like thrown away.
And it started with removing the cup drivers from the O'Reilly Auto Part Series.
You can argue it might have started even before that.
And I don't think about it with the truck series kind of turning into this mixed
identity of older drivers, younger drivers.
And then Arca kind of just changing.
And I don't even know what caused Arca to change to where, you know,
these guys that are 17 or 18 years old that used to run, you know, two, three seasons,
like now they run like two or three races.
Yeah.
Do you think the car is getting further apart?
To me, it's the car is getting further apart.
That's probably a big part of it, yes.
Because you could take a cup car and run an Arca race with it.
Yeah.
Majority of the time.
So is the approval process broken?
Look, yes and no.
It's not broken at the cup level.
Is it broken at those other three levels?
Yes.
Personally, I think that the three series should have three different approval
criterias being the truck series.
What makes a guy approved?
So here's my opinion, like Brad's running NASCAR today.
If you want to run Arca and you're 18, great, go.
17, 18 years old, that should be your spot to live.
If you want to run Arca and, you know, you have less than 100 starts in any
major form or even minor league form or racing.
Okay, cool.
Arca's your place.
You in my mind should not be allowed to run the truck series unless you're like,
I have 100 plus starts across the country.
Yeah, late models.
Late models.
Anything, whatever it might be.
And then the O'Reilly Auto Parts series, this is my personal opinion.
It should be like, you need to be 20, 21 years old before you can run that series.
Like that should be the age limit.
Maturity level.
Yeah, maturity level a little bit higher.
I mean, you're on national TV every week.
Like that's a lot to put on an 18-year-old shoulder.
And I'm not saying that no one can do it, but most everyone can't do it.
Do you think that would keep-
And I really dislike, and I've been vocal about this because I remember what it was like when I was 18,
I really disliked the idea of 18-year-old race car drivers being in a national series,
the size of the cup series or O'Reilly Auto Parts series, because it just means you have to
skip things in your life that are super important, whether it be your high school graduation or,
you know, some of those things that you do in your late teens that are really important to
your development as a person.
And you get thrown in the fire, I'm quite literally in the fire of competition,
of fans that immediately are going to judge you, social media that's immediately going to
just pile on the pressure, and it messes with people.
And I don't like that. That doesn't feel right to me.
And what for?
So that you can have, you know, one or two years added to your career.
Like, no, just wait till these people are, you know, 20, 21 years old before they go in the cup
in the O'Reilly Auto Parts series.
Anyway, I think another flaw in the whole system.
It's a bigger discussion is that these teams need to make money.
And so if someone can come in there and offer sponsors or whatever, where if the money wasn't
as such a high demand of the teams, then that they're going to get the talented driver first,
not the one that's bringing in more money and sponsors.
So at the ARCA level, I don't think it's broken.
Yeah.
The problem is the truck series and Xfinity series are way too open.
And yeah, if I'm one of these guys, I'm going to come in.
I'm going to bring a million dollar check, maybe three or five million dollar check.
I'm going to get myself a ride in the truck series, Xfinity series.
I'm going to skip the ARCA series.
You're going O'Reilly at that point.
I can be on TV. I'm on national TV.
I mean, the CW is a great deal for these guys.
The ratings are through the roof.
They're having a great start.
Yeah, I want to be on the CW.
I don't want to be on, you know, maybe I'm not even on TV.
Maybe I'm taped late.
I want to be like part of the show.
So I don't blame a guy like Cletus.
No.
I'd do the exact same thing if I was him.
But yes, I think the approval process as a whole is actually hurting the sport.
And if I was president of NASCAR for a day, I'm not.
If I was, I would rip that thing up and start over.
So what?
Like not for the cup series.
What should be his path from now?
Minus SRCR.
So what should he be?
He ran some ARCA last year, ran okay.
Should he have to prove himself more in ARCA?
Yeah, I mean, I would like to see someone like that.
This isn't just Cletus.
Yeah, this is for anybody coming along.
He should have a hundred starts before you make it to the truck series
or the O'Reilly Auto Parts series.
You're talking light models.
Light models, legends, cars, whatever.
So the approval here.
Trans Am cars.
He's supposed to run coming up here, but he goes to Rockingham,
crashes in the test, hits the wall in the test,
gets approved to run Daytona on the truck race, crashes in the truck race.
You know, the two races honestly don't bother me.
You know, both of those I look at as a race car driver and be like,
I've gone to test and brushed the wall.
That's not a huge deal.
But I mean, how do they, how do you take a state of resume?
Daytona on a truck is everybody rush.
Six laps in.
Yes.
I mean, by himself.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it doesn't feel right.
And again, not a dig on Cletus.
No, I'm just, this could be anybody.
But I also put myself in NASCAR shoes and you're like,
how do we tell people no?
Yeah, because he does.
I mean, I, I hope he is successful because he's a great story to,
I mean, I love watching his clips and he's very, he's a cool dude.
Yeah.
And he's done a lot.
Like I want to see him come in here and be successful.
But to me, he is jumping really fast.
Yeah.
And I've done a lot of the arc races that he's in.
He's definitely learning and growing, but I feel like this is a big jump.
So.
Yeah.
Do you think they should go back to allowing cup guys to make more starts
or run full seasons in a way?
I think that was, that's a big miss for the sport.
But how many of those drivers are actually even reaching the cap?
I think like two drivers last year even reached the max.
It's not very many.
I think a lot of these, I mean.
What would make you start on a Riley team if a cup driver could run full time?
That's about it.
Gotcha.
There's no justification outside of that.
Do you think you can't raise enough money to pay for it?
Well, that's what I'm saying.
If you could raise, do you think you could,
with a cup driver, I could raise enough sponsorship to actually pay for it.
To be competitive in a Riley auto part series, you have to beat Gibbs and you have to beat
junior motor sports, maybe hots.
Children.
RCR.
My children.
Yes.
Thank you.
All right.
If I'm going to compete with them, I need three, maybe four cars.
I need to raise probably 15 to $20 million.
That's what it's going to take.
Yeah, it's going to take at least that to run three or four cars.
Yep.
So 15, $20 million.
That's a lot of money to raise.
I need a cup driver to do it.
You know, or I need a paid driver.
So what would you do with your, if you had three cars, what would you put in them?
You mean like drivers?
Yeah, like, who would you put in them?
Would you put one cup guy full time and two up and coming guys?
Or what would you put in them?
I'd probably put one cup guy and a full time and two up and coming.
That's probably about right.
Yeah.
Does that open the door for more instead of buying rise?
Does that open the door for more talent coming up?
Yeah.
Oh, it should.
Absolutely.
You know, right now you have, like I said, those three or four organizations
in that series that have quality cars and.
But if you have a good cup guy in there and he's running a full season,
it makes you can sell sponsorship easier, which allows you to go higher more.
Absolutely.
It allows you to hire drivers coming up.
Like I look at a guy like someone, I think a lot of in the Ryder Outer Parts series
is Parker Retzlaff.
From the outside, you look at it and say 10 years ago before NASCAR had the starts rules,
would he be in the series?
He'd be like, he probably wouldn't make as many starts.
He probably wouldn't be a full time guy, but he would be the guy that raced
whenever there wasn't a companion event and he would get a good ride then.
Like he would have been the guy that we were like, ah, they're in Iowa.
Wow. Cup is in Pocono.
Who are we going to put in the car this weekend?
This is the guy.
This is the guy.
Yeah.
And he would get a shot in like top level equipment.
I mean, top level equipment.
And we'd know like what he's really got.
And if he did really well, it would open the door to a full season ride in that series
or something in the cup series.
That's how I made it.
Yeah.
Like the standalone events and kind of like crack through and instead those guys are stuck
in like sea level equipment and they'll never have a chance and they never get a chance.
Yeah.
Which sucks.
Cause I think guys like that are really good and they just haven't had an opportunity.
The question will be like Jesse Love is, is one of those that I question what kind of cup
ride he's going to get.
I think he's going to get one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, but the problem is, is there's only so many seats.
So.
Yeah.
But I get, again, I look back at a guy like, I'm wearing this guy's name out Parker Retzlaff
and be like, I want a guy like that to get a shot in a level equipment.
I think what you can really do.
He doesn't run a full season.
I'd rather, like if I was Parker, I'd rather run like 12 races and a level equipment
than 36 races and sea level equipment.
Yeah.
Similar to what Ryan Priest did.
Yep.
Exactly.
And not having the cup owners in the sport kind of kills that.
Yeah, my take.
You asked it.
Now it's car fans.
Listen up.
Xfinity is raving the red flag on internet price hikes and they're raising the green for
savings.
It's time to get the speed and the reliability that you want out of your wifi.
You're locked in at one price for five years.
That's insane.
No surprises.
No late yellows straight to victory lane.
Just like that folks, we have a winner and the winner is Xfinity.
Xfinity, imagine that.
Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying Brad Kozlowski as the host for the Dale Jr.
Download.
I really appreciate Brad being available and willing to come in here and do this.
I'm always excited about this idea of having drivers host the show.
I'll be back next week and Ask Jr. will be live once again, but we wanted to give you some
questions here.
Here's some montage.
Here's a montage, so to speak, of some of the best moments that we've had doing Ask Jr.
So here you go.
Okay, this one's from Kathy, wanting to know about the Talladega Nights cameo,
where you asked Will Ferrell for an autograph.
How did that go about?
And then people even wanted to know, do you still have the page that he actually signed?
Like the paper he signed?
Oh no, he scribbled.
It wasn't like a real autograph.
Oh really?
But so...
Great, movies ruined.
I feel like I told this story really recently.
Oh really?
Yeah, so we filmed, they asked me to be a part of it.
Of course, I was like, absolutely.
Thanks for asking, where do I go?
When are we going to do this?
We did it at Sharmer Speedway.
There was not a race happening that weekend.
And we went, I drove over to the racetrack, completely comfortable driving in there,
been going there my whole life, even when there's not a race going on, you know.
So drive into the racetrack and over toward turn four, the old, old cup garage.
And all of these campers and little rental campers and stuff are piled into this blacktop.
And there was a little, they were like, just go in there and park, sit around,
somehow I'll catch you, somehow I'll grab you, get you going, hair, makeup, whatever it is.
And there was a little table with about four chairs, nobody sitting there.
I thought I'd just sit down, started thumbing on my phone or something.
And I got my head down and somebody sits down at the table and I look up and it's Will Ferrell.
And he was like, Hey man, how's it going?
Thanks for coming today.
And we sat there and just bulls*** for about five, 10 minutes.
And then he's like, I'm going to get going.
I'm going to get ready and do this, that they want me over here.
So I was like, I was like, he's like, they'll come get you in a minute.
And I was like, all right.
So we got ready.
They drug me over to the, you know, in the infield of the Sharmer Speedway,
where it's kind of like the crosswalks, the crossroads of everything.
Yeah.
All the, all the roads sort of converge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think if they made it into a roundabout now.
Yeah.
Maybe.
I don't know.
It is now.
Right outside the entrance to the cup garage.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That's where we were talking about.
That's where we were standing when we filmed that little sign of my forehead thing or whatever the baby.
So they got it.
They had about, you know, 20 or 30 extras and we were kind of going to run, walk through the crowd and meet.
And they had our, we had our lines that was scripted.
He was a little bit of an ad liberer and, and he could be free with whatever he wanted to say.
So we took, we did probably three or four takes and they're like, that's good.
He was very quick.
And, and that was that.
I, I, he said, I said, Hey man, appreciate it.
Thanks.
He said thanks.
And I went on home and then there's, if you watch the credits, you'll see more of the drivers and Will
doing some stuff.
And we did that at Talladega.
And that was during the race weekend.
They were like, Hey, Will's going to come in.
They want to film just some stuff.
Y'all talking.
He's going to be in his suit.
You're going to be in the garage.
And we'll, I don't know if they were planning to use it or just see how it worked,
but they didn't end up using it in the, in the movie.
And I think it just rolls in the credits.
Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Yep.
That was a little more tense or nerve wracking because they didn't have a script.
They said, Will's going to just start talking.
You just react.
What?
And that was really tough because I mean, look, man, he's a professional comedian.
And I felt like, am I supposed to be funny?
Right.
Or do I try to be funny?
Cause I'm not never going to be as funny as him.
And what the hell do you do?
And I didn't want to be a fool, right?
And so I was going to try to be a smart ass back, but I was never going to be as good as him.
So what the hell?
You know, so it was just tough, but it was really fun, really fun.
You know, they just basically had us kind of walking from two different directions.
We're going to bounce into each other.
He said something about like, amen.
You know, in one, I think he's like, dude, you still got that, you got that 20, you owe me?
Just, you know, he just would come up.
He was just coming up with things.
He would just randomly say something and you're just like, oh, this is where we're headed.
And did you like respond?
Like, yeah, you're supposed to say something.
So you say something, right?
I don't remember what I said, but it's probably not very funny.
And we did that three or four times and then he's like, they're like, all right, good.
We're good, man.
That's good.
Appreciate it.
Wow.
That's neat.
Yeah, it's pretty neat.
But to your point earlier of saying, like, the second part of having to do those,
it's hard to be like funny on command.
And I think that's what he's really good at.
Yeah.
I will say this, man, it makes me think about that movie.
And I told the story about watching that movie for the first time at Skywalker Ranch with George
Lucas, and I've seen the movie a couple of times, obviously.
I always felt like, and I wonder if there's any real truth to this, but that movie to me,
the first half of that movie was full of really, really good moments, humorous,
quirky, smart comedy, right?
And then the second half of the movie felt like a completely different movie.
Still funny, but it really feels like to me, and it's probably really unlikely,
but it feels like there was an entirely different director on the first half versus the second half.
Like the whole movie felt like it just had this one vibe and then right at the middle point.
It's like we found a plot halfway through.
Yeah.
And then it had a completely different vibe, not bad, not good, not...
It's different.
It's just totally different.
Like the whole production crew quit halfway, and they had to bring in this other one,
and it just seems different.
But the whole vibe, the story, to your point, the plot sort of just got introduced in the middle of the show.
But like the first part of the movie is a lot of just jokes about NASCAR, right?
You know, what do I do with my hands and all of that stuff?
And it's all the just quick, witty jokes about our sport, which was really fun
to sort of the self-deprecation of NASCAR.
And then the second half the plot comes in and you're like,
I kind of like the first half better.
I was more entertained, I guess, by that.
But anyway, still a good movie.
And even though it was a joke, we can definitely handle being the butt of the joke.
I was curious what your thoughts were on that.
I didn't mind it.
I thought it was good for NASCAR.
I thought it put us in front of a new audience.
Yeah.
And yes, it poked fun at us.
But I don't know that it was not detrimental to NASCAR in any way.
I don't think.
And so if anything, it kind of improved our popularity outside of our own bubble, right?
Sure.
All the people that are already in the tent.
But best favorite, strictly NASCAR, favorite NASCAR movie.
What's yours?
You go first.
Last American Hero.
OK.
Last American Hero is Jeff Bridges is the star.
It's about Junior Johnson, roughly, loosely.
And Junior Johnson's story as a moonshiner and a driver.
And I don't know why.
I think the reason why I like it is because it was before it was done in 71 or 72, 73.
And it's before Hollywood, eventually, right, is going to sensationalize.
You know, as we know, when we see movies made about people that we know the story,
you see some of the Hollywood sensationalism creep into the story and they embellish,
right, in parts because they got to make it, right?
It's a movie.
But this was made about racing about NASCAR before that was really a thing, I believe.
And so it's authentic.
It's really authentic.
And so, you know, when they're filming at the short tracks and filming his sort of rise to
the big time, it's a really authentic feel.
And staying in boring, lonely, old hotel rooms and getting in disagreements with,
you know, these punks at these local racetracks and, you know, and
there's some footage of Ralph Earnhardt in there driving at Metrolina that's really neat.
But I don't know, I just thought there was a really...
It didn't feel like they stretched any truths in that movie.
Authentically.
Yeah, it was really authentic.
But some cool actors in it, too.
Jeff Bridges, badass.
Before Jeff Bridges was super, super famous, he played Junior Johnson in an NASCAR movie.
How the damn cool is that, you know?
Yeah.
How many movies do you know of, Andrew, racing movies?
Good question.
I mean, well, I will kind of cheat and use the YouTube chat and I did want to give them a shout
out, but I'm seeing a lot of stroke race.
There's a days of thunder, obviously.
Gary in here said stroke race.
I love stroke race and that reminds me, too.
Gary Busey was in Last American Europe.
He's Jeff Bridges' brother, Gary Busey.
Yeah.
But I love stroke race.
I thought stroke race was awesome.
When I was a kid and it came out, I thought it was amazing.
And it's still one of my favorites.
Six Pack.
I think I saw us...
Yeah.
Love Six Pack as a kid.
Yeah, Ian Lane.
Jake just said Six Pack with about 10 exclamation points.
Six Pack was in the YouTube chat.
Six Pack was badass.
Because of the dirt car.
That dirt car that Brewster Baker drove was freaking insane cool.
That Camaro in the paint scheme on that thing, it was neat as hell.
Brewster Baker is a badass racing name.
I mean, just cool.
And I mean, when you watch those movies, oh, and Love will turn you around.
The song, the theme song that Kenny Rogers had for Six Pack.
That's in my rotation.
I'll listen to that today.
The opening guitar on Love will turn you around.
Freakin' awesome.
You listen to that today.
It is my favorite Kenny Rogers song when I have many.
But I thought it was cool that Burt Reynolds.
I mean, when Burt makes stroke race, he's coming off of all of those badass movies
that he's making, Cannonball Runs and all of that stuff and smoking the bend.
He's coming right off of that and could have probably done anything he wanted
and he made a racing movie.
It's awesome.
It is.
It's a big compliment.
It was big.
It was really, really big for us to be, you know, I mean, if you're a fan,
I always looked at it like, yeah, man, they're celebrating this niche thing
that's happening in this little small corner of the country.
And they're shining a light on us.
It's awesome.
Yeah.
And so I loved all those movies.
I don't think that there was, I loved Days of Thunder, thought it was cool.
The rumors around that.
Number two.
Yeah, having a number two.
I'm down.
You're down?
Yeah.
Heck yeah.
Be so cool.
Yeah.
We ran the duel and we got ourselves locked in, go and do media and all kinds of crazy stuff.
We're having a great time and the second duel is running.
And that's me.
I'm in second one.
Yeah.
And I'm walking through the bus light and somebody goes, hey, Eric Jones won.
And I sent Jimmy Johnson a text.
Congratulations.
And I mean, literally, they're probably just still coming around the cool down lap.
So I know that, I know that Jimmy's not got his phone.
And then they were like, oh, nope.
Austin Cendrick is the winner.
And I was like, shoot, I grabbed my phone and I went to that text and I held it down.
I said unsend and it goes, poof.
So Jimmy saw that I have an unsent text message to him, but he has no idea what it was.
So does he respond to it yet?
Well, now you can text them.
I mean, finish Thursdays.
Now you got a reason to text them again.
Yeah, that's funny.
I was like, thanks for this feature.
This is nice.
It should take it completely out of their list.
Oh, you know what I mean?
You get a notification that you have an unsent message.
Yeah, like it should be gone because...
I think it depends on when you, how fast you remove it.
I don't know.
Here, do you want me to send you a text and then...
No.
I think it's going to show up as an unsent message though.
It says unsent.
Yeah, no matter what, which is sketchy.
You unsent the message at 10, 10 p.m. Thursday.
So it says...
Do you have the YouTube chat open?
Oh, I don't.
Oh, yeah.
You had one job.
You know what's terrifying about the unsent...
No, we're live, you know.
Yes, we are live.
What's terrifying about the unsent text messages,
if they haven't updated, like say their computer,
it still will go through.
So there's a chance you still congratulate Jimmy
on one of his other devices.
Yeah, that's probably true.
Good to know, Andrew.
Well, thanks, Andrew.
You definitely haven't been in any sketchy situations.
It sounds like Andrew had an incident recently
where he's unsent a message.
I want to give a shout out to...
Hold on, I wrote their name down.
Blythe.
And they're watching this at school right now.
I think they're watching it in class.
Who?
Blythe was their name.
What grade are we in?
I don't know.
We better watch them.
You're in the YouTube chat, but...
You better watch your mouth.
Yeah.
Any cuss words.
I don't know.
I feel like if you're watching as Jr. at school,
you have access to a computer and iPad.
You got to be old enough, right?
School's different these days.
It is.
I used to, gosh, when there were rainouts
and it was a Monday race,
I remember having to sneak either, like,
listening to the radio with some headphones
or watching it on my phone or computer.
I don't know.
You guys ever do that?
I got busted for it.
You did?
Yeah, social studies class.
My teacher busted me.
Listen to the duels.
Oh, my God.
I was listening to the duels.
Oh, my God.
I don't know if I should share this live.
Oh.
Did you get busted?
No, I did in school.
So, listen, I'm going to tell it.
So, uh...
Dang, man, I can't believe this.
So, this...
You were asking me about that shoot.
This will be the best thing we do today.
We were...
That Prime shoot.
That Prime shoot.
Yes, yeah.
So, I met this Amazon Prime shoot Friday.
And when I was...
And this young guy walks up to me
that's working on the shoot and he goes,
hey, man, you went to school with my dad.
I was like, really?
He goes, I was like, what's his name?
Because I'll probably...
If I...
It might ring a bell.
He mentioned his dad's name and I was like,
can't say I can remember or even put a face with that.
He goes, Southview Christian School.
And I was like, damn.
So, I went to a lot of schools, right?
And right around...
I'm going to say this was seventh grade.
At the very beginning of my seventh grade year,
there's a Southview Christian School
that's on the way to the State's Way Airport.
I passed by this school twice a week at a minimum.
I passed by it all the time.
Dad and Teresa sent me to that school with Kelly
beginning my seventh grade year.
And I had been going to another school in Statesville
for a couple years and I don't know why that ended,
but probably something that I did.
But Southview Christian School.
I believe that's the name of it.
So, I drive by it all the time.
And I only went there six months.
But I remember and I've said this to Amy.
I'm like, that school and that six-month period
was my favorite experience as a kid in school
because every other school that I went to
kind of had little groups and you were part of this click
and you weren't part of that.
And this was the popular kids and the preps and the jocks.
And everybody had their little space.
And you just wanted to get in one, right?
Especially moving around from school to school.
That has to be really tough.
Yep.
So, you just wanted to be in some group, right?
And have your little group of friends that you saw every day
and hung out with every day.
Not in this school.
In this school, there was probably,
I don't know, it felt like there were about 18 to 25 of us
in a class, in our class.
Everybody felt like they had the exact same level of stature.
Or as soon as I got in there, man, everybody was fun, friendly.
We all goofed around and joked around and got in trouble
and talked in class.
But it was like I was brought in and accepted immediately.
And it was just a really great class.
Yeah.
And I remember where our classroom was up in the top of the gym.
And I remember having immediately connecting and making like 10,
12 friends right away.
And just having a great time.
And I got, I was going to get expelled because if you get wrote,
if you, that's just, that's just like a turn.
It was going really good.
And I was having so much, I was having so much fun
and making so many good friends like easily.
Yeah.
And I was probably trying too hard and being too much,
acting out too much, talking in class.
If you got wrote up eight times before the winter break,
that would, you, that was it.
That was it.
You'd have to leave.
I get wrote up just right before the break.
It wouldn't process till we got back.
My thought was I was going to be expelled when we returned from Christmas break.
You got your eighth right up right before break.
And in my mind, I'm going, I'm going on Christmas break.
My parents have no idea that when I go back, I'm getting expelled.
And so my gut is, I'm getting an ulcer.
Worrying about this, right?
Well, little did I know that they had already planned to send me to military school.
So when I get home, they're already going through pamphlets for military school on the floor.
And they're, and I'm like, I'm kind of like, well,
I can, I can embrace this military school idea and not have to ever
tell them about getting trouble about getting expelled.
They'll just pull me out.
I'll go to military school, not expelled.
No problem.
Don't love military school.
Don't love that idea.
But I wasn't expelled.
What is it?
Well, so I remember the last time, the last thing I got wrote up for was a simple,
I was having a conversation with a guy in a chair behind me and the teacher wrote me up.
And I was like, gosh, this is so trivial, but this is number eight.
I'm going to get kicked out.
And he's like, I don't care.
I was like, come on, man, this is going to expel me.
This is such a small thing.
I remember making a case for myself.
You fought it.
And, uh, but this, uh, this gentleman, this young guy that I met at the shoot,
he goes, yeah, you're, my dad knew you and two other guys.
He named these two other kids.
He's like, y'all are, y'all hung out every day.
Y'all are friends and y'all spend a lot of time right here.
He's like, I was like, yeah, man, I was telling him the story about getting
rode up and getting in trouble.
And he's like, you've gotten hit.
My dad told me one of the times that you got in big trouble.
You brought a playboy magazine to the classroom.
Now I was like, all right, y'all hit the floor.
I was like, no wonder you were so cool.
I was like, yeah, I don't remember that.
And he's like, yep, that's what dad said.
Dad said you brought it to was on the cover.
He's like, he's like, you brought it to the classroom and centerfold.
You whipped it out and we're looking at it.
The playboy?
Okay.
Stop it.
Sorry.
So you pull, you pull the plate.
I'm like, I don't, I can't believe that this is even possible.
Brought it for the reading material.
That I would do this in a Christian school.
I can't believe you forgot about this.
I can't believe it is.
No wonder you had all the friends.
What do you think the other six write-ups were for?
Then one was for talking to somebody.
One was for a playboy.
What were the other six?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I believe I know.
That's what I was saying, dude.
Jay, that's no wonder you had so many friends.
What do you think Dale got in trouble for?
Give us the six reasons.
Oh my gosh.
I just can't believe that.
I can't.
I forgot what a wild menace I was.
When you said I got, I was going to get expelled.
I was like, man, what could you have done now?
It's fully understandable.
So that's what I meant.
Like I was, things were going so well.
I was having so much fun and I was,
and so I was trying too hard.
Sure.
And I knew dad had that stash in his bathroom.
And I'm like, man, I'll take one of them to class.
I was going to ask you, did you like talk about it beforehand?
No, I'm like, my buddies are going to love this.
They did.
And so I'm assuming if it really did happen, that's what,
that's what I mean.
If it really did happen.
I'm not, I don't remember this.
I don't recall it.
Do you remember your dad's stash?
Yeah, it happened.
It definitely happened.
Kelly says it might have happened.
But I can't believe that, man.
So I don't, I'm pretty sure that that was not the eighth
and final punishment.
That was probably number two.
That was probably in the middle of summer.
That was four through eight.
Yeah.
That countered his bunch.
Every time we showed it to them.
I really messed up.
I really messed up.
I appreciate you owning up to it.
Yeah.
Did they ever find out though that you were going to get expelled
so that they never found that out?
I don't believe so.
Well, that's good.
That's a win.
My whole reason for like sharing this story and
continuing the conversation with the young man at the photo shoot,
well, I was like, hey, for, so I bought some, I bought some,
I bought some yearbooks from my dad's high school days
because I don't have, I mean, it's just cool to have an old yearbook
from his fourth grade class and there's dad in his little fourth grade classroom.
You know, it's funny to see Dale Earnhardt dressed up as a little,
you know, 10 year old school kid.
And I found some of his yearbooks from his high, from his elementary school
because he quit school in the eighth grade.
But I found some of his yearbooks from like fifth, sixth and seventh grade
and I kept and bought them on eBay and kept them.
And I've been looking for the yearbook for this school,
Southview Elementary or Southview Christian Academy
from my seventh grade year, whenever that might have been.
Half of it?
I do know that living on a prayer had just came out.
Like we were all singing that song up and down the road, going to school back.
So like Bon Jovi had just blown up with living on a prayer.
I do remember that.
That's, that's cool.
So, hey, you know, we had Bon Jovi living on a prayer,
we were taking playboys to school.
I just realized I was living on a prayer room.
What a time to feel that.
That was Dale's motto.
I'm jealous.
Brought a playboy to a Christian school.
It's not just like regular school.
That's rock and roll right there.
You were at the most popular kid.
What I want is to be able to get the yearbook from the school
relatively around the time I was there.
I was, I left the school before we did class photos, so I'm not in it,
but I do want to see my class.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because I'm, I drive by this school twice a week at the minimum
and every day since I was a seventh grader,
I've thought about this school and those kids in that class that I was with.
Wow.
And how great my experience was in a very brief time I was there
and I just want to see their faces because I remember,
I know when I see them, I'll go, that, that, that was one of my friends.
That was one of my friends.
I remember those two.
They were great.
And then do you ever like, what, what are they up to now?
Of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Too bad you're not in the picture though because it'd be like,
that's the guy that broke the playboy.
Dale took the picture.
I did reconnect with some, I got my, I got my yearbooks from my,
my, you know, 10th, 11th, 12th grade senior high school days.
And I did reach out and reconnect with some of those.
That's awesome.
Some of the, and I'm go, Hey man, let's meet for lunch.
Wow.
You think you got in trouble for the playboy in 86, you said?
Maybe.
Do you want the 86 was one living on a prayer came out.
Okay.
Good.
Sherry, our net could have been one of them.
Julia McCalla.
I mean, I don't.
Awesome.
So you can go look at it.
I mean, I'm, and most people that are watching this probably may have already seen it,
but Brooks, uh, I think Marty McGee, yeah, uh, had a conversation with Brooks and done and,
kicks Brooks, both of them, I think are on the boat.
They're fishing out, 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, uh, he's kicks Brooks is telling the story about how kicks is tired of fishing.
They 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 grill it in and dad's all excited.
It's a pretty cool story.
And then, uh, they bring the fish in, take photos, do all the stuff.
And then for some reason they're throwing a bunch of chum.
Yeah.
They were chumming the water into the water.
And, uh, dad's like kicks come over here and leave these turtles and 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 his wife's going, what are we doing?
Oh, and kicks is in there like trying not to splash.
He's just like, don't move.
Cause there's blood in the water.
I think he said it was shark invested.
Yeah.
And they drove away.
Oh, right.
Oh my gosh.
Like what if something really did happen?
I know.
Holy ****.
Works and done.
Yeah.
Works and done.
Damn.
Like that's, that's serious.
That's not a prank.
That's just a **** mean.
That is a **** dad.
I mean, if that story is absolutely true as told, I would be ****
fury.
James goes attempted murder.
Yes.
Yeah.
Don't, we haven't went that far.
That's pretty.
And he said, he said, he said the boat got far enough away to where like you could barely
see it and then it became funny to turn around.
He's embellishing some stories.
Yes.
Right.
I mean, let's be serious here.
It's still a criminal offense, but you know, I, um, 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 nineties and, um, his nickname was Yankee.
His Scott Kaluka was his name.
Awesome guy.
Um, and he would eventually become a tire changer.
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, uh, 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, being a smart ass.
And I remember, um, 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, um, and at some point, uh, some, uh, Scott showed Kaluka showed up and he's,
he's being his smart ass self and said something and dad, dad's like, uh, whatever dad said or
did Scott turned and took off running across the parking lot and dad fired an arrow about eight
foot over his head and, um, yeah.
And, um, dad told him he was going to shoot at him.
What's okay then?
Yeah, that's, that's the, look, the details are sketchy, a little fuzzy.
And then there was another time where there was a guy, there was a guy out of the carpenters
named Todd and Todd's an amazing carpenter, a long time employee.
Derek Dale and heart corporate dad loved him and Todd built dad's log cabin single handedly.
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.
He had a woodworking shop there, didn't he?
He eventually would end up getting a woodworking shop in DEI and, uh, like he was a main figure
and dad leaned on him and he's still around.
I still talk to him.
He loved Ford's.
Dad didn't love Ford's.
We were Chevy people, but Scott or, uh, Todd wanted to street stock race.
He had raced some street stock stuff in his past and we, I mean, it 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, the 83, 84, 34 Thunderbird.
And I had, uh, me and Kerry had a little Monte Carlo, 78 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, 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 shock.
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 going to be beer drinking and pizza and bull.
The Tony senior and them been working on the Xfinity cars for Jeff Green or somebody
that whoever was driving the cars at the time.
And so we get our street stocks out.
It's after five 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, uh, 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 the 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 fired, 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, uh, safety first.
Yeah. Safety first. Brilliant.
It was loud. Oh yeah.
That's a gunshot. Just shot at it.
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. That is badass.
I raced that Ford once. Oh yeah.
Yeah. I was, uh, 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 to treat your race 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, you can't believe you're not going to go.
He's like, yeah, you can take it.
And so I loaded it up and I take it and I'm practicing and it's things.
It's a pretty simple to drive and, uh, 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 Kerry's destroyed.
Kevin Pannell, two beer. He's in the race.
He starts in front of me. Two beer.
Two beer drove a purple Nova number four purple with a white four on it.
Green flag, two beer, Mr. Shift.
And I knocked the radiator out of this Ford.
First day of that.
Like I didn't even get to run the race.
Todd ran really good in it. Todd would run top three.
And it drove really good. Yeah.
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 cars tour on restarting.
What was Todd's reaction to you busting up the radiator?
He was kind of over it at that point in time.
Yeah. He was kind of moving on.
Did you fix it?
I don't know if we, I probably did.
Yeah. Yeah.
Wow. I love those stories.
We were putting a radiator in it.
We were taking our radiators to Alton Boyd's.
Spider that was recently in the news.
Well, his dad owned a radiator shop in Canapas.
And that's where we always take our radiators back in the 90s
that we raced our streets out cars.
Dude, we had the radiator, me and Kerry would take the radiator out of our Monte Carlo
every week having to fix a hole in that.
So because we knocked them nose off of that car every race.
Me and Kerry 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 patchwork from where like, you know, Alton's like, 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.
That Monte Carlo is still sitting on the property over at DEI out by a shop.
I believe, I wonder if there's some Google Earth shots or something of it sitting beside
this.
Oh, so it's like outside?
It's outside.
Dang.
Yeah.
I'd love to have that car, but, you know, one kind of condition you think it's terrible.
Yeah.
Already to begin with.
And then you leave it outside.
It's in the condition it deserves to be in, right?
Yeah.
You wouldn't be restored or anything.
You'd just love to have it because it's like me and Kerry learned everything about
trying to get around a 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 in the first race and had to get it, had to
build another motor.
We would burn the 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.
Oh, perfect.
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 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 you might
want to do it this way.
He wanted us to just screw up and figure it out and man, it was fun.
Five years. That's insane. No surprises. No late yellows straight to victory lane,
just like that folks. We have a winner and the winner is Xfinity. Xfinity, imagine that.
Thank you very much.
Losing a tire, running out of gas, wrecking a teammate, you never know what's going to happen.
NASCAR is full of crazy stories.
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By fanduel and reminder, like Dale and TJ, I can't bet. But I can help give you some advice.
So Travis is still with us and joining us is now Tampa Timbs. Hey, what's up?
What's up, Tampa Timbs? He's our resident degenerate gambler.
We all have one of those in our family. We now head to Las Vegas and the betting favorites are
Kyle Larson at plus 500, Denny Hamlin and Chris Revelle at plus 700, William Byron at plus
850 and Tyler Reddick at plus 900. Tampa Timbs, what do you see? What stands out?
I actually like Larson. I hate betting the favorite, obviously.
Say this every week. No, I never say Larson. I don't know. I feel like you're always fanboying it.
The favorites win most of the time. So plus 500 in betting is a very good number still.
That's always been my stance. But he has like the best average finish here.
But my best bet is not to take him to win. It's top three. It's plus 150.
And of his six top 10s at Las Vegas, five of them have been top threes. So if he wins,
erects, if he's yeah, he's a record. Are you guys worried at all about the Chevy body and
their performance or is that just typical Phoenix? I don't think the body has anything to do with,
you know, not running as well as Phoenix. I think they're going to be great. I think
the Toyotas look really strong to me as a whole. They finished out last year of Vegas really well.
So there'll be a big threat. I think you're looking at a Toyota Chevrolet dual.
TJ, what's your thoughts? Yeah, you know, I don't it's this place is kind of weird. It's got a
couple of guys that seem to always find their way to the front here as well. And I know Blaney
and Joey seem to be really good here as well. And then I mean, last year, Josh Berry, you know,
so I don't, is that that could be a long shot? So yeah, I actually think the guy who almost won
Daniel Swar is a better long shot. My problem is the expire has speed every week. They don't
really finish it off though, which is like the one caveat to betting any of their cars is they've
seen always have a problem during the race. But this, I don't know, man, do you see any
change with the points? How it is now? Does it change any of the way these guys are racing?
I mean, like, if you look at their three drivers, I think McDowell is the most consistent,
right? Hosobar, yes, he's got the most speed, but either he runs into somebody or somebody's
going to run him over him, basically. And Swar is I feel like it's more mistakes where
he kind of gets put back in a bad situation that he's involved in the wreck that happens.
Yeah. So I feel like the point system doesn't really matter with them. It's more like,
they're kind of their own, you know, self deprecating factor.
Yeah. I do think Bubba could be pretty decent here and Briscoe as well, like you have on here.
I think that's, that car is always fast here. So and Briscoe is proven, like we talked about
earlier in the show, Briscoe for a big rebound. He just, he hasn't, the car hasn't lost speed
putting him in there. He's held up to his end of the deal, obviously making the final four last
year as well. So. Yeah. I think most of this has just been car problems, not necessarily a speed
problem, you know, with Briscoe. Yeah. So it's, I don't think that hurts it. Bubba actually has
averages like a 20 second place finish at Vegas. So I would go Briscoe, except in the gambling
terms. Well, if Larson would quit wrecking it, it would be better. I know. I'm really interested
about Tyler Redick. I feel like he's had a couple of really good races at Vegas lately.
He's been really strong. He hasn't really necessarily got the finish. He had that big
record. Remember that we were in with him TJ years ago, where he like almost flipped down
the front stretch. Oh yeah. Yeah. But he was like the fastest car that race. Yeah. Another race where
I think it might have been last year. He was running second and was faster and just couldn't
get by Larson for the lead to win at the end. Yeah. This is going to be, this is a big race
for Redick in my eyes, just to see how he handles it. If he has the speed, does he push it too far
and have the accident or does Tyler take the, you know, if he's running fourth, did he just take
his fourth? Yeah. He's got 12 starts, two top five, six top tens. But I feel like that doesn't
really tell the picture of how good he's ran the last few times at Las Vegas. I think, so I'm
interested to see what you guys think. Obviously with the three wins and the new points format,
he's way out there. Do you think that gives him the most confidence to go into a track like Vegas
and he's just, there's absolutely no pressure with him now. I think his cars are super fast.
That gives him a lot of confidence. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That'll do it. Yeah. I mean crazy fast.
If Tyler can drive at a eight or nine out of 10 for the next 30, you know, whatever races,
he's going to be really hard to beat. Yeah. He's like 10 cup right now. Yeah. He's got like a three
hole lead, you know, yeah, he lay up, put it on the green. He doesn't have to push it. Yeah. He
could just kind of put it on the green dude. I'm not a hundred percent sure when I'm sure it got
ran. When they, the models for this format, but not many times did the winner of the first
three races be the same. You know, so this, I don't, I'm not sure this will ever happen again,
either. No, you know, so this has a huge lead. You're like, yeah, put a couple of pars on the
board and then he can do that. But Tyler's had a problem in the past and I've seen it. I've worked
with him. Tyler had sometimes just, you know, like when he runs the fence, sometimes he just
overdoes it and takes himself out of the race. So Phoenix is one of those places where, you know,
you get too aggressive and you're in trouble quick. Phoenix for Vegas. I'm sorry, Vegas. Yeah.
What about that? What's the hard part or what's the part that like where, where they'll separate
a good driver from a great driver on that track? So when I think of what separates a great driver
at Vegas from a not so great driver, it's the ability to move lanes. Like you're going to get
stuck behind somebody in traffic at Vegas. And it was part of what I like about Tyler is he's
really good at moving on the racetrack. And so he'll, he'll find a way to move and get some grip
and go. The problem with that is usually when I say you have to move on the racetrack, that means
you have to run like a dangerous line, like up against the wall in three and four. And if you
miss that by a little bit, you're in the fence. The link bent track position. Yeah, gone. What's
your thoughts about your ability on Sunday to go out there and yeah, I'm really curious. You know,
we've made a lot of changes from where we were last year at Vegas. Like we have full new car specs.
Should be some big upgrades. I guess we'll see when we get to the racetrack. But I felt like last
year, the Toyotas in particular were like lights out fast, like three to four tenths faster than
the Fords. So we have a big gap to close. Is there something in practice fans can watch for
when deciding on who they're going to in their fantasy leagues or whatever to like, Oh, this
driver's got it. So Vegas might be the single worst track outside of like a plate track to
judge practice speeds off. And the groups, the way there's a couple of reasons for the way the
groups settle out. The thing is what TJ was about to get to. And also like if you put air in the
tires at Vegas and practice, the car will go faster. Just kind of the opposite of what we just
talked about with Phoenix. If you don't put air in the tires, the cars are terribly slow. But
that's what you're going to need to race and practice. So I feel like every year we go to
Vegas for practice. Somebody is like, crazy fast and does not show up in the race. And I think
you'll see that again, it'll be like Carson Hosebar or something like that will go out and set the
fastest lap in practice. Yeah. And then the race still be run like 15th the whole time. And he's
got that edge right now to where he he hits hit natural right off the truck. He's going to be
fast. That team is notorious for hot lap, hot lapping practice. Yeah. We're like, Oh, okay.
This doesn't really mean anything. What's your favorite favorite Vegas moment?
My favorite Vegas moment. Let you win. No, honestly, that was not my favorite biggest moment.
We ran out of gas one time. I don't know. Yeah, I won the race. We ran out of gas off
a two with LaTarte. No, actually, that was my favorite Vegas moment because I swept the weekend.
You know how you could have done for the sport if you pushed him.
You didn't even want the trophy. It's probably that. I remember after the race,
I went and talked to Dale Jr. for just a brief second and I was like,
the way you feel right now is the way I felt at Daytona because the 500 Dale won the 500 that
year 14. Yeah. 14 and it was only like two weeks earlier and I led a bunch of the race.
We came down pit road at a terrible pit stop, came off a pit road like 15th and I drove all the way
up to second and I couldn't pass him because you should have went to the bottom in front of Denny.
Yes. I don't know if that would have won me the race, but it would have got you closer.
It would have got me closer and still would have blocked you. So the way I felt was like
I told him and I said, so if you want to trade, like I'll give you my Vegas trophy,
if you give me the 500, he won't even give me a 500 trophy. It pisses me off.
I don't think you can. That's one of the few trophies you can't buy a replica for.
Tim, is there any other bets for Vegas that you're like?
I kind of like Ross Chastain to sprinkle a little bit on a wind bed. He's plus 1600.
It's pretty good odds. I was kind of disappointed. He runs good there.
He does run good there. Very second best average finish, I think, in next gen there.
But I'm so confused on where to go with the Trackhouse cars in general with their speed.
What about SVG? How's he going to do?
See, I don't know. The mile and a half, I'm still kind of, I mean, he's been great,
but the mile and a half, I don't know. Are we sleeping on Ty Gibbs? Now he's with the right
people. He doesn't have really good numbers here, so I'm just not going to back it.
But he's, I mean, obviously a Gibbs car that could run top 10, top five, top three any week.
So this spring Vegas race is known for surprise winners. So that's good. I like to hear that.
Anybody else? Any top 10s or anything?
AJ, they would be a little bit of a sprinkle too, but quietly.
Yeah. Quietly good here. Where was the end points? He was up there.
Where is the top 10? Yeah. Yeah.
That's not something I would have had. I'm pulling back up here. I'm curious too.
I'm pretty sure he's like right in front of us. You should open another tab.
If I'm not mistaken, AJ won a 13th. He won an O'Reilly race here if I'm not mistaken.
I'm pretty sure he did. Yeah. So a few years ago. Yeah.
So one thing I realized we didn't talk about though is how are you
feeling getting out of these cars and getting back in with the injury?
Yeah. So, you know, racing with an injury is not fun.
I'll tell you, I'm the most comfortable in the car. Just the way the seat is and everything's done.
Walking to and from the car sucks, particularly after the race,
like getting out of the car and like taking those steps.
Like even when you're not hurt after you run a race, like you get out of the car
and the first few steps, you're like a baby deer, you know, like walking.
What's this like? Because you just got out of a race car where, you know,
you're pulling like two and a half Gs, like you're sitting.
So standing up is not like natural right now. And you're usually a little dehydrated.
Usually a little tired, hot, sweaty, et cetera. But then adding on top of that,
like my leg, like I get out and I have like all those like, okay,
this is what's like to stand again. And then my leg sore hurts a little bit.
Like that's like when it hits you because the adrenaline starts to wear off.
So the worst part is after the race, but in the car, like I don't even know.
I really don't. Like I can't even feel it. And I'm getting to the spot now where,
you know, another month or two, I should be like over it anyway.
So it's, it's just been like part of my journey now. Like you get in a car, run the race,
like it hurts a little bit after everything, all the drowns worn off,
then you go do the rehab and like my high every week is higher than the high last week of like
things I can do. So.
So how was Kota Kota that most trying one so far?
Yeah, Kota was definitely the hardest because the curbs,
yeah, the curves, the curves so much. And when you shift a cup car,
you like to do this quick movement with your foot where you blip the gas.
And it's kind of aggressive and like it puts like a shock through your leg and I can feel those.
I think that's what Joey did to Ross in the trial, the dog leg when he was on the restart.
No blip shift.
So you're 16 than points though is like content, happy.
Yes and no. Like I was disappointed in Phoenix. I thought we'd be better than we were at Phoenix.
Well, we kind of, you know, we had, we dug a hole on Saturday with a crash,
but I wanted to go out to Phoenix and, you know, have a solid top five outing or better.
And we didn't have that. If we just ran like fifth at Phoenix and said we're in 15th,
we'd score 10 more points plus the stage points. We would be legitimately fifth in points right now.
That's how close it is.
Yes. Instead we're 16. So looking ahead to Vegas, like if we just run like top five,
the whole race, like we'll leave Vegas in the top 10 and points, maybe even the top five.
Gotcha. Anything else?
No, no, nothing.
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So thanks for joining us in the Arby studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three
box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats.
So it's fun filling in today, guys. Thanks for having me, Dale Jr. Hope you're enjoying the
ski session. Don't break a leg. All 16 miles of riding you've done a day, a day.
Hope everybody's having a great time with the girls. You and Amy, but appreciate everybody
listening. This is my one podcast for the year. I'm sure Michael want to meet me with you after
this about starting something. We'll see. I hope people liked it. I think it was good.
I had fun. Thanks for having me, TJ Travis, Camp Timbs. Great insights. That's it. Peace out.
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About this episode
Brad Keselowski shares candid insights and lesser-known NASCAR stories, touching on race weekend dynamics, tire issues, and the impact of horsepower changes. He reflects on his podcast habits, friendships in racing, and the challenges of maintaining competitive performance across different tracks and conditions. The conversation also explores the nuances of race strategy, tire wear, and the unpredictability of motorsports, all delivered with Keselowski's characteristic humor and straightforwardness.
Original notes
It’s a special edition of Dirty Air this week as Brad Keselowski fills in for Dale Earnhardt Jr. while he’s on vacation. He joins co-host TJ Majors to share some stories and break down the action from this past weekend in Phoenix:
- More horsepower equals more stress on tires
- Brad shares a story about young Ryan Blaney at Phoenix
- Getting called to the NASCAR hauler...
- Justin Marks deserves credit for what he saw in SVG
- Who is in points trouble so far in 2026?
- Brad is a big advocate for this new format
- Cleetus McFarland is making us look at NASCAR’s approval process, again...
Plus, a "best-of" edition of Ask Jr.
And for more content, check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia
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