The episode dives into a mix of racing stories and personal reflections, including Randy LaJoy's early NASCAR experiences and a harrowing 1984 Daytona crash. It explores the evolution of driver Shane van Gisbergen (SVG) from a road course specialist to a competitive all-around racer, highlighting the strategic decisions behind his career by team owner Justin Marks. Dale Jr. also shares a fascinating tale of innovative cheating with a hidden spoiler hinge on a race car, revealing the lengths teams went to gain an edge. The episode blends nostalgia, technical insights, and driver development narratives.
The Dirty Thirty returns, and it's jam-packed full of stories this week. We've got a brand new 30 minutes of the very best tales from our shows. Let's go for a ride!
This week, we start off with one of Door Bumper Clear's most long-awaited guests, Randy LaJoie, and in this segment, he talks about following the Intimidator at Talladega, how he still hates Mark Martin's Winn Dixie car, and his MASSIVE wreck at Daytona.
Then, we wanted to make sure we heard Denny right, but on Actions Detrimental, he says we could see up to 4 SECONDS of fall-off at Darlington!
For the very first time, but not the last, Dirty Thirty features Sons & Daughters, Shannon Spake's new show where she talks to remarkable people with relatable pasts. This week was Coach K., just in time for college basketball's most important time of the year.
Following that up is Brad Keselowski, who filled in for Dale Jr. while he was on vacation this week. The topic he wanted to talk about? Looking back, he sees how smart a move Justin Marks made in getting Shane van Gisbergen into the Cup Series. This leads Brad to tell a Jack Roush story of his own, which we know you'll love.
We end this show with one of the best tales we've ever heard, from an all-time classic episode, Andy Petree's famous trick spoiler. If you haven't heard this one before, you are in for a real treat.
This week is a big one! We hope you enjoy all these moments from our shows. We'll see you next week on The Dirty Thirty!
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"...And run second to Big E at the Talladega, first time out. And I thought he was cheating."
Talladega is a big race track where NASCAR drivers race really fast cars in big circles. It's famous for exciting races.
Talladega Superspeedway is a famous NASCAR race track located in Alabama, known for its high speeds and close pack racing. It is one of the largest oval tracks and a key venue in stock car racing.
"...I see seniors fingertips out by his window net. I said, what the hell is he doing?"
A window net is like a safety screen on the car's window that stops the driver's arms from sticking out during crashes, keeping them safer.
A window net is a safety device used in many forms of motorsport, including NASCAR, to prevent a driver's arms from extending outside the car during a crash. It is a mesh netting installed on the driver's side window opening.
"And there's a couple of things you need to do before you hit the wall. Remember to tighten your belts."
Before a crash, drivers make sure their seat belts are very tight so they don't get hurt when the car stops suddenly.
In racing, 'tighten your belts' refers to securing the safety harness tightly before a crash or high-impact situation to protect the driver from injury.
"So I remember coming out of turn four, we had blown a couple of motors up, a home built motors."
Sometimes people build or fix car engines themselves instead of buying them from a company. These are called home built motors.
Home built motors are engines assembled or modified by individuals or small teams rather than factory-built engines. They can vary in quality and reliability depending on the builder's skill.
"And I thought we had a broke axle because I'm spinning the tires warming up the car, you know, for the 125."
The axle is a part that helps the wheels turn. If it breaks, the car can't move properly.
An axle is a central shaft for rotating wheels or gears. In cars, a broken axle can cause loss of power delivery to the wheels and make the car undrivable.
"And I thought we had a broke axle because I'm spinning the tires warming up the car, you know, for the 125."
When the tires spin but the car doesn't move forward well, it means the wheels are slipping on the ground.
Spinning the tires means the wheels are turning faster than the car is moving, usually due to loss of traction. It can indicate too much power or poor grip.
Term
125
"And I thought we had a broke axle because I'm spinning the tires warming up the car, you know, for the 125."
A '125' is a type of race that lasts for 125 laps or miles, usually shorter than the main race.
In racing, '125' usually refers to a 125-mile or 125-lap race, often a support or qualifying event before a main race.
"I was like, Okay, I think it's time to pull the belts tight. And I pulled the belts tight and my dad always taught me never to let go of the wheels."
When a driver pulls the belts tight, they make sure their seat belts are very snug to stay safe if the car crashes.
Pulling the belts tight refers to tightening the safety harness to secure the driver firmly in the seat, crucial for safety during a crash or loss of control.
"And I pulled the belts tight and my dad always taught me never to let go of the wheels. So I grabbed that steering wheel and when the thing picked up and I started looking at the sky,"
Drivers are taught to always hold the steering wheel tightly, even if the car is crashing, to try to keep control.
In racing, 'never let go of the wheels' means the driver should maintain control of the steering wheel even during a crash or spin to try to minimize damage or regain control.
"These cars with essentially little to no underbody because we're now going to the short track aerodynamic package for Darlington. These cars are out of control."
The underbody is the bottom part of a car that helps it stick to the road when racing. If it's taken away or changed, the car can become harder to control.
The underbody of a race car refers to the bottom part of the vehicle, which is often aerodynamically shaped to improve downforce and reduce drag. Removing or altering the underbody can significantly affect the car's handling and stability.
"So he shows up Chicago, wins the race, and we're all like, oh, well, you know, he's a V8 supercar guy."
V8 Supercars are race cars with big V8 engines that race mostly in Australia on different types of tracks.
V8 Supercars is an Australian touring car racing category known for its powerful V8 engine cars competing on various circuits, including street courses and traditional race tracks.
"He wins the race in Chicago. Justin Marks says, hey, why don't I get you a full-time deal in Xfinity?"
The Xfinity Series is a popular NASCAR racing league where drivers compete before moving up to the biggest NASCAR races.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series is a stock car racing series that serves as a stepping stone to the top-level NASCAR Cup Series, featuring competitive racing and developing drivers.
"He didn't run as well on the road courses as I thought he would with Colig."
Road courses are race tracks with lots of turns going both left and right, unlike oval tracks that only turn one way.
Road courses are racing tracks that feature both left and right turns, elevation changes, and more complex layouts compared to oval tracks. They test a driver's skill in handling and braking.
Oval tracks are race tracks shaped like an oval where cars mostly turn left. They are very popular in American racing.
Oval tracks are racing circuits shaped roughly like an oval, with only left turns. They are common in American motorsports like NASCAR and emphasize high-speed cornering and drafting.
"This is a team ownership hack to get a car locked in the playoffs. You're now guaranteed top 16 in points."
At the end of the NASCAR season, the best drivers race in special races called playoffs to see who wins the championship.
The NASCAR playoffs are a series of races at the end of the season where the top drivers compete for the championship, making it a critical goal for teams to qualify and perform well.
"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."
In NASCAR, a charter is like a ticket that guarantees a team can race in every event, which helps the team get sponsors and money.
The NASCAR charter system guarantees certain teams a spot in every race, increasing their value and stability by ensuring consistent participation and sponsorship opportunities.
"And starting the year off at Daytona and Atlanta, getting through those super speedway plate races, and he's already, I mean, another thing."
Super speedways are really big race tracks where cars go very fast in circles, like the famous Daytona track.
Super speedways are very large, high-speed oval race tracks typically over two miles in length, such as Daytona and Talladega, where NASCAR races are held at very high speeds.
"Top 10 in points. How many times has he spun out this year?"
Points standings show who is winning in a racing series by adding up points from each race to see who is doing the best overall.
Points standings refer to the ranking system in racing series like NASCAR, where drivers accumulate points based on their race finishes to determine their position in the championship.
"because if you circle back to like the year 2000, Greg Biffle had won the truck championship."
The NASCAR Truck Series championship is a prize for the best driver in a season who races pickup trucks on special race tracks.
The NASCAR Truck Series championship is a title awarded to the driver who accumulates the most points over a season in NASCAR's pickup truck racing series, a popular developmental and competitive racing league.
""So Kurt's getting the cup car. That's where it came from. I'm like, wow, that's that's Jack's story on why Kurt got the cup car in 2001""
A 'cup car' is a special race car used in NASCAR's top racing series. It's designed to go very fast on oval tracks.
A 'cup car' refers to a NASCAR Cup Series race car, which is the top level of professional stock car racing in the United States. These cars are highly specialized and built for high-speed oval racing.
""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. Yep. Way to go. So anyway, somehow I got a Jack Roush story in there.""
Jack Roush is a famous NASCAR team owner who helps build and run race cars. He is well-known in the racing world.
Jack Roush is a prominent figure in NASCAR as a team owner and engineer. His team, Roush Fenway Racing, has been successful in NASCAR's top series and is known for developing competitive race cars and drivers.
"I thought if I could figure out a way to get that spoiler to lay down and get it back up because they're going to check it post race."
A spoiler is a part on the back of a car that helps keep it steady when driving fast by changing how the air moves around it.
A spoiler is an aerodynamic device attached to a car, usually at the rear, designed to disrupt airflow and reduce lift or drag, improving stability and handling at high speeds.
"So one night I took my car that we drove is Osmobile Delta 88. They gave us to drive, you know, so I'm driving it to the store and I get to the store, get some groceries and I pop the deck."
The Oldsmobile Delta 88 is an older big car that people used to drive for everyday things like going to the store or work.
The Oldsmobile Delta 88 is a full-size car produced by Oldsmobile, popular in the mid-20th century for its comfort and V8 engine options. It was often used as a daily driver or family car.
"So we had a radio box. Back then we had a different kind of radio system. It was an analog thing and we put it in a box. Everybody kind of had on their aluminum box that would keep out the interference and it's set on the tunnel."
The radio box is like a special metal case in race cars that holds the radio. It helps the driver talk to their team without the radio getting messed up by other signals.
A radio box in racing cars is an aluminum enclosure that houses the radio system, protecting it from interference and physical damage. It often includes controls like switches and dials for communication between the driver and the pit crew.
"And so I wired all the stuff through the roll bars. I mean, the key to cheating is you got to do it right."
Roll bars are strong metal bars inside a race car that keep the driver safe if the car flips over. Sometimes wires are hidden along these bars to keep things secret.
Roll bars are safety components in race cars designed to protect the driver by reinforcing the car's structure in case of a rollover or crash. Wiring through roll bars is sometimes done to conceal electronic modifications.
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Hey everybody, I'm Dillon Hart Jr., and this is The Dirty 30.
The best highlights from all of our podcasts this week.
30 minutes every single Friday, The Dirty 30 coming at you.
Let's get right to it.
This episode of The Dirty 30 is presented by Arby's new Meetin' 3 Box.
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Randy LaJoy, welcome to Door Bumper Clear.
This is an honor to be here.
Family friend, Dick Moroso, my dad and him grew up together.
He called me and said, hey, I need a driver for a handful of races.
You want to do it?
I said, absolutely.
And run second to Big E at the Talladega, first time out.
And I thought he was cheating.
We're going down the back stretch.
Here I am.
I'm just in high cotton.
I'm racing with senior.
I'm running second to him, and Shrader was right behind me.
Shrader got in front of me, and we're gone.
We were looking in the mirror, and there ain't nobody behind us.
So we're cruising, and I look, and I see seniors fingertips out by his window net.
I said, what the hell is he doing?
So in the next lap, I look, and his fingers are out, and Shrader's fingers are out.
And I was like, what the heck?
Are these guys moving air?
What the hell are they doing?
I said, oh, and here I am sweating my goyoons off.
I was like, oh, they're getting a little wet.
So in the next damn straightaway, I put my hand out the darn window.
I could have taken the gas cap off.
Oh, my goodness.
I said, what the heck did I do?
I frigging hurt my shoulder.
I said, OK, I'm not going to do that anymore.
But that was cool.
I run second to him, and that was fun.
And then went to Darlington, run second to Mark Martin at Darlington.
Everybody did.
Everybody did.
I mean, I win Dixie car.
I'm still going to win Dixie car and flip it off.
Yeah.
If I see a win Dixie sticker, I flip it off.
Yeah.
Darren rocking him.
Yeah, that's correct.
This is for Randy.
What do you remember about your crash at Daytona in 1984,
and do you have any artifacts from it or other wrecks?
Yes.
What I remember is during.
Yeah.
Well, a little bit.
Very little.
All of the rookie meetings that you had.
You know, Petty Richard was always one of the guys doing it,
and he's like, Hey, you're going to crash here Daytona two ways.
Either you're against the wall and you're going to crash right into the wall
and then you're going to slide or you're going to slide a long ways and hit the wall.
And there's a couple of things you need to do before you hit the wall.
Remember to tighten your belts.
And if you remember to take a deep breath, because it'll blow the air right out of you.
So I remember coming out of turn four, we had blown a couple of motors up,
a home built motors.
We bought a motor from Richard Petty, you know, Kenny Wilson motor.
And I thought we had a broke axle because I'm spinning the tires warming up the car,
you know, for the 125.
And I was like, What the heck is going on here with that sucker had some power.
Boy, that thing had some power.
So I okay, put it to the floor and hang on.
And that's what I did.
And I remember I come up on Sterling Marlin.
He was in that 17 Hesko car and I was going to run over him.
Well, I turned left, hit the bump, started sliding and I'm sliding.
I was like, Okay, I think it's time to pull the belts tight.
And I pulled the belts tight and my dad always taught me never to let go of the wheels.
So I grabbed that steering wheel and when the thing picked up and I started looking at the sky,
I says, Okay, I need to take a deep breath.
And I didn't wake up.
Yeah, I did.
And I woke up in the hospital that night when I started to remember.
And I was like, Holy, you know, watching the news and that's me.
Oh my God, you know, okay, I think I feel okay, you know, had a headache for ever.
And I went back to the track.
That was a Thursday.
I went back to the track on Saturday, watching the Bush race and a fireman come up to me.
He's all decked out in fire gear.
You know, I am.
I said, No, I don't.
He said, We're at your car.
You know, we got you out of the car and they laid you on the stretcher.
He says, And you weren't, you weren't breathing.
He says, You were just laying there.
I said, Okay, and then what he says, the microphone open face helmet.
The microphone was stuck in my mouth.
He says, I reached in to get the microphone out of your mouth.
And when I did, he goes, hell, I pulled a comp of grass about the size of a tennis ball out of your mouth.
He says, And I did that.
Your eyes opened up and you started moving.
Holy.
I said, So, hell, I was vapor locked there for a little while.
It looks good right there, bud.
Yeah.
Wow.
So I did take a deep breath.
You're vertical.
You're vertical right there.
I think we try to stay horizontal.
I still have the helmet.
The helmet has a scratch on it from one of those pieces of tin.
Ray Everham was sitting in the Iraq garage and a windshield landing in the Iraq garage.
Damn.
Yeah.
He said that was amazing.
The grass is crazy.
I've never heard anything like that.
I was in the grandstands that day.
That was a brutal wreck.
My dad had that car.
I think he finally got rid of it probably about 10 years ago.
It was up in the junkyard.
And you said you still have the helmet from it?
That's what you got.
Yeah, I still got the helmet.
Hey guys, welcome to actions detrimental.
How hopeful should we be looking ahead to short tracks?
Considering the racing here at Phoenix was definitely better than it's been in the past.
Is it going to get even better at tracks like Martinsville?
Or it seems like Phoenix is always kind of so-so where these other tracks are better than Phoenix.
It's going to be a small incremental change.
Again, the small change, what was the racing truly better this time around?
Was it 10% maybe?
I mean 15?
But it's something.
And so I think you'll see that same change at other race tracks.
One thing I will tell you is that heads up on Darlington.
You want to see some cars out of control here in a few weeks.
These cars with essentially little to no underbody because we're now going to the short track aerodynamic package for Darlington.
These cars are out of control.
And so we are going to be, I'm predicting four seconds of fall off.
It might be more.
It's just the cars with the underbody taken off and that simple diffuser just even on new tires just absolutely out of control.
So it's going to be a wild card race.
Who does that benefit?
The guys.
Whoever guesses right.
Whoever guesses the tire and the arrow and the setup right.
Okay everybody, we are back for another episode of Sons and Daughters.
I'm super excited about this conversation that I'm going to have today.
There's a lot of people in my career that have made me a better reporter,
but there are very few that have made me a better human being.
And today I get to talk to one of those men who has no doubt made me a better human being,
probably didn't even realize he was doing it.
And that's coach Mike Czyszewski.
What is it about, you think, the mother-son relationship that kind of, because you're around.
I read a quote, Paulo Bankero, right?
His mom obviously was one of his first coaches.
And I think you said that everything that he is is because of his mother.
And I can't help but think that relates a little bit to you as well.
What is it about that starting point that sets a boy, because you've seen it in your own life
and obviously as a coach level, that sets the stage for a boy?
Well, the very first thing is a guy doesn't give birth.
A woman gives birth.
And that's who brought you into the modern world.
And you'll never have a friend more loyal and better than your mother.
That's for guys and girls.
And I learned that, I didn't know that through my teenage years probably as much as I should.
But once I got to West Point and for the rest of my life, I knew that.
But my mom, you know, my mom was there all the time.
There's nothing my mother wanted more than for my brother and myself to get better.
That was her main thing on this planet.
I tell my kids that all the time. I have two boys.
I tell them that exact same thing, coach.
The sooner they realize that, the better.
The better.
And, you know, my mom gave me the best advice ever when I was going to starting high school.
And I was a young punk, you know, smart, smart ass 14-year-old in the inner city.
And I was going to have to travel on city buses, CTA buses.
And the night before I left for school, my mom had a meeting with me.
She says, Mike, make sure you get on the right bus.
And I was impatient.
I said, Ma, I know the city.
I can go Dame at Armitage, Armitage, where I can even go Division of Grant.
I know, I know the city.
And she says, that's not the bus I'm talking about.
And I said, well, what bus are you talking about?
And she said, tomorrow you're going to start driving your own bus.
And I looked at her and she said, only wet good people on your bus.
I get chills thinking about it.
And if you get on someone else's bus, make sure they're good people.
And she said, those buses will take you to places that you would never be able to go along.
The best advice ever.
And it's been the basis of what I've done because I've only tried to be with good people.
Let me get to West Point.
Why was that the one place that recruited you?
And what is that transformation like to go from a civilian to a cadet?
Or a plebe is what they call West Point, right?
That's what you went to?
Coach Knight just became the West Point coach.
And Gene Sullivan, one of the really outstanding coaches, told Coach Knight.
He said, you know, the best player in the league is at Weber Shyshevsky.
And so he came and talked to my coach and my coach said, he could go to West Point.
And I was not interested at all.
You know, my mom, dad said, you're going to go to West Point.
And I said, you're crazy.
I'm not going to West Point.
I am not.
I do not.
And my mom said, that's where presidents go.
And this is all true.
I said, I don't want to be a president.
I want to be a point guard.
I want to play ball.
And so I call coach Knight and said, I'm not coming.
And for two weeks, everything in a Polish family is done in a kitchen.
And my parents used the, they verbally abused me in a good way.
Don't get me wrong.
They would speak in Polish in the kitchen.
And then, you know, all of a sudden you'd hear stupid Mike and, and I come out.
I said, I'm not, I'm not going.
And this is true for two weeks.
They did this.
Finally, I had enough.
I said, okay, I'll go.
And it was difficult to get me in at that time.
And I call it the best decision I never made.
Because someone else made it for you.
Yes, people who believed in me, trusted me and wanted something better for me
that I could not see at that point.
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Any surprises or feelings that you saw?
I know Blaney and Bell were fast, Denny was decent.
Any cars you thought, did you see anything when you were out there?
The thing that really stood out to me more than anything else was SVG.
Spinning out twice too.
And he's still finishing 11th?
How did he do that?
I don't know.
See that Travis?
I feel like I need to go back and watch his entire race on in-car camera, but how did you do this?
I remember looking down and seeing him spinning twice and three and four, and I'm like, he's having a bad day.
He rebounded.
Yeah, he rebounded really well.
I got a lot of thoughts on SVG.
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.
I'm walking and 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 and I'm like, oh, he's one of those guys from somewhere else.
Like a ring.
Honestly, most times 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 a substitute teacher.
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.
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.
No, O'Reilly Auto Parts.
O'Reilly.
With Colig.
And he does that.
And honestly, I didn't think it went that well.
He average.
He went average.
Did OK.
He didn't run as well on the road courses as I thought he would with Colig.
And not that he didn't win, but he just didn't run as dominant as I thought he would run.
And the ovals were just kind of blah, 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 Suarez, Chastain, Zane Smith.
He's got Zane Smith kind of like on a loaner deal.
Yeah.
Zane won the truck championship.
Yep.
But Zane was kind of like an up-and-coming star.
Yeah.
He's like, I got to make a decision.
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 Trackhouse.
You know, he's got Bush as a sponsor.
He's won races, almost won the championship in 22.
Ross is the, he's a solid guy.
So he had to make a decision right between Daniel or Zane.
It's like, OK.
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 Trackhouse 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, 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 Shane's not a 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.
He's probably going to win, yeah, three to five now.
And he's their, I think he's their highest car in points.
So, you know, I know we only have like a four race sample size.
But it's pretty good.
And 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.
That's exactly what's going through my mind.
I mean, it's dangerous if he gets to where he's just competitive.
Like, I don't mean dominant on ovals, but just competitive on the ovals.
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.
At worst.
As long as he doesn't, you know, blow an engine or get a track drive.
But I'm saying minus mechanical difficulties, he's going to be in top five regardless.
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 on the points.
Yes.
Like, he becomes like the guy at Trackhouse.
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 in points.
How many times has he spun out this year?
He spun out at Atlanta.
A couple.
All right.
I got to tell you a story.
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 Roush 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 because Greg had just passed away and we're
kind of reminiscing 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 a 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 isn't a dig on Greg.
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 manners.
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 go to test sessions and they'd spin out all the time, both of them.
And they'd tear my stuff up.
And I'd get back and I'd yell at them and tell them, stop wrecking my stuff.
Like, you know, in a way that only Jack could do.
And so what ended up happening is we'd start going to the test 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.
That's where it came from.
I'm 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 of them.
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.
Yep.
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 on things 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.
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Hey everybody, it's Dale Earnhardt Jr. here with another episode of the Dale Jr.
Download.
We've got a classic with Andy Petrie.
Listen, I know we're supposed to talk about all your days with Dale Earnhardt and Rad and
everything, but I still got one more I want to ask you about.
Okay.
Because this stuff is fascinating and I'm impressed.
I was watching an interview that Ray Evernham gave and where he was talking about this deck
lid at Daytona, he's one given that up.
Well, I guess.
I mean, it's on YouTube.
All right.
What did he say about it?
Well, the deck pen, the pens, like somehow.
Was it his?
No, yours.
Okay.
He said this is yours.
Yeah.
Where Earnhardt could lower.
No, it wasn't Earnhardt.
It was.
It was Harry Gantt.
It was Harry Gantt.
I've still got it.
I've still got the deck lid.
Is this on the same shelf?
It's close to it.
It's nice.
He's got a trophy case of all his books.
When it comes to selling your stuff, I want all those things.
I want you a little cheated up part.
Okay.
So we go to Daytona.
They came up with a spoiler angle rule.
I guess it was 89 or 90.
I can't remember what year it was.
And we had always been good.
Like I said, we won an 88 at Talladega finish third at 500.
So we're always good at speedways and exploiting all the rules.
Some of that spoiler angle was some of it.
Some of it was height.
So a lot of things that we, but Gary Nelson came along and really tightened up every, you know, this is his first going to be his first season as a series director.
And so you got to clean it all up now.
We can't be cheating.
They're going to check heights.
And so now all of a sudden we, we can't do our little things we were doing.
And we weren't very fast.
We were testing and we were really slow.
Motors were off at that time.
And I remember being on a plane coming back on this.
In my mind thing, what are we going to do?
I thought if I could figure out a way to get that spoiler to lay down and get it back up because they're going to check it post race.
And so I had in my mind before I even landed had in my mind how we could make the hinge, you know, and conceal it and how all that would work.
And I didn't have what I didn't have was an actuator for it.
And so I go, we got, I mean, I go to work on it.
As soon as we get back, me and a guy named Dean Jones worked in our shop and in a little locked up room on this thing.
Nobody knew.
And we get to sing all working the spoiler.
Hinge is perfect.
Everything's good.
I've got the back plate of the spoiler.
I do this little deal with silicone where it looks like it's welded, but it still has flexible and it's, you know, it's all good.
But I don't have a way to move it.
And I'm looking back then, no internet rights.
So you don't have a way to go to search this thing.
And I've looked in catalogs.
So one night I took my car that we drove is Osmobile Delta 88.
They gave us to drive, you know, so I'm driving it to the store and I get to the store, get some groceries and I pop the deck.
It pops up, you know, throw the groceries in the truck.
I shut the deck lid.
And if you remember these cars, they would click and then they would have this thing and just pull them down tight.
You know, and so soon as that happened, like as soon as they went to click and went.
Yeah.
I was walking to the driver's door and I went, whoa.
Wait a minute.
I popped that deck lid up.
I said, where is that thing?
What's doing that?
And so I take that thing right straight from the grocery store over to the shop and I pop that thing out and I find that little motor and it is dead.
Perfect.
It's got this little thing going up and down.
I'm thinking, man, this is perfect.
And so I take it.
I make this.
I go in there and fab up.
This is like eight o'clock at night.
I fab up this little thing to like hold the deck lid down this car, you know, and take that thing.
And then I had to buy another one, right?
Because I needed one on each side of the spoiler.
Okay.
So we start making all the little linkages and everything.
But it has perfect.
It had a little limit switch and we had it.
We could set it and we got it.
And it was nice.
Again, Leo Jackson not one that wants to cheat.
And so how did you engage it?
So, okay, that's, that's the key to it.
So we get it on the car.
I told Leo, so look, I wasn't going to do it without telling him.
He said he didn't want to do it.
I said, let me, let me put it on the car.
If you can find it, if you can find it, we won't run it.
Where was it?
Okay.
So we had a radio box.
Back then we had a different kind of radio system.
It was an analog thing and we put it in a box.
Everybody kind of had on their aluminum box that would keep out the interference and it's set on the tunnel.
The way we had ours right beside the driver and it had some switches on it and dials to turn the radio up and turn it on and off.
So we just put a little extra switch in there, a little freeway, like middle and up and down.
On the radio.
On the radio box.
And so I wired all the stuff through the roll bars.
I mean, the key to cheating is you got to do it right.
You got to really do the work.
And so we, we spent hours and hours doing this and concealed it up in the hinged part, you know, and all the stuff in the car.
Everything's ready.
Put it on there.
Check.
Okay.
So Leo checks the angle.
It's 45 or whatever the number was.
And he goes in there, starts looking at switches and he's raising the deck lid and he's looking at this and he's looking at that.
And he's, I mean, he's all over this thing.
Can I find it?
He said, I don't think it's on this car.
I reached in there to the radio box.
And the spoiler goes, yeah.
That would have been so good.
I'd be shitting my pants if I was you because.
I was, I was the whole time.
You're like, oh God, I just knew they were going to catch us.
I was, I mean, I was high guarantee.
I looked so guilty.
I couldn't stand it.
There was all over that thing.
I'm like, good Lord.
And we get it.
We get ready to qualify.
Rolls out there.
Gary Nelson is checking the spoiler angle.
The first day on the job.
Head of director.
He is supposed to be stopping all cheating.
He is doing it himself.
Instead of having somebody, he's at the, right before you go on the track, he's the one putting it on your car.
So I had it up a degree or so.
Just so I didn't have to mess with it.
Yeah.
Well, he says, knock it down.
I said, no, it's good.
I was wrong.
He said, no, he said, knock it down.
I'm like, oh God, my heart's going, you can see it beating through my shirt.
I guarantee you.
So I'm trying to get it to go.
It won't move, man.
It won't move.
It won't bend.
I mean, I've got linkages and everything, and finally it goes down a tenth or something.
And he finally says go.
And I was like, oh, so he takes off.
And at the end of pit road at Daytona, it's right close to the track.
And I'm standing there with my stopwatch.
I'm going to clock Harry when he comes by.
And you know, Gary's standing right there in front of me, checking the next guy's
spoiler.
I look at that car coming by and I think, and I went, God.
Visually.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, and Gary didn't even look over there.
He had a seat.
I mean, it was obvious.
Damn.
So after that, I said, yes, we got to get that deck lit off car.
I can't stand it anymore.
I just can't.
This is no way to live.
Uh-uh.
Back then they used to let you put the cars in the hauler.
And so we had another deck lid and I had them get in there and chop them wire and put
the stock deck lid on it.
And that way I could breathe for, you know, speed.
I couldn't do it for two weeks.
Right.
You only did it for qualify.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
You know what was bad with qualify third?
Yeah.
I found out years later, junior's cars were on the front row.
They were cheating more than we were.
All right.
That was another episode of the dirty 30 presented by Arby's new meet and three box.
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