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Sharing Our Favorite Rowdy Stories
Sharing Our Favorite Rowdy Stories
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About this episode
Kyle Busch’s passing opens the Dirty 30 highlights, with the hosts talking through disbelief, grief, and how hard it’ll be to see his car out there. Between tributes and “tastefully” handled moments, they swap Rowdy-style race-day stories—qualifying drama, fan boos, and early Daytona tension that carried into Fontana. The conversation also turns to Kyle Busch’s Hall of Fame case, including unanimous selection, win totals, and even an “over 40 rule” idea for Truck Series eligibility.
Coming off a heavy weekend for the sport, all of our hosts took time to acknowledge the passing of Kyle Busch, offer support for his family, and tell stories about the Rowdy they knew.
Dale Jr. starts us off by sharing about the final text conversation he had with Kyle about racing one of his late models and how Rowdy never truly wanted to be labeled as a villain of the sport.
Over on Door Bumper Clear, Freddie Kraft invited longtime spotter of Kyle Busch, Tony Hirschman, and broadcasting phenom, Eric Brennan, to discuss Rowdy, his Hall of Fame career, and the incredible number of wins.
In this week's Actions Detrimental, Denny and Jared recall the time when Kyle decided to race through New York City on foot to win a bet, and the bond that he and DH shared as teammates.
Lastly, Amy opens up about the loss of a friend in KFB and her favorite memory of him.
It's hard to believe he's gone, but it is the stories we tell that will keep him alive - so share yours with us. We will see you all next week on Dirty Thirty.
Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Term
scheme
"[184.6s] And I was like, hey, man, you know, he's texting me and he's like, [189.5s] what scheme are we going to run?"
In racing, a “scheme” is basically the game plan. It can mean how the car is set up and how they plan to race it.
In racing talk, a “scheme” is the planned approach—most commonly the car’s race setup and strategy for how it will be driven and tuned for conditions. Here, the speaker and the other person are deciding what plan to use for the race.
Place
Fontana
"[219.2s] And my sister sent me this text, a picture of him coming out on the intro. [224.7s] I think it was at Fontana. [227.0s] And they had announced, we're behind this."
Fontana is a place in California that hosts big stock-car races. The speaker is saying the picture was from an event there.
Fontana refers to the Fontana area in California, where major NASCAR-related events have historically been held at the Auto Club Speedway (formerly California Speedway). The speaker is referencing a moment from an event there.
Term
lower series
"Then there's the number of races in the lower series. [825.4s] How many more would he have won if they didn't do that?"
“Lower series” means the NASCAR divisions below the top-most series. They’re like the other levels of NASCAR where drivers can still win championships, but the rules and schedules can be different.
In NASCAR, “lower series” usually means the feeder or support divisions below the top Cup level, such as the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series. Drivers often move between these tiers, and rules there can affect how many races they can enter and win.
Term
over 40 rule
"Steve O'Donnell said at the media briefing that Kyle texted him Tuesday and said, [832.8s] you should really have an over 40 rule because I want to run the whole truck season"
The “over 40 rule” is an age-based rule NASCAR uses for eligibility. It can restrict what races or series a driver is allowed to compete in, which changes their chances to run an entire season.
The “over 40 rule” is a NASCAR eligibility restriction tied to a driver’s age. In practice, it can limit which series a driver is allowed to enter, which affects whether they can run a full season in a given category.
Term
truck season
"you should really have an over 40 rule because I want to run the whole truck season"
“Truck season” means the NASCAR series where the races are for pickup trucks. “Run the whole truck season” means racing most or all of the events in that series.
“Truck season” refers to NASCAR’s Truck Series, where teams race pickup trucks rather than cars. Running the whole truck season means committing to the full schedule of that series, not just a few events.
Term
points paying ones
"95 plus the late model stuff. [869.9s] Those are just points paying ones."
“Points paying ones” are races that count toward the championship standings. Some special races don’t count the same way, so people might leave them out when talking about totals.
“Points paying ones” means races that count toward the official championship points standings. Some events may be exhibitions or special races that don’t award the same points, so they’re excluded from the tally.
Select text to request an explanation
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 in.
Let's get right to it.
This episode of the Dirty 30 is presented by Arby's new meat and three box.
Get more meal for your money at Arby's.
We have the meats.
Well, the first thing I want to get to, obviously, is the passing of Kyle Busch.
And, you know, that was extremely still difficult to believe.
I think a lot of people were, I don't know, I'm going to ramble here.
This might make much sense, but over the last couple of days, you know,
I've been texting back and forth with a lot of people about the disbelief and the, you know,
the shock of it.
And I was, one thing that I learned was Kyle was, Kyle, you kind of surprised, I guess,
how much he was talking and communicating with people over the last handful of days.
People that I didn't know that he had relationships and friendships or communication with,
other drivers and so forth.
And we've learned, what I've enjoyed, I guess, is learning more about Kyle the person.
You know, we know who he is on the racetrack.
We know how he is on the racetrack and in the media and so forth
and what he was like at the track with the suit on and in that environment.
And I knew him on a personal level.
Probably you did too, TJ.
Yeah, I saw him, yeah.
But hearing how he interacted and how he was to others, the, you know,
the joke they may have shared in a text or just, I don't know, you know,
I've really enjoyed learning how, who he was away from the track
and how he interacted and engaged or treated or talked to other people.
And it's been good.
It's been a good, I've gotten a good feeling about it.
I was texting with him the day before he passed away about getting together this Thursday
to bring his seat for his late model over to my shop because we had agreed
that he was going to race our car in the cars tour.
He's going to race my late model in the cars tour.
And I was like, hey, man, you know, he's texting me and he's like,
what scheme are we going to run?
And I was like, you can run any scheme you want.
I was like, what number do you want to run?
I was like, you got, I got a, you know, we can run 51, whatever you want to run.
And he goes, I want to run the, and he said it literally, the Dale junior eight.
That's cool.
And I was like, you got it.
That's what's on it right now.
We'll run the Dale junior eight.
And he's given me a head explosion, exploding emoji.
And he said, race fans.
Not a bad ass.
And so, yeah.
And my sister sent me this text, a picture of him coming out on the intro.
I think it was at Fontana.
And they had announced, we're behind this.
We're, this is the Hendrick days when I was at Hendrick and he was in the Eminem's car.
And he's like, hey, I'd qualified in front of him.
And he, he was like, or I'd call, I was getting ready to get announced.
I guess I qualified behind him and he was like, they're going to announce you.
I'm going to walk out.
He's like, I want to mess with the fans.
I'm like, yeah, go ahead.
So they announced me and he walked out and they're cheering, you know, and he comes out in waves.
So he loved, you know, we talked about it a little bit, I think on this show some,
but he kind of loved the, the, to poke and prod.
He was a showman.
He loved the kid, the dynamic between our fans.
And so I, you know, I really, I just really have a hard time believing that he, he passed.
And I think that, that's going to take a while.
You know, I think it's going to take a while.
No, it's one of the things you don't want to have to come to terms with in life.
You don't want to believe it.
Yeah.
I've, I've really enjoyed just hearing some of the, some of the stories and the other thing too.
And I think I said the kind of trying to allude to this on the broadcast was at the front of the show.
So Kyle, Kyle in his, in the, in a large majority of his career.
If I could take a stab, if I could take it, you know, stab it, how, how I think Kyle thought and what kind of person he was.
He, he was so frustrated that he was kind of cast the villain.
Kurt had had some, you know, struggles and run ins with different drivers with Jimmy Spencer and so forth.
And there was sort of this, there was a bit of a negative tone around Kurt at that point.
And Kyle comes in and had been cast in a negative way.
And he, I remember him saying, that wasn't fair.
I got, you know, I, people have made this assumption about me that wasn't fair.
And I think his first race at Daytona in the 500, his first year, he made a couple of moves on the back straightaway and me and Tony Stewart made a comment to the media about it.
And it was really nothing more than same things we would say about it.
You know, same things they said about me, you know, he's got to figure it out.
It was a little reckless, you know, I wouldn't have made that move, that kind of stuff.
We get to Fontana maybe a week or two later and he comes walking by the car on the way to his car and he stopped at my car and oh, I'm on the passenger side.
I mean, I'm on the driver's side.
No, he's on the passenger side and he said something over the roof of the car like, man, you better watch it.
What you're saying in the media.
And I was like, what?
You know what?
That was weird.
He's mad.
You know, he took that really personal, right?
That was not that big of a deal.
And so we kind of never got, we didn't get off on the best foot.
And then, so I think Kyle wanted to be liked.
Kyle wanted to be a fan favorite.
He was.
There's fans of his listening to this show going, he was a fan favorite.
He had fans.
He did.
He did.
But he wanted, he didn't love being the guy that they booed.
He didn't want that.
He didn't choose prefer to be polarizing.
But he had to lean.
He kind of just had to embrace and lean into it at some point.
And so he did.
And, but he didn't prefer that.
He didn't want that.
When you win like that, you're going to get booed back.
They booed Darryl Watcher in 82, 83 when he's driving a due car and winning every week.
They booed the hell out of that man.
Part of it.
Yes.
I think he learned that.
Yeah.
Over time for sure.
But I, he wanted to, so Kyle as he's, he's, I think deep down in there.
Kyle wanted affirmation and he wanted approval.
He wanted people to recognize his statistics, his greatness, his, his wins.
He wanted everybody to, he kept winning, right?
And he went and look around and go, look at what I'm doing.
You know?
And where is, you know, where is the acknowledgement?
Right?
Look at what I've done.
He wanted that.
And we all weren't as quick to give it to him.
So he would keep, he would keep trying to, you know, I'm a win 100, 100 rally races.
I'm a win.
I'm going to be the most, I'm going to be the, I'm going to win more races in this.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to win at every racetrack that I run on in the NASCAR world.
And he just had these little milestones and things that he wanted to achieve.
He's vocal with him too.
And he was vocal with him because he's like, when are y'all going to acknowledge this?
You know?
And he was frustrated, I think that people weren't as quick to celebrate him like they
might Richard Petty or Daylearn Hart, you know?
And, you know, that, that bothered him a little bit.
I think once he, you know, I think Samantha helped him a lot with that.
Being married, becoming a father, some of the priorities shifted.
All right.
Spot on spot off.
Kyle Busch should instantly be added to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Ready?
Well, I'm going to say spot off.
I mean, he should be, he's going to be a Hall of Famer, but I want to say spot off just
for the fact that I want Kyle to be, and this is a call out to all you and everybody else
in that room.
I want Kyle to be the first unanimous selection to the Hall of Fame.
So I think he should, whatever the waiver period is that he's got to wait for retirement
should be waived.
He should be on the ballot for next year.
And anybody that doesn't vote for him gets their hard card taken away, essentially.
Period.
You know, that's just the way I feel about it.
You know, yes.
You know, I saw, I think Jeff and Jordan were talking about this, like Roberto Clemente
died in a plane crash and they kind of waived it and had their own special vote for him
just by himself.
And I mean, they could do that for Kyle.
Then he will definitely be 100% because there's nobody else to vote for essentially.
But I really want him to go through the process.
And even timing wise now, like it doesn't feel right to just add him in there when everybody's
still kind of grieving and stuff.
Like let it kind of settle and then he should start collecting his accolades, I think.
I'll say this, knowing Kyle, like when he would roll the racetrack on a weekend, he wouldn't
want to just be handed the trophy.
And I think he likes going through the part of what drove him and what got him fired up
was going through the process and just going out and showing everybody like, hey, I'm a
badass and I'm going to go out and earn this trophy.
So like with the Hall of Fame, I agree with like the maybe wave in the the couple of your
retirement thing.
But I think Kyle would appreciate more having going through the process and having everybody
like this guy is one of the greatest of all time.
And like you said, the 100% like there shouldn't be anybody that says Kyle Bush is not going
to Hall of Fame this year.
So I think he would appreciate it more.
Obviously he's earned it.
I don't want to misspeak or word it improperly, but I think he would get more of enjoyment
out of it seeing everybody go there and vote and everybody's telling good stories and
then be like, yep, Kyle, you're in because we all think you've earned it and everybody
in this room agrees with that.
I mean, he's got to be.
Listen, you better vote for him.
I was going to say, you're in the room.
Listen, I mean, I agree with with both of you guys.
I mean, I think it is too early.
I mean, let's it's devastating.
All right, let's let's give the people that earned it right now a chance to enjoy that.
The only thing I hope hope that we all come to agreement is allow three in next year.
All right, because there there's it's the same thing that keeps happening like right.
Let's let's just.
Yeah, this is the car bushes in.
OK, Martin Truex is going to be, you know, part of it.
All right, let's do three, not just two, because then you're going to have, you know, yeah.
Eric, as a race fan, I have said on here before and the number the number changes.
I think it's at 234 now 234 career NASCAR wins top three series.
Is that a more impressive stat than Richard Petty's 200 cup wins?
Well, I look at Kyle and the fact that I mean, how many rules did he make?
Did NASCAR have to change for him?
There was the age thing at California back in 2000 because Marlboro was sponsoring the
the IndyCar race that weekend and they wouldn't let him run the truck.
Then there's the number of races in the lower series.
How many more would he have won if they didn't do that?
And then Steve O'Donnell said at the media briefing that Kyle texted him Tuesday and said,
you should really have an over 40 rule because I want to run the whole truck season
and he probably would have been the first driver ever to win a championship in all three series.
Man, I and also I think the era that Kyle did it in is has been tougher, the toughest
and the most competitive that we've ever seen our sport.
So not to take anything away from what Richard accomplished and the number of times that
they were racing in a calendar year back then.
I would say so.
I agree.
Hershey agree with that.
You won 100 homes.
How many did you win?
95 plus the late model stuff.
Those are just points paying ones.
I don't count the all star races in the open.
I've seen somebody else had 234 plus 102.
102 possibly with all the other races.
I've seen a couple of people had some pictures of that of 234 plus 102.
Maybe that's the legend car remains and all those things that we were starting to try
to stretch for a reality nation.
Obviously, there's been a lot to be said about, you know, Kyle Bush and his impact.
And I did a lot of interviews over the week, not necessarily because I wanted to do them,
but I thought it was like, are you honor his legacy by getting a story out there?
You know, you go on these different shows and morning shows.
I think I went on Good Morning America and others.
And it was like, you know, these are not typically our fans that would be watching this.
So like, let's get, let's get the story out there and did sports center with Marty Smith,
me and a few drivers did that as well.
But Jared, you didn't get interviewed this week or weekend,
but obviously you posted on your social kind of the your favorite moment, which,
which I liked a lot.
It was, you know, was that kind of your first interaction with Kyle?
It was.
So like I, I was with you Thursday afternoon, right?
When, when we got the news and then I drove home and was home that night.
And I'd posted a few snippets of that, of that's that moment on my Instagram story.
And I went to bed and I woke up like a few times throughout the night, just like still
thinking about that.
And I was like, man, I feel like I'm not doing it justice and I need to share the whole
thing, right?
The few moments that I put on my story earlier in the evening, just like, was it enough?
So yeah, I put that together at, I don't know, it was like 4am or something.
But yeah, it was my first, first moment and really want to think back to it.
It was my first significant moment in NASCAR.
You know, like for me, I grew up watching the sport.
I grew up playing all the video games.
I knew every driver.
I very much was brought up in NASCAR.
So like when I started working in it with you, I had a background in it, right?
And I looked at all of you guys as these larger than life figures.
And that moment, I mean, there was a championship for you, Martin Tricks Jr., Kyle Busch, Kevin
Harvick at the time, right?
You guys are the four, right?
And yeah, and growing up, I only knew Kyle from his persona of Rowdy on Sundays, right?
He was brash, take no prisoners.
It was always good for a sound bite.
So I'm thinking like, oh my God, I got to run through New York with this guy.
Like, this is quite intimidating.
You know, who am I?
I'm just this young 25 year old who doesn't really...
Camera totem.
Yeah, who like doesn't really belong here.
And yeah, Kyle was just, he was, he was super welcoming.
And I just, that one, when we got back to the hotel, I handed him my phone.
I was like, okay, now like record like a selfie or something.
And he's like, here we are.
We made it back to the hotel.
I beat these guys and did it here with my little buddy.
And I was like, wow, I just got some recognition from Kyle.
I was like, now we're going to go to the racetrack and he's not going to blow me off.
Like now I can say hi to him as we pass.
And that never really happened.
But yeah, that was my first interaction.
And the last one, a few weeks ago, we did a little Hendrick Kars shoot with, with Kyle Larson.
And Kyle was obviously driving the seven Spire Hendrick Kars truck or was supposed to drive that truck on Friday here at Charlotte.
And so we did a little photo shoot with him.
And that was right after he did that interview where he was talking about you saying he, you know, he didn't still have it, whatever, all of that.
So I was thinking, I was like, man, I got to go face to face here with Kyle.
I got like walking through what I have planned for him.
I got to take his head shot.
I'm like, he's probably going to give me and again, I'm just like a little intimidated because it's Kyle Busch.
And he, he didn't do that at all.
He was, he was awesome to work with.
He didn't give us a hard time whatsoever.
He was great in every way.
So that head shot that I posted that, you know, led that story about the pennies and running through New York was the last time that I interacted with him a few weeks ago here here in Charlotte.
Yeah, I mean, we were, I was actually surprised to hear that we've been teammates longer than anyone else in history.
NASCAR.
Wow.
Yeah.
15 years.
There'll be, there'll be teammates that pass that down the line, you know, the eventually like Byron and Elliott and Larson, those guys, they started really young.
So they'll, I'm sure they'll pass it one day.
But yeah, we were teammates for a very long time, 15 years.
And I don't know what our head to head record is, but I can tell you what it felt like.
It felt like most weeks we were running second to the 18.
And so just really, really good.
He was one of the very few guests we had on this podcast.
People ask all the time, why don't you have this driver on that driver on like, yeah, just not a great interviewing guy.
But Cal made it really easy because it was just like we'd just been cutting it up about all these old stories and stuff.
I remember that before he came on, you were, you were like, what are we going to talk about?
You know, like, and then as soon as he gets on happens, it just happens.
And you guys had a great hour and a half conversation.
Yeah, it's good.
And certainly, you know, I saw the transition of him over the years and kind of how, you know, he went from being really young and in my mind kind of immature and to just starting a family and getting married.
And the evolution of him, his personality on and off the racetrack, it just, it changed a lot.
And it was, it was definitely a pleasure to see that.
And, you know, sometimes you, you become better friends when you're not teammates.
It was like that for me with Tony Stewart, many other my ex teammates just, you know, you just, you don't appreciate them until they're gone.
And then like, then you have that, you know, that, that, that friendship bond that starts.
And so it was good to, you know, have that last appearance with them there at Dover.
It was kind of unexpected, unplanned.
He was early, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, he was early and he came on when I did.
And I think it was like the track side with Monica and those guys.
So it was good.
And, you know, you just never thought, you know, it's such a shock and it's such a, it's so unexpected and doesn't seem real because, you know, I mentioned it when we did TV was, you know, you think of these people as larger than life.
So like surely they're, they can't, they can't be taken out.
Nothing can, they're invincible.
Right.
And so it's just a crazy, unfortunate set of circumstances and, you know, we're, you know, definitely racing, racing his honor from here on out.
Yeah.
I think you said it best in your, your interview sports center with Marty Smith on Sunday and Steve O'Donnell said the same thing is that Kyle Busch is NASCAR.
He, he is NASCAR.
What is NASCAR?
Well, to the casuals, right?
Like it was just a name that casuals knew.
I knew it and I was new to the sport.
Like I didn't grow up watching the sport, but I knew Kyle Busch, M&Ms, like you knew who this guy was.
Well, because he won.
Yeah.
And, and so, you know, when it plays on the ESPN ticker at the bottom, who won the NASCAR race, yeah, Kyle Busch wins, Kyle Busch wins.
And he did it 63 times.
So it just was a name that like kind of picked up a little bit where, you know, the Jeff Gordon's retired, things like that.
Now, as Jeff Gordon's retiring, Kyle's hitting his prime.
And it was just a casual name that, or a name that casuals knew about NASCAR.
Like, hey, name three NASCAR drivers that one of the very first they've named is Kyle Busch.
So, yeah, it's, you know, the family just showed tremendous courage, you know, come to the racetrack and subjecting yourselves to being out there.
And, you know, a great moment caught Kyle Arson's son, Owen, you know, going up and giving Brexton a hug.
So just, oh, it's just the heart wrenching for sure.
I didn't get to see any of that.
I was on the grid.
And so, you know, where I'm at, I can't see anything.
I had no view of the jumbo tron there.
So couldn't, couldn't see any of what was going on pre-race, but obviously saw the highlights on social media.
But yeah, just, you know, we just are going to think about the family.
And obviously, Samantha, Brexton, anything that they need from us, from me personally, then we're going to go above and beyond.
Samantha was one of the first people that helped my mom after the fire.
You know, she was able to contribute and reached out and helped us.
And so that family is very, very caring and our thoughts are with her.
We went and did the race this weekend.
And, you know, there was a ton of, you know, focus on that and a lot said around Kyle and everything.
And, you know, this is your kind of first public opportunity to speak about it.
It is. We have been thinking about Samantha and the kids heavily praying for them every day.
But I just wanted to send our condolences and let everyone know that we too are really sad.
And it's been a lot, we've been talking about it every day and can't believe that it actually happened.
So trying to wrap our heads around that he's gone.
And I couldn't believe that she was at the racetrack.
I was taken aback by how strong she was to do that.
Yeah, we talked about it on our Tuesday show.
Yeah.
We were in the booth.
It was five minutes before we were getting ready to start ceremonies and kind of hit the go button.
And I had no one knew. I didn't know she was there.
But somebody, Steve said, they're here.
Yeah.
Steve grabbed me by the shoulder and said, hey, Samantha and the kids are here.
And I mean, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
I know.
I was like, really? They're here? I couldn't believe it.
I was sitting on the couch and we had just gotten back from Texas.
And I went to go visit my family and celebrated my grandfather's 90th birthday,
which was so fun and amazing.
But then I get home and then engulfed again with just being sad and mourning a friend.
But I'm sitting on the couch watching the pre-show.
We're going to watch you. The girls are watching you.
And I was thinking to myself, I wonder what she's doing to keep herself busy
and what's her day look like right now.
And all of a sudden she's on the screen.
And I was unwell trying not to cry now.
But yeah, we're just really sad for them.
Yeah.
Well, that was a lot of fun memories too.
And I wanted to share one of my favorite ones about Kyle.
Please.
Okay.
So I'll be honest with you.
That's like my favorite thing about these last several days is hearing all of the fun stories.
Because I have known, listen, I don't want to rob your moment.
But I knew Kyle for the longest time as an extremely tough competitor.
And, you know, we, you know, we had a tough, you know, I said, I said in my quote,
my tweet that I don't know if I chose the perfect word for it,
but our existence was tough for a while.
It was like two magnets that didn't, they didn't go together.
Like they wanted, they wanted to fit, but they just couldn't figure that out.
I like to be friends with everybody and it bothers me when I'm not.
And, but I, you know, we just, we weren't able to, I didn't know, you know, how to,
I don't know that, you know, I don't know, but we just, we had the wrong idea of each other.
Yeah, for sure.
But it's fun how it's been great last couple of days here and all of these stories about him, the person.
He did have a very different side to him.
He did.
And the very first time we got to see that, to be honest, was, it was Daytona 500 week
and I don't know what year this was.
He was running the M&M's car and we're in the bus just hanging out in Biden time.
Dale Jr. doesn't like to chit chat, have friends over.
We're not playing around.
We're not, we're not like having a lolly gag kind of weekend.
When he's there to race, his game face, so to speak, is on and that's, that's what we're doing.
And so we don't have a lot of knocks on the door.
Basically, I'm in a sh** dude.
He's in a sh**.
He has moved.
Since the moment I get to the track.
He is grumpy because he feels like that's the only way to get through the weekend is to just be focused.
Well, it's just like, I'm not.
And he's stressed about his performance.
I don't want people to get the wrong idea.
I'm not, not wanting to be there.
It's just, I want to practice well.
I want to race well.
He wants it all to go well.
I want it all to go well.
And it's like, let's just get out there and get to, get to doing it.
Yeah.
So sitting around in the, in the bus was a lot of silence or watching TV or eating or whatever we're doing.
Not a lot of like playing around.
We get a knock on the door and there's a little window above the door.
And so usually he's sitting on the couch and I'm messing around.
And so I look out and I'm like, it's Kyle Busch.
Uh-oh.
Drivers don't come over just to hang out.
Usually when a driver comes to knock on the door, they have words.
There's something that needs to be discussed.
Same thing with the crew chief.
They don't just come over to hang out.
And so I'm like, Dale, it's Kyle Busch.
And he goes, no shit.
I was like, yeah, it's Kyle.
And I'm like, I'm not answering it.
You got to get over here.
So he comes up off the couch and peeks out the door and he just kind of like props it open a little bit.
It's like, Hey man, what's up?
And I could hear him audibly say very loudly, happy Valentine's Day.
And he's got bags of M&Ms to share.
And both of us were kind of like, really?
You brought candy?
He's like, yeah, man, happy Valentine's Day.
There's pink.
There's red.
There's all kinds of flavors here.
He gave him like four or five bags of candy.
And then went on his business.
Like he was giving candy to everybody.
And Dale and I just looked at each other like, holy smokes.
I can't believe he was smiling.
He was happy.
It was like a version of Kyle I hadn't ever seen before either.
He came up in there.
He did?
Yes.
He'd come up in the bus about, you know, into the kitchen area.
Okay.
So he just came right up the stairs.
Yeah.
The door is right in the middle of the bus.
I don't remember coming in.
He did just hand the M&Ms and leave.
In my mind, it was a very short lid.
I joked with him.
I said, I joked with him when he handed them to me.
I said, are these safe to eat?
Yeah.
Well, so, yeah.
I thought he was poison them.
And Kyle said, no, they're safe, but we put them in the freezer anyway.
We didn't eat them.
And Dale's like, I ain't touching them until we get home at least.
Because there is no way he's going to give me laxatives or whatever it might be.
That was before this race starts.
It was really nice to see Kyle in that moment.
And from then on, I feel like both of us kind of looked at him in a different way.
And so, and he put himself out there.
I mean, there was a risky move coming by not to know what mood you were going to be in
either, just to share some candy.
Yeah.
So I thought it was wonderful.
Yeah.
It was like the beginning of a new road.
It was the very beginning of us sort of starting to, you know, be friendly.
Be friendly.
Yep.
Yes.
I feel like I'll always think of him too now when I look at a bag of M&Ms.
Especially the yellow ones.
Oh, hell yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
It's going to be tough going to the races over the next several weekends and not seeing
his car out there.
And there'll be a lot of tributes and moments.
And everybody's trying to figure out how to do those tastefully.
Yeah.
Even here at Junior Motorsports, we're kicking around ideas and so forth.
But yeah, I mean, it's something I've experienced through the industry when there's loss and
there's processing and...
It's hard to know what to say.
It's hard to know how to support.
There ain't...
Everyone's different.
And everyone's experience with it is different.
There ain't the right words.
No.
There's not like this...
No.
There ain't...
That's the...
There is not the perfect thing to say.
You just say what you feel and that's how...
That's the best you can do.
And there is...
You know, when you talk to somebody who's grieving or somebody who's dealing with loss, you have
to tell them, like, there's no magic button to push or there's not...
You know, you just have to work through it every single day and...
Yeah.
And everybody grieves in their own way.
Everybody handles it differently.
That's true.
So...
It's actually Monday, this coming Monday.
So she's got a lot on her plate and hopefully she can find a little joy at least on that
day.
Well, I'm going to tell you, man, that was amazing.
That moment, I'll never forget it.
I don't think I've...
I mean, I'll never forget how all the industry, all the drivers, everyone that was standing
around behind them and the emotion on everyone's face.
So...
All right, don't forget about stopping by the online merch store.
We have some new stuff dropping called the Zero to Freedom Line.
This drops on May the 6th.
Let's take a look at some of these shirts in the Zero to Freedom Line.
Look at that.
Full send since 2013.
Nice one, man.
Good, cleaned on the front and on the back.
You got the American flag with a bunch of, uh, looks like some Gen 5 racecars.
Star stripes and stock cars.
And then another clean front there on the blue Dirty Mo and, again, the Eagle.
Zero to Freedom.
And if you don't want sleeves, you'll get this number.
Check it out at shop.dirtymomedia.com.
May the 6th.
A couple of those new shirts will be on there for you guys to enjoy.
All right, that was another episode of the Dirty 30 presented by Arby's new Meetin'
3 Box.
Get more meal for your money at Arby's.
We have the meat.
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