Dale Jr. Download: Ask Jr. presented by Xfinity (Ep. 359)

kick it we are good deal hey everybody it's dale jr here for ask junior a great segment in the dell junior download podcast presented to you by xfinity a proud premiere partner of nascar and i hope you guys got a lot of great questions you've been sending them in every week to add xfinity racing on twitter and leah has been you know sifting through them and pulling out some of the good ones so we're going to do that again it's uh my favorite part of the show getting uh interact with our our listeners live you cannot beat it so let's get started and see what you got our first question is from matt reed with all the debate between 550 versus 750 packages road courses and short tracks versus one and a half milers and super speedways what constitutes a great race to you is it action-packed side-by-side racing through the whole field photo finishes how do you know if you've seen a good race that's a pretty good question man um well let's be quite honest if uh if your favorite driver wins that can be by uh multiple laps by by a nose if you're if your guy wins the race uh you're going to be happy so um you know there's days when i walked away from the racetrack thinking i had a great time saw a great race even though maybe the race itself uh wasn't full of action and um [Music] i think that uh what constitutes a great race is not side by side it's not tons of passing it's not a dominant seven second win it's none of those things what constitutes a great race to me is moments does the race have emotion does the race create emotion does the race bring me uh to feel something so you know we went to um we went to martinsville a couple years ago and danny hamlin and chase got into it and i really i really don't feel anything for either one of those drivers i don't cheer for them i don't wish they lose so what i'm trying to say is it wasn't about you know i didn't have i didn't have a driver in the game i didn't have someone i was pulling for but what happened between them and how how that all played out uh was exciting and i was like my goodness let me let me watch this this is interesting this is awesome and you could feel the race track and the energy in the grandstands everybody felt that way everybody was everybody was riled up and i thought this is what we should be we're you know producing every single week how do we get this how do we get this everywhere we go um it happened at bristol you know we we had moments in that race you know harvick and and and chase getting down into turn three chase coming out and taking a swipe at harvard as he passes him to get his lap back chase uh you know manipulating the the the the race to allow his teammate to pass harvick harvick uh you know after the race slamming his helmet the conversation that they had and them going into the holler the mystery of what they talked about um all those things you know drummed up some sort of emotion in all of us and that's what to me makes me want to come back to the racetrack you know we go to a short track and you show up at a local short track you know um you got the hot shot veteran that's been running there forever and he has a rival uh maybe it's a young kid that's come on to the scene that he's trying to teach a lesson but any whatever it is all right whatever the rivalry is they get a dust they get into each other and every time you know every time that they get near each other there's gonna be something and that's why you keep coming back you'll come back the next weekend to see those same two guys possibly get back into it and duke it out and a lot of these little short tracks around the country have that very thing going on that's what is great about racing it's the rivalries it's the emotion that it drums up out of us is viewers and fans and it's not about it's not necessarily about what the package is doing or what the cars are doing or how the cars react to each other or or whether there's a lot of lead changes or a lot of side-by-side racing those things are going to help because they're going to put the drivers in those positions to create those moments that are going to create that emotion so that's kind of what i think of when i think of a good race because i'll be honest it's been hard for me to answer that question using only statistics or only a visual you know i can't say to you man you know what it you know i can't say to you passing or i can't say side-by-side racing because i see a lot of side-by-side racing that's kind of boring uh not not exciting at times and um it's uh you know there's there's also been enough time has passed over the last couple of decades and we all say man it used to be this it used to be so good it used to be blah blah blah i feel like that's the way we are always going to feel right about the past it was always better when truly the racing today is just as good statistically just as exciting just just as you know full of statistics league changes and side by side racing and all that so um i i like you know i i have to i have to say that the good racing really lays on the shoulders and the responsibility of the drivers and their ability to go out there and give us moments and it's got to matter to them they've got to want to do anything to win and they got to be willing to do anything to each other to win and so you know we we uh you know we think about think about some of the key moments of of uh the history of the sport that you love you know i like the 1987 all-star race think about all the moments in that race all the contact all the all the uh frustration uh you know everything dad did to try to win everything bill elliott did to try to win the conversations and the interviews afterwards the the anger and the frustration and the the the tone of the voice in those interviews those are the those are the those are the races that i like i can't have that every week can't expect it every week but that's what makes this sport you know that's what makes you go back that's what makes you keep coming back and so um and that's why i love the short tracks because they tend to produce those type of moments more often you know that's why you know that's why i think uh you know our series would be beneficial to add more short tracks because that seems to be where the drama is found the most everybody's gonna have a different opinion about this i don't say i don't i don't know that mine is correct i don't know mine is right um and uh you know i'm open to listening to anyone else who thinks that they know what constitutes a good race next question from daryl montgomery why doesn't nascar allow teams to run tire pressure sensors seems like it would be a lot safer to know when a tire is going down yeah i don't know if that's yeah i don't think that's uh quite as important i you know a lot of times the tire's gonna get a puncture and the driver's gonna know it uh or it's gonna happen so fast the sensor wouldn't have done any done you any good to begin with um so yeah i think there needs to be a better i think there and you know i think there needs to be or could have been a better way to understand a loose lug nut you know or a wheel about to come off the car hopefully the new uh one lug nut rule is going to alleviate a lot of that problem but uh you know i think over the years man when those wheels come off those are some hard hits and i've experienced that myself and the frustrations you feel over that is is is pretty bad but um yeah so i think it would have been nice to have had some sort of you know technology and development in that uh to be able to keep uh you know to help teams and pit crews and drivers and everyone understand and eliminate some of that you know the loose wheels loose lug nuts and things like that vibrations and problems that come from that next question from justin petry what was the best racing advice you ever received and who gave it to you man that's a good question um technically uh to you know this is how you drive this track kind of advice i mean probably my best advice both came from my dad but um the most the only time he really ever told me to drive a racetrack or how to drive a racetrack was at bristol we went to bristol and i'd already raced there i think i'd race there i don't know if i was running the cup series or the xfinity series but i get there and i am way over my head and i'm trying way too hard i have no clue how to get around this race track and i'm driving the car way too deep into the corner and i'm i'm ruining every corner i go into and my laps are just not good and dad got on top of the truck and got on the radio and told me where to lift and so i'm driving this car and i come off the corner i'm in the gas i'm going down the straightaway and i get to the flag stand and dad says lift and i can go quite a ways further in the throttle and i've been doing that right and i'm like why why lift here that seems so weird to lift this early i can i can absolutely go further into the corner and uh i'm just you know but i'm like 30th or something in practice two tenths from probably what the car can do which is a lot at bristol and uh he's like lift the lift at the flag stand and i said all right i'll do that i lift the flag stand and as soon as i go over the crest i lifted the flag stand no breaks really not a lot of break because we're lifting so early and i crest over the hill into the corner and i start to land he goes get back in the gas i was like whoa this is way early i was like man i was getting in the gas way around the corner because i was driving in so far i was unable to get in the gas any sooner but i'm not getting gas here there's a whole lot of corner left but i get in the gas and man that car just wrapped right around the corner and popped back up off of the off the exit up on the next straightaway and he's like it's i mean as soon as you get up on the straightaway you go just a few feet and you're already halfway down the straightaway lift and i'm like holy moly so he took my throttle points and backed them around the racetrack so i was lifting sooner but getting in the gas a whole lot sooner and my lap time came right to me and uh you know so i started applying that thought to martinsville and and other other race tracks that we would go to and and that was the most uh specific advice that dad ever gave me about driving he never ever got that detailed again but the most broad advice that he gave me which i would give works for everyone it works everywhere it's really the you know the first rule of driving a race car and it's the exact same thing he was trying to tell me at bristol and that's slow down to go fast and when you're on your when you're up on your toes trying to work you're you're you have a tendency to to fall over you know to to to fall on your face you got to be calm you got to have your feet planted and you cannot be rushing what you're doing and so a driver's tendency when they first you know when they're first getting into racing and first drive first getting into driving a car once they get brave enough right you're timid and you you definitely you don't go out there and just go crazy but once you get brave enough uh you start to try hard and you start to try too hard and you start to drive the car too deep into the corner and uh that's always going to be the absolute worst mistake that you can make as a driver and when you can understand that backing off sooner and getting on the gas sooner is going to be the best way to get around every race track you go to in terms of oval racing when you understand that and start and that starts to sink in you start to apply that on the racetrack that's around when you start to really start to have success and you're it's better on the tires it's better on the brakes it's better on the car it's better on you it's easier to do and it's the way to produce the best lap time and so you know trying to figure out how to you know trying to tell a driver to slow down to to go faster it's kind of the the first you know first real hurdle to get over once you uh once you get to once you get your once you get brave enough to start really driving the car and trying to muscle the car around the track and so that was one of the things we talked about earlier in my career just over driving the car you're over driving it you're driving too deep into the corner i'm like well how that's what you're supposed to do i want to drive in deeper than anyone else that's how you win no it's not when you drive in too deep you're going to go slower because you got you can you're not going to make the corner your exit's going to be worse your next straightaway is going to be slower then you're going to overdrive the next corner and you're just going to keep compounding this you know making this lap worse and worse and so you know that was kind of the one thing you learned right out of the gate and then we went to bristol and and the reason why he got more specific with me at bristol is because overdriving the car was so easy to do and what i would the how i had to under drive it was so profound he didn't think i would ever discover it on my own he had to actually teach me like this is going to feel like you're lifting way too early but this is the best way next question from levi weidner what are your thoughts on the potential portland race it's been in the rumor mill yeah i don't know i mean kind of been we've been out there before well i don't even know what shape the place is in it's a road course um yeah i don't know doesn't do anything for me what do you buy does what do you think matthew yeah that's the way i feel so i'm kind of i'm it doesn't do anything for me now you know if if you're out in portland you're excited about this i'm happy for you if you want to go to the racetrack and you're thrilled that they're coming there um that's a good thing that's the whole point but for me uh i'm you know it's just adding another row course and we've we've added a lot of row courses over the year all these other ideas uh um the coliseum possibility of a street course somewhere like chicago all those things are you know we had you know phelps sit down here what over 12 months ago yes about a year and said we're getting back to you know we're going back to what what helped us get to where we are right we're getting back not to our roots but we're gonna we're not gonna try to reinvent the wheel we're not gonna try to i took it as we're not going to try to introduce a lot of new we're going to try to bring back some of the old that you know and that made me think okay well we're going to we're going to we're going to maybe introduce a couple short tracks we're going to do less mile and a halfs we're not going to try any kind of new gimmicky thing right but it just seems like that there's a few new gimmicks coming down the pike anyhow um not to say that the coliseum thing won't be great uh it's an ex you know it's exhibition it's it's a it's a test it's a try it's it should be it's a short track which it's extremely short but um you know it is a short track so it should be pretty aggressive what will the drive it will be really on the driver's shoulders so if we go to do if we when we go to the coliseum race that that working or not working i think will be the responsibility of the drivers right they've got to go and they've got to want to duke it out and i think that's what this is i think the coliseum ideas to try to force them into a position where they have to fight it out and so if they do if they're willing to go push each other around a little bit that'll be a pretty fun deal but i'm not interested in road courses all that much all right guys that's all we have time for today all right man that's some great questions i you know it really was we got we got uh we got a lot of we got a lot of hard hitting questions there for for some great uh for some great uh listeners and uh i enjoyed it what'd you think mike i i liked it i had a lot of other questions that i had that i had out of your answers to be honest with you but uh we'll save that for another time we need a longer podcast um we need a longer ass junior i know i got some good ones for everybody on the youtube chat i do save your questions so we will try to get to them at some point yeah good point well those are some great questions i know there's some great concerns too all of our fans out there uh in the nascar world and it's uh the future is interesting it's going to be interesting to see where this uh where we're going over the next couple of years and there's a lot of new ideas on the horizon but um ask juniors presented to you by xfinity they're a proud premier partner of nascar they do a lot for our show they also do a lot for this sport and we're very thankful for them and keep sending your questions in to uh xfinity racing on twitter over the next week leah will be answering them uh and uh leo will be uh putting them together for us so we can answer them and you guys have a uh have a great week we got robert presley on the show and that's going to be a lot of fun he was in one episode of lost speedways in season one really a fun character and i can't wait to get him in the studio to be able to talk to him and see what all he's got going on pretty honest guys so i'm sure he's gonna he's gonna tell us all all the goods but uh you guys take it easy

Channel: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media

Views: 44,947

Rating: 4.9471035 out of 5

Keywords: Dale Jr. Download, Dale Jr., Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR, Dale Jr. podcast, Dirty Mo Media, Ask Jr.

Id: MOVIem3yTEo

Length: 21min 11sec (1271 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/SUPERSONIC_NECTARINE]

This applies really to any form of racing with turns- slow in, fast out!

[u/flcknzwrg]

I don't watch oval racing and am not american so I don't know much about Dale Jr apart from a couple of things most race fans around the world will know I guess... but seeing this I start to understand why he is so popular. He comes across as very likeable.

Anyway, really good advice obviously.

[u/beav910]

The slow in fast out mantra always gets me dumped in t1 lap 1.

[u/coolcalmcasey]

The link is time stamped but if it doesn’t work for whatever reason, the question begins at 10:14.