Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Better Late Than Never

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Spire continues to make moves, this time buying KBM. NASCAR 101 on the Next Gen car and the money spent on parts. The 2024 schedule is a slow leak. The truck series saw a crazy fight. Who is to blame? Ryan Blaney punches his ticket to the round of 8. Why there are less wrecks. The downside of working with teammates and manufacturers on the track. Ricky Stenhouse causes wreck after running out of fuel. Denny caught speeding. Kevin Harvick disqualified. Who is nervous going into the Roval. And, Chase Elliott still alive in the owners playoffs. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The witnesses is mom, though. That's like, I need more witnesses than that, right? Well, I think about my mother. Would she lie? No way. My mom wouldn't lie on what she saw or whatever. Like, she would be factual. She would tell you, Denny was talking shit, and someone just clocked his ass.

The following is a production of Dirtymoe Media. Hey, guys, welcome to actions detrimental. I'm Denny Hamlin. My co-host is Jared Allen. this episode is presented by our sponsor the Birch goal group. We have a bunch of off-track action this week. A lot of news. We'll touch on that first.

What do you want to go over first? We're recording on a Tuesday? Yeah, we're good point. See, you just threw an audible in here. I'm sitting here, we got our little list of what are we going to go over. I've got ideas in my head that are not on this sheet. You know, Jared's just like, it's Tuesday. I did.

I called in sick yesterday. So sorry to all the listeners were a day late, but we ain't going to leave you hanging. People were starting to freak out last night. The tweets were coming in. I mean, they were probably like, what's wrong with Jared? You know, is he okay?

Yeah. Yeah, you. Because you're the guy that gets yelled out all the time at the track now. Where's Jared? I counted three times this week. Did you see Jared was in a little like commercial shoot? Okay, explain that.

When the Stuart Haas did the old spice wonder bread thing, you were in the very front row. I mean, you were loud and proud with your 560 vests. My friend Justin Potter, who actually was wondering last night also where this episode was because we went, we went climbing together. That's what we do on Mondays. He said that they needed a celebrity for their. I actually don't think he said that. I just made that up. But I've been telling everybody that because it's kind of funny.

Wow. Okay. So I'm guessing this, you guys orchestrated this through your purple vest group text? No, no, no. They, at S.HR had a plan. Okay. Potter had texted me a couple weeks ago. I said, hey, on this date, are you free for 15 minutes or whatever?

And I said, to be in a video. He didn't say what. So I just said, yeah, sure, I'll be around. So that was their video. And he said bring your purple vest with you too? or how'd that go out? Yeah. Bring your purple vest and...

You were in outfit. I mean, you were... You know what? Do people have to pay like a higher fee if you're wearing the vest? Like, do you have a premium rate for that? I didn't charge for that. I just said, hey, like, when we climb, just like, belay me well and we'll be all right. Right on.

I should probably get with someone and get like a contract set up, though. Oh. Looking for... representative already you work for a sports agency yeah i don't know if he wants he wants to handle that all right anyway uh some big news uh kbm sold to spire um and you know they had a press conference this week and um jeff dickerson was up on the podium kyle bush was up on the podium You know, they actually had a previous relationship as a driver spotter. And so, boy, Jeff Dickerson sure has come a long way from a spotter on the roof to buying $40 million charters and buying truck teams.

So happy for the Spire guys. You know, one of the things that he said that certainly caught my eye was, you know, we want to be taken seriously. How many more moves do we have to make to be taken seriously that we are trying to compete? and we're trying to get to the top of the sport. I think that's a very, very good statement he made. And it's true, right? I mean, they've now invested a lot, a lot, a lot of money into the sport. And, you know, obviously they want to be better.

They're not happy with where they're at. They want to be one of the best two or three-car teams or three-car team, I guess, now. So I really applaud what they've done over there. and certainly, you know, think that this move is a move that, you know, sets them up to be a contender. Let's say that. A contender for a playoff spot in the future. Contender for a place spot. I have a question.

Is it even realistically possible that every car in the field is a contender for a playoff spot? No. With three manufacturers? No. No, it just there's there's just a lot of red tape that it would take me hours to explain on here of what's the difference in

a non-contender to a contender. Like the things, the resources. I get it. It's, you know, again, okay, we all had the same 200-piece Lego set, but it's still not the same. You know, we put it together a little differently or there's resources, there's engines, there's a, you know,

there's hundreds, literally hundreds of parts that get made still at the shop that goes on to the race car. Did you know that? So, I mean, like, I think I had an idea, but. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we all have the Lego set of the next gen car, right? Which is the same parts and pieces that here is the next gen car. NASCAR says you have to buy these parts.

This should be NASCAR 101. We're going to just put it right here in the beginning of the show. So it doesn't actually put the car together. There's still fasteners. There's still brackets. There's still all kinds of different things that if you buy NASCAR's next-gen car, you have hundreds and hundreds of parts and pieces. You still need to either manufacture or get from another supplier that's not mandated that actually puts the car together.

So the next gen comes with essentially a booklet of how to put it together. I mean, it comes to an instruction manual. It's, it's, this is hilarious. And it literally is a Lego set. That's what I'm saying to you. Was this IKEA? Yes. You know what? Exactly right. I think Kyle Bush calls it, you know, the, it might have been like the Walmart car or something.

I'm like, no, no, this is IKEA. This is for sure IKEA. So you're right, Travis. It is IKEA. So you've got to put it together. They give you the manual to put it together. But things like seat brackets. dashes, the carbon fiber dash.

There is no mandate for that stuff. So that's why you see the interior of a Joe Gibbs racing car look different than a Hendrick Motorsports car. So we as the drivers come up with, here's what I'd like, you know, our dash to look like. I'd like for it to have some depth to it, some 3D look to it. You want it to be light.

You want it to be minimalistic. So you don't want to carry any weight that you don't have to because these things are already extremely, extremely heavy. So there's fasteners, there's, gosh, there's a lot of other stuff that I don't even know about, but I have in my email somewhere

like all the parts and pieces we get from Joe Gibbs Racing that is not on the next gen list. So, and what's interesting when it comes to, when you hear teams talk about where, you know what I told you today, Don't let me go off on a tangent on anything. I know, but I'm fascinated by this.

Okay. So, so with the next, when we initially got the budget for the next gen car, this was, I guess, about two, two and a half years ago, the cost was right around, which it was coming in below, what we were hoping to be, or NASCAR was hoping it to be. It was around 225 grand. I think all in right now, now this is a rough estimate, but I think this is, it's closer to accurate than not.

The next-gen car is probably all in with the parts, pieces, all the other stuff you have to purchase to actually make it roll and a driver's set in it. Right. We're probably around 3.50. Right. Travis, did I just hear you make a noise? Yeah, that's, you were like, whew.

Yeah, that's like half of what. We're racing. lambos out there. Like this isn't, that's why I wouldn't, like, I hate to say this, but at the end of the race, I saw a big crash to start finish line

and I roll back around. I'm like, God, please don't be any of my cars. Because I'm like, it's such a big cost to like every wreck is. And now, okay, let me throw another wrench. Our crash budget because...

Now we're officially tangenting. Yeah. So our crash budget has gone up tremendously because we had to make safety changes for the crashes. So the cars, remember, they didn't even hardly, Alex Bowman got a concussion, right? His car was, they probably didn't even need to put a rear bumper on it the next race. It's just very minimal damage at all when they hit the wall. Now, when you hit the wall, you see the car is crushing. Well, it's crushing expensive.

So your crash budget goes up while your safety precautions also go up. Yes. So it's worth it for us. Absolutely. You want driver safety paramount, number one, whatever that costs. We have to do that. But the side effect, there always is a cause and effect. Well, when you start slotting clips and all this stuff to make it crush, you then start

crushing very expensive stuff. and when you have big rear crashes, you likely will damage the most expensive part on the car, which is the transactional, which is, you know, 50 grand. So, yeah, the crash budgets have gone up, the cars have gone up. Our cost as team owners has gone up a lot, certainly in the last couple years. I mean, we've only been running the next year in a couple years, and it is gone up. up a lot since the very beginning. So that's why, you know, the need for new business model, all that stuff is so paramount

for us. It's so important because, you know, this next-gen car is not saving us the money that we thought that it would back, you know, back when we, when the team owners voted on a next-gen car or keep what we had in Gen 6. The team owners, and NASCAR will tell you this, the team owners voted on it. I wasn't part of that vote. That was before I think we even came into the series. So this was three, four years ago.

The idea was, hey, you're going to be able to save on engineering designers. There's a lot of staff you will not need with Next Gym because you won't be developing every part and piece of the car like you were on Gen 6. Right. And you're not saying you necessarily want to save. There just needs to be a different model to support that cost. Yes, exactly right. You know, what we want as team owners is for our cost to compete to be covered by the league.

There's not a league where the cost to compete is not covered except for a NASCAR, for sure. Is it safe to say that the cause could go up more because we're still trying to find out what this car can handle in a crash and to make changes? Yeah, I mean, we've got a rough guesstimate now. I mean, we, you know, we had a, I remember looking at the budget for this year. at the end of last year and I'm like, you know, man, you're jacking up the crash budget that much year to year. He's like, man, we just don't know, right? Like, I don't want to have to come to you. Say, hey, we missed the budget on this. Like, we'd rather miss on the high end than the low end.

Yeah. Which I appreciate that. So we just didn't know because when you have a big crash, you don't know what all, what extra is going to be damaged now that you didn't plan for. So, yeah, I think that, you know, that part of it is, it's just kind of a cause and an effect. Cars cost more than you, you know, folks, when you're on the grid and you're looking at these next-gen cars, you're looking at lamb boats. I mean, they are expensive for sure. What can we do to combat these costs or at least get them down a little bit?

Well, I think that, you know, some of the issue we have is we have single source suppliers. And so they can somewhat dictate what the price is, right? They can come to us and say, you know, there's a certain amount of cost of the next gen car that they can automatically raise and not even have to get the okay. So there's inflationary cost, all that stuff. like laborers goes up you know commodities go up steel or aluminum they you know they can just raise the prices and and and not even have to you know say anything they can just kind of add it onto your bill and say yeah it's it's more now right so anytime you have a single source supplier like we do because what has happened is so one manufacturer you know they have bid on hey we want to

build the control arms they win the bid So now we all have to purchase this from this from company A. And again, they set the price. And that price can float. It can float. And it never floats down interestingly enough. It always floats up. And so if my opinion, if you want to combat that,

there's a couple things we could do. If you look at the facilities that the teams have, such as Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, Stuart Haas, Richard Childers Racing, all these big four car teams. They have all the same equipment to build.

They could build this next-gen car. We could build the next-gen car in-house. So what you could do, and this is just my opinion, and you probably have half the team owners say, no, we don't want to do that. But this is my opinion. You could have let Joe Gibbs Racing build the clips.

Hendrick Motorsports builds all the decklids, the hoods, and whatever, right? So NASCAR texts these cars so vigorously anyway. It's not like that they can give themselves a better deck lid than another team. Right. I mean, they could. That's the only negative part because the tolerance is. is, you know, we know, the difference between a good this and a good that. It's ounces.

It's millimeters. It's thousands of an inch. Like, we know different parts that are better than others. But are you already getting that as is? Like, when a single source supplier supplies you a part, I mean, is every part seriously identical? No. Right. That's our problem, right?

That's our problem right now. I know. but in the competition aspect, that would be the only argument against it is that they're going to go off the line. They'll put it off the line and stamp it, whatever it might be. They'll measure it.

And if they'll find one that is a little bit better, they'll be like, that's ours. Right. But you're getting that currently on accident, right? On accident, yes. You could be getting a good one or you could be getting a bad one, but you're stuck with it.

Right. So this is already happening. with a single source supplier. If teams made it, then it would just be a little more deliberate. Why don't you have NASCAR, then let's say Hendrick makes a certain part. NASCAR has to take a look and approve these parts before they are disseminated to the teams. I think that there is a way. And trust me, the cost of the cars is so high, I'd be willing to take that risk.

I just think that also I believe truly that the team's quality control would likely be better than any of the other manufacturing. Now, there are some distributors that their quality control is very, very good, that their parts that they distribute to the teams are all within nothing. I mean, it's just they are really, really, really precise. and there are others that it is wildly inconsistent and you it's a roll the dice whether you get a good one or a bad one now a good one and a bad one is not going to decide whether you finish 20th or first let's be clear there it is this is cori lojoi it's stacking pennies i mean it's just little here little here right and so i think that it could i'm just saying it could it could it could it could could save us a tremendous amount of money. I don't know how much, but certainly the teams could build this next-gen car much, much, much cheaper

than what it costs us currently to purchase it from someone else. Well, now, I can tell you, there was someone called Greg Fernelli that is hate everything I'm saying right now. I was thinking that in my head. I wonder if Greg, I have no idea. I'm like, I wonder if Greg's listen to this episode saying,

you, Daddy, fucking you. Yeah, he's probably screaming right now. Yeah, he's not saying to shut up!

If you listen, you might be able to hear him. I don't know. So what I'm saying is is you give a little bit of the car to each one of these teams that have the big CNC machines, to have all the,

all the infrastructure already to part out this car. Each team gets a little piece of it and we probably could build this car for half of what we're paying for it right now, which would be a big deal. But again, like we're saying, you'd have to deal with the quality control and making sure that the builder does not get the best of everything. Well, I love how you brought this thing full circle because you said, you know, Corey of the

joy, we're stacking pennies. And that's kind of where this all went off on this tangent is that Spire is now stacking millions. And they bought it very expensive. Listen, I applaud what they're doing there. It's, uh, I love. I love TJ, love Jeff, that whole group there. They're great guys.

They've invested in this sport. Everyone should applaud their efforts and everything they're doing for our sport right now. So thank you guys. Some other off-track news, like you had mentioned before the show, the schedule is just slowly leaking out. We're returning to the brickyard next season and then also to Iowa. You know what I When I think about the schedule release

I just for some reason I'm picturing the flex seal ad Where the water's spewing out And this guy's sticking flex sealed tape All over the place Trying to stop all the leaks Phil Swift Yeah

Like the schedule's just dribbling out here On this corner or that corner And at this point NASCAR just needs to come out with Here's our schedule And there's one race TBD right because it is trickling out little by little because um you know if if we're going to let's say iowa to the brickyard or you know we know that we're going to the brickyard and the oval

that's a great move um certainly a fan of that um really all the moves they've made so far me as a driver i i love the moves i you know i think that it's it's good it's you're kind of getting back to what our identity is as sport going back to the Bristol concrete. What else do we got? We got the brickyards going from racing in the infield to back to the Oval. That's great because that's the more historic facility. Yeah. And so if we go to Iowa, it sounds like we are.

So the reason these are trickling out like this is because they need to sell seats. They need to sell tickets for people that are coming to the race. and then need enough time to do it and promote it. And so, you know, probably the folks at Iowa Speedway were like, NASCAR, hurry up and get the schedule out. Like, we got to start promoting our race. And so, you know, they already sent out, you know, probably the, hey, got big news coming.

Get ready to purchase your tickets. Do you think that this Iowa race is going to resemble anything like the IndyCar event where they have, you know, major, major concerts and I mean it's a big big ordeal yeah I mean you certainly hope so for sure um I think that you know it seemed like who is it high V or something like that yeah yeah do they own a portion or were they just like the promoter of the race do we know that I don't know I just know they got a lot of grocery stores in Iowa oh okay um I didn't can I just tell you I didn't even know it was a grocery store.

Oh, well, now you do. Okay, now I do. Yeah, they did a lot for IndyCar there. And so I would think so. I mean, certainly I think that the crowd will be packed. To me, it would be no question that that will be a sold-out event, just simply because of the anticipation of, hey, we're finally coming to town after, gosh, there's probably a decade, right, that that place has been going?

Long time. couldn't answer for you okay don't know anything else all right what else um what else we got here we got uh not off track well i guess kind of off track on pit road or in the garage a truck fight

truck fight yeah so I tried to you know kind of look at all the comments and um man when I first saw it I'm like what what in the world happened and you know

uh Crafton and Sanchez, Crafton's been in the sport, or he's been in the truck series, yeah, for like 20 years or something like that. He got into it with Sanchez, who I believe this is his first year in the series. I looked at the wreck,

let's just break down why they were upset in the first place. I was looking at why Crafton was so upset. I mean, he got wrecked, then he parked his truck and Sanchez's pit. I don't know. Whatever with that move. And then you're on a speedway, first of all. Like, people, you know, wrecks happen on super speedways all the time.

Nobody means to. They just kind of misjudge things when it usually happens. No one is intentionally wrecking anyone on a super speedway. And then I looked and it was like, I saw what Sanchez was doing. He was going middle. He was going middle of the track. And they actually, he was there for a second. And then Crafton just was like, no, you're not going middle.

I'm going to come down here and block that. And they collided. So I don't see where Sanchez really did anything wrong there. So as far as the on track, it's just kind of a, I don't put it on anyone. I don't think that that's anyone's fault necessarily. That's just a normal super speedway wreck where someone's trying to hit a hole. It's there. And then, oh, it's not.

because it got close. So I didn't see anything egregious there for sure. And then, you know, you got two sides of the story. I saw where, first you heard what Sanchez said post, well, post infield care center. Then you saw, then what came out was Sanchez's mom's Facebook quote. And then Kraftin replied to that basically given his side of the story. somebody's not telling the truth is all I know so you had a couple of accounts of people well you had Sanchez certainly and then his mom saying that he was walking got tapped on the

shoulder and as soon as he turned around bam he got punched crafton is saying if I understand I'm clicking on it here his side of it was that not that at all he said that was that when he, I'm gonna make sure I get this right. Before camera started rolling, I approached Nick and said, hey, when he, when he turned around,

I said, what the blank? What the fuck we can say? Because Travis is going to bleed it. Um, I said, what the, which then he looked right at me and threatened me.

I don't know. If I were selling this to the court, I immediately would have a little bit of, um, why would Sanchez threaten you? Like, I don't, I don't know.

It just doesn't, That doesn't make sense to me. And when I think about, let's try to piece all this together, Sanchez clearly got clocked really squarely in the nose, right? You would think, unless Krafton was a professional fighter, you're not going to land one square there unless it was caught, someone was caught very off guard. Like you would think if they were face to face,

is Krafton is not Canelo. I hate to say, he's not floored. He doesn't have such a quick punch, I wouldn't think, at 47 years old, that he's going to catch him square without Sanchez putting up any defense whatsoever. Ask Noah that, though. Ross got him square.

They're face to face. I get it. That's what you're saying. Face to face, right? Yes, but did, I mean, did no even have a mark on him? No, no, this was, I mean, Sanchez looked like he just left a eight-round fight. Now, I mean, let's just say.

Some people were bleeders, some are not, right? But I know Jerry's looking at me like I'm crazy. I agree with you. I'm just trying to counter this any way that I possibly can. I think it was a sucker punch personally. I just think that the evidence, the words, the witnesses, it just leads itself into a sucker punch. scenario.

DBC seems to disagree because they're like, the witness, the witnesses is mom, though. That's like, I don't,

you need more witnesses than that, right? Well, I think about my mother, would she lie? No way. My mom wouldn't lie

on what she saw or whatever. Like she would be factual. She would tell you, Denny was talking shit and someone just clocked his ass. That's what, what you would say.

Like, my mom's a no bullshit type of person. It ain't going to sugarcoat anything. So I don't know. I mean, we're sitting here. We're trying to comment, trying to. It just seems like it lends itself to, you know, not even a tap on the shoulder, like a pull, you know, here, let me spin you around and, wam.

Like, it just seems like if I had to put it all together, that's probably what happened, which if that's the case, that was a complete bullshit move. and Sanchez should sucker punch him back. Yeah. And in defense of that,

if this tweet, Kraftin put out, is true and he pulled Sanchez around and Sanchez immediately threatened him, then Sanchez has got some big nuts on him to do that. Because this is not a fair fight. And if I was Sanchez, I would not.

What do you say it's not a fair fight? What? Because he's 20s and he... If I'm Sanchez, I'm not interested in this fight. I mean... You're going to lose. $100.10 times out of 10.

Because Kraftin's... Okay, let's just do the tail of the tape here. Matt Crafton. Yep. 200 in, I don't know. Whatever. He's short and... I don't know.

If you put Matt Crafton in a ring with Sanchez... Why would you... I don't understand why you would say that. What do you mean? Are you looking at these two people? I am. Sanchez's got muscle on him. He is not beating this grown man in a fight. no chance.

I can tell you if you get a man in a sport stamina would be an issue. You just got to run around for a little bit. Just run around, run around, you know, swipe off a few here and there and then you pounce. Spider-Monkey.

What you're saying, Jared, is they wouldn't be in the same weight class. Correct. There's a little man that packs a punch. You just never know. Is Coke Zero Sugar the best Coke ever? I know that's a bold question, but it's got that irisdism

taste to back it up. Well, one thing's for sure. When you've got an irresistible match like zero sugar and zero calories, something sensational is bound to happen. It's like when me and my co-host Jared team up to make a podcast. It's too bad you can't taste with your ears because Coke Zero Sugar tastes so amazing. It's hard to put it into words. But hey, that's my job, at least on Mondays. You have to taste it for yourself. Coke Zero Sugar, the best Coke ever. So we did have a cup race on this interesting week we had Ryan Blaney

taking the dub his third win at Talladega Super Speedway he is an elite speedway racer which was interesting because I had

conversations with what I deemed probably the most most talented speedway racers before the race because I told him says hey we're going to talk about this a little bit on monday now tuesday um about what you know do you feel as though next the next gen super speedway racing can you show your skills off as much as i believe you're good at this like do you do you feel like your skills are are shown as much now with next gen super speedway racing or not and all of them unanimously,

unanimously? Help me. Unanimously? Yeah. It's, it's, I'm still not well. Um, they said no.

They said, not as much. Uh, Michael McDowell, who I put in that, the, uh, in that category said to me that it's,

I certainly do not feel as though I, my skill set is, is shown as much, but I'm adapting. Which I thought was a very good point is, you know, he's just, you do have,

to adapt, certainly. You still can't argue that the top guys find their way to the front at some point or another, which is why Ryan Blaney won, again, he's one in Gen 6, he's one in next gen now. So he counters that argument a little bit, but I definitely agree that what the guy said that I spoke to. I won't name each one of them individually of what this person said that person said was that the general consensus is that you know as as what good ones do is find runs and when they find runs they use the run and they take it and then they use that run to take another run or then they take that run and to make it in another so you're weaving back and forth and there was there was gaps there was ways you could create runs and then there was ways that

you could defend and you know the next gen being that you needed so much help behind you it's not as dependent on you as much as it was on you having help behind you to finish whatever move you might want to make. So, you know, all that is to say is that, you know, the next gen cars, why is it different now than what it was in Gen 6? The difference now is the cars have a lot more drag in them. So we have a lot more horsepower on the super speedways in an effort to have the engine builders just build one type of engine.

But we had to add a lot of drag to the cars to accommodate that, you know, for us to run the same engine at a super speedway is what we do at another track. Now, I think that they probably still are strictly super speedway engines, so why can't we choke them down and then take some drag off the car? I don't know. But I just thought that going into the race, we were likely. going to see two by two racing. And surprisingly, and we saw three wide racing, right, for the bulk of the event. And so I tried to, you try to think about, okay, why is it different now than what it was

before? And I think the main reason was, is because the field was saving gas. So these road, You know what? There's a correlation. The Super Speedway races that are now playing themselves out like road courses where we are trying to, it's essentially a fuel mileage race because we want to be on pit road

the least amount that we possibly can. To do that, we are saving gas. We're saving gas while we're racing. So if you're not leading the race and you're anywhere from the second to the 12th car in line, you think that we're all out there holding the gas wide open.

And we used to do that. We used to all run wide open and whoever manipulated the air of the best was the person that was out front. Now it's a little bit different and we want to be on pit road as least amount as we possibly can. In order to do that, you can save fuel

and then you can take less fuel when you do come in and pit. That leaps for all of you up front, bam, you've got your track position. And while we're saying track position means so much is because it is harder to pass. There is a log jam of cars, 2 by 2 by 2 by 2. So you normally, if you're the fifth car on the inside line,

you're going to run 9th for a while until a lane gets jumbled up or somebody makes a move from one lane to another. That's pretty much where you're going to be. Where in Gen 6, if you had a run, you know what you do? You just go to middle because you would be able to overtake the car that's in front of you. Maybe you get back in line. Maybe you start a third line through the middle. So it's a little different than that aspect.

So why the top line was working so well on Sunday is that fuel mileage. It was cars that were on the first two lanes were saving gas. So the third lane was able to form because they were running wide open trying to get to the front. And others were just half-ass driving, half-ass racing. That's why late in this race, I can't remember how many laps to go, but you and your crew chief had something over the radio were like, hey, it's going to be more difficult

to get to the front now because of that? Right? Wasn't there some conversation about that? Yes. Yeah, there was. And so I honestly believe that that's why we've had less wrecks in next gen on super speedways. If you look, like when I got trapped a lap down, I'm thinking, holy fuck, man, my race is over again. Like, because this happened at Daytona in the last regular season race.

There was no cautions. Right. Yeah. Because everyone's saving gas. So there's no, no one wants to push the person from where are you going to go, first of all, A. And B, everyone's just, it's just a race to save gas. So that's why we haven't seen the wrecks that we've seen before is because everyone's in fuel save mode. And when you're in fuel save mode, you are not trying to push.

the limits at all. So that's why there's been less cautions, less attrition, and why this time the third lane worked is because there was people in the back saying, the fuel mileage right now. I got to get my way to the front. And that's why it formed. And it made for what looked like great racing on TV for most of the race. Right. Well, I think it was 82% people and Jeff Gluck's was a good race poll. That's a fair. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely a fair number. it was certainly one of the best next-gen races that we had. I think it probably deserved a higher than 82%. Honestly, I don't know what's good for a Super Speedway.

So you're okay? They're never in the 90s, right? I mean, just because some people don't like speedways for whatever reason. So you agree this was a good super speedway race? I did. I thought it was a good race. I thought, you know, you could make moves. And a lot of times that you made moves, it was just more of others making moves.

And you either decide, do I want to follow that or do I not? And so you had some options there to move up in the third line or stay in the middle. So I did think that you could make some moves that you didn't in races past. We've got a lot of talking points in this race on our note here. And I'm really not sure where we should start. Should we start with Ross Chastain and Kyle? Let's start with, I got a question, that third line, Denny, at the beginning, you made, it was coming up and you made a point and you left the second lane and went out to that

third lane. What was your reasoning behind it and did it work for you? This was when the Twitters were getting together. It was like 47 laps center or something like that. I forget. Sounds about right. Yeah, I think that it did work. What was interesting about it for sure is that I was at the tail end of that. And actually the total. If you look post-race, I made some comments about alliances and, man, you know, I just,

I just feel like I made a lot of moves that in the race that I knew wasn't right because I was trying to just stick with whoever the Toyota was in front of me. So when you agree to that type of stuff, it's, Danny Hamlin isn't allowed to trust his instincts and make the moves or hit the holes that I think is correct, right? I'm really reliant on whoever that top Toyota is to make the moves. And, you know, I'm just going to follow them through the pack. Right. And so it did work early on for sure.

I was at the tail end. I think it was Martin Truex and maybe C-Bell or whoever. They actually got all the way to the front and everybody was clear except for me. And they just, I guess they were trying to see if I was going to. to get clear and they didn't and they end up going all the way back to the back because they didn't take the hole that they should have, which is you guys should have just hung me out and left me to dry back there because, you know, we had worked so hard to get to the front. Like, you got to take it. You know, I certainly think that they were trying to be almost too good

of teammates there and making sure that I was one, I was able to get clear also and they're just eventually time catches up. The middle line's like, no, we're not going to let you guys come up here and just take over our line, and they started picking up the pace and cut that runoff. So, yeah, I mean, I just think that it's very difficult for me personally because I do feel strong on Super Speedways to essentially kind of put the handcuffs on you or tie your shoelaces together and say, all right, go run.

Like, eh, I can't because, you know, I've got to stick with this. person, that person. So it's very difficult when, when you don't have numbers too. And then at the end of the race, we had the 54 was out of the race. We had the 20 with damage. So I'm like, man, we only have so many cars anyway. Like at some point, I'm like, this isn't working. I've got to just go. And when I was able to go, I was able to go all the way towards the front. But, you know, it's just one of those things where, you know, what's the right thing to do? You really, it's tough to say. Yeah. Boba had said something similar in his post-race comments that he was all for working with teammates and whatnot, but he felt like at times that it wasn't necessarily in the best

interest of everybody. Yeah. And he actually said, you know, like kind of when we were all talking, he's like, man, I thought this was the best move for me to make at the end of the race and it ended up screwing up Tyler and maybe. somebody else he's like because it wasn't the right move and they were all trying to stick with me he's like but it just wasn't the right move and it costs a good finish for all of us so um you know where if you had everyone able to just kind of make their own decisions like i made my own decision i said this isn't going to work i'm going to just stay here and we ended up getting a good finish out of it now yeah it's but that wasn't the plan right i had to i altered from that plan because

because I had to be selfish in that moment and say, I'm trying to lock myself into the next round here. I'm not trying to with the roval. So, you know, I just had to have audible during the race. So that's interesting how that all played out, but I did think it was a good race. We had an incident earlier with kind of chastain. I think that got triggered by the 47, right?

Yeah, Ricky ran out of gas. Ricky ran out of gas. It was towards the end of a stage. Yeah, stage one, with like two laps ago, he's putting his hand out the window. You know, trying to let him. And then Kyle Bush, I think, got involved with that. And he was probably on the top line, not on the bottom. Correct.

Yep. And Sebo was in it too. So you wonder, well, how the hell the 47 run out of gas? They short filled him to get him track position, likely, on the pit stop before and didn't get enough gas in it. We know because I believe it was the spring Talladega. we pitted with on the white flag lap or two to go because we ran out of gas we short filled as well so that's kind of the battle that every crew chiefs they're only putting in what gas they think they need to make it to the end and not a drop more and it's all seconds right so you're going to

seconds it's 10th yeah it's really 10th of a second um you know because you're getting more than a gallon per second uh of fill is that right gallon Yeah, yeah. So the gasman goes over the wall. Is he instructed to count to five and then pull it out? I think it kind of depends on each team. Who's counting the gas man or the crew chief? I'd say probably it's the crew chief because he's probably directly watching the gas man

and counting. He sees when it gets plugged and he's like one, two, three, four, go. Okay. Is that now also how Ty Gibbs' gas can ends up in the middle of pit road on fire? Yep. So Ty is probably anticipating, you know, X amount of seconds. We need X amount of seconds of fuel here. He's ready to go.

He doesn't want to, he ain't sitting there. Okay, they say go and then he drops the clutch. He's ready, like, ready to go. And so he's already starting to creep away as he hears the mic get keyed and get ready. He's already starting to kind of move. we all do that and he just take the gas can with you because you take off quicker than they unplug from it. So yeah, that's where that fire came from.

So in that Rick with the 47, Chastain, who got the bad end of that was Chastain who was trying to get out of that line that was, you know, ran out of gas. And so he was, I think he was probably four wide at the time because they were three long. I think he was trying to make a move. I don't think he saw that. He was trying to make a move at the end of the stage to get a couple. spots. Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone knew that the 47 was running out of gas. He just knew that, oh, there's a problem. Let me get out of here. He did. He hit a gap in, it was four wide,

but he was the three from the bottom. Well, is it possible that Chastate, so I think, so Ricky's up front in that line and then followed by Kyle Busch, followed by Chastate, is it possible that those front two cars begin to slow down? Chastain feels himself going faster than those cars, pulls out a line because he's going to pass them, and then, right, all that happens? Yeah. He feels like he has a run to get around those cars? Yes.

Well, I don't know that he feels like he's got to run. He just feels like I got to get out of this line that is about to go to dead last. So he pops out and he's willing to blend wherever he's willing to blend in the second lane. So even though he gets in the, he goes out to go to the third lane, third lane from the bottom. Ricky and whoever's right behind him is now fourth lane from the bottom. They're fourth all the way up top. He's just trying to get out of that.

And he's willing to blend wherever there's a gap in that second line from the bottom. That's probably what he's trying to do. And then it just got tightened up on him when they got to the corners and then that's where he lost it. So it ended his day and now puts him in a tough spot. in the playoffs he's where's he at minus 10 so you know they got some work to do this weekend

um you know there's a there's a few others we'll touch on that shortly but um you know we went a lap down i I screwed up I did you know I got myself in a spot where I went a lap down I think Tal dig is the track I go down a lap

the most of all the tracks I we never really go a lap lap down on speed. I can't remember the last time. Well, that's not true. I remember going five laps down or some Martinsville two years ago. Like it was because we were talking, man, I heard you for talking during qualifying. Like, you know, what's our worst performance? I'm like, oh, it's got to be Martinsville. Like, yeah, that's pretty bad. It was, it was, we were legit 28th. It was, it might have been the first next year race. It was a very cold race. I remember. It was. Yeah. But yeah, it was just one where we were.

we missed the setup and, you know, then we go and we dominate the fall race. Like, we had the best, worst performance to the best performance ever at one racetrack in one year. But it's just one of those things where, you know, you don't have a lot of practice or maybe we had no practice at all. That might have been the case. We had no practice, went straight into the race and we missed something big. And I say that because Talladega, it seems like I always. go a lap down and it certainly is not on performance it is well it's performance all right it's the driver just absolutely i really can't even i can't even put words to it like i i know i've got enough

notes i've got enough self-awareness to know okay don't do this you've done this in the past um to stay close to the pack if you're going to lag back don't leg back too far i've lost the draft there before. This isn't even in Gen 6th days. And then gone a lap down that way, got trapped lap down. So needless to say, I was very, very happy to get my lap back. I'm sitting there and just hoping a caution comes out in some kind of way. It forced me to have to race harder than I ever had to race at that point of a race in Talladega. I typically don't try to push the envelope too early in a Super Speedway race. I like to manage my. risk when I think that things are calm. I'll go ahead and maybe mix it up, but when things are

crazy, I try to try to get out of it. But man, did it again. And when I speed at Talladega, it's always the first section, which really has the biggest amount of buffer of any other section on pit road. So the reason I did it this time, and you know, you just try to rationale with it, is that I'm leading the pack. I'm leading the race. I come to pit road. I am trying not to get, my mindset was don't get ass packed here,

which means like don't, I'm trying not to get run over by the cars that I know were pitting right behind me. And so that paranoia drove me way deep into the pit lane. And I just flat out missed the first section grossly. It wasn't even close. So mess that up. and then, you know, I just battled a lap down most of the race.

Hosevar snagged the lucky dog from me. I thought he had given up. They told me on the radio with two to go, he's backed out of the pack because I've worked my way kind of in the middle of the pack as the lucky dog. He's like last. I watched the video. He was last. I thought he was conceding the lucky dog spots, but I'm still racing because, you know,

I just know. You just never know. And then if you watch the tape, he comes from in a lap and a quarter, the last car in that pack to beat me to the line. And I'm just like, I didn't say a word on the radio, but my end car,

you can just see my helmet jerking. And that was me saying, like I knew that that was such a pivotal moment because it was the last scheduled caution that we had. Like it was stage two in. and I'm like, damn it, everyone's going to be in fuel save mode in the next, in stage three. And there's not going to be a caution. I'm just going to be stuck a freaking lap down the rest of this race.

And thank goodness, Brad runs into the 42 and causes a big pile up. And I get my free pass and I'm like, yes. But you're also thinking, right, you want to get your lap back, obviously. But as each lap goes down, the less. chance you have to then regain position after you get your lap back. You can't have a caution with two to go. I didn't care. I just was like the opportunity for you to go forward now is huge.

Like I didn't care if I got my lap back with five to go or 25 to go. I think I got it back with 25 to go. Yeah. What do you mean though? If you get your lap back with three to go, how many positions are you going to move? What I'm saying is that given the points position and I knew that with Chastain out, Brad's out. Right.

There were guys that I was going to beat that I was already ahead of in points. Yeah. So the gap was going to, I only had room to go forward. So even when I was 26th last car on the lead lap or 28th last car on the lead lap and I'm still plus 40,

I know that there's only one way to go and that's forward. You know, my crew chief even said to me, he's like, you've already earned, you've already got eight points today. If we crash right now, now that you got the lucky dog we crash we're leaving here with eight points we we only were trying to get a certain amount of points right and so i i feel like there was only room to go up at that point right

so every position i gained in the last lap or so i was like there's one two three four like i knew my buffer to the cut line just kept increasing and i'm and i'm looking and i'm passing playoff cars and i'm like, oh, this is just money. This is going to, wherever we're going to be at the end of this race is going to be good, as long as we don't crash. And if I crash, I'm looking, there's playoff cars all around me. I'm like, we're crashing together. And so I built that buffer during Texas through stages and a good finish.

So that earned me the relaxation of, yes, we're 28th with 25 to go. It's no big deal. We're going to be fine. We have a couple other playoff cars already. out of the race, we're in a good spot here no matter what. It's only up, I guess, is it uphill or downhill? It's all downhill from here. But when people say downhill, they mean it in a negative way, right?

No, no, it's good. It's all downhill from here. That's a good thing. Okay. So we knew it was all downhill from there. Yeah, we knew it was all downhill. Once we got the lucky dog. But when we were lap down, it was like, we could finish 28th or 30th, whatever

where I was, it was bad. And it's like, you're lucky. locked in here. There's no way to go forward. So just wild that last week 11th with no stage points wasn't good enough for you. I mean, that's a, that would be a... So, well, I think it was, I was, I had a tweet ready in my draft saved.

Like, I blame Jared for this race. Like, I think Denny had to outrace the competition and your jinx, Jared. Jinks. He sped on pit road. He did to himself. But I think because you put that out there and, like... No, I don't, I don't buy into that. Well,

what was the first thing? you said to me, I left pit road, I got out of the car, did media, left pit road, sat in the golf cart. First thing Jared says, well, guess you wouldn't have taken 11th and no stage points, huh? I was like, when you were riding a lap down, I bet you were wishing you could take 11th with those stage points, huh? Yeah, that's what it was. And he was like, well, you know, it was this, this, and it's like, all right, you know what, never mind. Never mind. Trust me, there was a point in the rate.

So I always kind of reset goals depending on what goes on in the race, right? And I told Jess is when I got my lap back, I instantly said 15th. My goal is to get back to the top 15 here because there was another caution that came out that we only had about 15 laps of racing at the end where we went from the 26th to 3rd. And so I changed my goals at that point to 15th. That's what I was trying to get back to. But we obviously exceeded it there at the end. Yeah. So now you go into the Roval plus 50 or something.

And I mean, is it safe to say? Can I say that he's like more or less? We're moving on. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Moving on. We feel comfortable with that for sure.

You know, it would take certainly an apocalypse of scenarios for us not to move on. Just to kind of wrap up Talladega, though, we had, we did have a DQ. I don't know how to comment on it because I really like Rodney and the four team so I probably should say less here than I should say more you know I like them as competitors the 14 11 team have always gotten along really well well that's yeah the 29 team and the 11 didn't get along back in the day but the 14 in the 11 do so So I'll certainly say less, but it, you know, yeah, it just seems like, you know, Rodney has his side and NASCAR probably has their side, and their side is to just uphold the rulebook to the top degree. And I applaud them on doing that because the precedent was set with us, right? When we had tape on the nose, we showed everyone on the public.

He says, look, here's what we did, just so there's no misconstrued information. We were very forthright in that information. I really thought that that was the right move by JGR to just say, you know, listen, we're not appealing. Here's what we did. And lately, and I'm wondering, will NASCAR show pictures of it? Or because it was at the track, will they not? Because we, at action is detrimental, I believe, influenced the change of them being transparent in showing what has been deemed illegal.

Now, the only difference is that these are things that were deemed illegal in the tech center, not at the racetrack. So will they show us pictures? Will they show us bolts, windshields, things like that? But just to inform our, to be fair and inform our audience, what NASCAR deemed them to disqualify them, the windshield, because of bolts not being there, it caused the windshield to not be flush with the greenhouse.

To be transparent, honest, that is an advantage. If you would want things to go a certain way, if you were to fasten the windshield to the greenhouse, which you do, you would want it to unfasten itself, not fast in itself. So you're not probably going to take extra lengths to make sure that everything is super tight. The greenhouse is what section of the car?

The roof. Basically the roof and the A post that come down. So the windshield bolts to that. Okay. So you would want aerodynamically, it would be advantageous for the windshield to be higher than the greenhouse that it bolts to. Ah, okay.

Because it would then deflect air. It would escape air out of the inside of the car. It would deflect the air over the spoiler. So what had happened and what Rodney is saying happened during the course of the race is that, you know, it was buffering. And it caused these bolts to come loose. That's his story, right? And that he, that's his story to tell. And we don't know because we don't have the information or the pictures to prove otherwise.

But NASCAR is just saying, well, they're not in. and they're loose, so we have to uphold our rulebook because that's what we've done in the past. So that's pretty much all it is. But certainly how his car ended the race would be advantageous to performance versus detrimental. It's unfortunate because they should have done this.

Maybe they did. I don't know. They should have done this to the 41 and the 14 car. And it would have been sick if Ricky Bobby won that race. Well, I mean, yeah, I think that, you know, what's interesting and just my general opinion is that, man, Speedway races is probably the least place that you want to fudge rules. I mean, that would be my only, you know, back up to Rodney's story would be, you know, why would you even want to push it on a Speedway? There's so many other factors in your performance. what is trying to gain a couple counts of drag.

Like I get it a couple counts. It's just not going to mean the difference in winning and not winning. Right. In my opinion. There's more variables than a different. 100% way more other variables, car positioning, all that stuff than what maybe a counter to. Why would you even want to screw with that? That doesn't make sense whatsoever just because of all the variables that goes into your performance.

It's a result on a Speedway. So moving on from that, S-HR responded to it. You can kind of look at that online yourself. I'm not going to read it. But basically they say they're not going to appeal. They're going to just try to figure out how it happened, not let it happen again and move on. So let's just look at the playoff grid real quickly.

We've got under the bubble, under the Mendoza line of your in or you're out is Reddick minus 2, Bubba minus 9, chastain minus 10, Bush minus, is that 26? Yeah,

looks like 26. I'm reading Travis's writing. It's very sketchy. The fact that that's the first time you've had to question my handwriting is pretty impressive, because my handwriting is atrocious. I have asked Travis,

why don't, you know, I can look at this on NASCAR.com. Why do you, he's like, I just like writing it out. He's an old school big J journalist, right? I appreciate that. So he's got this paper here. I'm looking at the standings.

I, hmm, what do I think will happen? I think somebody from the bottom, I think probably, man, I'm just trying to figure out whether I would say two cars make it from the bottom to the top. or one car. I don't think it's no cars.

I think that someone from the top... What's that noise? Is this fidget smitter? No, I thought it was from outside. I think somebody, definitely somebody makes it from the bottom. Who they replace is anyone's guess. I think it's just a matter of who has a bad race.

So who is nervous this weekend? Bell's plus 22. I don't know. Everyone's nervous. If I were plus 22, I'd be nervous too. Right. So how much movement realistically can you expect in a single race at a track like the roval? A ton, a ton, ton, ton, ton.

So more than 22 points. Absolutely, because of stage points. And more than likely, Bell through maybe Cowell Bush. It just depends on where Kyle qualifies. If he qualifies up front, he has a chance. to lead, you know, if he leads the race early, he could potentially pit and still get stage points. But I don't know, he needs 26.

And reminder, there are stage breaks too. Right. So which leads to there's going to be cars that flip the field. And what I think is that there's going to be 26 cars that don't give it about stage points and we'll flip the field. And only these guys from Bell to Bush, are going to care about them. I mean, I don't think that we're going to care.

I wouldn't think. About stage points? I don't know. Maybe we... Hell, who knows? I don't know, but I think it just kind of depends on who's running where at that point. I don't know. Who freaking knows?

I don't know our strategy, nor would I say it on air. But I think that there's only going to be 10 cars at the most. Your strategy is simple. Just try to... get a playoff point. Yeah, yeah, in a grand scheme of things, right? We want to leave the roval with something that carries on to the next round, yes.

Who do you feel good about looking at these playoffs standings? Like Tyler Reddick's obviously a very good. Who do I feel good about? I guess Reddick? I guess. But I mean, even, I don't know, since Cota, they've been, I guess Chicago, they were in position to win Chicago.

Probably should have won Chicago. he drove it into the barriers I don't know I mean I would say for the field they're most worried about Reddick overtaking now if he took

overtook Kozalski that's probably an upset right you know I think Tyler Reddick's a good road course racer so if he no I'm just saying generally like who makes it to the next round who does not if Kazowski doesn't make it

that's an upset. Just based on overall performance? Yeah, who do you think makes the final eight? Most people would probably put Kazowski in there just because of their second half of the year performance, right? I guess so. But the 45. Tyler has one race.

Right. So I'm just saying Larson or Truex would be the biggest upset. Yes. If he overtakes them. Yes. Right? So, yeah, I think what you're getting at is if the top eight is how it is,

right now, it would not be all that surprising. No, sir. No, sir. But I believe at least one of these guys, at least one, I'm leaving the option to two, make it. And if that happens, there's an upset. There's not one upset. There's two upsets of, because I think that the top eight right now are, yeah, we planned

on that. Here's what I want to know. If Truex does not run well throughout these playoffs, if he was to have another mid-pack finish, 15th, 16th, 17th, at plus 17 with no stage points, would he be at the cut line? Great question. And plus 17. No, ain't going to make it.

Can't run 15th all the whole race. Nope. These guys, the bell versus, through Keselowski, essentially the fourth through eighth and point standings. No, you cannot run 15th all day. And, and, but just, okay,

what I'm saying to you, though, is I think all these guys get stage points, all of them, because everyone else is going to pit. Right. I think, why wouldn't they? I guess you wouldn't because you think you can win the stage and get a stage point, maybe.

So you'd stay out. I'm just thinking out loud here of why someone else who's 23rd in points, you know, maybe it means a lot to them to win a stage. So they're going to do it. Right. No, they're probably going to set themselves up to win the race if they can. Yeah, but someone, yeah, but the 23rd guy in points, he's not going to, likely he's not going to win the race.

Right. So what are they racing? They're racing for, hey, we want to stay. at Charlotte Roble. You know what I mean? That's a win for, they left the weekend, we won something.

That's why, right? They're running, let's just say, they qualify 15th and they're running 12th. And the first 11 guys peel off because they're, their playoff guys, they peel off,

bam, he just won the stage because everyone in front of them pitted. It's going to be a super compelling race because I think that there's so many guys in the middle of zone. And we saw it, during the last cutoff race, like even Truex was kind of

in this similar point situation. It was like plus two, plus three, like minus one, the whole race. Like, he didn't have a great race, so it just kind of was like the guys and the teens are nervous, no question about it.

They know they cannot make a mistake. They've got to get stage points to keep that buffer over the Reddix Bubba's chestane bushes. Yeah. Truex is just the most interesting to me because of the way these playoffs work, right? Is that if he gets through this round again, he reset.

And if they start running well next week, and none of this. He's the favorite again. None of this matters. He's the favorite again. How's the Winston Cup standings or the Mario Kart standings? You do pay attention to that. You at least saw it because I was going to bring it up.

Well, yeah, everyone's tagging me on it now. Yeah, you're 100 points up in the Winston Cup standings, and then you're doing pretty good in the Mario Kart. that's kind of impressive awesome great more than likely if we had 10 weeks of points would probably be leading that as well more than likely i don't know William byrne's up like 20 on me this this round but i think we i don't know we may have beat them by more than that i don't know first round it'd be close but guess what it doesn't matter it's just for uh just to make it more painful if you ever get eliminated.

You say in what you said about the championship system. So now if you were to win a championship this year, everyone's just going to say, oh, he doesn't matter. It's Mickey Mouse, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's why I love the Kirk Cousins when he says, you know, if they saw me walking on waters because they said I couldn't swim. Do you see who's fourth in the ownership points? Yeah, Chase Elliott. Oh, hey, we should talk about that. Chase is performing well in the playoffs.

he's not in it as a driver, but he's battling for Rick Hendrick. And so he's doing that nine car well, and he's fourth, how many is the up? It says he's, it just says minus 56. It doesn't say. Okay, so actually what you're saying then is Kozlowski is out in the owner.

Correct. This means a lot to RFK. They are, I can tell you, they are probably looking at the owner's points over the driver's points. And Larson is only 13 ahead of Kuzlowski. Yeah, I see that because of the buffer there. So the line essentially moves up one.

So Kislauski's probably minus, he's minus 13 in the owners. Yeah, and Bubba's just not there. Yeah, you've got to add 13 to everyone's minus. So Reddick's minus 15 because the line moves up one. Right. Because you've got an extra car in there. Bubba is not in the owners. Chase replaces

Oh, right. Right, good point. So yeah, it's, yeah, there's, there's some, we got some storylines here. Cars that are in, cars are out. Chase doesn't have a yellow spoiler, but he's in, his car's in. A lot of money being exchanged hands here that people don't know about that is, may not mean a lot to you, but it means a lot to others. So we'll see how that plays out.

The nine car could run deep. I mean, nine car could win the championship. Nobody would even know it. It means a lot to the owner that lets him go ski and snowboard in the winter and the season. Which, I mean,

that's why they put, have owner's points, right? And that's why they pay us is because, you know, is it fair to Hendrick Motorsports? You know, if Chase,

you know, breaks his leg, is it fair to, hey, you've just cost that team millions and millions of dollars because of an accident? No, you know,

no, it's long as long as, as long as Rick Hendrick continues to invest and spend the money to put that car on the racetrack every week, he deserves to get paid to do it. And that's why they pass off of owners instead of drivers. The possibility for a triple burnout at Phoenix is still in the cards. That would be unprecedented, wouldn't it?

Yeah. You'd have a race winner as a non-playoff guys, what you're saying. You have your champion, and then you have the owner's champion. driver's champion, owner's champion, race winner. A non-driver in the top four wins the race. Chase finishes second. And someone... You know who...

Unless Blaney wins and you won't get a triple burnout. Because he doesn't do burnouts. Yeah. Oh, he'll do a burnout. Yeah, yeah. I like his comment. You know, you ever seen someone beat the horse that they won the Kentucky Derby with?

That was a good one. You know who's rooting so hard against all that? NASCAR. They do not want a diluted... you know, this champion, you know, this guy's this champion. This car is that champion. Oh, and this person won the race.

Yeah. That's bad for business, for sure. Yep. Just give us a top four winner. Yeah. Not Chase Elliott. Give us a, what do you call those things that you measure? I don't know.

I was trying to say something smart there. It's just going to make me look dumb. So, yeah, exciting weekend this weekend at Charlotte. Make sure you come out. excited for this this uh i think it's going to be a stress-free weekend for the 11 uh we're excited about that we're ready to move on and uh go battle in this round of eight well before we close out here just a reminder dale junior and friends in los vegas friday october 13th at the westgate las Vegas resort casino dale junior mike davis and door bumper clear all unfiltered if you haven't

i guess they're not going to they're not going to bleep them Like if you thought, yeah, if you thought they were unfiltered now, not the case. Yeah. And more than likely, these guys probably, you know, got a few shots of fireball or something on the table. They're sharing, they're sharing the story. So, like, T.J's going to talk about him and Dale when they were together. And you're going to hear stuff that, like, you haven't heard prior. Wow.

And that, there's a lot of good content there because I was around during those days. I was just kind of an, you know, innocent bystandard. and the Dale Jr. parties, groups of friends, late nights, Martin Truex, Dale Jr., T.J. Majors, all that. I was just a kid that was racing late models when I was starting to hang around those guys. And wow, they definitely got stories. So I'm actually going to be excited to hear that. Head to Dirtymo Media.com slash live for tickets. And then once again, before we close out, this review from Joey Eledge, he says, grew up a big racing fan but got out of it.

I went to Darlington and May and caught the bug again. I love the podcast and the talk of the driver's perspective and the business side of motorsports. Well, I didn't see that, but we touched on all that today. So we made Joey happy talking about a little bit of the inside NASCAR 101 stuff. Sorry, you had to wait until Tuesday, Joey. Yeah, sorry about that. What I love about that statement, though, is that I went to Darlington and May

and caught the bug again. I can't express to people out there so much, go see a race in person. You know, more than likely if you're tuning in this podcast, you have done it. But do it when it comes to your town. Go out there, support the NASCAR racing because that is what, that's what got me into racing. Is I went when I was five years old, the cars go hauling ass around me. I smell tires and fuel and I tell my parents, I want to be a race car driver. And they're like, you're right.

So it's just The experience you get during a NASCAR event is unlike any other And you know Encourage you to you know bring your kids out because you know They may not be as interested in TV because they don't understand it But man just the event itself is just awesome And you've never heard anyone that went to a NASCAR race It was like I'll never do that again right

So it's just it does it's easy to catch the bug and Appreciate Joey coming out to Darlington earlier this year. So thanks for tuning in, Joey, and we'll see y'all next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.