Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Bristol: Trying To Fix A Car Problem With Tires

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Expectations were high for the NASCAR race at Bristol on Saturday, hoping for massive tire falloff but unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Denny Hamlin and his co-host Jared Allen discuss the reason. The guys chat about the imperfect science that goes into Goodyear making the tires. Plus, the real problem isn’t the tires, but instead the car.Denny breaks down the lap times between Kyle Larson and Todd Gilliland. Another problem with the race was many drivers were satisfied with where they were running because their goal was to not wreck and advance.Speeding penalties proved costly for Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs. The guys discuss how those penalties happened and how Denny was able to avoid having a speeding penalty.Denny shares his thoughts on the four drivers who were eliminated from the Playoffs and discusses the drivers in a good position going into the next round.They delve into Denny’s mindset when racing and how the ending of the 2010 season changed everything. Now that the first round is over, Denny sees this as a mental reset and said things are good with Lulu.The only time Denny got worried on Saturday was a caution at the end of stage 2, but he was able to get valuable stage points.Kyle Larson dominated the race and sits in first place and Denny thinks you can pencil him in to the Championship 4. They list the rest of the Playoff drivers and discuss how each person is probably feeling.Off the track, Bubba Wallace signed a contract extension with 23XI. And, Corey LaJoie and Justin Haley are swapping rides. For more Actions Detrimental content head over to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Someone like myself, you want to go to Kansas and be on it, right? You want to have a big day right off the bat there. Be aggressive at Talladega, try to get some points. And then... Wait, what did you say? Be aggressive at Talladega, try to get some points. So this is on the record. What? Not just going to trying to get 20? I'm going to drive to my car's ability. How about that? The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey guys, welcome to action's detrimental. Ow! That hurt Charlie!

This is not going to be a rose-colored glasses show. Pleading with NASCAR, who I guarantee you is listening to this. It was warm and then it was cold. But I kind of liked it. The 11, D.H. We're all in. We're going all the way to promising. Hey guys, welcome to Action's Determinal. I am Denny Hamlin, driver the number 11 FedEx, Toyota this past weekend at Bristol.

Jared, would you like to introduce yourself even though people know who you are? People know me. They know you. Anchorman quote, right? Anchorman. That's right. Actually, I've never seen Anchorman. What?

Wow. I know. That's shocking from you, the king of all movie quotes. I need to do it. It's not my proudest accomplishment, not watching Anchorman. I just hear people talk about it all the time, and I just haven't sat down to actually watch it. As a person that travels a lot, how have you not on a flight and your bus?

I know. You've seen every other movie, and you quote every other movie. I don't know. My goal is by the end of the years, watch Anchorman. Full review coming up at some point. Okay.

Anyway, Red Vest 311. Go ahead. All right. Start the show. Bristol, we had, we had trucks, we had Arca, we had Xfinity,

we have cup. What do you want to dive into first? Let's start with the cup race. Oh, we saw on Sunday. Just go right to it. No need to bury the lead. All right. Cup race.

Hmm. Well, what do y'all want to make of the cup race? I know how they felt on the tear down about it. It wasn't surprising to me that they had that reaction. My only question would be is like, what, and my crudchey said it, what do we expect? Well, we saw a race in the spring, which Goodier didn't know exactly what happened. We saw a fun race there.

They talked about tire fall off. So I think fans, now you did caution people last week on the podcast, but I think a lot of fans expected some fall off. So I, going into last week, I asked, my crew chief asked me, he says, all right, tell me your opinion. of what do you think we're going to see this weekend? I said, I think we're going to see, I'm 60-40, but my 60% is definitely leaning towards,

it's going to play out just like last fall. You've got more series there, more rubber on the racetrack. I just think that it's going to be like last fall. That's my gut. Now, it could be swayed. And so I asked a couple drivers that were at the test what they thought it was going to be. and they stated that it was going to be like the spring.

And so at that point, we kind of prepared the weekend based off of tireware, you know, the setup of our car, things like that. So we, we, how do you say this, kind of detuned our car slightly. Some things we could not take back out of it. But, you know, we detuned our car slightly to try to make it better for the tireware. and we didn't really have any. And so I think we paid the price a little bit in qualifying for it. And then certainly our short run speed was not, you know,

as great as it had been in the past there. What information are you using going into this race to make those decisions on how you're going to step the car? Like, is it just a hunch that, well, we saw this race in the spring. Goodyear says they're bringing back the same tire. So many people did the test. So that's the key, though. It's not the same tire.

We have to all recognize. is that it's not the same, right? So the only thing that is questionable for me, which it doesn't make sense, is that, you know, when I said earlier in the year that someone pissed in the mix, the only counter to that is we did actually run

last fall's tire during the spring. It was one of the, so when they gave us an extra set of tires in the spring during all that tire debacle, the tires, the tires, the extra side that they gave us was made from last fall that had zero fall off, right? I say zero fall off. That's an extreme, but it didn't have tire fall off.

So we did actually run last fall's tire in the spring and it still wore out. So that's the only head scratcher. Other than that, people have to understand that the process of making the tires is a very imperfect process. and you know there's a lot of reasons to this but I think they're this is just kind of what I hear is that where they make the racing tires is very very very very antiquated versus how they make new street good year tires the equipment they have the preciseness of how the tires are put together the mixture all that stuff is very precise on your street tires. In the racing, I think that there's something with like unions and labor

where they have to use more manpower or something. I'm not really sure. Again, I'm trying to make sense of it. But I've had people from my team, people from 2311 go and visit Go and Visit Goodyear. And they were shocked to what they walk into. and it was like, oh, wow, this is where we build tires that run 210 miles an hour. Like, ooh. It sounds like the street tires are very, like, well made, and these racing tires are more or less recycled.

You're being harsher than what I'm trying to be. But I'm trying to inform our listeners that it's a very imperfect process, and they have top. tolerances, even when they make these tires, they have tolerances that, you know, we're okay with this, this tire coming out being X amount harder than what it's supposed to be or X amount softer than what it's supposed to be. One example I can give you is I can't remember if it was the spring of this year or the fall of last year, Martinsville. There was a date code that was three tents faster than all the other day codes. And so I believe at that time, Goodyear was like, yeah, that came in a little low on our softness, but we thought it was enough in range where it

really wouldn't make a difference. And it was amazing at Martinzo. Whoever put them on, like drove straight to the front. It was like they had an option tire versus the problem. But that tells you how big the window of variance is. And so in order to get this better or even understand why the spring happened, all the tolerance has got to be tightened up. But how are you going to tighten it up with the very imperfect process that we do? I just don't know how that's possible. Fix the process? Yeah, make it more perfect. I am telling you, I think that there's something that has to do with unions and labor is why they cannot change how they make the tires. We've never needed a good year representative on this show more than now.

Yeah. And so in the end, I'm somewhat sticking up for Goodyear, but I'm not. You know, it's, I have to be very careful. Jim is very, very, very sensitive to talking about Goodyear. Those are his boys. So I just... Okay, well, then you can just put the blame on NASCAR because it feels like we're... Good Year is trying to bail NASCAR out for the...

this car that's not good on short tracks. It's like this car is not the best, so make us a tire that fixes this problem for us. You should have your own show, Jared. You're not wrong. You're not wrong in any way or aspect. We are trying to save this car or the idea of how this car got made, and that is to create parity. All the cars are the same.

The drivers will be the deciding factor of how you finish on the. that day, the driver, the crew chief, you know, things like that, engineers. But we've shared our driving data. All the cars and the parts of the pieces are the same. The parts and pieces of the cars are the same. So the variance between a good car and a bad car at a place like Bristol is probably a 10th and a half, realistically, of race pace, except for the 66 car. However, I saw the 66 car getting a lot of flack from other people. But let me tell you something. Who was driving 66?

Was it Timmy? No, Josh Bleakie. I think he did a fine job. I think given the pace of his car, he got out of the way the best that he possibly could all day long. Now, sometimes he had to run low or high or whatever, but I never saw him really switch directions that much. So shout out to Josh Balicki.

I thought he did a okay job. you need slow cars in the field. If you don't have slow cars, you'll never have passing. Right. And at this point, how do we know that Josh Bilicki just didn't get a different tire mixture than everybody else? That's possible.

That's good. That's good. I think what's most disappointing about when we see these type of races, though, is that it's a reminder that is not necessarily the driver's skill that's separating the cars in the field, right? Because Churax ran up front all day. And then as soon as he has,

a penalty and was put to the back, he couldn't move. And Truex is a damn good driver. Because the advantage you need to have over the car in front of you needs to be two-tenths. And even at a two-tenths advantage to actually complete the pass, if the person who you are trying to pass doesn't want you to pass, you can hold them up for an infinite amount of time. I think we saw that with Suarez and Ty Gibbs, right? I mean, how long did he run behind swore is. I was wondering if Gibbs was just going to get frustrated and... Just knock him out of the way.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean... Basically, ever after that speeding, he was back there. He probably should have. But I think at that time, he was already reeling. He was already backing up. So if he thought he was going to continue to go forward, yeah, knock him, you know, get

him out of the way, say, all right, I'm done riding behind you here. And then move on and try to gain those three or four spots. needed. But at the time, by the time he caught the 99, I think the ship had sailed on speed and he had lost it. Is that something that you recognize as well? Because there's, there was moments in this race where it seemed like when you were running fourth or fifth that Briscoe or Bell might have been faster than you, but you could just run the top and it was like, well, you're not going to pass me on the bottom. So it certainly was difficult too. I mean, the advantage you had to have. And really, it was there's some of it is an advantage speed advantage you need to have over the car in front of you

but it other other than that it's also just timing it right trying to time when the car in front of you is going to catch some traffic when is their option when are they going to have to go low so maybe then i can jam it in up high and and get position so it's just it's hard passing is really really hard because all the cars run relatively the same speed i mean if i could put a graph up here of like all of our lap times it just doesn't it just they're all in the same band and you know when it comes to fall off they fell off like what was your lap time from lap one to the last lap okay so i i heard that immediately good year came in and says guys we had a second fall off well yeah in the first run the first run of the day is always the cleanest track

you're going to run the fastest lap time. Once we got in a rhythm, the leaders, the leaders could run 15-5s. And they ended the run almost 100 laps later running like 1620s. So 7 tenths over 100 laps.

Now if you're not first, second, or third, your lap time fall off was 4 tenths. That's just not. It's just not enough to create passing. And so, Jared, you are right that it is a car problem. We are trying to fix it with tires because that's the most economical way for us to fix it. Me as a car owner, I do not want to buy any more parts or pieces for this next gen car. We already have a tough enough time keeping up with all the changes that we've had to do to this thing.

I said years ago, we got to just design a NextGen 2.0. take that off the record because it's just going to be way too expensive. We just didn't do a great job with design from the get-go, and this is what we got. And I tried to ask NASCAR, eight months, 10 months a year before this car was released, are you sure you have it driving correctly in traffic? All types of racetracks. This is our opportunity to build a car that is good on all different types of tracks. Yep, we're sure.

and then they had a panic moment one month before the season or two months before the season when they actually put it in traffic and realized you can't pass in it. So that was, it's unfortunate. We just been trying to wind this ball of yarn ever since, trying to get it fixed. And it's gotten better at some tracks. And it seems like the tire is something certainly that shows fruit to better racing. I want to be nice to good year because they've done some things really in the last year that have been groundbreaking that certainly, I believe, shows promise in the future.

You know, they didn't want to come up with a whole new compound. They actually, you know, they wanted this race to play out more like the spring race, but it's just the conditions weren't the same or the mixture wasn't the same, right? And so it was a swing and miss, but I'm sure they'll go to work on it. surely with the the fan sentiment from the race itself not being pleased with what they saw, they'll come back with another tire yet. And what it's going to take is, you know, and I've been a huge advocate of this is you've got to wear out the left side tires.

The left side tires is the key to lap time fall off because once you wear out the left, the more pressure goes on the rights, and here we go, now you're going to wear out all four tires. So you got to create really grippy lefts. They're doing that for Martinsville. I'm really excited to see how Martinsville race turns out. The softest compound ever created is going on the left side there and then an even softer right. So there's good things on the horizon. This is not it's not all negative.

There's certainly some light at the end of the tunnel. So let's just be patient with it. Let Goodyear do their jobs. Figure this out and make some adjustments. for the next time. NASCAR treated the track before the race. Is there anything that they could have done differently? That was prompted by a text message chain.

Well, it started in the driver's chat, and then it kind of went on. There was a separate chat there for just the playoff drivers to voice their opinions on what to do. I think there was 70% that wanted it one way, and then at the last minute, maybe one or two ding in and say,

no, I don't like that idea. And then that creates pause. And so it, like we've learned in this whole owner's thing, getting 36 to all agree on something is just impossible. So I think they went with kind of what they thought was the best and the recommendations that was given to them, which was, you know, put PJ1 down at the bottom. And the reason for that is the drivers believe that the top was going to be too dominant. I will say that I think, Lap time-wise, straight lap time-wise, the top, middle and bottom were very, very, very, very close in speed. There wasn't a whole lot of advantage to running one lane or another.

It just the bottom wasn't quite fast enough to really for you to make incomplete passes. So the top was able to really hold off the bottom when it needed to, unless your car was elite, like Kyle Orson's. Is that why early in the race you immediately were off that bottom line it looked like and you were trying to make. Yeah, I just didn't want to run in the wake of the car in front of me. I just was trying to get clean air really kind of any way that I could. And at that time, I realized, you know, that the middle is actually, you know,

a pretty good place to be. I saw Bubba making some pretty aggressive passes through the middle and top on restarts. And so, yeah, it seemed like the track was pretty level set, bottom to top. But if you remember, the track was level set, bottom to top, back. when they reconfigured it 10 years ago, maybe 15 years ago. And then they ground the top because they didn't like how fast the top was because it became a top line train. So they ground it in which made it more of a top line train. And so it's just a challenge. That track, when you have cars that all run the same speed, good luck. You're just not going to create passing that way. That's,

That's the downside to parody and that's the downside to star power, things like that, right? This is a more broad argument, but, you know, there's a reason why the Chiefs and the Ravens always play primetime games, right? Because they have the stars and people tune in to watch them. The fundamental design of this next-gen car is to create it more equal. and while I think it's created more equal, it's just become more of a track position race more than ever. So your differentiators are your pick crews, your drivers,

your engineers like I talked about earlier. But with that, you kill star power because if everyone's the same, who's your stars? Right? You need the best to go out there and win. And they did this weekend. so it's just I don't know but you got to have cars to pass you got to there's not enough like Chris Gabhart said there's not enough things for us to work on to really differentiate

the speeds of the cars there's just just just not much to it um I mean here's something that's just interesting. Todd Gillen finished 32nd. His last lap of the race was a 16506. Kyle Larson won the race. Todd Gillum was four laps down. He ran a 16506. Kyle Larson's last lap was a 16494.

They're running the same times. It doesn't matter whether you're running. And if you look at the lap time, the average lap time, Everyone's running 16, fours and fives and sixes. Everyone. So you'd have to fundamentally say that we made a mistake here and we need to change this or we need to change as a fans our perception of what good races are because I thought,

like others, that this is the best race you're going to get considering what we've got. You're not going to get fans to change what their opinion of good is, though. you saw a really good movie in the spring and now here's the second portion of this movie and it bombed and it bombed which that typically does happen and take out if there wasn't the playoff elimination it would have been even worse just remember too you had at least 10 drivers in the field that were just happy running where they were at those you know with this is this is the negative part to cut lines eliminations things like that because where they were that's because where they were that's because they were running well.

Like those drivers that you're talking about, we're running. William Byron, Alex Bowman, we're happy. We're running 10th. But could they, we're good,

we're good. Could they drill up though? Huh? You're talking about how it's impossible to pass, so even if they weren't okay with 10th. But they're not going to push it. When I got to top three or so, at that time,

you know, I told Chris, do not talk to me about points. Just let me race. But I can see what's going on, right? I see when we lap someone who I'm battling in points with. I know that they're not having a great day,

and I know that if I just beat them at this point, I'm good to go. So what do I do? I just get to the finish line because that's what's the matter. I don't want to cause a caution. I'd love to go win the race, but people don't understand. You have to push it. You have to push every inch, which means getting up closer to the wall. If you hit the wall, bam, you bend a toe link over.

So you just have to manage the risk a little bit And I think 10 guys manage their risk To just get through the 45th 20th So could you have challenged Larson then Had it not been a playoff cut? I don't know about that That'd be a strong accusation to make

I think you have to give them their due That they were just the best car, best driver on that day But there was a time I'm looking here with about about about 420 to 450, I was hauling ass. And at that point, you know, I got the word that it's, we're good here. We're good. I don't think the points necessarily and the way the playoffs work necessarily are making drivers

react that way. Like you talk about it all the time. Just finish where you're supposed to finish. So if William Byron has rained 10th, and it's like, well, I have a 7th to 10th place car here. Let me just. William Byron could go get a 10th of raw speed if he would. wants to push it. And at that point, a 10th, he could vault himself four or five spots. And if it's,

if he's doing this over a 10 race period, he's, he's going to value that more. But, but if he knows all I got to do to move on and all this gets reset, I'm just going to finish where I need to finish. Right. But isn't that what, regardless of playoff points and all that, if the season was just a cumulative point structure or whatever, like that's what guys are going to do for the most part. It's like, okay, my car, I'm not good enough to beat Kyle Larson in this race. I mean, I'd be good enough to beat Christopher Bell and Denny Hamill in this race. But if I finish seventh, you know, like that's where my car is supposed to finish. You're only going to see like this wild drama cars pushing it for about four or five guys, every cut line.

The rest are just, we're good to go. Like, you know it doesn't matter what you do. You're going to get your points reset anyway. So that's the issue. At the end of the day. Just don't reset the points then. Change that four. format. Maybe. Maybe. So then it's a cumulative of everything, those three races, those carry on.

I don't think it. I don't, I think we're, it's like, but then, but then you're going to have people that are eliminated that have a better, say their next race or the next race. No, no, no, you're eliminated, but then the, the person eliminated has more points than. No, no, the top 12s that advance. Every point that you accumulated in those three races carry over instead of resetting. Yeah. I don't know. We'll been forever trying to fix all this stuff. I think we've got to just move on from it. Understand it is what it is and we have to just race what we got. Be happy.

And temper expectations. Temper expectations. And certainly NASCAR wasn't in love with what they saw and they don't love the comments and the media personalities saying what they're saying about the racing. So surely they're going to put pressure. sure on someone to fix it and it's likely going to be good year. I think though if drivers, if drivers felt like they could move through the field if they pushed it, maybe they would, right?

Like I'm sure Ty Gibbs is pushing it and Truex is pushing it because they have to move through the field but it just seemed like they. It was out of their control. You couldn't pass car three, four laps down. If they really were on the gas like they had to really concede the spot to really give it to you. Otherwise, you would spend half a run trying to work them over. It was difficult, no doubt about it. Was Kyle Larson the five team as dominant as they were because they may have prepped for a different type of race? You never know, but they've been really good at that track

for years now and have led a boatload of laps at that track. So you just put, them, you know, it seemed like right from the get-go even practiced. Their car was really good, really fast. Put them out front on a track that is, like we talk about hard to pass, and it's going be difficult. But he found his way through traffic, you know, lap cars, things like that. Nothing really held him up too much throughout the day. So I think it's just one of those magical weekends where, yeah, maybe they guessed right on the tireware stuff. Maybe they just hit it overall. You, you just never know, but either way, you know, definitely untouchable. Did you think you had a shot on that restart you were front row with him that if you

could maybe get there? Or did you know on that being the inside that you weren't going to get him? The inside is not preferred on the restart for sure. But I just didn't have the short run speed I needed. All weekend struggled to have the short run speed to really compete that well. So I'm not sure whether it's setup changes or just me, you know, not getting after it enough. Could be a combination of many of those things. But overall, I just think, you know, never. I mean, there was a time when I got to third and got to second in the long run. That was when Truex had the speeding penalty.

You moved up to second. Yeah, but on one of the long run, I think I passed Seabell for second. like Larson was right there, like 10, 12 car lengths in front. Now he was getting held up in traffic, but I don't know. Not really. Not really. I feel like I had it. Every time that you were pitting, did it go through your mind that like, hey, let's just make

sure we come out of this pit sequence without a penalty, considering that's probably the only thing that was going to end your season? When you know how hard it is to pass, you just cannot. have a penalty. Like, how does that happen to Truex and Ty? Like, is that just a lapse of... Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I thought I was being...

Go ahead, Trex. LaTart mentioned that, I think, with Gibbs, he thought he was taking the corner too tight. And so that's why... Because the speeding penalty was right after his box. And he...

Where was his box? It was Sector 6, I want to say. Okay, so it was before the bend? So was he pitted on the back? What? Turn three. Yeah. So when he accelerates out of his box, then he's probably, he held it probably too tight.

What is it, he, did he speed in six? Yeah, that's where the speeding was. Six is the segment right after the last pit box on the backstretch. So I've got caught speeding there before. If I, if I was pitted in that last box, if you go dead straight there and go straight to your lights, you'll pit. You'll, you'll speed. it's just some of the nuances that like you know I know that because I've done it before and I've been doing this for 20 years and you kind of know all those little spots on pit road

that you can find yourself getting caught speeding and that's one of them for sure if you shortcut that edge well we talked about this before right is that with the pit roads that are curved like that obviously the bottom is a shorter distance than the top yeah so like you have to approach it differently when I was running pit road road speed. I was running a much lower line than everyone else was, but I've got years and years of data on that line that I run and know where I need to be at that point. So while everyone else runs higher and runs probably more lights, I run less lights and then run a tighter radius. That's just kind of always the way I've done it. And so we haven't really changed it.

Was there a message to the team like, hey, Denny, don't speed. pit crew, be smart, don't, you know. Chris expects me to know all those things. He doesn't really, he didn't reiterate them that much. Now, I told him, you know, obviously don't talk to me about points, but I did say unless something major, unless all my competitors are out and it's a free, free ride at that point, then you can let me know. But he knows, he expects me to be prepared.

going into the weekend. And I make sure that I'm prepared. So he doesn't need to tell me, don't speed, right? I think, you know, he will in an instance where that is the only thing that is going to keep us from advancing or winning on that day, he'll tell me. But other than that, he just, you know, lets me do my job. I did find it funny that with like 35 to go, you said, I don't need a countdown. And then like 20 laps later, you're like, where are we at?

Yeah, because when it gets towards the end of the race, my spotter, Chris Lambert, he'll get more regular with how many laps to go. And it just creates a sense of urgency a little bit too much in the cockpit for me, especially when I'm trying to get to the finish line. So I didn't want to count down. I just wanted to run laps, get in a rhythm. And I felt like the best thing for me is just, you know, the best thing for me is just, you know, The last thing I heard was 35 to go, or 38 to go. 35. 35 to go.

And so I knew, hey, it's, I got about 10 more minutes of racing here. I just need to keep going. Ty Gibbs, Martin Tricks Jr., Brad Kuzowski, and Harrison Burton, knocked out in this round of 16. Anything stand out there to you? Unexpected, expected. Yeah, I mean, you know, disappointed a little bit for Truex and his team. obviously they were they were running well before he had that penalty he obviously feels really really bad about you know after the race he said you know he let his team down he didn't didn't do a

very good job and so it sucks in your last season to go out in the first round and certainly I got a tremendous amount of respect for Martin Truex and you know hope he gets a win here in these last few races of his career you know him going out, you know, I think it's a surprise. I mean, just because... Is it? Yeah, he's with a top organization. He's a top flight driver. Yeah, things have gone really for them over the last few months, but like, I don't know. I mean, there's many others that you would have going out before him, right? But, you know, but they didn't. Like, for instance, Daniel Suarez, how much do you think that guy likes Atlanta?

It got him in the playoffs. And then it... allowed him to advance in the next round. That's it. There's the only two. Those two races alone has put him in the top 12. The last lap at Atlanta in the spring got him in the playoffs. And then a good run in the first race of the playoffs got him in. Because last week went bad.

This week went atrocious. Last week was average. He still finished, what, 15th? I don't... Did he? I think so. He was in the sandpit, obviously, which is what you remember from this race,

but I still think he was managed to finish 15th. Okay. I swear he's got to want to run 36 races at Atlanta, I think. I mean, seriously. But, I mean, one racetrack, think about that. 13th. That's Watkins Glen. Okay, so he probably had an opportunity

to pull some strategy there at some point. All right, well, still, he didn't run well. he might have finished well he didn't run well 31 points at uh at walkins glenn yeah so it's 31 that means he he got some stage points as well he hit that magic would you say the point number was like 75 do you know how many i scored this round probably 75 six 76 yep analytics don't I that's right okay did it feel good to put together a well executed race stage one stage everything yes that was that's the biggest thing I can kind of take away from here is like the shoe didn't drop. Things kind of played out naturally and we got a great finish.

That's what we expect week in, week out. What we probably got to do better and I got to do better is that when adversity does hit or you get that untimely caution, how do you use that as an opportunity to advance versus just trying to protect at that moment? So I think that that's where certainly I can get better and we overall can get better, you know, just trying to, you know, let's get a better finish than what we were supposed to get. Now, it's tough when you're running up front to try to get a better finish than what you're running. It becomes easier when you're not running good on a given day.

But, but yeah. All right. So to go back on, so Truex. I think that's a surprise. Brad Kay, I think that's a surprise. Any comments on Brad Kay being eliminated? I don't think so. I don't necessarily think that any of these guys are a surprise, considering the way this first round of the playoffs was made up. Okay, that's a legitimate argument.

Given the wildness of the tracks and the unpredictability of the finishing order due to the type of tracks we were running, yes, you have a very valid. point there. I just thought, yeah, I think Atlanta, I think they hit it right on TV. Atlanta was a big, was the big miss, swinging miss for Brad Kaye there. You know, usually, you know, the last few Atlanta races, he had run really well. It just didn't have it this time. And so that compiled with two other really bad finishes just was not enough for him. Ty Gibbs, thoughts on.

him going out first round? I think that's probably the most surprising, considering where they were on the cut line. But then again, Chase Briscoe and Stort Hoss showed up. You know, like Ty was racing Briscoe in this race and Storthaus showed up and Ty made a mistake. Yeah, if you're Briscoe and your tie, you got to think that, okay, going into the weekend,

you have to assume that either myself or Martin, who were within shouting distance or Brad, one of us is going to have a really good day. So one of us is not going to make it. So at that point, it's outrun the other. So if you're tie, you got outrun Briscoe. If you're Briscoe, just outrun tie. You'll be fine, right?

And it looked like it was going to be a really tight battle. It really was, you know, because they looked very, very similar on speed. Briscoe and Stuart Haas, you know, hats off to them. Richard Boswell is doing a fabulous job, you know, getting that team speed that we have not seen all season. It is out of the blue. It's very Blaney-esque from last season where he just didn't see or hear much from him. And then bam, here comes playoff time. And all of a sudden, the differences with Blaney, they were winning races.

But he's up front. Like, his average running position has got to be substantially better than what it was during the regular season. So not sure what's prompted that, but they're on it at this moment. What about they said that they were going to be messing. Glaxen's setup was going to be similar or whatever to Briscoe so they could make some tweaks or whatever. Does that give them a little advantage that they have another car that they're messing with to figure out what Briscoe should be doing? Yeah, so what they'll do is both cars will go to the track the same. And then what will happen is Richard Boswell will have a set of changes that he would like to try.

but there's only so much time for Briscoe to do that, right? He gets probably one opportunity, one change to make during practice. Well, if you got another car, you can send that car down, say, hey, I want you to try this in the middle of practice, and they'll give him that feedback. So it wasn't just Briscoe, Priest finished seventh, Gregson finished 12th, so they all had good days at Stuart Haas. Except for Barry. Barry four laps down. Not good. So the Ty Gibbs surprised. I am. I just thought he was going to have more speed than Briscoe,

but it's more of a credit to Briscoe than it is anything. Where was Gibbs running before the speeding penalty, though? Top 10, right? Yeah, fifth, six in that range, I believe. He's running right there where I was at, right around that range. So that was just a killer. The speeding penalty was a killer. what it did to Truex.

Truex really never came back. He ended up one down. Last car one lap down in 24th, so nearly two laps down. And then Harrison. Props to Harrison, great Daytona, you know, that last green-white checkered or whatever it was getting into the playoffs. I think if you listen to kind of John Wood and what they had to say is that they probably didn't expect to go very far in these playoffs, but their season was made at Daytona and

such a great accomplishment getting the 100th win there for Wood Brothers. It's awesome for Harrison. He announced he's going to be going to AM racing in Xfinity next year. So at least staying in NASCAR with a full-time opportunity is good and hopefully gets a reset there. And, you know, yeah, it's certainly, Wood Brothers is going to reap benefits of that win for years to come. This next round of the playoffs is very similar to this first round, except it's flipped. The track where you can expect the same results that you typically see is first, Kansas, and then you go to Talladega, your Super Speedway, which you have no idea what you'll see, and then the roval to end it all off.

Yeah. Yeah, so certainly, yeah, if you're someone like myself, you want to go to Kansas and be on it, right? want to have a big day right off the bat there. Be aggressive at Talladega, try to get some points. And then... Wait, what did you say? Be aggressive at Talladega, try to get some points. So this is on the record.

What? Not just going to try to get 20? I'm going to drive to my car's ability. How about that? That's fair. Okay. Again, do I need to reiterate, I was in no way, shape, or fashion,

able to drive my car around others until 50 laps to go at Atlanta. My car was out of control. I tried to race once, and I nearly crashed. And so I did what I could, all right? And it was good enough, so it's time to move on. Yeah, Talladega, you got to just, however it plays out, if you get wrecked, you get wrecked. That's just part of it.

But, yeah, we hope to go to Kansas. this weekend and do what we've done there for the last three or four years in a row, which is run strong, compete for a win. If we can do that, we'd love to just punch our ticket and move on. Four wins, 15 top tens, 14 top fives. Thanks. You're my hype, man. Do you feel pressure to win this race, though?

No. I mean, if you don't have pressure to win, I mean, you got to love pressure, though. Like some people don't love pressure. I feel like I do. And at no point was I nervous this weekend. Now, you know, I can be nervous about things that are maybe out of my control, but the things that are in my control, not nervous about at all. And so I know what I need to do when I go to Kansas,

and that's run strong and contend for the win. But I'm not putting undue or more pressure on myself than I do each and every week. I mean, ultimately, my goals in NASCAR are still the same thing, and that is to get wins. I get wins. That's what really matters in the end for me is to put myself in that top 10 of winners in NASCAR history to do that. You've got to win races.

And so that's what I want to do. And if I just run up front and run like I normally do, we should move on. If things happen negatively, then you deal with that situation as it arises. legitimate question though do you have like do analytics show you want to score this many points in this round like you're trying to score this many points at kansas knowing historically you could score x points at taladega and then the roval i typically scored this amount of points yeah yeah where the analytics was kind of imperfect thing in the first round is because we had a new a different track in there right I think that the Roval Talladega round has always been there.

So, yes, you can use analytics more on this round. But I don't know. There's no point number I'm trying to get to is the gist of it. It's just all about what can I do to win the race on Sunday. And if I can't win, get the best finish possible. Yeah, you're just entering this round in a much different situation than you have in the past, right? You're only single digit points above the cut line versus multi, multiple points above, you know, 20, 30. It's different.

It's certainly I've got to perform as good or better than what I have in the past. Is this a mental reset now that you're through this first round? Yes. You know, you set on the radio afterwards, now it's on boys. yeah i mean certainly you know we had had such a bad start to the playoffs that now it's like you know and still this is a very questionable round when it comes to you know deciding your own fate at times but it's like if you get past this one then it really starts getting juicy for us the rest of the year and so um but we can decide what happens this weekend so uh in short um

the schedule gets more favorable as we go. So we got to just get through it. How was Lulu Saturday night or Sunday morning? She was good. Doing good. She's got some new goodies. I think PetSmart gave us some goodies to try to change the luck. So I don't know.

There was no real luck needed in this one. Or maybe there just wasn't bad luck, right? There it is. No late caution. that just destroyed everything, that's good. Were you worried when that one caution did come out at the end of stage two that more cars might stay out? Yeah, I didn't love that.

Didn't love that for sure. I think I was running second at the time. And at that point, I'm like, let's get this thing in. And the caution came at a very weird spot where it was like, is this going to be the end of the stage or not? That's when Reddick stayed up. Yeah. And so, you know, fortunate for him, he did stay out there.

They were probably closer on points than what they were planning on, but they saw an opportunity there to try to get some points. So I just think generally I did not want to see that caution. Certainly the more the natural the cautions are and the more predictable they are, the less variables that kind of get thrown in the mix. What's your relationship like with Gabe Hart in these playoffs? You know, I find it interesting being around y'all. Like after last week, we joked about it on the show where he was like,

oh, you got to do something with that dog. And knowing Gabe Hart, there's not a ounce of thought in his mind where he thinks the dog is going to play a role in this 11 cars season outcome, right? But despite all the things going on in your life, you know, other podcasts, Kevin Harvick, you know, all these other. NASCAR people talking, right? We're like worried about all the things going on. The charter stuff and, you know, you blaming bad luck on your dog and all these things.

But Gabe Hart and you guys were still very light about your approach to these races in this round, despite a bit of adversity. What is your relationship like with him and just everything? It's good. You know, it's just you go through times like this. I think everyone goes through times like this in their career. And certainly it would be a lot, it would be a lot more difficult if we didn't have speed.

When you have bad luck, luck being a very loose word, and you're not running, and you're not fast, that's when you have, that's when you're back there in the high 20s and 30s and points. Like it's just your years terrible. and at that point you're just searching for top 15s, top 20s,

and praying every week that you don't go multiple laps down. We're not in that position. And so we know every seven days we have an opportunity to win. And so not many people have that opportunity. And so we try to take it as light as we can because we know that we're still playing a game and we're having fun with it. We're accomplishing a lot.

And regardless of the outcome, you know, as long as we do the best that we can each and every week, like we're going to give ourselves more chances to win than most. And that doesn't mean we're going to win more than most, but we're going to give ourselves more chances. And that's a great feeling 20 years into this to know that you're still can be the most dominant car on any given day. But despite everything going on, a little bit of adversity here and there, every time on the race, that something comes up, he always says, you're the driver. It's almost like for you two to succeed, you both kind of have to like take yourself back and say, okay, I put all my trust into

you. And the other person is, okay, I put all my trust into you. Right. No one is in this like, well, Denny decided he wanted to run at the back at Talladego. We're not going with his choices anymore. We're following mine, right? The analytics say start on the top here, you're doing that. But Gabe Hart kind of just says, well, you're the driver. You do what you want. Yeah. I think I was very I think starting our relationship off on the right foot

really mattered in the sense of I gave him the reins of this race team when he took over I wasn't the veteran who says okay this is the way that

I've always done things here's how I like it it was more you just tell me what to do and I'll go do it right and so I think that there's just a tremendous

amount of respect he was a race car driver himself knows what it's like to sit in while not a cup car, a race car. And he knows that sometimes data or analytics or situations or past history doesn't always paint the correct picture. And he trusts that when I'm in a car, that I'm self-analizing a lot of things. And maybe I can give input that it'd be very useful. And maybe it's a decision that counters his decision. But he trusts that when I do speak up and say, here's what I think. He certainly values it. It doesn't just put it off to the side saying,

well, you don't know the whole picture. So that is an extremely important thing in our relationship that he trusts me and I trust him. And he understands when I'm adamant about something. He takes it very seriously. He's like, okay, why is he thinking that? He must see something that I don't see. And vice versa, it goes the other way as well. always been loose before big moments? Or at what point in your career did you kind of develop that ability to not get tight? Because you always hear about teams, they have a big loss, whatever. The team was too tight.

They were too worried and you need to play loose or drive loose. After 2010 for me personally, it was kind of the moment where I went into that final race at Homestead with the point lead. I was so disappointed over not finishing Jimmy at Phoenix. We had them our foot on their throat. It was over. And we ran out of gas. That was certainly just a letdown moment.

And at that point, I just kind of, I just took things way too seriously. I didn't approach that final week at Homestead like I did every other week of the season. And I played too tight in the sense of like, you know, I saw someone qualifying in a different line. and they ran fast and it was like, oh no, I haven't practiced up there, but they just set fast time, so I just got to go for it. And then I qualify way in the back and then put three wide, getting a crash, right? So I just think the failure that I had from 2010 really taught me to just be in the moment, have fun with it, don't treat it too seriously. It is still just a game. nobody really cares you know about the outcome um it's still i've still accomplished way more than i

ever thought i would have so why be upset if i fail in one given moment right so i just think that that's worked for me over the last decade and i've used it to just you know be more content and more confident with kind of who I am personally and professionally. And it's worked for me. Yeah, I think it's just, I don't know the right word for it, but super interesting following along. Like through all this, we were blaming your poor, poor finishes. As a joke. Right, as a joke, on your dog. But it's like, this guy's in the playoffs, right? He's like racing for his career, livelihood. Like, this is super important. And we're joking in that saying that is your dog's fault. I know.

You couldn't take it any more lighthearted than that. I take it as that's how I knew that you were loose because if you were really worried, I don't think we're making these jokes. But the fact that this is happening is like this team isn't worried about where they're at. They're confident in themselves. We could have a disastrous round here and go out. And I don't even know how many. I feel like I couldn't remember whether I'd went out in the first round before.

I think maybe I have once. But even the next round. I feel like I haven't gone out many times in the round 12. But if I do, I do. Who? In the end, no one really cares. So it's, I'm just going to do the best that I can and try to get as many wins as I can before my career is over.

That's, that's ultimately the list that I really, really care about because the drivers that are in it are just the most elite. And so, um, that's my goal. And I've got plenty of time to, to, to get to the, accomplishments that I want. And a cup championship would just add to that. I mean, certainly would be such a big deal to me, my family. I want it for my dad. I said it many times. I want it for my family as much as I want it. And my friends as much as I want it for me. But it's, I'm going to be fine regardless of the outcome. And I'm going to be okay no matter what

happens. Well, NASCAR certainly cares because I think whether you're a fan of the driver of the 11 or not, the NASCAR season is way more interesting knowing and wanting to know if Denny's going to finally win a championship this year. And if you were to go out in this round, the following four races would be significantly less exciting, I feel like. Yeah, maybe. Certainly, I can't be the judge of that, but I mean, certainly there are groups of people or lots of fans that root for my my failure, right? I know that. I did not, unfortunately, see them in my mentions this week. I was trying to figure out where all my trolls were this week, who, because I went back a little bit and maybe saw some people that I could have trolled from what you said last week, but I'm going to be the bigger

man here and not say anything, nor give you the attention that you're so desperately wanting. but it's cool by me honestly when when they boo and they make so much noise at driver intro's like I love making them feel some sort of way and for my buddy steel horse live who tweeted that look at this guy that flipped off Denny every lap he came back around he's like that's dedication I mean that is someone that oh I am just burning I'm an ulcer in their body that just is just eating them alive, and I love that. Living rent-free. Yes.

But Jared, to your point, you're saying they want, people want him because of more compelling, I tell you what, as an avid sports fan, I want to see certain teams lose all the time. So there's a big, there's a big section of the NASCAR fan base that would love have seen him not advance last week. Right. But do you want to see him not advanced around 12 or do you want to see him lose to be now? I want to see Michigan every fucking race. But think about this.

If you're a hater of my. myself and the 11th team. If I would have not advanced, now your season's over. No, because then you didn't. No, your season's over. Right. That's what I'm saying. Yes.

I want to see you make it to Phoenix and then. Now they can continue to hate for the next at least three more weeks. No. You didn't advance. That's the worst part. No. I wanted Michigan to lose the USC. I wanted them to lose this week.

I want to lose every game. I hate them. So if I hate Denny Hamlet, I don't want you to advance because that's now a good Bristol race. Yeah, but now you're watching the next three races and see if he loses. You can still suck next week, though. Now, once you're out, they, listen, nobody, like I said, nobody really cares anyway. And then B, when, if you're out of the playoffs, really, I mean, your camera time gets cut to like zero.

So it's just, I'm telling you, there's, I eat inside of people's souls. And now they, they get to have the hope that I'm going to fail for three more weeks, versus now it's over for them. And they celebrate that quick moment for a day. But then they would realize, oh, well, who am I going to root against now? I'm just a professional hater. I got to find somebody else to hate on. That's how I see it.

Me too. I see it the same as you. Yeah, I see it the same as you. Let's talk about these playoffs standings real quick. Kyle Larson plus 39, Chris Rebell. Boy, he's got to be feeling good. Yeah, I mean, it's a whole race. That is a whole race.

Jared, how are you feeling? Which is so deserved. Like, let me tell you something. It's my opinion. Kyle Orson should be 100 points ahead. Book him in the final four. There's no way reason in any type of format should that five car not be in the final four racing for a championship. But he is just one race ahead with three races to go.

So, you know, anything can happen. But he's got to be feeling the best. certainly. Christopher Bell plus 24. Feeling pretty good. Tyler Reddick plus 20. Feeling pretty good. William Byron plus 14.

Feel all right. Blaney plus 11. Been here. Feels good. Hamlin plus seven. We're great. Elliot plus six. Doesn't care anyway.

He really, he don't care. care. Lugano's last driver above the cut lineups. That's a joke, by the way. He does care. Lugano, he's great in these moments, so don't count him out for sure. But how's he feeling? He's feeling all right about it. And then Cindrick, Suarez, Bowman, and Briscoe, minus four, minus six, minus seven, minus seven, respectfully. Yeah. They're all, um, that group hopes for super speedways every race. I mean, I don't know.

I mean, certainly Briscoe's got some, he looks like he's got the most speed of those four. I don't know. Bowman's really showed up here lately. So Bowman, Briscoe, probably feeling pretty good. You know, they moved on and now they've got another opportunity with a couple of wild card races that they can, they can pounce on any one of those middle guys having, having a bad race or two. end up right back up at the top where they were. Yeah, it seems like if you're a guy that's well above this cut line or just just above it, you're trying to pad your point. Yeah. Yeah. Positivity in this next race so that you can limit the detriment of a poor finish and you're

a talladega or the role. Yeah, it's it'd be interesting to see how it all plays out. But yeah, it's, by the way, great accomplishment, Austin Cendrick. Not only, getting in. He got in because he won that race at Gateway, but then he had a great, he had a great first round, generally speaking. Where do you end up? 13th at Bristol, a lap down, but still, like, I'd argue that's probably the best he's run at Bristol in quite some time. So shout out to Austin Cendrick, doing a great job. Moving on. Suarez's got a new life, new life now. They can put Bristol behind them. That 34 first place finish was not good at all. But now, hey, you're dealing with house money now, right? All these guys at the bottom, Cendrick Swares, Bowman, Briscoe, I think they've

got nothing to lose and everything to gain. If there's one driver that's currently below the cut line, to advance the next round, who do you think is most likely? Alex Bowman. Yeah, I'll go Bowman. I think has the most capability of speed I think Kansas is a good racetrack for him I think the Roval's good for him and I think that at Talladega he'll you know he's going to have some support

some Chevrolet support around him so my vote would go Bowman as moving on I think Syndrick's another guy that could very well could it wouldn't truthfully would not shock me if any one of those four move on like the the the the bigger question or the bet is like how many of them move on what's your what's your guess on um i have my thoughts i probably two yeah two two is two is the number i think two them in two

them out one seems too little and three seems too much yep that's all a few off track things before we wrap up this podcast, Bubba Wallace contract extension, 2311 announced that earlier this week. Yeah, it's great to get that solidified for Bubba. We had really kind of ironed most all that stuff out long, long time ago. But man, he had a great Bristol. Man, he was coming on quick there at the end. You know, those are the kind of runs that is hopefully going to build him some momentum towards next year. Again, if he really, runs as good as he is now next year for the first 26 races, he's going to find himself in the playoffs and not only in the playoffs but making a deep run. So really happy to have him part of our

team. He's been great with our sponsors and certainly on-track performance continuing to get better and better every single year. How much, I don't know, values the right word for it, but like Bubba didn't make the playoffs this year. However, he is having a career best year in every other statistical category. How much does not making the playoffs way down those other performance accolades? That's a good question.

It certainly taints it, right? But you've got to be strong enough mentally to really dial out and say, I made it last year by not being as good. I was better this year and didn't make it. That's because things that you can't control came into play, which is you had more outside winners. You had some fuel mileage races, went haywire.

You had just, there was more variables that kept them out. I mean, Chase Elliott got hurt last year. So the 23 car still hasn't made the playoffs, but Bubba did last year. but because the nine car had multiple drivers. So you got to just zoom out and say, am I running better? Is my driver rating better?

Is my statistics better? Where's my average running position? Is it better? Those are the things you really just need to concentrate on to decide, are you truly getting better or not? And in every category that I can see, Bubba is absolutely getting better. And it still needs to continue to get better year after year.

But as an owner, is that how you're looking at? at it? Are you saying, okay, it's time to extend Bubba's contract? Look at these things. He's getting better and better and better. Or are you looking at it like, well, dude, our goal here is to have two cars in the playoffs every year and you didn't make the playoffs and you know, you made it last year because of chasing all that. But you didn't make the playoffs in the last two years. So you're not living up to expectations. Which is it? No, he knows the expectation. And that is, you know, with the resources we have over at 2311, you know, we expect both of our cars to,

make the playoffs every single year. However, we are realistic with our expectations in the sense of, you know, when Bubba got into our equipment, he was mid-20s. You know, that's where he was finishing week in, week out. It could be equipment. It could have been Bubba, whatever it was, right? But year after year, after year, after year, after year, the data shows that he's getting better. Anybody with two eyes and a brain can watch a race and see he's better than what he was. So that's what we care about. And as long as he continues on this same trajectory, then everyone, all parties, you're going to remain happy.

Are you heavily involved in the driver contract stuff at 2013? 11, or you kind of relinquish that power to somebody else? No, I'm in all of them. Yeah. Justin Haley and Corey LaJoy officially swapping rides for the remainder of the season. That starts this weekend at Kansas. So Justin Haley will be in the seven and Corey LaJoy will be in the 51.

I think this is good for both. The reason is I think it takes pressure off of Corey. You know, he had teammates, you know, where Zane is coming into his own. You know, track house, I can go to Zane. I don't know where Zane ends up, but he's coming into his own really quickly. You had Horsavar coming in as a rookie performing great. Shout out to Carson. Doing just a tremendous job this year.

Always been super polite to myself off the racetrack. I think he's setting himself up for a very, very, very bright future. He's doing great. And you're really seeing that probably put some undue pressure on course. Corey, right? He's got these young guys coming in. They're performing really well, and then you push. And then when you push, you wreck. And certainly, you know, there's a lot of trolls getting at Corey quite a bit here lately because of all the wrecks that he's been in or cause. But, you know, this is going to be best for him to go to Rick Ware. And if you can go get some good results out of that 51, which it is capable of doing, Justin Haley has shown that it's very capable of running well. then it maybe can be that springboard back into a top flight team into the future. I think it unloads some of the pressure to perform because everyone knows that the 51 doesn't have the funding that most of the field has.

So if he's able to go out there and get the most out of it, then it looks better for Corey. And if he doesn't run well, people will just chalk it up to, Like, his equipment's not as good. Yeah, but we're seeing Justin Haley run well in the 51. So now you... He's running well, but he also has bad races. What if Haley runs really well in the seven, though?

As long as you... Then it looks good on Haley. And looks bad on the Joy, though. Yeah, but I mean, sometimes you just need to reset. And I just think that, you know, there was a lot of pressure on Corey. coming into the year, Spire, had a merger or choir, whatever it was. They had a group come in, spend some money, and he knew that his resources were going to be more.

And there's just, there's pressure to that. And then when you have these young shoes coming in on your team performing well, that adds more pressure. I get it. I was in, I've been in that position. But I just think it's best. I think this is a good swap. and I think it's very smart by both teams.

Let's kick this off. Let's see, let's get a jump start on next year. I think it's going to be a tremendous opportunity for Haley. And so, yeah, let's just see where this all irons out. And once we get enough sample size, you know, by maybe the end of year or mid next year, we'll see, you know, is Corey, you know, going to be able to do this at a high level or not? But I think we still need some more time to find that out. Are you high on Justin Haley's talent? Are you kind of excited to see him work with Rodney Chilers next year?

Yeah, I think that's going to be a great combination, certainly the best opportunity that he's had. It's well deserved, which is why I always try to tell people and young drivers when they ask for advice on this, is that it doesn't matter, even if your local short track level, it does not matter if you're not winning.

As long as you're running better than what your car is capable of, people notice that. When Justin Haley goes and he's running top 10, top 15 at some of these tracks, that aerodynamics is a big deal. And we know that there's no way that car is aerodynamically as sound as others, but he's still wheeling it. You just, you take notice of those things. And that's what gives you these opportunities to someone says, okay, I see you run a 28

there. That's not bad. And then all of a sudden, wow, paying attention, you're running 20th. With something, something that I deem a 30th place car. That's pretty impressive. Man, if he got in my stuff, I bet he could really go. You know what I mean? That's what, that's what car owner starts to think. And so it just goes to show winning is important. And I agree, always, if you have the opportunity to move up, move down, move down and win first. But if you do get an opportunity, in Cup or Xfinity in a car that is not historically a winner or a contender, and you find little bright spots of accomplishing great finishes, people will take notice and you will get a chance.

Yeah, I mean, seeing it with Chase Briscoe, right? Yes. Getting better, getting all he can out of his door house stuff. Now he's moving into Drex's car. Yep. Anything else this week? Anything off the track? No.

Hoop Group playoffs start. Have you played Austin Dillon's team since then? Whatever, whatever came of that. We already documented that. We did. He had rib problems. No, I know. Paul Swan gave him an old rib jab jab right there in Victory Lane at Richmond

and knocked the rib loose. So he was out for like three weeks, but he's back. Right. So who does Smoke Show play this weekend? We play. Uh, the hooligans. Who's on the hooligans? Anyone noteworthy?

Uh, my brother-in-law, Josh, Neely. Any prediction for how you're going to do in the playoffs? No idea. No idea. I've got a great team, though. You can follow us, uh, at the hoop group, I think. Is that right? Yeah, they put out some good content.

Charlie does well. Yeah, I put it in my stories sometimes. Um, I was trying to see what the actual was. We share a podcast studio with the hoop group. group actually. Now we do it apparently, right? Travis and you guys had a... I'm going to start charging Charlie for phone calls for consultation. Oh, you should. That's the underscore hoop group. Yeah. All right. No, I don't have anything else. Looking forward to Kansas. No place like Kansas. Hopefully we can get us the dub. Move on to the

round of eight. I got a review here from Charizo 23. Love the podcast. Great week we listen. I'm going to my first race at Kansas next week and bringing my dad. He used to work for FedEx, so I got him one of your FedEx merch shirts. Can't wait to see you race all then. Awesome. Well, look forward to seeing you. Say hello if I pass by. If not, I'll give you an autograph if I'm close by. But yeah, enjoy the race this weekend and we'll see you all Monday.