Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Chase Elliott Fans...Lets Hold Hands

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Denny Hamlin was in Texas last week doing some testing for NASCAR and he talks about what he learned. Denny competed in the SRX series on Thursday and came home with the victory. Meanwhile, a fan made Jared his own Hero Cards. Martin Truex Jr dominated New Hampshire. Denny was slow on restarts and didn't have enough speed. SHR cars finally had a good day. Kyle Busch had a trifecta no driver wants. Chase Elliott didn't have a good race, but Denny has faith he will make the playoffs. Plus, #DearDenny Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Chase Elliott fans, let's hold hands. We're going, we're going to unite and we're going to, we're going to will this thing to happen. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey guys, welcome to actions detrimental from New Hampshire right off the racetrack. Here it is. What have we got? Three hours. So we're about four hours from the end of the race, is.

coming in hot voice might sound a little dehydrated that's because it is um had a long week uh we talked about it last week about kind of what I had going on last week but it was uh

I was in the car a lot and a race car a lot but we do we do have a trophy here on the desk anytime we win we're going to have our trophy here so the SRX uh trophy was a pretty badass I saw it online and I'm like

Ooh, it's got lights. I want that trophy. I don't know if people can see it on camera because like all of our studio lights here. But yes, the tower is lit up. It's like a nightlight. And you can adjust it on the bottom, right? I know. You were actually using it for your night light on the plane. You had your feet kicked up. I got a picture of you with their feet kicked up on the plane trophy in front of you, giving you a nice ambiance. But yeah, we had a tire test at Texas on Tuesday, Wednesday? Yeah, Tuesday, Wednesday. It was so flipping hot there.

I mean, wow, it was really hot. We got a little bit of rain on day one, so I ran a couple laps early in the morning. When I say early in the morning, I guess he told me to be there by 6, 45 or 7. I was there somewhere in that neighborhood. ran like 10 laps. We had had rain. Didn't get going again to about 930. But it was hot. We extended it till 3.30. We were working on a tire for Texas. Scootie wants to change the tire, make it more durable. If you remember last year during the whole, remember the Alex Bowman wreck where everyone who was out front kept blowing tires, they wanted to make a more durable tire. that whenever I hear durable, I, like, cringe a little bit, like, oh, boy, don't make it harder, stiffer.

Right. But, you know, it is different. I ran the control tire. The control tire is the tire that we ran last year. And then we switched over to the new tire that they like. And it drove different for sure. And then they came with another option that actually took a little bit of right-side group away that I seem to like a little bit as far as how the car drives.

It's very difficult as a driver because you always want to tell them what is best for racing or your series. And a lot of times, you know, that's why Goodyear here is so many different things from drivers when they, if you had 10 guys at a tire test, you would have 10 different opinions of probably what we should be. racing, right? It's very hard at times to not be biased about, well, you know, this is what made my car run good versus, you know, another tire that is probably better for racing that maybe your car didn't adapt to as well. But the teams can catch up pretty quickly. So I'm curious, I'm curious overall about these tire tests. What, what, like when you leave the track, what constitutes a successful test? For the team or for Goodyear? both, right? Aren't we all looking for the same thing? Aren't we all trying to achieve the same

goal? Not necessarily. No. As a team, we're looking for any, we're trying to collect data. That's pretty much what we're doing is that, you know, we're trying to collect information that the engineers can go back at Joe, Joe Gibbs Racing and then study a bunch of squiggly lines on the computer to figure out what we need to go back there to be fast. So, so I'm asking then more so for good year. Because, okay. Because we want the race to be better. I think really good year probably has an idea in their head before the test even starts that this is what we want to run. It's more of a confirmation test. So it's basically, as long as your car didn't do something crazy, they come up with a different mold or a new construction, which the new tire will be a new construction.

It's a more durable construction that they feel better about as far as how long the tire will last. and, you know, we abused them last year. We ran the air pressures way too low at Texas. We were running on the bump stops. All the cars were. So that, they really put Goodyear in a very tough spot. The teams did because of the platform of this car wants the back of the car to be down because of the aeroplathform it was built on, you know, so we're running on the shocks

and it's just, it's just pounding that tire into the ground and it's beating it up. Well, I'm asking because you have a handful of these tire tests every year at different tracks, right? We do, yeah. And we're still going to come into this episode, at least a little later on, and talk about tires and how they weren't the best. So it doesn't seem like... Well, we don't know.

I mean, it's, is what they had last year, but we don't know, right? The goal, I mean, I know that they were pretty excited about the loud tire because they felt like, hey, this is as aggressive as we've been in X amount of time and making a tire softer or giving you more grip. The falloff was the same. I made sure before I logged on here, I went back and looked at previous years. It was the same. You know, nothing changed.

We were a little bit slower on the front end. A lot of that had to do because of the aerodynamic package, the new short track package that NASCAR implemented with, you know, underneath is a little different. The spoiler is shorter. That is, that will wear tires less. anyway than the higher down force package that we run on the mile and a halfs. So it's, I don't know what a success is as far as this weekend goes. I don't think it matter what tire you had, Martin Truex was going to go out there and dominate.

Well, like, before we get to New Hampshire, the Texas. Yeah. Like, should we be looking forward, what I'm trying to get to is should we be looking forward to the next Texas race based on what you did on Tuesday, Wednesday? It won't be any changes as far as racing is concerned. The race was going to be the same. The tire fall off was the exact same at the tire test. From the control tire, the baseline tire that we ran last year, to what we're going to run this year, it's the same.

There was no different. It was more just of a field difference. The speeds were relatively close. So nothing earth-shattering there for sure. Okay. But I'll tell you, I did have some really good conversations with Goodyear about, you know, The challenges that they have, I talked about, you know, what can we do to make them better? You know, what are the challenges that they have to just putting a softer tire?

You know, back when we had Gen 6 cars, they were seeing outrageous temperatures in the tire. So when we went to, let's call it, Michigan, they would see on the shoulder of the tire, you know, 310 degrees. I mean, that's what melt speeds. that's what causes blowout. With the next-gen car, there's just less load in a lot of it is because these cars have, you know, downforce level is so much lower than what it was in the previous generation car that we don't have the air pushing down on these cars like we did in the previous generation. So we're not getting the heat in the tires that we used to.

Therefore, Goodyear now has to rewind the clock and go back and say, okay, how can we tiptoe back into getting more aggressive, right? They don't want to just come and next thing you know you have an indie situation where they, we blow out tires every 10 laps. You know, a lot of that was because the track got levigated and we didn't have a tire test. So there's different things that they can do to get heat back in the tire. I personally think that if they made the tire thicker, So added more rubber to it, that would add more heat.

More heat would make the tire wear more. So you don't necessarily have to go to a super soft compound. I think that's part of the equation is making the compound softer itself. I don't know what the tire was today, but, I mean, guys that stayed out on 35-lop tires ran just as fast as... I know that I ran my fastest slaps before those cautions came at the end. I ran, I don't know, 31 30s when I went out after the pit stop, you know, and then by the end of the run, I was running 31 teams. So I kept getting faster as a run went on. So it's just, you know, I don't know, you know, it's so different because when they tire tests, there's just a few

cars out there. They're not going to get all the rubber. So they're going to be more apprehensive to being aggressive, but we still got to keep chipping away at this thing. So, Going back to the gauge of the tire, they said they can increase. Back in the day, they used to have to cut the amount of tread down. These cars have no tread. They're slicks, but the amount of rubber that's on the tire, the least amount of rubber they have, the more heat it cuts out of the tire. So that's what they did to fix Michigan and whatnot back in the day,

or probably four or five years ago. They can add that gauge back. They can add the rubber back. So then you can get a softer tax. tire and then it produces more heat because there's more rubber creating the heat than hopefully it wears. But again, this is a, I mean, this is like acid for more horsepower. This is going to take a really long time to get right. How much feedback are you giving your team to make your car faster versus Goodyear and NASCAR to make. Well, I mean, as a team, we're going to just

do whatever's, you know, we know that everyone's got the same tires on the race car that we did this weekend. It's just who can optimize it the best. Who can hit the setup, who can drive it the best. I mean, all those things play a factor. Behind the scenes is where, you know, when the drivers meet with, you know, NASCAR, good year, that's when we had those conversations of, hey, you know, what is in what's coming up for us? What are we working on? I know, I spoke with a good year guys and they said that Bristol, they got some ideas on how to make the Bristol tire better. So these are all good things that are in the works that are coming for us. So you go from the tire test on Tuesday, Wednesday, hop on a plan on Thursday afternoon, head up to SRX. Well, after I went in the SIM on Thursday morning,

I went at, you know, like 7 a.m. or something like that to the SIM, then went straight. I had a meeting at the shop. From the SIM, went straight to the shop, had a meeting for an hour, then went straight to SRX and spent most of the evening there. We didn't get back till late. 3.30? Yeah, it was late. It was a good night, though. It was an entertaining day.

It felt loose. It felt loose. Yeah. It definitely wasn't, you know, it wasn't, the drivers aren't as serious. You know, they're probably not thinking about points like, you know, whatever. But yeah, it was, you know, I, I, I was happy because, you know, I had a few fellow cup drivers there in Harvick and Kesslowski that, you kind of gauge yourself off. It's very difficult because some of these guys that are retired in IndyCar or Cup, like it's, you know, they're just doing this part-time.

They're not in the grind every single week. And when if you sit out of a car for just a few weeks, you can quickly find yourself off the pace pretty quickly. But I was actually pretty shocked how up to speed everyone was. The field was so tight on time. even in practice when, you know, quite a few of us had never run there before, but it was, it was fun. It really was. The cars were very challenging to drive. I mean, it was, it made it interesting, dude, you know, work on, it was, I had to change my technique so many times during the course of that race to, like, fit what the car was doing that, you know, I enjoyed that part of it, for sure.

You brought up wheels and Gabe Hart to help you. and I guess you inherited ready once you got there. Yeah, I don't know where that came from. But yeah, I mean, we showed up and I'm thinking, you know, surely we'll be able to take this car and, you know, turn some wedge bolts or, you know, work on air pressure or something. No, like right from the get go, they're like, no, if we make one change on a car, all the cars get it.

You know, so before the race. So we were really tight in practice. All the cars were. So they made the same adjustment to all the cars before. the heat races. And then after, before the main, they said, you know, you're able to take your air pressures up, up or down, two pounds on the right and one pound on the left. And they monitored all that.

They, their team of guys is the ones that did the air pressure. They knew better and let, you know, our crew chiefs or me have an air gauge because we're going to just keep going with it. But so those guys did it. and then I kept asking for more wedge. They let you do wedge if you wanted to, you know, in the right side spring. So literally you could take like one round out or one round in. It was very, very small.

All the cars were, like I say, from practice that showed that they were all pretty equal. I had a couple of people come up to me. I guess it would have been after the both heat races and said, wow, this is really cool. I've never seen Denny work on his own car before. Well, we share. So, you know, at SRX, they had a, you know, you get assigned a crew chief. And then you have like probably two guys, really, to work on the car, maybe three. But you're sharing them, it's you and three other drivers have the same one crew chief and the same two or three crew guys.

So there was more damage on the, you know, on the cars that my crew chief, the other guy. guys that he had. So they're fixing stuff. And I'm just like, what the hell? Like, we, clock's ticking. We got to fix this thing. So, yeah, I just try to straighten some fender braces out and whatnot. I thought I had a steering issue, but it looked like the right front tire was getting hung on the fender there after it got beat in. I tell you, it's, it's rough. That's rough racing. Like, they don't have any spotters. And from TV, when you look at it, you're like, these guys are just plowing into each other and like not paying attention to who's inside. I'll be honest, you can't see anything in those cars. They're so wide

that usually if you have a left side mirror, you can see the left side because your door, you know, wherever your mirror is, it's flushed with the side of the car. Well, these cars are like, have like 10 inches worth of width extra on each side. So you can't see, you cannot see. anything and you have no spotters and so my only recommendation was like hey i think y'all are wrecking too much you would wreck less stuff they might want wrecks i'm not sure but i don't know what it cost them to fix these cars but if they had spotters they probably wouldn't tear up as many and i guess without having a spotter you also don't know where someone else is maybe better than you at or where you can be better no yeah yeah you're no data no data yeah you're you have a mirror that you know you can

see guys when they're getting close and whatnot and when you need to hit the hit the pedal but yeah you don't know you got they have two radios they turn them on simultaneously so that's why they couldn't hear me in the post race when they were when joie lagano was calling in and i was in the car driving a victory lane is because race control was talking well if you have two radios on and they're you know one group is talking to you in this year and the other is talking to you in this year if you go to key the mic and they're still talking, you hear all that crazy stuff. So I was trying to turn off the race control, but that's basically how it works is that race control is got a, you know, they're telling you the order in which you need to choose. You've got a big flashing yellow

whenever the caution comes out, which I think that's a great thing that they should have in all series. Certainly ARCA for sure, they need to have the yellow, yellow, yellow, like slow down. but it was it was fun it definitely was fun i appreciate tony and don hawk and all those guys for invited me uh to do it um i certainly when it moved to thursday night i was one of the first that took all don hawk and and tell them that i wanted to participate so thank them for that um but i think uh i mean never say never are you going to go back this thursday to uh no no to defend it no i think brian prey and Ryan Priest is running this week, right?

Yeah, I think so. Travis is thumbs up. So I like his chances. I don't know if any other cup drivers are running that. Well, Brad's running full time. Oh, Brad's full time. I'm sure we can pull up the list here. But yeah, there's a handful of cop drivers.

Kenny Wallace, I think, is running out. Clint Boyer. Shout out to Clint. Clint ran really well. Like, I thought that he, like, didn't miss a step. Now, if he goes into a cup car, it would take him forever. to get reacclimated and he's not run next gen except for a test. But like to stone cold get in there and run those things, I thought Clint did a awesome job.

If all the cars are the same and they can't make too many different adjustments to each one without making the same adjustment to another, is SRX, like, is it really just based on the skill level of the driver at that specific racetrack? It plays a large factor for sure. I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess. You also had tires that you had to manage, right? The tires that you used in practice were the tires that you had to race on? Yeah, you did.

And those cars have more horsepower than what our cars have. So, yeah, you definitely had to be kind of using both pedals efficiently. And, I mean, that's kind of what I grew up doing is running short tracks like that. It really reminds me of Langley Speedway that I grew up racing on. you'll see Ryan Priest and Daniel Suarez. Oh, cool. And then former Greg Biffle is also in this week. Another name.

Biffel be strong. He was there. I think he was giving Newman and those guys a run for the minute last year. Newman was coming on strong at the end. I'm actually kind of glad it rained when it did. I think I still had a little bit left in the tank, but he was coming on strong at the end. Were you expecting if he did get to you,

you're just going to move you out of the way. No question. That's SRX thing. I did not, I did not let anyone get within a couple car lengths. Like I just, not going to risk it. Not going to risk getting knocked out of the way. That's for sure. But it was fun.

All right. So we came back, as you said, it was a late Thursday night. Friday you had off completely. Could you just sleep all day? I didn't sleep all day, but I did sleep until 1230. That's pretty much all day. I would consider that all day. I went to bed at 4 o'clock, Jared, or 4.30.

I understand. So I, okay, well, I got in the proper sleep that I felt I needed. What else did I do? I did something on Friday, I thought. Maybe not. I just went, went to the building and came back. So, yeah, I didn't do much on Friday. And then Saturday we headed to New Hampshire for practice.

That was it. Then we sat in the rain on, well, actually, Marcus Smith decided to put a pickerball court in the driver's lot. In the driver's lot. Thank you to Marcus and his team for doing that. You got to, I was interested to see, like, who's going to come out here, right? And, you know, I don't know who plays, who doesn't. I play a little bit, as you know. and it was cool because you had, you know, Joey there, Brad there, Blaney there, Bubba there.

And it was fun watching everyone play because there's one court and there, Ricky Stenhouse, he was there. And then there's a few other guys as well. But you watch them and everyone's watching your court. So like it's pretty cool because there's not, you know, everyone's who's waiting, it's just waiting, you know, watching your game. And so when there's an awesome shot or whatever, there's always a big, you know,

kind of reaction. But it was fun to see. I didn't expect a whole lot from the guys, especially the new guys who were picking up a paddle for the first time. That's what I want to know. Who brought their own paddle? Why are you asking that? Well, I know.

Oh, because you know. No, no, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. No, like I know that you did, because I know you, you knew that there was a court here. Yeah, Jeff, I saw on the, on the driver group chat that there was a pickball court. Yeah. I know, no, I'm like, oh, nice, I'll bring my shit.

Yeah. I know I'm generally asking, like, which drivers were prepared to play pickleball? We're just there being like, oh, I got nothing to do. I'll jump in on again. Well, again, 80% of them had never played before. Okay. So, you know, they had paddles there, balls there and everything. So, I, uh, yeah, it was.

you saw Brad Brad played you could tell he has some tennis background he played before his handout coordination was

I know that he got a bad rap on basketball but I'll be honest with it he showed me a little more in pickleball some athleticism I didn't know he had in him so

I don't know if we should rank them no I was going to that's my next question and you could power rank the driver man it's really close now Ricky had he said he had played about five years ago and then I you know he'd come over the house and And Ricky's played here he's played here right so he's got experience um so we we played till probably one a m or so

there was a lot of people to play till one a m on Saturday we all knew it was going to rain on Sunday we knew we weren't racing so I think if it was legit the night before we weren't going to stay out that late but they had lights um so then we went to the indoor court. Austin Dillon rented an indoor court that was not far from the track. And so it was interesting. I got to play with and against everyone, I think. Me and Blaney cleaned house at the end of the night

on Saturday night. On Sunday, I walk in, there's Joey and Cindrick Kyle Bush, Austin Dillon. If I had to rank them, Austin Dillon, definitely number one. I'm not going to put myself on this list. Number two, man, they're all really close. So just to set it up, Joey has a, he plays ping pong,

or I've seen him play, he can play, he can play really well. He took it up, everyone took it up really, really quick. Kyle Busch was one I was I didn't think he was going to be as good as he showed when we played together he had a couple of like digs that were really good you didn't think he was going to get to him they were all pretty close

so I'm almost say gosh it's really hard to say here but I'll go Austin Dillon one I'm actually going to go Blaney Blaney P2 then Ricky then I'm going to say

Kyle Busch then I'll go I'm going to say Brad Brad made the biggest strides from the first time he picked up a paddle to the end of the night night one he he picked it up that's a good attribute he picked it up pretty quickly

again he plays tennis so it's very very similar then I'll say Joey then Cendrick And where does Bubba fit in here Because this is

Oh All right Bubba's gonna go Somewhere around Brad Kyle and Brad Somewhere in there Todd Gillen was there Gosh I don't know

Here's the biggest problem With all this Travis We had We had We that guy He's got a motor He Evidently

they took me and somebody out after a long wind streak. I'm going to blame it on fatigue. By the way, I've listed no 40-year-olds except for myself. So, you know, these guys, you know, they've at least got their original ACLs and they're not 40 years old. But Todd Gillen, he picked it up pretty quickly. Harrison Burton has some work to do. He does.

I'm going to put him in, he's actually probably a little better than, Austin Cendrick. So I'm gonna say Burton above Cendrick. Cindrick's in the basement. But I'll tell you, he embraces his bad. He really did. He showed up and like,

so it was just him and Joey. In boots? No, but he did have a collared shirt on. That's just his bat. He did. He did. He did have a collared shirt on. But he embraced,

like he had fun. Like when, When me and my partner were playing with Joey and him, like we did a little round robin. I wanted to play with Joey. I wanted to play with Cindrick. I ended up playing with everyone. I played with Kyle, played with AD.

Again, me and Blaney was a potent combination. Ricky, we were planning on playing together more than what we actually did. We're going to have to circle back there. I played with Joey quite a bit. Those guys, they're better. Once they learn the game and, like, their position, of where they're supposed to be. Like on the courts,

sometimes they need to be up at the line when they're back. Yeah. Like, they're going to be pretty strong. I say we need to have courts at every track so we can continue to update this list. I would agree.

Because, Travis, here's the issue I had with all this. And I take partial blame for this. I was in Eldora this night, so I didn't witness any of this, but it feels like a crime that there was not a single content. Why were you in Eldora?

For a dirt race. Was there, who was there? Were you a big fan? What took you? What took you? It just loved dirt racing. No, I was there with Kyle Larson. Oh, interesting.

But as I was saying, no one said, no one told, as far as I'm aware, no one told their content guys that they were doing this because I know Bubba's as well. And he was like, man, we should have been, someone should have been out there capturing this. Yeah, I actually saw him Bubba's story that he had, he posted a little bit, but it was definitely not enough for sure. but I feel like that's our safe zone. Like, I don't know, you know, but be like, you don't want to, if someone's bad, you don't, you know, be like TV shouldn't be out there rolling footage and, you know,

because, hey, listen, we're athletes, right? It's best to let people speculate. I want to know is there going to be a pickaball league in the future then you have your golf league. Could we see? There already is. Yeah, I got too much stuff going on. There already is.

I might have rankings on some players that come to the house and play, but, um, Yeah. Oh, one thing that came out of SRX weekend. I want you all look at this. Those that are listening on your, you know, Spotify, Apple, podcasts. It's a shame. You need to go to YouTube. Jared Allen now has his own... Travis's his dying. It's a shame that we didn't get to hand out more of these at the racetrack. Oh, Austin was doing that. I saw a couple of them kind of like folded like they were in someone's back pocket ready

Austin's back pocket on the practice yes he was walking around with them it's and then apparently it's getting out of hand apparently somehow Freddie came up with a handful of these at the SRX race because he tweeted out that you know the SRX race was a little foggy for him but he did find a bunch of these I'll tell you what here's what we'll do we're going to read the back of Jared's hero card he did not do this I will say you did not do this yourself this came from a fan of yours apparently

in Stafford and he says that the minimum order he could put through was what, $250? He's like, so I've got 200 of these things that you guys can have or $249. Jared just signed one of them and give it back. But yeah, so the back reads Jared Allen is in a Charlotte 49ers

alumni who is now a portrait and music photographer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can hear Jared every week on Actions Determinal with Denny Hamlin, and you can see him around the number 11 FedEx Toyota Camry on race weekends taking pictures. It's fairly accurate. I feel like once we run out of these, we need to, what's your interest, what do you like? It's your favorite meal. We need to have a proper get-to-know Jared Allen hero card. Okay, we can do that.

I'm sure we'll run through these 200 fairly quickly if Austin's in charge of. Hey, I'm getting in the car. Fans over the, across the racetrack, through the fence. Jared! Jared! And I'm putting my helmet on it. I hear it. I hear it.

And I look over you. I'm like, this is just ridiculous. In my head, Travis, it's like, there's no way Denny can hear this. It looks over. I hear that. Yep, I heard it. So make sure you give number 560. And that's the thing.

From the stands, you will be able to see this guy. He's got a big ass number on his chest and on his back says, 560. So look for number 560. Continue to embarrass them because it works. It works. It works. It works. All right.

So let's talk racing. Great segue into New Hampshire. Exfinity, we'll just do a little three minute on that. John Hunter pretty much whipped them there. Not a whole lot to talk about. There was some crashes at the end that were, yeah. You know, some guys got pinched in the wall. And then there was a couple like with the Riley Herps where they just,

I think it was Austin Dillon and Riley where like Riley just came right up. and pinched them and these guys just were like, well, no, fuck you. I'm not lifting and giving you the spot. So they pretty much just held in the gas. And then at the end, it was Sheldon Creed and Cole Custer. Same kind of thing. They got pinched. You see Cole Custer come off the corner a little sideways and get into the right rear.

It wasn't, I didn't think it was egregious. People asked me on Twitter, where's the data? I'm like, I thought you all didn't want me. First of all, I don't have, I don't get Xfinity data, so you know, try again on that one. But like, make up y'all's mind.

You do, you know, you do want me in this or you don't? Like, I mean, you can't pick and choose when it's convenient for you. Stop getting mad because, you know, someone made a bad decision. But yeah, I mean, John Hunter, fourth one in the season,

great for him and his team. They're racking up the playoffs. points they're looking pretty good they should be able to make it to the final four with as many playoff points as they've got but um the cup race man oh man martin true x just kicked our teeth in that guy knows how to stink up our show yeah what do you think um Jeff clucks was it a good race poll it's going to come out at oh hold on I'll write down my answer right here all right I think you want me a specific number, right? Like one number.

No, I can't give you a range. No, a range, no. I think it's, all right, I'm going to go 73%. I have 61%. 61%. Again, Martin Truex victories usually aren't very exciting ones because when he wins, he wins big.

He's a 10-run baseball game. He's a three touchdown. football game. Just, I mean, he is right from the first lap of practice. He just had the field cover. Why is that? A, he's really, really good, really good. And when they hit on it, I mean, we know what they have in their car, right?

I mean, we drive differently. So, you know, it's very hard to just cut in pace and say, well, surely if I ran exactly what he did, I'd have the same result. I wouldn't, first of all. but man they just I don't know it's like when he has speed in practice you can just count on them leading 200 laps wherever we're at

like it's just when they when they unload fast they're fast the whole weekend and I really can't tell you why that when they win it's so dominating but but it is right like there's not many like he wins on a

last, you know, late race restart. There's just not another driver where you get that impression from, right? That, oh, this guy, when he wins, he dominates. So it's interesting. Yeah, it's a great point. And if I knew the answer, then I'd do it. But, I mean, we'll digest this weekend. On the 11 car, we just weren't fast.

I couldn't run a fast lap in practice. I couldn't run a fast lap in qualifying. and I certainly struggled on restarts, which is your fast laps today. So I don't know. It's just very frustrating for sure. I was losing my mind in there. I was really loose at one time. Chris, I thought he was, I'd complained enough where I thought he was going to go ahead

and blow up on me and just tell me to shut the fucking drive. But he didn't. He was nice, he was like, I got you. Just keep giving me. your best here. Like he was very patient with me when he knew I was on tilt. So yeah, I mean, I thought that we had a good car in the long run, but we just, I don't know, we just got off there somewhere and I didn't do a very good job either executing, um, overdriving corners left and right, getting hung on seams left and right. I just couldn't like you, you hang your right front or right

rear on a seam at that track. The seams, I bet you are an inch wide gap. So when we run our tire over those seams, so you see it in the racetrack each lane, right? And those seams are broken apart, and they keep getting wider. So when you run across it, if you don't cross those seams really, really quickly,

you'll get hung on it, and it'll take, your car will just follow that line. So it's, I mean, it's like half a second of time, which is a ton in that, that type of racetrack, that the difference between executing, running the right line and a good lap and being like I was.

How much passing takes place because a guy does that? That's most of it, especially at the end of the race I noticed on those late race restarts where I got a few spots back. It was because someone hung a tire in the scene. If you saw it, you can't really see it on TV, but if you look really closely, those seams are really wide and they're not filled in with anything so that's just contact patch that your tire is not having with the asphalt surface so again you got to cross them really really quickly to the right and to the left or you got to stay in that lane throughout

the whole corner is that what makes certain drivers better at this track than others well the 19 didn't look like he hit many seams I mean there's no question he did but he was probably so far out front that myself, A, I couldn't see them and B, TV probably had other battles to watch during that time. But yeah, it happens to everybody.

You know, literally, if you're just a little tight and you're like, oh boy, and then bam, it catches it and it just takes your car hard right. So it's very, very difficult. And a lot of times that you see the mistakes on and qualifying is because of that. What is it about

the inside line on restarts that just never takes off. It's really weird. So that usually is the case on tracks where the track is, the surface is coarse. And on the straightaways, the track is actually pretty coarse. In the corners, it's not. It's pretty smooth.

It's why tires don't wear out that much. But on the straightaway where we take off, where the front two cars take off, you see it's much lighter asphalt. Well, it's also a lot more coarse. so it's got a lot of rocks in that. So the person who, so if two cars were to take off, right,

it's the person who is the leader, he knows when he's going, right? He's got it in his head. He knows how much throttle he's going to apply to keep the tires from spinning. Well, the second guy, you have to be reactive. So when you see the first car,

start to lunge, what do you do? Immediately your reaction is to hit the gas really quick. Well, then it calls it. is the rear tires to spin and you're sideways and you're holding the whole inside lane up. So if they took off the exact same time, I guarantee you that the grip is this exact same. There is no advantage for one lane or the other.

The advantage is who takes off first? And the other guy, when he has to react to the leader taking off, he typically spins his tires because he's applying too much throttle. Okay. But you just saw, it because the guy on the bottom, whether you were the guy starting second or the guy starting

fourth or six, you were at such a disadvantage taking off because the leader, by the time you hit turn one, he's a car. He's gone and then it's the guy in the fourth, right? The guy on fourth, he's usually beside the inside the inside car. So yeah, that's why the outside lane is typically, you know, pretty preferred there. And why you saw, you know, the leader's taking the outside every time. We got to give flowers to Stuart Haas Racing who showed up today. Yes. Yeah. Man, I don't know who runs Stuart Haas's social media, but man, they get just drugged

through the mud with every social post that they just, but yeah, they deserve their due this week. Eric Amarola was running great. I wrote down, there's a lot of loose wheels. The 20, the 42, the 10, all with, well, the 20, was able to come in because he felt it under the caution. The 42 and 10, I mean, holy moly, the 42, he just can't stop hitting stuff. Poor Noah has had a horrendous year.

That's the only word you can use to explain it. You know, their cars obviously have been off and it's really hard to show up to the racetrack every week when you know that, you know, your cars don't have the speed and then, you know, with the mechanical failures and blowing rotors and stuff like he had at Gateway and tires falling off here. It's just tough. Tough, tough year for Noah and I'm sure he's looking forward to next year for sure. Yeah, Harvick with the top five finish. Chase Briscoe with a top 10 finish, as we mentioned. Eric Amarola was up front for a good part of the day. And then Ryan- I'm surprised we didn't see Priese. Well, we had a, we had some drama on pit road after the race between Ryan Priest and Michael

mcdow i mean that's such a loose word really drama over two guys talking it was drama was it was it drama it was not drama they had a conversation grasping its straws here i think when the the level is so low for the race that we can i know i know thanks a lot true x right all right all right let's talk about the fight on pit road did you see michael mcdall touch the back of priest and him turn around and say no don't touch me yeah i did it's drama Yeah. They got it worked out, it appears, but I didn't see what happened. I tried to find it.

I saw a little bit of it, but it looked like McDowell just went in there and kind of cleaned them out a little bit and ran them up the racetrack, and they both ended up way up the track. All right. Well, if that's not drama, as a teammate of Martin Shrek Jr., is it your responsibility to not wreck yourself with a handful of laps to go to bring out another caution? Yes. yes it is yeah that um it seemed like people would talk about that more years ago but yeah certainly you it's the only way they were going to lose the race right is something crazy happen um and so certainly

you don't want to be the reason that a caution comes because if you bring out a caution and now you got a bad finish for your team and then the guy who is leading doesn't win either like it's a double whammy for Joe Gibbs racing. So, yeah, certainly once it gets strung out, like, and you're within five laps to go, 10 laps to go, it's like, okay, what are we going to get here? Can I get the next guy or not? Do I have any threat behind?

Yes or no? Like, at that point, you're just trying to keep your four tires on the asphalt heading in the right direction. Yeah, a bad day for Christopher Bell. To start on the pole, have such a good car, not execute early, and then... Did he have such a good car, though? I think going into the race, the talk, the chatter was,

this is Christopher Bell or Martin Tricks Jr.'s race to lose. Yeah, I thought so too, but I don't know. He passed me twice. I thought he had a good car. There was times I certainly thought, man, he's got a ton of speed, but, I mean, it certainly wasn't the speed of the 19. Not that I, nothing I saw told me that he could run with the 19, that's for sure. But maybe the second best, yeah.

You could probably give him that. Certainly it's tough. When you go out there and you test like he did there, you sell in the pole, certainly your expectations is to go win the race. But, you know, when you end up crashing, especially late in the race, that's the worst because you've run well all day and he just don't get the finish for it. But one person who had the roughest weekend was Kyle Bush, clearly, right? to wreck in practice and then

wreck again in the race. That's called the trifecta. Qualify, practice, qualifying, and race. He wrecked in practice? Yeah. You didn't see him hit the wall? Yeah, that was a backup car. He was incorrect? No, they... After qualifying.

But in practice, he tank slapped it off a turn two pretty well. And so they had some damage. They were fixing the last half of practice. But he laid down such a good lap and qualifying his first round, he made it in just just good enough to back that some in in the second in the second round I have to go to the back so he he said he fought rear grip all weekend didn't have any of it and yeah he had a they had a rough week I will say that people's dislike for Kyle Bush is still just as strong as it's ever been because during qualifying this stance had to been what

10% 20% full and when he backed that thing in into the corner everyone was cheering. It sounded like the... Were they cheering or were they like, oh! I think it was somewhere between oh and woo! Somewhere between that.

It wasn't like, oh. No, I think because really because Kyle has switched teams and manufacturers, the approval rating has... I agree. The reaction was loud. Yeah.

Well, I mean, you don't see many wrecks really during qualifying anymore. So, you know, the cars were that squirly, for sure. I mean, I was thinking when we went there that, oh, man, Goodyear said they brought a tire that's got more grip. So we're going to be faster on the short run. We're going to be slower in the long run. And it was like, oh, man, I can't touch the gas from lap one.

Like, it's just sideways. And really, the more laps I ran, the better it got. So let's touch on these standings with six races to go before the playoffs. We talked about him last week. You had said that Chase Elliott, there was no way that he was not going to make the playoffs, at least on points. And another race down, and he still finds himself 60 out. What's the official number?

Travis killed me out here. He's still 60 out. And let me give you this, Denny. Before this race, the biggest margin of deficit someone had overcome to get in on points was two. This is crazy. That's a stupid stat. Did Russell give you that? He did.

I appreciate it because it's true. But what a stupid stat. Like, that's like, oh my gosh, he's three points. He would make history. If someone from three points back made the playoffs. I mean, so here's my argument, right? If you look at what the cut, let's say the 16th place driver, they probably average 25 points a race.

That's a fairly educated estimate. So 25 points a race. So real quick, not counting in stage points, where do you need to finish in the race to earn 25 points for people who don't know? Okay, good question, Jerry. Very good. So it's 35 for second and then one position, one point per position. So what is that?

11th? Yeah. Okay. So let's say it's 11th. So you got to finish 11th with no stage points. That's about where 16th is running, right? I mean, sometimes they finish a little better. They get a stage point or two.

So you've got to be 11th, 11th to get 25 points. the reason I was so adamant about Chase Elliott being able to make it on points is because he is a guy who can get 50 in a race. And we have two road courses coming up. He's one there, Watkins Glen many times. He could put a 50 spot up easily. So he can in two races do what the 16th place guy, dozen four races. It's, I mean, it's, do I feel all warm and fuzzy about my prediction now?

He didn't do me any favors, that's for sure. He still makes it. I'm going to die on this hill. Chase Elliott is still going to make it, but I think it's going to be because he wins. To play devil's advocate about Chase or about any of these drivers that are significantly below the cut line, and by significant, I'm saying anything in the double digits, is that you just can't afford to have any off weeks, right? If you're going to need to put up 50 points two to three times,

you're not going to be able to afford to lose points. Like, you're not going to be able to afford to go into a race weekend like this one and not pick up any ground. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting that. That's what's going to be tough. And you always... Especially considering you have Daytona as the one race before. And you all right.

So I said it in the media. you always have to budget for one more winner from the outside. You know, when you set your goals for the year, you budget a certain amount of people making it. And in the situation of the guys that we're talking about on this cut line, the four or five that it is that are relatively somewhat close, they're all, they're hoping there's not a new winner, but they're probably budgeting for it.

They're probably looking at, is Bubba Wallace? 15th currently. 15th. They're probably looking at where he's at, or whoever's in 15th. Because if you just work off of 16th, you're probably going to get roasted in the final race at daytime. You just have to plan for it.

Is it likely? Actually, no, it's not. But you still have to plan for it. It's the race that's got the biggest X-factor of attrition and, anyone can win. So I don't know. I still think Chase makes it, but I think he makes it because he wins a race.

But, I mean, looking at the guys that he's got to run down, you know, they're not just getting 25 points every week either. Like, they just, they can have a bad race and leave the racetrack with three points. He puts up 50, boom. He's down 20-something in one week. Like, it can happen that fast. Trust me, it can happen that fast. I know I'm not going to give up to after this week.

I wouldn't give up on pointing himself in. Chase, L.A. fans, let's hold hands. We are going, we're going to, we're going to unite, and we're going to, we're going to will this thing to happen for you guys. Travis, I'm going to need that. clip tomorrow morning. Yeah. Let's just,

trust me, they're saying prayers for them. They're, they got the, the battery cables hooked up to the 69 forward pickup truck, just ready to ring that siren.

I wonder, will they ring it if he makes the playoffs? I think so, because I think the way he's going to make the playoffs, he's going to win, Warkinsklin. And then they'll ring on. Awesome.

You can be for sure of one thing. His teammates are going to let him go at every turn. Min's Bowman. Why? Bowman can't let him go. Bowman's in the same situation. Yeah. Well, you won't have a situation like last year where Larson, you know, used him up kind of

restart. That won't happen for sure. All right. Well, hey, still rooting for you. guys not to beat bubba don't beat bubba please he's another guy we we need to talk about beat beat the rest of the guys bubba's another one we got to talk about on this cut line because he was below it last week now he's above it into 15th after a top 10 day yep he had a solid day they had you know him and the 45 they put together a solid race i you know i haven't completely gone through their day

yet um again i just got home um but but but it they didn't have any anything detrimental to happen to him. You know, I saw the Tyler, uh, lost a few spots, first pit stop. But I, you know, Bubba, I was racing around him, um, a little bit during the day. But, but, but yeah, I mean, those are the solid days that you, you got to have them. Right now, they've got to have these kind of days where they pick up five stage points. Somewhere in that range. Then go finish seven to ten, you know.

I get it. You want to go for the guest though. You want to go get a top five. You want to go win the race. He wasn't going to win the race today. There was just two, you know, the 19 was too strong, right? You have to just manage the race, manage your expectations and get a solid day. And trust me, they're leaving home or leaving the racetrack feeling a lot better than they did, you know, coming in.

Michael McDowell is another one who said last week that he really just wanted to go into New Hampshire. have a top 15 finish because it wasn't one of their best tracks. And he did that. He stayed above the cut line. Yeah, that team's scratching and clawing. I mean, like the minute you think, well, they're not a big team. They're not going to have enough speed like they show up with speed. And so Michael's doing a fabulous job.

I think that front row in general deserves a lot of credit for stepping up this year, especially in a year where clearly, you know, the manufacturer itself is not at its peak form. So I think that they're doing a phenomenal job. They're executing well, and Michael's driving the wheels off of it. Travis, you might be able to jump in here, but they talked about on the broadcast, I believe it was midway through the final stage that Suarez had made an aggressive call to stay out late and not pit for tires when everyone else did, which was aggressive.

I think it ended up paying out for him in the end because he didn't fall too far behind the cut line. I don't know what happened because he stayed out for a while. I miss, I know, I think Jeff Gluck missed it too. Then all of a sudden he's like 21st. So I don't know if he had a bad pit stop or something, but I think the risk paid off originally and I think something happened.

They had a bad pit stop. I read, thank goodness for NBC's. what the driver said. So, you know, it's very hard for me to come in here and be educated talking about the race, but, you know, you guys do such a great job preparing me. But it's, yeah, so I read his comments, and he basically said that they had something going on with the car that made it very, very difficult to get the right rear tire on and off all day.

And so they kept losing spots because of that. That was, I think there was a lot of mistakes on pit road today. I don't know if it was more than usual, but it just felt like a lot. And you wonder if teams are starting to put. press a little bit. Could be. Definitely could be for sure. Again, you know that track position means so much.

It's funny because when I looked at what drivers said, like 80% talked about either the word track position or traffic. Those words were in like every driver's comments. Traffic, track position. It's just a different one. You have to execute nowadays, different type of racing. Yeah, I mean, Ryan Blaney was the one looked like to give Truex the most run for his money and then comes down pit road and runs over his hose and then sends the back penalty and his days done. Yeah, I mean, the days of being able to come back from a speed and penalty, it's just not.

Or any penalty. Or any penalty, right? It's just, it's almost impossible. It's just, it's harder to pass. That's just the facts. Before we get to Dear Denny, Dirty Mo Media is headed back to Bristol with its extravagant all, inclusive ultimate experience tailored specifically for dirty moe media fans join us september 16th for the nascar cup series bristol night race and enjoy a luxury VIP suite experience that includes parking passes appearances by host of door bumper clear free swag oh no really those guys yeah you get to hang out with them while the race is going on who's spot in the 23 that's a good point maybe freddie is not included in the actual he'll make a stop before yeah okay cool but also maybe he hasn't included it's possible all right free swag all the food you can eat and all

the beer you can drink tickets sold out well in advance last year so don't wait get your ticket today at dirtymomedia.com forward slash ultimate experience yeah get them quick i know this sells out pretty quick they've done it at las Vegas uh Bristol night race i mean doesn't get much bigger than that um hey and they don't have dirt on it so like you know this is a great race to go to it's i was wondering, should we say that Bristol night race is a major? People are kind of teetering on that. You know, we lost one with losing the indie oval, but it's definitely teetering. How do you feel about overall adding majors into an equation where they weren't initially there? Probably not. Probably not. You think we can entice them if like Jared stops by the suite? They can do a meeting

great with Jared. Oh gosh. Jared, you might sell less tickets. Hey, no, no, no, no. They want to see number 560. You have to wear your vest, though. Yeah. Okay. So Mike Davis, work on that. Work on getting Jared up there to say hello to folks. He will bring his own hero cards. Dare, Danny. We've got some questions that we want to ask.

Dare to answer and we need him fast. We tried to ask Junior, but his answers were lame. And with DBC, it was more of the same. Now we're caught on you because you're our only hope. This ain't the race track, so maybe you won't choke. have any say in two-versed four-tire stops that tracks like this um i tried to let my team

handle that you know i have feelings on it you know he he gives me the code i look up i see it and you know sometimes i give him the uh uh man really you sure or sometimes we're like yep like today you know every time he he made a call i was like yep because inside the car you you have an idea of how much grip you've lost. Do you need tires? Do you not? What do you need? Track position or do you need, you know, four tires and grip?

You know, again, with it, the way the tires ended up playing out, we thought they were going to be more important than what they really were. Yeah, I mean, I really try to let the team do it because they have so much more information. Sometimes you can get caught in a cocoon of being in a race car, not realizing what is the bigger picture? Well, when is the person around me pitted? or the cars that were racing for the win.

Sometimes it's situational awareness of, what does it take to finish what I'm capable of or winning the race if I'm capable. So you're only racing those cars that you think are in the same bracket of speed that you are. You're not racing someone that's intent. Or 15th. They choose to stay out.

You're probably, you know, and you've been up front all day, you're pretty confident that you're going to put on. You have the margin to put on tires and then go past them like Truix did all day. So I leave it to the team. There are some drivers that like having a say in it, but I just think sometimes it just muddies the water.

It certainly makes it difficult, more difficult for the crew chief to make a decision without a motion getting swayed into it. And then someone wants to know, can you honestly rate your restart ability, 10 being the best guy on the grid and one being the worst guy on the grid. Oh.

I know what it was today. It was bad. I was probably a three, honestly. What am I for my career? Probably a five. If I'm realistic and honest about it. I think that I always get, you know, if you look at the stats,

I gain a lot of positions on restarts. I'm always kind of at the, I'm near the top. I wasn't always that way, but over the last few years I've gotten quite a bit better in that statistical category. But there's a lot of things

that play into that. Sometimes it's because you are fast and you've been up front and if you have a bad pit stop, it's easier to pass cars that are in 15th than it is cars than the top five. So,

um, stats don't always tell the, the honest answer. Um, I feel like, um, I do an okay. job, but not a great job.

A lot of that is just my style. I typically don't push the car to the absolute limits in the short run. I just never have. I want to, but I don't feel like on days like today that I have the proper amount of grit to do it. Because what really sucks is me going out there and busts my ass on corner entry and then go from having a top five to top 10 day. to being Kyle Busch, finishing last.

Because the team, you know, it's like, what do you want, right? Do you want me to get the best day that we think we're capable of within one or two spots? Or do you want me to go for it, put my car at risk, you know, more risk to wreck and then having a really bad finish? So I certainly think that, you know, again, when my car is really fast, I typically look pretty good on restarts. But as far as, you know, there are just some guys that are really, really good at it and better than others. Do you gauge that skill level based on how well you get through the gears and up to speed? Or is it how well you can drive an uncomfortable car in traffic? It's both.

It's definitely the up to speed. What are the moves you make in the first couple corners? Turns one, turn two. Do you put yourself on the right lines? You know, if there's a long straightaway, are you putting yourself on the top line to be freight training everyone on the inside line? Are you putting, are you going three wide middle to gain a couple spots? You know, it's all about positioning. And I think that some are really good about finding the open holes before they actually get open.

So, yeah, there's a handful that are exceptional. Before we sign off here, this goes hand in hand with singing kumbaya with the Chase Elliott fans this week, is that someone left a review I wanted to read. And this says, this is from underscore SRT4. to give this person credit. Wasn't the biggest fan of Denny before as I was a Chase Elliott fan, but listening to a show, I enjoyed Denny and have become a fan of him too. So it sounds like you can turn water and wine, right?

That's the same. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, this guy was a fan of Chase Elliott. Now, I was a fan. What's his name? SRT4. SRT4. Okay.

Thank you for the review. By the way, if you give us a nice review, we might read it as well. Hey, I welcome, I'm welcoming of everyone, right? My job on this is to call, you know, as I see it, I said on episode one, I'm not always going to be right. I'm definitely, you know, it's not always going to be the most accurate. You're probably not going to agree with it. If it's your driver, and I'm calling them out, I call out myself as well all the time, all the time. I try to call it as fair as I possibly can.

I'm just here trying to give you an insized perspective of what goes on that racetrack that you probably didn't see on TV today. But I appreciate that. All of our fans listening, if you would give us a review, we'd appreciate it. And yeah, let's come together for this.

Yeah, if you want to leave a review, you can go to, well, action is detrimental on Spotify, iTunes, wherever you get your podcasts and leave a five-star review. but also you can send anyone a nice tweet at Dirty Mo Media or at Denny Hamlet if you feel like. Yeah, make sure you're following Dirty Mo Media. They've got some great podcast going on with Dale Jr. download, Dirty Mo Doe, Speed Street, a lot of good stuff going on with Dirty Moe. So tune in. This week we're going to Pocono.

People want to know if you're, this was another question. I left this off the dear Deney. People want to know if you're leaving the tape at home. Yes. Yeah. I got it. It's, it's, I have it stored somewhere. That sucks.

I mean, am I the, I'm just wondering if I'm from the most unlucky driver. I mean, there's only been one driver decued in 61 years. Like, Denny was raising his hand. What the hell, man. Yeah, I was raising my hand. The audio version. Like, seriously, I just want to catch a break. Like, not have history made with my name on it.

in a negative way. Like, gosh, it's so frustrating. Hopefully we bring speed like we did last year because that thing was awesome, massively fast. Had nothing to do with the tape, by the way. Hopefully we can prove that to be the case. But a lot's changed since then. It's been a while since we've been at Pocono.

Another track that's got great upgrades in the middle, great fan, stuff in the infield. So come out this weekend, say hello to us. and we will see you guys next week. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.