Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Chicago Streets & NY Pizza

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Denny Hamlin and Jared react to NASCAR's street race in Chicago. Denny had pizza but it wasn't deep dish pizza and also has an issue with a friend's obsession of having a 5.0 Uber rating. NASCAR cancels the Xfinity race. NASCAR nails it with when they started the race on Sunday. What exactly happened when Denny hit Alex Bowman? What happened on turn 2 to start the race? Log jam created on lap 50. Did they make the right call on how they handled shortening the race? SVG makes a statement. How should drivers and fans feel? Plus, #DearDenny Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

They said he was shifting with the opposite hand. I guess I could do it, but I probably wouldn't be very efficient. Shifting with the other hand. They said a shifter on the, no. Because he sits on the other side of the car. Yeah. He sits on that too. Oh, yeah.

So normally he's on the right side and shifting with his left. You know what? Crown him. Greatest athlete in the history of sports. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey guys, welcome to actions detrimental episode. 21 Chicago Deep Dish style.

Actually, New York style. Man, there were a lot of people upset about my review of a New York... How could you go to Chicago and not eat deep dish? Because I had to walk 12,000 miles that day. I mean, who can do that with 18 pounds of deep dish pizza in your stomach?

Yeah, that's how I felt. I've never had deep dish. I feel like I would love deep dish. But it just seems like it's too much of a gamble to have a slice of deep dish at like one o'clock in the afternoon. You know, I wish we could have done that review again because me and Dave have so many similarities. I too have a bad shoulder. You know, it's, you know, it's really hard. I was, luckily for me, that lady didn't come fat shame me like she did to him and his review of Zaza's pizza. But yeah, that was, I thought the pizza was really, really good. There was five

of us. We house three pizzas like it was nothing, basically. And I did slightly differ than him on the golden metal versus it just had a barely more flavor than the all-out cheese. The same with the pepperoni. I thought they were just a little. I mean, the cheese was very good on the tone. But I did think that the pepperoni and the four cheese or whatever, the gold metal slice was just a tad bit better, which is kind of unfortunate because I didn't want to feel that way. Yeah, I mean, me and Jared was, we were on the same page when we went to Chicago. And first thing I do, you know, I watch about probably every other pizza review from Dave's. And I'm like, well, we're going to a big city.

Let me just scope out where, what he liked. And I looked at the people on the one bite app, they had it super high, highly rated as well. And that one worked out because you went there and then you walked down the street to the Cubs game. afterwards how was that that was good cup game was awesome um you know we uh had a little 23 11 day there where our drivers throughout the pitch well bubba throughout the pitch Tyler caught and kurt was the ump uh so had quite the trio going on there i saw kurt walking into the media center i don't know i guess it probably was Saturday or something I was like hell of a strike three call there he was like yeah

They just wanted me to watch. I was like, no, no, no, Bubba, you're pitching, Tyler, you're catching, and I'm open. Yeah. People looked at me when they were singing the seventh inning stretch. I mean, everyone's, as soon as he finished, everyone just kind of awkwardly looks, and it's just like, they suck. I mean, they stunk. Additionally, Tyler was pretty nervous about it. But I knew that when Kurt got up there, he was going to try to, you know, quarterback this thing.

Guys, I got it. I've done this before. I'm a season pro. So, yeah, it was cool that they allowed us to do that. We were able to have the Jordan brand car and McDonald's car on display there outside the racetrack. I saw so many fans taking pictures of it. So that's mission accomplished for us. Yeah, I'm just disappointed that Bubba threw the ball over the plate.

I would have liked to see him throw it in the dugout. Because you throw in the dugout and you live. on for an eternity. Legends never die. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die. This is saying a lot. Yeah, I agree. So, Jared, what he's saying there is he wants someone to just throw it so bad that it ends up on SportsCenter.

And that way, he's like, dude, you're never going to get on TV thrown. Easy social media content. Yeah. Very narrow point of view there, Jared. How about the racing on the track? man our 11 Yahoo camera was fast that was for sure this weekend uh got our we got our second pole road course pole of two 2023 hit me up that if that was on your 23 23 23 bingo card i doubt it was how many road course polls do you have in your career two two uh been working on it for

sure and we were in the dry just so so fast uh in the wet i was a barrier machine well i got in there once uh but let's start with exfinity um man they had a well really the the city in general had a very tough go of it this weekend many people said that it had not rained in like months there uh they were basically in a full-on drought and then a hurricane hits or something i mean was it a hurricane i mean it was spinning it's as hell looked like it on the on the radar it was just spinning like a pinwheel yeah well it come through chicago go out to lake michigan and then come back around go out and come back around it was unbelievable um you know i got to walk around the streets a little bit you know got lunch got

got got some breakfast coffee and just everyone i mean just the general public right even people that were not in nascar gear like they were talking about the races that were in town. So that was really cool to see all the promotion that the city did, NASCAR did around the city. It just was fantastic. I thought they did a phenomenal job. Unbelievable circumstances that they had thrown at them with the weather.

I think this would have been, I mean, even bigger had the weather cooperated. But yeah, I just couldn't believe all the rain that was going on. on Xfinity guys, how many days they spent there for probably 30 total laps or something between practice and the race. But, you know, you had Coal Custer there just kind of leading every lap. And it was about to get interesting because I think fuel was about to be part of the story in that race. And then they had a lightning strike. I it didn't rain

it didn't rain until much much later yeah um I had I had heard I don't know if it's true or not I had heard that the labor force the Chicago labor force

once the first lightning strike happened they left and that's when they were like we got no help so they evacuated everyone I don't know if it was because the lightning or

they lost the labor force, but I'm really not sure. The labor force, like, people at the gates and stuff, like security? Like show pros? I think so. See, that's what I'm saying. I don't know the answer. They were telling some fans apparently that it was like canceled before it was canceled. And it sounds like Chicago's park rules is bigger than eight miles. It sounds like it was a little more stringent. So that sounds like there was some miscommunication between NASCAR and Chicago it sounded like.

so that would make sense that that makes sense that i did hear the park thing that because it was a park uh okay and and so and likely then the people that work in the park yeah are part of the labor force got it that then said okay we're good see you later and so once they that happened you know no concert no nothing it just it all got you know canceled so that was a huge bummer for everyone. I mean, I'll keep saying Chicago and NASCAR because, you know, they put a lot of effort into, you know,

making this a huge event beyond just the racing itself and got to see none of it. You know, certainly I understand from the fans' perspective, you know, you've got such huge ticket costs associated with going to that race. And then, you know, you really kind of get, really if you add it up, you had one. race. You know, we needed the 26 laps from Xfinity to complete the cup race to make it full distance.

So it just, it was unfortunate that we didn't have as much activity going on there as what was planned. But, I mean, like I mentioned on Twitter, we can't control God. Like, you know, that was just a bad break from the weather perspective. And, you know, I got to walk around a little bit. they really didn't have a clear path for us to go without being right in the middle of the fans. There was about a football field link stretch where you're kind of just maybe longer than that, where you're just, you're with the, you're with the people.

Yeah, between the, if you've been to Chicago, between the being there and our institute. Yeah, well, even, you know, even longer than that, right? Because we walk from the hotel. But I'm talking about once we got in, Shorter Harcard, then there was another, by the haulers where where they were all at. But it was, I mean, I liked it, you know, I like being amongst, in the people, as you know, when I was in Nashville, we were out one of the places, and we had this little VIP area. I'm like, you know, I'd had a few cocktails at that time, but I was out in gin pop, man.

I was like, put me out there with the people. That's where I want to be. I don't want no private area. And so I like, you know, being with the fans and just, you know, kind of, you know, seeing what they're doing and had just such positive vibes from the fans. Like, everyone just was so positive about the weekend, you know, even with it just raining 90% of the time. So did you get, did you get stopped on the street at all? Just out and about? Yeah, of course, a lot, quite a bit. I mean, by what I would deem.

non-core fans. I mean, they didn't seem... They didn't seem like core fans because, you know, with the knowledge that they would say or whatever they would say, I realized that they were very casual, like they're just hearing that we're here. But, yeah, it was. It was, you know, when we,

Austin walked me 5,000 miles because he wanted to keep his Uber rating. If you saw that on my Instagram story, this guy, oh my God, he's so obsessed with his 5.0 Uber rating that he makes us walk half the trip. I'm like, well, of course the guy's going to give you a great rating because he just charged you $86 to go a half a mile and you were like, hey, we're good here and just drops us off. I'm like, Austin, I'm a, so I'm a 4.78 rating.

Now, it ain't because of tipping. I tip way over the top. But what I realize is I don't tip until my. next trip so i think that you get out of the car you put the phone in your pocket and you move on with i didn't know that i'm supposed to close out yeah i didn't know that so every time i go to my next trip i click and it's like you know james rate james and do you want to tip them i'm like wait a man that was a month ago yeah james is saying this green yeah i don't think that's the reason because i just checked i have a 4.98 and i never tip until the next time too i'm i'm guessing it's like

maybe friends are the reason that bring your rating down that's what i was about to say but austin he's got the wrong i'm very respectful in the ubers now there was this one time this one time that i got the deer denny a couple weeks ago huh this was a dear denny a couple weeks ago i forgot to to add it to the list but someone wanted to know this story the one i think you're about to bring he said my mask was not covering my nose he said my mask was not i as a matter of fact took a i didn't move and i was like what did you say and he's like you know and he pointed and then just stopped the car in the middle of nowhere miami not not in the city i mean we're in the burbs and just just like you you got to get out i'm like

what and i stopped and i grabbed my phone really slowly and took a selfie of me and it's just on the crown of my nose, my mask at the time. And this is obviously during COVID. Her kicked me out. This was the one you tweeted about, right? Oh, and I just went on. I mean, beyond that, he was, like, the rudest guy ever. And I, I am not, I am not a rude person when it comes to interacting with people of service, for sure,

because I know that their job is, like, so tough. It doesn't matter. Waiter, waitress, Uber driver. I am 100% polite 100% of the time. And so my point of this being is Austin's ass made me walk. I mean, I had to walk six, eight miles for no apparent reason, because he was like, I think walking will be faster. Like, because we stop at a stoplight.

I'm like, Austin, he had me convinced. First of all, we leave the Cubs game. And, you know, there's a lot of closed streets. around. So he's like, we're going to meet the Uber, meet the Uber up here. First of all, he, he cheeps out on the Uber. That, that, strike one. It gets the baseline. It's just, it's just not as clean as it probably could be. And then he's like, it's, it's right up here. He says, that's his thing. It's right up here. Okay. And I'm following him. And it's me and Rod. And he can, we walk a block, we walk another block,

and he can see him starting to get pissed. I'm like, where are we meeting this Uber? Like, let's get in a car and go to the hotel. And so then he starts walking faster to separate himself from me. And finally, like four or five blocks later, we get to the Uber.

I mean, there was plenty of access for this Uber to come to us. This Uber was parked. He's like, no guy, don't worry about coming to us. We'll come to you. Like, I mean, we'll come to you. He has a fucking car. And so we get in his car.

We then travel. It's probably from Wrigleyville, wherever we were. We were probably in a different city by that point that we got in the car. But to the hotel probably was, let's just call it four miles. Okay. We traveled, I mean, maybe to. maybe two, and we hit consecutive stoplights in the city. And he's like, oh, we're really close to the hotel.

Hey, buddy, we're good here. Oh, you see you got dropped off early too. Yes. That part didn't make the story, the Instagram story. I was so on fire by that point that I just couldn't see straight. And so he's, and I didn't look at a map. I just trusted what Austin was saying here. It's like, yeah, we're right up there.

You don't need to make this turn. Like we're turning to go right. So I look and I'm like, this doesn't look near the park. And so we get out and, I mean, two miles later we get to the hotel. It's because we hit consecutive stoplights and Austin is just like, uh, we're, let's get out here. We're good. So that was strike three for Austin.

and strike two was not making the guy come to us. Man, tough, tough day of travel. As long as he still got us 5.0, that's all that matters. But what his obsession is with his 5.0 rating, I'm really not sure. I mean, I've watched him, like, after a trip that was probably not a 5.0 trip. Oh. Tell the driver, hey, hey, hey, just. We'll make this all right.

All right. We're going to tell the story really, really quick. Let me check the time. We got a hustle. I got a team meeting. By the way, I woke up on central time today. Poor Travis and Jared were down here for an hour and 15 minutes because I didn't get up on time. I just woke up people.

So if I'm sideways, this is why. Okay. To wrap up the Uber thing, Austin is so upset. with his Uber rating, he had a very intoxicated friend in Phoenix. And he allowed that person, he told that person to stay at our house instead of sending him in an Uber back to his house because he was afraid that the guy would mess up his Uber rating. Correct. Do you believe it, Travis?

I believe it, but that's, I mean, that's, yeah, that's too much. Too much. You can have 4.7, 4.2. Like, as long as you're not in the threes, you're fine. line. He told him, hey, you stay with us because he did not trust this intoxicated guy under his name in an Uber. It's actually a fun game to try and make him lose the 5.0. I think that that should be our goal. Let's, by the end of the year, bring it to a 499. Yes. Yes. We just have to be, unfortunately,

just total, you know, I have an idea. We'll talk about it all fair because I'll probably hear this. All right. All right. Back to racing. Yeah, sorry. The Xfinity race was cut short. I don't know how I feel about it, but I don't know what other choice they had.

Bob Hawkers tweeted, except in rare instances. I mean, that is such a lawyer line. like NASCAR pretty much covers themselves with a sentence that after each rule that allows them to kind of just do whatever right um i get it i was i think that had we push our sunday race back to monday they concluded the whole thing but i also saw that like jeremy clements mentioned that you know extra night of hotels is another $1,500, $1,600 to his team, and they just can't keep staying over. So it's a very tough circumstance. You know, the whole lightning thing just came about five minutes too early, but it just got

them off the racetrack and they never saw the racetrack again. They tried, they got them buckled in, and then it was just torrential downpour. and I think that they were trying. I mean, if they had, they probably were hoping to run two pace laps and then call it good. I mean, if you were going to do that,

I wish that you're transparent to your competitors about that. That's why I mentioned or said what I did in the tweet before we actually did get started when it was downpour rain. I mean, there was a foot of water on the racetrack and they're saying, be ready, everything's on time.

Like, we're in driving. driver intros and it's just a monsoon. I mean, it's terrible. And then they're like, still on time. We're like, what? Stop, don't do this. Like, this is not the right decision. Like, it is totally unsafe for us to be out there in these conditions.

So that's when I sent that tweet out is like, don't do it. And they didn't do it, right? They said, it's hold. But, you know, I wish they were transparent saying, hey, guys, we will not go until the track. is ready to go. Yeah. But I don't think they were confident probably in saying that because I think they were trying to get that thing in at all costs. But the reason that they were trying to get it in

at all cost is because of an instance like what happened. And that is we went back to the driver lounge to go do an interview. And I saw the weather. I was like, well, it's going to stop raining in 20 minutes. But surely, there's going to be standing water all over the racetrack and we're just not going to be able to do it. And at the time, it was like 445

central time. And so it stopped probably around 450, 455. And I look and I'm about to do my interview and they're saying drivers to your cars at 515. I'm like, these guys,

here they go again. I mean, they're just relentless in their optimism. I don't know if it's optimism or just trying to get the people to stay on the TV a little bit longer before they call it. Everyone in the driver's lounge had heard that they were going to call it, which I think had this gone 30 more minutes, no question. I mean, you would have, I think it was no question, but who knows, you know, who's the actual decision maker on it? Obviously, we didn't have enough time to get in the whole race as it was. They, you know, they've stated in the past. We will never start a race that we don't think we can get the entirety in.

Given the time we started, had it gone green, yes, we would have got the whole thing in. Is that realistic? Absolutely not. But we got in three quarters of it. So I walk out there at 510 to go get in the car. And I looked at the racetrack thinking, you know, so we were inside doing an interview, come out. I got to be in my car in five minutes. minutes to go racing. And I look at the streets and I'm like, damn, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

it was gone. It was all gone. The drainage was unbelievable. But what was crazy is when it was raining, the drainage seemed bad, right? Like, I guess it was just so overwhelmed with all the city water going into one place and it was just filling up. Well, they were also taking a knife to, to, you know, signage and cutting where there are like holes in the wall where the sign was like blocking it literally walking around cutting holes at the bottom so that point helped release a lot of the water and i heard they had like the forklift picking up barriers as well to let let it flow out i couldn't believe it i i said in a post race interview last night i was like damn i mean i i could not believe that the track was as it was ready to race when we went racing it was

ready to race and we didn't race a minute sooner than when it was ready. Turn 11, yes. It was an issue. Obviously, I ran two inches, that was an exaggeration. Six inches right of Alex Bowman because I couldn't, I can't see that well when you're packed in behind somebody. So you're trying to see where the corner is. And I hit, hit the water, bam, send him in.

So it was like, and it. look pretty common that like there was a river that's running across so if you're not right in the tire tracks of the car in front of you you're running in the water and it just skips your car i mean anybody's hydroplained on a street car probably probably not a lot of people's hydroplane but it just skips right across and so um that stunk i i didn't see how did does car catch on fire from that Travis does anybody know i didn't make sense No, I think he, when I spun him out, when I spun him out, he had an oil issue. Yeah, after you spun him out.

He did get turned back around. I know, but he never recovered from the spin. Like, I thought the spin was that, did he had a DNF because of the spin? Or was it totally unrelated? I think it was totally unrelated. I think it was unrelated. I'll double check, but I know he had some sort of oil issue. They were trying to like basically like hack their way around whatever they were dealing with.

I'll double check. interesting well the tire barriers did a heck of a job of keeping these cars in one piece or are you kidding me there was no damage to the cars i mean kyle bush slid 40 yards probably longer than 40 yards yeah into the tire barrier crushed it and gets back out and on lap 70 he's in third place or whatever yeah thanks nascar for that hey that worked out well we'll get to that part um but yeah I mean, it was crazy how much the tires compressing like that doesn't put... But it's not new because you saw the same thing with Chase Elliott at the Roval a few years ago. And that was with the old car.

So that was before these cars were so crazy sturdy. So, yeah, there was one part of the racetrack that I thought was marginal best. That was turn 11. I think that's turn 11. I kept saying over the radio Can we get them while the cautions are going on To just put a ton of sand or stay dry up against the wall where it's leaking out To let it just soak in there to let us dry

Or do some work on the other side of the barrier to keep it Whatever it is like reroute it somewhere Yeah But they had their hands full with so much going on But to to to get back to my point, it was unbelievable to see that there was no standing water on that racetrack

anywhere, but that one spot. Like you said, we walked out, there was a river. Tires running away on pit road. And 25 minutes later, nothing. There was nothing. It was just wet. Walking back to the media center, so about 4.50, I had to do a long jump

over some water to get into the media center. And then when I walked back out 15 minutes later for drivers to their cars, that puddle was gone. Yeah, it was nuts. So, Bowman said, quote, it's in fucking oil protection mode. So we had some issues with that. Because then Jordan Bianchi then says also doesn't have oil pressure. Okay. So then it did, it looks like they did have to caught on fire a little bit. Okay. So what likely happened there, it was related because when he spun around, it probably

rolled backwards, the engine probably spun in reverse, and then it went into some sort of mode. The ECU put the engine in some sort of mode where oil wasn't running through it or something. I'm not an engine guy. but that if you do I mean he couldn't have rolled backwards five feet

like it wasn't much so but I have seen where engines will spin backwards when you're shutting them off to save fuel they'll all of a sudden it'll black smoke will run out and it'll just the engine will actually spin backwards

and it will cause it could cause damage to the engine so I don't know if they're related or not. Certainly, I felt bad about it, but it's, holy, I looked and his car was on fire and I'm like, wait a minute, how'd that happen? I mean, might not have been on fire, but they had fire extinguishers. No, it was on fire. Oh, it was.

Confirming that now. Yeah. All right. So to start the race, Rwandan into the start, the start, I was talking to SVG before the race started. like, you know, what, and it's pouring during the intro, this is, are you ready for this? He's like, we would never race in this. He's like, this, I don't have it. He says, I don't have any experience in these conditions. Like, you know, we run in the wet, but we have rain tires. He's like, you guys have these tires that's got blocks on them and it doesn't push out water. It's just kind of,

he's like, these tires are a lot different. So I don't know what I'm in for. I, of course, didn't know what I was in for. This was the blind leading the blind. First of all, I just found speed in the dry on road courses. I have no idea what I'm doing in the wet, which is super apparent on lap three. I tried to look at anything I could to get me some sort of gauge of how far to go. I didn't know how far to go. I thought I got a good enough launch off of turn one, or I guess the last turn,

coming to the restart, you know, to the start to get a jump on Tyler. And then he just, I mean, the balls he had to drive in 600 feet deeper and just pass me on the outside on the first corner. He clearly was more comfortable than what I was. But yeah, I was holding my own and then just, I went into a turn two there and just was barely wide. And I just kind of just really slowly slid. got in the barriers. That was fine. I was like ready to go,

but my car stalled and I couldn't get it refired. So I'm sitting here trying to get the thing refired. Luckily, we were out there so far that I only went back to about 11th or 12th.

Yeah. Something like that. And then I started to get my rhythm back and almost past AJ in the wet and a couple others and felt pretty good about it. And then the track started

semi drying up. And that's when I, I think I got a little slower once the track. I wasn't fully confident like some guys in some places to be ready to get after it. So at that point, I'm just trying to hold my position thinking, let's get this thing to the dry, and then I'll go after it. Unfortunately, it didn't go fully dry until so late in the day that, I mean, we made a ton of passes at the end of the race,

legit passes. But, but yeah, it was, I think we were restarted. or 26 or something like that, maybe further back than that and got back to 11th. There was some attrition. Y'all saw the big pile up and turn 11. I'm surprised that didn't happen sooner.

Yeah, that was the only time. Yeah, it was a log jam. Was that the most challenging section of the track? Yes. Oh, no question. Because you skip through water and you're trying to figure out how much grip you have. Now, everybody's on slicks at this point at the end of the race.

So it's super slick. and then because your tires are wet, it's wet on the exit, the corner exit as well because we're essentially just sliding them off across the surface. So it was slick on entry. There's paint right in the middle of the corner.

So your tires, while in the dry, you want to hit as much pain as you can. In the wet, you don't want to hit any pain. No, not at all. Super slick. And so your front's just, chatter slide right across it and then your back end's got water on the back tires you try to accelerate and then you're sideways so so not not to go off on a on a tangent here but so are you

looking for like the turn lanes and stuff on a dry track and the qualifying stuff are you looking to run in the turn lanes um no you're not going to go off track because they have the most paint right well not all paint is created equal that's for sure okay um but no you're not going to likely if it has to put you offline you're not going to go search it out it's not not that big of a deal um but but yeah i think that uh where was where were we at here oh turn 11 the pile up what was interesting with that is that the guys that were spun around backwards because they started the wreck didn't lose any positions because it it log jammed the field up Now, there was, if you look, I was watching, there was like six cars that got by on the inside that was like, ding ding lottery.

It was SVG, Ty Gibbs, basically the entire group that had just pitted after NASCAR made that decision, which we'll go back to, that made it through. And then everyone else behind was stopped. because Kyle Bush, smart on his part, he, yeah, I think he had the track blocked. Well, he had the track open because you could drive right through the, on the right side of him. And he was, instead of watching all these people go by, he just said, screw you guys, I'm blocking the track so no one else is passing me. You know, instead of him losing all these spots and having to go to the back. So it just worked out. I think it was Kyle.

Maybe it was Harvey. Maybe it was Harvick. I'm not sure who it was. But whoever it was, they were letting cars by, and then all of a sudden they said, well, enough of that shit. And they stopped and they went ahead and blocked the whole track. So, and then when we look, we were like,

NASCAR put them back where they were. And it just was weird to us. You know, unfortunately, I know they got their hands full because the whole field is now trying to cheat spots. under caution saying oh i'm up here no wait i'm i'm in front of this guy they did the best they could uh but it was a tough situation for them to try to score who who should have been where in that instance we probably need to if you spin i i don't know you can't make up the rules as you go but like it's well you can apparently uh you probably need to go get a 10 place penalty i don't

know something we're not going to have this problem anywhere else it's just it was so tight the way it worked out um it was just bad luck for all the all the guys didn't get to pick up free spots there i'm just surprised it only happened once because that was going into this like if someone wrecks or the yeah the whole back of the the whole back of the track was a place where if there was an incident it was out okay it's turned six because you had talked about turn seven turn seven is one where I couldn't believe there wasn't a pile up there for sure. But it seemed like everyone respected turn seven enough to not with it. Like they just, there's a few passes made in there. I made a couple on the inside, but, and there was a couple other guys I saw diving in there,

but you just, that was a corner that was going to be pile up, easily piled up, probably as easy as turn 11 was, but no one, no one did. Yeah, that was one of those things you talked about beforehand, right is that your crew chief either said hey we want to be leading this race or at the back so we can not be in these pileups yeah he he told me before the weekend started be first or last and uh so i got the first part done on the first day but once we got in the middle of the pack there that was tough i mean we had a tough pit stop first of all well before the pit stop okay NASCAR comes on the radio and we were going to pit probably I don't know We You know We Did we think the race is going to be shortened?

Yes Probably probably likely Yeah Just because of the time constraints right But did we think it was going to be Lap 75? No

You know given the date like The sunsets there at 830 I think What time did the race actually end? I probably was like 820 somewhere in that range. So you had 10 more minutes,

let's just call that six, eight more laps or so. Now, again, if it's green, if it's green. That's a big if. But they made a call that really changed the outcome of the race. I mean, it changed, in their mind, it changed nothing because SVG won, and he was on that strategy of everyone that got screwed when they made that call.

But, again, that's one person. you know there was many that never made it back to where they were supposed to be and you flip-flop the field from the back guys to the front guys so it just you just you just you criss-crossed the field and so what do you do about that you know they knew that we weren't going to get the full of in-in-in steve o'Donnell says well we try to give them as much time as we could there's two things that you can do one is you don't say anything you make it you make the people wonder when you're going to end the race And didn't just come over the radio and say, hey, in 10 laps, this is it.

You could do that. Because then we don't know. Then it's on us to make the strategy accordingly because of daylight. We see that happen at other races, right? We got rain coming here. We're halfway. Do we stay out at a super speedway? Right.

So you either have to leave people wondering or you have to make the call so early in the day, early, before the last fuel run. So they made the call after nine cars or how many cars was it? 11 pitted. 11 cars pitted. And then they said, okay, the race is ending on this lap. Those 11 cars just hit the lottery because it, they weren't planning on it, ending on 75. They were just pitting because they're at the fucking tail end of the field running like dog.

and they just, hey, we're just going to keep fuel in the car and, you know, make some adjustments here. So all the cars that were in the back just all of a sudden got a one-way ticket to the front of the field because when NASCAR says, hey, it's going to end on this lap and it was within our fuel window, we have to pit. We had to. So the entire 22 cars, especially the guys that worked their way up front, got screwed by it, because, you made the call that that was inside a fuel window that people already pitted. So you either have to do it totally out of fuel window. I'm talking about you got to go on lap 25 and say,

guys, hey, it's looking, you know, lap 75 is our time. Then what we do, we would pitch just like they would have. Right. You know, change your whole strategy. It changes the whole strategy. I mean, I get it a super tough spot to be in. And on the fly, are you thinking of this stuff? I mean, I don't know.

I mean, did they consider that 11 cars just pitted when they were going to make this decision? You would hope not. You would hope that it was just an oversight, but certainly it flipped the whole field from back to front, which was not ideal after all the work that the teams put in to earn their track position up front and then you do give it to, I mean, it was given to someone else. That part is super hard to swallow for sure.

Could you have, before the race started, could you have mathematically mapped out? This is where we're going to be at 8 o'clock most likely. We're not going to get this whole race in. Let's just call it here at 7. Yeah, I mean, it's super hard to predict the cautions. But surely you knew that you weren't going to get all. 100. Yeah, so I saw that 30 laps took an hour and 30 minutes. And when they made the call, I think there was two hours of daylight left. Does that make any sense? No, it's not 40.

We started at 530, 7. There was about probably an hour left. Okay. And 30 minutes. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's just Again, I think you have to wait to the very end and just say, caution for darkness. At 819 Eastern, they announced it was going to be 75 laps. 719.

So, yeah, about an hour. So it ended one hour after they said, given the lap number. Again, we could, I mean, just saying, we could have run some more green flag laps, but at the time, they're just trying to give us

as soon as they can, a number that they feel comfortable with. But I think that, unfortunately, when road course racing is 80% strategy, you can't do it inside of a fuel window. It has to be all the way outside of everyone's fuel window, or, you know, which means 35 laps, you can't call it within 35 laps of the end of the race,

which they did. It was right at 30 some laps. Or you have to wait. to the very end and just say, oh, caution, too dark, check a black. That's it. That's the only way you can do it. Again, if they could redo it, would they? I would hope that they would say yes.

I would hope so. But running water in turn 11 and the strategy call the end of the race, those are the only two negatives that we can take out of this weekend. Holy cow. Yeah, there's a lot of unforeseen circumstances. I mean, it's just they have got such a tough job. And the tough position they were put in, man, I just, I couldn't believe how many people were there. It just, I mean, it's pouring rain.

There's absolutely not a soul there for our intros. I mean, 100 people, I felt like we're maybe there. And then all of a sudden we walk out for, to get on our cars, it's like, oh, it's filling up here. We're starting to file in. And at the end of the race, I get out of the car. and the stands are full. I was like, wow, just people were committed, definitely committed to going. And that just tells you the enthusiasm that that whole place is.

Yeah, it was very cool to see even people that didn't have tickets standing on top of the subway entrance or the train entrance. Yeah, you try to get a glimpse of the track. Yeah, so they were on like Michigan? Yep, on Michigan, I guess it's a subway. have subway there? I don't know. They go down on the ground. Yeah.

And, you know, they've got this top on the building. So they were standing on that. Standing on top. There's people all on top of this to try to see over the barricade to get a glimpse of the cars. Wow. That's really cool. I mean, that's what we want, right? I think, you know, making it a little bit more affordable would be a good change for next year.

I know that it was super expensive. And, you know, we were trying to. something different there with a big hospitality on the front stretch. But yeah, I mean, we're trying something new, and I thought it was a huge success. I really look forward to the opportunity to come back next year. I thought the mayor was very funny during our driver's meeting. You know, he seemed like a good guy, from what I know, just listen to the guy talk for 10 seconds. But it seemed like they were excited to have us there.

They really were and definitely hope that we were able to keep this going for the next two years. But let's talk about the winner? Yeah, Shane. So he wins the race. SVG wins the race. He was dominant all weekend. Great in practice. Good and qualifying.

Can you say his name? Shane Van. So I thought all weekend I thought it was Shane Van Ginsberg, which is not it. Shane Van Ginsenberger. or something burger? Yeah, so I... Jensenberger? Ginson burger?

Well, we, I feel like we should know be able to say it properly. Can you help us out there, Travis? Because I don't want to... Gisbergen. Gisbergen. Gizbergen. Gizbergen. Gizbergen.

Okay. I swear I've heard, like, so many different pronunciation. Well, I was walking in. out with him after qualifying and he was saying congrats and nice laugh and whatnot. I was just, I said to him, you know, big fan. I've never talked to him before. I've probably seen, I don't know, 50 total laps of V8 supercar racing, but most of the highlights are around this guy and how good he is. And it's, it's cool to see Martin Truex crew chief, you know, all the Aussie crew members like,

I knew it. I knew he would come over here and do well. Does an interesting question that got posed to me, do you think, you know, after Chase Selle comments, Kyle Larson comments about, hey,

he's going to go back and tell everyone how bad we suck. Does it taint it for you at all? Guys, that a guy came in here one time and one. Not at all. I've been waiting for this moment. I've wanted to see one of these guys, these one-off guys come over.

be in a good car and compete. And when, just because I want to see what would they do when they actually won the race. So for me, I think it's, I think it's neat. I think it's good for the sport.

I think you want other drivers like this to come over and be competitive. And especially on a track like this, the playing field is so level, right? You guys have never been here. You've never run a street course. You had a couple hours in the sim or however many hours.

and this guy comes over and this car is very similar to what he drives on a regular basis and the track is I don't know it's just even plain feel for everybody I don't think it should take anything away from the from the cup drivers that's what I if it was a road course or an oval then I would be a little embarrassed but a street course I don't think you guys could be as aggressive as if it was a road course where he would have to deal with the bumping that Jensen Button has discussed about and you know past races I don't even think it's that because if you have a problem with it, like if he used to come over here

and win Sonoma or Watkins Glen or something, that's saying that your responsibility as a Cup Series driver is to be the best at every different type of motor sport, road racing, ovals, dirt racing. Mm-hmm. And I don't think that's necessarily fair.

I'm trying to think and create an analogy because what the people could think is that, well, you just had somebody that we had never heard of from another country come play in the NBA and beat

LeBron James and whatever. Isn't it kind of... And what I say is, no, no, no. They're playing... Their ball is square. Like, it's a square hoop. You know, it's a square hoop. And it's...

Everything is different. Like, we're... We came to his world more than he came to our world. Does that make any sense? We were racing in his environment more than he was racing in our environment. Does that make any sense? Because street racing is a lot of what they do. Street racing. Racing around these barriers, blind corners.

The cars are similar. I'm saying that again, if it was on an oval, this would have been the single most incredible accomplishment. I mean, it was. 60-some years had been since someone won on their first start. What he did this weekend was unbelievable. It really was. I just, I was in all of this guy's talent. I mean, and if you looked at where he was fast on the racetrack, it was where all the walls were.

The tighter the track was, the faster he was. versus the field. But this is, go ahead. But no, but what I'm saying is that, again, it wasn't road courses that we had all run before. So we had never run it before. He had never run it before. And I'm just saying that the street race in general is what he does.

Right. We have not done it. So while it's, while it may seem that he just comes into our series and wins, again we we came to his world in my opinion more than he came to ours

right but also I feel like this is something that this NASCAR has been has been wanting to see or has been trying to get right you go to Bristol dirt and you have Jonathan Davenport

and all these guys who are dirt racers running just a dirt race and the media attention is around oh this guy's an experienced dirt racer blah blah blah blah blah they were trying we want to see them succeed.

Yeah, but here's the difference, is the dirt cars that they're running are so different than what we... I understand, but the narrative is still the same. This guy runs dirt, he's going to be good here. That's kind of the narrative that is pushed around these races. I agree that that's a narrative, but that's not... It's not fact because they're coming into a car that is way different. Right.

What we're saying is that the cars are... They're not the same. They're not the same. but they are similar enough to where, you know, well, I'm thinking about this on the fly, right? And I'm thinking the counterpoint on the other side of my shoulder and it's saying, they said he was shifting with the opposite hand. And so that, to me, it blows my mind that, I mean, I guess I could do it, but I probably wouldn't be very efficient

shifting with the other hand. They said a shifter on the, no. Because he sits on the other side of the car. Yeah. He sits on the, that too. Oh. Yeah.

So normally he's on the right side and shifting with his left. And now he's on the left, shifting with his right. This guy's just like the baseball player, Otani. It just doesn't both ways. But here's the thing,

just because he's unknown, that just means that us, us in America aren't paying attention to other. We knew about them. Yeah. I'm saying fans. Fans not knowing about him. That's our fault. That shouldn't be held against you guys, you as drivers, you know. I mean, we knew he was really good. But this is just blowing my mind as we're talking about it.

He's on the wrong side. He's on the other side of the car. On the broadcast, they're all talking about him using the clutch and all. Yeah. So when he's racing in a super car hits, it's backwards. And also, I think he talked about the shifting as how he, does what the feat to they were getting into it at a pre-race with his interview that he did

but yeah everything's and because then he also talked about you know what crown him greatest athlete in the history of sports I mean he's on the he went from one side of the car to the other I did that when I went to Japan for Toyota

and I ran out like a GT3 car it took me forever to get comfortable driving from the other side of the car car like just it's just different it's just way different holy cow yeah i mean it's again we're trying to make a point one way or another here and it's everywhere you turn it's it's it's pretty amazing what he did but big picture how do you feel about him coming over here and

winning a cup race like a driver i i i don't i cut a full-time cup series driver well that's what the debate that's what i'm asking you is i don't have an issue to the debate of does it tarnish cup drivers as star racers or is it just good for the sport? Which one's bigger? I don't think it tarnished as cup drivers. Okay, good.

I also think it's good for the sport. Think about all the fans in Australia, New Zealand that were tuning in. You're trying to get a fan base in Chicago to come to it. You now have two countries that were tuning into a race because of one driver. And hopefully, and they probably were entertained. It was a great race. And it ended at, I think, like, it started at, like, 1 p.m. their time. Like, so they were up and watching it.

But now playing devil's advocate. My personal opinion is that I do not think it tarnishes your ability. That's the good scenario. However, if I'm a random V8 supercar fan from New Zealand and this guy came over here, like, if one of our, Ron James went and played basketball or something, yeah. and just demolish the competition in, you know, a Premier League in another country, we'd be saying, wow, that league stinks. Our guy went over there and crushed them.

This is just a product of NASCAR branched out more, right? Historically, NASCAR is oval racing. It is, yeah. As a years go on, you're branched now into other disciplines. Yep. And this is going to happen. Yeah, and, I mean, this is a part-time car. Justin Mark says they don't have any plans for Project 91 to run.

any more races thus far. The next road course race, we have our own ringer coming in, Camui, that we're going to run them in the 67 car for 2311 at the Indy Roadcourse. He was there all weekend, kind of shadowing our team and checking things out.

So I'm sure now he's got to be super, like, confident. But again, this was such a special. special occasion because the racecraft at the Indy Road course is going to be totally different. You are correct, sir. Than this track. You are correct. Camui is going to have to deal with turn one and two and three at the Indy Roadcourse

and navigating that. Similar to Cota. All right. So you bring that up. We need to talk about that just briefly. Man, I'm late. I got stuff to do. The change in the restarts to single file and then starting us with a turn involved.

but not a high speed coin. Can we just say that that was a win? Yeah, it was. Like we didn't have nearly the storm into turn one that we had had in the past. I think that half of it was because of single file. The other half was because we started around the bend in turn 12. So I think hats off to NASCAR and the drivers working together there

to come up with a restart zone that was different to try to help our product. I hope the fans were pleased with what they saw there. We had still great restarts, guys making passes, but you just didn't have calamity corner in turn one. So great change, in my opinion, with the restarts. And NASCAR making a decision to go single file, that just made things even better. You probably would have still had some issues in a term one

had we not gone single file. Just simply because there just wasn't, it was hardly two dry lanes entering turn one. Yeah. So good change there. Hopefully we see that at Indy. We hopefully can make a change at Indy as well to not, to get rid of that turn one debacle that we've got.

What else we got? I mean, so to put a wrap on it, you know, him winning, I think, is a good thing. I just hope that it doesn't tarnish our drivers. I hope not. I don't think it should. Yeah. I don't think it should either just because, I mean,

I think it just makes what he did feel incredible. The more we talked about it, the more we discussed how different, you know, I'm thinking, well, the cars are similar. And then you say, well, he's on the other side of the car and he's shifting with the other hand. And by the way, he's using the clutch. We don't use, you know, it's just the tech.

everything he did was just absolutely amazing. A great weekend for our sport, I think. Just it's crazy because we draw the bad straw sometimes. Every time we come in town, it's freezing cold, steaming hot or raining. Like we don't get great weather that often. But we made the best of it. NASCAR made the best of it and had a great weekend. Yeah.

It's great for Justin Marks. track house. Darien Grubb wins. One of my old crew cheese, he was at Hendrick for a long time. Great to see him in Victory Lane. And, yeah, that team, just super happy for them. They look like they had a great celebration afterwards. And if you can't win, isn't this the best outcome for you, Denny,

a driver that's not eligible for the playoffs to win? Yeah. Well, second best outcome would have been like Tyler Reddick or Bubba. But third best outcome, yeah. Min is 2311. Yeah. They got to figure out of the walls as well. But yeah, it is because it's a non-factor when it comes to the playoffs for us.

I would have loved to got, I mean, starting on the pole, had that thing gone dry. It's hard. I felt so confident in winning that race if it was full dry, starting in the pole. I just so fast that I'm now looking forward to Indy Roadcourse. I'm excited about it. That's something. I know. Isn't that something?

Now we're still on the wrong track. We should still be on the Oval, by the way. This just says, hey, we need to get rid of the roval now. There's no sense for us running the roval. I think we should just abort right here mid-season. Say, there's no sense in it. Dear Danny. We've got some questions that we want to ask.

Answers 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 all wrong. We hope. This ain't the race track, so maybe you won't choke. Where would you like to see the next street course? Because there is going to be a next street course.

They could replace the road. We can't help ourselves. Camel. Like, it's, Rod's on the plane saying the same thing. Oh, you should go to New York now. I'm like, Rod, you were such a dreamer. Like, they're going to shut down New York. I mean, dude.

This is. Yep, we're going through Central Park. Give me a break. That'd be amazing. It would never happen. But this is such a, it seems like, I don't know what's involved and getting a street course set up. But the fact that you can take this blueprint now and apply it to just about any city where

you want to introduce your sport to that market, it seems like a no-brainer. Like, you need a Los Angeles race, right? You don't want to put a racetrack in the Coliseum anymore. I know that's what people are going to say, but you don't, people, that costs a lot of money to do that. I don't know what figures are real. Marketing is expensive. I agree with you. I'm full agreeing with you.

But what I'm saying is let's not get caught up in, oh, now we got to, we got to have three street races a year. It's not who we are. Okay, I think it's great for growing our sport. without a doubt but careful from leaving your identity I agree but the roval's also not who you are

no again that's it's irrelevant that track we should not be on the so if you have should not be running through the infield of Charlotte Motor Streetway if you have a bucket

of five races six races the road course races you're going to do Sonoma you're going to do Watkins Glen you're going to do the Chicago a street course again and you got two more right why not take why two more i don't know one more okay you just have this this number of road course races if a road course you're already running

for example the roval or maybe even coda is not performing well you don't have a good fan turnout it's just not what it could be why not replace it with a street course somewhere because you're going to have a good turnout all right the product isn't going to be any worse than the one that you're leaving because i'll give the answer money it costs whatever it costs believe whatever you want from the let's just say if it was 25 million or 50 minutes whatever it was total to put that race on between building the racetrack the promotion of it whatever or if you're a track owner such as nascar or smi you've got a track already built and all you do is just show up in race but is it worth that 20 some million or whatever mills

to just move it to somewhere else. Maybe. Trying to grow the sport, yeah, it is. But, yeah, I get it. But at some point, the juice won't be worth the squeeze. I don't know when that point will be. I think that Steve O'Donnell made it very apparent in post-race when he's like, we can take this anywhere.

And I think he even said internationally. So he's just laying it down right there that that's what we're doing. We're going to take this and we're going to go somewhere international and go race. Listen, if it grows a sport, I'm in for it. You know, we need, the teams need growth. I can tell you that for sure. Yeah. I'm just saying you're going to Kota right now.

And Austin's a great city. It's a great place. But the fan turnout is not spectacular. The racing's been okay. over the last handful of years. I understand it costs money, but if you're trying to grow the sport, you don't own that track either,

so why not take that date? Because what they, what Marcus Smith spends to rent out Kota for the weekend is far less than what they spent building Chicago. Far less. We don't even know what money got passed under here to go to there. I know that a lot of, you know, It was documented that NASCAR spent a lot of money helping the city with some of its initiatives.

That's all great. Like that's good stuff. But again, it's cost, cost, costing, costing. Does this, I'm just curious, does the city's enthusiasm for having an event like this play a part in the cost? We saw all these articles come out before this race that Chicago didn't want it, right? I tell you, how can you not want all those people that were walking around? That's what I'm saying. You know.

So let's pretend you have like San Diego or something. that saw this event. We want to bring NASCAR here. Let's figure out how to make this work. Yes. Now you're talking. Now you're getting into a bidding. That's the goal.

That is the goal. The ultimate goal right there is that you create hopefully, I mean, had the weather cooperated with us, the economic impact for Chicago would have been, and hopefully still is good, but it would have been huge. and then they're able to take that information

and say to these other cities, hey, here's what we can bring. Do you want us? You cover the cost and we'll come. That's how this should work. And that's hopefully where it goes in the future. But again, let's not get caught up too much and then doing too.

You can't just keep feeding what people want and giving them more and more and more because then it just kind of it diminishes it. I agree. It was special because it was the first, the second. It won't be as, it's just, it just diminishes. It's just natural. That's natural human thing.

I agree. I just wasting time with the roval and these other random birds. Okay. You want another one? I got one more. I got one. Last one, quick. Okay.

I got two here. So let's pick, what does Shane van Gisbergen? Good job. Due for bringing more outside drivers into NASCAR and do you think he will find

a ride in years to come, whether that be Cup or Exfinity? I mean, could he find a ride? Yeah, sure. Yeah, he definitely could find a ride. But again, what his specialty was this weekend, you know, he would be one of the favorites

for four to five races, one of the favorites, but one of the favorites for four to five out of the 36 races that we run. You know what I mean? So it's a good strategy if you want to have him run full time and then maybe get you a win, get you in the playoffs. It could work that way. But again, coming over and overracing would be such a huge, task to being competitive.

It's just so hard because everyone's so good because it's what we've done for forever. Most of the drivers all grew up doing ovals and so it's very difficult to, I mean, we've seen some of the best drivers that we've seen IndyCar Formula One come over and just really struggle on ovals. It's harder than it looks. I think it does give confidence, though, to other drivers that they, maybe it's the dirt drivers like hey i can go and be competitive in and something of my specialty but is it realistic probably not not as much as is what you might think i think he was just

exceptional he's an exceptional talent that i still can't hardly wrap my head around shifting with the opposite hand i mean have you ever tried to to brush your teeth with the opposite hand? They say you're supposed to do that. By the way, at least... Who says that? Who's they? A dentist, probably,

because they want more money for... No, it's for your brain. Am I the only one that does this? You purposely brush your teeth with the left hand. Yeah. Why? It teaches function. For what?

I'm not missing my hand for anything else. It's not a stimulus. late in the other side of your brain. Can you do that? The first thing I pull up is since you're using the opposite hand, you're using the opposite side of your brain, which can help strengthen that side. I mean, you could cut an apple with your left hand. Why is that to be brushing your teeth?

Because the motion, dude, you're not used to it. This way, this way. I guess. I'll try it later. I'll let you know. Yeah. Once a week, try to, you can do it. Brush with the opposite hand.

It'll stimulate. You're one of those granoles. You just know this. I never heard that. All right. Well, let's wrap it up. I got a meeting to go to. Thank you all for tuning in.

Give us a follow. Give us a like at Dirty Mo Media. I am Denny Hamlin. He is Jared D. Allen. We will see y'all next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.