Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Chicago: SVG Sweeps, Missed Cautions & Pissed Off Drivers

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

Denny Hamlin is back after a successful weekend in Chicago. Things didn’t start off great, blowing an engine, but he rebounded and finished 4th. Denny and co-host Jared Allen talk about his race and everything else that happened:2:10 Chicago weekend was a success and Denny wants NASCAR to return11:45 Carson Hocevar causes massive traffic jam15:30 What went wrong with Denny’s engine in practice19:30 Who’s to blame for Bubba Wallace/Kyle Larson incident?24:00 NASCAR late to throw caution for Josh Berry and Cody Ware  30:00 Joey Logano not happy with Ross Chastain32:00 Should Bubba Wallace have conceded to Alex Bowman?42:00 Is SVG the best road course racer of all-time?51:00 Ty Dillon once again advances in the Bracket Challenge Dirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Actions Detrimental merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.For more Actions Detrimental content: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental FanDuel Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Joey Lugano says, Ross Chastain better I get the fucking information right before he goes and wrecks somebody. And there's six cars behind me, wrecking into him, and then he destroys me from foreback. That mother... Oh, I mean, two of my favorites.

The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. I believe that I've been a competitive view for 20 years. Opinions from tonight's podcast, strictly biased. You're going to hear from my point of view. I'm a fighter. No, you are not. The spoils a victory for Jared Allen. He's got better luck to drink and drink to win.

I know, you do. Two trophies missing from your collection. A championship and the most popular driver. Someone told me that their drinking game is when I say for sure. Yeah, and I've already said it. Hey guys, welcome to Acton's detrimental post-Chicago street course year three. Finally got it. Dry weather for once.

It was fantastic. SVG kind of weekend what what more can we say pretty much summed it up he's good at Chicago he's good on road courses in general yes

fantastic job by him he started on the Xfinity pole won the Xfinity race started on the cup pole won the cup race what's y'all's initial takeaways from this weekend Yeah, just a SVG kind of weekend.

Like you said, I think it's cool. He's now won four of his five Chicago races. He's entered. Yeah, what happened on the other one? He got wrecked last year. Yeah. Yeah. Did he drive into the barriers?

Somebody wrecked him, right? I think he was wrecked. I know, but I remember seeing him sit there, but I think he got, like, somebody missed the corner and then knocked him out. Yeah, I don't think he made a mistake. Yeah, definitely could have been, had a perfect record here, but did for this weekend anyway. Yeah, I thought it was a good weekend overall. Seemed like still a lot of fans there, a lot of new fans.

It seems like, you know, the area is starting to embrace it. It seems like the build wasn't quite, it didn't have quite the build out that it had before, so it was probably easier to, you know, take up, take down. Is that a sign that the Chicago Street race has come to? an end or you think there's an argument to come back and do it again? I thought NASCAR definitely tried to oversell the premium experience maybe that, remember, they had that big thing on the front straightaway and they were trying to sell like these packages, you know, like an F1 race, right? And it just didn't have quite the demand that they had.

So they didn't have that that I saw, but there was quite a few hospitality trailers and whatnot on the back. I don't know. I felt like it still felt really good to me. I mean, walking down the front stretch, you still feel like you're at a legit racetrack. And I don't know. Hopefully, you know, they got a two-year option, I guess, on this. probably the city has that option. So, you know, they'll need to talk about it for sure and see if it makes financial sense for everyone above, you know, everyone involved.

But, yeah, I certainly hope that we go back. Yeah, if it is the end, I feel like it's kind of unfortunate the way it all played out. Because like you said, NASCAR came in Chicago with big ambitions, right? With the F1 type experience, the music festival, and the weather was shit. And it rained and killed the hype around that. And now by year three, when the city's finally embracing it and the people feel like they're starting to warm up to it, it's now where it's like, well, do we continue this or do we take this elsewhere with what we learned? Right.

Yeah, all good questions for sure. And man, it did not look like we were going to dodge that rain. I mean, it was like a couple buildings away. It seemed like and just kind of stopped right when it got to the track. I did see the fan that had the voice. vortex. It worked. Yeah, I know, it worked. You kept the rain away, so thank you for that. Yeah, I thought it was a good race. I mean, obviously, any, when SVG wins a row course, he's probably going to dominate them for the most part. So it always, you know, hampers what

people feel about the racing itself more than likely. I mean, do you see as many passes as you do was an oval no um you know i just think listen i'm not a road course fan i i still believe we have too many of them on on the schedule i think there was a big giant push for them eight years ago six years ago and nascar was like okay well that's what you want you know because we had some the only reason we people loved them is we had green white checkered finishes and people would get wiped out and like it created this excitement i just think it was fake news and, you know, we added a bunch to the schedule. You know, we did cut back maybe one this year.

But still, you know, six is a lot. Considering that, you know, we are NASCAR. We were, you know, short track racing. We're oval racing, full contact type racing. So I don't know. Just we'll see where it goes. This is just one race, I think, that should stay. You know, the others, you know, take or leave them.

certainly believe this one is just important to exposing new fans. What's the impact for you guys as 2311? And obviously we know the Michael, but for your partners and stuff. Yes, it's a very important partner city. So there's three main ones. There was three main ones this weekend that, you know, this was a big deal for them. McDonald's, obviously, headquarter there. You have the Jordan brand for obvious reasons.

And then it was an important one for. Robin Hood as well. So, you know, they had a bunch of people out. So it matters to us. And in a world where, you know, if we don't sell sponsorship, we don't have a business. It's important, no doubt. Yeah, I think the, I personally don't love road course racing at all. But I think if you're going to do it, you should do it in a market like this in a way, you know, in this fashion, in a street course that adds more to the NASCAR.

experience in just a typical road course. Yeah, and I mean, just like talking to Karen upstairs, she was like, road course, it's just hard to watch. She's like, you know, I can only see a car or two at a time. And it's like, you can't really see where everyone's at. You know what I mean? So if you're, unless you're a fan of the one or two cars that they're showing in a battle, you know, oh, well, you can zoom out enough to really kind of see everything and what's going on, right?

You can understand it better. Yeah. You can understand the picture better in strategy. I was going to go back to the strategy too There was groups of strategies Right and you just didn't know who's on A Who's on B, who's on C? You were on one and they said you're the leader of the group

And I was like, I have no idea what strategy Denny is even on I was confused. Right. And we were the leader of the group That thought they could make it after the Josh Berry wreck So he was sitting there There's a whole other subject We can get into it an hour later

for I saw him twice. I mean, I saw him, I think, right when it happened, and then I saw him again, and then the caution came out. So there was a group that pitted when they saw him sitting there. There was five cars that pitted. Then we said, okay, well, with another caution, or maybe two caution, no, did he say one caution or two caution?

I think we needed... Travis, you remember? I thought it was one. I thought it was one. He's like, with a caution, we're fine. But save gas as if that caution's not coming. So save us, you know, some, you know, I think it was a lap and a half or so of gas. And so my job at that point was our get ahead of all the people that just pitted, which I did.

I got, I passed those five cars. with the exception of maybe Reddick. Reddick was on, he was, he was one of the first people that pitted immediately like. Right, so he was part of the group of five. Yeah. That was ahead of me. I came off pit road first. You led your group.

Yes. And then passed all but Reddick of the five that were ahead of me. So we got the track position by doing that. But I, you know, we pitted the same amount of times as SVG. We pitted the same, you know, we pit twice during the course of that race. So we, we didn't do anything special strategy-wise. We just pitted once we got right at our fuel window, just like everybody else did.

We just really did a good job of, you know, getting spots, passing in the long run, passing in the short restarts. Like, it was one of the better road course races. And no mistakes on track. finally. That's, I feel like that's key to this, right? Because half the field is going to make a mistake, spin out, get spun out.

As long as you don't do that, you're in the top 15. And then any extra pass you make is cherry on top. Agree. Yeah, I mean, there was a moment there, especially at the end of the race, where I'm like, I had just passed Almondinger back for third.

And I start rolling in the 54. I think at that time, my time were six or seven tenths faster than the, than Shane who's riding, by the way, and the 54 who's chasing him. And I had a huge moment into turn two. I mean, I got it loose. So I was like, okay, I'm not going to throw away.

I'm not going to throw away my day here to just try to get one more spot. Like, that'd be pretty silly of me. Let's get out of here with this great finish, and that's what we did. Did you like the short-end race? Yes. There's 75 laps first 100, right? It felt right. I mean, it was what, probably two hours, 45 minutes, three hours.

It was quick. What more do we want? That's all you need. Yeah, and it didn't feel like you were missing anything. It didn't feel like we needed a 25 more laps of SVG leading. Exactly right. It felt that way when I watched the Xfinity race, too. Like, it's only 50 laps, but I felt like I couldn't skip any of it.

Does that make any sense? Yeah, the laps matter. All the laps mattered because you were like, well, who's going to pit, who's going to be the first to pit when they can make it on fuel? Now I need to keep track of that person to see where they net out, you know, in this strategy and does it cycle them towards the front. So I felt like the shorter race was a good call, certainly a good call. You want to talk about the first incident in this,

which was host of our spin and stacking out the field causing an actual traffic jam? At first glance, I was like, how in the world did he misjudge the corner that bad? Not the first one that he actually hit, but the second one where he flat-sided the left side. And then I went back, you look at the replay a little better, and they did a good job on TV as showing this of like he scraped, he clipped the right side first, and then that shot him into. that area. And so, listen, I mean, it's a mistake that can definitely happen. Many people, you know, cut the corners a little sharp and clipped it. It's just, that's a high-speed one that, yikes.

I don't know that you want to cut that close, but it was a mistake. It cost him. Certainly he probably wishes he could do it all over again. But, yeah, just not ideal because it's stacked up a bunch. Luckily for me, I was so far back from where I was starting. I had plenty of time to react to it. And my spotter obviously said, you know, they're wrecking. Now they're parking over there.

So I had a good heads up to just stop. Yeah. And it was in an area where I think spotter's view was, it wasn't great. Because there's this tree here. I don't know what turn. There's multiple trees. Yeah, there's this tree here. And the spotter's looking out of where they're from, the hotel rooftops.

Can't see that section, which I think is what. added to this traffic jam. Yeah, what's interesting, too, is that the trees growing, even year to year, mattered. Like, some of the signage I used for breaking points were, like, next to the trees. Well, since in the last year, the tree branches has grown over and started covering some of the signage. And so I was like, I got to find a new spot here. Right.

That's why I was asking you on Friday when you're doing the trackwalk is, like, what do you actually looking for when you walk around this track because you don't walk around other tracks like you do Chicago so what is actually changing year to year on this Chicago street course and what are you looking for well I have marks that I have from the simulator first right so I'm looking for okay there's the break marker I had there where is that break marker now in real life and then what is other things in this proximity so say I'm blocked out by I can't see it because I'm on the other side of a car, right? Well, now I need to find one on this side of the track, not just this side. You know, I need to find them on both sides of the racetrack that way. And you also never know,

are they exactly where they were last year? You know, there's marks in the racetrack that identify where I broke last year. Do the foot markers match with that? You know, all those things. you pay attention to. How do you get adjusted when you didn't have practice to do that? What was it like in the race trying to figure that out? It took, it took me three or four laps, truthfully, just like everybody else that practiced. I mean, most of the fast laps in practice were, you know, lap four to six. It was same for me. You know, obviously I'm getting used to the braking. I hear what my teammates are saying, you know, about their cars. And so I kind of take that into account.

But for the most part, just getting acclimated, you know, back to the racetrack and getting my points right. What went wrong in practice? Don't know yet. Not until the engine gets back to Costa Mesa, but it appears the bottom exploded. And so not really sure. They need to figure it out. It is certainly frustrating.

Is that just like a fluke thing? Is there a mistake in the engine build when that happens? Like what? Where does that, where did that go wrong? Was it like when they were building the engine months ago at the shop on Monday? It could have been. Yeah, I mean,

it had been obviously dinode before it got in the race car, but it certainly, the minute I gave it load, you know, on the racetrack, you know, when you're on a dino, sometimes it doesn't create the actual load that the engine's under.

You know, there's chassis dynos and other things for that. But it's just a minute I hit the gas to load it, I mean, it exploded. So it, um, don't know. Don't know exactly. There's an idea of what it might be, but I don't want to speculate here on this podcast. How does that change how you go about a Saturday? Like, do you come in with an aggressive, setup then all of a sudden you don't have practice like let's just go with something that's pretty

neutral no we we stick to kind of what we think is right um we don't really venture too far off from that um it just really hurts you with reps and track position obviously you know when you're back there you know if you get some quick cautions it opens up strategy possibilities for you for you but we really didn't have anything that um was able to change strategy from normal strategy that we had. We pitted twice pretty much like everyone else in the field. We were fortunate to gain some spots early and really just let things kind of play out naturally. So it's not like we've got a freebie that took us from 30th to 5th. Right. I mean, hell, not practicing and not qualifying may have actually been a help to you, right, to avoid that early carcinosa. You could definitely

say that. Yeah, because it seemed like those in that spot, so that started what, probably around the top five because that's where he qualified. I mean, from there to 18th was like right in the middle. Right. You're either in it or you're just narrowly getting around it. Yeah, you either had to be way in front of it or you know, you had to be in front of the top five or you needed to be outside the top 20. And so, yes, it definitely could have helped. Yeah. Michael McDowell led a good portion of this race early on before having issues with his throttle cable that then ended his day. But he was a contender. He was a challenger for SVG. Yeah, it looked like it. You know, Michael McDowell made some comments, I guess,

before the race that he thought that SVG could get gotten. So he definitely put his money where his mouth was and went out there, led the first portion of the race before he had to pit. And at that point, I think they had throttle issues. So you kind of saw it under caution. It was very, very weird. They replayed it where he was

locking up the front tires trying to get the thing to stop. But, you know, it could be a lot of things. It could be, you wouldn't think it's rubber build up in there. So not really sure.

He's excited for next week. He says the real show is at Sonoma. Hmm. Wow. So Michael McDowell will be back. Okay. Hey, this is Dale Jr. and for the latest actions detrimental gear,

go to shop.dirtymomedia.com. We've got plenty of options for you. We're adding new stuff all the time. That's shop.dardomomedia.com. Next incident we got on track here. Bubba Wallace spun out by Kyle Larson or just the contact between Larson and Bubba spins out. Yeah, it's kind of like it's the risk that you run

by dive bombing in there. A lot of times you can catch, people off guard by doing that but if they don't see you then it could really cause a massive pile up but um Kyle just got close enough to the 23 he saw that the 23 was bottled up waiting on somebody else through that corner and just dove it in there and you know it in order for that to get called it would have to it'd be really tough it's just there's not enough time you know for the spotter to see the lunge into the corner it you know expect to probably process it, press the button, tell the driver, the driver then process it to leave that extra

half a car with, it's asking a lot. Is someone at fault here? Is one driver at fault for this incident? I mean, it was probably a little aggressive on the five's part, but you've seen that past done many, many times before. I don't, not really. You know, the blame ultimately goes to, well, was he there or not? Yes, he was there. Um, and the 23, team you know again I don't know this might be a Freddie question but it seemed like they had some spotter issues on the 23 we'll talk about this later all day long door bumper clear is taping right now yeah good where are you expected to to pass at this track uh there's there's some really good passing zones one two four six um seven's hard but it it's seven's hard but it's seven

is a lot like 11, where you can do it, but it's, it's risky. So six, seven, you can, you know, you can do it in 11 if, if the person leaves room. It doesn't happen often in 12. A lot of it is because you're leading to a long straightaway there. If you don't get the, you know, if you, you're side by side through 11, you're going to have a horrible run all the way down the front stretch. so, or 12. So there's four to five really legit passing opportunities at this racetrack,

which is why I like it, is that, you know, you get runs if you have a faster car, you can pass at this track. It's not easy. It is certainly more difficult than when we go to an oval or, you know, a mile and a half,

but yeah, it's, it's, it can happen. SVG proved that by, you know, when he pitted, obviously had new tires versus the guys he was going against, but he still was able to drive from, I believe, 10th, 11th, after pitting in the first stage to back to the front. We saw Reddick at the end, decide to pit from three,

put fresh tires on, and got back up there. Yeah, yeah. Where does this track rank then? Amongst all the road courses at NASCAR races in a year, where does this one rank in terms of passing opportunities? It's more than Sonoma, and I'm trying to think, I think it's got more than Watkins Glen.

Let me think Watkins Glen You can one yes Yeah it's probably got more It probably has more I think it's very it's close to Watkins Glen But Watkins Glen you're going so fast It's the arrow makes it very very difficult Because you're going up through the S's

The aerodynamics of the car It's really hard for someone to stay close enough to you Through the S's there To then make that end of the bus stop passed that most people try to do. So it's just I feel as though

this one has the most passing opportunities. Did NASCAR wait too long to throw that caution for Josh Barry? Oh yeah. Yes. I mean, he was sitting there

driver's door first. I mean, into a corner that is heavy, heavy breaking. Like, absolutely. That was a late call. I think this is one of those tracks where, you know, there's no runoff, right?

So, like, when a guy goes off the track and gets stuck in the gravel, you're not necessarily sure, is he going to get it rolling again here, or is you just going to stay there? You either got to have a quick trigger on the caution flag, or you got to do what they did,

which is just wait, I guess. No, I don't think you, I don't think you got to wait. I mean, I think there's a balance to be had there. It was, think about this, I believe I saw him twice. I did. So I went around him. Yeah, when he hit the inside of seven,

I was one of the cars that went around him. And then I saw him, we're still under green. I saw him in a different spot sitting driver's door first. So that's a minute and a half. Like, how about wait 30 seconds, wait 45 seconds, not a minute and a half. Can't let the field come back through there. Yeah, it just felt like,

waiting on a caution was the was the story of the day when it came to making the calls. I think there's a flaw in their road course system. They don't have enough people watching. There's a flaw somewhere, certainly. But you know they're calling this race from Charlotte, North Carolina, right?

I mean, they had a nice segment on social showing the camera angle. Yeah, they put a thing out before the race about how they're going to officiate the race. Man, oh, man. Like, for a road course, you should have somebody watching. Well, it used to be that those corner workers had radios. And those radios would, they radio back to the tower and say,

I got a car sitting over here in turn six. You know, and certainly that corner worker would have said, massive hit in turn six. I just had a car fly in here at 150 miles an hour. Yeah. That or just put, have someone in there, watch everybody's watching this different, turn. I don't think this should be a problem.

You wouldn't think so, not with the resources that they have, but I would like to know how many people they have watching the corners. You know, if you got cameras on all corners, which they say they do, then you got to have a person per camera. I'm sorry, you can't look at multiple monitors and think that you're catching it all. That's not realistic. But I don't know whether they're willing to put the manpower, into that. I don't know where they're willing to spend the money to do that because obviously they did this to save money in the long run. Well they got the cameras and you just needed a couple more people apparently to watch them. No doubt on that. Can't keep saying we didn't see it. Like if you remember they didn't see, remember Parker Cligerman at the roval? They didn't see the guy in the tire barriers.

This is too much here. And that's what we're doing it too often. And Gluck reported that they said they didn't see him going. Let's move to the Cody Ware one since we're in the same. That's what I was talking about. Yeah. Well, they saw the Josh Barry, I would assume. They saw him sitting there for quite some time. But again,

this was not a good officiated race. Like the Cody Ware one should be an instant yellow, right? No question about it. That was a massive hit. You have got to throw the caution immediately. And it would, that's not a caution I would have liked to have seen, by the way.

Do you think there's a little conspiracy to the call? The, hey, we've got rain coming. We throw this caution right now. SVG doesn't take the white flag, and then who the hell knows if we actually get to finish this race? Well, I'm going to always be on the side of, like, crown the fair winner. The fair winner was SVG. And yes, if you get into a green white checker, this thing could have a lot of, you could have a lot of issues.

but you know what? That's just, that's part of the deal. Sometimes you have things that you wish didn't happen at, um, in the course of your event,

but that's, that's just bad luck. But what happened, yeah, I think regardless of what they tell you, I think no question, rain coming in, the possibility of lightning,

the possibility of a complete show worth of overtime, like all that played a, into a factor, in my opinion. But none of it should override calling a caution immediately because it's a caution immediately. Yeah, but they're saying they didn't see how big the hit was. That, I don't understand that. You are not doing your job as officiating. If you don't see, you know, it's one thing to look over and say, oh, there's a car over there.

You got to know how they got there. Right. What's worse reasoning, saying you didn't see the impact or that, We just wanted to get to the checker flag so we could end this thing. Well, they'll never say that. They will never say that. But it was just, I'm very certain in my belief that there was a lot of factors, some bad weather really close that played a factor in when that caution was called.

Yeah. Unfortunately, that was the impact of the wreck was immediate caution. Yeah. The video on Twitter. which I'm sure you've seen from the fan perspective of the car just flying by and it was crazy

Joey Lugano says Ross Chastain better I get the fucking information right before he goes and wrecks somebody and there's six cars behind me wrecking into him and then he destroys me

from foreback that mother oh two of my favorites um I he's right what do you want me say

chastain raged wrecked other cars that didn't have anything to do with it. And obviously, you know, we know what happened when on this podcast I said that I wrecked somebody on purpose or took them with me. Yeah, I don't like it. I don't agree with it. You know, in my opinion, Ross has done this to other cars, you know, where he's gone in and just wiped out three or four of them. Do you believe that in that next corner you deserve to get just cleaned out under his rule of karma that you would say yes?

Yeah, sure, I do. I deserve to get wiped out. Unfortunately, you can't involve other people that have nothing to do with it. And, you know, not understanding where that hit came from, especially on a road course. You got to know, there's 10 cars in a... You saw it. It was a restart. There's, there's, there's, this wreck could have came from eight cars back. You just don't know.

You got to get the information before you rage wreck. Yeah, I mean, he only took 200 yards, 200 yards before rage wrecking. I agree with everything Joey said. Do you think that it was necessarily targeted at Joey or he's just like pissed at this moment that he just got, you know, spun out and now he's just going into this corner with, I couldn't tell you where his mind's at in that moment. So Joey afterwards walking out said that Ross admitted it and he should and Ross should be fined. If he deliberately wrecked him and it appeared everything I saw it looked like it.

So do you think NASCAR will come down on him at all? Would you like to see that? No, I don't think they will. But would you like to see? They won't, they don't do that unless it's me. Unless it's me. You know inconsistencies is the only consistency we have.

Bubba and Bowman. Where do you want to start with this one? Yeah, would have liked to see the 23 team figure out how to get to the finish line there with a good finish. They had, they bounced back from a very tough start of the race. They were started in the back,

had a great practice, a horrible qualifying session. and then made the way towards the front. The five got in there. He spun out. Had to go to the back. Rebounded, got himself back in the top ten. And then, I don't know, they were just playing grab-ass with the 48

and ended up getting the bad end of it. But if you're the 48, I mean, I tried every way I could. I'm looking, I'm watching the replay. And I'm like, 48? I just don't understand really kind of what he did wrong there. You know, he got pinched into the wall off of 12. You know, his bump into Bubba into one wasn't like egregious or anything. And I think it wasn't even like square in the back.

It was kind of the left rear where Bubba was trying to clear himself. And at that time Bubba's on older tires. The 48 is on newer tires. You're just not going to hold that back in six last. It's just impossible. You're not going to do it. We saw the speed difference between new and old tires. Let me saw it with you and Reddick.

You got to just let it go. You got to let them go. Get your day that you need. And it sucks because they are paired up in that challenge, right? So did that play a factor in how aggressive bubble was trying to stay ahead of them possibly? But to me, I thought when I looked at it, I mean, I texted them after. was like what happened because I hadn't seen anything. I just heard, you know, Bubba and Bowman got into it.

And I was like, oh, great. What now? I just don't know how many options the 48 really had. He just got pinched in the wall like a lot. Let's pretend that the bracket challenge was the key factor. Should it be the key factor in that situation? Where both these guys are in points, their yearly situation, should this five-week bracket challenge be a factor in how they race each other?

Sure, I don't mind that. Even if it means that one of them... No, I don't mind drivers being aggressive because they want to beat that one guy and this was for eighth place or something like that. However, the bigger picture is, do you want to be in the playoffs or do you not? Right, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah. And so you can't really cough up 20 spots with six laps of

go. You know, you got to just take your losses when he got him. And unfortunately, the 48 pitted, he took his new tires. They played a strategy. It worked out for him. You were kind of heading back the other direction, and he happened to cross paths in the middle of the pack. Got it just, in my opinion, you got to, you know, and I know that you let one go, there's multiple right there to pounce. I totally get that. And I think what Bubble was trying to do if I had to predict would be, man, there's seven cars here in this tight pack. I'm going to get passed by all of them. If you do, you do. Still finish 15th. You know, it's still 13 points better than what you got. And I just think that all those points are going to matter. So I, you know,

I just believe the best way to do it is just take the day that it's given to you. You just can't afford and none of us can afford and and i've been in the same boat trying to race for this regular season deal man you just can't take yourself out like that's what the deciding factor is is that the 23 team is way faster than in their cars are faster their driver they are faster than the cars they are all around in points but they just don't execute as good as the others the other guys are 10 spots worse on average running position it feels like. I'm not talking blanketed about everyone. Everyone's been good, but I know speed-wise, they shouldn't be in this position.

Now, most of it is, and I've mentioned this, is DNFs that were not of his doing whatsoever. There's been mechanicals. There's been other wrecks that people, you know, he's gotten a part of. They had nothing to do with. but everyone has these where you controlled the outcome and it led to a bad outcome. And I thought this was one that slowing things down and putting the big picture into play probably would have been the better idea. Now is it on the spotter? Is it on the crew chief to help relay that information?

I mean, they probably should. I mean, they can see this was brewing for 30 seconds, maybe more. I mean, half the track. Yeah, it was. at the track. It was over in turn seven where it all started. And they finally ended up crashing off at two. So yeah, it's just, yeah, someone's got to get in the ear and say, you know, paint the big picture here. Yeah, he's got new tires. He has, you're not going to hold him off for that long. Six laps, no way. Is this a time where maybe this week you become the owner and go in and have

a chat with them about the bigger picture and where, they're at in the season or where are you? No, I think I think Bubba understands it. I think that's why you saw him have the reaction that he did. Um, I think that's why he made the comments that he did. He took, it seemed as though, you know, he took responsibility for it and that, you know, he wasn't clear when he tried to clear himself. And so, um, no, I think he handled it fine. And he did sound positive afterwards. In interviews, right? It didn't sound like he was down on himself for what happened, which, you know,

it's a good thing, it's a bad thing. But it seems like they are still positive about what they're bringing to the track each week and what they can't accomplish. Yeah, they're fast. I mean, they were fast in practice first. And I don't know, all of our cars were fast. I mean, I felt like Riley, it was one of his better speed. racetracks road courses have been good to him finish-wise and he's certainly been

average running position has been better at road courses than what it has been on the ovals and great comeback by the 35 team by the way they were involved in that first host of our incident nose just absolutely destroyed still finishing the teens i think 17th so great job by them um yeah it just our cars are fast just got to figure out how to finish where you're capable of finishing. And whatever that number is on that day, you got to live with it. You can't make it worse. These cool suits, I know you're not the biggest fan of the cool suits, but it appears that week to week now someone is having a failing cool suit and it's making their situation in the car much worse. Yeah, I don't run them. You know, it's very, very, very, very rare

that I'll run a cool suit. It just, yeah, wherever there's a lot of heat soaking, so basically what that means is that once the car, you know, as the car's going around the racetrack, it's, we're cutting through the air. So there's always cool air coming in through the radiator. It's cooling the engine. It's cooling the brakes. It's cooling all the stuff. Well, once we slow down for a caution, now there's no air cooling things off. All that heat just soaks around the parts and pieces that are really, really hot. headers, the brakes, like there's nowhere for the air to escape and there's no new air coming in there to cool off. So it could be a heat thing where just the inside of the race car, and you saw me,

I was soaked. Like I usually don't sweat very much in these cars and I was rather wet after this one. Do you still have, I know when Gabe Hart was your crew chief, he had like a certain temperature. He wants you to ask, I want you to wear the cool shirt. Does that temperature rule still apply? I haven't this year. It was 85 degrees, anything out kind of over 85 or certain humidity. He liked to have me run it, but I've been very rebellious against doing that. What's the feeling like when it does fail?

I don't know. I've never had one fail. But my guess is it just gets really, really hot. You know, those tubes of water that are, go from cold to hot. And now you're increasing your core temperature, not decreasing it. Yeah. Risk versus reward, I suppose.

Back to SVG for a moment. Is he the best road course racer that NASCAR has seen? Hmm. Or is he in the conversation? Certainly in the conversation. It's so hard to, like, compare even the 90s and 2000s because you could build car advantages

where you can't do that now. So you would say his accomplishments are probably greater than whoever the rogue course ace was back in those days because Richard Petty for instance, right? Like his cars were just more reliable and faster than everyone else's

you know, there was only two or three other cars that were actually going to make it to the finish of the races that he was in. And then much less not even have the speed that has had, you know, the ingenuity that Dale Eammon and those guys built in his cars. It was, you know, they were way ahead of their time, way ahead of their time. And they took advantage of that and won a ton of races because of it. nowadays it's harder you can't build car advantages so yes is maybe the answer you know has there been someone with this big advantage on road courses than the field i don't think so even back when you know some of the awesome road course racers back in the day i remember like Ricky rudd was really really good rusty wallace is gordon good jeff gordon was really good jeff gordon was really good

Tony Stewart, I mean, they all had car advantages as well. Now, they had to drive it. They had to drive it. They had to tell the team the direction, what they needed. But still, you can't really tell because of car advantages back then versus now. So you certainly would think that SVG, relative to the field, has got a bigger gap than anybody in history. It's just fascinating to think that he comes here, you know,

for a one-off race two years ago wins the race, the inaugural race at Chicago. That propels him to a full-time McSfinney ride into a full-time cup ride. Now he's a two-time winner this year. Like, if he doesn't win that first initial Chicago race, are we even in this? Are we even talking about SVG now two years later?

You know, like surely that that experience of coming here winning right off the bat leaves a good taste in your mouth. Like, ooh, I should come back and try this again. You know? Like, maybe I'm just waiting. better than these guys. Yeah, you would think that it possibly did, right? That, that, and I believe he might have mentioned it after the race, that winning that 20-23 Chicago race was like the moment for him, where he thought that that got him his ride. And so certainly, you know, Justin talked about it,

that the way the format is, it promotes this kind of thing. where if you know you can go to a certain type of racetrack and almost, not almost guarantee you win, but like now you've changed that charter ranking from wherever he's at in points, 27th to now the worst it can be is 16th. I mean, that's a good business decision. Regardless of what you think,

whether you think that person can win you a championship or not, you don't care because the money is worth it. They throw the caution at the end of this thing. he probably doesn't win. Right, right. He now sits fifth in playoff points. That's amazing.

Wow. With 11. All right. I mean, after this weekend, he might be tied with the series lead and win. Well,

and here's the thing, too, is right now, this year, the first round of the playoffs, there is no road course, but as much as NASCAR is changing it up, he could get lucky

and next year there's a road course in that first round and he moves on. But also he's going to get more and more competent on ovals. And he has. Right? He's going to continue to improve. So as long as he's an okay oval racer and a great road course racer?

It's great for the team. They really don't have to put the resources into his car for 31 weeks of the year. Or 30 weeks, you don't. If you know you can win one of these five or six races, what you put into it for those other 30-something doesn't matter, not under this system. Well, that implies that your SVG is quite literally only racing for the road course system. Well, he's not going to be top 10 in points, not in the near future.

His average oval finish is 23.4. Yeah, I mean, well, and he has gotten better too. So, I mean, I feel like his average running position on Oval's was, I mean, he was back there just for the first eight, 10 races or something. And he's definitely improved that quite a bit. So I don't know. I think that I think the system has got some flaws, but you also, he's now won twice. And so you can't overlook that. And certainly, Justin said it, he's like, this system affords us.

the opportunity to win where we can win and then just take our time getting better on the other places we need to get better. But, you know, as well as that he, you got to execute the race to win this, right? Just because he's the best at getting around the track. He's, the team still has to execute. He still has to keep a level head in the car despite all the stuff that's going on around him. He's great at what he does. He's great at what he does. And certainly, it's, you know, it's showing. And he's capitalizing when he's the best, which that's hard enough to do in itself.

And then he is getting better on the ovals and being more competitive. So I think he's right on schedule for what they were probably hoping for, maybe even more. Let's move on to the Bracket Challenge. Well, hold on. Let's stick with a trackhouse right now. Okay. Daniel Suarez, out.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Ray Charles probably saw this one coming. And you have to assume they're going to go with the road course win method with his replacement. Yeah, it's cut and paste. I don't know. I think Connor's a little bit faster on ovals. You know, he's one Xfinity oval.

We talked about this, Pocono. But actually been in contention at other ovals, set on the pole, some ovals early in the season. So I think it's a cut and paste of SVG of now you can go in there. Now you've got two bullets in the gun at every road course that are probably going to be, you know, one of your favorites. It's a straight shot avenue to the playoffs as long as the system doesn't change. Let's just put an asterisk there because there is, you know, there are internal conversations. there is a committee talking about how we're going to reshape these playoffs.

Should someone 30th and points be in the playoffs? I think that is a unanimous probably no from the committee. SVG currently says 27th in points. I get it. I get it and he's probably going to, he's after this weekend, he's going to move up. Maybe it'll be 24th or something, you know. But what is the cutoff? What is the cutoff where, you know, you got to,

be held accountable for the other 30, you know, the other, well, if you have five, so the other 21 races in the regular season, you know, you can't just, you know, take those off. And no one's taking those off, but I'm just, I'm saying you've got to make them matter, not just the one or one race or so that you win. I think the key here is, is assuming that Zillich is the one that's going to take that 99 right next year, is he just showing too much promise right now to, not be in a cup car full-time. No, I think, yeah, he's certainly talented enough, capable enough, and will be very, very successful.

He'll be as successful as the team. The bracket challenge. Ty Dillon, Cinderella story, advances again. We called it. Where did he finish? Where do you finish in Atlanta and here? I mean, it was 20th year? He finished 20th?

I think he was 20th. Check your notepad. P20. This guy has had the absolute easiest path of the elite eight. He's had two cars that have been out after the first stage. He's raced the least amount of laps against his competitor. Yes. Yes.

It's been amazing. He did finish eighth in Atlanta if that makes you feel a little better. Who does he go up against this week? Alex Bowman. He now is Bowman. Bowman's getting wrecked. Mm-hmm. could he do it again?

Could he do it again? I don't know. Eventually you're going to have to have actual... You're going to have to outrace one of these guys. It's probably not going to happen until you get to an oval, though. That's where it's really going to kind of matter, but we have no race winners left in the bracket of the eight drivers. These are the most unpredictable eight that you could imagine.

There's a few, you know, chalk favorites in there, but yeah, starting this out on a Super Speedway and multiple row courses, you will have this and this is, you know, you just hope it hasn't lost some of its luster. But I thought T&T did a good job of kind of showing the matchups, kind of where they stand, and I like the banners on the windshields to kind of identify them. It helped them. Then you had Bob and Bowman at the end, too.

Yeah, yeah, that was a good one. No other one was really close because of takeouts and stuff like that, right? Nothing else is. John Hunter and Chase Elliott. Was one position away, right? But I don't remember them talking about that much. I rewatched the race. I didn't see it either.

But did John Hunter, I think, get around Chase at the very end? Like, Chase's car was pretty hurt. It's definitely pretty hurt from one of the stackups. But, man, I mean, everyone's been taken out of this thing. So it's wild. Both legacy cars are still in. they won't be after this week the most awesome thing

would be Ty Dillon winning this thing after finishing 20th every week that would be the most NASCAR thing ever that would be exciting I know it would be awesome Ty Dillon versus Bowman this week

who you got in that one? You gotta go with the hot hand hot hand John Hunter and Eric Jones man I'd say on speed Eric Jones but I watched him lock up a tie tie on every corner and ran into quite a few things.

Eric Jones. John Hunter. John Hunter. John Hunter. John Hunter. John Hunter. Ryan Priest or Tyler Reddick? And then Ty Gibbs or Zane Smith? Gibbs. Okay. There it is. Final answer.

Anything else for this? Would you do anything off track that was interesting in? Not really. Did a little shopping. Jameson had his first trip. That was probably a bit ambitious on mom and dad's part. Three weeks in. But no, not a whole lot, really. Enjoyed the city.

He did crush the plane ride, though. I mean, he was... Slop all the way through. To and from. It was fantastic. Yeah, I don't really have anything else. Sonoma. another road course

should be exciting it's one where certainly SVG will not have the giant you know I just don't think he's going to have as big of an advantage doesn't mean he's not going to be the favorite he will be the favorite

but we'll see how close the competition gets to him never race there in a cup car but for him does that matter nope nope shouldn't matter again that's why I think

that the advantage will be, you know, if it was here, his advantage is going to be here. So it'll be tighter. It'll be closer. You were somehow, you were behind by 80 points,

left Chicago minus 43. Thank you, William Byron. Who thought I would have cut half my deficit off in a row course? Imagine if you would have raced in Mexico City. He is thinking that now. Can't confirm that was a thought. I support my decision.

I support my decision. If it turns out being hurtful, it turns out being hurtful. I mean, we joke about how, you know, you may not be the best road course racer, but I mean, you've been saying now for two years ago, if it doesn't rain at Chicago, and we're on dry, I'm just as good as anybody else. If it's dry, I am fast at Chicago.

I've been fast at Chicago. I'm serviceable there. That's all I can tell you. So what can we get at Sonoma from you? I got the poll two years ago. And led a good portion of it till it stops or something. I'm not really sure. Our finishes, again, have been bad because we didn't flip stages.

This one we just said, all right, we're not worried about the state. We're just going to flip. And just see where this thing nets out. And that's where it net it out. So, I don't know, I'm optimistic. I've got a ton of laughs there. I know how to make speed there. It's just, you know, do you have the car to kind of do what you wanted to do?

And do you have track position? All that stuff's matter. This new road course tire that we have is a really good tire. It's got good speed on the short run. It matters if you pit in the long run. So all good things. All good things that certainly point to another good finish for us. one more off track thing shout out to whoever made those AI picks of you and Travis of Travis and you

no one's seen them right now I certainly people have seen them they have I've received text messages from a few people you can go find them you dig them you dig hard enough on X you can find them hilarious it's pretty damn funny I'm not going to lie it is our new avatar for denny bros the Denny bros I got a text from Dale T.J that's how that's about it Oh, they saw them? Oh, yeah. No. What did Dale say?

Let's see if I can find it. I think it was more of just like the pick was sitting and they started laughing. Speaking of Dale and whatnot, I did ask them last night. I said, you know, hey, I saw some comments about, you know, T&T's coverage, you know, was not great. More like the camera angles weren't great, right? It was very Fox-esque. And I asked, you know, is this a new director or not? They said, he is new.

We're working with it. We're working out of the Kings now. Just give these guys a little bit of time. They are new to it. So understanding, you know, what to keep watching and what to cut away from is something that's going to be evolved over time. And Chicago can't be an easy race for camera angles. Probably. I can't imagine.

Especially if these people are, they're not the NBC crew that have done the past two. this is their first time. Yeah. Yeah. And so the good news is they've got the on-air talent that can help guide them into the right path. Yeah. We put the blame on Prime here.

Prime just screwed everything up by putting together a great broadcast. Doing what they're supposed to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, I see what they were saying. Like there was, you know, there was contact, contact next to know, you cut away and,

Somebody's wrecked and you're like, well, how'd that happen? But it just, again, I can only imagine how hard it is at Chicago where you can't look out the window and say to your director, look at the battle for 16th. Like, you know, no telling where these guys were actually housed while this thing is going on. There's no scoring tower or media tower for them to be able to see the race live. So it's very, very difficult.

I get it. Next week, as we said, we're at Sonoma practice and qualifying Saturday, 1.30 Eastern on True TV, and then race on Sunday, 3.30 Eastern on TNT. And then as always, thanks for letting know where practice is that. True TV. We didn't know last week. Well, now you do. If anyone wants to know, you just have to listen to the show, hoping that Travis puts it on this sheet every week and it's accurate. If you want to know where practice is just listening. If it's accurate. Yeah, just listen to Action is detrimental. Okay.

Well done. I got a review here from Andrew Leonard from Spotify. Blaney fan here, former Denny Hader. Podcast has me now somehow rooting for him. Great dude. Thank you, Andrew. Look forward to seeing you at a racetrack sometime soon. You can trade in that Blaney shirt for a Denny shirt if you'd like.

Go see us at the merch hauler. Surely they got one shirt or, maybe two if you have the shoes from all right well we'll see you guys next week