Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - COTA: Need A Common Sense Rule

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Connor Zilisch makes his debut in the Truck Series. Kyle Larson's daughter didn't realize her dad won in Xfinity (9:15) Austin Hill isn't happy with SVG (21:00). How should track limits be handled at COTA (24:00)? Cup Race might not have Bristol exciting but it was compelling (33:00). Did Christopher Bell's team execute the correct strategy. (37:45)? Who are the best road course racers (43:30)? The 11 team accomplished their goal and left COTA with a playoff point (48:00) An update on Denny's shoulder and how age and health impact his racing (54:30). Kyle Busch is upset with Bell (58:50). #DearDenny, and Does Bubba race Denny differently because he is the owner and doesn't want to wreck his own car (1:11:20)?YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental21+ and present in NC. First online real money wager only. $10 Deposit req. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm getting old sucks. What do you want me to say? Any podcast listener listening to this right now is like, yep, I fight that every day. I mean, I hop out of bed, Jared, and my test of how I'm going to feel is when I go to put my shoes on, like, can I reach down and put my shoes on or not? Because that hurts like hell until I get to the mid part of the day and my body starts loosening up. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey, guys, welcome to Axis detrimental post-circuit of the Americas. I'm Denny Hamlin, driver of the number 11, this week.

State Batteries, Camry, my great co-host, Jared Allen, Mr. 311. Yep, 311. Red Vest 311. I'm starting to grow on me a little bit. 311. It doesn't have the same ring as Purple Vest 560 though. No. No, it doesn't. But that title also had a year to simmer.

Yep. Well, we went road course racing this weekend. we had you didn't have too much going on off the track before the weekend so we can just kind of generally talk about you know what we saw from we had the top

three series the craftsman truck series Xfinity series and Cup series all at the Americas first we had Corey Heim winning the truck race he is you know continuing to

impress a lot of people for sure, myself included, with his skill set on all kinds of different racetracks. And what else did you see from that truck race that kind of impressed you? Obviously, we had Connor Zilich get the pole, overshot turn one right off the bat pretty quickly. And then I saw actually a pretty funny, did you all see the Twitter exchange between him and Jesse Loss? It was pretty good. I think both of them might be on DBC today. I'm not sure.

I know, I think Connor is. Yeah, I saw a screenshot on Twitter that Connor is definitely on DBC. Yeah, that'd be good if they had both of them on. Yeah,

so it was, I think one was taking a fun poke at the other and Jesse was saying, hey, Connor, can you give me some tips on the breaking zone into turn one?

And then Connor comes back to Jesse and says, can he, can you give me some, uh, fuel strategy savings for super speedways so um that's the kind of interactions we want to see it's fun to talk about and you've got two young drivers there that uh obviously got a pretty bright future in the series what do you make of connor zillich i feel like he's like can come out of nowhere

in the last couple weeks yeah i mean i think you're probably just hearing about it a little bit more uh he's been around a while he uh signed with the track house uh great signing by justa marks and that whole team there, some forward thinking. He is certainly a wildly talented driver. He's won a lot of road course stuff, very similar to Shane in the sense of, you know, he is a road course ace, only is, you know, probably half the age. Like, you know, he's certainly wins in just about anything he gets in. I think he's 17 years old. Is that correct? He can't vote yet. Yeah, I mean, that's just crazy. At 17, I was, I was racing many stocks. you know, my little four cylinders at Langley Speedway and Southside Speedway. So, um, way ahead of the

curve for sure. Um, you know, I haven't, I guess, I mean, he, he runs ovals because he runs the Arca series. Is that correct? Um, so I think, um, you know, certainly the future is bright there. Uh, he's, he's, you know, going to have a great ladder, a great system, uh, to, to, to come up in and, you know, to get some more truck races and future, uh, he's, he's, you know, he's, you know, Xfinity rides. He'll be in Junior Motors car later this year for Xfinity for one race. Yeah, nice. Is there an oval or road course? I'd have to check.

Okay. How much do you know about like what Justin Marks is doing here? Is this a trackhouse Justin Mark's driver development plan? It seems like trackhouse is signing all these guys that are young and upcoming. I'm pretty sure they also have a deal with Brent Cruz if I'm not mistaken. At least track house is

on Brent Cruz as midget or has been in the past. But is that a Justin Mark's approach or is it more of a team Chevy deal? I would think it's probably a Justin Marks thing for sure. I say for sure, but I don't know. But yeah, I mean, they want to scope out the next big talent. It's like what we did with Redick, right, where you just, you know that they've got a super high ceiling and you just you sign them and you figure it out later. I think that that's probably the strategy. and it's probably a good one because you want to have that pipeline starting really young. And it definitely costs a lot of money to develop drivers and invest in them, right?

Because certainly there's going to be bills along the way that come with running a full-time arc a car and then an Xfinity or truck or whatever it might be. If you want him to be your future cup superstar, paying for the way to get there is awfully expensive for sure. But when you have someone that has got what you believe is a very, you know, is a phenom, I think I saw him called, then you're willing to invest that. And so I think I think that's probably what we're seeing here. Is there a different approach in the way, like we talk about Toyota's driver development program, right?

They have a truck team, Xfinity teams, a bunch of cup teams. Lots of dirt. Lots of dirt. Lots of places to put drivers, whereas Justin Marks or Trackhouse only has a handful of cars. Yeah. I think that's probably why you see them, you see them creating these alliances with the colleagues and spires and things like that to not necessarily have to invest in all that overhead yourself and instead just kind of align yourself with another team that's in those series. and then you can work deals through the side on that. So I think that's how that goes. Walkins, Glen is where he'll be at for Junior Motorsports. Okay.

So road course. Yep. Well, I think it was still very, very impressive. Even though, you know, make funny, overshot turn one, I'm sure that would be super easy to do. For me, personally, if I was driving a truck at 17 years old, I certainly would not have been on the pole. I would have been in the back,

and I still would have overshot turn one. So what he was able to do is to regain his composure throughout the race. What I saw, he regained his composure, started to get into a rhythm, and then you could see that all-out speed that he had. I thought that the field came to him quite a bit compared to the times that they were running practice to qualifying. Connor was just quite a bit quicker, but they definitely caught up to him for sure. and then at the end I thought Corey Hym just put a weapon on him and he just kind of controlled the race.

So very impressive weekend for Connor. A very impressive weekend for Corey Hime. He continues his quest to make an argument to be at the next level. So great futures ahead for both of those guys. And I think the truck series in general is, you know, got some great young talent that's coming up the pipeline. What'd you make of Marco Andretti's tire issues there? Holy cow.

I mean, you know, I'm just in the, I'm in the bus and I'm watching this. And I'm yelling at the Jordan's like, look at this. She's like, what? I'm like, hold on. They're going to cut back to it. I was like, you won't fucking believe it. Look at this. The whole back of his truck fell out.

And so usually that comes from, um, it, It could be, you know, it looked like somebody broke it down where it looks like a weld came loose somewhere in the back. It could be from wheel hopping. It could be from hitting curbs too hard. Anything like that. So it's tough to say or tough to speculate, but holy cow, we've never seen that before. Yeah, do we know what the penalty is for that?

Yeah, I don't think there should be a penalty for sure. What do you mean? You lose a wheel. There's a penalty. He nearly turned over upside down. and the bad part of his I mean it just looks worse is that like he was on the side of the track by itself

like there was nobody within a mile of them and this truck just nearly flips over entering a corner oh my gosh that was crazy there's a clip here some serious wheel hop for Marco Andrew yeah that was a big wheel hop for sure I like Cota because we go from the truck race on Saturday afternoon right into the Xfinity race

which Kyle Larson happened to win after a last lap battle between Austin Hill and SVG. Yeah, I thought I actually was, I was actually hanging out with Audrey, his daughter. Most of the day she was at the bus playing with Molly and, you know, she's, it was, I don't know, it's just cool to kind of get a different perspective of how kids interact with like, do they really know what's going on with their? and so every now and then she'd be in the back in the bunks playing with mollie and she'd come up every i don't know 15 20 minutes where's my dad running where's my dad running and so you know i was i was kind of updating her on what was going on and then all the sudden you know he goes to the back uh he takes tires

I swear I thought it was like just a handful of laps to go, like five to go or something. I would like to know that. But it's like it was at the end of the race. And so I think they were thinking that more cars would pit. They didn't, but he restarted certainly in the teens at least. It was back there. And so we're all just hang out.

And then five laps later, you know, George's like, oh my God. Audrey, you got to go to Victory Lane. Y'all won. So it was, it was, it was, uh, it was really fun to see. I, I saw Kyle when he came back to the bus. He had just got back from doing his media. And he was like, yeah, we were lucky. I'm like, he was, but that was a lot of skill in that win. Like, watching the patience he had, knowing that those two were likely going to get into each other. I mean, beyond that, he had to get the third place in the first place. And, I thought he just did a masterful job getting through the pack. Now, I do remember he had one really timely caution where he gained a bunch of spots,

you know, like nine or something like that. The caution came that allowed him to start, I think, eighth on the final restart, thereabouts. And man, he just, you know, new tires or not, it's still difficult to pass. And he just, once he got to third, I almost went to. to X, right when they were coming off turn four, coming to the white and says, Larson wins. Because I just, you just felt it, right?

That, okay, you got two bullheads and Shane and Austin. And, you know, they're going to get it. Larson is at least going to be in the picture of this thing when it's all said and done. But that move through the stadium course where, you know, he saw, you know, Shane and Austin, you know, pushing each other. him just taking a big wide swooping arc into that corner beating them both off it was just a masterclass for sure i have a two-part question a potential two-part question where at coda are the most passing zones is it in the first half of the racetrack the second half of the racetrack i i would say the first half i mean you know it's

tough to really kind of break it down but you've got into one um it's very hard off of off of off of off of one and into two just because it's you just don't have enough time to kind of outbreak someone there so it's you know then you definitely don't want to battle side by side through four five six seven eight all single file nine single file ten so then you got 11 is a pack's passing zone so you got one 11 12 um some use kind of 13 there to dive bomb and then you can do one in the carousel there in 15 and then it's single file basically through the carousel and then you can dive bomb again in the final corner so there's there's four to five legit passing zones for sure but it's about setting yourself up in the

corners that lead into that it you know play to your strengths understand where your car is good and then try to get everything you can to get out of it, get out of it which you need to stay close for where you are good on the track. I'm asking because if you're a crew chief, you know, if you're Kyle's crew chief in the situation, you'd be like, hey, we're going to restart 17th here, but we may have two more caution.

So if you can get five spots on this first restart through the first five corners and then get another couple, you know, you may end up restarting, you know, the final restart, you know, from six or something, which is now winnable position, which is kind of what happened, right? A lot of those cautions paid out in his favor. Yeah, certainly.

And it's also a big advantage to be running part-time, right? You're running in a car that's not running for anything. So they're going to be aggressive to do whatever it takes to win. And they probably thought at the time, you know, they weren't going to win by staying out. And I think they were in like third or fourth or something. like that. Now, they could have had they got a good restart, but they felt like, let's get an advantage over those first two cars, because I just didn't think Kyle really had the pace that those other

couple cars had, the Almond Dinger and Shane. So I thought they made the right call, and it was going to be a boom or bust call, where they were likely going to finish, the most likely scenario, if the caution didn't come out, they were going to finish worse than they were going to finish worse than they were going to finish. But to them, what's the difference between third and ninth? It doesn't matter, right? They're trying to go for the win. They did, and it paid off.

Yeah, big boom for Kyle, but big bust for SVG and Austin Hill. Yeah. Well, Colleg in general, I mean, it's, they go from, you know, dominating the race with Almondinger and SVG to Almondinger was, you know, finished in the back because of, He had some issues late and then Shane got decued and lost the lead late. So it was certainly not a very good ending for those guys for sure. But it was a very exciting race.

I thought it was, you know, that's where people's love affair for road courses came from is these finishes that are coming off of green, white, check. or four to go. What you saw on Sunday was, well, what if there's not a caution? And this is what I've truly believed for a while is that as NASCAR, we always just react, react, react, except for horsepower and tires. But it's, we just, we had a few really good finishes on road courses about six years ago or so. And everyone believed we just need more road courses.

This is just so exciting and everything. Well, they were because they had, you know, I can think of the Roval and a few of them, like where the Martin Truex and Jimmy Johnson crash into the line. Like all those were just, they were all products of late race cautions. And so if you don't have those, road course racing is not that compelling. It just isn't. I mean, if you're a purist and you love the strategy, yeah, I get it.

I thought that, you know, this weekend on the cup race, there was some very good strategy. The commentating team did a great job explaining those and how it was working, why Bell was catching at the end and all that. We'll get it and all that, but it's, it's just a different type of racing.

You don't see the close side-by-side racing like you see at the Oval. But also the shit show portion of these road course races has also been eliminated, right? We wanted to stop the turn. one fiascos, but that's also something that people liked watching. I thought it was a good happy medium, though, this weekend. When they moved the start, finish, the restart zone back towards the final turn, it definitely kept 20th place from diving in there and trying to take the lead in one corner.

Like, it stopped that. So I thought that the restart zone was absolutely a gain. We still, though, had crazy restarts where we were three wide for the lead coming off of turn one. So I thought it was a very good, happy medium, good change from NASCAR on moving that back. So, I mean, because it was just a little too silly last year in some instances for sure. Does Austin Hill have any right to be upset over SVG moving them out of the way at the end? I mean, I guess I don't. I watched it just like every other fan did and saw Austin pushing SVG into turn one.

no you can't you know you probably can't be mad no i would say not i mean while shanes was maybe a little more egregious because he just drove in there i mean he buckled his whole front of this car he hit him so hard you know to knock him out of the way um it's kind of a hey you you provoked it and so you have to deal with the repercussions of that so i don't think so i thought it was just kind of a, you know, racing, racing thing where there, you know, I think Austin says, well, I think he checked up early. I don't know. It's hard for me to believe that SVG is going to undershoot a corner, you know, going into turn one on a final restart. He's pretty dialed on his markers, but Austin saw an opportunity to win a race there, one that he

hung around the top five to six most of the day. It wasn't like he just came out of nowhere. But he, you know, he saw an opportunity. You try to take it and, you know, didn't work out, but still got a good finish. And you always get one-uped in those situations, right? If you just bump a guy out of the way, he's going to come back. Yeah. And not just bump, he's probably going to move you. Yeah, it's going to go a little.

The sticks are going to get raised a little bit the next time. It's never an eye for an eye. No. Say goodbye to busted brackets because Fandulich, you bet on every game of the tour. Whether you're betting on a big upset or a one seat, it's time to go dancing on America's. number one sportsbook. Be sure to check out Dirty Mo Doe before placing your bets. They break down the upcoming NASCAR range each week, but they will also have plenty to say about the NCAA tournament.

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Bonus bets issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fandul.com backslash sportsbook. Gaming problem? Call 877718-585543 or visit more than a game. That brings us to track limits though, because SVG did not finish second. He was disqualified, penalized 30 seconds.

Not disqualified. Penalized 30 seconds. He might as well have been disqualified. Yeah. More or less the same thing. Penalized 30 seconds and finished 28th. Yeah, I had a conversation with SVG during the driver intros before the cup race and just asking him, you know, about that last lap.

Like, how does, is that normal? He's like, you know, because he was bringing up, you know, these guys, you know, NASCAR, you guys just knock each other out of the way. And he's like, it's just, it's just different. He's like, I kind of like it. But, you know, compared to what I'm used to. But he's like, also, I said, so what would happen over in supercars in those situations? He says, well, normally I wouldn't have to worry about the 21 because they would penalize him.

So even though he got around. Penalize him for, for shoving him into turn one. Okay. Yeah. So he said that supercars would penalize Austin Hill for, let's just make it up, unnecessary contact, right? and so he said he would then just run second knowing that the 21 one's going to get a penalty he said but he's like I like just hey I he did this so I'm just going to get him right back so he says it's just a little different where um you never really have to retaliate in in supercars

because the officials handle it they they officiate it like you know like most series does okay so that brings us to NASCAR and they're officiating. Yeah, I mean, well, are you talking about track limits or you talk about other things? Well, a little bit of both. You, when you just brought up the, he would know that the 21 would be penalized so he could race knowing that 21 would be penalized. It takes me back to a few years ago when, where's the photo? The Briscoe photo right behind you, right?

Y'all were racing and you ran a half lap before something happened to the 14, then you end up getting, you know, turned into the grass. Right. Um, yeah, I mean, there's, it's, I, I like the self-policing thing as long as it's within limits for sure. I mean, but we've also seen some really bad, egregious stuff that's happened at Martinsville, you know, complete shows at the end of Martinsville races for trucks and Xfinity. People trying to get in the final four. I mean, just all out, just junking each other. Um, I think that that's, that's, That's probably, you know, those situations where it is egregious. Like I wouldn't consider the 21 bump on SVG. Sure. Agreous. Right.

Right. I think there's been some that I've seen where, man, that there should be a penalty for that. He should have to go to the back, whoever that person was for junking the other person. But slight contact, I would say, no, you just kind of let that stuff go. Let NASCAR be NASCAR in that instance. The track limits, though. Yeah.

What about it? I mean, we had them. Everyone knew them. I see both sides of it for sure. Listen, NASCAR can't have us, you know, running straight through the S's, and that's what we would do if we didn't have track limits. The difference is that other road courses, we have, you know, bigger curbs and things like that that keep us off of it.

But it still doesn't change the fact that, you know, on restarts, a lot of these penalties, that we saw through the weekend came on restarts in the other series, it's because you can't see. I think that that's the only place where we could really loosen up a little bit is that when the field's running two by two through the S's, no one is gaining an advantage.

They're just trying to gain line of sight. So I think that you could just use a rule, and it's called the common sense rule. And that is that as long as someone does not gain an advantage by cutting the S's or to get position maybe on someone on a restart, let the guys give them a foot, you know, give them a little buffer zone. SVG, another thing he says that we would have a strike rule in supercars with the track limits. He said we would get two strikes and then you get a penalty the next time.

F1 gets three. Yeah, so it's, I get it for sure. I just think that it's more of a restart. If you cut the S's or you break the track limits when you're in wide open racetrack, that should be a penalty. It should. Because there's too much to be gained if you do shortcut it. I mean, you can gain three, four tenths through there if you're short and cutting it two foot here and there.

So I think that it's what we're doing, is the right thing. And I know that's not popular right now on social media, but I also think that you've got to have some sort of parameters in which we need to race on. Now, I wouldn't change really anything from what we had this weekend. I know Michael McDowell is really heavy on. Let's just put the curbs back up. You know, the curbs will self-police it. I don't love that because you will tear up some shit and you'll have more people, you know, destroy stuff under their car and destroy their day. I think you just got to use the common NASCAR needs to use the common sense rule for one lap on restarts and let people just let them get single filed out, then start enforcing it.

So as a driver, are you fully aware of track limits and where they are and where they're not? Yeah. I mean, they made it pretty simple. They were going to do the entire track. Oh my gosh. That would have been, I mean, there was so many penalties this weekend. It would have been off the charts, amount of penalties, but we would have drove differently. I mean, but I just think that our cars, just the way everything's set up, it's, you know, we can so easily force each other off the track. It'd be really hard to enforce track limits all the way around the racetrack.

So do you think the SVG knows, like when he goes through whatever section that is? Like, oh, I may have just cut the course there a little bit. Yes. Yeah, you know because you can feel the rumble strips on the tires. And when you feel it, when you go through the car, through a corner and especially the S's and there's no rumble strip contact, you're like, oh, shit. Like, you know.

Absolutely you know. Yeah. So I think this is more of like disappointing for the fans, right? Because the fans don't see that unless it's pointed out on the broadcast immediately, like, hey, right there, he just potentially cut the course. We could have a penalty come in, right? They don't find out until after the race. It's like the guy who finished second is now finishing 28th.

I saw it right away. But I'm a driver. So I'm, I looked at it and I was like, he's going to get one he's going to get one and then like five minutes later they announced it and it's like yeah they they got them so um again he had he was getting no advantage there now he was single file but i just think that this is the use use the common sense let these guys race a lap give them a foot or two you know to to to single file out and then uh and then enforce it after that I think that'd be the best, best call.

The biggest thing with the track is turns eight, eight and nine. It was just an absolute mess. You know, NASCAR, the drivers were kind of up in arms this weekend about, you know, we really needed something to keep the dirt off the track in turn eight. We eventually, we got to a good place, I thought, by the time qualifying came around and in the other series where we had dug up so much of the dirt in turn 8 that there wasn't much dirt, you know, it was too big of a hole so it wasn't kicking it up on the track. Well, then overnight, they filled the dirt back in.

So there's no dirt there because it got kicked onto the track. If you add more dirt, you're going to kick more dirt up onto the track. So that was a mess throughout the day. We got to figure out something there for sure. but man that that corner is just it's so different because it's you drive that corner like a different racetrack compared to where you do everywhere else so it's just it's just a product of the paint what you'll see on why you see us running off the track on corner exits and and whatnot in corner apexes we're always trying to run on the paint because that paint has more grip than the actual

racing surface does so um not sure why it's got this like sandpaper type material to it that just really grips once you put hot rubber on it. So it's a it's something that certainly needs to be adjusted for next year. I find it

going to be very hard to believe that F1 cars are going to run this track. It is so bumpy. I mean they are just going to be bouncing like crazy. Coda? Yeah. I mean they do run Coda. I know but it's it is so bumpy now. Compared to even

what it was, it's just, every year it just gets bumpier and bumpier. And they paved parts of the track, but it's like they didn't grade it. They just, they just did like an SMI pave where it's like, oh, they just take the top two inches off and just, just like a highway. It's just like, they don't. Yeah, but like usually when I think of repave, you take all the asphalt out, you regrade it, so it's flat and then you pave. Taladega did that.

Taladega, when they repaved it, I remember the driver's all doing a staining ovation for the pavers of Taledega. This is 15 years ago. Because we could not believe how smooth it was and how precise they made it. Nowadays, when they pave tracks, I mean, they're looking for the cheapest way to do it.

And they just take one layer off and they just put new asphalt on. So they leave all the bumps and all the cracks and all that stuff. And yeah, you can argue well. It's got character or whatever, but, man, that track is, it is a mess. And I think a lot of it is because it's on marshland is what I heard. So it's the soil is always going to move greatly in that track because of what the base of it is sitting on.

So NASCAR has a photo of the 22 car. All four tires are off the ground. Do you see that? I saw that. That's not too uncommon at other tracks where we've got big curbs and we're jumping over them. I think of Watkins Glen and the bus stop is something that jumps off of the page at me, but there's no real big curbs, you know, like that. So it's, you know, that was kind of a corner apex thing, but man, it's, it has got tons of bumps.

And while it's very interesting for NASCAR, I think the NASCAR cars actually fit best on bumpy type surfaces like that. I just find it as low as the F1 cars are to the ground and how precise. I just don't see how they make it through without just destroying their cars. Well, certainly if F1 has an issue there, that would cause Cota to do something about it, right? For sure. I guess that moves us into the cup race yesterday. Trying to think, what is there to say about this race? Yeah.

100% green. I mean, not the most exciting, but I thought it was still a compelling. race. I thought that you had many stories, right, in the sense of, you know, the 24, obviously, they started up front and they led early on. And at that point, you know, when I rewatched the race, I'm thinking, you know, let's just pretend I didn't know the result. You're like, yeah, well, let's get this guy in traffic and see what happens. Everyone's car is fast out front. but what happens when he gets put in traffic and he got in that situation after stage two he didn't have a great restart or something happened on the restart and he went back to third or

fourth but then he he drove back to the front so I think the that probably you know the right guy the right car one although you have an argument for Christopher bell there we'll get into kind of where their day ended up but I think that um It was compelling. It wasn't, there was never like a huge lead. I mean, listen, this is going to be the challenge when you go to these racetracks that are three miles long. We're going to get spread out. I mean, that's just part of it, right?

That's why the shorter the racetrack, the more action that you're going to see because we can't help, but we're all on top of each other. And so on road courses where we're never lapping anyone, it's just, the clean air is just, just it's good for everyone. So on other tracks, what happens is that clean air is really, really big for the leaders until they catch lap traffic. And then everyone is equalized because everyone's in the same amount of dirty air. Well, that never happens on a road course. So the clean air for the leader and then the second and third place continues to get stretched more and more and more because they never see any dirty air throughout the day. So that's why you see these leads sometimes 30 seconds to eighth place or 10th place. So it's just part of road course

racing. Some love it, some hate it, some are indifferent on it. I'm indifferent on it probably. I liked when our schedule only had two of them, but I think, you know, Cota is still a really good market, you know, speaking from a team perspective, it's a track that sponsors are interested, interested in. I thought the fans came out in big numbers yesterday. I thought the atmosphere was very, very good. So it'd be hard for us to leave that racetrack just simply because of the market. Yeah. It's also, you know, these issues you're talking about happening because we are having less full course caution. So the cars are never bunched up again. Once they get spread out, that's just probably the way it is for a good portion of the race. It is. And then you rely on, you know, the

parody in which we have with the cars and the drivers and everything, you know, that making for the compelling race. And still to have this thing go green for 30-some laps at the end and still come down to less than a one-second margin of victory, I think that you should probably look at and say, that's about as good as you can hope for. It really is, especially on these long green flag runs. But I appreciate that far more, far more than NASCAR throwing a caution and then potentially taking the deserving winner in William Byron or Christopher Bell and them getting wiped out on a last lap restart. So I appreciate NASCAR over the last two weeks,

letting these races play out naturally. And sometimes you're going to have blowout wins. I'm not calling this a blowout win, but you're not always going to have Atlanta. You're not always going to have at Bristol. sometimes you had these weeks and you just have to, you know, learn from it and everyone's going to just try to get better. Yeah, I mean, thinking back, you know, a couple years ago you ran this race track. First of all, I had the first one in the rain, right?

But then you had multiple restarts because guys couldn't keep straight going through turn one. And now just four years into this, you have a race like this that plays out, I guess, the way it should is like what you're saying. Yeah, all the drivers get better at it each and every year, right? the more reps that we have on a racetrack, the more apt we are to get better at it and hone our skills. And when you're more skillful, you make less mistakes. When you make less mistakes, there's less cautions. So that's just kind of the cycle in which it all kind of happens. I think one thing they could have done is like, so if Ross Chastain had a three second longer pit stop than Byron,

then go back and show those pit stops side by side and like explain while there is this little gap or whatever because it happened, but you don't, they say that they throw up a stat, but then you don't see it. So if you would have shown kind of that you see the action and what's going on there. Yeah. So what was going on and I thought TV did a pretty good job talking about the different strategies. What I would love to see them do is kind of graph, you know, while they were correct in saying, well, the reason that Christopher Bell is running faster than the 24 now is because he stayed out longer. So he has a newer set of tires. So, and the way they explained it is that, well, this was a one-for-one exchange.

They just, they took off lap time at the back of one run, and they just added it to this run. That's not entirely true because Christopher Bell, before all the cycles started, was like 12 seconds back. So he closed a net gap over those two runs down 11 seconds. So, graphing that out and showing the people, he's actually. actually just faster. It's not just because of the tires, but he is genuinely faster. Over the last 30-some laps, on average, he's been three-tenths faster. So it wasn't just strategy that got him up there. Speed got him there. He got faster at the end of that race for sure. Now, is that his car is handling better or he's just more precise going around the track? I think it's a little bit of both.

I think that they probably, he starts pushing. The advantage in road course is always to the chaser. That's why it's very, very hard for leaders to pull away is because they don't want to make a mistake and just give an easy spot to someone. So they're always just running 90%. And then when you have Chris Rebell, who's in chase mode, he's got a rabbit. It's easier to push because, hey, there's nothing to lose for you. You're going for it. So that, I think it was a combination of both of the 24 driving conservatively. The last probably 10 to 12 laps. Also, you heard him say,

yeah, it just saved me a little bit of fuel here and there. If you do that, that could be like a second worth of time really, really quickly. So it wouldn't take long for someone to reel you in if you were driving a little conservatively. And then that person's being really aggressive on five-lop new tires. So that's why we saw it closed.

But is Bell not hurting his car driving more aggressively trying to catch William? Like won't that eventually even itself out? Yeah, I think that once he caught him, if then Byron says, okay, I'm not saving anymore, I'm going to push it, it would have been a very, very, very hard pass to execute and pull off. But it kept you wondering, right? Like was he going to get there? I mean, TV did a good job of also making you think, yeah, he could catch him, right?

and he was reeling down pretty quick. But yeah, it's just, it's just a different, you had like four to five guys that were up front the entire day that you knew it was going to kind of be between them and then how they decided to play their strategy. So do you think that if Bell and Byron were on the same strategy, Bell had a better chance to win that race, or was it because the strategy that he chose put him in that spot at the end?

That's a good question. I think by him, staying out a little longer, he had to repass more cars, right? So say he was fourth when they started this cycle. Let's just say he's fourth. By him staying out like five extra laps, maybe he then cycled back to, let's say, eighth. These are inaccurate numbers, but we're just for argument's sake here. So when he comes back out, he's lost four positions, but he's gained. He has a five-lap newer advantage on tires. Now, what he's hoping is that the advantage of the tires

overcomes the dirty air, so he's able to make those passes more efficiently because he's not on equal tires. Passing is very hard when you're on the same tires. What we saw at Bristol is when people had unequal tires, we saw passing galore. It was the easiest thing to do in the world. But at Coda, the tires just didn't wear hardly at all. So it was more of a heat-based thing.

And so, yes, he does heat him up as he's trying to get through the pack. But I think he's really good on road courses. I think his car got better throughout the day. And he picked his way through the pack, but he just flat out ran out of time. So that sounds like the two-stop strategy is actually what put him in that position. Not necessarily if he would have ran the same one. He would have been equal with Byron. Well, I think they play the strategy great.

in the sense of when they stayed out. I think they won stage one. They did. And then they stayed out. Instead of pitting and then putting himself 20 something, he stayed out and then kept the lead on old tires. That told you right there. That should have been a wake-up call to everyone that he's going to be good,

like a contender here. So when he was able to hold them off for as long as he did on old tires, first of all, it showed that tires didn't mean that much. much. It meant a little bit, but yeah, it certainly wasn't the Bristol tire, that's for sure. Now, he did have a very long pit stop. In hindsight, did that kill their day, considering they finished a second behind Byron? Yeah, I mean, sure, you could definitely say that, that when you look at the finish and he's only six-tenths of a second behind, yeah, you could make the argument that, well, if he had just a two-second shorter pitstop, he would have won the race. Again, you don't know

how hard the 24 was pushing it. I'm more than likely inclined to say the 24 was running the pace that he felt comfortable running, and if he needed to get more, he could. Who in this series do you think are the best road course racers now? I feel like it's changed a bit over the last couple years. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's five

that's probably going to jump out at me when I look at it. I'm going to say Byron Bell, I think Ty Gibbs, Redick I think those are the I think those are the ones that will always be the fastest I mean you could throw

Almondinger in there but even he didn't look I don't know just over the last few years just not it seems like these guys these younger guys have caught him for sure skill set wise

Yeah, I'm going to say the Byron Bell Gibbs, Reddick, I mean, that's four of your top five of the finishing order right there. Just because, and it's not just based off of this, this is I'm putting in Watkins Glen and many others. I think Truex, you know, then you have the next tier, okay? The next tier, and I hope I don't leave anyone out here, I'm going to put the next tier as the, the Kyle Busch, the Ross Chastain, the Ryan Blaney's, the True X's.

That's kind of the next kind of group. Well, I'm leaving out Larson here. I'll put Larson in that next group as well, left out Elliot. I mean, it's because I'm looking down this list and I don't see all the names. Elliot, I would probably put in the second tier now, as far as speed-wise. I mean, it's hard to argue that. Yes, we can talk about old stats from Gen 6 car, but I think this generation car, he's probably in the next tier.

So you've got 10 guys that I think consistently are going to be towards the front if nothing happens if strategies are all equal. But, yeah, and then you've got kind of, there's probably. a next tier of six to seven guys that are in that third third tier group. But I thought, you know, you got to give proper shoutouts to what I saw, and what I saw was Alex Bowman was fantastic. I thought that he had one of the more, maybe the most impressive run of anyone I saw the entire weekend. He legitimately drove from wherever he started. He legitimately drove from wherever he started.

17th. And passed. He passed everyone to get to the position that he was at. Now, he did have a pit stop at the end where they jumped a few cars. But on speed, I thought that Bowman was right there behind Byron on speed. So I want to give him proper props on a great weekend. They definitely needed that. The other, I saw passing cars on the road.

regular was Ryan Blaney. I thought that he looked very, very strong. He finished 12th. That's probably a very ho-humed day for them, but I thought, you know, they started in the back where we did on that final restart because they chose to stay out for stage two, and they finished two spots better than us. So it was him, Martin, myself all started in the back to start stage three, and we all kind of made our way from 10th to 14th. So I thought it was a, you know, I thought it was compelling. Those are the ones that stood out to me that they were really, really strong. And, you know, one that didn't, Larson, I was just kind of, I watched him throughout the day.

And he looked like he was struggling with his car quite a bit. So that was kind of an uncharacteristic, road course race, I thought, for Kyle Larson. As far as big movers go, Joey Lugano also started 35th, finished 11th. Yeah. certainly a good day for them. Not a great day. Good day. They probably would take that, no doubt about it,

considering where they started. So, yeah, what else we got? What went behind your decision to take the stage point? Because we left there with something. Was it always the plan, though, going into it, or is that kind of just on the fly, let's... Well, it's always on the fly because you never know what will happen with the cars in front of you

and whether they decide to pit or not. It's a very tough balance, right? If you believe, honestly, that you can win the race, you need to pit because that's the right call because then you're going to put yourself up towards the front to start stage three. But we felt like, you know, I'm sorry, but this is one of the very few weekends

throughout the year that we will take just a base hit or a walk, as they say in baseball. I mean, it's just because we knew what our ceiling was. And truthfully, I thought that my race went way better than practice. You know, I was way off in practice, and I think I closed that gap during the race quite a bit. But we still netted more points than what we would have, you know, if you would have told me, hey, you can finish sixth today with no stage points

or 14th with a stage win and 10, 10, um, stage points, I'm going to take the 14th because it's just, it's a better net. That one playoff point will live for the rest of the season. So it was the right call for us. Yeah. Overall, you netted the seventh most points on the day with a playoff point that you'll take with you the rest of the season. Yeah, it's just that that was important to us for sure.

And now you can't expect to run 26 and go win a stage, right? We had to put ourselves in the top 10 qualifying there and racing there. and when the others peeled off, that was the decision we made. So I thought it was the right one and certainly made me feel very good about kind of how our weekend went. And that's, I hate saying that after a 14th place finished. But I feel as though the 11 was more competitive lap time-wise and racing-wise than it's been on a road course in some time. So we've been faster at other road courses. I thought Chicago was by far our fastest car.

you know, relative to the competition, but I felt, I'm sorry, I said in my head, if I can finish 15th or better, I was going to leave this weekend happy. Because this has been, you know, road courses are by far the weakest part of the 11 car. And it's not the 11 car. It's the 11 driver. Let's not get that twisted. Where did that go south or maybe just not get better for you? Because I do remember a couple years ago, you saying, hey, I think I'm a top. five road course racer at the moment i think others just have gotten better i think we've had an resurgence of young guys byron bell gibbs that have just jumped over uh myself what makes what makes

them better though it just so happens they're all young and and you're older jared if i fckin knew what made them better than i would just do it but you know i i don't know i got to go to work on it i mean trust me, I don't like... Does age play into this? Is that just a coincidence that they're young? Or is there something about being younger in road course racing? I would say it plays a factor because I can't run in the simulator five days a week.

My body will not let me do that. I have a question, though. You're great on qualifying. So what's the... What's the difference? Yeah, I mean, I think not anyone, but I can get speed out of a car for one lap in qualifying on road courses. We did that last year, getting three poles on road courses.

That was the first step in getting better is can you even run one lap fast? I've been able to do that. And even my fastest lap of the race was one of the top, I think, three fastest. And I was running 18th when I ran my fastest lap and third fastest of the day. I've been able to do that. but it's the consistency that I struggle with. It's the racing. You know, once I get on someone's ass,

how do I set up the passes, things like that? Things that are really good on the ovals, it just doesn't translate to being good on the road courses. It's just a different, it's just different in how you, your craft. It's just different. I don't know how to explain it, but it's not the same and certainly has provided its challenges to me.

And I thought that, you know, listen, And before everyone really started working on this, and when there was only two road course races in the season, it's just the championship's never really ran through the road courses, so no one put a ton of time into them. And I just think more people put more time into them now because there's more on the schedule. And when you ask, is age a factor?

Absolutely. I mean, I'm coming off shoulder surgery, and I can't overwork myself. I mean, my body hurts and a lot of, lot of places for a few days after a race. Road course specifically? No, just every weekend. I mean, every weekend I've, you know, I've got aches and pains that I have to deal with.

And my recovery, you know, takes a couple days to get myself, my body back to 100%. Well, during that time, I need to be, you know, if you're really going to work on being a better road course racer, you've got to spin. You know, a lot of these guys go run transam cars at Coda and all these other things. I just don't, yeah, I don't, I think, you know, the resources would be better spent focusing on these next five to six weeks on our schedule that we can win every single one of them. Let's get out of Kota with a pretty good day. You know, we lost two points to the regular season lead.

Leaving this weekend, I'm taking this weekend and I'm hauling ass, ready to go to Richmond because we've got the next handful of races, you know, my crew, Chief reads out the next five races or six races and is like, man, like, is our resources better spent not burning you out trying to chase another half a second on a road course, you know, where you're still then going to be another half a second off like you're a second off? Like we got to get, we got to get closer to even, you know, to be a factor. You know, our resources probably are better spent, you know, focusing on those other tracks that we know we can go in. Where is your shoulder at?

Are you feeling like you're back to 100% yet? I'm not 100%. It'll be six to nine months for me to get to 100%. I had a good checkup this past weekend, and he feels like, you know, I'm not limited to do anything. It's fully healed, but getting strength back is a long process with a shoulder. So I just don't, you know, I still don't feel comfortable throwing anything quite yet. And, you know, it's got us fatigue.

That's how you're steering these cars, right? I've got my arm always up, saw it on the wheel. So, you know, it certainly gets tired throughout a day, but it's every week just keeps getting better. Is that even more than with the shifting yesterday? Yeah, that's a little bit of a factor. But I actually like it was better for me because I could set my arm down. So instead of it having to be up on the wheel at all times,

and then it kind of wears out my kind of like my bicep tendon, I am able to have it down on the shifter, and that actually was more comfortable. This would take us down a completely separate rabbit hole into a tangent, but I just wanted to mention that it just occurred to me with all the reading I've been doing recently right and now wanting to just learn so much more about health and whatnot. But one of the things that's talked about as you age is injuries and how an injury to any, you know, body part muscle, whatever can cause so much muscle loss because while you're rehab, and that you're not building any muscle, right?

And it just occurred to me that with your shoulder, you probably have that in a sense. And now you're trying to build back up to someplace close to where you were pre-soldier surgery. Yes. That is what I fight most is inflammation. Inflammation shuts down. Jared, you can have a six pack of abs.

But if you, which you do, by the way, but if you have inflammation in your core at all, it shuts down all those muscles. And it makes you think that, like, you have no core muscles whatsoever. That's what I fight the most is from my tits to my knee. Just, it does. It just, it gets inflamed.

And it feels like, you know, it just is killer on my back. It is, my back is just wreaking absolute havoc, which is why if I go and I cold plunge, you know, after the race, or I try to do at least two to three times a week, that really kills the inflammation a lot. And then suddenly I'm like, oh, I can stand up straight. I can tie my shoes again. Like it's just I'm fighting a lot of things that just, you know,

I've had so many surgeries, right? Both knees, both shoulders, fractured my back in 2013. Like I've had a lot of injuries. So it's, and I've got on top of that hereditary issues, you know, with my, you know, my genes where, you know, my back's just got discs that are slowly leaking out fluid. And so I don't have that cushion I used to have. But it's just getting old sucks.

What do you want me to say? Any podcast listener listening to this right now is like, yep, I fight that every day. I mean, I hop out of bed, Jared. And my test of how I'm going to feel is when I go to put my shoes on, like, can I reach down and put my shoes on or not? Because that hurts like hell until I get to the mid part of the day and my body starts loosening up. But, um, and I think that's really telling because you do put in a lot of work to

keep yourself physically fit. That is what's so agitating to me is that I do so much. I do Pilates. I do weight training. I do, uh, functional fitness, um, cold plunges, massages, needling, cupping weekly. I do all this stuff weekly just to just get by, just to get by. So it certainly is tough, but the most comfortable that I am is in the race car.

No question about it. I feel nothing when I'm in that race car. I am just so locked in. It's the Monday, Tuesday that really sucks for me. Kyle Bush was not happy with Christopher Bell this week. No, he wasn't. I can't find fault in it. If I had a throw fault on anyone at that incident,

if you saw Kyle Busch was getting passed by who by someone and Kyle was going to try to cross over this person off the turn one and so he went really wide and and was going to cut down low at the apex of turn one and try to get under that car that just passed him now why he would try to do that and you know because he's he's getting past it's like all you're going to do then is just continue to slow down yourself and others by try to pass this person back and then it's just you got to just give up the go sometimes but what Christopher Bell should have been able see is that he was way out and what you can see as a driver is you go into turn one he sees the side of the eight car he can see that Kyle is making a big arc into the corner and so I think that

if I had to put blame on anyone, it's probably on Christopher Bell to dive in there that late. Now, is he thinking that Kyle's going to, hey, I'm inside. Why are you cutting all the way down low? It's more of a racing incident than anything, but if you got to give responsibility to anyone, it's probably Christopher Bell on it, just because, you know, you're barely in there. You got in there really, really late. you weren't actually up beside them until, you know, it was almost too late. So I think that, you know, it's just one of those racing things that, you know,

Bell fans will blame Kyle and Kyle's fans will blame Bell. And both of them are all justified. I thought that Christopher Bell handled it like a pro on pit road. I mean, I just don't know, you know, he just took it. And people were like, oh, he looks terrified. No, that's just Christopher Bell. Bell listening. I've been in those kind of interactions with Christopher Bell and he was just, I thought he was just being very respectful and taking it and saying, yeah, I hear you, I hear you.

He may have a different opinion, but I think that he's at least given Kyle the respect to letting him vent to him face to face. I think that there's a lot of respect to be had there. Well, he went for the handshake afterwards. And Kyle. Did not take. Yeah, I don't know. Do you think Kyle saw it? I don't think Kyle cared. But would, do you think?

I don't think he necessarily saw it. He was not thinking, I'm going to end this conversation by shaking this guy's hand. You know, he didn't enter the conversation thinking that's how it was going to end. Yeah, I need to hear what they were. Is there any audio of what was actually said? Something along the lines of, it was two, three times. Have I ever wrecked you or something along those lines? Yeah, I thought I heard that it's like, this is the second time or something

like that. Bell said no and Kyle said all right you got one coming and then he walked away. Yeah I mean listen if you're if you're Kyle Busch you you understand I understand the frustration for sure. If you're Christopher Bell I think you he's earned the respect that he's not that a dirty racer was it a mistake sure but certainly unintentional I think that there's others where you're just not going to give the benefit of the doubt because they've got into many incidences. I'm sure that I wouldn't get the benefit of doubt because of, you know, past history and whatnot, which is justified. But I think Christopher Bell has been clean enough where, you know, you can be upset with them and that's okay, but you also, you know,

it's not intentional by any means. So, and, you know, and Kyle's got a point too because I think that Kyle, while it's one of the most aggressive racers in the series, is by far one of the cleanest. I was about to say that. By far. Man, it's, I don't know how he balances his aggression level and not getting into people. That is a special skill that you can have because you see others, you know, not to pick on anyone particular, but like Ralph Chessin, he's really, really aggressive, but he makes mistakes in his aggression and runs in and it'll hit you.

and I've done it, I do it as well too. But Kyle is able to be really aggressive and still keep his car in control and not run into whoever he's racing with really, really hard. So that's what impressed me the most out of Kyle. So I thought that still Kyle left with a ninth place finish pretty good. You know, they've had a rough year for sure. So, you know, hopefully this is just a water. under the bridge for everyone. William Byron's crew chief, Rudy Fugel,

said after the race that if anyone was starting to question anything, they can stop. I wouldn't. When it comes to William Byron and their success on track. Is he angry? Did he have some bulletin board material that we didn't know about? He's Michael Jordan. He's making up his own.

Yeah, who's questioning him? Yeah, I'm really not sure. I mean, you can always find maybe some stuff on social media. I mean, people chirp in your. your comments all the time about how bad you suck. It's, it's, it's,

it's, be hard for me to take anyone's comments seriously if they think William Byron sucks. That's, that's a joke. William has, I, I just, I couldn't be more impressed with him.

He's, he's good at every racetrack. He executes like a veteran. He's got speed like a young guy. And he's got the team to go with it. what's not to love. I mean, really, he's got it all right now. He's, did I see you guys wrote in here?

This is the third year in a row. He's been the first multi-winner. Yeah, first since Jeff Gordon in the 24 car. Yeah, I mean. In 99, I think. Yeah, I think what were we talking about the first two years of William Byron's career? Underperforming, right? I mean, I don't think anyone would argue with, ah, just, is he as good as we thought?

and then a light switch went off. And now, let me preface this by saying that's different because a lot of these teams that believe you need three years to really see whether anyone's any good, he still showed glimpses of it. And that's how you can tell the real talent is they'll always give you a glimpse of the speed and the finishes that they could do on a regular basis.

and then all of a sudden the light switch goes off and then they start doing it others it just never you never even see a glimpse of greatness but we saw that with william we saw it with chase even though he wasn't winning in the first few years we saw the potential and then like a light switch went off season they just turned it on and now we see how good they both are so i think um you know i'm a big fan of william and i think there's there was you know there's no more deserving winner that we've got in our series right now. He certainly puts in the work. The team is jelling really, really well. They obviously had a great pit stop on the last stop. That's a very important stop. They're hitting these money stops when they need to. So this 24 team is clicking on all cylinders right now. Circling back to Rudy's comments, I think that probably comes from the 24 cars results after winning the Daytona 500, finishing 17th in Atlanta, 10th at Vegas, 18th at Phoenix, then 35th at Bristol. Maybe they needed a little self-motivation,

which is all good, right? I mean, you, yeah, I mean, those are lackless of results for sure. He certainly hasn't been as strong at the other racetrack. They're also a garbage bag away from being up in the table. Yeah, it's really hard to, you know. No one remembers that, though. They just remember the results. It's crazy how quick we brush away last week's results

or the week before his results, right? This is such a week-to-week sport. But, yeah, I think that just this team, you know, you know what they're capable of. They could go win another six, seven races again this year. And who's really going to be surprised? Not me. Yeah.

It's a week-to-week sport, and we're going to forget all about Coda in a few days, head to Richmond, to race on Easter this week. Yeah. Hey, one other shout I don't want to give to is Austin Green. in the Xenity series. Finishing top 10. Let's give him a great shout-out.

He is the son of David Green, one of the NASCAR officials in previous Xenity racer. Shout out to Austin Green for a fantastic run at Cota. I don't know, this wasn't his first race, I don't think. But regardless,

first race, 10th race, whatever it might be. Fantastic job. him. He's he's he's really good as well and probably a name we're going to hear a little bit more of as the season progresses. So Richmond Richmond. Uh, who take me home. I certainly am looking forward to Richmond. It seems like our, you know, the Gibbs cars have always been really, really fast at Richmond. Uh, given our performance lately, I would hope that that continues. Um, it's, to it's such a fun track.

Just how technical you have to be at that track. And if you miss your line by three, four inches, it can mean two-tenths of lap time. I love it. I just love how technical it is. And, you know, man, if you brought like the Bristol-type tire to this thing, it would be so wildly entertaining just because of how that asphalt wears out surfaces. Do you have any plans for Sunday morning considering the garage is it open?

Or wears out tires. Go ahead. Do you have any plans for Sunday morning considering the garage as an open till 4? No, I'd like to play golf. If anyone can get me on, this is my public service begging session, to get me on Kenlock on Saturday afternoon at around 1 p.m. I would really, really greatly appreciate it. Do you just need one-for-some, or are we going big and asking for like two? No, I'm asking for one-for-some for Kenlock in Virginia.

Yeah, it's my, it's my second favorite course of all time. So you can't just make a phone call? Hit me up in the DMs. Yeah, I was going to say the podcast is the way you're going about. It's not like a phone call or anything. How do you not have access to golf courses in Richmond? Because I never played golf when I was living in Richmond. I didn't play golf until I moved to North Carolina.

I picked up a golf club for the very first time when I was 25 years old. Was it a charity event too? I feel like that's how you usually get into. No, I got into golf because, Back when our schedules used to be Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, every Saturday would end around noon and all the crew guys would go play golf on Sunday afternoons. So eventually I was like, I was hanging out with the team all the time. I'm like, what do y'all do now?

And this is my rookie season in Xfinity. They're like, we go play golf. You want to go play? And I'm like, I never played, but sure, I'll try it. And I just got hooked. Looking forward to Richmond. We got to, I mean, the heart of the schedule coming up now. Easter weekend.

I don't love it on Easter week. I certainly wish we had these kind of holidays off, but we are a racing series. We race a lot. So they got us all running this weekend. So at least the schedule is good to where I think a lot of the team guys are going to go back home Saturday after practice and qualifying and spend Easter morning at home and then fly back to the racetrack.

You've got some questions that we want to ask. Dare, Danny. We need 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 our only hope. This ain't the race track, so maybe you won't choke. You said your crew chief is the head coach of the race team.

If you had to compare him to a head coach in another sport, who would that be? Who is Chris Gavehart in terms of NFL coaches or basketball coaches? I would, it's tough because I don't know the coaches that well. But to me, he comes off as like a Sean McVey in the sense of like he's very calculated, good with people. I just, I remember when Sean McVeigh came on the scene, I'm like, like, man, that seems like a guy I'd want to, he holds everyone accountable, but he has fun doing it. And so I think it would be him if I had to just pinpoint one, if I had to guess. I wouldn't say, you know, what people know is like how Belichick is. I don't think that that's how Chris is. I think he leads a little differently than Belichick does. But they expect the same amount of greatness out of their people. I get a little like Mike Tomlin feel from Chris. Okay. Yeah, I can see that as well.

Is there a Belichick in the NASCAR series, though? As far as crew chiefs go. Oh, that was Chad Knauss. That was Chad Knauss. I mean, listen, was he the most popular guy amongst maybe his teammates or drivers or team? Probably not or even other crew chiefs, but that dude was relentless. And I loved his passion for winning.

and he would do whatever it took to make it happen. So that's your Bill Belichick is Chad Knauss. And again, I admire, you know, someone that puts competition first over anything else. And you won't meet anyone that was relentless as much as Chackenhouse was. Was it Jimmy or Chad? Wow. It was both. it was i'm i'm sorry it was both um you know when when tom brady and belgick broke up you would say it was

tom brady right he went on to win i went one other one i right but i just think that in our sport you're only as good as the car you're driving and chad was just such an innovator and coming up with creative let's just say they're creative ways to make his car faster than the others in a time where creativity paid off. They made it pay off. And Jimmy drove the wheels off of it. I mean, like Marco Andretti.

Like Marco Andretti. That's good. We can end on that one. Lastly, Tyler Reddick had an interview with Kevin Harvick, which you also did this weekend. And he had said that he thinks that Bubba uses your, are ownership against you when driving. I got the feeling pretty early on from Bubba that he tries to use Denny's ownership

in the team against him. Well, it's funny y'all say that because y'all didn't watch the last lap at Coda. Me and the 23 were fucking bouncing off of each other. And I'm thinking at the time, we're battling for 14th. I'm like, I want the spot. I'm faster. I ran them down from a long way. I want the spot.

so I get in under him in 16 and he cuts down very similar to the bush and and sea belting where I dove in there a little late and you know but he came down on the apex and I clipped his left rear that gets me up beside him and then we battle corner after corner side by side and I'm every exit I'm just kind of using him as my eight tires are better than four like I start sliding on the exit and I'm like, well, he's there. I'll just go ahead and lean on him to kind of get me back straight. The whole last lap was a blast. We both got top 15s going, which are good days. I hate to say it for both of us on road courses. Like, I was so nervous that we were, it was like, it was like a tickle fight. And it was like a tickle fight with cars that eventually someone, someone, hits the other one a little bit too hard and they're like, ow, that hurt Charlie. And then you hit a little harder and the next person starts,

you start raising the stakes of how much you're running into each other. And then we eventually just wipe each other out and we both finish probably 20th or 25th. Luckily, it didn't happen. But it went down to the last, I'm telling you, you've got, we got to find the him board on board of the both of us. just going at it the last two laps of the race but to tyler's point though but but could have been driving thinking that you're not going to go aggressive like that because of the situation i am i you know he he mentioned in that interview with kevin as well

that like i don't cut them brakes i mean i think i i drive the cars that i own the same as i do the the cars that i'm teammates with i think it's kind of an all toy we all racey other very similarly. I think that it's okay that we take it to the 95%, never to 100 with each other for sure, because what we would look like clowns is if we would erect each other in those situations. But I thought that we were just barely in control, barely in control enough to have fun that last lap, but not step over and end up really pissing each other both off by having a bad day. So I get out of the car and Bubba comes over, he's like, hey, are you good? Are we good?

I'm like, yeah, he's like, oh, great, that was fun. I'm like, all right, yeah, me too. I thought so, too. It was a blast. But, I mean, it was fun for me because I got the better in. But, you know, he had a little bit beat up car at the time. And I had a little better tires. But yeah, it was, it's funny.

I saw this on our, on our talk about sheet here. And I'm like, oh, wow, they didn't see the last lap of Coda. We were, it was one of the best battles on the track all day. You think Fox was showing that? No, hell no. We got a big battle here for. 14th place. It's like a win for the 11 on the road course, but we're

moving on to Richmond. We're excited about, hey, NASCAR took over Bowman Gray. I don't know we want to touch on that real quick, but I don't know what that means. It means there's going to be a truck race there, because that's what it means. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what it means. I mean, that's another short track in the same damn area that we've got many short tracks. I think more of it, it's just a, it's a money, money play for them.

I think that they see it's profitable. They probably bought it out and it's going to make some money on it. I don't know what they'll do with it. I mean, could they run an exhibition race or something like that? I mean, it's only holds 17,000 people as it is. I mean, that's probably a really good number for local short track, local short track for sure, but I don't know what it means. Let's not speculate on it, but NASCAR has bought up another track, a business that

supposedly is not a good business. They're buying up more trash. Let's not speculate on it. What's this entire show about? For sure. How's your bracket doing? Did you fill out a bracket? Listen, yeah, I filled it one out in about a minute and a half.

I have seven of the final eight teams still available. I have Purdue winning it all. What do you mean seven of the final eight? So there's 16 teams. I hear you. You're not. Okay. Of what could be the eight teams.

I have seven of them still in it. Of his elite eight, he has seven. Right. Okay. Right, right, right, right. Which I'm sure a lot of people do because it's been a pretty chalky tournament thus far. So, again, it took me about a minute and a half. I didn't, I just have not watched sports quite as much as I used to because I've got so much stuff going on.

Should have Molly do it for you. Yeah, no doubt. Jordan filled one out. Hers was terrible. She said, she said, I picked the Dequinez team and I said, the Dequinez. And I said, DeCoyne? She's like, oh, yeah. And then she's like, oh, and then I picked this one team because.

Wait, how did you pronounce it? DeCoyne, right? No. Oh, I thought you were making fun of Jordan. No, you're wrong too. Yeah, you're so wrong. It's Duquesne. Yeah, maybe I said that wrong.

Maybe. No, no, no. But let's move past that. My favorite one is when she says, I used to love Acon, the rapper back in the day, so I picked the Akron team. I said, Akron? She's like, oh, yeah, Akron.

Go Zips. Go Zips. Needless to say, the bracket's not great. 2311's got a little bracket. bracket challenge going on. I'm like, I don't know, somewhere in the teens of about 50 brackets that were filled out. So I don't know. I'm going to make a strong charge because I've got a lot of teams left where a lot of people have, you know, not many teams left that are in that final eight. We've got a review here from Skins, Skins, SKN, Z. I'm going to say, not sure I'd classify my feelings

about Denny as hate, but I did smile when he lost. Now I find myself rooting for him or happy he I appreciate his candor and giving us a better understanding of who he is with this dope podcast. Thanks. So you smile when I lost. This is a losing business. Like if you're really, really good, you're only going to win like five or six percent of the time in NASCAR. So, hey, this person was happy a lot. Yeah, there was a graphic last week after your win at NASCAR made and posted that your win

percentage with Gabe Hart is like 10% or something and it's like such a low percentage right but in terms of racing 10%. It's a lot. I mean I again you I think that win percentages in NASCAR is very similar to PGA is like the you win 10% of the time you're like one of the one of the best players for sure. So I think that I personally believe that's ultimately how you're gauged but it's um you know I I don't know. It's up for the people to decide, right? Like, I don't know. Travis, you try to be as unbiased. You're the most biased person in the world. If you ever read these guys' tweets on OSU, holy cow. I'm actually objective. You're so full of shit. I'm objective with the highway state. I am. No, you're not. How am I not? I'm a crazy fan. Yes, I'll give you that. Crazy as they come. Listen, I appreciate it because when I'm watching an OSU game with my friend Charlie, who's also a huge OSU guy, I love. love reading your tweets to him live as these games are going on. Oh, people like, why do you? I'm like, you don't have to follow me if you don't like it.

I know it's dumb. It's my outlet. Yeah, I like it. You vent. I mean, it's, yeah, would you rather have 12 wins in a championship or 50 wins and none? I don't know. It's an age-old debate, but I think, you know, I'm pretty happy with the way things are and certainly being able to win each and every week.

Man, it feels good. This is the first week where I'm like, man, it's going to take an avalanche of problems for the other competitors for me to win this thing. You don't have to settle on one. You can still be 60 and a championship. All in. I plan on it.

I plan on it, by the way. This is our year. Be sure to rate review, follow wherever you get your podcast, and don't forget to subscribe to Actions Detrimental on YouTube. All right. We'll appreciate y'all following. We'll check in with y'all after Easter Sunday. Have a good one.