Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Darlington: Briscoe With The Walk-Off, Playoffs Are About To Be Wild

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

The NASCAR regular season came to an end on Sunday in Darlington with a surprise winner when Chase Briscoe punched his ticket to the Playoffs.Denny Hamlin and co-host Jared Allen discuss what this win means for Stewart-Haas Racing, who is closing their doors for good when the season ends. Three of SHR's charters have been sold and whoever bought the charter of the winning car on Sunday will get a boost in money.The move that propelled Briscoe to victory came after a restart as he passed three cars to get in first place. Denny explains how that happened. Denny also talks about what went wrong for him on the restarts at the end of the race. Did Chris Buescher right rear hook Todd Gilliland?Sunday's race was bittersweet for Denny and 23XI. Bubba Wallace was firmly on the bubble and things didn't go his way and he will miss the Playoffs. On the flipside, Tyler Reddick was able to win the driver's regular season championship by one point. The guys also talked about the art of short-pitting to gain an advantage. And, at what point did tire wear stop and the tires were even?Denny had a fast car but the only problem was he was fast on the long run. With so many races ending with multiple cautions, producer Travis asked Denny if his set-up should always favor short runs.The Playoffs begin next weekend in Atlanta and expect chaos. Plus, 23XI's Curtis Polk made a statement about the NASCAR Charter negotiations. Denny opens up a little bit about what's going on.For more Actions Detrimental content head over to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimentalFanDuel Disclaimer: 21+ and present in North Carolina. Opt in req. Wager requirements apply. Bonuses awarded as nonwithdrawable bonus bets or profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including bonus expiration. See terms and conditions 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.

unfortunate things that have happened over the last two months for us has got to get better. It's going to start this weekend. Maybe get some redemption at Bristol, too? I won there last fall. What are you talking about? With a cheated engine apparently. Oh, yeah, and I won there the spring. Oh. What the fuck.

Whatever. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey guys, welcome to action's detrimental. Ow! That hurt Charlie! This is not going to be a rose-colored glasses show. with NASCAR, who I guarantee you is listening to this. It was warm and then it was cold. But I kind of liked it.

The 11, D.H. We're all in. We're going all the way that's promising. Hey guys. Welcome to Actions Determinal. I'm Denny Hamlin driver of the Sport Clips Toyota this weekend. And the number, well, the Flying 11 for Joggins Racing. My co-host, Jared. Say hello, Jared. Hello, everybody. And that's all you get.

So where do we even start with Darlington? We had quite the cutoff race. What we thought was pretty cut and dry. It was looking that way for quite some time. Turned into something wildly different in the last 30 laps of the race. So where do we even take this ship? Chase Briscoe. Chase Briscoe.

Certainly didn't see this coming. I'm not sure how many top five's Chase had this year. It didn't seem like very many, but he was always kind of right, he was around in the bubble field there, kind of midsummer, and then it kind of tapered off to where, you know, you knew that short of, you know, like Bubba or whatever,

they were going to have to win. You know, he put himself in the category. He's going to have to win. And he did. Ran up front all race. I think this was, you know, the key really was him having a good qualifying effort. on Saturday and stayed up front, you know, was really fast in the short run and just kept

that track position, kept himself in the game the whole race. And then, wow, we had a awesome race at the end that some wild restarts. Certainly things got, you know, kind of tussled around once the one stayed out. That was a big, big moment and what, you know, how that last few restarts played out. and ultimately who won the race. Yeah, back to your Chase Briscoe, that's three top fives this season. That's actually more than I thought. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, I don't know where they came,

but I just didn't remember really them being up front a whole lot, but still they were, it seemed like they've been the Stuart Hoss car that has had the most solid finishes all year long. New Hampshire and Darlington. Oh, okay. So two Darlington's. Oh, so both Darlington. So they were good in the spring.

They had something there. So yeah, we didn't see that coming. Maybe they did. You know, so they put it all together and what a well-executed race and just a great job by Chase driving that three wide into turn three there. I guess in a way that's the beauty of this format that if you can put together one race from top to bottom. It just takes one.

Yeah, it just takes one race. no doubt about it and you kind of heard comments from busher afterwards like you know we're we beat these guys all year long you know they beat us one race and and now they're in um i understand but it's it it is what we we uh we signed on for uh with this format uh many years ago so it's created certainly you know we've got probably five guys in there that you that weren't going to make it in on points but uh did through um the win in your end system Yeah, looking at the playoffs, only the top 10 cars on points made in the playoffs. You think about the field, right?

There's four very good Gibbs cars. There's four very good Hendrick cars. There's at least two very good Penske cars. Like the field to get in, you either have to be top 10 in points or you're going to have to enter a season thinking that you're going to win. Yeah, you forgot your headset. I'm back. I was wondering why why does this feel so different? But, yeah.

I hear things now. I just drove back, y'all. It's a long trip back. Yeah, I mean, certainly, you know, the field is kind of spread out. You do have all four Hendrik, all four JGR cars, and then you got some, you know, one or two from each organization here or there, a couple Penske cars. So it's going to be a wild playoffs, no doubt about it.

I think the schedule more lends itself to being pretty wild playoffs more than anything. But looking at the top 10, the cars that made it, I'm saying those cars because in a way I'm penciling them in every year is that, okay, these four Gibbs cars are going to be in contention for the top 10 points. These four-hender cars are always going to be good. These at least two Penske cars, the 12 and the 22, are always going to be good. Where do you invest your money to be one of those cars or to be a car that's going to win a race every year. If all the parts and pieces are the same,

how do you break into that top 10 if you're not going to win a race? You just hope that you're in contention enough each week to be able to get a win, right? I mean, so you know, the thing about like the Harrison Burton, right, he

wasn't in contention to win any races, but he won Daytona, right? Because it's a wild card race, which is one where pretty much anyone with an engine and four tires rolling at the end has a shot to win. So, you know, maybe the eggs are in that basket for them, because if you think about what it would take for the Woodbrothers to be top contenders every single week, they would have to invest

tons and tons of resources, lots of money. And there's still, as we can see now with this format, there's still no guarantee that you actually do make it. So it's almost better to, you know, try to look up and get one at a super speedway. If you're thinking out from a business standpoint, because unless you are one of those top teams that, you know, we're investing because we're going to spread these resources amongst multiple teams, and those teams are going to perform week in, week out, and then have a shot to win more oftentimes than not.

Or you could have the route where we're not going to spend as much, and we're just going to try to get one here and, and hopefully maybe it works and maybe one out every three years it works but um you know there's many different ways to skin the cat how many teams are doing that how many teams are putting out a car every week trying to be in that top ten in points to be consistently at the front of the field to win a race not just try to luck into one well nobody wants to luck into one um you know everyone's putting to the best car they can put on the racetrack um given the funds that they have whether it through sponsorship or race winnings or what have you. So everyone's putting their best foot forward.

Even the back marker teams and for the last few years, Spires had a back marker team and you've had Rick Ware. Even those are starting to move forward, right? So everyone is getting better. And so it's making it more competitive. And it's why you're seeing more race winners year in, year out. Has the floor ever been this high? with like those back marker teams. I feel like the, it's just, the gap is so much smaller. The floor has risen. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. That's definitely very factual that it used to be, you know, within the first 15 laps of race, you're lapping a couple cars. Now you don't even see the tail end of the field till 50, 60 laps in. The field is that close nowadays. I think the whole win in your in format, I guess we were on this podcast last week and I feel like it and some people might have left a bad taste in her mouth.

He was like, oh, what, Harrison Burton? He was dead last in points and he wins his race. Now he's in the playoffs. But I don't feel like the narrative's the same at all looking at this Chase Briscoe win because it's like, man, we went to Darlington. Well, he was 18th in points. I think it wasn't he wasn't 34th. Okay, but what if a guy like 20th in points was to win last,

week at, like, it just seems a little different at Darlington where it's like, man, if you win at Darlington, you really have to earn this victory. Like, you don't. Yeah, it's, you're not, it tracks like Darlington, you're not going to luck up and win a track like Darlington. It just, it takes too much from the car, driver, pick crew and all that. And the 14 team has all those pieces of the puzzle together, right? They have decent enough funding to where their cars are fast enough, their pit crew's good enough, their driver's good enough, and he stayed up front the entire race, right? And so it's just Daytona or the Super Speedways, Atlanta this weekend. I mean, you definitely could see another surprise winner this weekend. It's just a different type of racing that, you know,

as a sport, we've just morphed in this direction. Does all of Storthouse racing now put their eggs in the 14 basket to give the 14 the best chance to advance through this playoffs? Yeah, I mean, I don't know what, you know, I don't know exactly how it's run, so I can't tell you, you know, what they could change to do that, but certainly, yes, their focus will be to, you know, get the 14 up there as high as they can, make the deepest championship run that they can. But yeah, it's, it's interesting. the 14 car, you know, for, it's, we go to some racetracks and they were really, really bad. When I say bad, like really, really bad.

And some of the Stewart-Hoss cars I've seen it where they've been way off the pace. Like one or two of the cars would be way off the pace for a little while during a race. And then, you know, they come back and they finish okay. But I think the tracks lend themselves okay to Chase. I think, you know, he's pretty good on road courses. We've got a couple of those in the playoffs. So if he can get to the round of eight, there's one there's one there's one there's one, I believe. In the Roval in the final eight?

12. 12. Yeah, it's in the round of 12. So, I mean, he's going to have an opportunity. He's good on short tracks. You never know. This could be a team that could, you know, realistically finish in the top eight in points. I mean, making the final four probably would be a stretch.

but you know anything can happen you know who who's to who's to say how you know how this thing's going to turn out i've got a question about the hoss charter so they're selling three of them and keeping one when they were making these sales did they have to tell nascar at the time we are keeping the 14 as ours or we're keeping the 10 or whatever or can they go to nascar now and say the 14's ours and we want to so to make the money that this car is making by making the No, my guess is that you would, you're bidding on or when you're making a purchase, you're designated in what charter that you're purchasing. So I don't think that changes. So more than likely they designated which one they were keeping from the get-go. Hopefully they chose, for their sake, they chose 14.

They didn't. It's just huge amount of difference. Yeah, the fluctuation of where that charter will be ranked, it certainly is. it now is a much higher ceiling. And are you thinking about that as a team owner? Like, okay, here's these four charters for sale from SHR. There's X amount of races left in the season. I want to buy this one because this car may win Daytona

or make it into the playoffs increasing the value of the charter? Well, you kind of just go off of, I would think, what car is it, what is its history, what's its current ranking, and what do you estimate it will bring in for revenue over the next few years? It's based off a three-year running average of where you finish in the points. I think the first years weighed 70 percent, and then it's like, I could be wrong on this, on the percentages, but it's heavily weighed toward the previous year, a little bit more weighed in the second year, and then in the third year, it's weighed less.

So, yeah, you just... I mean, there's a chance they probably would have... They could have taken the number four, right? You probably would have thinking off of Harvicks. Yeah, you would think that that was the highest ranked charter that SHR had was the four because of Harvick's performance. You would think so, because, yeah, he's made the playoffs every year. Harvick did.

Yeah, so I'll be interesting to see who got what. Yeah. I'm fascinated by listening to the Teradown. They mentioned how post-race last night, Greg, Zipidalia talked about that Ford had cut back on the resources given to store hospital. That is surprising. Laptops weren't working.

Man. I wonder if they turn them back on now. Right. What now? Surely they have been, okay, turn the system back on. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's because you got these guys that are, you know, are agreeing to go to other teams so they don't want to

release any information for next year but I don't know how that contractually works because it seems as though if you have an agreement with someone through the end say the term years through the end of 2024 don't you have to live up

to that obligation until that time or can you say oh where you're going someone else I'm stopping that information now I don't I'm just thinking out loud here does how's the teams at such a in a precarious spot where they can have the information that they agreed to get be taken away before the season ends. I don't know. But it's just like one of those things everyone

sees the writing on the wall so they just kind of dial back their efforts a little bit? Yeah, certainly. I mean, yeah, you would think so, right? I mean, it's, you know, with the main manufacturers, it's, they have so much control kind of over the race teams and, and kind of what they do and what they get that, um, certainly the, you know, no manufacturer wants their information shared to any other teams. No doubt about that. But, uh, yeah, I just was thinking out loud of like, yeah, but wouldn't that be a breach of a contract if you don't give the information you agreed to give?

But, um, maybe they get it for the, for the playoffs now because Ford, now has the most cars in the playoffs of any other manufacturer. Yeah, I mean, the narrative certainly changed last night. It did. Yeah, they seem to win when you weren't expecting it, right? It took them quite a long time into the season before they got their very first cup win, and then now they've got six of the 16 in playoffs.

Well, didn't they win all three championships last year? Yes, they did. went in a very, very bad and off year. So, you know, by their standards. So, right. You can never write them out, I guess. Let's go back to the pass that Briscoe made to get the lead. And this is interesting because there was a moment in this race where you were second.

And Gabe Hart was on your radio saying, you know, I agree with whatever lane you choose here. Either you want to choose the inside and try to beat Larson on the inside or you can choose the second row on the outside and let Briscoe try his Hail Mary move, whatever that may be knowing that they're desperate. You ultimately chose the bottom, but then on a later restart, you know, Briscoe was able to make that pass in your windshield three wide and clear all the cars to take the lead. Yeah, I think that was a key moment. I chose to, there was two separate ones, right? There was, there's, the first one you're talking about is that I had the second option to choose on the restart, right? Either the bottom front row or choose the top that, you know, for us,

the numbers suggested that I needed to be fourth. So second car on the outside behind Larson when he restarted. But I had noticed how good Chase was on the short run, right? And so I thought that my Achilles heel is my front side speed. So my car right after restarts, didn't seem to have that quick fire-off speed that it needed to. And so the likelihood of me passing Larson on the bottom, when I didn't have the fire-off speed I needed in the non-preferred lane, was probably going to be not that high of chances. I thought that maybe the better chance would be let Chase,

who could challenge Larson in the short run, let him take the bottom I'll start behind Larson these guys get aggressive get in the fence and I'm going to go around them both that's what I'm thinking but ultimately

it was a two second decision right before the choose cone or the choose and I'm like I just got to take the bottom you just never know maybe Larson gets out of shape someone pushes him into one

he gets out of shape and then I go but it played out kind of how I thought and that was that I just didn't have enough short run speed to run with Larson. And then the 14 was all over me because he's fast in the short run. And then after 10 laps, he starts backing up to me. And I'm like, now I got to go. So what I'm hoping is that he gets in front of Larson, holds him up. Larson burns his stuff up, and I'm good enough in the long run to pass them both.

But we never got that long run at the end. It was going to be very interesting talking about a different restart, but kind of in that third stage when we decided to go long, we got down to two and a half seconds on Larson. Seeing how that whole last stint was going to play out was going to be super compelling. Yeah, those cautions ruined your strategy, basically, right? Yes, yes, it did. And then there's another restart you were talking about.

I chose to triple stack the bottom behind the one. because I thought the one was going to get a really bad restart, and he didn't. He got a great restart, and that allowed actually the 54 to get to the outside of the five. And so had to do it all over again? Absolutely, I would have chose behind the one had I known he was going to get that good of a start. Well, and he stayed out. He's the only car that didn't pit. Yeah, I'm just thinking, right, he's going to go into turn one and just be an absolute sitting duck,

and I'm going to be pinned behind him. And, you know, that's what I don't want. and so I figured, okay, Larson's going to pass him into one. Then the 14's going to be right on his ass. That should put me right beside the one on fresher tires. I'm going to pass him into three. That's how I'm thinking this lap one of the restart is going to play out. But we go into turn one.

I'm like, the one is clear? Like, holy cow, he got a better launch than he did when he was on sticker tires. So he certainly had better speed after those nine laps on tires than what I expected. Yeah, looking at your restarts there for a moment, it just seemed like you were voluntarily giving up positions. I know. It just, yeah, I thought fifth on the inside was better than fourth on the outside behind a car with no tires. That's what my thinking was, and it was not the right decision. I have a question about that Ross Chastain restart, but before I get to, I want to finish up with Brisco. So that move he made to pass two, three cars, went from fourth to

first, right? On that move down the backstretch? Yeah. How does that happen? So he was clear off of, through one and two, the 14 cars clear. Now he's free to run whatever line he wants to in turn to, which that sets up, you know, you want to have a fast exit. Well, he sees that the five and the 54 are side by side.

Now, the one is clear. Okay. He's going down the backstretch. Again, he's on to old tires, so he's not getting a fast. super fast run down the backstretch. Right behind him is the five and the 54 side by side. And these cars are like parachutes when you get them side by side. So that allows, because they have so much drag, it allows that next car in line to get a huge run. Do you remember me and Larson at the front stretch at Michigan when Bubba came and blew by us both? Now, we were playing games there with

each other trying to position ourselves. But that's the gist of it, is that that third car in line who is not beside somebody will have a huge run if you stay side by side down the down, you know, any kind of straightaway. So they were slowing each other up, which is the 54 and the five. Here comes to 14 with a huge slingshot into turn three. Passes them both. And I think he did a great job moving up just enough where he forced Larson to, you know, get close enough to one where the five really needed to check up or else it was going to cause a wreck. So he just put the five and added decision there, being that he was, you know, basically seven-eighths of his car cleared. Right. And that's fascinating because Kyle's in this position in, in this middle three

wide here where he more or less, I guess, stays in it and potentially. essentially wrecks or checks, checks up and hangs on to what at the moment was the regular season driver title. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Everyone up front was racing for something, right? I mean, you know, I was in a position where I, you know, with the 12 going out early, if I finish in the top five, I get two more spots in the regular season. That's like two stage wins. Like everyone had something that they were racing for. Kyle Busch and Chase Briscoe, we're obviously racing for a position in the playoffs, trying to win a race at the end.

Kyle Larson was racing for the regular season championship. Tyler Redick, the same. Bubba Wallace up front. He's racing for his playoff spot. So everyone in the top 10, it still came down to where this race meant something for everyone, which is why he saw how aggressive everyone was. Maybe this is obvious,

but on that Ross Chastain restart, I was surprised that he picked the outside lane. now obviously that's the preferred lane but him having tires there were worse off than larsons wouldn't he have wanted in my mind i would have thought he would have wanted the bottom so he could kind of control larsin in the corner like if you needed to run him up the track a little bit he could is the outside lane just that much better than the inside lane regardless of the tire situation in turn three and four it seems so for sure yeah you you you want to be on the outside certainly in turns one and two there's just so much momentum

them to be had. But I think that Ross, you know, they had no other options, right? They weren't going to win the race from where they were. They were, you know, in the 20s earlier in the race. They just didn't have the pace, you know, which has kind of been the trend of the one over the last year is they didn't have the pace that they had in 2022. They get some good finishes. They really do.

They do the best job at optimizing their day. but they hadn't had the pace that they had except since the first year of next gen. So he was doing all he could with what he had. And he kept chipping away throughout the day. It was like he was in the 20s. Okay, he's in the teens. Now he's in the low teens. And then he found himself, you get a few restarts.

All right, well, he's in a spot where he's right there back half of the top 10 on the cusp of it. Heck with it. He had seen information that said that, you know, people that, stayed out on tires in the past, was able to hang on fairly okay. Now, I would have never imagined with nine laps on his tires, he would have held on that good, but it was a good play for them because what happens then is that, and what did happen is that then he was able to, okay, if we get another quick caution, everyone pits again, now I'm up front, now I've got a shot, now I've got a fighting chance. So I thought it was a great call, strategic call by his team,

and a must-win situation for him to at least give him a shot or an opportunity. Rarely in sports, is there a win and lose for one individual team. You either win or you lose. It's one emotion or the other. But last night, 23-11, you have both those emotions. Tyler wins the driver regular season championship.

He gets the 15 bonus playoff points and Bubba misses out on the playoffs. How do you navigate that? How does the team navigate that? Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, there's certainly, it's a tough spot, right, because you want to celebrate with your team that accomplish something great. You know, Tile Redick and that whole 45 team and what they were able to do this year for the first 26 races. And then, you know, you've also got to, you know, put your arm around the other and say, you know, keep digging. It's just part of the process, right?

And it's part of getting better. and we've seen throughout you know Bubba's 2311 career that he continues to get better when it comes to how many points is he scoring how many top fives how many top tens he's progressing in the manner that we're hoping that he progresses

and truly enough if you if you can find a way to bottle up whatever has been inside you for the last 10 races and just copy and paste it for next year for the 26 races, you won't have this discussion. You won't be on the bubble. You'll win a race or two. And you'll not be in a points position where you have to sweat it out in the last race.

So I think that they're certainly finding themselves. It just took a little bit too long for that 23 team to get the results that they needed. The first 13 races, you know, just not at its peak. and then the last 13, you know, certainly they've stepped up their performance and really proud of, you know, what they brought to the racetrack, qualifying on the pole, being fast. You know, that's a great sign. Does one of these outweigh the other, your disappointment as an owner that, you know, your 23 cars not in the playoffs or that Tyler had the season that he has? Does one of those outweigh the other? Are you more happy or more disappointed? I would say probably more happy. You know, we knew that Bubba after the Harrison win, you know, that really changed things.

And we're going to have to, he's going to have to have things kind of go his way at Darlington. And really, Busher gave him an opportunity. He gave him an opportunity because he was not in the top 10 very much all race long. And so if Bubba was able to somehow stay in the top two or three all day, that would have put, I mean, the 17 was going back. before he got in the record with the 38, which, by the way, was that a right rear hook? I hate to,

he turned left and hooked him in the right rear, right? I mean, yeah, maybe involuntarily. Yeah, I don't know about that. I think he was upset, and he, he turned left on him for sure. What's the, what's the SMT show? I don't know, I haven't, I haven't looked at it.

After this whole Austin-Dillon discussion, he shouldn't trust SMT. T. No, well, NASCAR agreed. The SMT was very conclusive when it came to. I heard you turned right and wrecked yourself, according to their argument, but that's another discussion.

They're on an island on that one. But hey, everyone's entitled to their opinion. I enjoyed seeing Michael nervous because as a basketball player, you've never saw him nervous and now he can't control. And seeing him be like I am with my teams and be just a fan.

and it's so invested in his interview, you could see how raw it was. I enjoyed seeing that. Yeah, it was watching it back. It was definitely interesting. And you could tell how nervous and into it he was. So it's fun. You know,

knowing that someone that has been in the most pressure-packed situations as a professional athlete, you know, I think when I'm watching it, right, and when I'm out of races, and I'm watching races conclude and I'm watching the 23 and the 45, you do get way more nervous because you can't control it. I'm not in the car. I can't make this move or that move or do this or do that.

You know, I'm just looking at it from a fan's perspective. So, yeah, certainly you feel a lot more vulnerable when you're just an owner. And, you know, you just hope that things kind of work out. his the clip of him in uh in the regular season championship victory lane did you see that one where he's got his cell phone out and he's taking a video or a photo of the yeah the crew guys in the trophy they're all giddy and i know um do you think this plays out differently for bubba if they take if they choose to take tires and pit nothing on lap was it 337 where half the field took tires and the front half didn't no because i i still don't think he was going to win the race um and

the way it turned out with Briscoe winning he was going to have to win but Kyle Bush was the first car to take tires on that caution and he had a shot to win at the end so like that that decision yeah but I'm not sure Bubba was ahead of

Bubba wasn't ahead of Kyle at that time Kyle was going to come out in front of them regardless no he was ahead of it no he was ahead no the caution what lap was it Travis

323. There's the top eight. Bubba's in the top eight. Those cars don't pit. The cars behind him pit. And it was like, okay, we took the ball out of Bubba's hands because now he's got, he's on three lap older tires than this group of cars behind him.

And Kurt Busch and I think Christopher Bell were in that group. Kyle Busch. Kyle Busch. Lap 320. Lap 323, 8 cars stay out, 511. 14, 54, 4, 24, 23. Bubbo was the last car that stayed out. Right.

And Kyle Busch was the first car to pit. No, the 20. The 20 was. On lap 320, I'm watching it right here. Regardless, Kyle Busch could have been the second car to pit. He's able to drive up into the top five on those new tires. And he's ahead of...

Yeah, if some butts. I don't know. I think it would have been very difficult. because I just, it seemed like for whatever reason, you know, they just lost a little pace. Once they lost the track position, the 23 seemed like they were kind of hanging on the rest of the day. Now, I mean, they were hanging on when I say hanging on, like in the top 10 still, but just didn't, I don't think they had the pace to 5, the 14, 11, some of those others had. Track position wouldn't have helped. I don't, I don't think.

so. I mean, Kyle Busch had a shot because he had, he got to the inside and ran the apron through one and two and passed a couple rows. Without that, there is no shot at all. So there was only one car that was going to have that opportunity to do that. So it would have been a, it would have been a tough task. But, I mean, everyone has these ifs and what if this didn't happen, then, you know, Chris Busher certainly is someone that's thinking, golly, if I didn't, have this problem or that problem, you know, throughout the year, it's, I'm in. Everyone has those. Yeah, you just look back on this race and it seems like there's always a moment where it hinges, you know, where, you know, it was looking good for Bubba before this caution because the moment

that him and Busher were tied. It was plus zero on the cut line. And then this caution happened and they both went with opposite strategies and one played out better for the other in the end. but yeah. Yep, it's, yeah, it's, it's awesome for 2311 and Tyler to, you know, after 26 races, you know, have that 45 team and driver, you know, up towards the top of the standings and certainly going to be contenders for a final four spot in just a few months. You've heard us talk a lot about Fandle, America's number one, America's number one sports book,

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and a current form of payment, and you can cancel any time. Just visit Fandul.com slash Denny to download America's number one sportsbook. 21 and older and present in North Carolina, full price of NFL Sunday ticket will be automatically charged seasonally after the free trial, no refunds, terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. Gambling problem, call 877717-1-8-5543 or visit more than a game.nc.gov. Were you aware of how sick he was and what he was battling in the car?

They told me on the radio that he was ill, but that's all they said. I just thought it was nerves. Have you ever had a race where? I thought it was earned. I'm not saying it was. I saw that like with William Byron at Martinsville. Like same thing. Like he was feeling really bad.

I mean, those are pressure-packed situations and everyone's body handles it a little differently. Right. Have you ever had a race where you've been, you know, very ill? Not that I can remember. I have to fight through it. Mm-mm.

You've never thrown up in your car? Mm-mm. No. I just peed in my seat for the first time in my 19th year. That was the only liquid. Well, we never asked you if you threw up or shit yourself. Yeah, no. I hadn't had any of those issues just yet.

So my cold one. Epitome of health. Yeah. How hot was it? Because I think that's also something you don't. How hot was it for you in there? 120 or? Yeah, I mean, certainly you would think it was at least 125 in the car.

you know, you can pretty much just take whatever the outside temperature is at a 30 degrees, and that's pretty much what the inside of the car is usually. So, but it was humid. God, it was hot all day long. I thought it actually got, I don't know why. I don't feel the heat when I'm in the car. When I'm on pit lane, I'm hot. I can feel myself sweating.

You know, I'm warm. But as soon as I strap in, I do not. I just rarely, rarely ever get bothered by heat. Chris made me run my cool suit this week. I might be the, you know, I run it maybe 10% of the time. But, yeah, I felt, I felt fine after the race. And I just think that some, you know, I just think over 30 years of racing, my body's just gotten used to being super, super hot.

So not that I'm immune to it. I've certainly had hot moments, but, you know, not here lately. What do you make of his performance clearly not feeling well and to battle and to find a way? Adrenaline is such a funny thing. What did you say? Flu game. I saw that on social media, people trying to say that. Well, Jordan, we got the connection.

Yeah, he was not feeling well. And I could tell even in his post-race interviews that, he wasn't he still wasn't a hundred percent so um it's a battle it's it's really really hard um i think it's even harder to try to protect a lead than it is to say i'm going all out and i just think that um you know it's hard enough to stay up front when because you're always going and want to manage your risk. Like, you know, all right, let me not put myself in a bad position and end up getting wrecked, right?

And so it's not feeling well just adds to it. And I think that, you know, I think he did tremendously well considering the pressure he was on under to try to win the championship and then feeling bad on top of it. It certainly was not pleasant. With that being said, are you happy that Chris always is? that deploys this strategy for you where you're never the one trying to hang on.

It's always, okay, let's stay out longer here and then I'm going to put you on new tires and then you're going to go chase down. I think it puts more pressure on me to, I mean, every time I come in the pits or come out of the pits,

I'm 15th, I'm 20th. All right, I expect you to get back to the second now. Like, I'm like, all right. Chris has a saying. He's like, you know,

uh, don't mind the mule. Just load the wagon. So I'm like, yeah, you're riding the mule all right. I mean, how many cars I got to pass? 15. How many last I got to do it? 25?

Okay. Yeah, they love putting me in that spot where, oh, you'll just, you'll go past those guys. Like, yeah, okay. But it did. I thought the strategies, you know, that Chris had were great. It played into our strength. I tell you, I didn't think our car was. was quite as good. We had a stack up restart right after the first stage. And I think my car got

damaged because it did not drive quite the same after that. But my strength, our team strength, our car strength, whatever it might be, is being getting the most out of the car lap time-wise when the tires are the hottest and the most worn out. So at a track where people were trying to undercut each other, which is undercut means you just pit one, you know, maybe you got somebody one second in front of you. Well, new tires, you'll go run two seconds faster the first couple laps. If you pit one lap sooner than them, then that means you'll be, so take wherever your car is at, place it two seconds in front of the person that didn't pit. Undercutting them is getting back in front of them in the short run and then holding them off after that. Our strength has been

just stay out there, optimize the stages to whatever length it is. If it's 100 laps, run 50 or whatever it might be. And others, what they'll do is they'll run shorter to try to pass a few cars than hold them off, which that strategy works too, just depending on lap time fall off. But for us, it just works better to go long. I think it was going to work out even better in the first stage, but we had a really bad pit stop. And that kind of, we only were able to get up to like fifth or six. But yeah, it's just we played to our strength.

And that's why I said it was going to be really compelling to see where me and Larson netted out in that last 40, 50 lap run. Yeah, at what point do the tires even out? Good question. They never, the ones at Darlington never stopped really dropping off, but you would get to a certain lap time pretty quickly. And what we've noticed with these goodier tires is that it's more of a heat thing than it is a wear thing. So you'll run, let's just say 30-50s on brand-new tires, you'll get to 31-50s pretty quickly, and then they'll hang out there for five, six, ten laps, and then they'll take another jump at 32 seconds. You'll hang out there for five, six laps, then it'll take another jump and run 32-30.

So it's just, you know, it's really kind of dependent on how you control the tires and what you do as a driver to keep them under you. How do you not lose the ground staying out? So if I stay out seven laps later, right? And let's just pretend over that average of seven laps, they beat me 1.5 seconds per lap. Seven times 1.5 is 10.5. Sure. Yep.

Right? Yep. Okay. So is that math right? Yeah. Yeah, it's simple. Yeah, so that's 10.5 seconds that I'm going to have to make up during the next 40-lap run. Right.

So essentially, I need to be, I'm going to run, when I come back out, I'm going to be running faster than them that entire 40 laps that I'm out there. I'm going to be running faster. But is it 10 and a half, do I gain 10.5s? seconds of net time over that 40 laps. That's the strategy, right? You lose 10 and a half seconds for seven laps. Can you make that back up over 40 laps? This is, this is all mathematically, Chris is already doing all this data that he knows that this is possible. But he's making assumptions that I'm going to do my job and run the car a certain amount of lap time when

everyone else starts to fall off that I'm going to be able to maintain a certain lap time. So if you get held up by a car that throws it out. It can really, you know, or a pit stop. Absolutely. And what happens if someone runs along with you and you get caught behind them, their prediction for where you were running your lap time and now it starts to drop off, they're like, holy shit, we got a pit because we're not going to make this time back up over the run because you're losing more time than what we estimated during this seven-lap period.

But clearly there's not enough of those very. variables in play here that deters Chris from deploying this strategy? It's just numbers. It's just numbers, right? And, you know, again, if our car was a really good short run car and not a good long run car, we would have been on the shorts. We would have pitted short. But since the long run was our strength, we play into that by saying, okay, you guys go ahead and undercut each other and, you know, not optimize your full E.T from beginning of stage to end. We're going to optimize E.T. and then just see where are this all nets out. So, and because of cautions, it really didn't get to completely see it. Now, I think NBC did a good job of documenting

in the first stage. While it didn't, he said, well, it didn't work out because we lost five seconds over where we were when we pitted the first time. Well, we had a pit stop that was five or six seconds slow. Now the second time we did it, we gained that. We only ended, you know, five seconds behind the leader where we were 10 to start. With all these wrecks that we see at the end of races, should you make sure that your car is always set up for the short run? God, you, I know, it's such a.

I know, we're sitting here on this podcast every weekend. It's like, oh, caution to this again. Costs to see. I know. I know. It's, it's hard to predict that. but yeah, you would think that you just want to do whatever you can to be fast in the short run. And if it goes long, oh, well, you suck at the end, right?

You're just going to drop. But it seems like more and more of these races are coming down to shootouts at the end. So I remember that's sort of kind of how, you know, if I remember right, Joey Lugano's very first championship at Homestead, he won that way, is that at a track where everyone really focuses on. long runs. I remember interviews that him and Todd Gordon did back

in the day and they were like, we just came here saying we want to be as fast as we can for five or ten laps. We want to be the fastest car. And then wherever it goes after that it goes. And I remember he won a championship that way. That was the year where

you're going to win the battle, you're not going to win the war, the whole Martin Truex thing. And he got to Homestead and it was, and You could tell in practice it was like, wow, 22's fast in the short run, but he is terrible in the long run. But the race worked out. They strategized around how they thought the race was going to play out, and they won a championship that way. So, yeah, you can play it that way, Travis, but you're going to need it to in that way. But it certainly seems like, you know, having short run speed really, really matters here lately with all these late race cautions.

Yeah, I mean, you can play it either way, right? you can set your car up the opposite and hope the race plays out that way. Right. Did you cause the wreck on lap 345? I don't know about that. So I was looking at it. I'm watching and I get underneath the 54 and 3 and 4. And I saw his interview where he was kind of upset.

He was like, yeah, we almost got wrecked over there. And then we ended up getting wrecked over there. I'm not sure he knew that we were three wide, but I was in the inside of the 54. And I think he was right behind the one. So I shoot the middle of the racetrack in three and four. And then the 20 shoots bottom on me and now we're three wide. And the 54 and the one starts coming down.

So he's up at the wall with the one. And then they start coming on the exit and they just pull down. And I'm there. And when he pulled down, we made contact. And I'm like, I don't want any parts of this. So I back out. I hit the break. And then here comes the four.

shoot you know I try to block the four from going three wide bottom because I don't want to put anyone in a bad spot and then here comes the four he goes through the middle and then I'm on the apron you know I'm running as low as I can and then I think me and the four got pretty close I'm not sure if there was contact or not and then the four just kind of washed right up into the 54 so certainly not ideal and glad it all you know the 54 ended up getting in it's a bad spot for him to be in no question about it um I think he may might have been on older tires in that moment? Maybe not. No, I don't think he was. That was because he was just outside the five during that time. I think he was just fighting his car at that particular

moment. And he was trapped behind the one that I didn't want to get trapped behind on that restart. But no, I was looking at it and I was running the middle of the track and he just came on down and we barely clip left rear and then that put us three wide when I checked up. and yeah there was just not enough room between all three of us three wide entering term one at darlington good luck you know it's just not ideal and i think the four i think the four actually wiped out someone else earlier uh that same way where he slid up into somebody and put him in the fence i can't remember what cart was so you're not worried about having a new uh neighbor in the bus slot at Atlanta or anything new neighbor yeah and ties park next to you no not

No, not at all. Okay, just checking. Yeah, but I think that's why Chase Briscoe's move was so impressive because Three Wide seems so dangerous at Darlington that he made it work. Yeah, it's just for whatever reason, Three Wide is much easier into turn three than it is one. I think it's just because the banking angle is so high in turn one that it just forces the bottom cars up the race.

Like gravity takes you there. But, yeah, I was all four tires on the apron trying to give as much room as I could, but I got to make the corner. And so I felt like I left enough room up top, but the four needed more room clearly. Looking at the playoff grid, we've got Kyle Larson on top. He's got 40 playoff points, followed by Christopher Bell, 32, Reddick, 28, Byron, 22, Blaney, 18, Hamlin 15, Elliott 14, Cazovsky 8, Lugano and Cendrick 7, Suarez, Bowman, Burton 5 Gibbs Truex4.

What are your thoughts going into this? What now has this round of 16 and round of 12, which has more wild card races than ever before. Atlanta followed by Watkins. Yeah, I mean, this is what NASCAR wants. Like, you know, certainly I think that you could have some championship legit final four contenders go out in the first round. I think that that's what they want.

when they put Atlanta in the playoffs, added another road course. It certainly adds some variables that all of us drivers are going to have to make sure that we're doing the best we can and don't get caught in a bad, you know, big wreck. I think, you know, for us personally, it's going to be avoiding those 25th or worst place finishes. That will be the key to us, you know, moving on. but I just don't know that anybody is safe with what tracks we're going to and how erratic some of these into these races are playing out. You just never know. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of pointless reading off these playoff points now

because we're going to go to Atlanta, and some of these guys are going to get involved in a major wreck. And if they had playoff points, they're going to be gone. Yeah, and you can have the Burton Gibbs, you know, Burton Gibbs, Truex, these guys could be plus 15 leave in Atlanta. like it's there's nothing that would surprise me given kind of where we're going is there a certain strategy for you heading into Atlanta like is it just avoid yeah i don't know i mean certainly you want to avoid trouble but you also want to you know you can't afford to just forego stage points so you're

going to do everything you can to you know try to get those and i don't know don't try you know try try not to cause a wreck, you know, because you don't want to be in it. Although you would argue causing wrecks on Super Spooeyway usually ends up best for the person that actually causes it. And not so good for those that, you know, were right in the middle. Yeah. We just talked about minimizing risk. I feel like you can't do much of that at these types of tracks.

Can we talk about for a moment your co-owner's piece of paper that was stapled to his back? What's that? Back of Curtis Polk's shirt yesterday. Please don't ask me about my charter. I don't want to disparage NASCAR and lose it with a Ziploced face emoji. No, I really don't. I would choose not to speak about it, but I think that I think it kind of speaks for itself and kind of what certainly you would.

I can't believe you actually wore that. that. They do not want you speaking negatively. It's a new, new ad to charter agreement. We'll see how that goes. So, yeah, it's, it seems like they definitely,

NASCAR's got their stance and the teams have theirs. We'll just see where this goes over the next few weeks. I guess Cup teams got a new offer, and I'm assuming that it wasn't great. It's never been great. I don't even think, I think personally from 2311's perspective, we would take a decent deal, not even a fair deal, just a decent one.

And from our standpoint, it's got a ways to go. How do you manage being a driver and owner in these situations and try to, you got to focus on the playoffs coming up, but you got all this other stuff that, you know, every driver could have lost me. It should have never lingered this long, but ultimately the parties involved dragged her feet. You know, this, I believe this is part of NASCAR's strategy is to drag their feet and drag it to the last hour and then put you in a panic situation. So I don't think we're panicked. I think we'll just kind of see this thing out for as long as it takes to, you know, get to where both sides feel like they're in a good spot.

What's the downside at this point for it taking longer? Well, downside is that this goes at the end of, yeah, at the end of December 31st. right is that you officially don't have any charters until a new charter agreement is done so you know there's there's rights and things that we we currently have that we deem very important that you know the NASCAR would no longer be able to use after that after that date does the lack of a charter agreement hurt 2311 other teams going out and selling sponsorships because these sponsors are worried about the uncertainty um I don't think so.

I mean, I think that generally speaking, you know, 2311 is in the racing business. We plan on racing cars and that's why we invested as much as we did in the sport. As we plan on racing, it's just a matter whether we have charters or not. So next season, if you go into 2025 season without charters or if there isn't a charter agreement done by then, this money that the 14 team just found themselves in by winning this race, you know, upgrading their charter and whatnot. That goes out the window. There's none of that.

I don't know. We're getting in the weeds a little bit too much, but yeah, I don't know. I mean, without charters, you know, NASCAR would lose a lot of team assets that they would not be able to use. The teams could obviously just pick and choose when they want to race, and then, you know, where does all the money go that was in kind of the historical or the fixed or whatever like that. I don't know where that ends up going. So I don't know.

You know, you try not to picture a world without them because I think they're, you know, hugely viable for the race teams. And, you know, I think Steve Phelps is actually correct when he said on Harvick's podcast that, you know, fans should care about the charter system because, you know, know, that is, the charter system is very, very valuable for NASCAR itself, not just the race teams. It's just as valuable to NASCAR. The only thing I will disagree with is that he mentioned that the team said they wanted these four key pillar things. And the things I heard him say were not the things that we, we said. So we're, that's where we're different is that what Steve Phelps publicly saying that we asked for is not actually what we have asked for.

The one takeaway I had from that interview since you brought it up is that he explicitly said that charters are not franchises like they are in other sports. Is that true? Are teams under the assumption that they are? Like, what is? I think the, I feel like the reason why fans are unless they care about the charters is because they don't really know all that much about them. Yeah, I think for a very, very long time, NASCAR has always said that, you know, this is our family business. And if you don't like it, don't participate. I think the world has changed since that mentality was set forth by Big Bill a long, long time ago.

Well, I certainly respect everything that they've built and they've done a great job. You must update your thinking or else you will hold the sport. back and certainly healthy and viable teams is what grows other sports. We've seen a tremendous amount of money come into ownership in other leagues and it has done nothing but propel the sports forward because they all pull the rope in the same direction. The interest of the league is the same interest that the teams have. They join up. They collect all their assets and they say, all right, let's go sell this together, right? Where NASCAR and the teams are, you own this and I own that,

and we're competing for the same sponsors. Like, all we do is all compete against each other instead of locking arms, truly locking arms, and growing this sport together. And so until, in my opinion, you know, our sport starts to do that, you know, we will continue to just, you know, peddle in the sand. On a lighter note, the number 11 team fantasy football draft is tonight.

The draft order apparently will be randomized before the start. Last year, our commissioner had the number one pick, which is questionable. Oh, who's the commissioner? Tyler Oversreet. Oh. Who do you think, do you have your eyes set on number one? I can't. I don't know if I can reveal that information on here.

If Travis gets this podcast out before 8 o'clock. well um good luck to you my team will be strong as always will you be managing your team slowly this year of course absolutely there'll be no co-ownership for the denny hamlet fancy football team i i don't know what league what uh charter restrictions do you have against outside investors i don't care you bring it in some private equity funds i have one question for you. Who tweeted from your account about being a champion as an owner?

I don't think we need to answer that question on here. I kind of reveal some private information. I mean, come on, Jared. Like I said, you can't let a couple small details get in the way of a good tweet.

Yeah, but it's not, it wasn't factual. Yeah, but it's funny. Okay. But you should have had if I had to do it all over again and I had the choice to edit of course I didn't see it until after but I would have had

another asterisk and saying actually not really to be completely transparent I forgot all about that and it was the fact that you have the owner and the driver and actually had a question that I wanted to ask you during this podcast

about that is that you care about, you know, Kyle said in his interview, you know, we won the, the owners care about it with the owners, yes. Right. That's how we get, our charters get ranked. That's how the point fund pays out is. Where does the five car finish? Correct. Correct. However, it seems like there's, you win so much when the driver does it because you get all the social media exposure. I mean, all the, um, complex sneakers and all nice kicks and all these accounts posted about how Michael Jordan's team won the regular season championship in NASCAR. Isn't that good for NASCAR that all these other big social media accounts latch on to what 2311 is doing in NASCAR?

Amazing. Yeah. Also, Reddick's card this week with the hood. Chef's Kiss. Yeah. One of my favorites, I think. That was a great partnership that we did with Upper Deck and certainly, Upper Deck is certainly a brand. in that Michael's, you know, had his face on a few of those cards and have, you know,

three of probably the greatest in their sport. Right. It was awesome. But maybe it's just 23, but it seems like the value that that has for your race team's brand outweighs maybe the monetary gain that you would get from the owner side of this. Yeah, it's just a different scenario that, you know, because Kyle didn't participate, participate in that one race in the Coke 600, you know, if you add up what the five car total did in that 26 races,

they scored the most points. Yet the driver or the 45 scored the most points. So it's just a very unique situation. And certainly we could. It is viable that one car makes the championship, but not the, didn't that, when that last year? Last year we could have that. Yeah.

The nine made it into a round. We could have had a driver, a driver not in the playoffs when the race, a driver champion and an ownership champion, three different last year. Yeah. Anyway, it makes my head spin. But yeah, that's what we got.

So you have to keep an eye out through the playoffs of the two different sets of playoff standings. Yeah. Hopefully we don't need to. when it's the 11, and it makes it simplified. Absolutely. Well, on to Atlanta.

We have a review. Oh, we do? Yes. The truth is, that dog is bad luck. That said, if you get rid of it, it's going to be worse luck. It's Lulu. Lulu is the dog. You are not wrong.

Absolutely not wrong. But I'm thinking of it like this. My friends brought this up, and I think this is very, very truthful. My luck. And I hate the word luck in racing because I think if you run in the middle of the pack and you get wrecked all the time, it's because you run in the middle of the pack. And that's where the wrecks happen. That's not luck.

You just aren't running good enough. We are luck. Now, that is things, ill time cautions. Someone else does something like things that we did not cause. Our luck has been so bad these last two months. It's like a shoe, a six-deck shoe playing blackjack. it's going to turn. Do you have enough money in your bankroll though

to keep sitting down and keep putting chips on the table? We do, and that shoe is going to turn around. And the terrible, unfortunate things that have happened over the last two months for us has got to get better. The law of averages must catch up, and it's going to catch up for the good for us for the last 10. We're going to have very fortunate things.

It's going to start. this weekend. Fortunate things. Maybe get some redemption at Bristol, too. I won there last fall. What are you talking about? With a cheated engine apparently. Oh, yeah, and I won there the spring.

That's what I'm saying the redemption. What the fuck. Whatever. Make it three, and we're going to make it three in a row of Bristol. It has to turn around, right? There's no way that we can continue to be as fast as we are and have bad finishes for these various reasons unless we are clearly doing something very, very wrong

or it's just, you know, the wheel of luck. You know, it's been black. Ten straight rolls. And now it's time for red to hit. It's a new game now. New game. New game. New ball game.

All right. Well, appreciate y'all tuning in. And we will see you after Atlanta.