Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Darlington: Stole One Back

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Denny Hamlin is breaking down his Darlington win and the late-race strategy that helped No. 11 take the No.1 spot -- two weeks in a row. Denny explains how perfect timing and a flawless final pit stop helped him gain track position to beat the odds and seal the deal yet again. He also opens up about his connection with Carl Edwards, gives his take on the DVP policy, and looks ahead to Bristol where there's one question on everyone's mind -- can he make it three straight? 17:11- The Math Behind the Moves  24:35 - Tougher and Tougher When Cars Are Equal 29:02 - The New DVP Policy31:01 - Carl Edwards Throwback Dirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Actions Detrimental merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff. For more Actions Detrimental content: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Proud to represent Carl in that pain scheme and certainly got to know them as teammates. You don't appreciate people until they're gone. Carl was so raw talented. I mean, listen, when we had Kyle Bush, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, his teammates, I mean, it was, I was murderers row. And every week it was like, who's going to carry the torch this week? The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. I believe that I've been a competitive for 20 years. Opinions from tonight's podcast, strictly biased.

You're going to hear from my point of view. I'm a fighter. No, you are not. The spoils of victory for Jared Allen. He's got better luck to drink and drink to win. I know, you do. Two trophies missing from your collection, a championship, and the most popular driver.

Someone told me that their drinking game is when I say for sure. Yeah, and I've already said it. Hey guys, welcome to actions detrimental after Darlington and two in the row back to back for the 11. Let's go. Man, I didn't bring the flag down here. Or the trophy. Well, the trophy stays at JGR for a couple days. It allows all the employees take pictures with it and whatnot before I snatch it up.

Travis would be disappointed. He likes having a centerpiece when you win. It's a great trophy too. I mean, I didn't see it before. race, but it was, you know, just this very wood and gold. It's like a mini Southern 500 trophy, right? Somewhat. They said, the track president there said that it was a basically a sort of a replica of

the very first Southern 500. The only part that's different is like the Gold Cup top. But man, I am such a fan of old school wooden, wooden. wooden silver or wooden gold. It's just the combination as a trophy is just fantastic. Do you for the most part know what the trophies, I mean, obviously for the iconic races, but for the most part know what the trophy is going to be

or look like at the end of these races? Because like this one's changed a little bit throughout. Yeah, they have it. They usually have it at the drivers, meaning kind of sitting front and center there. It just kind of depends on the track. But like Martinsville, you don't actually get a trophy. Like there was no trophy.

at Martinsville. You just get the clock. You just get the clock. And then hopefully, whoever goes in your house knows that that's a trophy. And not that you inherited it from your great grandmother. Right. So someone comes in and towards your home and you're like, here's all my NASCAR trophies. I've got 50 of these.

But then there's also like six clocks throughout the house. Yeah. They're also trophies. Yeah. And I've had to spread them out quite a bit. I got, you know, probably, I don't know, maybe. 15% of trophies at my office now at 2311 and I've got, you know, probably 30, 40% somewhere in that range kind of near the bowling alley. And then I got some over by the basketball court. So it's,

it's spread out. And I got some stuff that's in the garage, right? So in like the clocks, they're spread out all over the place, you know, different people have them. But yeah, it's, it was really cool to see that in victory lane i loved it uh it was fantastic and certainly with three laughs to go unexpected yeah did you feel like you stole one back yes absolutely they all come back i deserve i deserve they don't all come back that's for sure um but you know 2019 to 2021 jared you lived at the with the pick crew we had so many issues and dominated races and just just couldn't close it out and had issues on pit road a lot of the time. And yeah, it certainly feels good to, you know, get one back for sure. Yeah, this is just, I guess, a group

that has meshed together well and is they're just talented on their own, right? Yep. Yeah, they're just Uber talented. And as things get closer and closer on the racetrack with the cars and the drivers and everything. It's just, you know, the small details is what makes the difference between winning and finishing second. And it's got to be cool for those guys because they were the talk all last week because Bozzy was here sat right where I am and went on and on about how good your pick crew was and Joel was the talk of the town. And then sure enough, they had, they had their moment for sure. And what was great about it is, is Chris Gale talked. about when that caution came out how excited they were that like yes we get a chance you know and so

there's just there's certain people that love the light and love the bright lights and and that group really shines when it seems like it really matters the most and just um i can't remember was it last year at richmond or was it two years ago where they they got me off pit road first I don't remember. I think we won Richmond last year the same way where we came in third out first. And so same group. I think we had one injury in the offseason with AJ. And so we have a new guy in there and he's doing fantastic and just really the whole group.

I mean, I can just tell. Like it takes about three seconds of the pit stop going on for me to tell that, you know, this is going to be. heater. But I asked you yesterday after race, I said, were you surprised that these guys got you off pit road? Like when you came on pit road, were you expecting that, hey, I think I have a chance to come off here first and then steal this race? Yeah, I mean, I had seen that the 12 was having issues on pit road throughout the day. I mean, I thought that truthfully he had the best car. It's hard to say considering only one blood, very few compared to the 24.

But I think the 24 leading, although that whole race, it wasn't fake news, but it was like, yeah, just put them behind someone. Let's see what happens, right? And you could just see that the 12 was really able to make passes that others, you know, couldn't. And so I thought he had the best car. And he never had the track position because it seemed like he would lose spots on pit road. and certainly that was a hindrance for that team

and it was ultimately kind of a deciding factor there. Bozzi tweeted that the difference on the tire change in the last stop between your crew and Byron's crew was just 0.10th, 0.15 seconds. But I came in ahead of him. Right, right. So, but he also has the first pit stall. Correct. There you go.

I was just going to ask you if you, like, how does that net out? You know, like what's a bigger fan? So usually the number of, one pit stall. Let's try to make it pretty easy for the listeners here. The number one pit stall, generally speaking, is worth, let's say, between three-tenths and five-tenths of a second. It depends on how close the pit-out camera is to the number one pit stall. Now, NASCAR has tried to, and they did it at Phoenix here recently over the last year or so, you know, because the number one

pit stall had such an advantage. They said, okay, we're not going to make it to where whoever qualified files down the pole has that big of an advantage. So they moved the pit outline to 100 feet away or whatever it might be. So at Darlington, it's still pretty close to the number one stall, but it's not right there on the exit of it. Is it that yellow line? Yeah, it should be yellow line. Yeah, it should be the yellow line. Um, so I would say at Darlington, maybe it's three-tenths of time altogether. And that's if, you know, if he gets out of his pit box just right, it'll be about three-tenths quicker.

So the reason it's quicker, because, you know, we're all traveling the same distance on pit road, if you think about it, is that he's able to accelerate out and be at pit exit before he even gets up to speed. So he's running less rolling time on pit lane, if that makes any sense, versus, you know, cars that are back of that, that camera. So you just get like a heads. It's, I mean, three-tenths, you know, does that usually get you a spot? Not usually, but it's close.

I mean, it's almost a spot, I would say. You know, usually, you know, one second of time, I don't know, it's usually about two and a half spot. So, yeah, it might be one spot or so. worth of time. But again, he wasn't controlling the race at that point. We had just, us and the 12, it just passed him. It took him a while to get around the 20. And so we, you know, the race off, it was going to be tough for Byron to come out with the lead coming in forth. I think there was just too much space there. Are all spots on pit road besides that number one pit box created equal

for the most part? No, they're not. You know, but it would be, hard for me not to give away trade secrets if, you know, if, if, if I went into it deeper. But no, they're not all equal. There's definitely a lot of things that teams look at when they're choosing their pit stall. Obviously, the first ones to go usually after qualifying, you know, you pick in order of where you qualify. So the first ones usually to go is ones with opening outs because you think as a race team, well, I'm going to control my opening in because I'm going to outrun everyone.

So I'll have an opening in and out where you never want to get boxed in where you're running really great, but you got a car pulling in behind you and then boxing you in. And actually, I boxed in Ross, one of those pit stops because I didn't go deep enough in my stall. I think you probably hear on the radio, I was like, you know, what can I do not to box the one in there? And he's like, yeah, we had the sign at the normal spot. Probably should have went a little deeper.

Yeah. Tyler Redick's time on pit road during that last stop came in second was 33.394 seconds. So again, only... Is this total time or driver time? I don't know. What's the difference? Well, total time is yellow line to yellow line so that on pit entry, you start the stopwatch. And when you leave the... Leave pit lane, you stop the stopwatch.

That is total time on pit lane. now that it gets broken up into, you know, what my job is, and that is to roll as good as I can exit the pit stall as good as I can. I have a responsibility to the total pit time as well. So it's not just about, you know, if the total pit time, let's just make it up as 40 seconds at Darlington, the pit crew is responsible for eight and a half of that. You know what I mean? I'm responsible for the other part of it. And I can't leave. anything on the table, especially coming in third, I have to make sure that I don't leave anything on the table because it's going to be hard for my crew alone to make up two spots. They can do it,

but you know, it's going to have to be, you're going to have to have almost the perfect storm of they knock it out of the park and then maybe, you know, whoever came in the leader has a subpar pit stop. Then you got a chance. I mean, under a caution flight pit stop like this, how can you actually beat another driver on you getting in and out, right? Because you're bumper to bumper entering pit road. So isn't the guy up front just setting the pace? Like, you know. Yeah.

They are typically. But then, you know, there's certain parts of pit road where you feel like you can cheat the area more than others. And how aggressive do you want to be? So, you know, and it's also about angles, right? It's how much distance are you cutting off while. you're driving on pit road. So all those things really do play a factor. And it's to the equation that it's more than just the pit stop. But, you know, when you can have guys to knock out an 8-3 at the end, it's, yeah, they deserve all the praise. I guess before this pit stop, you were just resigned to

second or third place finish. Blaney was better. Yeah, I was, yeah, he definitely was better. We pitted the same lap. He was behind me for probably 20 laps of that run or so maybe 25. And then in the long run, he just was superior to what I was. So he got around me past those other guys with ease and looked like he was setting sail for a win there. But yeah, we were resigned to third. I thought that was still out kicking the coverage of what we had for a race car. I thought we still didn't have the speed that I was necessarily looking for at that track,

didn't have the handling we needed. But it's good to win these that you feel like you're off and still are able to stay in the game. How much math goes into strategy decisions at this track, especially for Blaney, because it always just feels like the cars who run long and then have the fresher tires at the end, always catch the leader with two or three to go. Yeah, it's a risk, though. And we talked about this a few weeks ago, is that by the numbers, yes, it is better. But you expose yourself for such a long part of that run, because if a caution falls at all,

before the end of the race, you didn't have all the time that you needed to get back to your original position. right so you know that's that's that's that's the negative part of it and and if you look at the 45 i guess they took the opposite strategy right is that screw it i'm going to pit early and and what that strategy does it puts you out in the lead and it puts you in the lead for a long time so any caution that comes out you know we're all pitting again boom he pits from the lead he's got a great shot of fenshing this thing off so it's everyone plays the strategy to what they think they need to contend for the win, and that's different for everyone based off of your car speed. Hey, this is Dale Jr.

And for the latest actions detrimental gear, go to shop.durdymomedia.com. We've got plenty of options for you. We're adding new stuff all the time. That's shop.dirtymomomedia.com. Right. You're picking a strategy that's going to net you the win if it goes right. If it goes as you are predicting, maybe the 45 team was predicting. there be a caution before the end. And so they're like, okay, let's just pit short, get the lead.

And when the caution comes, those guys that went long are going to be further back. They're not going to, you know, they're going to be fourth, fifth, six, wherever they're going to be. We just jump them. And now it's our race to lose. Are they thinking about that, though? Or are they picking a strategy that gets them in front of the 24 at the time? It could be both. It definitely could be both. I mean, you certainly, if you pit early, there's a couple things there. Yes, you're looking to jump in front of the cars in front of you to then control the race. You're able to set the pace.

You're putting the leader in dirty air or whoever you just passed. But beyond that, it's just the distance that you gain in that short amount of time that it takes us and the 12th just takes the entire run to get it all back. And so, you know, it worked out well for us at, you know, if you look at Homestead and now here, but it worked out well because the caution didn't come out. If the caution comes out, that, that strategy was, it was going to be bad. It would have been, it would have knocked me and the 12 out of the race. So, yeah, you're just, you're really crossing your fingers hoping to, that no caution comes. Are teams like yourself and Blaney's team who are deploying this, this long run, strategy. Are you looking at the time saying, okay, we're X amount of seconds back right now.

If we come out now and we have 50 laps to go, on average, we're going to run 0.5 seconds faster. And then on lap 5, if everything goes right, we will then pass the leader. Yeah, yeah. They have math that goes into it that would show when, theoretically, when the paths would cross. But again, I mean, it's really, hard to predict where the traffic is going to be and is there going to be a two-wide battle in front of you for a few laps and do you get through the traffic as clean is what you were expecting.

All those things play a huge factor in it, which is why you're still kind of putting your finger in there, kind of fudging it, trying to guess on what's the right way to do it. But, you know, they kind of go off of, okay, here's what we think we're going to do. Here's where we think we're going to gain. here's where we'll lose and we think that the reward is kind of worth it. You know, the risk is worth it. Before this Greenfly pit cycle, William Byron had a multi-second lead on Tyler Redick. And then we saw once they all netted out that Byron wasn't able to get around Bell to even get close to Redick.

How does he or how does that team lose that multi-second advantage just with the discrepancy of a few laps of pit stops? Yeah. So what happens is the tire fall off from where you, um, Before Byron Pitt, he was probably running, let's just say, 32 second lap times. Okay. When Christopher Bell, who is maybe a couple second, what was he probably four seconds behind? Yeah. I don't know.

I told him he had to get off the pot because he was holding me up at that point. I was like, come on, you got to move. Like, you're holding both of us up here. Gail says, what do you need out of the car? I need the 20 to get off the pot. Exactly. That's what I said. So at that time, so all he has to do is pit two laps before the 24 and it jumps him in front of him.

So if he's, let's say he's four and a half seconds back, the gain of new tires is going to be two seconds plus. So at that time, the crew chief of the 20 is thinking, okay, if I'm going to pit him a little earlier than the 24, hopefully it's two laps earlier than the 24 chooses to pit, that way, you know, I'm going to be in front of him. And then hopefully Christopher can do a good job of holding him off until the tires sort of equalize, which you did. And, you know, Darlington is one of those tracks that is just, you can't hide. And I heard, you know, a lot of the media members talk about, man, it's just there was not much passing and whatnot. And yeah, it's getting tougher and tougher because the cars are just so equal.

and you know we can only work in this little box of this Lego car that we have to put together right and it's you can only put it together so many ways and eventually people figure out the correct way to put it together and then everyone runs close to the same time and then it comes down to pick crew strategy driver you know driver's still the biggest factor in your position there's no question about that but um it all those things is what you know combined put together equals your result on any given Sunday. But it's, yeah, it's the strategy, it kind of, the 20 probably was reacting to trying to not get jumped by the 45 because he was extra early.

And so everyone's reacting to everyone to, hey, I don't want to get overtaken here. But then, you have, you know, the 11 and the 12 there that we said, okay, we don't care where we come out. you know, we're not trying to defend. We know we're going to go backwards for a little while. We're just banking on this thing going green the whole way. And then, you know, by the math, it should be faster in the end. So if you're the leader, but I would have never got to the 45. So think about this. Me and the 12 came together. We were close together when we pitted. The 12 was good enough to get there. I would have never got to the 45. So the 45 strategy,

you can't say this 45 strategy was wrong because he gained positions, right? He was fourth or fifth or something when he decided to pit on that last sequence. Yeah, because I was third. And so he jumped in front of everyone and was looking like he was going to win the race until the very end. So if you're the leader, you're not necessarily picking your own strategy. Yeah, that's the tough spot that the 24 car is in, is that he has to react. Now, he doesn't have to, but he's going to lose control the race if he doesn't react to what other teams are doing because he doesn't, he's been in control of the entire race. He doesn't want to lose that control. And especially it looked like at the end of stage two when he caught the back of the pack, he had a really difficult time passing them, passing the lap cars, which me and Joey at that time caught him pretty quick. So he's trying to do everything he can not to lose the lead. And so he has to react to those that have already pitted. So that's where the 24 ultimately lost this. Yeah,

they just, it was probably one lap too late. But I mean, at that time, they're probably thinking, hey, with a couple lap fresher tires, I should be able to overtake these guys easier. But it, you know, he just hadn't, wasn't in traffic that much all day. Yeah, you saw track position was, was key in this race. And honestly, it wasn't what we typically see at a darling, I feel like you usually go to Darlington, you're always prepped for one of the best races of the season. And this ultimately wasn't that. Yeah. And it's just, we're going to see this at all the tracks because, again, we're now into our, is this our, 22.

So this is our fourth year with next gen, right? It's, again, there's, the field is just getting closer, you know, because there's no, there's no tricks or gadgets that we can, you know, have on a race car. really anymore, right? And so people have figured out how to set them up. And, you know, I mean, all the small things that the crew chief used to be able to do, you can't really do anymore. So it just migrates us all to the same. And again, we, as drivers, we can see what each other are doing.

So that makes us the same. And this is just going to be something that we fight going forward. And it's going to get worse. It's not going to get better because the field's going to continue. continue to just get tighter and tighter. Yeah, but I'm looking at Jeff's, Jeff Gluck's was a good race pole. And both 2024 Darlington's were above 90%. It's like how can you get that much of a change in teams getting closer and using that

as the reasoning for the race that we saw your say when it's only been six months? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I try to, it's tough to say why. Because, I mean, last was it spring? or fall, no spring. You know, had the whole, you know, the busher and Reddick got into each other. Kazowski wins.

It was, you know, that was an exciting moment. And then I don't remember what happened in the fall, but I don't know. Darlington, we still had a change of the lead with three or four to go. Like, we didn't have before lead changes all day long. And that was one of them. was with three to four to go. So I just, I don't know what, what we really expect. I mean,

that's, that's, that's, that's, that's about as good as it's going to get it, Darlington. You know, it's not going to be like the Xfinity car where, you know, the main difference and I'm regurgitating facts, but we have a lot of new listeners that tune in each week is like, the difference in Xfinity in Cup is that the leader in, in Cup has the advantage. He has the clean air, he can dictate where he places the dirty air on the car behind him. In Xfinity, the second place car can manipulate the first place car. All he has to do is drive up right to the rear bumper and it takes all the air off that Xfinity car. And next thing you know, the leader is slipping and sliding around, which is why you see, we've seen some incredible Xfinity races there

over the years because the second place car is in control, not the first place car. And that's the difference in cup racing versus infinity. How did you feel once you lost track position earlier in the horrible? It was bad. I went from, you know, I only ran the first three laps, obviously in the top four there. But, you know, we made the decision to pit. We thought that others, you know, most of the field was going to pit. We didn't want to be one of the last cars that didn't pit with having new tires right behind us. It was just going to be a bad equation for us. So we pitted. We went back to like 20th, and yeah, it just, it was not good back there and not good at all. I think we were able to claw our way somewhere near the top 10,

but even with fresher tires, it was a bear. Yeah, is it possible that just the 24 car was better than everyone for the start of this race? That I think he leads the laps and there's action going on, you know, behind him. But because he's leading, it makes it seem like it's. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, that probably was some of it. You know, do the fans love seeing one person lead the first three-quarters of the race? Probably not.

And so, and I think that they'll take a sentiment and they'll run with it as well. And so, again, to me, it was better than a 50-50 because you had a lead change with Reddick and Blaney there inside three to go or four to go. So that's, that's, you got to set your expectations for each track. It's, you know, and understand that this is one, this is one of those mile and a half tracks on NASCAR circuit where we can't get away from each other. The track is too narrow. And I've said this since the beginning of next year. Next gen will race great where you have multiple lanes where cars can completely escape the air of the car in front of them. The narrower of the track, the, the worst it's going to be.

Does it take away also the difference in driver skill here? Because like would you agree at Darlington there's more of a, I don't know, a difference in like your skill and the guy who's the least good at running Darlington? Yeah, I mean, I think that that's closed up over time. But yeah, I think the driver can make a bigger difference. and it's I mentioned it in the media center that this race was very similar to Martinsville in the sense of like the tires fell off and they fell off a very good amount but they were really about to fall off but that's when people pit or when a caution will come out so it just we never really got to that place where there was vast disparity between all the cars speed and so the runs should. aren't long enough for that to happen, or the tires last a little bit too long for that to happen. So it's just a tough equation, and you're not going to beat physics.

Kyle Larson spins out on lap four. He then goes to the garage. They work on his car for 160 laps or so. Comes back out, and then ultimately is the one who brings out the final caution, which affects the outcome of this race. So the new DVP policy affected the- Yes, it did. It did. It didn't. It won't be the last either. I mean, certainly, as long as guys are able to kind of repair wrecked race cars.

Now, it wasn't the case in Larson incident. But in the future, what will happen is you'll go to repair something and something will fall off and it'll cause a caution. And is that the game-changing caution of the race or not? you got to give the five team credit like they they worked really really hard to get that car back on the racetrack and and for multiple reasons one is that they wanted probably to work on well we need to analyze our car we got to come back here for the southern 500 and we didn't get enough laps to even realize is our car good or not and so you know they probably went through a bunch of changes. They probably had an opportunity there to go through reps of fixing the car.

So there was a lot of benefit beyond just points for the five car to be out there. Yeah, well, how much can you learn if your car is not up to competitive speed? Yeah, I don't know, and I haven't even looked at lap times to see, like, was he running competitive times or not? I guess as he probably was. The car, it looked like they did a good job repairing it. it looked like it didn't hit a lot of, you know, there wasn't a lot of wheel contact, so suspension damage. It was more cosmetic stuff. But we all know how sensitive kind of the underbodies of these cars are and the

front of the cars are. So was this car optimum for the day? No, definitely not. But any kind of information that they can squeeze out of that last 100 laps or whatever they got to run is beneficial for them. Do you send them a thank you text message or anything? I thanked him in front of the whole crowd. They didn't seem to like that.

No, no. Do you hear from Carl Edwards at all after this month? I did. I did. You know, he mentioned actually before the race that he's like, you know, don't go winning this race. You know, I don't have to do any backflips. And so I'm, I'm, it was super proud to, to represent Carl in that paint scheme. And certainly, you know, got to know them.

as teammates and certainly, you know, really a role model off the racetrack and, you know, listening to kind of his life experience. If you haven't checked out his interview on the Dale Jr. download, it's absolutely fantastic. Just kind of on his whole perspective of this thing and why he chose to step away. And I, for the longest time, was a big conspiracy theorist on why he left. I mean, I was certain that he was going back to four. forward. I mean, that's what I felt was happening, is that he just left to then sit out for a year. That way his contract expired and then boom, he's going to go back to Ford. But he had other

things in mind. And it's a great story to hear. And, you know, he certainly was not pleased with the end of, end of that last race that he was in and, you know, kind of how that all went down. And so he made the best choice for himself, his physical health, and his family. And it's just, it's really to be admired. On that Dale Jr. download episode, he said that you were the one driver that he wish he could have connected with a little better in his driving career. Yeah. You know, we'd have, we've had some communication after he has retired. And, you know, I certainly, you know, you just, you don't appreciate people until they're gone. And that's typically the way it works in the sport, right? Is that, you know, Jimmy's kind of still here, but like when he really truly hangs it up and stops and like, we're really 10 years from now, 15 years or now are going to be in awe of like

what this guy accomplished, right? And I think it's the same with Carl. It's just, Carl was so raw talented. I mean, he was able to drive cars that, I wasn't able to drive or Kyle Bush wasn't able to drive. Like he, he was always kind of on an island with his car setups and the things that he liked. And he could make that work. And it was, it was amazing to see.

And you just didn't, when you're in the moment and you're in the time, you just don't appreciate it like you do in retrospect years later down the road. It's because you guys just too competitive with each other in the moment. That's, I mean, that's part of it too, right? is that, again, I've said many times, rarely do I root for a teammate to win. And much less, you know, when, listen, when we had Kyle Bush, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, his teammates, I mean, it was, I was murderers row. And every week, it was like, who's going to carry the torch this week? And it was tough, tough competition. Yeah, you guys are good, and you're

racing me, and I don't want to get too close to him. That's right. That's right. I know you're already asked about it this weekend in the media center. But what is your take on throwback weekend? I mean, I hear both sides of the argument. I think it is becoming, it's tough to keep the enthusiasm with it. And I think it has lost enthusiasm. I hear the other arguments that, hey, it's not really necessarily always, it's not about the paint schemes. Even though that's typically what this was founded on was, hey, we're going to have a retro paint scheme. But again, the world has changed. And, you know, it's, it, we don't have sponsors in our sport now that are on these cars for 20-some races. I think the, the teardown did a good job of pinpointing this.

When you've got sponsors on the car for three, four races, you know, they're not going to give up one of their races to change their logo, change their colors, change their brand. Like, that's, you're not, not giving them value doing that. And so, um, when it's a sponsor-driven sport, sponsors are going to drive what you see. And so that's just the, that's the model that we've got and we've got to, you know, we just have to accept it. Have you ever been in those conversations with sponsors, whether there's an owner as a driver where they're like, I haven't. No, I haven't personally. I've always, I've been with sport clips on, on throwback weekend for a long, long time now. And they've always kind of, you know, here's what we're

thinking. Is there a certain paint scheme you have? in mind. And so I'll help them with that process. And then like this year, they're like, okay, we're thinking of Carl Edwards throwback. What do you think of these options? And I was like, okay, I like this one. And so that's kind of how this one worked. And I was, I thought it was great. Yeah. I mean, sport clubs always gets their money back or money, money's worth in this race with you. And it makes great sense for them because primarily we've run red, black and white cars, which that doesn't change, that doesn't need to change, it doesn't change for them their look, right? You know, their logo stays the same. We're just, you know, they're just throwing it on a different

background. Yeah. And I was asking some of the JGR team members about how, you know, they throw it back to Carl Edwards and then Carl's there. Like, they get value out of that too because Carl had a relationship with some eclipse. So it's like an all-encompassing. Yeah. Yeah. We were one of the unique teams it was able to kind of piece it together where it all made sense and it worked but that's really really hard to do anything else on on darlington in your mind that stuck out um not really um i was really surprised to not see a a caution was that kazowski that had spun he did and then the the debris that came off of his car because he he got it back together and was making his way to pit road, but the wheel hub or whatever that came off the car. The nut came off?

Yeah, is what? And that was the debris, I'm guessing? Okay, okay. Yeah, because that was right in the middle of a pit sequence, which that's essentially what flipped the field upside down, right? It went from where I was running in the teens to now I'm in the top five. I was surprised they didn't throw the caution when he spun out. Usually a spin out is, it's always been a caution at Darlington. but I understand this the sensitivity of it was is that NASCAR was trying not to get involved and throwing an ill time caution

that was going to turn the field upside down but they couldn't ignore the lug nut that was on the track I guess I mean if you run over that it's not only is it going to damage someone's car I mean that thing could get kicked up anywhere yeah that's what it seemed watching the replay you watched the race back it seems like

they're giving Brad a chance to you know catch it And if he does, then we don't have to completely mess up the field during this pit cycle. Which, I mean, he did hang on to it. Yeah. Yeah. He did. And limped it around for a while.

But again, if there's debris on the track, they can't really ignore that. And they didn't. So Josh Berry, I thought he was really strong. He spun off a turn two. Back to the Larson thing. There's a big bump. I don't know if it was directly the reason Larson spun early in the race, but we fought it all weekend.

There was actually on NASCAR Social from practice where when I hit the bump, I mean, it really sent my car way up in the air. That bump has gotten more and more aggressive over time. I don't know if it's Kyle Bush. I talked to him before the race. He thinks that it's the new pavement in turn to sinking, and then the straightaway is staying level. so it's creating this big ramp off of turn two.

I don't know if they can trim that down a little bit. That would be great if they did. But it's, I don't know if that's what Larson hit or he just got loose, but it looked like he was running pretty low. So, you know, the lower you are typically, the less that bump is a factor. So I'm not really sure.

But then, you know, I don't know with Josh Berry, did he have contact or did he just lose it? We got the replay here. Oh, him and the 45 got together. Yeah, 45 not clear. Yeah, and it said, I saw where Redick said, I thought he was giving me the spot. So what that, let me try to get you in the driver's minds here.

We typically have a decision to make in the middle of one and two. When you get somebody beside you, you have a decision to make. And I had to make a tough one a couple times. There were guys on the inside of me and I'm like, oh, this is a terrible place for me to lift. It's not that I'm not giving you the position, but if I lift here, then I'm going to have a terrible run off a turn two, and then someone else is going to get by me. I think Chase Selly was one of them where it was like, he kept getting to the inside of me, but it was like the worst time when I had a bunch of cars right behind him that

were I couldn't really just flat out give him the spot or else I was going to lose three spots. So I had to fight, fight, fight, to keep them back there. And actually the caution came out and I ended up staying in front of them. But so when you go through turns one and two, there's so much speed off of turn two that you can make a decision if you're the outside guy or the inside. Either if you're passing on the inside, typically you're keeping the gas down and you're hoping the person on the outside just checks up and gives you the space because you need. all the room that you can get off of turn two. You've got to use all that room. But if the person on the outside doesn't want to really give you the spot and needs to stay side by side with you like I had to do with Chase,

what that does is it makes it a very tight moment off a turn two where, man, everyone has to hold a steady wheel or else they're going to get into each other or the top person is going to get squeezed in the wall. and it looked like here that from Tyler Redick's comment saying that I thought he was giving me the spot, I think what he assumed is that 21 was backing out and the 21 wasn't backing out. He was giving him the spot, but he wasn't giving him all clear. Why would you ever give the guy on the inside of the spot? He's trying to pass you. If he doesn't complete the pass, why should you? Yeah, because Darlington is one of those tracks where you need to race lap time and not

your competitors. And if the 45 is passing him, say he's got newer tires, you're just hoarding yourself up by holding him up. You know, him running right on your rear bumper through the corners and side drafting him down the straightaways, that is slowing you down. You're just trying to run the best lap time you can all the time. And so there's instances where it makes sense to give up a spot to run a faster speed. So you just, you're, so you're worried about hanging on to your tire,

is that I'm guessing. Yes. Because the more consistent your lap time is. Interesting. Yep. Seems like the guy on the inside is getting greedy trying to pass the, past the guy on the outside. If they don't get it, then they should be the one to let up.

Darlington has been a, you know, give and take racetrack for decades and decades. And it's a lot less give than what it used to be back in the day. of course, you know, when he had fast cars and slow cars, like you would, people would, you know, give up the spot much easier than what they do now, knowing that, you know, try how big track position is. Um, um, but it's always been that way. It is always been a track where, you know, you've got to just race lap time, um, and, and not get yourself in trouble. And, and racing side by side off turn two is a recipe for trouble. When it, I want to go back to that. that bump, 30, how many cars are in the field, went over that bump 300 plus times and only one car

got loose and wrecked off it. What's the difference between that one time that Kyle went over it and everyone else who goes over it? Yeah, I mentioned Kyle was pretty low, so I don't know that the bump really did it to him, but let's just pretend, let's pretend that it did. What happens is then it will bottom out the back of the car and it essentially knocks the back. back of the car off the racetrack. Well, when you take the rear tires off the racetrack, or maybe you, you know, hit the bump stops too hard in the back, it's just, you know, the rate that the tires get at that moment of hitting that, it's just, it's uncontrollable. I mean, it was, it was a handful, really, for a lot of guys. I saw it all during the race,

all during practice. I mean, I had it as well. It was, it's tough. Do you prep, are you prepping for that? It's part of the equation. It certainly is part of the equation. It certainly is part of the equation of how you want to set up your car and, um, and that's something that we do each and every week. We're, we're balancing, you know,

ride quality versus, you know, getting the car is, you know, in an optimum aerodynamic position. But like when you're driving down the highway and you see a bump coming up and you're just like, maybe paid a little more attention than you were the previous five seconds.

I mean, I bet you I had a lot of lifting moments right before that bump. Just I'm trying not to, because I know my rear wheels are about to come off the ground. Uh, I'm trying not to, you know, and then when it lands, then I just get all out of sorts.

So I'm just trying to sell the car down as much as I can. Bristol next weekend. Can you go three in a row? Hey, I was listening to that clip. Is anyone else on this podcast, maybe you mentioned in the comments. Is Fox's audio up for anyone else? Like, I notice I have,

in my living room and in my bus, multiple speakers, right? I have a TV and then I have not really surround sound but just like speakers, a left and a right. But the audio during our races only comes out of the right speaker.

Like, do they have, it's like it's on, it's like it's on analog. Analog, yeah, analog radio. I don't know. I've noticed it for a few weeks that they've got something going on with their audio that it's just not like all other audio

coming through Fox or any other station for that matter. So I don't know what's going on. When's the next broadcast provider kick in? Coke 600 Prime? Yeah. That's summer stretch. I think it's 600. That's right.

Okay. So we're really only a handful of weeks out from that at this point. Yeah, we're a month and a half. Yeah. That's right when the babies do. Yeah. You pick a name yet? getting close you picked a logo though no no you got to have a name um uh Bristol yeah I mean

man I wish we had the same kind of Bristol that we had last spring but it's that's not going to happen you know that was a interesting tire conservation a billion lead changes a billion passes, cars running, you know, 60 miles an hour on the apron and on the racetrack. We're not going to see that. So temporary expectations, folks, I think we're going to see very similar to what we had in the fall. Same tire. Nothing's really changed.

I think the field's going to be really close. It's going to be track position. And can you qualify well? Can you maneuver? That's one of the big factors at Bristol is can you move around? and get your car to run just as fast on the bottom as you can on the top. That's been key there over the years. Last handful of Bristol races, last five here, top 10.

So while we might not see what we saw last spring, I assume that we're going to see a very good 11 car. I hope so. I certainly hope so. We're running pretty good right now. still have some room to improve really on the mile and a half is what's head scratching to me is like Vegas was a weird one where like all the JGR cars remember they were all we were all in the back at Vegas remember that and then at one point in Darlington we were all in the back there

and it's not like we someone just placed us there like we raced our way back there and so yeah we got to get a little bit better for sure but short-tracking stuff's been money for so far this year. Well, that's where you're going. So are you not as confident in the team and where they are this season as, you know, what it looks like on paper? I am because we're still running well, even though, like, the balance hasn't been right on. Now, Martinsville, the balance was, like, right on.

But, yeah, I still think while JGR has won five of the eight races, I think we've been the best car or the best team like two of those. So, and circumstances came into play, you know, to get us the other wins. And so I still don't know that we're all just pounding our chest right now saying, you know, we're the best, we're the best because I, you know, there's, there's heavy competition out there that I think are a little faster right in this small moment. Yeah, I guess so what you're saying is the, Being a top five car is like the bar for JGR.

You guys are trying to be the best car. That's right. Yeah, I mean, you want to be the one dominating the race. And I just, that hasn't happened a ton so far this year. But it's, you know, we're all learning. And it's, I can only speak for the 11 car, but we're, we're learning each other. We're figuring out, you know, what each other like on the, on the racetrack. And, you know, I think he's doing a great job.

with strategy. So it's, it's, you know, it's a process. And, and we're still early in the season. I've always, I've said that you got to get 10 races in. And I guess we're going to run, what, nine, or 10 before the break, right? Or nine. Is it Bristol then off? Bristol then off. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to have nine, then a break. So really after that ninth race, you're probably going to get a good indication of where do you really stack up on all these types of racetracks and where do we need to improve for the summer? How do you keep yourself or the team from from falling off. You know, the 11 team won three races in the first three months of last season. You got to keep wanting it. I mean, you just, you go to work just like you ran 20th.

Yeah, I'm going to do the same things this week than if I struggled, you know, and so it's just continuing to put the work in to getting better. And that's, that's the tail that we keep chasing. Your spotter, Chris Lambert, went two for two this weekend. Brandon Jones won the Xennares. Yeah, that was exciting for him. I heard him on the radio during the broadcast. I was like, oh, Lambert's on the 20 this year. But yeah, that was actually, dare I say, a dominant performance by Brandon Jones? I mean, Christopher Bell was good. He really was. But even still, I thought from the very jump of the race, Brandon Jones stayed right there with him. And when Brandon Jones got out front, like, I didn't see where there was really a whole lot of competition.

competition against them. Now, the others had lost some track positions through some other things, but still great win by Brandon Jones. It's not his first win at Darlington. It seems like this is a track that he's really latched on to. First win for Sam McCauley, his crew chief, who was my race engineer for many, many years on the 11 car. So great for him to get a win with that 20 team. And yeah, a great suite for JGR. Yeah, Toyota. Toyota's were good all weekend, at least when it comes to the results. Yep. I got a review here from Richie.

Richie says, Denny gives great insight on the sport and his podcast has earned my respect, five stars on the pod, but I'll still give double ones on the track. Plenty of double ones this past weekend in Darlington. And, you know, I was thinking about it. And I had an interview with Shannon Spake earlier this morning. I was like, you know, I bet Kyle Bush. wishes he got all the boosts that he used to get. You know, when you think about it, he used to get a lot, but he was winning a lot, too.

And so it's great. Bring those double ones. I'll keep harassing you as a driver. But appreciate you all. Remember, you get your actions detrimental merch. You can shop at shop. Dot dirtymo Media.com. and get your actions detrimental merch.

I wear my hoodie all the time. Got anything playing for this week? Anything, anything going on? Busy week. I guess we're going to have another celebration somewhere. Got the national championship tonight. Houston, Florida, you got any dog in that fight? Care?

Not really. Yeah, I'm the same way. I have Florida winning it, so I only care for that, but I can't win my bracket. with my friends. So it's like, I guess maybe rooting for Houston because you would think they're an underdog school.

But, you know, they're not an underdog school. There's not like they're, but they're not one of the big ones, right? And so probably will be rooting for Houston just for that reason. All right. Well, we'll see you guys after Bristol. See you next week.