Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Daytona 500: This Sucks. I Want To Race

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Nick Sanchez get his first Truck Series win. Selfish driving at the end of the ARCA race. Xfinity once again has a great race. NASCAR made the wrong call punishing Riley Herbst. The Rock talks about Denny being the villain. Latest update on charter agreement and the owners retaining Jeffery Kessler.Unfortunately the Daytona 500 became a fuel saving race right at the start. Why is this happening and how can NASCAR fix it?Denny explains why his late pit was only with Kyle Busch and not the Toyotas.Who caused the big one?Ross Chastain's late moved caused one final wreck. Austin Cindric vs Corey Lajoie. Plus, did NASCAR make the right call with the caution?And, what to expect as they head to Atlanta next weekend for the first time instead of heading out west.YouTube: 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.

I got on the radio to Chris, I'm like, this is, this sucks. Like, I want to race. I want to race. I want to battle. I want to shoot through the middle. I want to go to the bottom and, but I couldn't because the field's jammed up. Everyone's trying to just save gas. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media.

Hey guys, welcome to actions detrimental post-Datona 500 weekend, week, marathon week, for sure. Yes. What was that song? I ain't seen the sunshine in three damn days. Isn't that a song? Yeah, yeah, something like that. I ain't seen it. Yeah, I feel like I came out of the hibernation from the bus on Monday.

And I'm like, I saw the sunshine. I just looked up and just stared at it for a little bit. Kid Rock. I found you a picture today. Sat down and cried today. I don't know something like that. But I'm singing for me. Sing it for me.

baby keep it going jared something like that oh you forgot the hook what do you mean throw your picture away something something something it's him and shirle crow and ain't seen the sunshine three-dame days oh yeah yeah yeah yeah okay okay all right little action detrimental karaoke uh from jared jared welcome uh you you you got home very very late the the spoils of victory for jared allen i mean this guy's got so many horses in the race. Well, not really. I mean, yes, but no.

I'm really, this season, I mean, I'm really only associated with a handful of drivers. He's got better luck than Rick Hendrik to win. I know, you do. For what it's worth, I am like, three for six in Daytona five minutes. If you had your own cup team, you win 75% of the races. Should hire me.

Hire me to be your upper level. decision maker. So why did you get home so late? Well, I stayed and was shooting some content with William Byron. William Byron. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll get into William and his big win this week in the Daytona 500.

But just starting off the week, we had, you know, a couple of winners. First time winner in the truck series, Nick Sanchez. Great job by him. That was time coming. That was due. He had really, even in his rookie, I think last year was his rookie year, but he sat on a bunch of polls and he had speed. That kid's really got a lot of speed like what we're seeing out of Nick. He's got a bright future ahead of him and he'll be on kind of the next list.

You always see these lists coming out from journalists on new prospects coming in. were the top 20 prospects coming in for the Cup series over the next 10 years or so. Nick Sanchez surely will be on that list from what I've seen. He's been successful at each ranking that he's been in. And that's the keys that you look for as a team owner is someone that continues to win and run up front in every level you throw at him. So shout out to him. I thought the truck race was very good.

It was, you know, it was a lot of race. wrecks though. I saw some stats on the truck series and a lot of people were kind of exhausted with all the wrecks that happened in the truck series. A record for the race, by the way. Yeah. It's just that's what you're going to get with this type of aerodynamic package. The trucks, in my opinion, are very similar to the cup cars and they have a ton of drag. So they punch a huge hole in the air. which then makes, you know, sucking up and pushing really, really easy. And then it just tightens the field and makes for rec. So that's just part of it.

I guess it's probably two races in a row that where fans have been like, man, it seems like we're always under caution in the truck series. And I think the number last year was like 30% of their races were run under caution. that could get tidied up a little bit for sure. But yeah, I mean, we were just kind of happy to see some racing. That happened on Friday night, right? Before the rain came out. Yeah.

And then NASCAR made a pivot on the Arka race, decided to run it instead of Saturday when they knew it was going to be a complete wash out, decided to run it after the truck, or after the truck race. So, I saw some, I didn't get too much in the weeds of the Arca race, but did he tell, does anyone know, so on the, he said he was going to do one thing on the restart and did another with his teammate. I guess, yeah, I saw where he said, yeah, let's do the teammate restart, which is, okay, you're going to let me in.

And then he's just like, all right, I'll do it. And then he just, he didn't. And then post race, I think he said something about, yeah, well, yeah, I just try to do what I can for myself. It worked out, right? It's easier to apologize later when you win the race than if he wasn't to win the race and then it didn't work out. It's certainly a way to think, you know, who am I to live in that glass house, right? I'm the one who's been saying all weekend. I was going to race for myself.

But you said that ahead of time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't like I threw the wool over anyone's eyes. You know, just making it apparent. And, you know, there's always reasons for that, right? Is I want the competition to know that, you know, don't be afraid to pull up in front of me or don't be afraid to get behind me because I'll work with you just like I work with my teammates.

Yeah. So there's always kind of a rhyme or reason behind it. But, but yeah, let's move on from that to, then go into the Xfinity race. Man, what a great race. What a great, I don't know if it's a horsepower aerodynamic package, whatever it is that is the mixture of the Xfinity series. It really just races well.

I mean, I watched two, three wide, but I mean, not just, it's not just about being too wide or three wide. These guys were like shuffling positions, like really shuffling positions, not just, I mean, the cup race and we'll get into it but that was a 175 mile per hour pace lap that's all it was is a pace lap nobody was wanting to pass anyone and you couldn't pass anyone but the exfinity race it was uh it's really got it figured out in the sense of you know the balance between horsepower and and uh down force and all that stuff the tire whatever it might be uh so i was very entertained

with the Exfinity race. There were some very, you know, cars that stayed up front. You know, Riley Herps impressed me. How can you not be impressed with Austin Hill winning three Daytona races in a row? Is it February Daytona races or is that including, do they run in the summer?

No, it's got to be February because Algeyer won last year, right? Okay, so he's won the big Daytona race three times in a row. What did you make of? Riley Harps being penalized for the restart. I don't like that at all. He's got a point in the sense of like, NASCAR, I can't be in front of them.

I mean, everyone. So the guy. That was a traveling call when traveling happens all the time. Yeah. It just, that was tough to take Riley out of the race with a few laps to go on that. And again, but here's the problem, right? is that he's saying, no, no, no, I am doing what I'm supposed to.

He's supposed to control it. I lagged back to allow him to control it, but then I went when he went. But we had no data proof of any of it. So this is where, so technology needs to come into play. And they show us on TV that, hey, because we're all saying, oh, that's kind of, that's kind of bogus, right? It's not bogus. They obviously looked at something and deemed that, well, he jumped the start or whatever he did that they got him for.

But we had no confirmation of that. Like we have an instant replay in basketball when a foul is called to confirm, is it a foul or is it not? Is he inbound? Is he not? In racing, we just rely on, well, that's the call. And we have no explanation of why. We need an explanation of why because I, I would have liked to have seen,

okay, did he hit the gas early before? Who is, who is it? Do you know? I forget, was it awesome? Me neither. It doesn't matter.

Whoever it was, it might have been Jordan Anderson. Might have been Jordan Anderson. Shout to him, though. Great job. Man, he's such a grinder in this sport

and for him to get a great finish for his team. Fantastic job for Jordan. But back to the Riley Herps, we need more explanation because while you're just telling us it's a violation is great, we need replays to show

is that the right call or not because this is a ball and strike call that I would like confirmation whether it was a ball or not. Does the broadcast team or the booth have access to that data immediately? I don't think so. I don't think so.

I mean, yeah, it's, we've got all kinds of different, you know, uses of technology that we could, we could use in those instances, but you just, I don't know, it's, it's where we kind of need to evolve our broadcast a little bit. Right. Even, even outside of using the data, you know, to show whether Riley laid back or not, like, that's interesting to show. to share with viewers where it's like this guy did this, right? Like look at his steering trace and you can explain right all that information. And you saw the booth who,

the booth was in Charlotte. You know, they weren't actually at the track. But you saw, you heard Michael Waltrip say when they played Riley Hurps' radio and he says, well damn, I'm giving him the rights that he earned. He's the leader. He should be ahead of me.

you know Michael said well he's he's got a point and he does right but we didn't have any confirmation one way or the other whether whether it was the right call or not I thought it was very questionable for sure I liked it to be who did a petri pick to win Travis he went out on limb and said Austin Hill I don't know what made him think of that one hey when you're right you're right well that's the thing it seems up being right but I'm like I know on yeah yeah I mean, Austin's, you can't certainly take away anything away from his ability to get the most out of everything. And certainly are on Super Speedways. He's got a way of keeping his car up front, even when it's damaged.

He knows away. How do you think that will eventually translate? I know he's run some cup races on Super Speedways. So how do you think that will eventually translate to his inevitable cup career eventually? I don't think it Yeah I don't think it It translates into any kind of Cup success by any means

I mean especially On Super Speedway specifically Okay well yeah because everyone is good And Cup On Super Speedways now I mean they are I mean there's Everyone's just

Everyone's good And there's just more data out there For drivers to look at and study And so I feel like the bulk of the Cup field is really really good When you look at the Exfinity field there's like a, you know, three or four that really know how to work the draft well. I mean, you could just see it in like how spread out they are and who can manufacture runs and whatnot.

And Austin Hill's experience just allows him to just kind of really abuse the Xenity field because they're just not as experienced as he is or, you know, of that capability on super speedways. So he's always going to be kind of a juggernaut on those types of racetracks. But if he goes to Cup, let's say he has an equal car. Well, he will have an equal car to everyone because everyone drives the same car. Yeah, it will be less pronounced how good he is because everyone is good in Cup. Right. Yeah.

He's just got the biggest bumper of anyone in that Expeditney series. Once he got the lead, it was like, okay, that's it. There's no way anyone's past Austin Hill. Yeah, I mean, what I like about what I see from him is that when he does lose the lead, he never goes back worse than about third or fourth. You know, so you're really good at, you know, keeping the lead and then keeping himself timing runs. He's really good at timing the end of the race, like, you know, making sure he's leading on the last

lap, you know, things like that. He just, he's really, really good at that. Are there any tricks that or abilities or just, I don't know, just things driving the car? that you feel like make you successful, that you watch Austin Hill and you're like, he's got that, I see that. Yeah, certainly. I would say so. It's a different world now than it used to be.

Next Gen. Racing is entirely different than what Gen 6 racing was. The Externity cars are racing like Gen 6 cars were. So there was a bubble. And we talk about this all the time that there was a bubble. Here's your NASCAR 101 for the week. It's what we call the bubble is that when a car comes up behind another car, it pushes the front car forward.

So in the next gen, there's not much of a bubble. And which means that the car from behind, actually, you have to make contact for you to really push that car forward. An Xfinity Series car and the previous Generation 6 cup car, all you had to do is get somewhat close. So get within a two, three foot kind of, and even the Xfinity cars looks like the bubble's like five foot. But once you get to that bubble, it pushes,

it's like a balloon that's not fully inflated. And when you push on it, it's now pushing the front bumper of the lead car. So that's why you see the big runs that you get in Xfinity without making contact. They don't have to make contact. They just use the bubble to push. So he races really, really well in that type of racing.

If he went to cup, it would be he'd have to relearn. In other words, the use of the bubble. You're just going to use your bumper to run into the person. That's how you get them going forward. So it's just very, very different, which is why we all run in a much tighter pack. It's also while we are able to run 30% throttle and be able to hang on in the Cup series in a draft, which is when we get into it,

part of the problem of what we saw on Monday. Happy to say mine today is Sunday. I know. God, dang it. Week's already gone. So it was interesting, before we move on to the Cup race, editing the video last week does on. your social about the story you're talking about being at the 2004 Daytona 500 when Dale Jr.

won. And that the last 10 laps of that race, because I was pulling clips from YouTube, there's really only four cars in the frame the entire time. Versus now, you know, it's always two by two. Whereas back then, you know, a single file. That's why, you know, old Daytona records just won't ever be broken, right? is because it's, you know, luck is more of a factor on super speedway race, super speedway racing now than it ever has been.

When I say luck, it's the not getting caught up and someone else's wreck. Back in the day, while there were big wrecks, you didn't see continuously see the same guys up front all the time by chance. It was that they use techniques to then keep that bubble and keep themselves up front. Nowadays, it's just we're all in this tight pack. So like I'm right I'm going around and it's 10 laps to go and I'm on the outside line probably the six car on the top line and I'm like we're going to wreck. I'm just I'm going to put myself up here against the wall to be my protector of like instead of me going up from the bottom and slamming the wall like I know I'm going to get hit. I'm just put myself up here against the wall that way it minimizes the damage of when I get caught in this wreck.

Oh so so you being in the top line at the end of this race last night wasn't necessarily. a strategy decision. Like there was part of it. It was part of the decision. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. decision, but this is just the safest place for me to be. Yeah. Impact wise. Yes. And obviously the closer you can be to the car in front of you, it allows the impact to not be as hard because you're already up against it. So, um, but if you look at who ended up getting through the big wreck, it's all the cars on

the bottom. It just happened to be because the, you know, the six goes down and then comes back up the track and that's everyone who was in the top line got in it where if you were in the middle you had a 50 50 shot if you were on the bottom it looked like you had like a 75% shot of missing it so um it's just a guessing game it really is you know it's going to happen but there's not much you can do about it got it so you knew it was coming oh 100% you could just tell there was no room left everyone was running into each other really hard um there was no room side to side we're three wide and so yeah you know it was going to happen. You just hope that you were able to drive straight through it. Some people were

and some people weren't. Let's go back to the start of this thing. It's supposed to run on Sunday. It gets rained out. I think NASCAR made a pretty early decision to move this one to Monday. You had the majority of your Sunday to do things if you wanted to. You said you were going to the beach. You went to the beach? I was being sarcastic. I went to Hammock Beach. for an appearance. I know. Oh, okay, you know, all right. Yeah, so it was wet.

So you just, you know, just like anybody else, say you're home on the weekend, it's pouring rain. You're, you're probably staying in that day. That's kind of what, what me and the fame had. So not a whole lot to speak about for sure. Yeah, you just watch more video and, you know, have maybe go to the hauler. Every now and then, you know, I don't really go into the garage that often, but, you know, it gives an opportunity for you to, you know,

cut it up with some of your guys here and there when not much is going on. It was good to see that it seemed like anyway that a majority of the fans stuck around for Monday. Yeah. It was. It really was. And, you know, they started coming in early. We saw around 12, 12, 30. The line into the fan zone was super long. And, you know, it was great to see how, full the stands were on Monday. I mean, you've got to think that a lot of these people traveled. Probably Dayton and 500 has the largest, I would guess, traveling crowd right, from outside the area.

I'm sure most of them still had to go to work on Tuesday, but for them to stick around, that was awesome to see. Did you meet the rock? I did. Yeah. You know, he had his media availability and kind of threw me a bone here and there. obviously it related to kind of what his role that now is in the WWE. So it was really cool to hear someone like him kind of bring up your name and he was aware that,

aware that you existed and kind of knows what your role is in the series. We have some new news on the charter agreement. Yeah, I mean, we have news or no news. I mean, I really need to leave all the comments and the details to the negotiating committee. I think as a media member, Jared and Travis, if you have questions, please go ahead. Let's first set it up that. Please go ahead and corner Curtis Polk, Jeff Gordon, Steve Newmark, or Dave Alpern. Ask them to your questions, but what do you got?

for those that are listening, the team owners all met, they extended an invite to NASCAR. NASCAR declined it. And then the team owners have, I don't know if itains the right word, but have consulted with Jeffrey Kessler, who has been called the Michael Jordan of lawyers for the sports industry as what a possible, you know, attorney to be used, which is, I think that, I think that was when I saw that, I was like, wow, this is a guy that helped NFL bring in free agency. he helped the United States women's soccer team get their money. He doesn't mess around.

I don't want to read off Curtis. He was part of the, also the players getting paid in NCAA. Correct. Curtis's quote, Curtis Polk, that is your business partner, Denny. We want to make a deal. We're looking for a fair deal. There is no give and take. We've been told this is all there is.

There's no flexibility. That is not a negotiation. Yeah, I mean, so what I hear Curtis saying there is that there's been no negotiation, right? I do know that the team owners met on Saturday. I was there. The invitation was extended to Jim Prince that was in town, but he declined that invitation.

So I think it's disappointing. Certainly I can't think of a league or an owner of a league or a commissioner that, would decline meeting with his team owners. That's very disappointing. And all I think the teams are wondering is, you know, you said no over and over and over to us. We're just looking for an explanation of why,

and we haven't got that why yet, other than it just is. I think the difference here is the commissioner works for the owners, where this is a little... Yeah, where we work for him. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't have anything else to say about it

other than, you know, there's a story to be told on the owner's parts. And, you know, obviously hiring Jeffrey is a big step for the owners. But I think a lot of it is just, you know, protection for the team owners. There, you know, obviously there's a lot of language and so much red tape when it comes to charter agreements and whatnot that you just got to make sure that you've got, you know, all the protection that you need because this is a big deal. Trudder Agreement's big deal to us. This has just been a roller coaster ride over the last however many years you've been dealing.

Where are you on the, you know, the optimism scale? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I hear Steve Phelps and I appreciate, you know, when he did the interview with Fox about, we're going to get a deal done. We're going to have a fair agreement to the teams. I appreciate his optimism. I'm not as optimistic as probably Steve is, but I don't know how much of that is what he believes is truth

and how much of it is, you know, what he believes versus just what kind of a narrative that is being trying to put out there. So awfully disappointing that we just can't, we can't get our feet out of the mud on this thing, but hopefully we get some traction here soon. Were you in the, if you can say this, were you in the room with Rick and Joan, all the owners? Was Michael there too? Yep.

Yeah, Michael attended. It was great to hear voices like his and Rick Hendrick and Roger Penske. All, you know, everyone's just kind of right there and hearing these guys that are, you know, very versed in business, right? Hearing their side and how they feel. And certainly I believe that all the teams are aligned in the sense of, they all feel the same way for sure race gets going we have a caution on on lap six it's like this is this is pretty rare to have one this early um but the six gets into the 42 hits the 21 and 77 a chain reaction um do you think that that changed the the racing right after that were people now a little

more cautious that you know what do you what do you make it as behind you yeah so well i poor Harrison Burton. I mean, this is the second time in three years where Brad was pushing someone or him and ended up wrecking him out. So it stinks for him. It both happened like very early in the race. So Harrison's just kind of an innocent bystander. It looked like the six just too aggressively, you know, ran into the 42 and it knocked the 42 into the six who then, you know, came down and took out the 77 with him. So yeah, it was unfortunate for sure. Uh, yeah, Brad's just really aggressive early and it's, you know, definitely took some guys out over these last few years. And it's just, it's unfortunate for sure for Harrison. He just didn't really get a shot at it. Uh, there was

some other guys. I think Austin Dylan got jammed up in it as well. There was a few others, but yeah, it's part of Speedway racing. And it was, you know, the tendency was starting to pick up, which I was so excited about because I couldn't figure it out, Jared. I knew that, you know, fuel mileage, yes, it's always been somewhat of a big deal, but over the last few years of NextGen racing on Super Speedways, it's been a dramatic deal. So with the field all compressed into a one and a half second group,

you can save enough gas to be the last car in line and then jump to the first car in line after a pit cycle. As long as you do a good job on entry of the pits, rolling down pit road, stopping, and then exiting pit road and then exiting with a group, you can flip-flop the field. We did it during the duels, right? I was in the back of the duels for the most time. Saved enough gas. And that allowed me to have a good pit stop. I did a good job on and off pit road, and that allowed us to then get to the front of the duel, right? So everyone's trying to do it, and then I realized that, holy shit,

these guys are doing it on lap two. I'm trying to push the, I think I was on the top line, and I'm pushing the shit out of whoever was in front of me. I think it was maybe Cindric or somebody. And I'm like, what the hell? Why aren't these guys going? Like, push the guy in front of you now.

Like I'm trying. So they're like, My message, yeah, when I'm trying to push someone, you know, mid-race, early race, whatever, that is me whispering in the competitor's ear in front of me. Go hit the guy in front of you now. Go push him. Like I'm trying to keep that line moving, right? So.

You're trying to send a message. Yeah, to like, hey, let's, we got to keep our line going here. We got to keep it going. But I just kept wondering, like, why am I running into him like so hard? in the sense of I'm pushing and balanced railway, and it feels like they're almost hitting the brakes. I'm like, what the hell? I'm like, is everyone saving gas right now?

Like right off the bat? Like, let's fight for a position. And then if we get single file, then let's go into fuel save mode. But are we really doing this two by two? And the field just getting slower and slower and slower. Now, for the fans at home, we run usually in a,

if everyone's running 100% in a pack at Daytona, the speeds will be in the low 46 second bracket. So 46 seconds to make a lap around there, which that equates to about 1995 miles per hour, 196. We're driving and I'm like, okay, they're clearly not wanting to go anywhere. So I kind of lay off and I start saving fuel like a, I guess everyone else is doing.

And we just keep slowing down. And eventually, no one wants to pass anyone because everyone's like, okay, well, I guess we're all going to do this together. We're all going to save fuel together because nobody wants to get, if you're up front and you choose to run hard to keep that position, you're running wide open. You probably got to pit two, three laps ahead of the guys that are in the back of the pack that are running half throttle. So they can not only go longer,

but have a shorter pit stop in time. And then they flip you and the next you know, you're at the back of the pack because you were at the front of the pack before using gas to stay there. So everyone, it seemed like, was content to just, I'm going to ride where I'm going to ride. We're just going to work this out once pit stops come.

And so we ended up slowing down to like mid-51 second lap times. 175 miles per hour. That is like two seconds slower than what one single car can run by itself. I couldn't believe it. It was a 175 mile per hour pace lap for lap after lap after lap. And it was so frustrating. I got on the radio to Chris, I'm like, this sucks. Like, I want to race.

I want to race. I want to battle. I want to shoot through the middle. I want to go to the bottom. but I couldn't because the field's jammed up. Everyone's trying to just save gas because that's the type of racing that we have now. And then nothing happens until a pit stop. Can you take me back to when it wasn't like that?

Like what was the strategy of racing then? Okay. So the reason why this is going on and there's various reasons. But how can I start it from the top? the next-gen car has a tremendous amount of drag. A ton of drag. So the spoiler is giant. The car itself,

even with no spoiler, has way more drag than the gen 6 car. And that's to keep the car from going 250 miles an hour. It's just, yes, the spoilers and the horsepower is what keeps it from doing that. But the car itself, how it shaped,

has more drag. So if you put the same size spoiler and the same engine in a gen 6 car, which is the previous generation, versus the next gen, the next gen, is going to go slower down the straightaway just because the body and how it's shaped is slower, right? Okay.

So with it having so much drag, it also creates a big air pocket that allows cars to suck up into it and just kind of run half throttle, but yet be right there, next to the car that it's behind. So it's got a ton of drag. So anytime you can run 10% less throttle

than the person in front of you, it's going to allow the fuel mileage to get way, way better, way better. Probably in the, you know, from, let's just say, from five miles per gallon to maybe six miles per gallon. So the drag of the car has actually created this fuel mileage racing. No, there's many. factors, but that is a factor, right?

They've slowed us way down. Look at the pole speeds from the last. We haven't run this slow for the pole in 30 or 40 years. It's been, I mean, we are creeping around that racetrack. They just, they have slowed us up, in my opinion, entirely too much. Because a car flips over and they, and it's panic mode and, oh, we got to do something. Well, I get it, but if you look at, for instance, when Dana Capatrix sat on the pole, she ran 20 miles an hour faster, but the pack speed was only like a tenth or two faster once they got in a pack.

Because the cars already had less drag in them by themselves. So now what happens is when they have these drag, when you create a big pack of it, it just makes the pack go faster because you're taking away the drag. So that's one factor. in it, but you cannot get to the front anymore because it's two by two by two by two. You can't go to a middle lane, third lane like you used to unless the field is saving gas. Because if you pull out of line, it is like a hitting a parachute in this car. You have to have such a big run to pull out and then pass.

The great moves that Dale Earnhardt made, the great moves that Tony, that Tony Stewart or Dale Jr. made back in the day in these cars, you would see them in a line, pull out, pass, and then get back up in line. Because when they pulled out, they didn't have all that drag. Their car had the ability to keep its momentum. But now, say your RPMs are spinning up, you can feel it. You're in the pack of the draft. Immediately, if you pull out, it is, you pull a parachute and your car just stops. So you never actually get past the car. you're trying to pass. So then the best idea is just to stay in line.

If you stay in line, you're in the save zone, right? So it's a combination of many, many things. But in my opinion, if I had the knobs to turn on the Cup series to make the Super Speedway racing better, it is to put it back like it used to be in the sense of they need to run faster by themselves. To do that, they need to take some of the spoiler off. to create more of that bubble, so we're not running into each other,

that's more dangerous than anything we do, is how hard we're hitting each other. I'm not saying go back to full bubble racing where you just get close to someone and it pushes them away. We still were bump drafting back in 2006, my very first season. That's always been part of it.

And we will always do that because we've learned that that works. But you've got to make these cars faster by themselves because you can't pull out of line in them. If you pull out of line, especially with just one or two cars, straight to the back you go because of the drag. So that's why we all just stay in a two-by-two line, and it looks like a parade lap. And you hear the announcers talking,

and they are struggling to come up with an exciting story when these cars are just running pace laps at 175 miles per hour in the draft. So we need to do something. thing. I think the one thing, do we need to do something? No. Will they do something? No. But it just, I said this two years ago that super speedway racing needs to be addressed on the next gen car because of it. It just has way too much drag. It's way too slow. You would like to see the skill being shown more than what it's shown now because while you can see it, it's. It's,

It just, it takes 80 laps for someone to battle from the back to the front. And they need the lines to work out perfectly for it to happen. You know, the days of Dale Earnhardt going from 15th or whatever in the, you know, nine laps, forget that. Like it's just those days don't exist anymore because you can't pull out of line with these things. So you said, I think it was on last week's show, that when you go into this race, you're not, you're not worried about stage points, stage wins. your sole focus is to win the race and then next week you'll start worrying about points and all that, right? Correct. I mean, that's my, because this event is so big. The Dayton 500, I consider its own event. It's not even part of the 2020, 24 schedule in my mind because I don't look at points when it comes to Daytona 500. All I care about is how do I get to the end to have a shot to win? Sure. So what I'm taking away from what you said prior to that is that your drivers are then kind of,

kind of competing for the rear of the field in a way, because you save the most gas at the rear. So then when you come down to pit in that final pit stop, you're hoping that then you, you know, the field cycles, cycles or swaps, and now you're in the front with 20 laps together. It's a disadvantage to be up front. And that shouldn't be the case.

And so, yeah, we need to take some spoiler off the cars. They're way too big. that would help with passing. It would create more dicing, in my opinion, because the drivers would be a little bit more edge on the corners. So what they would do is give each other more room in the corners, which would allow someone that does feel froggy to shoot through the middle because they think their car is handling better, all those things.

Listen, if you want to just take a snapshot and say the racing is better because look at all these cars in a pack, go ahead and make that argument. My argument is there was a, I mean, for 80 laps of the race, the announcers had nothing to talk about because everyone just stayed two by two next to whoever they were because everyone was just happy saving gas.

You could help a little bit of this with the stage cautions as well when they're planned because right now it's like a tank and a quarter or a tank of gas plus a few more gallons can get you to the end of a stage so people were like well if I save more here

then it will allow me to take a shorter pit stop and then bam we're at the end of a stage when we're going to pit anyway so maybe moving some of the the end stages around could you limit how much fuel teams can use I don't know I mean I hate we keep having it I feel like that's a band-aid

Yeah it is we keep adding band-aids because the car's not right The air dynamic package isn't right. But more savings, it's because they want to run the same engine at all types of tracks. So this is the same engine in which we would run at another track that is not. Where we used to have really super speedway engines in a cost-cutting manner. We wanted to make all the engines the same, or the OEMs or NASCAR has wanted that. So we have to run this huge big-ass spoiler on the back of our cars

so we can run this higher horsepower engine. So it's just a, we're stuck in this, you know, it's hard to poo-poo on it because the last 20 laps, right, you see us and you see some great racing. You do. We're pushing each other. I don't like that part of it because we're slamming into each other so hard. But we're finally racing with 20 laps to go.

Like there's no racing going on in the field until 20 to go. And in a 500 mile race, that's hard to watch. On one of that last pit cycle, you pitted with, I believe it was Kyle Busch. You did not pit with the group of Toyotas. Was that a you decision? It was. I put my team in a tough box because I couldn't get down. They started giving me a heads up at about, hey, we're about 10 laps away.

I was on the outside line making a run towards the front. Or actually, yeah, making a run towards the front because the 22 and a couple forwards got around me on the bottom. And at that point, I'm like, okay, I must try to find a hole here. And it just, they stayed so tight, I couldn't get down. So when all the Toyota's pitted, I think maybe a lap or so before me, I just, I wanted to pit, but I couldn't. I couldn't get down.

I was stuck on the top lane. There wasn't a big enough hole in the bottom for me to fit. So it was tough because we topped off with about 70 to go. So after the second stage, there's 70-some laps to go. We topped off. And I told my crew chief at the time, I says, hey, you know, I know we got one more stop. But I feel like since we just came and topped off and now I'm 30th, I feel like we've got to get some track position back.

So I'm going to race unless you tell me otherwise. He says, you know, go ahead, go. And then 20 laps later, we drive straight to the front from the back. Now, I needed some circumstances to happen. But the lines that I kept picking, kept going at the right time. But we got to the front and I thought I was in control of the race. And I'm like, man, I'm right where I want to be with 30, 40 to go leading into the last pit stop. And unfortunately, I, I,

I couldn't get down. It was not optimal to just pit with Kyle. But then somewhere in that cycle, I feel like I got to pit road really good. But I just feel like I didn't pit with enough cars or something happened because when I came back out, I was back in 26th again. Well, you say that when you're in the lead there,

you felt like you were in a good position. Why did you not just pin yourself to the bottom? then like just stay with the bottom line no matter what i was because i was outside the bottom line so i'm stuck on the outside so i can't get down to pit so if they peel off i can't before before that like when you were out front leading the race before the bottom line passed you yeah why not when you're out front why not just pin your car to because i thought the best position for me to hold the lead was up top. If you remember, the top line was doing really well at the time. And then finally, Joey got the bottom line going. For sure. However, in the case that, like, aren't you thinking that,

okay, I know I had to pit it. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I'm trying to hold my track position up front as good as I could. And I felt like the pushes I was getting from Kyle and Corey, I, I trusted them to stay behind me more than I did the 22. And I knew he was leading the bottom line. So I wanted to just say, okay, Joey, you go ahead and you control the bottom line. I'll control the top line. Even though that may put you in a predicament when it comes time to pit. Yeah, because I felt like I had enough laps to find a way to get to the bottom. So either what I was going to try to do is get my line past.

I was going to try to get past the 22, retake the lead, then pull down right in front of them. That was my goal. But I kept, I couldn't get the eight to quite. I mean, I got there, like, within a quarter car length of clearing, but I just couldn't get quite clear to then get down. So then we started backing up because we're trying to find a hole in the bottom lane. How much fuel did you have? Could you have waited and gone with the Fords that were in front of you?

When you finally got down there, I think you were like in eighth or ninth place. Could you have tried to pit with those guys? I don't know. I'll find out today. You know, after this, we go and we do our debrief with Jobbors Racing 2311. And I don't know because it. again inside the car I'm in this cocoon I'm not I really kind of rely on the team to talk me to do the strategy what you know Chris is the head coach I'm the quarterback

tell me what play you want me to run right I don't need to know all the ins and outs just tell me do you want me to race or do you want me to save right that's pretty much all he needs to tell me but we'll learn I'll learn a little bit more today about you know could we have done this or could we have done that I'm sure there was always a you know ifs and buts but that's always the case. But either way, it just didn't cycle out in our favor. And we, I had to come from, try to come from the back again with that 15 laps to go. And it's just, I think we got up to about 8th or so before we got caught in that crash. Yep. So Hendrick, more or less, cycles to the front on that final pit stop. And they're the ones that, that reap the benefits

because three of their cars are in and get through the wreck. I don't, did, did Larson get through that final wreck as well? Larson got caught up in R. wreck, I believe. I believe he got damage. So that final wreck? The big wreck. Yeah, yeah. Not the Chastain one, with one lap to go.

Right, yeah, there's two. Yeah, yeah. The second to last. Right, I think the nine car made it through the 24 and 48 definitely made it. The nine, because Chase was fifth. They had three of the top five. Yeah. I think Chase didn't finish in the top five. No, no, no, before going into after the big one. Yeah, I mean, that's where, you know, if you look at kind of the grand strategy of things,

I think the Chevroletes did a really good job of cycling. Each time they cycled, they cycled at the front, which allowed them to win the stages. You know, that was a big key. And then also allowed them to win the race. Because they cycled, to the front with 15 to go. I mean, you pretty much, when you know that as a manufacturer, your top 7, 8 cars are all Chevys and there's a few Toyota's mixed in. It really made their job winning as a manufacturer quite a bit easier. So they, you know, hats off to them for, you know,

the strategy they did and whatever they did to cycle the front. All the teams will analyze that, obviously, and figure out how we can all do better. You want to talk about that big ones more? just want to get right into the next one. Yeah, it looked like the 48 ran into the back of the 24. And, you know, I've really found over time it appears that the best way to miss a wreck is to start the wreck. That definitely seems like a really good strategy. That is not me insinuating. The 48 tried to try to start a wreck or the 24 tried to start a wreck. But it just happens to be that way usually. But yeah, they were they were trying to shoot a gap right there. And,

and the 48 was trying to help push the 24, and he ended up ricocheting off the 6, and the 6th turned sideways, took out Legano and a handful of guys that were battling there. I mean, whose fault is it? I don't know. You could throw blame maybe a couple guys away, mostly the maybe the 48 for not laying off to 24 when he was,

you could see he was getting really sideways down the corner. But I don't know. It's so late in the race. Everyone's just trying to push really hard. So that just turns into calamity. It takes out probably 10 cars or so. But yeah, then it sets up kind of this green-white checker type finish or four laps to go in the race.

And, you know, you've got Chevroletes pretty much in control along with Austin Cendrick. I thought personally Austin Cedric was very impressive this week. I kind of watched. And, you know, one of the sides of my eye throughout the week kind of moves he was making. I thought he did a great job of staying up front, being aggressive at times, also being conservative at times. You know, he was kind of a, I guess he was probably innocent bystandard. Not probably.

He was in the Chastain move, but I don't know. You know, you're always so in the moment of this is the move. this is going to be the defining move that's going to win me the race. And more than likely for Chastain coming to the white there, when he had that big push, he's thinking, this is the only avenue. This is the only avenue I've got to win this race. I think if you slow things down a little bit and really think through it,

you've still got two and a half miles to go and so much can happen. And he likely would have been if he pushed, you know, instead of trying to dive on the 24, if you push the 24, he likely would get the 24 clear. Then it's a matter of does he get the push again later the lap. But he had such a speed difference between him and the 24. He saw a gap. And he saw a gap because the seven car of Corey LaJoy and the two were, as they say,

jimmy jacking around on the bottom lane. They got each other kind of bottled up. And more than likely what Ross saw was like, Oh, the bottom lanes open now. I'm just going to shoot here and then me and the 24 will battle it out side by side for the rest of the lap. This is all instinctual. Oh, it's so quick. I mean, it's really hard and it's so easy to Monday morning quarterback or in our case now Tuesday morning quarterback

this thing and say, well, you could have moved this made this move instead. But it's really hard, people. It really is. And especially it's very easy to get excited in the moment and say, I got to make this move right now. But it's hard. And you just don't know, right? And had the two been a little, you know, not been there? Yes, the one absolutely would have been on the bottom line controlling it for the remainder of the last lap. But he was, he was there. One was not clear. I don't know if they called him clear or not. And it took out the one and the two. So, I mean, at least in that instance, you know, the guy that made the abrupt move, at least got the worst end of it, I guess, versus it, you know, taking someone else out and you kind of, you escape with no, no scratches.

But it's, you're going to see that at the end of Daytona 500, 99 out of 10 times, at a hundred times. So he made a movie thought he needed. I saw all his interview afterwards, like, you know, I won't, I'm not going to apologize to for trying to win the Daytona 500. I don't really have any problems with that. I mean, while it proved to not be the best move, he did what he thought was the best at the time.

It's interesting as I continue to watch this replay back as you talk, that this all started three to four rows back with the seven and the two because William Byron loses all momentum with those two cars behind them doing what they're doing that allows chastain to then think he has the space to make that move but then right before the caution is thrown or right after the caution is thrown that top line is going to just blow by william byron because bowman does inevitably pass them just the caution was thrown yeah before it and he got a one or two in chastain's mind did he think that because he got that push from the 48 i believe he he's probably thinking well certainly the 48's not going to push me by the

the 24 on that last lap. So I need to get to the bottom of the other line to then I'm going to put my eggs in that Austin Cindricks is going to push me to the win, which that's a, that's a good assumption because Austin Cendrick's been one of the best pushers in my opinion all week. So that probably played a little factor into it. So yeah, it came from behind. And usually what what you see is like, whatever line has the top three or four closest together, it's not about the first and second car. It's about the ones that are later on in the line. Like those are the use of the line to get the run.

So what you saw was, you know, this caution came out. You know, there's controversy over when they're throwing the yellow. And I think that that's just natural controversy. Because any time that there's a. subjective call that NASCAR makes of when they choose to end the race. They are choosing when to end it because they already taken the white flag. You can throw any conspiracy out there, but it doesn't matter when they throw it. One of the Hendrik cars wins.

I think that they made the right call simply because the two car was, when he crashed, he was starting to make his way back up the racing track, right at the start finish line, nose first. He was in a dangerous position. Now, the truck race, or I'm sorry, the Xenity race, they crashed and they just kind of let them go. Could they let it go further? Yes, but if they do that,

there's so many cars that are behind that pack that are yet to get past the two car who is crossing the racetrack broadsided, they want to have everyone slow down as soon as possible to mitigate the risk that the two is very vulnerable in in that moment. So William Byron, it's only taking us an hour or so.

A new winner. Only taking us an hour. A new winner. I predicted this. I predicted this last week. I said there would be a new winner. I'm being facetious when I say this. Yeah.

You obviously are because that is just the broadest of all statements. Bold prediction. Yeah, bold prediction. But, I mean, will he be? Let's talk about him. He's quiet and he's a Lego builder, but the guy wins races. And I mean, I don't know what else you can say about him. he's he's a winner and he he finds a way to win and um he's now i mean he's a past you know

this will bounce back and forth i think over time but past ryan blaney and career wins this is an 11th win ryan blaney's got 10 in his career um but willie b is just uh the kids a winner he's also action detrimental bracket challenge winner too bracket challenge winner i mean that just tells you how solid he is. Friend of the program. Yep. Yep. We saw in the Netflix documentary,

Willie B listens in to actions detrimental. Willie B, this is your moment to bask in the glory because you are the Daytona 500 champion, well earned. He races so wise beyond his years. He really does. I admire William.

I admire his work ethic. Who he is is a, person. Actually, I had a, during that appearance that I had on that rainy Saturday, someone asked me, it was maybe the best question that I've ever been asked, is, hey, if you had, if you had to pick one driver to date your sister, who would it be? And I was like, oh, wow, boy, I mean, you always hear people ask, oh, who's, who's the biggest bag or wherever it might be, or who's the guy you hate. You get those ask all the time.

Well, who would, you know, who would you pick the date your sister? I'm like, well, I'm not really sure how to answer that. But I guess I would pick Willie B because I deem him the most harmless, which is also why I deem him the best babysitter. I was going to say, yeah, the best babysitter for my kids. Because, you know, hey, you play Legos with him. You want a guy who's responsible. Probably has a good job, you know.

Good job. Yeah. He's that guy. He's, you know, he's, I'm trying to think, I think of him a lot like Jimmy Johnson in the sense of he just gets results. He gets a lot of results. And he's not super flashy about it. He's a really good person outside the race cars. He is in the race car.

He always races fair with everyone. You never really, I mean, have we ever heard William Byron get? into a wrecking someone. I mean, you're laughing at me because you know that he did on the second, on the big one, but he got shoved into that. It's not what I was going to say. Oh, what were you thinking? Well, we had him on the show to hash out the Texas beef between you too. Well, we hashed out, Jared. I put it in the past. I was, I moved on. We moved on from it. We talked it out. We moved on. It's not my job to bring up something that we we we hashed out. So we're good on that. I upset him clearly.

in that moment. Okay. No, he does not spend anybody. He does not. He never done that. He doesn't. No, but I just, I got tremendous respect for him. As a driver, he's obviously going to be part of this sport for a very long time.

He's 26 years old, right? Yep. With 11 wins. Let's see. If you add in, let's just pretend he goes on it and he's one of the best NASCAR driver. over the next 12 years. 12 years, three wins. That puts them at 45 wins.

Is that right? Yeah, 45 wins in the next 12 years, if the averages three a year. Yeah. You know what's interesting? Add that to his 11. Yeah, I've already done the math. It's a 50 win guy.

like he's he or more or more you know what's interesting is that listening to the new dirty middle podcast the tear down last night and this morning is that before when the nascar 75 came out last year before last he was not included in the 75 but now yeah it's too early yeah right but since then yeah in a year's time since then he's won the Daytona 500 plus six races last year he's now certainly solidified himself in in that list. His three teammates were in the list. He'd been around longer.

No. Alex Bowman wasn't on the list. Am I misquoting the tear down? Alex Bowman was not in the I don't remember them saying that though. So I don't know if you're misquoting them or if you're just wrong. Or maybe just had more. You're just wrong.

I could just be just wrong. I'm never wrong. I mean, I would say, you know, there's a bunch of Hall of Fame teammates that Hendrick Merseworths had. You're right. He was not in that list. you had to have at least like 18 wins to be in the list.

Yeah. So, yeah, that's why I think it's still premature, but like, is he going to be 100%? There is a no chance that, that William Byron does not put himself in the NASCAR 75 or,

you know, in 25 years, the NASCAR 100, you know, so I think that that's a given. It's just, you know, he's certainly got,

um, a lot of good years ahead of them. He's with an organization that's always going to give him fast cars. And, you know, certainly he's going to be a very deserving and a good Daytona 500 champion for us over the next 12 months. So great job to William. Hendrick Motorsports give them their due, 40th anniversary for them, I think, to the day. And what was really fun for me to watch is, and I can understand it and respect it because at JGR, we went through this in my, 2019 win with JD, you know, how much it meant to the organization. You saw Jeff Gordon and Rick

Hendrick and all these dignitaries from Hendrick how excited they were that, you know, they had just won the Daytona 500 and not only just won it, but also had a one-to finish. So you saw how much it meant to them and surely to be on the, you know, anniversary, 40th anniversary of them starting Hendrick Motorsports for them to get a win is a great story. and, you know, it's just a fantastic ending for them and well-deserved. They did everything they needed to do. They kept themselves in the game while William didn't dominate the race. He put himself up front when it counted.

Same with Alex Bowman, right? He didn't dominate the race, but he put himself in contention. I actually thought that Chase Elliott showed the most speed of all the Hendrick cars throughout the day. A close runner-up is the five of Kyle Larson. He looked fast all week. He made the most aggressive moves and kept himself up front. But in the end, it was the two guys that kind of laid in the weeds all day that ended up with a one-two finish.

We go from Daytona to Atlanta, another super speedway track. I don't know. What do you expect from Atlanta? If you were to finish poorly here, Atlanta, and you also maybe have crashed out of Daytona, What kind of hole does that put you into? Yeah, it would be a hole, but it's not anything we can't come out of. I mean, I think that we're a strong enough team that I don't really, when I said I didn't count points at Daytona,

the season hasn't even started until we get to Atlanta. It's because I know over the long term, as long as there's a large enough sample size, the 11 team will show, it will get back towards the front. So I think I'm not too worried about it. Not necessarily your team specifically, but just teams in general. Yeah, it should, well, I'm telling you, it depends on who you are. If you're a team, let's say Corey LaJoy, right? If they're in a hole, which they're not so far, they're, they had a good finish,

it will make making the playoffs very, very difficult if they don't win like a super speway race or something like that or just really up their performance from where they've been over past years. And they've continued to get better. Spires made significant investments in the, the sport to get better. So I think, you know, there's probably a few teams that are always, there's, there's always a handful that are always on the bubble. You know, they're just bubble teams that they might win a race during the course of

the season. They might point their way in. It's always close with them. Those are the teams that don't need to have a rough first two races, for sure. Do you think this track has, has worn enough? that's been the talk of the last couple years. The more it wears, the better it'll get. I'm looking forward to Atlanta.

I think that the more it wears, the more you're going to see the old speedway style racing. So us spread out a little bit more. Not necessarily front to back, but from side to side perspective. You know, whenever there's not excessive grip in the track, we give each other a little bit more room to work. And when you give each other room,

there's always makes for a hole for some, somebody to fit in that they can't fit in. So I think it will be an exciting weekend at Atlanta. Certainly we as the 11 team want to have a really strong run. I think we will. I'm looking forward to it. I think it certainly is going to be more of a handling type of track than what we've had in the past, I believe. We got one review here from Matt P-0-4. And there's a awesome podcast. Can't wait until new episodes every Monday. I'm a new NASCAR fan, only been watching for two years. I'm a Kyle Bush fan, but after a Netflix show, I would like to see DH and the 11 car go all the way this year. We're all in, Matt, P.O.4. We're all in. Go to Denny Hamlin store, right?

Denny Hamlet store. You can get the t-shirt or do we have hoodies too? I really like a hoodie. I don't know if there's hoodies, but certainly the hoodies can be made. Okay. All right. Well, appreciate y'all turning in. Make sure you rate. review and follow us wherever you get your podcast. We also have a brand new YouTube page. Make sure you subscribe to that. And apparently the folks over at Door Bumper Clear have been trash talking about how they're going to get more people to subscribe.

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