Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Daytona: This Was A S***** Week

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Denny Hamlin is back after a rough couple of days on and off the track. On Thursday, the No. 11 team was given an L2 penalty for an engine-rule violation. Denny explains what happened at TRD that caused NASCAR to punish him. He also talks about the impact this will have during the Playoffs. On Saturday, things got worse when he was involved in a massive wreck that ended his race. Denny watched the rest of the race from his bus, where he saw Harrison Burton get the win and punch his Playoff ticket. Denny and Jared also discuss if Christopher Bell should have jumped to the outside lane and moved in front of Burton before Burton made his last push. After a crazy wreck last week, NASCAR made a slight change to the cars to try and prevent them from going airborne. On Saturday, we saw Michael McDowell come off the ground without flipping over. But then, Josh Berry flipped onto his roof before hitting the wall.  While both wrecks looked bad, Denny still isn't worried about cars coming off the ground. The guys also talk about the massive implications that come from Burton winning on Saturday. For Wood Brothers Racing, it was a big financial win. On the flipside, drivers on the bubble lost one more available playoff spot with only one race in the regular season left. Burton was 34th in points coming into Saturday and with him winning, the Playoff format is once again coming into question. One of those drivers who might miss the Playoffs now is 23XI's Bubba Wallace. Denny chats about his driver's situation. Off the track, Trackhouse made big news announcing that they acquired a third charter for SVG. The guys chat about SVG's future and Zane Smith losing his ride for next year.For more Actions Detrimental content, head to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimentalFanDuel disclaimer: 1+ and present in North Carolina. Opt in req. Wager requirements apply. Bonuses awarded as nonwithdrawable bonus bets or profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including bonus expiration. See terms and conditions at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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

The 11D.H. We're all in. We're going all the way to Promising. Hey, guys, welcome to Action's Determinal. I'm Guinea-Han. number 11. FedEx Cairs. We care. Camry this weekend.

Jared. Jared's my co-host. That's the only introduction you get. I mean, I have video of him signing many autographs this past weekend. It's ridiculous. It's getting out of hand. Like, die cast. It's out of hand.

What can I say? It's, you know, it's, you know, the good thing is, though, Jared, I'll give you probably. You're not letting the fame get to. you. Nope. Nope. You got to stay grounded. That's the opposite of what you do. You never stay grounded. You're climbing walls and taking into new heights. Right, right. Yeah, I heard, I don't know, I can't remember where it was. It might have been Stephen A. Smith or someone, they're talking about something and basketball. And so-and-so is good at being a Robin. And it's just like, not everyone's good at that. Like, that's a skill. Someone's got to, you can't try to steal the spot. Somebody has to be Pippin. Yep.

Right? So I'll be the co-host and sign a few autographs that people want. Yeah. Well, this weekend, I don't know, the last five days has been an absolute disaster on my end. When you think I can't get any unluckier, here we come. the cloud falls over. I told you I'm the black cat of death. Cursed.

But it'll just make it more exciting when we have to overcome all this and finally do win a championship this year, hopefully. So it certainly is not ideal. Not with this three race season about to start. Certainly I'm in a vulnerable. spot now on in points you know it's it's certainly going to be a challenge you know I how it basically happened those are tuning in more than likely if you're listening to this you kind of already know

but we were issued an L2 penalty from NASCAR and that is kind of like the upper echelon of penalties and this one was for an engine inspection and fraction. So Toyota racing development, they build my engines for Joe Gibbs Racing and all the other Toyotas.

So they're kind of immersed in our team. A lot of TRD employees kind of roaming around JGR, 2311, Legacy and whatnot, because they need to service the engines, tune them up, things like that. But so what happens is

you, we've, we've gone into an era where we're running engines for two or three races. So, what happens is they put seals on, on the engine. So they're called, you know, they're like blue seals that go on the engine itself. Once you, I guess you submit it, I'm getting a little educated in this, but it really doesn't matter in the story. But once you win a race, they put red seals on it. So I think they either add red seals as marking it as this is a race-winning engine at some point it needs to be inspected. Or they cut the blues off and add reds. One of the two.

I think they maybe just add reds to the, so this engine has got seals all over it. And you can only, the only way to get them off is to cut them off. And so while it is not unreasonable for, um, Toyota to cut seals off because they cut blue ones off all the time. When the engine is done with its life, say after the third race, it will go back to Coast Mesa, where it gets rebuilt, and the workers there will cut the blue seals off and they'll rebuild the engine, and then they'll run it another cycle, right? It's ready to run into the season for a free refresh or be ready for the following season.

but what happens is when you win a race and you get these red seals put on naskar says okay you don't need we don't need to inspect this now we can inspect it whenever you are done racing it after its third cycle well it was only on its second cycle so we had another race to run well um that engine needed to go back to naskar um and it's very typical in naskar's tear down process inspecting the race winning car they do it at the racetrack they say all official all good sometimes they take the car to r and d sometimes they do not um and what they do is the engine um they'll take the nascar r and d do a normal protocol make sure it's the right size and checking things with small gauges that we don't know anything about um but you know we haven't seen an engine penalty in quite some time obviously uh because it is such a

huge. You cannot mess with the engines, tires, things like that. They, they drop the big hammer on you. So no one really messes with that. Everyone runs basically the same stuff. And so we win the engine, we win with the engine at Bristol. They put red seals on it. We then go run it later on, I believe at Darlington. And then at that point, down the line, that engine gets set aside. And it's like, okay, well, this engine needs to go back to be inspected. Well, instead of it going back to NASCAR, because it's done with this engine cycle, it got sent to Costa Mesa. Well, someone there, you know, obviously should have known you don't cut red seals off. You can cut blue ones off, but not red ones off. They cut the seals off. And I think it, you know, and rebuilt the engine

and immediately Toyota was like, you know, probably, they more than likely, some, but they more than likely they saw all these red seals sitting on the ground or on someone's desk and they're like, wait a minute, why are these here? What, who cut these off? And so that's what should have been said anyway. And so they notified NASCAR and it, you know, in their statement, they kind of, they laid it all out that they, they notified NASCAR, hey, we made a mistake here, you know, what, the engine is sitting here. what, you know, what do we do? And so, um, obviously it's, it's sometime after the, uh, the, um,

this process that, you know, NASCAR's come up with, um, you know, the penalty and the, and the penalty is, is that, uh, this is what we have. It's, it's, uh, we've got something in our rule book that's pretty black and white. Um, if, if the engine doesn't go back for inspection or whatever, it's an L2 penalty and here's, here's what it is. So, They told me and I found out on Thursday and certainly was not a good day for me, nor has the last three straight days. Right. It's been bad.

Including Daytona, which we'll get to. But I guess it's self-reported because this is something that's not going to get by NASCAR. NASCAR is going to come searching for this engine at some point? Yes, exactly right. And you're going to present it or you're not going to present. Yeah, there'll be paperwork somewhere along the lines and they'll have a checklist of all the engines that they've inspected. And somewhere in there, it's Darlington will still have a circle around it and saying, I need that engine.

And so if you try to skirt around it and just send the engine, well, it's got no red seals on it. They're going to say, where's the red seals? So it would be the same penalty regardless. And this is something that everyone at Costa Mesa is aware of. Like it's not something where an engine got sent back to Costa Mesa and whoever handled it didn't know this. red seal, blue seal process they probably all know. Yeah, I mean, certainly you would think so, but obviously it slipped through the cracks somehow.

And so, you know, things happen. And certainly when you're, you know, nobody wanted this to happen, certainly within TRD, they didn't want to, you know, hurt the car that they'd had that has the most points that, you know, was sitting in the best spot to win them in championship. Surely they didn't want this to happen, but it, but it did. And so they wanted to make sure they played by the rules and reported it and try to see if there's any way we could, you know, rectify it. But there just wasn't. You know, when you got Red Seal sitting on the ground, it's just you've hurt the integrity process of inspection.

So how does this now affect the remainder of the season? Obviously, the regular season championship is out the window. But the final 10 races, how does this affect that? Well, you can look at it and say, well, it's just a 10-point penalty, but it isn't. Look where I'm at now. I'm 8th or 8th in points. I was battling for the regular season championship, which would have paid 15 points. And now at most I'm probably going to get three. Just a huge swing for us. It's going to be upwards of 16, maybe 17 points that per round that we're going to miss out on. And we need. know that these cut lines come down to the number always does you know I was within I was tied with Ross or up to on Ross going into Martinsville when he rode the wall so they're always really really close the year before that I think I made it by two points at Martinsville that was when Harvick kind of hooked you know I think Kyle Busch at the time there all it always comes down to just a few

points here and there. So, you know, we're just going to have to be exceptional and not make any mistakes at all, which is very, very hard because as good as we've been, our results over the last two months have just been atrocious. Are you more on edge now about that round of 12, which is, in my mind, likely where you'll see, you know, the biggest detriment of these points because it's Kansas, Talladega, and the Roval. Yeah. I need to go in Kansas. Yeah. I need to go in Kansas. need to go in Kansas. That'll be my mindset for sure. But if not, then I'll, you know, I'm going to do the best I can every single week. But obviously, it's just a huge setback with this type of format. It's just, it's a killer. Can you appeal and try to at least get some of the points back?

Yeah, but you could, but what are you going to appeal? It's black and white, right? It doesn't matter whether the intent about the intent, right? I mean, when it comes to record, yes, intent matters, but not, you know, when you have a rules infraction and it basically what happened was black and white in a rule book, there's just nothing to, there's nothing to dispute. We can all talk about how unjust or unfair it is to the race team, but we're all one, you know, you can't separate engine manufacturers and car owners and drivers and drivers. Like it is all wrapped into one. Right.

You know, we're going to ride and die together. And I was, I was thinking about this after I heard the news and was like, well, if that's just a mistake by the engine manufacturer, that's unfair that this penalty, you know, falls on the driver and the team shoulders. However, if this penalty didn't fall on the team and driver's shoulders, whoever that is, like, and it was like a major monetary fine or something, it could be worth it. Yeah. Yeah. So what would happen is the engine. manufacturers would then say, man, it's worth us getting a sanction or a penalty or something to give our guy a unfair advantage on the racetrack, right? And so, yeah, that's kind of why it's

written the way it is. So you were talking about the seals. So at no point does the engine with the red seal ever go back to Costa Mesa is what you're saying? No, no. Yeah, no. No, it shouldn't. Because NASCAR would remove the seal themselves and send it. So the red seal, should have been the red flag that hey something's up yep yeah it's it's it's uh trust me i when i heard this i i asked questions because i'm like wait what you know and you know i step in i step in the conference room and you know there's obviously david wilson tyler gibbs andy graves one end of the table me and chris gavehart walk in and it's joe and heather and Dave Alpern.

And at that point, I'm like, okay, this is an isolated 11 team thing. What the hell is going on? Why am I here? Why did this need to be in person? Is all the actions of the last like three weeks running through your head? Like, what would I do wrong? What I do? What did I do?

Yes, because I could see David Wilson's iPad or cross from me. And I saw the header and it was NASCAR penalty. and I'm like, Chris, what you do? But yeah, I just, I was trying to, I just trying to piece it all together, you know, beforehand, and I couldn't, didn't make any sense. What I said on my podcast last week? What?

You're trying to figure out, like, you know, rethinking. What could I have said on my podcast? Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just, I never in a million years would imagine this because it's never happened and probably never will happen again. how do you go from like what's your emotions there and then how do you come back down to try to now face it and not dwell on it you know it's hard not to and and you know if i'm being honest with myself i've just i've been down the last couple days for sure i just been in a pissy mood

um not at anyone in particular just of the situation and certainly last night did nothing to fix that So I'm just going to again be in a sour mood until I get to Darlington and go there and dominate. So that was Thursday. Thursday. What was about Friday? Anything? Yeah, a few things, but nothing I'll say on air for sure. Oh, so there was two Friday.

There was, there was. But nothing I would air out on this podcast. Qualified 20. Oh, yeah, that stunk. But that's kind of where we're. we normally are on speedways. All right, so Saturday. What was about Saturday?

All the above. Just, I just, I just have to come to grips with, this is a different type of speedway racing now. And, you know, the ability to kind of just make moves and work the draft and all that stuff is just not like it used to be. and I just need to be okay with, I just need a ride in line here, and if I get caught up in a wreck,

I get caught up in a wreck and not be surprised, right? And so just in the next gen era, my finish rate on Super Speedways has not been good at all, and nothing I've caused. It's just been somebody else making silly moves, and, you know, we obviously got caught up in it. Isn't that how it always is?

It's, you know, if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you get caught up in it. been that way for a while, certainly. But back when we had the previous generation car, you always had kind of the same cast of guys up front because they manipulated the draft the best, right? They worked the air of the best to get up front. And then the wrecks would happen kind of in that seven to nine range. So they're on back. You put yourself in the middle of that pack. Surely you're going to get wrecked. And that's about where I was at the time. I probably was hanging around. I was right around 10th when I got when we got crashed there. You heard us talk a lot about Fandul

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a game.nc.gov. why were you in the pack the way you were like in previous super speedway races you've always liked to to get out when you feel the energy is not right and without points racing or points racing being a factor any longer after this penalty what was the reason for being in the back in the first place? Well because I was about the fifth car on the high line that the the reason that there was kind of energy going low there is because there were very few cars left in that bottom line or at least towards the front. So everyone was starting to migrate to the top.

And when they do that, typically then everyone will go into a fuel save mode. I was fuel saving the entire time at that point. And so while saving, I found my way into the top 10. And I'm like, okay, this is a decent spot to sit here and ride. And I don't think I made contact with anyone with my front bumper all day because it just wasn't time yet.

Like, it wasn't time to really start shoving our way through the field. And so, you know, inadvertently, not trying to, I just found myself in the top 10 and was saving fuel while doing it. And at that time, I didn't see any danger because everyone around me was just chill. So you watched the rest of this race from the bus. You stuck around, I'm guessing, because Bubbo was out front and there's a lot on the line. for that what you know what's your perspective what do you what do you see when you're watching this on tv in the moment are you learning things you being like oh well i should have done this or no not really learning much um but you know more just being kind of a fan in that moment just kind of you know i've got

the couple guys i'm rooting for and then i've got others where i'm like uh you know i don't want to see them get towards the front so um yeah i was just watching it kind of as a fan's perspective and and obviously uh you know when i saw uh when i saw kind of the end of the race playing out where like a of the top 11 had no win um i knew that it was going to be very very difficult to get a to get a previous race winner to win that race which you know obviously would help 2311 in bubble wallace's situation but um you know it was it looked like it was inevitable when you had two non-win cars starting on the front row. Usually one of them is going to win in a green-white checkered situation,

and that's what happened. Yeah, big Christopher Bell fans. Yeah, yeah, I think I heard that on Bubba's radio. That, yeah, tell Seabell he knows what to do. And so I was very actually surprised from Seabell that he didn't move up in front of the top line. I thought there was a moment there when I was watching where he had stuck.

behind Kyle, but the two of them actually cleared the high line. And my perspective is anytime you can be the lead car of a line, it doesn't matter inside or low, you take it. And so I thought that when he chose to stay behind the eight and not move up in front of Harrison, that was a big, big moment. Because at that point, now it's going to be decided between whoever the leader is at the top versus whoever the leader is of the bottom. And so I think that, you know, that was certainly a defining moment for sure. But, yeah, I thought it was over. Kyle Bush was going to cruise to this victory until the last lap where, you know,

Harrison gets this huge run from Parker. Yeah, that was surprising because he did not, there was no Toyota's there. He wasn't pushing a Toyota. Like, he was on his own. Yeah. And maybe, maybe he just wasn't cleared by a spotter to get up or? It's possible. I mean, it was, from what I saw, again, I'm watching on TV.

I'm not there live. What I saw was like, he's clear. Move up, move up, move up. It's too late. Like, there was a moment, but it was a small moment in time. How small is that moment? Like, I mean, if I'm in that, if I'm in that position, the first thing I'm thinking of, if I'm the second car in line on the bottom

or the second car in line on the top, and I clear one of the two lanes to now puts me ahead of one, the moment he says clear, I'm just turning whatever direction. Like, as soon as he says it, I'm not even thinking twice and I'm just going. Because that is the move that puts you in contention to win. Because not only that, what happens is that when he would pull, if he would have pulled out from Kyle, he then would have left Kyle on an island by himself

where Kyle would not have had anyone behind him taking the draft you know drafting with him so it would have parachuted Kyle's car backwards as soon as he pulled out to go beside him so it would have been a double positive you most likely would have got a push from behind from the 21 and the eight would have been on this island where he's got to wait probably five six seconds for the next car in line

to get up to him. And so during that time, you likely would have had position on him. Are you looking to clear yourself in that moment? I want to compare it to like if you're driving down the highway and you see a car in a lane and you want to be in front of that car. So you pass the car and then you immediately look in your mirror, okay, am I clear, am I clear, I'm clear?

And then you merge over. Is it similar in that situation where you're on the bottom line, the bottom line's rolling? You see you're probably going to get ahead of the top car. and then once you do, you can slide up. But you don't even need the spotter to tell you clear. Can you clear yourself in that situation? Yeah, with the mirrors, the electronic mirrors that we have nowadays,

you certainly could. It wouldn't be unprecedented to just go ahead and make the move yourself. But again, I can't emphasize. Like, we're Sunday afternoon quarterbacking here, right? I think in the moment, things happen quickly. It's just a matter of how fast is the game going for you. And I think that, you know, sometimes that's where experience really plays into a factor where, you know, you know that immediately, if there's an opportunity to meet to jump lines and be the front of it, we have to take it to win this race. before we get into

Harrison Burton's win and all the implications that come from that, before this race, NASCAR added shark fin or whatever they want to call it to the rear window to prevent cars from flipping and we saw more or less one and a half flips. Michael McDowell got sideways through that big wreck through turn four

and then Josh Barry flipped over completely and then crushed the inside wall while on his roof. Yeah, you know, I think we kind of, I kind of gave my piece on this last week where I just, while no one likes flips, right, I just, I don't have a giant issue with it because I just, there hasn't been many major injuries come from flipping. It's, you know, you're dispersing energy when you're flipping. if you know if josh barry's car does not flip over he hits the inside wall harder why because when he

flips over that's that's that is is essentially slowing his car down as it's as it's turned to the side starts a flip over his car is slowing in speed if that car doesn't and it just streamlines into the inside wall without a flip it's going faster it hits the wall because the you've taken from point A to point B at a faster rate so you're also like trying to hit the brakes like are you also trying to slow the yeah I mean that's the argument you can make for for sure and it's a legitimate one we saw when uh john hunter nemeschak I believe slid through the uh the infield there in the backstretch like his car, it looked like it was going to get up, and then boom, it just kind of stayed and he locked the brakes up. So, yes, that is a valid point that, hey, at least your tires would be on the ground, so you'd be locking up your tires and slowing down that way.

But I just feel like when the car does turn sideways and catches air like that, I feel like it slows it down a lot. Okay, but what about if you're Josh Barry and you're flipped over and you pound the inside wall? Yeah, it's something I don't want to try to experience for sure. And Jeff Burton brought a great point up on the telecast. Like, you know, not often are your safety belts tested in an inverted position, right? Like, you know, surely, hopefully you got your belts pulled so tight that it's all working the same. But certainly there's more pressure going on your collarbone and shoulders when you're inverted versus being pulled down and hitting the wall normally. normally. Well, Josh gets out of the car in his interview with something along the lines.

It's like, oh, yeah, it looked. It looked worse than it was, which is absurd because it looked very, very, very, very, very bad. Yeah, I just, short of making us run 160 miles per hour around the track, I just don't know how you're going to keep us from these situations. It just, and, and I, there's no way. If they slow us down, you know, more, it's just going to make for harder contact and bigger wrecks. I just don't, I don't agree with slowing us down to where we're going to just slow you down until these things don't flip over anymore. Um, I just, they've been flipping over for decades, man, but I just feel like it's not necessarily a totally bad thing. What about Michael McDowell situation though? Where that's a different,

He's flipped over in, you know, the trajectory of other cars. Yeah. Now, that, you know, certainly is a little more dangerous because he's, he is inverted while cars are coming, right? So it would be easier for front bumpers and things like that to get into, you know, kind of his area of cockpit there. But, man, how do you stop that? Like, he was coming down the track and the 22. T-boned them there. I just don't know how you stop it.

Like, that's just physics. How do you, good luck stopping physics, right? When you have wind pushing on one side, another wedge coming in from the other side, that's what happens. We race in a sport with speed. I don't know. It just seems, it seems odd that this problem has now arisen in the last two weeks and it feels like it wasn't prior to that.

Well, we've been on two really fast racetracks. I think that that's, you know, we'll go short of Talladega. We're going to go the rest of the season. We're not going to be talking about this anywhere. Harrison Burton wins. This is a big moment for you as a team owner because now short of a win at Darlington, unless Bubba makes up 21 points on Chris Busher, he will not make. Which is possible.

Which is possible. Yep. But short of that, he will not make the NASCAR playoffs. Well, you know, I'm going to believe that he will. um we've seen the southern 500 for whatever reason it's it has some attrition if you look the results there's four or five cars that were running up front that have bad days and and and and it can happen to anyone i mean my last two months with the results it can happen uh so i wouldn't hold out hope against bubba going out there and just having a great day and you know if he goes

out there and he can get top three in each stage and finishing the top three, I think they put a tremendous amount of pressure on others to go out there and not have a bad day. All right. Well, let's take Bubba out of this. The 34th place car in the standings is now a playoff car in two weeks. Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing for sure. Yeah, certainly.

I mean, where are we are we talking about kind of Harrison and the team or are we talking about implications with Bubba still? Let's talk about Harrison and the team. And then I think that will naturally roll into

Bubba and the other drivers. I think this is huge for Harrison. I rode around the truck with him and pre-race, ask him a bunch of questions about you know, what are you going to do? And, you know, what's going on? What are you fighting over there?

And, you know, we had a great conversation and it was cool to see, you know, after he won. First of all, he won it by making great moves at the end, right? He stayed in line. He trusted Parker to push him there. You know, I didn't kind of examine exactly what he did to get the runs quite yet, but I'll look into it, but from TV it looked like, man, great move, fantastic move, great job blocking down the front stretch like you know it it's a game of inches right you know one if you're just a hair too late on one of these blocks next thing you know you get turned by the eight and so um i just thought he did a masterful job there's last few laps of executing and and getting the win certainly is huge for him

some great momentum for him you know i think he needed some confidence um and certainly you hear from his team, his teammates and his team guys that, you know, this is, this is the Harrison that we've always believed in. But now what about the implications for the Wood brothers, their 100th win? Yeah, it's great to see, you know, the Wood brothers get their 100th. They've been stuck on that 99 for quite some time now. Gosh, it's probably been 2017, I think. Yeah, I was blaming. Five years at Pocono. You know, they've been so committed to our sport, right? I think they're the longest running ownership team in our sport. You know, they've passed the torch to John Wood, who's done a great job,

continuing the legacy of the Wood Brothers Racing. And, you know, while, you know, they have such a strong alliance with Penske Racing, they still have a lot of blood in that car. And so certainly it's great to see the 21 get back to Victory Lane. And this is, as he mentioned in his post race, such a huge deal financially for them over the next two years. You know, the revenue is in the millions and millions of more that they're going to get now

than what they were being, you know, ranked 34th. I think back to that interview we had with Michael McDowell last year and how he was talking about moving, well, making the playoffs first, but then moving along in each round and the financial implications that it had that that team didn't have a Hawkeye and that if they were to finish, you know, wherever in the points that they could then be able to afford a Hawkeye. Is making the playoffs versus not making the playoffs? How much better does this make the Wood Brothers going into next season

than they were this season without making the playoffs? Well, I mean, think about this, right? I think Harrison was, I think he was last of the full-time drivers. He still is. He still is even after the win. No, he's 16. Well, in points, though, he's still 34. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I saw where he had like 260 total points. He just passed guys with 600 points. Like, now they know that the worst they're going to be is 16th in points. And so, you know, you basically just add up 125 grand per position that you gain, and that's how much of a reward they got. As a team, are the Woodbrothers operating under this belief that, okay, we're probably going to finish this year, 30 third, 30 second, and we're going to get this amount of money.

But now of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, they just came up with this much money. Yeah. And now it's like, how do we spend that? Yeah, so they'll get that at the starting next year, right? So it doesn't happen immediately. Now, what will happen immediately is at the end of this year, they're going to get, I don't even think it paid anything for the point fund back in 34th.

It was $0.00, right? I think past 25th was not. nothing. They're now going to get 16th, at least 16th place money, which is a million dollars basically to make the playoffs in your year-in point fund. So that's a million bonus. Then the charter ranking will go up tons, which I mentioned how much per spot there about it is. So it's, yeah, it's millions of dollars, which is big for a team like this. Do you have any issues with this, with this format, with this winning your end? I don't know. I mean, we're on the plane home, right? And everyone on the plane had an opinion of like how to fix all of this stuff but it's you know it's certainly

uh it's it's not ideal from the ownership standpoint right where i'm like you know damn you know above 13th in points or whatever it is and now there you know in one week there's an opportunity where someone 34th in points is going to be ranked ahead of him i i find that hard to swallow but i know it's the right and so um it's just up to us to win right and so it seems like this win in your end format opens itself up and and it opened itself up really when NASCAR changed the well you get at least got to be 30th in points right um they open that up and says well everyone right and this has become an evolution over time with our playoffs where we had so many corporate sponsors back in the day that we had 10 drivers and we talked about this on the plane was like it was like it was

10 drivers. It was your elite. If they were top 10 in points, like you had to be really good, right? 26 races, you got 26 races to get yourself in the top 10. If not, you're out. These elite guys are going to go race for the championship. And then, you know, you had some teams gripe and you had some sponsors gripe. Well, my guy's not part of the playoffs. Instead of them saying, well, sorry, get better. That's sports. They just said, okay, well, we'll expand it. And then, you know, a few years later, they said, okay, we're going to, you know, someone else didn't make it. And they griped and then they said, okay, well, we'll expand it to 16. And then they change it to, well, you just win and you're in now.

So it just changed. The landscape has changed so much that, you know, these types of things can happen. And it can be such a huge boost to a team like the Wood Brothers and the 21 where they're like, listen we know where we're at and it's not good and that's why we're going to make changes and you know we're going to struggle to get up there to holy shit we just hit the lottery like literally the lottery. I'm asking you this question not not in the hitting the lottery takes luck this took skill this took them spinning money preparing cars you know you got to field a competitive race car right and then Harrison has to go out and do the job I'm not

equating it to that, but I'm equating it to, it went from, you know, they're probably conceding that we're going to be last to all of a sudden, wow, we're top 16 and now we're guaranteed millions of dollars. Right. I'm asking you. That's the business side of it. I know that probably bores a lot of people, but that's just the insiders of what's going on. Right. And I'm asking you this because I knew what your argument was for at 1230 this morning. And then after I listened to Jordan Bianchi and and Jeff Gluck talk about it. I feel like I come back around to, well, yeah, it has made the sport and the racing

throughout the season more enjoyable because you don't have guys getting out of the car finishing third being like, well, well, I had a good points day because if they need to win, if Chris Buescher needs to win at Darlington, you know, four months ago, he's pissed off that he didn't win that race.

Yeah, no doubt. And now he's on the bubble, you know, for not potentially not making the playoffs. Right. I mean, he's a photo finish, you know, away, you know, And same with Kyle Busch at Atlanta, right? Photo finish that either is going to make him make or not make the playoffs. And right now it's looking like not.

So no doubt about it. You know, there's an entertainment and there's a sport. And certainly this is more entertaining for the fans. I more speak at it from a car owner's perspective who, you know, pays a lot of money to make my cars really, really fast. and have an opportunity, but it's up to the drivers to go win. And certainly, if you win, everything takes care of itself. What's more important, though, the 15 minutes of good feelings and everything after last

night's win or Bubba or Ross in the playoffs, and one of those people that can compete in a name? I'm going to stay out of that because it's an argument to be had, but not by me. Okay, let me ask you this then. So Jay was saying people, when Terardown mentioned it, you'd get third. but isn't the bonus points for victory enough that you're still going to have drivers like they're not going to settle for third they're still going to try to go win.

Absolutely. So like the bonus points make it worth it. So you would still like even if it wasn't win or in I don't think you'd have that many drivers going and say I'm good with third and get the points today. Like they're still going to be pissed and want to go for the win. So I don't think that's a problem

if you got rid of the win and you're in. I don't know. I mean we just this is a broken record but we've just, we've evolved into entertainment, and I understand that. I just need to see more hard data that proves that going this way that we've gone over the last decade has increased ratings. I just, someone has to prove that to me because certainly, you know, you see on social media the hardcore fans saying, what the heck, you know, when it comes to, you know, it could be the Austin Dillon thing or whatever,

but we all know what the rules are when the season starts so it's up to us to either go win or be so exceptionally good that you're martin true x right where yeah he hasn't won but he's been good enough to where he's going to get in the playoffs the old fashion way and that is being good enough in points so sure there's there's multiple avenues to do it but you know you just know at these super speedways you can you can have these type of winners that come out of the blue. And it's, that's what, that's what the type of drama that has been trying to be created and they've created it.

Let's transition to bubble Wallace and 2311 here for a moment. His quote after the race was that you got one car fighting for a regular season championship and Tyler Reddick and another on the bubble. It's unacceptable. I'll take all that weight on my shoulders. I should have won multiple times, and I haven't. We don't deserve to be here. But we are.

I've got to go win. That's it. I'm assuming when he's saying we shouldn't be here, he's talking about we shouldn't be on the bubble. Right. Yeah. You got one car at the top of the standings and another car on the bubble. Yeah, I mean, I understand his frustration there for sure. I mean, have we had the performance in the first 15 weeks, like we've had the last 10, this would be a non-issue?

which is why I always try to emphasize to my teams before the year starts that week one, you have to have the same intensity in week one is the intensity that you have in week 25 when you're trying to make the playoffs. That week meant no more than Darlington in the spring or Martinsville in the spring. Like they all matter. And so I know we, you know, TV. and media puts a lot of emphasis on these last five races leading into the playoffs as, oh my gosh, this moment is huge.

All the moments. The first 25 races have been important moments, which is why you cannot be off your game for any long extended period of time or else you will pay a price for it. And you'll find yourself on the bubble year and year out if you do not have sustained performance. And so I've always thought that, you know, while you want to shoot for being top 16 in points, that's not good enough.

You better plan on, you have to be 11th or 12th or better to feel good about making it in on points if that's what avenue you're going to take and not win. And it's proving to be the case. I think that right now you have to be 12th in points if you're going to get in. And so, yeah, it sucks that he's in that position. but again this is 26 races of a sample size and so certainly we all wish that Michigan didn't happen but it did it's just part of it trust me

I have two straight months of horrible finishes I'm not running horrible I'm finishing horrible that's this sport that's what this is you have to you have to run good enough when you don't get taken out or don't have a great date you have to run good enough in the other races to make up for that. So that's why they're in this position, is that for the first 15, they just didn't have it all together. And they knew they were a little off. But now they seem like they've got it. They do.

They are contenders. I think there are probably been a top five contender the last 10 weeks, if you probably added up the points and all that other stuff, the running position, the speed. but sometimes it's it's too little too late, right? It might be in this case, it might not. They might go out there and run top three, like I said, in every stage and finish, and let's see where the cards fall.

You say intensity needs to be the same. Is it actually any different from the start of season to the end of the season? No. Are guys less intense at the start of the season? No, I don't know that. I know that sometimes it takes certain drivers, and I've been one of them for most of my career, really up until the last couple years, where it always took me a while. I always was like summer where I started to kick in, right?

Now, is it because tracks got hotter and whatever? There was always a theory behind that, like Tony Stewart. Oh, when it heats up, Tony Stewart's in the summer, he's going to come to the front. I think that how suited you are to some tracks and the schedule does play a role in a factor. But I do think that maintaining intensity for 36 weeks is very, very hard. It's extremely hard, but it's what the elites do. It's what the elites prepare every week, whether it's a good track or a bad track or a media, DM track, it doesn't matter. You prepare the same with the same intensity and you go out there

and you give it your all. And it's just very, very hard for people to do that because you've got other going on in your life. Trust me, I know I'm torn in 18 different places during the week, but I always make sure that I give my job, my A-1 job, it's a due, right? And I give it my 100%. I never want to leave any stone unturned when it comes to being a race car driver because that's that's the shortest runway of career i've got left um but it's hard to do and it's not sometimes it's not because of effort right it's just because the the pick crew needs time to jail and the driver crew chief relationship needs time to jail and you're building notes and things change rule changes over the off season and you don't adapt to them as well like that that's all part of

of it. But it's the elites, man, bring it every single week and they overcome when goes bad on the racetrack. They come back for a great finish or whatever. And so I don't, it's not sour grapes on my end that the 23 teams in this spot. It's just, man, this is, I'm liking at least what I'm seeing when it comes to the performance now. Like, this is, this is good, acceptable performance. I hate that it's come so. late in the game, but, and, they're on it right now. They're running well. You said four years ago that this 2311 was a five-year project to turn this team into a championship contender, and Reddick's one week away from potentially grabbing a regular season championship. What does that

mean as an owner while you also have this other guy fighting on the bubble? Yeah, I mean it means a lot. it really does. I mean, I'm very proud of what we've built over there. And building it from scratch has not been easy. A lot of things take time. Although we may have, you know, there's probably things on the list right now where, okay, here's what I want my competition department to work on next. That project might take a year, two, to actually finish, right?

we're just now building our pit crew facility. You know, that's going to take another three months. It'll be done right on time, right when the season is over. So, like, it just things take time, right? And so when I said it would take five years to build a championship contending organization, like, I knew that that was a realistic number. And while it seems easier to do it quicker, it is not. because, you know, I just starting this thing from scratch really was hard because you don't have,

you know, if you want to start a new department, well, you've got to find the talent. And we're not going to just hire people just to hire them. We're going to make sure that it's the right people. And I think Dave Rogers and that whole team, competition department, have just done a fabulous job putting the right people in the right places to succeed. They work really, really closely with Joe Gibbs racing, and particularly the 11 car. And they're seeing the fruits of all the hard work they've put in.

And certainly would love to see them get this thing to the finish line next week. If I can offer an anecdote from last night, I thought it was cool. Now, obviously, it's disappointing that you were knocked out of the race, but I thought it was cool to see you in the bus watching this race as a fan of both Tyler and Bubba. when Bubba was in that wreck, you know, you're like, come on. You're like, where's Bubba? Where's Bubba?

Like trying to find Bubba in this wreck. And then once you find him, you know, Taylor's sitting there. She goes, oh, you know, like he's hit by this car, hit by this car. There's no wheel damage. There's no, wheel damage. That's like, no, he's good. He's fine. He didn't hit wheels.

He hit body, not wheels. That's good. He's fine. He's fine. They're like, no, look at him. He's ping pong and in the middle of these cars. I'm like, I see that, but he didn't hit the wheels. That's good.

Part of you was like this. rational fan being like, no, no, no, he didn't just get total. I was totally Austin Payton, right? When you watch, do you have, do you have the audio or are you just a true fan? I actually, these people, they have the big screen right outside the bus that has, it's live. You know what I mean? So, you know, TV's always delayed, gosh, it feels like it's been more and more, about 10 seconds now. More than that.

It seems like a lot, right? There'll be a crash. y'all will tell me oh there's a big crash and i'm like stop telling me that i'm watching it on jared did that he texts me a couple uh i forget what trace i was i think it was when austin dill and when he he's texting he's like 30 seconds ahead of us and i'm like i got to wait to see what happens so you know what i did for the green white checker i put the shades down in the bus that says y'all are all in this capsule with me you will not you will not go out there and listen and watch it live you're going to sit here on this 10 second delay with me.

Because I didn't want to, you know, yeah, I guess it was you that had the Bubba's radio or somebody's radio on and you hear him saying, oh, they're crashing, get log, you know, and I'm like, well, yeah, no, they're in turn two. And that's not right. So, yeah, I hate getting spoiled, you know, I just want to find out at the same time as everyone else. So it was, I was, I was fanboying quite a bit, kind of watching. these wrecks play out and like just oh man please please don't involve them please don't involve them

when you're driving can you get a feeling that like something's about the wreck's going to happen even if you're in the car or even out just watching yeah um yeah i mean you can start to just feel the intensity of the pack and so i kind of explained it in the uh when we had a had a fennix Q&A before the race. And, you know, your intuition usually is correct most times. But what happens is, you know, everyone just starts giving each other less room. You know, while the track might be four cars wide if you put us, you know, door to door to door, we can run it three lanes wide pretty comfortably.

Now, what happens is coming off the corner when someone has kind of a moment where they're like, mate, oh, I'm getting tight. Well, instead of them lifting, they're like, I'm just going to use this space up here. And then the middle guy's like, no, I need this space. And the top guy is saying, I need to get down there and side draft. All that starts to compress. And the three lanes that we use becomes like two and a half lanes. And we all just start taking more and giving less.

And that's when you can feel Rex really kind of about to happen. Was it good to see three wide racing? This, this. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm certainly glad it wasn't such a big fuel. Now, it was about to head that way. When we had the Corley-Ljoil wreck, we were all saving at that moment. I was looking at the pace in stage three,

and it looked like there were definitely some that were going all out, and then there were some that were definitely trying to save fuel. It was going to be very, very interesting. Had that wreck not happened, the John Hunter Nemechek one, what happens through this Green Flag Pit cycle? I think it was going to be very compelling to see who flip-flops their track position because they saved fuel and then who goes to the back because they ran up front. They were a lap or two away from it happening and it looked like cars were fighting for the bottom,

which is why that wreck happened in the first place. That was interesting because I feel like a majority of the heavy hitters were in the back half of that pack. and the guys up front were the ones who were lower in the point stand. And so they were burning more fuel than the heavy hitters in the back, right? But this wreck then took out some of the heavy hitters and you never got to see that switch, that flip-flop. Yeah, it certainly did. And also what it did is it allowed those who were running up front burning fuel. It allowed them to, okay, they just got, the caution came out.

They got saved. so now they can put an extra one second of fuel in and not lose 20 spots. You might lose three or four, but they're not going to lose. So it actually paid to be aggressive in that third stage and just go, get your track position. Because if you get lucky and the caution does fall like it did, now bam, you can be on equal fuel with everyone, didn't lose your track position. What did you make of Lee Diffey in that call at the finish? Fantastic.

Oh my gosh. Can we sign him up for 36 of 36 races? Maybe. Can we just make that executive decision at NBC or NASCAR to say, hey, non-exclusive, let him do all the races. He is just fantastic. He knows how to match the moment. He brings, just, I don't know what it is.

It's just the great ones know how to match the moment with their voice. they change their tone. They changed the speed in which they're calling a race, right? That's why he was tabbed to do the 100 meters in the Olympics, right? Like, because that's what he does and what he's really, really good at. So he's just a fantastic addition. I thought, generally speaking, NBC's production, like the 3D car that they're doing, they're showing, you know, all these, you know, when something goes wrong,

they've got the CAD that shows all the stuff. that NBC is just knocking out of the park right now. Lee's voice, he's never like, you never feels rushed, even in the big moments. And like if you close your eyes, you can tell exactly what happened at the end of that race. Yes. Like it was succinctly said the names and just how he quickly pivoted from Kyle Bush to Harrison. It was, it was perfect. Absolutely.

Yep. And know what was great about it too. They let him have it. They let him have the moment. Steve and Jeff, they didn't get in it. They knew that this guy's the, the play. by play, let him call it, right? And then we will react to what we just saw after the checker flag. So that was, that's a little bit of the chaos that you have. I feel like at Fox is like everyone's

trying to call the last lap and it's a little messy sometimes. But man, they nailed it. They nailed the finish. They, I mean, it had me standing up in my chair of the last lap and I didn't have a dog in the Harrison Burton Kyle Busch fight. Yeah, I think, I think, I think, Jeff Gluck said it. He said, Lee Diffie, he sounds like he's already seen the moment. He sounds like he's already watched the last lap, so he knows what he's going to say, because it all syncs up perfectly, right? The Jeff, your little boy, has done it, you know? It's, listen, to me, it did touch my inner soul a little bit. Certainly that moment with Jeff Burton, his son and seeing how excited Jeff was.

I know it just means so much to him. And how he was able to talk after that, I have no clue. There's no way I would have been able to. I would have been overcome with emotion to be able to respond in that moment. But man, just so great. It was cool. Anything else you want to add from Daytona before you turn to hopefully a happier page? you have something happy

no i'm wondering if if if you did i don't i'm ready to put this week i'm over it i'm done this this this this week is dead it's dead to me sunday off he's working right now jared oh okay in ten minutes he's got a sunday off thanks appreciate it i'm good uh trackhouse announced a third charter SVG will drive the 88 letting zane smith go man that's a tough one for zane smith um i'm a little closer to this situation than I probably should because I've not mentored Zane, but I've talked to Zane quite a bit through his NASCAR career and kind of giving advice on different situations as they arise and different opportunities. But man, this certainly put a tough spot on Zane because, you know, he thought he had a long-term future at Trackhouse. He

foregoed other opportunities in Cup Series to take this opportunity with Trackhouse, and then when you get let go, you've then lost out on your other opportunities. And so not ideal for Zane Smith. And certainly, I would back Zane when it comes to what the future might hold. I think he's coming into his own. I think you have not seen the best Zane Smith yet. Your own, your own, you're only starting to see now what he can do. I think he's had some really great finishes. Again, they were one of the teams that, man, they were really bad at the beginning of the year. Terrible. Terrible.

And then they've turned the corner. You know, for whatever reason, over the last 10 weeks, they've turned the corner and they're starting to get going. And now Zane's got to kind of regroup and figure out where to go with his career from here. So I think he's a good enough talent that he is going to. to get a good opportunity, a winning opportunity somewhere. I hope it's in cup. Yeah, since Nashville, he's only finished outside the top 20 twice.

So that's eight to nine races there since Nashville. Wow, I didn't know that. So you don't necessarily think that this season and the way it went for the 71 cars, necessarily a black eye on Zane's young Cup series career. You know, we see a lot of young guys come up. They get in, you know, cars that aren't as good as other cars. Really, I mean, it was a third, wasn't it an additional team? This was a new team for Spire, right?

The third charter? Like, they didn't have three cars last year. Is that? I think that's correct. So this is a new car, new team with a, at the time, mid-tier team. So, I mean, what are your expectations, right? But I think he's taking it to the next level from what I've seen, and you just read results that show that he's,

when, you know, given a little bit of experience, now half a season, he's already turned the corner to being twice as good as he was at the beginning of the season. So what is he going to do a year from now, two years from now? So I think the ceiling's pretty high on him. I think he'll get picked up by somebody who sees it. But I mean, from a track house standpoint, though,

SVG basically guarantees you a playoff berth, most likely. with his road course street race racing i think that this you know certainly uh you know he trackhouse brought SVG in last year is that correct last year and you started kind of this long-term plan uh to to try to get him um you know into cup one day and they were going to kind of see how it played out through other series um i don't think that there's any question that you know SVG can get you in the playoffs um as long as road courses are on a schedule.

And that certainly, we talked about the financial implications of that. That's a factor, right? There's a commercial, there's a commercial decision to be made as well as an intellectual decision. And I think that they feel that this is their best path. And there's a lot of things that go into it, certainly.

Sponsorship, we cannot run these cars without sponsorship. And so if SVG has a leg up on sponsors, And you're already thinking, well, it's 50-50, then you're going to make a commercial decision. And I understand that. This kind of reminded me of like in football, you'll see like a player get cut because they, they're drafted a hot shot player and they're going to invest in them. That kind of is what I feel like with Zane Smith is he's just the collateral,

but because they've got this hot shot driver. Yeah, I mean, eventually you're just out of seat numbers, right? And I think before letting Zango, they had five for three, right? you've got with still got connor zill's sitting sitting over there and you got to think that one day as long as they're able to keep him it then it's still you still have an odd man out somewhere but um you know that's you know you can't fault track house on investing on their in their future right you know they they're investing that they've got this alliance with colleague i think they got this alliance with spire they got this alliance with junior motorsports like they're

least spending money to give these young drivers opportunities if it's not with them with someone else. So I kind of can appreciate what they're doing to try to build up their driver pool. Has that always been a thing in the past where a team would invest in drivers that aren't even racing for them directly at the cup level? Or is they doing something more? It's changed over time. Over, you know, long, once upon a time, a billion years ago when I started, but we would just, Joe Gibbs Racing or Hendrick Motorsports would just start a Xfinity team, right? Or what have you. It's just a different world now where it's, you know, it just doesn't make sense.

You know, even the cup teams have seen that, you know, running Xfinity just financially is not ideal. So you go to a existing team that already has the infrastructure, the people, and the cars, and you just say, okay, well, I'll give you X amount of dollars to run this person. And really we've seen that that's kind of what the Xfinity series has morphed itself into, is to, you know, it's drivers that are, you know, others are investing money in to go compete there or just get them ready for the next level. It's interesting, though, that this regular season format has more or less created SVGs opportunity and Cup next year, right? Because trackhouse looks at this as, okay, we have Zane's.

Yeah, because realistically, I mean, not. to jump over you, but I mean, if SVG is top 25 in points next year, I would be, I'd be shocked. I really would. But he's a great chance to go win one. But he's likely just going to go win a road course and then find themselves 16th or better. And as long as they keep multiple road courses in the playoffs, he could, I don't know. He'd go to the top eight.

I don't know. This is hard. It takes time to learn. And what, you know, what I can appreciate it. is when I watch Xfinity races, SVG does for the most part take care of his equipment and he gets better as the race goes. That's all you can really ask from him. And so I think this is really just a decision to say, okay, well, he's going to be our best path to do what we want to accomplish in the short term. And let's see how this all pans out and can he continue to get better on the ovals?

And I think he will. I got a review here from Gabe. And they say, well, I'm not an at track fan. I don't mean that in a bad way. I think you're an awesome guy. I absolutely love the podcast and can't wait for it to drop every week. Sounds like a common theme. We'll take it. Yeah, well, I appreciate it.

Thanks for the review, Gabe. We'll see you at a racetrack soon. I don't have anything else. What about you guys? Make sure to rate review, follow wherever you get your podcast. Yeah. Thank you guys. Subscribe on YouTube.

Ah, yeah. Subscribe, please on YouTube. And we will see you guys post Darlington win.