Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Didn’t Get The Memo, Still Got The Drama

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Denny Hamlin is back after an eventful Sunday at the Charlotte ROVAL, where the NASCAR Playoffs took another wild turn – and once again, he found himself at the center of the sport’s biggest storyline. From the chaos at Charlotte Motor Speedway to the contact with Ross Chastain, Denny breaks down what really happened, why he understands it – and whether he’d do anything differently.3:30 Corey Heim locks himself into the Champ 47:00 Shocker…Connor Zilisch wins again12:00 Should this be the last year we have the ROVAL?28:30 Goodyear crushes it once again33:00 Did the 45 screw up their strategy?39:00 Daniel Saurez unable to help his teammate43:30 Ross Chastain with massive mistakes on pit road49:00 What exactly happened at the end with Denny and RossReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/For more Actions Detrimental content: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimentalFanDuel Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode is brought to you by Bob's discount furniture, one of the fastest growing stores in the country, including some North Carolina locations. At JGR, we obviously love speed, and so teaming up with Bob does make sense for us. With over 200 stores nationwide, they offer unbeatable prices and latest styles. If you do go get a new apartment, one or freshen up your current furniture or you're buying a new home, go check out Bob. So they're going to give you your best prices for the most quality furniture. you can get. So go check them out and appreciate them being our title sponsor for this episode. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. I believe that I've been a competitive for 20 years.

Opinions from tonight's podcast, strictly biased. You're going to hear from my point of view. I'm a fighter. No, you are not. The spoils of victory for Jared Allen. He's got better luck than Rick and Drake don't win. I know, you do. Two trophies missing from your collection. A championship and the most popular driver. Someone told me that their drinking game is when I say for sure. Yeah, and I've already said it.

Hey guys, welcome to Actions Detrimental Post the Roval. The end of the round of 12 for the NASCAR Cup series. I am Denny Hamlin. I am that guy again. Three weeks in a row. You know, it's interesting. You know, some I asked for it. some I did not, but

this is three weeks in a row. We definitely have been part of the story. Think about it while finishing 12th, second, and 23rd. And you know what sucks about all of it? I've got no DAP points for all this. You know what I mean?

Just no credit for... Well, you haven't cared about that. Growing this sport. No DAP points. No DAP points. No bonus playoff points. No, that's not true. One, two stages of Kansas. Oh, that's right.

Yeah. And as we heard, every playoff point matters. Can we just start with that since you're going to bring it up? Whatever you want, Jared. All right. On that Joey Lagano quote about every point mattering, I'll let you weigh in on this. But he says the regular season matters, every point matters. Him and Ross scored seven playoff points in the regular season.

Therefore, they're third level. This whole playoff run, this last playoff round, they're completely level. The points they scored. regular season are irrelevant when it comes to this round of the playoffs so ross losing out by one point is only based on the last three races yeah i just want to check too that uh i want to i want to be factual here i don't want to uh joey lagano finished 12th in the regular season um standings and ross was 13th. So they were right there.

They get playoff points for outside top 10? They do not. So they both entered the playoffs with seven playoff points and entered the round of 12 with seven playoff points. Therefore, this one point difference that would have been if Ross didn't do what he did is only based on the last three races. The regular season isn't relevant to these two drivers

when it comes to this battle. That's right. Absolutely right. Um, where do we even start with this race? Let's just quickly knock out the others. Travis, go ahead and dub all my other clips from every other week when Coreyheim wins. You have at least, at least now we know he's in the champ four? Oh, it is? That locked in.

Yeah, he locked in. Though I think mathematically he's probably locked in anyways. But will you win the championship is? Definitely there's a big uproar over like, Oh, he better win the championship now. I kind of want him not to just so that it helps. For the argument. Sorry, Gore.

I don't. You want to see him see it through. And I think his crew chiefs, Scott Zipadeli, said the same thing. He's like, you can already see. He's paranoid about it. Like, after the race, they won the race. He's like, I just hate this format. Like, we still have to go to Phoenix now on a level playing field with, you know, guys that

we've never even seen all season more than likely. But it is the format. You've got to deal with it. It's just, this is the last year of it. Certainly it's the last year of the one race winner take all. So congratulations to Corey. Record-breaking 10th truck series victory in one season. I mean, the rest of the truck series playoffs are interesting

because Tyler Anchorman, Daniel Hemrick, are just plus two above the cut line. Yeah. Raja is plus one. Raja's still in it. Yeah, we got Tyler Ankeram, Daniel Hemmerich. I feel Raja's been very underwhelming this year. Well, he only needs to be a little

welcoming or overwhelming in the next three races. That's the beauty of this. They have Talladega and Martinsville or the races left in their round. Yeah, with Taledega too. I mean, holy cow. Yeah, it's going to come down to just what guys can survive that.

That'll be interesting. So the trucks are not at Las Vegas then. Correct. Right. That was, it was Brent Cruz's race to win. I mean, I definitely felt bad for Brent. Young guy, a ton of talent. He's kind of the next Toyota guy coming up the pipeline.

And, you know, got a great opportunity there running the role. He's run quite a bit of road course racing. He kind of grew up, you know, I don't know that he grew up. doing it, but he's got quite a bit of road course experience. And it seemed like him and Hime were tit for tat on like their lap times. And certainly after that first lap, Corey's truck got destroyed on both sides. And it was like, he still found a way to come back and win. Now, he needed some good luck. That caution came late. Those that didn't watch. Brent had the racing control. A couple laps to go. There was a caution. I think Tony Bridner,

stalled somewhere around turn five or six. Caution comes out. Corey Hym stays out with a couple, about four or five friends, Brent Cruz and others, Pitt, and they just never made it back in time. So Hime gets to win. Probably got one that,

you know, he wasn't destined to win, even though he was still arguably one of the best trucks, if not the best truck. So, yeah, you run up front enough, you'll have these brakes go your way, but a big win for them.

Accinity, Connor Zilch wins. Not much of a surprise there. I'm looking at the times, looking at the charts in the bus as this race is going on. And it's like, I don't know, you just kind of, it's a foregone conclusion at this point that you know that unless something wacky happens, it's going to win this race.

And it's going to, you know, it's not really going to be close. The moment, though, was Sammy Smith's team, rolling the dice and pitting and then boom they get the caution did they roll the dice or they had no choice because of the tire i think they based yeah i think it was basically like we have to throw a helmary like it's if we just stay out we're not making it and you see that strategy happen quite a bit on road courses uh if you ever wonder why your favorite driver happens to pit with like five laps to go at the end of a road course if they're running 20th it's that they don't really care about going and finishing 30th. What that does is that if there is a late race caution, now they've already pitted,

the field most likely will pit, and now they've got fresh tires. They can cycle, so there's more to gain than there is certainly to lose. And so lots of cup teams do that at the end of the race. They just pit just because there's way more to gain than lose. And so, yeah, it was, it was wild because Sammy Smith was definitely in trouble and then that caution came and it just changed everything. Then they had to review it

because then the caution came after the whites and then it was like figuring out where he was. It took the moment for him to know he was in. Did we ever figure out what that last caution was for? I didn't.

I didn't know, I don't know that they I, okay, I saw the wreck in turn seven with two to go. There was a wreck. and turn 7th for those who didn't see. And there was a car that got kind of the front end,

T-boned, another one. And you knew at that point, there is oil and water and leaking out of the front of that car. Like, there's just, the way those Xfinity cars were built, there's no question somebody's going to be leaking something. And so at that point, I'm thinking, oh, for sure, there's going to be a caution here because there's clearly stuff all over the racetrack.

that's even if the cars even pull away now they cut away from that they didn't show us cars pulling away or anything tv cut away from that to go back to the leader and then we watched the next lap and then all of a sudden caution and i i don't recall and i could be wrong i don't recall them saying well this is for that wreck that happened in turn seven about two minutes ago it's listed as for the oil on the track the oil was there upon impact that's why you know it's it's just a little of the inconsistency a little bit the oil was there it was there right away you could see the car it had a little smoke coming out of the under the hood obviously it's dropping something so i was surprised They did not throw a caution there before that white flag, but they let it play all the way out.

And if you remember, we had kind of this controversy last year when Parker was leading where they said they didn't see a car that was in the barriers, waited a long time until 100 feet before the start finish, and then they threw it on Parker. It's just, you know, we could do better, certainly. but I mean the rifle car one let's let's not discredit that and with that Zilich gets his 10th win of the season I always wondered if there was like a limit to the space above the door for these wind stickers

no limit there's no limit there plenty of space up there we can you can move sponsors around and all that stuff they're happy to move them so yeah I feel like I'm looking at the three winners, and it's full chalk the whole way. The favorite in every race, Haim, obviously, every race is going to be a favorite, and he's swept all the road courses this year in the trucks.

Zilich is obviously on a class of his own against the Xfinity field, and SVG is in a class of his own in the cup field. Full chalk, no surprises. So why are we running road courses again? because there was drama. Oh, we have drama. Okay. Was that drama for 20th place?

It was for the final playoff spot. Okay. What's our general temperature on the roval at this point? I know we always talk about this. We saw that they put it on the schedule for next year, but is it too late to make a right to see? decision here and get us off. No, because it's not like you have to, it's not like you have to build a new track or something. It's, it's, it's, the location is the same place. Like, does someone have blackmail

on Marcus Smith? Like, I feel like everybody's in agreement. Go away. My role. My mom texted me at the beginning of this race 329 yesterday. She said, this is the suckiest race of the year. I don't know who tells NASCAR differently. And then I didn't, I didn't answer right away, um, because of, you know, the race and whatnot. And then I responded to her at 6.09 and I was like, to answer your question, and that's why they race here. Because something like that is always guaranteed to happen at the end. And that's all they want. Yeah, but think about this.

I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm just saying that that's... But you were tuned in. Do you think that people tune in halfway through that race, look at that thing and say, well, this is more compelling than the football just turned off? Bingo, because here's the thing, is NASCAR gets the moment at the end,

but it's not enough to get someone to turn the race on at the start. exactly right yeah I agree with that and I think that Jeff Gluck on the tear down had a great point

he's like he says when he turned off football because he was watching the Broncos playing the one o'clock game he says he went in his room where he can kind of watch things he's probably got like a warm room set up

with his computer multi-monitor checking in cars things like that when he's, you know, journalizing this, is it journalizing? You could just say working. Working.

I don't know. Anyway, from home, he's like, man, you got to be a die-hard, hardcore fan at this time of the day

to then go say, I'm going to go watch the roble, where you basically know what the outcome is. I mean, I didn't even want to turn it on. I knew where you're going to finish. I knew where SVG is going to finish.

I'm like, Like, what are we doing here? I had you over for the OSU game on Saturday night, and I think you guys asked me, well, how's your car? How are we going to finish? How are we going to finish? I was like, I don't know, but I do know one thing, that SVG is miles ahead of everyone else.

That's all I can say is that he is just miles ahead, and it's not close. So to Jeff Gluck's point, you really have to be dedicated to, you know, this is your number one priority if you're going to tune in and watch the roble. And I agree that if this is on the oval, can you tell me who's going to win on the oval? I don't think so. But I also don't. The 600 was wildly entertaining. The mile and a half product with this car is amazing.

What? I, I'm, I'm. fairly certain that it is on the schedule simply because a it's smi's date let me give you the facts it is smi's date they own that date it is a playoff race smi doesn't own any of the road courses okay and they want a road course to be in the playoffs a road course i don't think they care what when or how so they want a road course in the playoffs it's smy's date so s ms date so has no choice, you know, to give Marcus a little buyout here, they, I don't know that they have a choice but to run the roble.

But you said it's SMI's date, so don't they have the choice? Are you saying NASCAR would take- NASCAR wants a road course in the playoffs? So why doesn't he say put a road course in, but not my? Are you saying that they're not going to give up that revenue? So you're saying if he doesn't do a road course- He would have to go buy, he would have to go rent a track. And that is just, that wouldn't be economic.

economically as good for him. So I'm asking you, so if he doesn't put the road course, you're saying NASCAR is going to take that date away? No. So then why does he have to put the road course in? What road courses does NASCAR own? They own Watkins Glen, right? Sonoma?

Oh, no. They do. I'm wrong. SMI does own Sonoma. But, I mean, I guess we could race there this time of year, couldn't we? Probably. Yeah, I don't see why not. It's always beautiful in California.

Yeah, it's a good question. I just, I think that the mile and a halfs are just, it's the best product that we have. The road courses have proven to be very, very difficult on this car. You know, it's, when I say difficult, it's difficult to pass in this car. Any one lane racetrack, this car just, it can't do it. Because, you know, the aerodynamic properties of it, it's just not good in traffic. You have to have multi-lanes to move around. Charlotte Oval is the multi-lane of multi-lane racetracks.

It's a little baby Kansas. The right thing to do is to put us on the Oval. I just, NASCAR would either have to say it's fine not having a road course in the playoffs, which there's, you know, I don't know that anyone is clamoring for, you know, a road course to have to be in the playoffs. I mean, we are a stock car series. Yes, we, you know, we typically, for the bulk of my career, we ran two road courses a year. None of them were at the end of the season. That's the way it always used to be.

But I also understand the logic of, well, you just, you want to crown someone that's, good, it all tracks, although, I don't know, you get where I'm trying to go here. I get it, but then the format is. Someone, someone has to give. Either NASCAR has to give on the schedule and say, do we really have to have a road course in the final 10? Yes or no? The answer is probably no, that you don't have to. We used to not have to.

Because I believe that if SMI and or NASCAR wants an instant bump, in ratings and in ticket sales, in 2025 or in 2026 they announce, we're going to be in Charlotte in October, but we're going to be racing left turns. And I think your fan sentiment would go up. But I don't even think it's all about just the on-track product. To credit Brad Kosalski's tweet about needing more star power,

A lot of these football fans are tune into their games, not because their teams any good, just because they're a fan of that team, and on Sunday they watch that team. So if you create more star power, on Sunday, Denny Hamlin's driving, I'm watching Denny Hamlin, even though he's probably not going to win this particular race game, right? You're just tuning in for that. Well, there's been a million surveys, but the fans have absolutely spoken in their fan council survey that NASCAR sends out, if they don't care about points as much as they care about, who wins a particular race.

They've made that abundantly clear. So it's the whole argument that, you know, some of the shills are making is that, oh, well, you don't want someone clinching early. People will tune out. That is absolutely not true. People are going to tune in to watch Chase and Larson and the popular drivers. If you promote that, but we're not really.

promoting that right now. It's about just like giving someone a gimmick and an entertaining as entertaining as possible Sunday which isn't all that entertaining sometimes. Well, I think that the race was three hours and some change

and your moment came in hour 259-59. Fourth quarter. I mean, at the buzzer, right? And so you're asking a lot for people to wait and sit through that for maybe possibly that one last corner moment. And that's, that's

tough. Where on the Oval, you're going to see some amazing races, amazing racing throughout the entire day. You're going to see a lot of side-by-side battles. I mean, I watched the end of the race, obviously, because of the last corner highlight. And it was SVG wins. And then, And then like a minute and a half later, we come back. I remember watching the bus when you're like, I said, I bet that was interesting or exciting on TV. And you're like, I don't know what it was. I guess you were on pit road or something.

When I watched it on TV, it said final lap. And I'm looking at my car in chastain's. I'm like, that's not the final lap. And I look, then I look at the other box and it's like, oh, yeah, SVG's sick. He's on the final lap. We are not. Because we were so far apart. I think it was 90 some seconds that we were all behind.

Yeah, Travis, let's think about this. It wasn't even at the buzzer. It was two minutes after the buzzer. Game was over. Game was over. And that was what your shining moment was. Also, like, if you want the casual fan, like if they're turning in late,

they're confused and they're not probably watching. Like, if road course is not, Like, they're probably like, what is going on here? I mean, Lee Diffy was like, SVG took the white. Denny and Ross have two laps to go. Yeah. You're asking a lot, certainly. And like, you know, even where NBA claims, you know,

even acknowledges that they're mostly a highlight league, you know, most of the views, clicks, things like that come on exciting plays. For us, that's going to be restarting. three wides, that's going to be battles for the lead. Those are our highlight clips. You're just not going to get much of that Honorary Road course.

Is the NBA going down in views? Their audience? Their audience? For a while they were. I think last year, Travis is going to do some recon here for us. Some actual... Some data.

I think they're on the rebound up, But still, when I say they went down, like they went down. So they saw a decrease in the regular season and they came up in the playoffs. The only reason I bring that up is because I feel like 10 years ago, the NBA was doing really well when it came to evolving with social media and the trends of having their highlights on your phone constantly right now. And then I think NASCAR tried chasing that a little. bit. But now it seems like the NBA is kind of like that's not that's not carrying them anymore.

2% decline. Yes, it's like. But here's the other thing that does it say what the average viewers are or no. Averaging 1.5.3. But it's there's tons of games. And the other the other thing with the NBA is yeah. Yeah. Times times 15 games. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You also have fans are of they're just like individual players because of fantasy and gambling. So it's a little different how people are viewing it. Also, the NBA for years has told any person, here's our content, put it out on any channel you want, publicize us. And so that's why social, though, they're probably crushing it.

They do do well socially, no doubt. I don't know. We got our highlight from that race yesterday. And Ryan McGee tweeted, I appreciate the past. passion for those wanting to get rid of the Roval and the NASCAR playoffs, but have also been around long enough to have covered a couple dozen fall Charlotte Oval races, and none of them were as memorable, entertaining, or important. Today was all three.

Well, it was, okay. Well, it was memorable because it happened five minutes ago. Was last year's Kyle Larson win memorable? Like, what do you all remember about last year? Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only two roval race.

It also was a cutoff race. The only two roval races I remember, Christopher Bell won and locked himself in one year, right? Yeah. And Jimmy John. The only memorable moment I have from the roval is the first year? The highlight they keep playing of Martin Truex and Jimmy, wrecking in the final corner.

They got a new one now. It happened 10 years ago. And then me and Ross wrecking in the final corner, which I have a lot of questions for where we'll get into. to. It's just that the racing is not memorable. I just, I think where you're needing to keep people's focus, it is really going to be hard to keep focus on a race where we just had the three favorites by a mile win this all by a mile. Like it just wasn't close and I just as a fan, it's it's tough to get um and i'm a fan and ask if i had my choice you know what i what i put in

in my bus on a saturday big screen we got the race football's on i put it on one of the small tvs right i'm a racing fan first um it's a lot to ask it's a lot to ask and i believe that um the right decision is to put us on the oval i think you'll get the most out of your your product if you do that. You just got to make some compromises somewhere else down the road. You don't have to change, you know, promoters, dates, things like that.

It's right there. Just remove the barriers entering turn one. Get rid of those. Let us drive straight through and go on to the banking. I believe, if I were in charge and this was my sport, I would say, that's what we're going to do

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So what are you waiting for? Fast delivery, winning styles, Bob's discount furniture, always in your corner. Where do we go from here? You should talk about the tire fall off in the race? Yeah, I mean, I almost wore my good ear hat again. I almost thought to myself, I'm just, I'll wear a good ear hat anytime that they, I think that they bring a tire that, you know, it's got big fall off and things like that. It's clearly through their advancements, they have.

come up with something that makes tires wear. They put something in the mixture that is making tires wear. Because every time we go to a tire test, even the last two or three tire tests that have happened at other racetracks in New Hampshire, wherever, Goodyear always has brought a, they bring a tire, and the drivers say, man, that thing wore out in like 20 laps,

25 laps. And I'm like, oh, that's awesome. So I know they used to say that, well, in order to make tires wear, it's all about the surface. Clearly now it is not about the surface. I think they've learned enough to know that there's something that they can put in the formula of that rubber that will make it wear out, which is a great technological advancement and certainly can be used to optimize our racing going forward. So props to good year for, you know, brink.

bringing this thing to, I guess this is kind of our standard road course tire at this point. But yeah, it was, I couldn't believe it in practice. I'm watching Group A. And we're watching the lap times. And it's like, okay, this just dropped the half a second first lap, another half, another half. And the line just kept going. And it was like, well, surely these guys are going to level out at some point. No, it was, it was crazy to see like four seconds. Four seconds of fall off. It was incredible. Now, in the race, it wasn't quite as much. I thought that it, you know, about 30% of the drop-off was recovered. But it was still fine. It was still, you still had comers and goers. It's the reason Ross was, you know, backing up so

heavy at the end of that race, he just had no rear tires left. But yeah, I thought they did a great job. We had a great tire this week. That's certain. played no factor in how compelling or lack of compelling that the race may have been. But I think it changed strategies though, right? Because flipping the stages and then getting buried wasn't a factor then this weekend. Yeah, what it did is it allowed teams to race the race a little bit more conventional. More like a mile and a half where, you know, first stage, we're going to split it down the middle. second stage, most of the field split it down the middle.

Now, some did do, you know, what we did on the 11 is we decided, all right, we're just going to go along and pin once, flip the stage, put us up more towards the front for stage three. But the tire wear, yes, was so substantial that, you know, most teams found it hard to even run one stage on a set of tires. So it did change strategies for a lot of teams. Did you find that the ability, each driver's ability, to conserve tires played a role in who you were passing versus when you got passed in this race?

Like when you're driving, you can go ahead. I'm saving my tires. You go ahead if you want to burn yours up and then you pass them six laps, seven laps down the road. Did any of that play into the race yesterday? Yeah, I thought if you were good and you were good at saving tires and your car helped you save tires, then absolutely. Yeah, there was an opportunity to recover spots that may be lost on the short run, which is really kind of why we saw the five and the 20 attacking the 88 early in the, was that the second stage or third stage?

Third stage. It really doesn't matter. But it's, you know, the SVG was clearly just saving. And so, you know, he could have hit the gas at any point and definitely kept him behind him. But the only reason they passed him was because he was very, diligent on saying this is all I'm going to run. I'll see you guys shortly, which he did and then took off. Did the 45 team script their strategy yesterday?

I don't know exactly. I haven't, again, this is Monday morning, so I don't have all the information on that. But if you remember last week when we were talking about, you know, everyone's just saying must win, must win. I'm like, is it really? I don't know that it is must win. And had you...

Especially with these tires. Well, no one saw this tire drop off coming. Not until after Saturday, did we recognize that it was a thing or this big of a thing. I think at that point, yeah, you probably... You probably maybe play the race a little differently

because if he goes in there and he scores top three stage points in each stage, he would have had an extra how many? So how many did he finish? He missed the cut by how many? By 17? I thought it was like 12.

Anyway, if he has another eight there, like, more than likely, he starts... He had nine in stage two. Nine in stage two. Like, if he knew that those cut, line guys we're going to finish 20th.

You know, maybe you play it differently to say, we're going to get max stage points and then we're going to try. I mean, the only difference is he would have definitely been more buried. No, he did take stage points in stage three. I'm thinking he would have been more buried in stage three, which he was, which is why he only finished where he finished. I think the mistake was. I think it was still going to be difficult, Travis, in the overall.

I think it would have, and listen, Billy Scott, knows more about this than I will ever know but I feel like when they made that call to go long in stage one they then were married to the fact that they had to win yeah that's for sure and with SVG in the race I think that's a tough call to make I think early in the race get points give yourself more outs and find out where those guys are going to run where they're going to finish and by doing that you now were we have to win and that listen nobody's beating SVG right now So to make that call, I think was a bad decision. I guess that's what it comes down to.

What are your better odds? Winning the race and beating SVG or running second and hoping that Ross and Joey run 16th all day? Or something happens to them. I probably, I mean, again, it's Monday morning, but I probably would have bet on that. That, hey, let's go run second and every stage and hope that that's enough to overcome this deficit.

Instead of trying to beat SVG, that seems way more difficult than hoping that Joey has a bad day. Right. Yeah, it's easy. This is easy conversation on Monday morning. For the record, though, I was critical of this on Sunday. Yeah. But, you know, at that time, you know, I don't know.

Do they think they have the pace? I don't, I, maybe. I mean, he was a little bit. leading early, right? SVG passed them. Then Larson passed him. Yeah. I mean, but they also,

Billy Scott, I think on lap two, told Reddick, save your tire. Because they knew they were going to go long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They just had a tough road ahead. New Hampshire did not go as 2311 planned

or thought that would happen. And that just, unfortunately, put them in a massive, massive hole. just too much to try to overcome. Yeah, it's trying to beat SVG at this point. I just don't think is realistic. It's not like the guy's got a couple tents on the field.

It's a measurable amount. And it's a measurable amount because his teammate, you know his teammates have the same thing. You know what I mean? And the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, results are wildly different. The teammates are roughly the same pace as

everyone else. And they're getting more information from SVG that he's sharing that. Like they said Ross is doing multiple scenes. Clearly they can't replicate it. So yeah, I just think that you know, roadcourses

are one of the more predictable races and I thought this one was right in line with that. Five wins now. SVG on the season. Tied for the league most. Yep, five straight at a road course. The,

Jordan Bianchi is absolutely out of his mind thinking that like, well, yeah, he's on the short list for the best NASCAR road racer ever. Like, what is he talking about? Does he really think that Jeff Gordon in his prime

would beat SVG today in an action car? Not a chance. Not a remote chance. Jeff Gordon was not winning by this margin. Jeff Gordon was not racing cars this equal to everyone else's. Jeff Gordon was in a Hendrick Motorsports car that was Ray Everinghammed up. Like, that is not even a remote comparison. Now, I'm talking about someone in Jeff Gordon that's on the Mount Rushmore of greatest drivers ever. but when it comes to turning left and right,

they are not close, and SVG is the greatest road course NASCAR driver in history, and he's only been doing it for a year and a half. And that's undisputed. Anybody that disputes it, even in my mentions, shut up.

I know, you don't. I compete, you don't. I don't think you need to compete to realize that SVG is. Yeah, I don't even know what Bianchi's talking about. losing legitimacy in the journalism world at this point. He's not journalizing. No, not using, you know, the thing between your ears. What else we want to talk about here?

Should we get to it? Well, here, let's let's talk about this. Yeah, we'll get to that in a moment. There was a, there was a moment in this race where Danis Suarez could have passed Ligano, but he didn't because he didn't want to use up his tires. And ultimately when it comes down to it, that one point could have been what... End of stage two.

End of stage two. Ross Chastain needed to not have to go into that final corner the way you did. I wish I was a little more educated on this. Now, for the record, when we come out, if we flipped stages on a road course, do not be surprised if our lap times are significantly slower than what they were when we just pitted. because we know we're going to stay out. And so the team will harp on us. Do not push these tires the first two laps.

Take it easy because we're about to stay out. Now, did he not pass Lugano by choice because he's chapped at the organization for letting him go? Or was he just being smart saying, I'm not going to burn my shit up here? Joey's about in one lap Joey's about to pit

I'm about to that spot is irrelevant so why will I burn my tires up for the next stage that's the counter it's not like people just pass at will there's many times and I did it

when we flipped stage at the end of stage two I think I was racing somebody I came out of the pits and I was I think it might have been John Hunter or something and John Hunter's racing me really hard we're running side by side on one lane race track and I'm like

we're not we're not racing for stage points. First of all, what are we doing? Because my spot or your spot is irrelevant. Because in one lap, you're about to pit, I am not. So

it's just situational awareness and with Daniel's situational awareness that that spot doesn't matter. Now, I'm sure his team would have loved when I say his team, his track house team would have loved for him to go get that spot and take it from Joey. But it appears that...

I don't know if it was relayed or not. Do we know whether they said anything on the radio about go get that 22? Here's a tweet from Stephen Toronto yesterday. It was watching Daniel Suarez as onboard and it seemed like he was trying to pass Joey Logano versus what the broadcast was saying. Suarez said with about a half a lap left in the stage

that he was locking up his fronts. Yeah, so what he felt is that the juice was not worth the squeeze for him in that moment. Exactly right. So I don't know that it was deliberate. I think, well, if anything was deliberate, Daniel was just trying to do the best he could to give himself the best finish of the day,

which is this spot is completely irrelevant to me. I care nothing about the points. I wasn't part of the playoffs to begin with. Why do I care? I've got three more, four more races for this team. Why do I care? I think, you know, I'm not, that's probably wrong with me to say that that's what he's thinking in his head,

but he's just trying to get the best finish you can. I don't, you know, whether it benefited one or another. I mean, it's, it's, it is part of the long list of good fortune things that the 22 had happened. Like, there was, there was a lot. He hit the power ball, all five numbers of the power ball. A few other moments that led to what we're eventually going to talk about here. In stage one, after the caution,

Ross Chastain thought he was racing on the Oval. I think he wanted to race on the Oval because he overshot the exit of Pitt Road. So in order to actually make the corner, when I say make the corner, actually go back to the racetrack. When you leave Pitt Lane, you actually cannot it's very not I shouldn't say you cannot

it is very very difficult to actually run pit road speed in that final section and still make the corner to the left okay so what he's doing is he's saying well all I'm trying to do is get to that yellow line as fast as I can and when others start to lift

because they try to make the corner I'm going to run my pit road lights and maybe gain a spot at the end of pit road because I think he was beside someone and at that point he can't turn left anyway because there's a car there so he's just trying to run pit road to its maximum speed and then figure it out later well unfortunately what he found out is that well is that if i run pit road speed in that last section i'm not going to be able to make that corner to the left which he found out because i saw the brakes lock like he tried to slow it down couldn't do it and um

It's just a very unique layout of the track because this, again, this track, this is not a made to be a road course. This track is made to be an oval. So it's very wonky in the sense of like when you leave pit road, you got to slow down before pit road's even over with to make the corner to get back on the racetrack. And so he found out pretty quickly that, yeah, I can't make that corner if I maintain pit road speed all the way to the end. Yeah, you more or less had a front road.

to this, really, because you're only four or five cars behind him. The second mistake, Travis, this is the one that you were referencing is him speeding on pit road late in the race. Yeah, you heard him say in his interview that I pulled gears twice. So what he's saying is that, you know, we get so, our muscle memory is, you know, very, very keen on this. We leave our pit stall first gear and then we pull it and then, bam, we try to find our pit road lights. What he did is he pulled two gears.

So if you're in third gear at the same RPM that you are in second, you're obviously going to be going faster. And so he realized pretty quickly, oh my God, this thing is, I'm going too fast. You saw him immediately lock up the tires trying to get it slowed down for the next section on pit road, but he was already caught at that point. And so what you heard him describe was just a mental lack,

of, I can't believe I pulled two gears leaving the pit stall. You never do that. And so just a little mental mistake there. Are both of these mental mistakes, or are they kind of two different mistakes? I don't think the first one was a mental mistake. I think he was trying to maximize pit road to its nth degree, and then he thought he was going to be able to turn after that. But running pit road speed,

there's just not enough room. There's a wall right there. And so you have to slow down to make that 90 degree left. And he's just trying to get every spot he can. And he realized as soon as he hit the brakes and tried to turn left, it wasn't turning. That's why he went straight.

It's crazy. With these two mistakes, he still was sitting there to advance. I think his crew chief screwed up. Because he finally passed Lugano. Paul Wolf says, let's pit. and the one didn't cover him. Well, the one still needed cars between him and the 22. I think he would have been able to...

It wasn't a heads-up race. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. He had to finish what four spots. He still needed those buffer of cars. So, listen, I don't know when Chastain pitted. It would appear he pitted. You know, that last run was...

longer or maybe he just ran harder to get the spots and then his tires fell off like crazy. But he was running really slow those last few laps. He had no rear tires left. You could tell, you know, as competitors, I can tell just you can't get off the corner. Like when we start to accelerate to leave the corner, usually the lead, whoever's in front always pulls away because obviously because of distance and acceleration, it's always going to look like they have better drive off the corner. Well, when we're actually gaining on corner exit, that that means he just has no forward drive whatsoever.

And so he just worn them out either through pushing hard to try to get those spots back from that green flag penalty or he just ran too long of a stint. I'm not sure. Hey, this is Dale Jr. And for the latest actions detrimental gear, go to shop.durdymomedia.com. We've got plenty of options for you.

We're adding new stuff all the time. That's shop. Dot dirtymomedia.com. Well, that leads to this moment in the final corner where Ross needed one position and you were that position. Yeah. I don't have a ton to add. We are doing a podcast. I have to do, you know, I have to regurgitate what I've said before.

But I haven't, I didn't know anything. I think my radio, I don't. know if you listen do you listen to my radio during the race i do right i do i didn't yesterday because it was the roeful and it was it was the most silent radio i think that the eleven card has ever had in history of any race we just didn't say much all day and um truthfully when i came out with like 15 to go after my last pit stop there really weren't many cars around me and there wasn't really many cars behind me and i'm like oh man we're like we've got to be like 30 second like i don't even know where we're at in the field.

And I just, I run and I run and I run and I'm like, I'm not catching anyone. And suddenly the one is like being, you could see he's slow. He's fighting his car and whatnot. And at that point, again, I have no idea. Never did I get any update on what position we're in. Never did I get an update on the points, anything. So at that point, I just think this is another spot I've got to gain. I didn't even, I don't know where the 22 was.

I didn't know if the 22 was 10 spots in front of me or 10 spots behind. No, absolutely no clue whatsoever because I didn't get that information. And in the race car, you don't understand. It's tough. I can't even see the pylon, you know, unless it's a caution. So when we're running that last stage, Greenfly, Greenfly, Greenfly, and there's all all these different varying strategies, there's absolutely no way to know

where this strategy netted me out after my last Green Flagg pit stop. Again, I had no idea what position we were even in. So I didn't know whether Chastain was in front of the 22 or the behind or anything, but I think they let, the only points update I got was before the start of stage three, because they were updating me on the 19 situation evidently he was close at some point in the race

he had to finish 10 spots ahead of legano yeah and so they they didn't tell me that they just said the 19s closer than what's comfortable or whatever and i and i was starting behind him so i just wanted to make sure at that point don't put them three you know don't put them in a bad spot don't put them three wide or anything like that um again i wanted no point parts of anything yesterday i just wanted to finish that race move on and let's get this thing restarted uh next week and so yeah i just i run my normal race um the one was slipping i caught him with about two to go might have been two to go or like a lap and a half to go i actually caught up to him and i try to make a move coming into the front chicane he was trying to

He didn't really aggressively block it. But what I felt like is that if I would have jammed it in there on the front stretch chican, I risk wiping both of us. Like I wanted to not wreck myself nor him. Again, I want no parts of whatever goes on. So I'm like, he's so slow. I've got plenty of opportunities left in this for the next, you know, two miles, whatever it is.

There's plenty of opportunity that I'm going to pass him. So I didn't pass them there. Then I make a move again after the front stretch chicane. We take the white. I go into turn one. And you got to realize fans, what you can't see on TV is this track, when I say it's one lane, it is one lane. There's rubber that all these tires have shredded on the inside and the outside of this one lane. You can't see it on TV.

You can see it under caution when the cameras aren't going so fast. but I'm hesitant to dip out of line at any point because every time I did, I would get into the loose rubber and my car would take off. And so I go into turn one. I show him, I'm going to go low. And then I see that there's loose chunks of rubber all in that bottom lane. And I said, well, if I'm going to, if I'm going to go in there and attempt to pass them, I'm more than likely going to just end up doing the shit out of them, not going to. him in the terror barrier, it's fine. There's a point on the track where there is no rubber that I'm absolutely going to pass him, and I thought that that was turn seven. You've got lots of room

on the exit of turn seven to make the pass, and I hope that was the safest place for me to make a move on him. So essentially, yeah, I waited all through the infield portion of that track, just waiting to then pass him off a turn seven. And, um, and, um, um, and, um, I waited all through the infield portion of that track, just waiting to then pass him off a turn seven. And unfortunately, he never made turn seven. I think he said that he stuck it in the wrong gear. What he's saying there is he went to first gear. Most cars were running second gear through turn seven on older tires.

If you go to first, it will make the car turn really abruptly. Well, and in his case, since he had no rear grip, when he went to first, it sheared the back you saw he cheered the back of his car around left the bottom wide open for me and i thought well that's the easiest pass i've made all day um he gave me the you know gave me the lane well he didn't want to give me the lane but he did because he couldn't make the corner and uh so you know my strategy of passing him in turn seven happened and then at that point i stretch it out we go into the back chican he actually gains on me into the back chican a lot which there's something for me to analyze there. But at that point, I think there's no challenge because I've got 10 car links to them

going into the back stretch of cane. Why do I got to drive in deep? Just don't mess up and I'm going to finish where I finish. He drives in deep. I get it back on the exit. We go into the next corner. And again, I'm probably 10, 15 car links ahead. I think there's, you know, first of all, I don't know that he's desperate. No one told me that be careful. He needs your spot to get in. if that would have been the case, I would have just drove in way deeper to then avoid getting hit. But I just, I pussyfooted into the corner because I'm like, I just want to make the corner and get to the checker flag. He's not even close to me. Well, he dives it in with reckless abandon, knowing that this is the only chance I got, and he gets there.

And so I got wiped out. And I just, and I didn't even know how or why, because I don't recall being. told anything about like he's diving in there he's almost there like i just had silence and the next thing no i i mean i get hit significantly from the back it you know whiplashes me and i'm like what the hell and i'm going to reverse i finish in reverse and then i'm like what what just happened and then they explained to me that oh well he needed that spot and at that point i'm like how can someone and let me know. So why are you upset that you didn't have that information?

Well, I would, first of all, I would have attacked the last two corners differently. Maybe I would have planned on getting clobbered in the last corner. But I thought I was fast enough that I could have stretched it out to where I would have had no shot to get wiped out. You know what I mean? If I'd known he was, he's going to make a desperate move here, then I would have. I attacked those last two corners differently. Just so you don't get wiped out.

So are you upset that you got wiped out? What's that? Are you, were you upset that you got wiped out unknowingly? I mean, yes, a little bit because, I mean, it did cost us five spots. Like, I'm not, yeah, I'm not happy about that. Like, what are those five spots? It matters for the metric next week.

So when we go, we qualify for, for, for, Vegas. You heard me talk about metric. Here's how you know that that is real. I told Chris Gale before the race, like whatever, I said, whatever our strategy is, just make sure we get the best finish we can. I know that you might want to care about stage points to try to just lock us in early. I care about our finish because I don't want to go out early in Vegas. Obviously, the racetrack is not going to be nearly as good in qualifying if you go out early versus going out later. Yeah, you told the Toyota Suite this pre-race.

Someone asked, you're more or less locked into the next round. What are you racing for today? And you told them, I'm just racing for the best finish I can get. So we qualify, have a good qualifying spot next week because that matters a lot on where you qualify at Vegas and, you know, the outcome of that race. Yeah. So there's obviously two reasons that I would want to know, right? one is you know if these guys are battling

it would give me a much better understanding of why you know understanding to prepare if I'm going to attack the one well I need to know that he's going to be really aggressive blocking that could have been a simple message

it then allows me to say to myself well what who do I want to race? And it's not race manipulation if I'm trying to get the best result for me. I got no allegiance to Ford or Chevy or Joey or Ross. But I have interest in myself winning a championship.

And so I think at that point, and it is a double-edged sword, I think that you can argue which one you would want to race. I think that I still go out there and I try to pass the one because I think the one has a better shot of getting to Phoenix. I think the 22 has the better shot of winning Phoenix. So I can't win Phoenix unless I get there first. Does that make any sense? Yeah.

So it's not a given that I want to race Ross over Joey. Ross would have a better shot of keeping me from getting to Phoenix than Joey would. In my opinion, on pace. Pace alone. I look at the tracks. I say, yes, Joey has been strong on Super Speedways. Look at the numbers. He's finished in the top 20 one time in the next Genera. It's not a given.

Either way, they both have the same amount of playoff points. that early in the podcast. So had I known, I probably would have thought about it. And I, and I don't know what I would have done, but I certainly would have thought about it. And all those things would have crossed my mind. They crossed my mind Saturday night. Given this situation, what? Who do I really want to advance? And I thought the same thing. Well, the devil you know or the devil you don't. One could make my path to Phoenix harder. One would make the actual Phoenix race harder.

That's the balance that you just don't know. But I know for sure that if I would have made a decision, had I known, and then had I made the decision, don't pass the one, do you know how bad I would kick myself in the ass if the one kept me out of the final four? Like, I don't know that I would, my mental would be gone. I'd just be like,

you overthought it, what the hell? Don't do that. Just let it play out naturally. And in the end, that race played out as naturally as it did. I passed, my goal, the last lap was to pass the one. I did pass the one.

I got wiped out. Joey, Joey ended up getting in. So it played out naturally, but I just think there would have been a lot of regret in my heart if I would have chosen to not pass the one and then he end up keeping me out of the final four. That would have hurt. That would a hurt. Right.

And the same situation could ultimately apply, right? Like they could have told you the point situation. You could have chosen not to pass Ross because Joey is a bigger threat at Phoenix. Joey somehow gets to Phoenix, then in four weeks from now, Joey wins Phoenix, right? Like, that could come back. But is the integrity of the sport just better off with you not knowing the point situation on that final lap? Because it really doesn't apply to you all that much besides your metric system next week?

Because now no one can say Denny knew the point situation and he affected whether the one or the 22 made it in. Play my radio for the last 40 laps. You ain't going to hear any. You won't hear crickets. No. I didn't say. Jared saying is that a thing?

Yeah, are we better off as a sport that you don't know this information? Probably for the sport. Is it best for my team? I'm not really sure. I don't know what the right answer is. And this is 12 hours removed. I still don't know what the right answer is or would be. I more would have liked to have known that I was in a vulnerable position those last couple corners.

Did you ask why they didn't give you an update? Because you look like you had an animated. conversation with Gail? They felt very hypersensitive to what happened last year. Understandable. That's what I thought, but yeah. And at that point, I said, just let me know how desperate the person is that I'm racing. Now I know how to attack them.

If I know that they're going to be desperate, I'm going to say, okay, well, I need to approach this a little differently. And then when I get around them, I need to get the hell out, I need to check out as quick as possible. Yeah, all they had to say is the one is desperate. They didn't have to give a full breakdown. Yeah. I'm not sure.

Because I would have had no, I would have no allegiance to any one of those cars. The 22 or the one, the allegiance is equal. I have no interest in either one of them advancing other than who do I want to race? Do I get to choose? Is that an advantage? you know it is an advantage if you know

but can we truthfully say today that we know who's going to keep me out of the final four or who's going to keep me from winning if I make it to the final four

we don't we just don't know and so I just would have liked the information but I understand from my team standpoint that like we like you

did not want to be involved we didn't want to be the ones to say here's the situation because then if you do something that it looks like you intentionally did something then it opens you up for a penalty they didn't they they didn't want to put me into that position although yeah who knows no i don't think anyone knows how that last lap plays out if i know but i know that i tried to pass the one and i did I just didn't know that I was as vulnerable, especially in that last corner as I was.

That's what I was most upset about. Do you think that had that move worked, that probably would have been penalized by NASCAR? I would hope so. If not, then what, I mean. Yeah, we, I think they set a precedent on that. It would be interesting and I would appreciate NASCAR. Someone sending me a text. They don't have to say it publicly.

but just let me know whether that will be allowed because certainly I don't think you're going to be allowed to just wipe someone out to move on. I mean, it's an intentional wreck, is it not? I think they need to make it public, not just to you, or at least to the drivers. Yeah, I think this opens up.

I think certainly they probably need to address it. Hopefully if one of those guys have an interview with Sirius or something this week, maybe possibly they you know one of the guys will ask them well if that would have happened sure you know what would you have done would you let that go or not i would think for the sporting aspect of it that they probably well i know they shouldn't allow it because i think that's allowing someone to get intentionally wrecked is not i mean what's the difference in that in a right rear hook i mean it's a little different to road course but still an intentional wreck it's

still rough driving. But I just for the for the safety of the guy that's in that final corner, like that's just not, I don't think that it's necessarily cool. I understand why Ross did it because if you don't even attempt it, then you know you're out. I just was unfortunately that guy that that was there. But it, that, that wreck caught me wildly off guard. And, and certainly, you know, maybe best case scenario, he thinks that, that, that was there. But it, that, that wreck caught me wildly off guard. And, and, and, and certainly, you know, maybe best case scenario he thinks that it just gets me just out of shape enough to where he can finish the corner it was it was such a low percentage chance that i was going to spin and he wasn't um but yeah i i would because this is going to come up this is going to come up certainly in the lower series we know at martinsville this every year every single year we saw it with kevin harvick when he wrecked Kyle Bush on the final corner of Martinsville, surely we just, for the sporting aspect,

and we've got to say that that's not going to be allowed, intentional wrecking to advance. It's no different than someone intentionally not passing someone. And we can talk about that because I think Joey and or Paul were on the radio really pissed at the front row car. Or was it Todd? And you. Huh?

And you. They were mad at me too. Oh, they were getting hot and mad about you not passing the one car and already complaining about it. And then they called Gillen a dumb f*** when they, when Gillen passed Lugano. So they want it both ways. Yeah, that's, I think it's probably just not better for them not to say something about that when, yeah, you can't complain about someone passing you, but and also still complain. plane someone else is not passing the other. So I was the 48 car sitting behind the one? Probably. But again, these games get played every year. Some are more public than others when it comes to the

radio. But this is always part of it. And so you'll have this. You'll have this kind of stuff happening when it comes down to a point or two. And there's so many allegiances and whatnot. But there was one thing for sure. This Toyota car had nothing to do with a Ford or Chevy and one and no parts of the Ford or Chevy battle and I just, I ran my own race. I think you've proven that the 11 car is going to do with the 11. Yeah, I think that's, we can put that to bed. Absolutely. Are you and, are you and are you and are you in Ross friends now? Did you go over there after the race and invite him to breakfast? Yeah, you like hugged him? No, no, no. I'm around and versus. See, that's where, that's where a picture, a still picture does not.

It's not the whole story. His back was to me. And I debated going over there because I don't know. I'm on pit road. Did you watch me think about it? Gosh, you might, you might just cut this part out. I don't know. But Byron and I are standing there on pit road.

And we're like, we're like pretending that we're you. He was like, should I go talk to him? No, I'm just going to wait here. Oh, y'all were playing what was in my call? He's going to come talk to me. Actually, okay, here I go. I'm going to go talk to him. I did.

I was done with media and I stood there. Oh, that's so funny. That is so funny. You and Byron were doing the voices in my head to each other. Yeah. And I said, and at that point, he hadn't come to me. You still do media. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm done.

What do I do with my hands? You know what I mean? I'm like, do I go over there or not? I'm like, you know what, yes. And this is one of the growing things that I learned from this week, right? Is that people wonder, well, you didn't talk to Bubba. Why did you talk to Chastain? Well, I told you, people learn, people grow.

And I'm like, you know what, I do need to, I don't want to let it fester. So let me go talk to him. And so he wasn't done. So when I walked around to where he was at, his back was to me so I grabbed him by the shoulder and I said I need to speak with him for a moment

and so and I wanted to turn him away from the media that's why my arm if you look at a still picture my arm is around him is because I'm trying to turn his body away from the cameras I think that was clear yeah and so I wanted to

have a private conversation but you know are we are we friends I don't think so I was just joking. Oh, yeah, yeah. But I, you know, my respect for him has grown. I think that, you know, the way we raced each other in 2022 is not nearly how we race each other today in 2025. You know, I had questions for him and that was it.

But I, you know, do I hold ill will? Like, no. I mean, for those in my mentions that think that like, oh, you're mad when people do it to you, but now when you do it to them. Like, shut up. Like, seriously, shut up. Like, I take it like a man when I get wiped out. I took it like a man.

I understand. I'm not mad. I get it. Did I wish I was in that spot? No. Could we as a team help prevent it? Maybe, possibly. But, no, I don't,

I just wanted to have a true and honest conversation with him, and that was it. My takeaway and how I read your body language post-race was that you were just kind of in shock of how everything played out. Like, here I am out for a nice Sunday drive and 17th and bam! Now I just got clobbered and I'm crossing the line backwards and, you know. Yeah, your radio, you could tell that you were confused. Because you asked, like, because I was. Yeah.

Because I was. Yeah. Anyway, in case you all are wondering, the big three organizations have all the cars left in the playoff. Parity, this car fixes it. So three from Hendrick, three from Gibbs, two from Penske. That is your final eight. I don't know, I like our chances.

We've got to go to Vegas and do some work. So I'm looking forward to it. Taladega, nervous about it? Of course. So there's everybody. So just it is what it is. If we don't make it, we don't make it, I just, I would love to get 60 this year. I can tell you that. Playoff standings heading into Vegas, Hamlin plus 8, Blaney plus 6, Larson plus 4, Byron plus 4, below the cut, Bell minus 4, Elliott minus 14, Briscoe minus 14, Lagano minus 24. And for the record, you got too correct of who was going to get eliminated and missed two. You had Lugano and Blaney getting eliminated. Yeah, bad call. Bad call on that.

Yeah, anything else? I don't have anything. Just real quick, I put a little Q&A box on your Instagram story last night, so I read out a few of these questions. I got some Dear Danny questions. A few quick ones. got tonight in the hoop group championship that is tonight right whoop group championship is tonight my team the outlaws are we are not part of it appreciate michael ransom trading for me this year

giving me a shot on the team if they're if they would have helped you out last week jesus they Alex i mean did not perform now our number one pick for the outlaws uh not number one overall but the first round draft pick Alex Presley no not not his best performance for sure

and it was going to be bad I asked him and he's going to win he goes we'll see yeah can't come in there like that yeah I mean I had a decent game you know I thought that I

usually performed the best when it comes down to playoffs in the hoop group so I played one of my better games but yeah just not enough offense and you know they just kind of

abused us on defense. It is Charlie's team, the big boys or the crutch boys, whatever you want to call them, versus irrational confidence, Tom Norwood's team.

So Chris Davis, I think he's going for his first hoop group championship tonight. They are undefeated, irrational confidence is. They've got a very strong team. Big boys have Nate Conley, who's also not one of hoop group championship fresh off a trip to Vegas.

Yeah, that's got to affect the line. But big boys are favored by two now at this point. I think it's going to be a closed game. What's the line on Tom Meltdown? Oh, minus eight million. Are you going to watch this? I'll be here. Oh, it's going to be just in knowing that Charlie is going to be on the sideline

and Tom is going to be on the sideline. and Tom is going to be on the sideline for the most of carers. I think he's considered their sixth man. He's just going to go at, he's going to get in Tom's head hard. But that's the thing with Tom is that no one needs to get in his head. He's going to do it himself. I know. Jared, what was your record this year?

I have never won a hoop group game. Really? In my lifetime, no. You locked up Tom, though. You got a travel call on them, all kinds of things. Yeah, I made some content. It's funny that everyone's like texting me and seeing me at the track being like, oh,

you're a big hooper, aren't you? I'm like, I'm not a hooper at all. In fact, the team that I played for last week, I think there were a few subs on the team, right?

I don't know the team after the trade. But like the professor was a sub. Yes. And it's like, there's a few guys on the team that I don't know if they knew that they're not supposed to pass me the ball on offense. So I'm like getting the ball. Like,

like, I'm open, yes, but like, everyone else. If you have it. Yeah, yeah. Your strength is going after rebounds.

Holy cow. It's all I can do. When the ball goes up, Jared is heading towards the rim. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Reckless abandon. I love it. I'm like a Dennis Rodman.

We've got to set the record straight, though. I like to think that this show is fair and balanced. Charlie's replacement is not better than him. He's just a different player. I'm not saying better or worse, but he's a bigger body. he's certainly a better defender. You can't argue that. Yeah, but in this league, do you really need that much defense?

I mean, guys can't shoot. The outlaws won multiple championships on straight defense, scoring 55 a game. I just think last week he made it sound like the replacement was far above. We're just poking fun. Well, it'll be interesting. Does Tom Norwood overcome the mental games that Charlie's going to throw out him tonight.

Does the big boys franchise make a comeback? Does Nate Connolly get his first championship? Just so many questions to get answered tonight. And the last one here is, do we have any aspirations for bigger fish in the sea like Marlin or tuna? Or are we just stuck on bass? No, we're stuck on bass here on Lake Norman. But, yeah, if I ever get kind of invited going offshore,

I absolutely would. I got hooked, really, when we went with the sea hunter. I think it's Sea Hunter TV on Instagram. He took us out in Key West and caught some sailfish. It was awesome. Great time. That's what kind of got me into the little bug of fishing. So appreciate that.

I got a review here from Keffi Abert. I probably pronounced that wrong. I have never, never, never in the history of ever been a Denny fan. Something changed for me this year and I jumped on the Denny Bandwagon. I find myself reading for you week over week. provided Ross isn't in the mix for a win. I cannot I cannot deny your sheer talent and skill.

I look forward to the Monday action's detrimental drop and watch immediately on YouTube. Well, I appreciate that. Thanks for that review. Yeah, I mean, I think most of my interactions now with fans are, love the podcast. Everyone loves me, but they love the podcast.

Joey got a nice boo last week or last yesterday. Yeah, I thought that was funny when he went to do his interview. I guess that they put it on the big screen. He was like, why is everyone booing? And he was like, oh, is that me? Oh, well. And then I appreciate that he leaned into it.

Like, you got everybody's like, well, we made it. Ha, ha, ha. Like, he did. He leaned into it a little bit, you know, knowing that that's why people dislike him so much is that, you know, they see him as taking advantage of this system. He's just like, yeah, well, we keep doing it. So we're going to keep, we're going to keep upsetting you.

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