Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Don't Hand Kyle Larson the Championship Yet

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Kyle Larson had about as perfect a day as you can have at Kansas, and suddenly everyone wants to hand him the championship. Denny Hamlin isn't ready to do that.With six races left and Denny sitting 26 points back, he explains why he's not panicking. Nobody keeps putting up a 2-point average finish forever, and one bad pit stop, restart or wreck can change the whole picture. Denny, Travis and Jared get into it over who's actually still alive in the Chase, where the cutoff really is, and whether Vegas, Charlotte, Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead give Denny enough time to make a run.Denny also breaks down how Larson won Kansas, including the last-second dive to pit road that kept Chase Briscoe from getting ahead of him, the restart lane Denny would choose, and why the 11 had more of a balance problem than a speed problemPlus, Denny has some strong words for the team that jumped Corey Heim at Martinsville and says they shouldn't be allowed in pit lane for at least a year.Also on this episode: why Ryan Blaney started 25th, Joey Logano's Chase run taking a hit from a tire cord, Austin Cindric finally winning Denny over, the Carson Hocevar restart wreck, Kaden Honeycutt's rain-delayed Truck Series win, the time NASCAR let drivers qualify whenever they wanted, and a text about a Vegas slot machine that just keeps paying out. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Um, cared a comment on Corey Hyne Martinsville? Listen to what they did. Those cowards. The following is a production of Dirtymoe 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 to win. I know, you do. Two trophies missing from your collection, a championship and the most popular driver. Someone told me that their drinking game is when I say for sure. Yeah, and I've already said it.

Hey guys, welcome to Action is Detrimental after race number 30 of our season, number four of the Chase, six to go. We're right after Kansas Speedway, Kyle Arson, wins the cup race, second win of the chase, and then you've got Caden Honeycutt winning in the trucks this weekend after a very long delay. What do we make of that delay?

Are they... Kudos. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. They only have so many chase races in the trucks, and you got lights. And I think it felt, it would have felt kind of, a little bit bad had they ended it because

truthfully the rain came before halfway. It's just they were under caution until halfway. So I agree that they did what they needed to do to get that race completed fully and it happened. And I guess in hindsight good call on just canceling

cup practice and qualifying because I know in the morning you know that came the rain came swept through right and then they just canceled it and there were a bunch of people on Twitter that it were like Like, well, this track has lights. Why are we not just pushing this till after the trucks? I'm just generally curious why the schedule is what it is at Kansas. Why are we on the track at 9 a.m. completely off the track.

I mean, that's new, right? I don't remember being on the track. Usually it's late. And then the truck race is super early. So, like, by 330, if everything's on schedule, by like, 3.30, the track's dark. Nothing going on. So, like, is there not a way to make ARCA and trucks take up and cup practice and qualify and take up, you know, Saturday the day, give the fans the full? Or are they trying to increase the camping by an extra day?

I'm not really sure. But it just seems like the schedule was six hours early for everything. And that's what it felt like to me, you know. So, yeah, I don't. I don't know. This schedule was quite a bit different, but what it did do is allow them to wait out a very long rain delay. Let's talk about that while we're here.

Caden Honeycutt wins. Yeah, I thought, I mean, listen, this is a two-man race between him and Riggs. There's nobody else remotely close when it comes to speed and or consistency. Lane Riggs, I mean, I don't know. I think you just got to get it to the finish line there. I get it. You don't want to settle for a second, but like, yeah, you're looking at this whole thing in a vacuum then.

Like, are you not just zooming out a little bit and saying, okay, there's not going to be a lot of people finish between me and Caden Honeycutt each and every week. So it's like the ARCA series. There's only so many good cars. So you can't finish 20th one week. it'll take you you can outrun Caden every week from here on out if nothing happens to either one of you

he's gonna finish right behind you so it's it just I just think that it's tough for them I mean they were they were up against it anyway because they had taken two tires Caden was on four

I just man you got the best finish I think you were going to get on that day like Caden was pretty good Lane Riggs was good too had some unfortunate pit setbacks, but I just, I'm not really sure about the strategy of pushing it

until you get in the fence. Live the race, you know, get your wins when they're layups, and he's had some layups this year. I think just finish second when you need to finish second in his case, for sure.

Yeah, because how many races are left now? It's two less than cups, cup, right? Yeah, I think they only have like... Four? I'm thinking... Five. They've got Charlotte, Phoenix, Taldiga, Martinsville,

but they only have like eight total chase races or something, right? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it's going to come down to those two. It's just a matter of, you know, who has blow-up races like that. I think it's going to make a difference. On to the cup race. Kyle Larson. Dominated.

Right from the get-go when we took off, I had to start six and just felt like I got to second, right? And then by the time I got to second, he had already kind of checked out. I pushed my car a little bit towards the end of that run to kind of see where we stacked up on speed. And, you know, we realized pretty quickly that the five was kind of, you know,

really, really good. You know, it's one thing to get to the lead, but, you know, once you feel like the cream gets their way to the front, then you kind of stack up everyone's lap times and the five just was far superior for the first three quarters of a race run. Do you think he had the best car on the racetrack or the five team just executed a flawless race?

Or maybe both? I don't know if you listen to him and the team, they're downplaying it a lot. You know what I mean? I think they're playing the game quite a bit of, oh, well, we weren't really that good. we just had the track position and started up front and we executed. I think there's an argument to be made both ways.

I think that without a doubt they had raw speed. The ability for him to pull out to a lead, there was only that one run. I could keep him close, right? I think it was stage one. He restarted first. I was second, and I stayed within about a second the entire time and then closed on him right at the end of stage one. but beyond that, he just had the ability to get a lot of speed out of the car in the short run.

And then, yes, he struggled either late in runs or with traffic. And I don't, both of them are exclusively mutual because there wasn't one without the other. But he definitely was not great, it seemed, once they either got to traffic or the end of the long runs. So, but yeah. I mean, who knows? If he has one restart where he doesn't control the start, yeah, maybe we see a different race, but we'll never know. Yeah.

That was a rocket on restarts. Yeah. Yeah. And the one that he needed to be a rocket on, you know, of all of them, he was. That one that Briscoe started alongside of him. I mean, he was clear by a mile going in a turn one. Yep, yeah. And a lot of that was on us.

We just did not. time our bumps right things like that and just yeah we were ping ponging off of each other and it it did more harm than it did good was that your thought processes because you could have chose behind him or behind briscoe and you took behind briskgo on the outside is that to try to work together to get a better restart yeah and i try to also utilize my strength and i i'd been burned at that racetrack getting pinned on the bottom quite a bit on restarts and so i it's his you know they told me the radio. You know, historically, the outside P4 is better than P3, but today, they did say today

P3 has won out. Had it gone back and done it again, I would have definitely chose behind the five. How did not having practice or qualifying potentially affect this race and how it went? Did it affect it all that much besides qualifying order? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we're trying to guess, but I mean, the five, it wasn't like a huge shock that he was good there. He's had many races. He's won there multiple times.

He's been one of the more consistent contenders at that racetrack every time we go there. And then, yeah, you put them on a fast track. You know, fast being clean track, cloudy conditions. really wicked up, that's where he's going to shine. That's where his ultimate bread and butter is. And then they execute, it's just, that's going to be hard to beat. I think if you look at kind of the average lap times of the cars from the race, it's going to look bigger than, it's going to, the gap will look big.

But I just think, generally speaking, it's, everyone has gotten their cars nearly optimized for this track and tire and things like that. And so the field is close and whoever can get out front. I mean, you know, the one or two lap tires advantage just doesn't give you what it used to when there was a difference in cars. And we talk about, you know, the next gen car and there's just, there's not much to develop left on this thing, right? And so everyone's just kind of, you're, the box of lap times just is so close that then it becomes track position because there's no variant there's not enough variance in speed to make the passes but then you would think that not having practice would help that right oh this guy missed they had no practice they showed up

they unloaded they're not that good typically not i mean typically the field gets tighter with practice than it does right that's what that's what i mean i feel like we would have seen more variance throughout the field, but No, I'm saying there's more variance in the field without practice than there was with. But did we didn't, I feel like we didn't see much of that. Yeah. Well, again, because

I think it's we've been there a bazillion times, you know what I mean? And so I you know, you're not really going into that race weekend with many questions. Would going to one race help? I don't know. I mean, I don't

don't like this ping ponging stuff around, but like, you know, what, what do you add, what are you adding to take away from Kansas? Because, I mean, we did have a great finish to the end of the Kansas race. The last 20 laps, there were some lead changes. And by the end of the race, we had five cars within two seconds or three seconds. So it always finds a way to put on great finishes. you just have to find the racing while you're in the stands. You know what I mean? So it's happening on the track. You just don't see a lot of it.

And it's a big track and cars get spread out. Well, I think what I've been hearing the past two weeks is fans that are at the race have enjoyed it more than fans on TV, I feel like. I've heard that from a few people. Well, I mean, if you're at the racetrack and watching in the stands, always have an opportunity to focus on where your favorite driver is. And that's what I always loved about going to Richmond, was that I could watch 400 laps of Bill Elliott. He could be running 16th, could be run 21st, could be 5th. But I always was watching him. My parents would always show me

like where the leader was. And then I was, I didn't care. I just learned to watch Bill Ellie, right? So I think when you go, you can really kind of focus on your driver and whatnot. It makes it easier. And for the TV, their job is to focus on the chase and the championship and the contenders that they think is going to win the race. And so that's only going to be a handful of guys. Did the sun coming out midway through this one change anything in the car? I thought we were better with it versus where we were with the cloudy conditions. But it just never stayed sunny long in the car.

enough to truly make any kind of track difference. Usually you need the sun to stay out for five minutes to really start to move the needle on the track temperature. That's what you're just saying, the sun out, no clouds. Right, right. Yeah, it's just the UV on the track. It heats it up, brings the oils to the surface, and the track gets quite a bit slicker once the sun hits it.

I think one of the bigger moves that helped Larson win was them seeing that Briscoe was going to pit, and they made the call last second to get down there. So then now they can't even short pit him. He can even hold control better. Right. And yeah, I mean that's a key move, right? That's a key moment because, you know, pitting, undercutting, overcutting, things like that is a big thing at Kansas, simple because of the track position that we talked about.

And even it's crazy we talk about track position on a track that's that wide, right? We got, I don't know, it feels like 80 feet from the top lane all the way down to the bottom. But it's just with that variable banking, the cars want to be on that banking. They want to be on that extra bit of banking up at the top. And so by the time you go all the way to the bottom, it's so flat that you just can't hold the speed that you can with the cars that are going the longer. distance on the on the on the on the on the heavier banking so so what i mean is that you know essentially it was going to be a game on from the guys on the front to see who was going to pit first and with them all being close enough together um it really was a scenario where it's whoever could call it

last was was going to be an advantage um you know and still make pit lane. And so I didn't hear the communications or anything between the 19 or the 5. And I think the two was close at that time as well, right? Kind of. Kind of. And so they were all somewhat close. I think there were about three, two seconds maybe in front of me. Not a great deal in front, but they had a little gap. And so I knew that once they had me stay on the racetrack or say, oh, we're going to go a little bit longer here and we only went a couple. a little laps longer, which at that point, I'm just spotting them two, you know, two seconds per lap and I just didn't have enough tires to get around the guys that short pitted me. So it was a

tough thing, but that's a big thing, you know, had the 19 got out in front of the five, listen, he's complaining about he got too loose at the end of that run. If he got out in front of the five, he would have just gotten looser. So I don't know that it would have been a good thing if the 19 had come off pit road first. Now, it could have made the five worse, certainly, because he would have been in dirty air. He would have been stuck behind the 19 for at least a period of time while their tires were still new,

and it likely would have heated the five's tires up. But I don't know. I think the race played out the way it probably would have, no matter what. Have you seen this replay? of them coming to pit road here? No. Let me send you.

Why didn't, I know Gail said that you weren't going to be able to make up the difference if you guys tried to short pit the 19 and 5, but why not try it anyways instead of staying out in bleeding time? Well,

the run before that, we had just started to get cord shadows. on the right front. And so if you short pit that much, you then run the risk of what happening to the 22 at the end of the race,

which is that your right front goes away completely and you either blow the tire or you cord the thing out. What I'm thinking, Gail's probably thinking, is that, okay, we need to get the best finish possible. I mean, trying to swing from the, you know, to the fence from fourth, two and a half seconds back to try to get the win. Like, it's just, it's really low percentage. Now, if we would have pitted with them, man, I don't know. I think it would have been close because they were bleeding really bad at the end of the race.

I think we only ended up two seconds back. we were probably, gosh, it felt like seven seconds, I bet. When we got off a pit road, it might have been more than that. And Cendrick was making a run. A long way. And Cendrick had to get around Austin Dillon some other cars. Like he was... Cendric was right in front of me the entire run.

The 20 was right behind him. I'm behind the 20. I'm faster than both of them. I can't get around them. And it's like, gosh, if we just got broken free of at least one of them, I legit feel like we could have made a run at this, but I would have never thought that with 25 laps to go. They were still way up there,

but they just, the leaders were really slow at the end of the race. I sent you that replay. I'm just watching this, and I'm kind of impressed how Larson gets from the wall down to the apron behind Custer, who's also pitting at this same time, you know, executes on pit road,

and then gets off pit road and continues the gap the 19. Yeah. I assume that Cliff and the five team is listening to the 19s. Correct. And he knows that if the 19 is pitting, he's free to move down there because the 19's the next car on the bottom. So it's not like he's going to cut in front of moving traffic, right? The 19 is about to slow.

So, yeah, I mean, that's a key moment because no doubt the 19 flips him. right there if the 19 gets to pit road and he does not yeah and the two was right there the two blows by the two was fast in the super long run like like like like we were that he and he for the first two stages the two is better than us in the long run and the very very long run but at the end of the race you know we we dialed that back in yeah that's why i asked earlier on like i wouldn't been surprised if you said the two car or if stats came out whatever it said the two car was the best car on the track yesterday. Yeah, he was.

He was one of the best, the second half of the race, one of the best, for sure. The problem with the two was every time they pitted, they gave up three or four spots. Right, which to me says you're definitely the best car, because you're losing spots on pit roads. Did you look at his pit times, though? It wasn't that much on the pit crew.

Well, he had to go. Austin Cendrick was ranked 31st on pit. Yeah, you're currently. Correct, because some of it was how he was coming in and going out. So, yes, you're correct that it wasn't just the pit crew. It was the execution of getting in and out. Right. Which is all that's on Austin.

You're right. Yep. I mean, he was losing six-tenths every stop. I mean, so that's like taking an eight, five stop, making a nine-one. And we all know, you get the nines, you're going to risk losing some spots. Yeah. In today's world. One of the few on-track incidents we had here came on a restart between Ty Gibbs,

Hosevar and Kuzlowski. Was this the only caution of the day? Second caution. Noah had one. Noah had one. Blown engine. Yeah, I mean, it looked like to me that Carson was trying to shoot the middle and hit a hole and that whole closed because the car on the outside was coming down as well.

So it's called high risk, high reward for a reason. You know what I mean? If you want to hit every. open hole that you think it's there, you're counting on everybody else not moving. You know what mean? If anyone moves, then it ends in a crash. And that's essentially kind of what happened this this time. Is that even where you want to be, though, on a restart? Well, I think it's not a bad place to be. I think a lot of times you'll see people in, and drivers are starting to hit the middle holes more often now than what they used to.

A lot of it is because you can gain on your choose. So when you go to the choose cone and you choose inside or outside, most of the time, the bias is to the outside, which means if it's 50, if you got two cars in front of you, one chooses high, one chooses low, usually the numbers would say the high position is the place to be. So usually you can gain free spots by just choosing low. and it's usually one and a half spots. Well, from his standpoint, he's got one and a half spots net gain.

I'm just, I don't know his exact scenario, but usually that far in the pack, he's gaining via his shoes. And say that's one and a half spots. We haven't even taken the green yet. He's one and a half spots better. Now if he can shoot middle, he gets rid of the fact that that is not the preferred lane. So now he's taking the preferred lane

And now Those spots that he gained via his shoes Becomes free Do you know what I mean? I guess but do you want to enter the corner Three Wide Middle? Usually I hear that on your radio It's better than three wide bottom It's better than three wide bottom

You know what I mean? So it's as long as you have the momentum The middle is okay The track's plenty wide for three wide middle. But again, on restarts, when everyone is lined up nose to tail, there's always gaps that form, but sometimes you look and say, yeah, but by the time I get there, that gap is not going to be there. Now, the gap looked relatively big, but again, abrupt moved. All it it takes is one person to not see that, and you're asking a lot of people to call, make that call

in the radio really quick. And it's just, it's just low, it's, it's, it's, percentage. It just didn't work out this time. Like it didn't work out at Atlanta. It didn't work out with the Christopher Bell thing. Let's see. Michigan is trying to jump a hole. There was a wreck there. So it all adds up when you think about the risk reward. Yeah. Well, this this wreck included the 23 car. Just not an overall great day for 23. they were average throughout the afternoon. That's being generous, yeah. Yeah, average is very fair.

45 car below average. Not really sure. I mean, you know, I won't know until we go in there and have a meeting, but the performance is not what it was, that's for sure. Don't know exactly. I know they had some pit road miscues, 23 car got caught up in the Carson thing. probably had to go to the back and fix some damage. So good rally by them late.

But yeah, it seemed like the 35 is not running as good as what they were a few months ago. All in all, it just worse. Is it more than just the Chevys and Fords have caught up to the Toyota's? I don't know. I don't know. But if you looked at just the speed of like your guys' performance, If we knew, then we would just address exactly what it is. But you can't address someone else getting better.

You know what I mean? You can only address what you can. And that is cars are got to be faster. Driver's got to be better. That's between those two things, the answer is in there somewhere. So how do you judge that? Do you go back to the shop on Monday? And you're like, okay, we compare these lap times in this race to the ones

where Tyler won and you're like, okay, we were worse? Like how do you figure out if... Yeah, there's ways that you can quantify it. I mean, there's certainly going to be numbers somewhere that is going to show whether you're better or worse, the same, things like that. So it'll be hard for the 45 because he never was remotely in the track position he was.

was in the spring. We'll remove the 45 for this part of the discussion of the Chevy's and Ford's. Like you can compare your car though to performance and like, no, if it's Ford's and Chevy's getting better or you guys taking a step back or if it's a little bit of both, right? I would say this, that I have had cars lead races at Kansas with a worse balance than what I had this one. Now, if you listen post race, I'll say, I think we have a balance issue, not a speed issue.

It was the unfortunate time for the 11 was that when our balance was the best, our track position was the worst. When our balance was the worst, our track position was the best. So when I had those restarts and I was second to Larson, my balance wasn't very

good, but we could keep them we kept them somewhat honest. By the time we got the balance, Okay, the speed, the balance, somewhat close. I'm now fourth, fifth. And it's like, man, I'm just grinding. I'm stuck behind this 20.

He can't go. Like, it's just, it's just never, I needed to be up front at the end of the race, not at the beginning like I was. If I had told you on last Friday that this was the car you would have been driving at Kansas, how would you have felt? going into the weekend, not knowing, you know, what the five has, what the two has.

Good question, Jared. Would I have taken this balance, you said? Yeah. Like, would you have been like, okay, this is a race winning car? If you would have told me we had practice of qualifying, I would have said no. Without practice and qualifying, I'd say, well, we hit it pretty decent. Should be able to contend for a win with this. Instead, we were a third place car.

But like, you know what I mean? Yeah, you also could argue, though, that you did kind of contend for a win. I don't know. Sort of. Right. Sort of. So, you know, there's no question. I think that the field has gotten stronger, clearly.

We haven't taken a step back. I mean, there's not, there's nothing that we can quantify that says our cars are worse. than what they were. They're not. So it's just a matter of, you know, you never know where the competition steps up when they step up and find something. Ryan Blaney talked about it in his interviews

this past week that, you know, it's just that when he came on the show last week, he was like, you know, it just seems like when we find things, it's towards the end of the year. And that's when it really counts. And for us, we kicked off the year super fast and winning races. and since then it's just seems like the field's gotten better.

Poor Penske, really poor Lugano, this dream chase run. He was, what, minus 16 coming into this thing? And then Larson wins. He limps it home with a tire cordon at the end of this thing, finished his 20th and now. Yeah, I think he finished about eight spots worse than he was going to. Wasn't he running 8th? 12th.

No, he was 12th when it happened. Yeah, I mean, just, that's, you know, that's this team's Achilles heel, right? It is just seems like that the mile and a half's is where they've been struggling. But you would say as a team and organization, maybe Austin Cedric's best race, fastest two car we've seen and ever, as long as he's been driving it, I feel like this was his best performance. So I don't know that the car. were really off on speed.

But, yeah, it just seems as though the 22, once he lost his track position, that was all she wrote. What's he down now in the points? Because he's fourth? Minus 67. In fourth, though. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know.

Let's go through these chase standings. Are there anybody who's now you would consider out of the chase? I mean, I think if you're over 100, you're out. And not only 100, but I just feel as though you now, it's like being four shots back in 20th. You now, it's not just one guy you've got to gain 100 on. It's lots of people. You've got to gain a lot of points on.

And so I feel like the cutoff is that Gibbs, and sixth, in my opinion. You think the fifth. Because Reddick, like, unless the light switch goes off and then he goes and wins, he's got, and even two wins with the way the rest of the top three or four are running, it's, large not a perfect day. He beat me by 25 points. You know what I mean?

So it's like, it's going to be really, really tough being over a hundred back. That's why I think the line is at Gibbs. Yeah, this was, there was two outcomes that was, golfal for the field for the chase and it was either you with the perfect day or Larson and it happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would argue that I think the cutoff is fourth at this point and maybe even third. Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I think that I think Blaney has a little higher ceiling just because like I don't think he's going to have the struggles on the mile and a half that the 22 has. You know what I mean? So I think what you're thinking, tell me if I'm wrong, is that you think the 22 is going to bleed more in the next two weeks. No, I just, I just, you just think that's, I don't think I can count on the five car having two blow up weeks. What? The five car, real?

He's got like a 15 average finish this year. And it ain't because he's, that's where he's been running. But what about the last five? It feels like two different seasons. It does. feel like it's a, we're dealing with a different Larson right now. I will, like, I, I, I don't see him having two bad races. It, it. And bad meaning, like, you miss stage points completely in, at least one stage and then finish, like, outside of top 20. Okay. But you seem to think that's

fairly realistic. I just think the law of averages. That's, I, I'm, I'm just, we sat here on this podcast, seven races in, well, I don't want to believe in the law of average. What do we say seven races into the season. No one's ever catching Redding. No, you guys said that. No, y'all said it. And what did I say to you? I says, well, not if the guy's going to have a 4.0 average finish.

No. No one will catch them. And we had this discussion on the plane, Jared, right? And I says, yeah, if Kyle Larson is going to continue to have a two point something average finish, you're right. It's over. But Denny, the does. But it's not going to happen. It's not going to be that way.

So I just think you guys need to take a breath and relax. I get it. He's very strong. The difference though is, is he, there's only six races left. You were talking about freaking 15, 16. What are the races left? Vegas, Charlotte, Phoenix, Martinsville, Homestead, Talladega. I mean, I, I, I, I, we're going to have a bad week somewhere in there.

I hope not. Well, I mean, it's, Travis, it's just racing, you don't always finish where your speed is at. Like, all it takes in racing, right, is that myself, Kyle Larson has a bad pit stop. We're right in the middle of where Carson Hosevar is on a restart. And we get in the wreck. It's what happened to Tyler Reddick at Michigan. he was up front, bad pit stop, boom, got it in the middle of a restart wreck. That's just, that is what racing is.

That's why it's, that's why a two average finish, a four average finish, that's just not sustainable over time because there are so many variables in racing. So, you know, listen, if you go just off of what has happened in the first three races, the five car is the best. Now, hold on, four, if you would have said three races, actually Joe Lugano has been the best. Yeah.

But now that we've got four races, now we're saying, nope, the five is now the best. You think that nothing changes in the next, by race five, race six, you think it's just, all of a sudden the narrative never changes? I don't think so. I don't think so.

I mean, I think the narrative could change. I'm not counting out the 11. I'm not counting out the 20. But if I'm the 12 car, the 54 car and I'm 91 back, I need Larson to have a real bad race. And then even if we finish top 5, top 5, top 5,

score 45 points, I'm still 45 points back. And that's not counting if I'm the 12 and the 54th. I have a bad day. Like I need to... So you're 45 back. That means then if you're the 12 car, you need to go win Homestead. Now you're right back in it.

Yeah, just odds would not point in the favor of, I'm going to outpoint the five part by 45. Blaney's best tracks. It's also everyone's best track. Yeah, but Larson, if you're, if you're like, can't be everyone's best track. Well, it's a good track for the 11 car. It's a good track for the five car. If you're 20, I'm sure it's a good track for the 20 car. If you're 20 back going into Homestead against Larson, you have to win.

That's not a spot you want to be in. Now, there's still so many variables in racing. It's the spot you've had to be in to win the championship year after year, after year, after year. Yeah, I think the reporters are getting carried away that if Larson is five back going into Homestead, it's over. I mean, there's still variables in racing. I don't think anybody said, has anyone said five back? Duren Bianchi is saying that if Larson's 50 back going to Homestead, it's over. 50 is not what he said, but 20.

I'm pretty sure it was the number. Not sure. That's what I love about sports talk, right? I mean, we just sit here and argued amongst ourselves about your opinion is X, Travis's Y, and I'm Z. And we all can debate it and have valid reasons for the way that we think. But the truth is none of us know, and none of us know until we play the game. Turns out Travis is a great Skip Bayless.

so you are 26 back yeah you you you're fine is where your your mentality is i mean i'm not panicked because i mean you've averaged you've had a couple bad races and you've averaged 39 points so at like right you were what second third third yesterday so you're still just kind of do our let the levin do our thing and we're good Um, no, we, we, we, we, our performance needs to be better. You know what I mean? Our performance needs to be better all, all around. So, um, again, if Larson is going to maintain this level of finishing first, second, first

second, whatever it is, then, then no, that those 51 point days are not going to be enough. Um, but all we can do is focus on getting the best finish that we can. each and every weekend. Darlington's the only week that that hasn't happened, you know, that we did not finish to the best of our capability. The rest of them we have. Travis,

we're going to give it our all. If it's enough, it's enough. If it's not, it's not. The worst thing you can do is press 19 car, make a mistake, and then put yourself out of it.

You know what I mean? He pressed it in Darlington, hit the wall, he finished in the garage. He pressed here, hit the wall, lost the race. Not only lost the race, finished worse. So stay in the game. Stay in the game.

When you don't have the winner, you got to stay in the game. That's my opinion. That's the best way to get to the finish line. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that, especially yesterday. You didn't have the car to beat the five straight up. The best case scenario is you finished third, and maybe something happens.

to the five and it doesn't win the race or the 19 wins the race. Yeah, I mean, it's not a strategy to say well, we hope something happens to the other guys. It's on us. We have all week to

put the best car on the racetrack that we possibly can and we're trying to do that. But the speed or the balance or whatever has not been where it needed to be over the first four races, I argued Darlington was our strongest, highest ceiling. I felt we genuinely had a true chance of winning that race had we not gotten wrecked or had a bad pit stop or things like that. But that's right now is the difference in the points that we're looking at versus where I would

have been. But the five car has not had that to yet. Yeah, the race is fifth. Right. So I think we all to just take a breath, keep doing the best we can each and every week, and we'll see where this thing stacks up. And if it's enough, it's going to be enough. If it's not, that's, then, you know, so be it. It's like the other 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think Kansas was a positive. I thought that was the best, probably the best, the 11 team's been this year, all together. Good, good performance on pit road. I mean, we had been better. We won three races in a row.

In the chase. In the chase. Okay. Yep. Yeah, it was the most put together race that we had. Absolutely. Yep. I don't know.

Anything else from the race? Not really. We gave Austin Cinder Cs flowers. Man, I got to say, I don't know that I was a huge Austin Centric believer for quite some time. Let me be honest. but I would say the last half of season kind of has changed my mind on that. I think he has really, really done a good job of getting better, even after his 100 race window.

I think he has still gotten, continued to get better and better, his race craft, all those things. Everything I'm seeing on the track tells me he's really, really doing a good job. so we touched on him Blaney started 25th the metric killed him because stage 1 he gets one point yeah but I mean there's

somebody has to start 25th yeah but the metric is broken either either go the qualifying order should be off the metric or if there is no qualifying the qualifying order should be the starting order having both I feel like is dumb.

Okay. So what you're saying, God, I hate talking about this stupid subject. It's so stupid. You're saying, well, the chase guy should just start one through 16 then. Because that's the way we're qualifying. That's our qualifying order. Yeah. Or.

So if you don't make the chase, you're just the best you can start. I guess if there's no qualifying is 17th every week. what I would do is not have, I think you should qualify by the metric. Just because you're in the chase, we, we, we, oh, I'm with that. I'm with that. But I'm saying, you're saying, if your metric puts you 25th, then that's where you should go out, you should go out, reverse 25th. Correct, correct.

Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, just because you're, we're on the same page there. I don't know why they artificially put all the chase guys the last to qualify. Like, that's so unfair to the other people. Yeah. But that, I, I, I, I think the very loud minority is saying that, oh, well, the metric itself is broken. You have one bad week, and you just, you never can get out of this hole.

That is baloney. They're saying that it's unfair that Blaney has to start 25th, even though he finished 30-something the previous week. I'm saying, they have to set a lineup. I agree with that. So they try to include a small sample size, which is last week,

and they try to include a big sample size, which is your point. Now, we could argue that, you know, right now it's 70, 30, maybe it goes 50, 50, something like that, but I think they're saying that the smaller sample size shouldn't be the bigger majority,

of the metric versus the points. But I'm going to warn you that is if they change that in the offseason next year, when your guy has the first three bad races of the season and his 28th in points, he's going to be qualifying horribly for the foreseeable future. Because he's going to have to go early, out early. Not only is it going to be buried in points, he is going to be going out early and qualifying for the next for the foreseeable future if you're going to say that the point it's the biggest factor in where you go out don't start the season off bad because you will be crushed and by the way we start the season off with Daytona in Atlanta right in Atlanta so you'll be crying then that your driver's not getting a fair draw not everyone could qualify at the same time people we tried that too that didn't work Travis wasn't, were you here for that?

No. Oh, man. Oh, it was bad. If you thought you had bad takes now. I don't, I don't think I had bad takes. How about this? They had us all out on the track at Talladega and Daytona qualify. And they said,

drivers take off whenever you want. That's like watching Five Worlds Play Soccer. It was so bad. It was so dangerous too because the runs that guys would get and there would be other traffic just putting around there, just trying to get in position. Wow. Look up or replay, Travis, when they throw the green i think was at texas they throw the green on qualifying and they all try to merge off

pit road at the same time uh you probably confided at texas too but it was um california where nobody made the start finish line in time oh i've seen that yeah that was bad um care to comment on cori high martinsville yeah i mean just complete classness classlessness classlessness yeah yeah from Chad Bryant, the owner, and his team to wait on court. Listen to what they did. Those cowards waited on Corey Hymne to leave his car and leave his team and then jump him while he was on the way to his hauler. I don't know who's in charge of NASCAR Regional,

but there's absolutely no way that any of those guys should be in a pit lane for the next year at least. Like I want to, and I want them to say publicly what they do to them. And if it's nothing, I will have a major problem. But none of those cowards should be in a pit lane in the foreseeable future. Anything else? Nope. I just kudos to court.

Like people like, why didn't he fight back? Because it would have been four on one. Right. He said to. them, I'm not trying to fight. So, like, it's just, I don't know.

They got to get control of the whole Martinsville thing because it's spiraling out of control and I don't know who's in charge of it, but they got to do better. And just really put some real rules down that you know, we're going to have fights, then this will be your last

Martinsville for quite some time. Or last short track race you're going to intend for quite some time. But I don't know. I got no respect for those guys. Good. Anything else? No, I'm good.

Vegas. Vegas. I don't know. Buffalo slots in the future? Dale Jr. text me. He says, I hear you know where the machine is, the broken machine. The one that just keeps paying and paying and paying. I says, yeah, I, I, I,

I told him where it was. Was this Wednesday he text you? Probably. You told him where it was? See, but one could argue that you have a guy. And if the guy doesn't warm the seat there. You got to get some to prime it. You're fluffer.

You got to have somebody prime it. Yep. Yeah, I don't stay at that hotel anymore, but he apparently did. Yeah. High limit room facing Jen Pop. That's the one. That's one you need to be at. Cup practice 1.30 p.m. on Saturday?

Local. Yeah, yeah, I'm looking at the Eastern schedule. And then Cup qualifying at 2.30. Trave, do you have the TV? USA. USA. True for practice and qualifying. True.

And I don't think there's going to be any rain in Las Vegas. So you should actually get that. You never know. NASCAR comes to town. But here's the good news. If the metric comes in. to play. I think the top 11 finishers this week were all chasers. So they're all going to be starting right where the metric told them they were supposed to start. You'd have a Kyle Larson

pole. I'm going to be second more than likely. Austin Cendrick 3rd, and then I don't know after that. Anyway, it's not going to rain. Not going to rain. Race 3 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, USA, and then 12 p.m. local. All right. Let's do it, Travis. See you next week. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.