Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Every Wreck Finds Me

Episode Date: August 24, 2025

Denny Hamlin and co-host Jared Allen are back with a no-holds-barred recap of the Daytona regular season finale.2:00 Denny’s run of bad luck continues7:00 Why Tyler Reddick’s car could still hang in the pack10:15 Breaking down The Big One19:00 Blaney goes from 13th to Victory Lane26:00 Reddick and Bowman survive Daytona to advance to the playoffs29:30 Who won’t make it out of the Round of 1635:45 The problem with the Xfinity Series finding and keeping talented drivers47:45 Wellness check on Producer Travis with OSU–Texas a week away Dirty Mo Media has a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Actions Detrimental merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.For more Actions Detrimental content: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental FanDuel 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.

Yeah, last year I laid back because I thought there was going to be a big wreck. Because I've been in every fucking wreck. I've been in every next-gen super speedway wreck. And it's driving me crazy where I went through 10 years where I'm up front in the Gen 6 car making moves and like the wrecks are behind me because that's where the dummies are. 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 a victory for Jared Allen he's got better luck to drink and drink I know you do two trophies missing from your collection 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 hey guys welcome to action's detrimental post the regular season finale at Daytona. I'm Danny Hamlin Drive the Kings Hawaiian. Oh, do you have your socks on?

I wore them last night. You did? They were all sweaty. Kings Hawaiian Toyota. And I should have had my shirt, but it was left at the track. There was a pair of King's Hawaiian 11 socks that were

pretty fire. They are nice, and they're comfy. You wore them pretty much when you were out there running the fence line or something? No, I put it on. I put them on before the race, tried to bring you some good luck.

My luck was horrible, right? Oh, we're luckiest man in Daytona this weekend. The, the pro-fisherman guy said, I said, listen, just tell me, if you see me doing something or my, you know, my bait is not correct,

just let me know, but I feel like I'm getting unlucky, and he's like, oh, you're unlucky. You know, like, put it this way. Bobo was dragging his line in the water and we had to say, hey, you got a fish on. You have a fish. Fish on.

Oh, okay. Even saw a bird catch a fish. Couldn't. That's bad. I caught a few. Just couldn't bring them in. Got them on the line. You didn't catch them then.

Now you're right. So that was most of the content that was on my social channel this weekend. A lot of little fishes by the guys being caught. And acting like they caught like record. Yeah, they were, they were smaller than what we anticipated for sure. And I think possibly my bait was slightly too big for that pond. Apparently, last year in the Daytona fishing tournament, Owen Larson caught the biggest fish in the...

Like four pounds or something. That's big. That's big? Absolutely. For a bass? Yeah. Yeah, that's a big bass. Hey, but shout out Kings Hawaiian.

All the influencers they bring to attract the active. They have their luck on track on the 11 car hasn't been great this year. Horrible. Yeah, just they wrecked right in front of me. And I told them during my suite appearances like, yeah, they'll wreck right here. That's exactly where I wrecked is right there. Yeah, they asked you where they'd see the most action. And you said the trial.

But then the last question in that Q&A, you were asked, what's the one thing in your career right now that like just like get you the most and you said the fact that you can't control your own destiny the luck factor involved in our sport absolutely the good news is for the king's Hawaiian folks who have amazing roles by the way we got a whole batch we just got a new Instacard order upstairs

full of them is they're going to be on Bristol and Martinsville oh okay yeah So they kind of got the bad draw, or the unlucky draw. I mean, it could have gone both ways with the super speedways, but certainly just not ideal. In the first stage of both of those races, we ended up crashed.

I mean, my record at Daytona, guys, has been horrible. Horrible. I just, do I just stop racing and just, stop racing and just, weight on the field to thin because that's what to me watching the race from about 50 car lengths behind for most of the time it seemed like the race and we've talked about on this podcast before it really took a turn when the field thinned out there was more room to move um you know blaney coming from 12th in the final couple laps he had room to navigate um that's what's so great about the Xfinity cars in the Xfinity packages.

If you look, there's space between the cars. They're not right on each other all the way around the racetrack. Where a lot of times the next gen, we just get log jammed in this two or three wide racing. You know, it looks good, but you can't really go anywhere. But at the end of the race, there was enough chaos up front, enough air moving around where it created some good passing and it looked like a very entertaining race from my seat. Yeah, that was my argument in the Denny Bro's group chat midway through last night.

I told Travis, I said, they're not going to wreck again. You've wrecked once. You've knocked out what felt like 10 cars. The field, the pack is doesn't, it's just, it's too thin. Yeah. Unless someone does something stupid or makes some chaotic move. There was many other one car incidences that could have been, you know, when you got the leader wreck, it's usually hard for that be the only car that ends up wrecking that was Ligano down to the grass in the infield.

So, I mean, that could have easily, you know, are you. you got to do is clip one more car and then there goes everyone. Yeah, and Eric Jones got pushed out of line on the back stretch. She could have tagged the wall and come back down. Yeah, yeah. Now trust me, I was, I was rooting for all the chaos at that point

once we had damage and, you know, I thought we were going to be okay. You know, I had some right front damage, but it's, you know, the steering wasn't totally out of whack. Once they replaced the right front

Toilink, it was better, it drove okay in the corners, and the speed was fine. And then it just went downhill. It just felt like, you know, the more we worked on it, the worse it got, and started blowing tires, and it just was not a great day for us, yellow line to yellow line. How does that work here at Super Speedways? The Tyler Reddick incident early in the race, he head first into the inside wall, and you would have thought, okay, his day's over,

but they're able to get the car back out on track and then he's able to run in the pack competitively. Yeah, so with the Tyler Redick thing, he was able, he nosed into the inside wall. So the key is to not hit tires, tires and wheels. That's when you start messing up suspension and next thing you know, your wheels are not pointed. in the in the straight direction um so if you can if you can manage it to side hits and front hits or back

hits you're usually okay as long in the front's probably the most susceptible to um knocking you out of the race because there's there's some pretty important things up there um but it just you know when you when you kind of hit it square right there yes it damages the nose and whatnot but when you get in the pack, the air and the draft is so big behind 25, 30 cars that usually you can keep pace because they're punching the hole in the air. Now, if he were to ever have to lead a pack or something, his car would never be able to do it. It's just, it would be so, so slow. But he can hide in the pack, if that makes any sense, because of the damage he has. Just all the other cars create a big hole in the air,

and he's just hiding in that hole. That makes any sense. So that would have been the same situation for you had you been able to make it a little bit better. That's right. Yeah, and we're just kind of right on the cusp there where, you know, my car was... It was better right after the wreck than it was at the end of the race.

For whatever reasons. but yeah it was it was fast enough to be in the pack like but I didn't want to be in the pack and then get caught in a wreck and next thing you know I can't get the lucky dog so it was a fine balance for me of like let me hold touch here but I don't want to get too close to the pack but I don't want to lose the pack and go another lap down and luckily I pretty much had Casey Mears behind me the whole race like keeping me somewhat attached to the pack did you think that there was going to be another major incident? Yeah, I thought so. I thought certainly, um, was, was Lugano the eight to go? Yeah,

he was at the end of the race, yeah. Yeah. Was him or me? It was him. You were first. Yeah. Right? I thought when he had,

when, when we had the Lugano caution with eight to go, I thought that was like, oh, here, there, now it's the recipe because everyone now can make it on fuel. They're punched up.

It's just going to be chaos. And it was, but they got away with it. And, you know, rarely do you see, honestly, that many cars cross the finish line in the, in the late summer Daytona race. But they did. They made it. Let's go back to that wreck on what lap was it. The big one that you were caught in with Bubba and Lugano. Who's at fault here?

What do you see in this wreck? Can you break this down for us? It looked like to me that Bubba just squeezed those two guys below him down. I don't, you know, you can see like they're there, two cars on the inside. You know, I don't know what Freddie was calling. You know, maybe he was saying three wide top or not. I'm not sure. But he just squeezed on down there and there was no room.

And so he ended up getting, you know, wrecking himself and obviously a few others. Could you've gotten a little shot? hear from the five again squirrely or I mean I'm looking at it and I don't think so

I mean I the five was already on him close but no no that's that's just the 23

not clear you know it's just one of those not clear moments what's going through your mind because you're up you're up against wall so there's not a whole what you can do.

I mean, you're just hoping you don't get hit in a wheel or tire. And, you know, my body damage was insignificant. You know, there was some, but it wasn't terrible until we kept blowing those right front tires. And, yeah, I don't know. We did, you know, we had the toe link that we had to fix. But once we did that, my car was driving okay. It was a little, you know, a little dardy down the straightaways and whatnot, but it was, it was fine.

Um, at that point, what I'm thinking is, you know, don't, nobody come back up the track. But of course, cars are going to come up the track. But I can't turn left because then I would just door whoever's beside me and then likely nose into somewhere else. So at that point, I'm just trying to slow down and make the contact at the slowest mile per hour possible. Um, and I actually saw a highlight like Riley. He was, he was.

he had missed all this he was through it oh man i'm seeing this now and then hold on hold on people that are listening i'm looking at this highlight i'm trying to see where did noah greggson come from he was down down down down oh yeah he didn't have any steering because he hit the in in riley's position he actually because i was looking at his in car was like oh man why didn't he just keep slowing down or like stop but he tried everything he could to avoid it, but that was the unluckiest. You guys got to see this. When you're looking at the big one highlight, watch Riley on the apron,

slowing down, chaos all around him, and then here comes someone down the track. It was like, it was just like Kyle Bush and Chase Elliott at Richmond. Exactly. Like everything in his, you know, windshield is clear except for behind him where he gets clipped. Oh, yeah, cleaned out. Cleaned out. Oh God, I bet you're so frustrated with that. That sucks.

Never even had a chance. And he just, again, that takes out a third of the field. And so it's like, all right, chance of winning. You know, when you start the race, if your chance of winning is, you know, 1%, 2%, percent, you know, whatever the odds say, you know, boop, it's up to 8%, 9%. Like, you continue to just try to increase your odds. and that was a that sucked and for you the worst part is the people that you were racing against were not involved in it unscathed i looked i'm sitting on pit road they're out there with a saw

trying to cut something off the car and i'm looking i was like damn the five still out there there's the nine there's the 20 there's the 12 well of course i mean there were cars and At the start of the wreck, behind the wreck, I'm right in the middle of it and got in it. So just that's the part of Super Speedway racing that I just, man, it drives me crazy. Yeah, your luck in this next-gen car of Super Speedway race. Have you finished the Super Speedway race that you haven't been involved in a wreck? Yeah. I mean, I was looking at, I don't know, one of those fantasy guys on.

on X, like, their results chart for myself at Daytona. And I was looking down, I was like, damn, where am I at? I'm like ranked 32nd or something. I'm like, oh, look at my finishes, 28, 33, 37, 38. Like, but I didn't cause any of those wrecks. Now, I might have caused the one Atlanta this year, so I got to take credit for that one. I was part of that. Certainly the start of the, the start of the, the start of that.

that wreck, I was a part of it, so I have to share some blame in that one. But Daytona, no, no, I don't know. I'm just always right in the middle of right where it starts. Is it more about luck in this? Like if this was the gen 7 car, 6, what was the previous gen before this? Well, you just had more space. And so skill, your driver's skill was more showcased, you know, the best super speedway drivers. And at that time, it was, you know, I felt like myself and Brad and Joey and Ryan. There's a few of us, you know, McDowell.

There was just a handful that were like always in the front. We were always in the front. And it was, yes, we had fast cars, but we also knew how to work the draft. And then we knew how to get runs. And then once we took the runs, we knew how to keep that run going and then keep, you know weaving our way through the pack next gen is a little bit more log jammed where it's more

track position based which is why you see so much fuel saving is it's not not really about passing as much as it is just track position um now the end of the race here um this this this this weekend you know it played out to where you know the the best available super speedway racer ended up winning it and he won it from 12 from uh from uh from uh what just a couple laps to go. So he was able to showcase his skill and at the end of that race, which was good to see. And a lot of it is because they weren't locked jammed two by two or three by three. How much is it different with the cars pushing each other? Like Chevy's pushing forward. I forget which driver mentioned. It's harder to push a different model than it used to be. Yeah. I think

Larson mentioned that in his post race that, you know, when he when he was asked about kind of pushing Eric Jones there. Did he thought that was fair or foul? He was like, I don't know. It's like, he's like, you know, if I was driving a Ford, you know, you just kind of lock on and those cars take off where

he's saying that Chevy's and Toyota's, you know, the way to keep their line moving is to hit. Now, I think there's a balance there. Larson is one of those is very aggressive at the end of races with, you know, if he has a run, he usually doesn't lift,

no matter what speed you're going in front of him, he doesn't lift, so he'll hit you. So you've got to be really ready, right? You've got to be really ready on the wheel because it's just the closing rate of speed. Now, myself personally, I typically slow down right before I get there

because I'd rather latch than hit. But to each of zone, everyone uses their own techniques to try to keep their lines moving. and that one just kind of got, I guess, the 43 out of shape. But, you know, again, Larson was just trying to keep his line moving and give whoever was in front of him a shot. 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.dardomomedia.com. Have you watched the onboard of Blaney's last two laps? How was he able to be? maneuver from where he was to the to the lead yeah he he was masterful and being patient um what i saw was he was very patient and if you notice he didn't make a whole lot of moves he allowed others to

make moves and then he just held steady you know he's like he's he knows who his help is he spotter's doing a good job telling him who's behind him at the time i think it was the 99 that was pushing him. He seemed pretty committed to him. So he wasn't one of those guys weaving between lanes and all this other stuff. He just was very patient and saying the top line is going to prevail here. So I'm going to stay in it. And as people start to get towards at the front, they're peeling off to block and it's

just moving him up the queue of that line. So at some point he's probably what, fifth on the outside line. well the leader just keeps pulling down a new guy comes up front he takes the lead he pulls down new guy so he keeps moving up the queue as the laps go on and so um and then on the last lap you know just got the great push he moved up it was very timely and good heads up of him and his spotter to off a turn four move up in front of that top lane because it looked like at that time um was it haley who was on the bottom justin haley Yeah, it looked like he, no, no, Cole Custer. Off of a turn four, I believe Cole Custer was, you know, to his inside. I thought he was going to have more help, but his help kind of died and the top lane was coming. And Blaine, he was like, I'm going to go back to the well. And that's what got him pushed out to the front.

Is it a little misleading when they say he came back from 13th? Like, but what, like, he's still impressed with what he does? I don't take that away. But like, what row was he in, though? because like 13 on a super speedway can very easily, depending on how it goes, be fifth. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I see what you're saying,

but I mean, you got to count cars and positions, right? Just because you're two and three wide. Yeah, 13th, listen, 13th at Martinsville with two laps to go is, yes, very, very different than being at Daytona with 13th with two laps to go. not only for distance, but time delta to the leader, right? While you're 13th, you're only actually a half a second, you know, from the lead. So it's not that big, but still you have to as a driver. And where Blaney was impressive is using a skill set to know, you know, push them out and then let them make a decision.

And then I'll figure out whether that decision is the right one or not. and I might go with you and I might not. And so that's where I found I got much better at Super Speedway racing, you know, 10, 15 years ago, is that you're not necessarily having to be the one to make the move, but pushing someone else to make them make a choice and then you have time to process whether that choice was right or not. And they're desperate. They needed the win.

So they feel like they've got to make a move where he can just kind of wait it out. And listen, we've been talking about like kind of the playoff. the whole playoffs and the format Ryan Blaney out here doing God's work I mean everyone he was racing was like 30th in points

no that's what we wanted though I know it's for our argument I wish that one of those guys would have won I mean how different would the narrative have been if Cole or Justin had won versus Blaney right

I mean we're talking to how great the racing was and it was. You got to give, you know, we're critical most times on this podcast, but we also got to give it to do when, when the racing was good. And at the end of that race, it was good racing. But it just, oh, man, we were one, we were one more big underdog away from fans just going absolutely berserk. So before we, before we get into that maybe a little bit, I just sent two screenshots in our, in our group text here. And these are two moments that, to me, stand out in this last lap. The first one here is after they take the white flag,

this Cole Custer gets pushed out, and then Blaney's clear. And instead of moving down a lane or moving down two lanes to the bottom of the track, he just stays put at the top there. What about that is what turned out to be the right decision? But like, what about that is correct? Well, I just think sometimes when you get down to the bottom, you get pinned. You know, there's nowhere else to go. When you've got the top lane, you usually have options. You know, it's one of those things where a crew chief would tell you, if you told me when the cautions are coming, I'll tell you the exact perfect strategy.

It worked out because of all the other things that happened. Yes, Blaney was patient and staying up in that top lane, but also, Colch's kind of got out of his way too, because he was busy blocking the inside lane that was coming. So he just was committed to say, I'm staying up top. And if you want to go down there and block another lane that's coming, go ahead. I'll now move up the queue to be the leader of the top lane. So it worked out because of all the circumstances and all the other drivers, all the other drivers and the moves that they made made Blaney's decision in the right one.

And it looks like it looks like Cole got a massive lead too much too. and then probably is like, is the other lane getting a bigger run? Like if Heddy been stayed attached to Blaney, probably would have not moved down. Well, so what happens here through one and two is that these three lanes even out and Blaney becomes no longer clear of the five and seven. But then going down the backstretch,

the seven gets way out there. Custer gets a run on him, dives to the bottom, Haley blocks it. And once they did that, both of them have lost serious momentum. And the 12 is just sitting there saying, thank you. Yeah, no doubt about it. So a mistake on the 7 and 41?

Yeah, they, you know, I mean, I get it. Everyone's trying to take, you just never know when another run is coming. But in the next gen card, there's usually another run coming. But yeah, I mean, everyone's trying to make the right decision for themselves. And surely, if they had to do it all over again, of course, they would make a little bit different move here and there. But we're just, we don't have that. We don't have that ability. Yeah.

And then coming to the checkered flag here, Blaney slides up in front of Suarez, gets a little push from Suarez. Because he knows Swarer's got nowhere to go. If you look, it's, Swares is boxed in, so he has no choice but to push.

Yeah. And that little push gets him across the, the checker flag first. Yeah, Ryan Blaney saves the format. He does. Everything is fine. Everything is fine.

Yeah, so Alex Bowman and Tyler Redick now make it in. I mean, Redick had to have a sigh of relief. First of all, he caused the first caution. 2311 was two for two on causing the first couple of cautions. You know, it just off of term four there, it looks like he got tight, got into the 34 or 38? 34. 34. Just, yeah, it's just not holding the lane.

And it looked like, you know, they're in big, big trouble. They're not, you know, at that point, they know they got so much damage. They're not going to score any stage points. 48, you know, is still up towards the front. And it's like, oh, boy, here we go. You know, this is a way, this is how you cough it up right here. And luckily for them, 48 got in it. And then I can't imagine the stress that the dead have.

Alex is going through sitting there knowing that like you control zero of your destiny right now. You're essentially a fan watching on TV hoping somebody that has won before wins again. Yeah, this range of emotions for Alex because when Reddick wrecks, Alex is the car behind him. So here's the 45, the car you're racing, peel off the track, head straight for the inside wall. I mean, he must have been thrilled. Yeah, yeah. Then he's caught up in the next record. I wish we would have had a camera on Bowman at the end.

I know. That would have been awesome. Maybe they have something internally. Or he should have live tweeted or something. No, they probably wouldn't have anything internally because, like, I'm thinking about it. If I was sitting in the hauler, right, and I see that, you know, the odds are that I'm going to be knocked out. I probably, you know, would I want a camera on me? Probably not.

But, man, that would be great content, right? For the sake of shit. because he's sitting there probably just hand and head with two laps to go. Was this a good super speedway race? Yeah, I thought that the first wreck enabled it and stage links. It was very fortunate and cautions.

There's a lot of factors that made it really good. To break it down simply, stage one was not a fuel mileage stage. So we were all able to, able to go full out all the all the way you know it we didn't need fuel to run stage one so everyone went hard which is why we ended up wrecking and then stage two i think there was another caution in stage two somewhere to where it then put everyone back in a fuel window again so it'll what you saw was a race that fuel mileage didn't play a huge factor in and so that's what made it good and then thinning the field out

to two-thirds of what a full field was, that's why you saw the good racing. We look at the playoffs standings now. We've got Larson, top of the board, plus 26, Byron plus 26. You're at plus 23. You're the big loser here in this Daytona as Blaney jumps from sixth and points a second

and picks up that plus 10 bonus points. But how do you feel about your position here entering the playoffs? Yeah, I mean, that certainly is what frustrating about Daytona and a slipping there is that, you know, not only are you coughing up a point or two, but you're giving them to the guys that you're probably going to have to beat by a point or two, you know, and so you gave up and gave to them. So it's a double banger for sure. I feel good about it I mean I feel as though the tracks are all good were at you know more conventional ovals

for the most part in the playoffs you get one road course one super speedway which is fair I feel good about it I mean if it's based off of speed we're right there where we need to be I don't see any

foresee any issues for us to make it. Last year, your mindset, you had Atlanta in the first round and it was kind of like survive and advance and it felt like you were kind of passive on your heels in the first round last year. This year, I feel like it sets up better for you. Is it more kind of like go on the kill early? But like do you blame me? I don't blame me, but... Look at Atlanta. Like, yeah, last year I laid back because I thought there was going to be a big wreck. Because I've been in every fucking wreck. I've been in every next-gen super speedway wreck. And it's driving me crazy where I went through 10

years where I'm up front in the Gen 6 car making moves and like the wrecks are behind me because that's where the dummies are. I don't disagree with your you know, you're the strategy, but you started it off with that where this is this different tracks this year. Is this one where you can be a little more aggressive? How do you also balance that aggressive? I mean, there's times to be aggressive. There's times to not, but you still want to stack out playoff points. Like you're not done just because the playoff start, you're not done stacking playoff points if that makes any sense. So, you know, when you're really going to need them is in that round of eight because you're going to get at least one car make it on points in the round of eight.

So you want to be the guy that is performing well. And when you look at these St. Louis and Darlington and Bristol. These are typically tracks where you control your own destiny. Speed wins most times at these racetracks, which is what that's what our strength is. So we would like to increase our playoff points to give us even more buffer when we get, you know, deeper in the playoffs. Let's take out the in the playoffs here. Let's take out the Roval in Talladega.

Do you feel like you could win it every other track? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Gateway, New Hampshire. Check, check, check, check, check. To me, that's what it's going to be about, is can you get a win or two here through the first five, Darlington, Gateway, Bristol, New Hampshire, Kansas.

My goals remain the same. I'd like to win a couple more races before the end of the season. Whenever they are, they are. If they advance me, they advance me, I'd like to win a couple more races. That's the goal. Let's get to 60 this year. You got to feel good, though, is that looking at these playoffs standings, there's five guys here at the top who are all championship four contenders, no doubt.

But past that, you know, the other guys you're racing, you have at least a 15 point advantage on, you know, the Chase Elliott's, the briskos. So going in each round, you're going to get reset by at least 15 or so. Granted, they don't win a race in the round. Right, yeah. I mean, it's all fluid. And again, you know, every three races, it just, we reset the scoreboard. So it's, I don't know. Let's just win races.

The playoffs are the playoffs. Let's just, we got 10 more. Let's keep going. Who do you think it's eliminated? Give me the tracks again. We got Darlington Gateway and Bristol in the first round. Darlington Gateway Bristol I'll say

Dylan Dylan Barry Cindrick in SVG SVG's 16 playoff points aren't going to be enough to sneak through this round

versus your the guys like the Bowman's Reddix Lagano's Chastain Bubba I think they all overtake just on speed, you know, it's just, yeah.

That, I don't know if it's a wild prediction or not, but my first four out, SVG, Cindrick, Barry, Dylan. Yeah, unfortunately for SVG, I feel like for a guy who's fairly new to Oval's, Darlington and Bristol are got to be two of the toughest tracks for that, right? It will be. Yes, definitely will be. It'll be a challenge. But, I mean, he earned, you know, he's got.

22, something like that, 22 actual bonus points. So he's not in a bad spot. All he needs is a few of these guys to have lack of luster days, and he just somehow, you know, he goes in there, finishes top 20, 20, and he'll find himself in a decent spot going into that last cutoff race.

Yeah. Anything else on this cup race? Or the playoff outlook? Not really. I don't think so. Connor Zillich slash Parker Cleggerman win the Xfinity race. Yeah, I'm really happy for Parker. And, you know, it's just awesome for him to get that call from Dale Jr.

And what I love about Dale Jr. And obviously, the Xfinity series is, you know, if we're being honest, it's primarily made of buy-your-ride, you know, drivers. And most even your top teams, you know, have a handful of those on their roster. But Dale always seems to have one car that he's trying to give the other guys a shot, right? The local short track guys or whoever it might be, you know, trying to give them opportunities to showcase their talents. So then maybe a sponsor, you know, has interest in him. He did it with Josh Barry.

I guess it was it tire pros or something like that, that, you know, latched on to Barry and kept him going. And the next, you know, he got a ride into Cup. So, you know, Dale Jr. is doing, and Kelly are doing a great job at Junior Motorsports. You know, given that stepping stone for those drivers. And, you know, there's a balance. They've got to run their business too. And so, you know, you're going to have some pay on your roster and some that, you know,

you feel like you can have on natural talent, but it's good to see, you know, Parker get that call because I think what Dale Jr., my point was, I took a while to get there, was that, you know,

he picked who he thought could win in that car at that track. He's like, I'm going to go pick the best available driver and that being Parker Cleggerman at Daytona to replace Zillich during the race. And so, and Parker is, one of the better Super Speedway racers

in the Xfinity series that you know over the last few years and you know a lot of people wonder well why doesn't you know obviously Parker is very very good well why doesn't he run Xfinity

guys this is a prime example of how broken this business model is the guy makes more talking about the drivers than actually being a driver that's i mean that that that is the true system and how broke it is is that he could he could have a ride but it doesn't pay anything and he would be taking a massive pay cut by being a star in

the xfinity series versus being an announcer for the xfinity series that that is that is the crux and the problem that that will continue to hamper the best talent and the best opportunities making it in the Xenity Series.

And just because it's, you know, many of the rides are going to be taken up by pay guys and there's just not going to be that many opportunities. You're going to need something like this where you know, one of the top teams is like, okay, well, you know,

I'm going to be okay with two or three pay drivers and then maybe I got one seat for whoever I actually want or whoever I actually think is pretty good. Man, it's a tough way to go, but is there, you know, not to, you know, go off on a tangent here, but is there a, is there a fix to that in the Xfinity series? Well, they're just limited because, you know, whatever their cost is, obviously there's not. nearly enough purse money or team money to support what it cost. It just, yeah, it, it, they don't have their expenses covered. So, you know, they've got to either get it through sponsorship or drivers with sponsorship. So the team owners, it's just a tough thing for them to do. Do they want to survive or not?

They're going to do whatever they have to do to survive. And to survive, you've got to, if you don't have a sponsor in your pocket that is willing to sponsor nobody until you tell them who to sponsor. You rely on the driver to bring that sponsor or, you know, their family or whoever. So you almost need the cup series of the highest level to help supplement the Xfinity series? Yeah, but even in terms of money. Even that has gone away. Like Penske got rid of their cup program and Hendrick used to have, you know, I guess they still

have the 17 car. They're creeping back into it. I think Hendrick and Junior Motorsports obviously have a partnership there. I think Rick owns a little portion of that. But I don't know. I just think the business model is going to continue to get harder and harder. And from what I'm hearing in the truck series is that NASCAR is telling them, what I've been told, this is a rumor.

This is not, I don't know that this is factual, but it's a rumor. that, you know, they need them to go to spec trucks by 2028. How in the world are they going to be able to afford that? Everyone's going to scrap all their stuff. And it's going to happen to Xfinity Series as well. I mean, those guys are running on cars that are old, old, old, old, old, old, old. And it used to be passed down from the Cup series. And so the Cup teams could recoup a little bit of money from their investment from their

generation six cars and five cars because they would just pass them down to Xfinity. And then Xfinity would be racing, you know, two, three, five-year-old cup cars. Now, they're all having to keep building new stuff, right? And so that just really takes its toll on the teams. It drives up their cost. But, I mean, that's professional motorsports. I mean, there's enough money to go around. It's just not making it all the way to the teams.

And unfortunately, they're the ones that are having to deal with this tough business environment. Yeah, if the purse was higher, then XFinity teams could go. know what? We want to hire who will win? We'll win. Go win us that money. Absolutely. Eric Eustep had Steve O'Donnell on his show earlier this week, a 30-minute long-form conversation.

And one of the takeaways from that conversation was discussing cup drivers, potentially running more Xfinity series races, opening that up to more cup drivers. Is there anything to take away from that? Is there a link to more cup drivers running Xfinity series races when it comes to this business model or you know is there any crossover i don't know why there's a need for that i think ross chastain is the only person that has run actually five um i that is an unnecessary rule change um you know i think that it's we've gotten used to seeing you know i like seeing the cup or the Xfinity regulars going down there and, you know, competing against themselves.

And yeah, you get every now and then a cup driver, it goes in there and they kind of set a bar. And it also lets you evaluate that the Xfinity talent that's in there. But I don't open it back up. I don't know what that account. Someone's kind of has to explain to me that what is the reason behind it? It's fixing something that's not broken. Correct. The Xfinity ratings are fine.

My question is, what are we doing? What is that solving? If there was like 10 drivers that are racing five a year and one and more, then I could, okay, there's a reason for a change, but it's Ross is the only one. It's not something I think that it, that moves our sport forward. I don't think so. Speaking of cup drivers going down and racing affinity, has there been any dialogue between you and JGR about next year you race in Super Speedway? Man, I told you, I'd love to. Obviously, we let this one, you know, slip.

but they need to find a sponsor. Listen, that tells you, if JGR had the opportunity to put me in a Xfinity car, don't you think they would do it? But they gotta go find a sponsor for it. They can't afford to just put me in a car. That's what's crazy.

Why waste our time trying to put Denny in an Xfinity car and we can just try to find that sponsor for the cup car, right? That and would you rather, have me and get zero or someone else who probably won't run as good and they

bring you 150 or I don't know 200 grand I don't know what the number is and they'll bring you that per race I mean I know what I'm doing as a team owner if that's the model it's like well winning doesn't mean that much

to me so I you know you got to find a sponsor anybody wants to sponsor me in the Xfinity. Daytona race, call up JGR. They have a sales department there. I just want to run one. That's it.

I'm an envy of how the Xfinity cars draft. I love the spacing between the cars and how you can make moves. I want to do it. Just one more time. Is Ceebill running the Xfinity car for support clips this weekend? I'm not sure.

Yeah, usually Darlington is my one, but just... You're tired. For now. I won my last one. but I've retired for now unless I can get a ride at Daytona. Some off-track news?

Anything else on track? No. Zilich? Right? I mean, officially going to track house. Breaking news. Right. Breaking news.

Yeah, really, you know, happy for him. And certainly, you know, it's tough to say earned his keep in the Xfinity series, but he's proving that, you know, what would another year do in Xfinity? I'm not sure. Just win a lot more races.

Would that have been different, or your thought had been different had it been pre-next-gen car to stay in X-Findy for one year, but with the cars being so different? Yeah, maybe. That's a good point. When the cars are more similar, it kind of gets you ready for that.

But they are so different that you want to try to get as much seat time as quick as possible. I think, and he's young enough, he's going to be able to absorb all that. And again, this is not going to be easy road. I do think the step-up in competition is going to be big. Will his best shot to win come at a road course? Yes, absolutely. I think he'll run his track house cars can run.

you know i i think that he can run uh as equal or maybe even a little better than SVG on the ovals i don't know it'd be close SVG's making pretty good strides um so i yeah i don't know i don't know how zilich is going to do on an oval and cup but talk to all the guys that have won six eight races over the last decade that you know when they stepped into cup the Cole Custer and Chase Briscoe, remember, it just dominated. Austin Cinder, just dominated. And then they crossed that fence on to Sunday, and it was like, whoa, these guys are really good, and they are good.

So I think, no doubt about it, he's a, you know, he's a generational franchise type driver, but we all need to be patient with it and let him develop. He's really young, and he'll be in the sport a long time. It's a busy week for you this week off the track. You got your annual Pro Am Jam tomorrow night into Tuesday. NASCAR's got their playoff media day down in Charlotte on Wednesday. And then I guess we'll have an official ruling on this injunction come Thursday. No, that probably won't happen until next week.

The hearing is this week. The hearing is this week. So we won't know anything until next week. Yeah. It'll be a very entertaining week. Stay tuned to your social channels. And then potentially we could see you in a new uniform come Thursday night. I don't believe it.

Are they just messing with me? For those listening in the hoop group, there's some rumors going around. My team's 0.3. Average shows. We're 0.3. We kept it close. We actually were leading for most of the game and just... I've got sources that there are discussions of trades.

Well, someone needs to let me know because I need to make... make my plans for Thursday because I'm supposed to have a buy this week. So am I playing or my not? I mean, someone tell me. You could probably use a week off. Anyway, Denny could go from an 0 and 3 average Joe's to a 3 and O team, potentially. Oh, there's only a few of those. I got to look at the standings.

And I see where my options are. And I think the championship's already been decided. And I've, oh, really? Yeah, the seasons. We put an asterisk on this year. Yeah, some breaking news. The number one overall draft pick blew his ACL. With partial MCL.

Charlie, went down on Thursday night, cut into the basket. I don't know. I hate to say that it was like it was a matter of time, but as much as he shifty as he is, and I mean, he's no spring chicken. like you just these things are bound to happen if you play enough and so unfortunately for him he's going to be on the shelf for quite a while I think he says his fishing career is now going to be full time for him yeah we're supposed to be going to the highest state game this week

and I'm trying to see if he's it's going to be able to make it he doesn't have his knee brace yet I've got plenty of knee braces one or for the same size well give him a call the brace isn't I've blown both my ACLs, so I know all about it. Yeah, that's a bummer. So it is opening week. Trab, can we get a wellness check on you? How do we feel Ohio State, Texas, Saturday? You get the big noon kickoff again on Fox.

I know you love it. We're good right now. We rewatched all the playoff games this past couple days. You did? Yeah, they were airing on ESP and you, so we watched them. he recorded on we'll delete them tomorrow we're moving on uh not nervous yet so can i ask yeah when you're going back and you're rewatching last year's playoff games what are you looking for are you just reliving the moment just that rush it's just because then you can watch it without

stress so when you watch a play do you know what's do you remember what happens next you're like oh i know what happens on the next for the most part yes there's There's a few plays where I'm like, oh, I forgot about that or, you know. Like I rewatched the Tennessee game. I forgot that we got stopped on the first possession, but they had a penalty. And so it gave us first down, then we got on score and it was over. Travis, give me like a 30 second scouting report on this game. All I know is Texas Archmanning.

It's all I got. It's going to come down to which quarterback is ready for the moment. Can you give me a background on where our quarterback has come from? So Julian Sane is from Carl's Beck. California committed to Alabama five star then Saban retired and so then like two weeks later hit the portal and transferred. So he's been

in college football for a few years now? He was a freshman last year. He signed Last year was first year Sabin was out? Yeah. Wow. So this kid has not played a down He's had a few but nothing meaningful going up against

an elite top three defense. But they're in your house. Correct. At the shoe. It'll be loud, even if it's noon. Hmm. Hmm. I just, I, I, I can, I can close my eyes and picture myself sitting right next to you. And when the first play, and you're like, come on, come on.

Just going crazy. Or when I went off on that ref. Yeah. So we're putting the, we're putting the band back together, minus one person. I want to go so bad, but dude, they got us on track at like freaking nine. I was going to go on Friday. My goal was to go Friday, tailgate, go out with you guys,

and then send you off, and I was going to leave Saturday morning to go to the racetrack and go to work. But it's just too freaking early. Yeah. Man, if this was a normal, I feel like noon kickoff for this is dumb, right? They should be Ohio State's the king of it.

It's Fox, man. It's not us. They put Ohio State, red-headed stepchild. They get the noon kickoff. the cash cow and move it back you'd be there so yeah Nate Charlie and I are going up man all right well good luck but guys um I don't know I don't know how I feel about this one I just don't know I don't know the players enough like I felt like after I came to the first game watch the

second game I felt like okay I know I know the strengths I know the roster now but this I feel like we got a whole new cast of characters. Jeremy Smith still there. And Caleb Downs is still there on defense. So, all right. Well, we'll see. If for some reason he'd lose the first, it's still okay, right? The f***ed, Denny?

Sorry. No, but I'm asking from someone who knows nothing about college football. If you lose the first game to the, what is Ohio State won? No, Texas is one. You can win out and still be fine. Okay. Yeah. All right.

Well, good luck. I'm going to go down there. Someone's got to earn a living for us down in Florence, South Carolina. Would you be, if Ohio stays to lose, Travis, will you be back on the Twitter Sunday night? Or would you be out for a few days? Oh, my God. I bet you were going to tweet up a freaking storm. No, because I'll be at the game.

Oh, you'll be at the game. You'll still do it during timeout, just you will. You saw what I was like at the games. I'm not on Twitter. Okay. I'm going to need... Hey, do you all have service at the shoe? Yes.

I don't understand these freaking tracks, man. Why do we have no service? Because they don't pay for it. Like, Ohio State, I don't know if you remember it. How are people supposed to share their experiences if you've got no signal? Each section of Ohio State there's like a little thing to help for it. I just, if when people show up on Sunday, Saturday is usually okay because it's not full. But God dang it, these tracks.

what are they doing? You can't share your experiences because you got no freaking cell service. Reporters are like... I know. We're like, hey, we're heading the media center but we got no service there. Matt Weaver posted, he was like,

a tweet finally went out. He's like, sorry, this was supposed to go out last night or something. Like, put the pylons back up. It's as if we were stuck in 1993. Put the pylons back up and they should double as cell towers. Speaking of back in 93,

you know what the discussion on the plate? I know people listening here. off on a tangent here. This is an interesting one. You know what the subject was on the plane ride home? No, Lord can only guess with the people that were on that flight. Did we really land on the moon or not? Jesus.

Here's the best part. This is AP? Here's the best part. We had Alex Presley, Austin, Jared, my mom. So no AP with us. And your brother, Austin. Oh. Yeah, sorry, and Josh Neely.

Yep. And there were three that were. three that were definitely we did not. They're like, listen, you're telling me they live streamed back in 1960 something that we were on the moon and everyone got to see it on TV. He's like, come on, no way. There's no way we had the technology to do that. And we haven't been back since. And I'm like, and I went into this thinking, yeah, of course we landed on the moon.

I saw it. And they're like, total sham. and they had me convinced that no he's like look he's like i'm telling you you got a deep dive into this he's like apparently we lost the technology to get back i'm like lost the technology it's been what is that 60 70 years 60 years ago i i'm finding it hard to believe i mean if you have direct tv and and you have a cloud go by you lose signal. And yet we had a perfect live stream back in 1960 of the communication between the sky on the moon and us back on Earth. I'm starting to be skeptical as well. My two takeaways from

this conversation, Travis, were one, when we got to the plane, it was still, the mood was still somber. We were not happy about the way the race went. Yeah, it just like wasn't great. But then we started talking about the moon landing and everyone's, everyone's chipper. Yeah, God, then he's attention. But then second, there's one, two, three, four, six people on the plane. The five people arguing about the moon landing are the only five people who weren't alive during the

moon landing. Mom's sleeping. Had to wake her up. Hey, Mary Luke. These kids back here that were born post-1969. Alex felt very, I mean, he was like, no, I've done all the research on this. I'm telling you,

we did not land on the moon. And he had me pretty convinced. I'm like, all right, I'm now 50-50 on whether we really did or not. Listen, I took field trips as a kid to the Neil Armstrong Museum town over. So I'm pro-moon landing. Okay. I'm pro-moon landing. For the record, Denny and I are pro-moon landing.

Yes, don't come. I was. That was 100%. I'm waning on that a little bit. Anyway, well, we digress. Anything else? I've got a review here from Send It on from YouTube. Denny is officially addicted.

to fishing and I love it. Here's some tip. Here's a tip for you. Try a drop shot rig in the lake. Oh, drop shots. It's got deeper shots. The fish are deep this time of year until Trurox get you out tuna fishing.

What's my rig? I'm a drop shot guy. I love, yeah, absolutely. Most everything I've caught is on the drop shot. Yes, they do go deep. I understand. I get it. But even the pro says

you're getting unlucky unlucky. Sometimes they just they don't bite. And then sometimes you just drag your line in the water like Bubba and one happens to jump on. So it's just law of average. You just got to ride this out. He says

man you got some nice equipment though. I said yes sir. I dress like I'm scratch even though I'm a 20 handicap. That's all I got. All right well see after drawing to folks.