Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Gateway: Engine & Fuel Required To Win Race

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Join Denny Hamlin and co-host Jared Allen this week to chat about all of the racing in St. Louis, plus a story you have to hear from Denny's daughter, Taylor.First up, the crew recaps Shane Van Gisbergen's first career win in the Xfinity Series at Portland.In the Cup Series, race strategy was flipped on its head when Josh Berry wrecked. Denny breaks down Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch’s on-track beef and who was at fault.The show takes a break from all of the race chatter when Denny’s daughter Taylor joins to talk about the dog they found in St. Louis.Christopher Bell was looking like he would pass Ryan Blaney to get his third win of the season, but engine failure ruined his day. Even if his engine didn’t fail, Denny wonders if he would have been able to make the pass.With Bell’s race over it looked like Blaney would cruise to his first victory of the season – and then he ran out of gas. The guys discuss how this happened. Austin Cindric was the driver to take advantage and get his first win of the season.The first round of the DH Bracket Challenge brought chaos and upsets. The guys react to the surprising outcomes.Kyle Larson still awaits news on his waiver, and SHR announces the sale of all their charters.Plus, #DearDenny on drivers creating a union. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a short-term happiness and a long-term pain. It can help teach Taylor responsibility. They're not going to do it. They're going to, they don't even pick up after themselves. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey guys, welcome to action's detrimental. Ow, that hurt Charlie. This is not going to be a rose color glasses show.

Pleading with NASCAR, who I guarantee you is listening to this. It was warm and then it was cold. But I kind of liked it. The 11 D.H. We're all in. We're going all the way the promise of it.

Hey guys. Welcome to Actions Detramental. I am Denny Hamlin driving the number 11 Yahoo Camry this weekend. And my co-host is Jared Allen Red Vest number 311

at the track every weekend. All right. It's starting to get, I'm starting to get used to that, the 311. Yeah. So Gateway, we had,

here we are in St. Lewis, we had Troy Heim winning the truck race. Didn't think he necessarily had the best truck. I thought that Ty Majeski had the best truck

kind of throughout the weekend looking at that. But they just, they got better and better as race went on. Corey Haim gets his fourth win in the season. Any comments there? Just Corey Heim really solidifying himself as a

sought after. Yeah. Cup prospect. Yeah, he's just doing a great job, you know, to be just 21 or 22 years old. He's doing great. Exfinity, we had SVG winning in Portland. I would say in the short term, like, there was no real surprise there. Like, if that was just the headline, you didn't watch the race, you would say that no real

surprise. But I thought there were some legitimate contenders, I think, just. and Algeyer really showed up really well. You know, Sam Mayer, you know, got the pole, but didn't really, didn't pan out for him. So I don't think anyone left there really with fight. Usually we leave Portland with a few fights. We didn't have any of that, right?

Nobody's extremely pissed. No. When you're on a road course and you are having that many restarts with the same person behind you, Are you just like, do you know that at some point when you're that skill, they're just going to finally figure it out and pass your, like, are you just like it's a matter of time? Yeah, you can't make any mistakes against someone that, you know,

grew up doing road course racing. Because they're always trying to set up the next corner and you as the leader. You're trying, it's a tough position at times to be the leader because you're trying not to make a mistake to make the overtake easier than what it, you know, should be. you want to make them earn it. So you typically dial it back just a little bit to make sure you don't screw up. And then that other person's driving that extra little bit to catch you.

And they're using you as their rabbit so they know they're not going to make a mistake. And that usually ends up at a tight, tight finish. How much more difficult is it mirror driving a road course versus? It's hard. Yeah. I can't do it. There's something that can, but I can't do it well. I have to just concentrate all of my being on what's in front of me.

Right. Because I imagine when you are a mirror driver, looking in your mirror, it comes down to a lot of muscle memory. Yeah. Right? But at a typical oval, you only have two turns. So the muscle memory, I feel like, is, I don't know, you have more of it than when you have 15, 16 turns at a road course.

Yeah, certainly. I think that, you know, you're, It's technical and certainly the Portland track looks technical. I've never driven on it before, but it, you know, there's some runoff there, but it's a pretty narrow racetrack. So you've got to stay online. Is this where the spotter is even more important on a road course because you can't, you can't look in your mirror as much?

Yeah, I mean, I think that each spotter is different. Some of them will just kind of let you know how far back the other guy is. I hate it when spotters are like, you know, he's looking inside. What does that mean? Is he there or is he not there? So like, you know, some, and I got used to that early in my career. They would say, looking, looking, and I'm like, okay. So does that mean I need to pull down low a block or is that mean he's almost there?

There's certainly a lot of interpretation. And all spotters do things differently and drivers like things that are different like that. but it's for the most part you're all just trying to again I'm just trying to keep my car on track and so it's hard for me to I feel like if I just optimize my car my time then you know I'll be able to hold off whoever's behind me just keep it on track you give your chance

the best shot to win if you just keep the car on track yeah I mean I think um you're certainly going to find yourself towards the front um if you keep it on track because you know I think that typically any NASCAR race. Now Cup might be a little bit, I don't know, it's tough to say, but I always say like 30% of the competition

will take themselves out in some sort of way. You know, so if you were going to run 10th, you're going to run actually 7th, because, you know, if you got the 10th best car, I think three or so usually take themselves out that are faster than you, you know, through wrecks, through pit cycles,

through whatever it might be, running out of gas. You know, it just, those things happen. I was going to say, that's a great segue. We're talking about road course racing, but that's a great segue.

Into Gateway is Austin Sindrick. If you have the third best car, you might just find yourself winning. Yeah. I didn't put the numbers together like that, but yeah, he was running third. He's running third.

And then he got the win, but it is. It's just, it's hard to execute a perfect race and not make mistakes. because you are it is racing and you're having you know the way that cautions come out things like that always has a factor in kind of what what your result might be on that weekend so again you have a clean race then then usually you can find yourself up towards the front and then but you got to be

really skilled to win a road course race and that's why you see the skilled guys actually winning them but you see sometimes others get good finishes right let's go into the the Cup Gateway race. We have some off-track stuff that we'll discuss later in the show, but we may have a special guest, so I kind of want to save that stuff for later. Special guest. Until that special guest comes on.

So Gateway, where do you want to start here? We want to jump into the Kyle Larson, Kyle Bush dilemma? Yeah, I mean, the first stage, just trying to replay this here. mind the first stage went kind of as status quo it's like weird the way they had the stages in gateway lap 45 was stage one and then 140 was stage two so like that i don't i don't know i don't think so it's well does it create a different strategy like does yeah i guess maybe if it was later like, you know, 75 and 150, then, you know, then the last stage is a little under 100.

I'm not really sure. I mean, there's a rhyme or reason for it. I certainly think that, like, from TV standpoint, they like early, in the first stage earlier, the better for them, because they get their commercials in, especially if there's no caution. But they're, you know, this given week, there was some cautions early on that broke it up. Is there a merit to a short first stage, maybe just the length of one fuel run, so then cars come in pit, and you can say, okay, here's what you're working with.

Here's one fuel run, here's what you got. Here's how the tires are wearing. Yeah, but we go to a mile and a half and the first stage is usually lap 80 or something like that. So this is a mile and a quarter, and it's 45. So it's definitely not proportionate, but again, I'm not really sure. there must be some reason for it for sure.

Midway through this race, Jordan Bianchi tweeted that some teams have lost internet, meaning no access to SMT data. Yeah, there's something going on with the internet there. This is not the first time that's happened. No, last year it shut down for like an hour. It was a long time. I don't know how long it was out this time.

Last year, Chris told me when they had, he's like, hey, we're running blind in here. I have no SMT. I have no time in scoring. The pylon, I don't think, worked. Like, it was just not good. I think that's how they operated was off the pylon. So I don't know.

It certainly affects the teams, but I don't know what they got to do to fix it for sure. But I think that the, I think this track had power issues before. So didn't like the lights go out or something like that? I just remember something at Gateway where they had power, they've had power issues, but even before we came there.

So there's something in the infrastructure they got to upgrade. Hey, these cars can't pass, shut the internet down. It's called the worldwide technology raceway. Can we get some better technology? Yeah, someone call up Dave Stewart. They'll get this thing fixed. Lap 113, Josh Berry blows a tire, causes a caution. And this is a point in the race where

the field really got flip-flop because you had some guys pit for two tires some pit for four some stay out i believe yeah this this mixed things up for sure this was the point where we were up towards uh i don't know we were we were right with larsson we were about to pass larsson um and okay so we went back to the back because others had pit earlier into the stage we pit others flip it okay so then we start towards the back and then make our way towards the front another caution comes really short and he's like well the all the guys in front of us are going to pit and i'm he's like and we're oh this is no this is when the caution caught and we were the last card lead lap i'm i'm really confused about where that was at but i just feel this was early on

and then i remember i had to battle back towards the top three 10. So on that lap 113, the 4 wrecks, the 29 and 5 stay out while all others on the lead lap pitted. Right. Right. So yes, we were the last car on the, we had gotten our lap back. The caution came out.

We were the last car on the lead lap. And then I thought we were going to stay out and get stage points because we would have been right where the five was. I think he restarted second or third or something like that. And then he's like, no, I want you to pit. I'm like, hmm, I thought for sure we would try to get some stage points, then pit again later on since there were only 17 cars only lap. But he had me pit there.

And then we got, you know, back to the top 10 after the Cowbush and Kyle Larson and Rec. So it all kind of worked out. but it was kind of a split thing where you probably could have made either one work, but still it kind of netted out good for us in the end when you all, you know, when you encapsulate kind of the whole race. But yeah, it flipped the field a little bit, but in the end you still had the best cars up towards the front, right? The Penske cars and Blaney and Cindrick, I thought were, you know, they stayed up front

all day long, the 20 car. They were going to be racing for the win. It's the Kyle Larson, Kyle Bush incident. I think Kyle's to blame. Yes. You are correct. Which Kyle? Kyle.

You're correct. I'll let Denny tell which ones to blame. I mean, it's my opinion, but I think Larson pissed off Bush when he ran into his left rear trying to side draft. And we see the side draft getting more and more. They're getting. closer and closer. Alex Bowman did the same thing last week at the Coke 600. Like he ran into my left rear while he was trying to side draft.

I'm like, so there's clearly something going on there where they're being taught to get closer and closer to the side of the car. And he ran into the side. And Bush was like, hey, you know, what the, like you got to. can't run into me. Well, I would think the closer you are, the more effective the side drive is. It is. But, I mean, they're making contact at this point.

Well, that's not good for either person. It's not like Kyle's trying to run into him, right? It's not like Bowman's trying to make contact with you. Or is he? No, they're trying to get as close as they can, but you can't misjudge it if you're going to, if you're going to play that game. Okay. Because it risks, you know, running, you could flatten the person's left for your tire.

And at that point, so what Kyle Bush did, and I mean, I think this is, while this is all an opinion, I think that it's pretty accurate that he pissed Kyle off by running into him on the straightway. Kyle then turned left while the five was beside him and wanted to show him, hey dude, like, don't, that's bull-s. And then they both crashed into the next corner. So, I mean, that was it. And Bush's day was over and Larson ended up 10th. So Bush got the bad end of that deal. But, but, you know, I heard Kyle say that, you know, Bush, that is, that, you know,

they can't afford days like this. But, you know, in these instances, you got to just kind of keep your motion somewhat in check. Like after you gave him the hip check down the front straightaway, you got to, I think you probably got to give a little room there to then, okay, now we're going to race. but I was surprised that the five just kept driving in. I thought for sure after he got doored there entering the corner that he would have, okay, I'm just going to back up my entry here and make sure I don't slide into him also. But he didn't.

And then it looks like the eight left enough room, but the five was so close up against them that the five got loose, ding the left rear of the eight, the left rear of the eight, the left rear quarter panel again, and they both spun out. So the five started the contact, the eight started the second contact, the five started the third contact. But because the eight pushed him down the track? Yeah, because he pushed him down the track. So he left him not much room. But Carl, in my, Larson in my mind, could have checked up his entry a little more, knowing that how shallow he was going to go in.

And more than likely, Bush is going to drive. You know, you got to predictive think of what's going to happen here. you know and and so the eight crowned him down low he certainly ain't going to just give you the door and then give you the spot so the eight's going to challenge the position and he's not leaving you very much room on the bottom you better slow your entry up just a little bit to keep the car under you but isn't kyle bush the one here with more to lose therefore he should probably be the one to make the bigger decision and maybe widen his entry i mean if you think about it he had you know during the course of the from the first contact off the turn forward to when they actually

spun this is 10 seconds you know what I mean so it's not a whole lot of time to cool off so I think uh yeah Bush had the most to lose and did lose the most um but you know he he he didn't want to get ran into anymore. It just seems like recently we're seeing what seems to be like Kyle Bush feeling the pressure of where this team's currently running? You know, I don't know that it's pressure more than it's just a motion of, you know, he spent the greater part of, you know, 15, 16 years just being the man and dominating. You know, he's got 62 wins, 63 wins, something like that.

He's one of the best that our sport has ever seen, and now he's in a situation where it's like he's not up front every week anymore. And, you know, when he's battling for top fives, those are good days for him. I don't even know how many top fives he has, but it doesn't feel like much this year. so I just think that certainly you know they're they're trying to improve over there at RCR it seems like they're that they're battling you know Austin Dillon got a good run you know he ran you know he finished sixth I don't know where he was running when the field got flip-flop because he was able he was one of the cars that caught the caution now again

if you don't catch that caution all those guys that stayed out were a lap they were going to be a lap down or something, you know, way, way back in the pack. So it all worked out for about 10, 12 cars who decided they were going to stay out. And Austin was one of the beneficiaries of that. So in the end, it's just you have an organization that's trying to get better. And Kyle's probably frustrated that, you know, I don't have time to work on getting better. I'm as good as I need to be and I'm driving the cars as fast as they'll go, but they're not going. top fives. Yeah, it just doesn't feel like.

Dover and Atlanta. Yeah, so throw out Atlanta because it's the Speedway. He's got one. He's got Dover. A total of five top tens on the year. Yeah. Yeah. Just in a tough spot.

He came into this race, 14th in the standings now drops to 17th. And on top of that, you had a winner outside of the top 16. So now that playoff cut line. Yep. There's a push down. There's two winners outside the cut line. Right. And these drivers right around the cut line are no, you know, there's no driver above the cutline.

It's like, well, he probably shouldn't be there or something. You know, you've got Joey Lagano from the outside looking in Kyle Bush. Right. You got good guys, good cars at that cut line. It'll be, it'll be, someone's going to get left out. Some premier driver is going to get left out of the playoffs this year. That's how it's supposed to be. You know, we've got 16 guys in the playoffs.

We've increased it from 10 to 12 to 16. and so yeah you're you know that for a long time you know the bubble drivers were always the bubble drivers like there was always three or four that was always near the bubble every single year and so I think you know this year you know potentially you have you know last year or two years ago was that Martin Truex it was third in points didn't make the playoffs you know because we had so many winners. Now, we won't have that this year. Again, Cendrick won and he won somewhat straight up. You know, he had some help, certainly. But it, you're not going to have the 15, 16 winners like we had before. I don't know what this is, probably sixth winner, seventh winner. Maybe more than that.

So I just think you were reaching kind of an asymptote spot of that's where we're at. and so who misses it i don't know i think a lot of it gets decided over this summer stretch um these next five to six weeks are really going to be important for for those who uh who are on that bubble you know to try to get a win here's our here's our special guest for those listening they didn't bring home a trophy this week i did not but he did bring home a puppy yeah this is uh Well, we named it Lulu. I didn't realize, too, that was my mom's nickname when she was growing up as Lulu. And my mom had a shirt on.

She came over last night when we landed to check the puppy out. And she had a shirt on and said, The Lulu's. The Lulu. So she was, I guess we just found out, she doesn't have a chip in her. She's six to seven weeks. So she is. According to the vet. So she is very, very young.

But they found her. The park rangers found her by the river. Yeah. Can we rewind here to Saturday afternoon? Okay, so Saturday afternoon. Taylor loves telling this story. If you haven't, I don't know if you realized this day. Okay, so basically what happened was, you can find it on my mom's story too,

but basically what happened was we got off, we went to the arch, right? and we were going in the arch it was like six or seven you ever heard awesome Peyton tell a story it's going to be very similar so basically then we're on the arch and there's this movie that you can watch

no one was in line which was really sad because it was a great movie actually and it was like telling you how they built the arch right and so dad says dad's like I want to go home I'm tired and I'm like well he has the race or whatever so I'm like So I ubered back to the track.

And he had a walk. I got dropped off right outside the Luda concert, by the way, and had to walk all the way around the racetrack to get back in. Oh, and it was raining. It was, it was not good. And basically then where mom's like, I don't want for something. Dad was like, why do you want to stay? It's like, it was 35 minutes.

Land the plane. It was like, no reason. So basically mom was like, I just, I don't know why. I just want to stay. So then after the movie is over, we're like, yay, that was a pretty good movie. So we've come out, we take a picture at the very, like, at the very middle of the arch, and there's this park ranger, like, and there's this dog walking a puppy, I mean. So basically, we're a whole, and the ranger hears us, and she says, oh, no, you can hold her,

like, she's so sweet. And I was like, actually, she's like, yeah, she's not mine. And I'm like, actually? And she was like, yeah. and so I was so excited. I got to hold her. And they were like, she was like, yeah, I was going to take her to the pound. And she did not want to take her the pound.

You could tell. But she, like, it was part of her job, too. So, because she was literally just a stray. She had no call her, no nothing. So we were like, okay. And so she was like, wait. She was like, can we kind of keep her? And she's like, yeah, do you guys want to keep her?

And I was like, sure. And so we called my dad and he was like, I don't care. So you volunteered to take her. from the ranger then she didn't just hand them to y'all well yeah yeah there's this young puppy here and we got to figure out what to do with it i mean keep it it's the answer no we already have it why wouldn't you keep the dog dany huh why wouldn't you keep the dog i mean look because this is a short-term happiness and a long-term pain in the i'll teach taylor responsibility and like they're not going to do it. They're going to, they don't even

pick up after themselves. They're not going to take care of this dog. I mean, look at this dog. It's a beautiful. Do you want to say goodbye to this cute dog? I don't. All puppies are cute. So Mila doesn't need a friend? Milo loves her actually. Milo. They played quite, they played

quite well last night. So now going to lose a friend too. Oh, you even put on this thing. How did Milo react to his little sister? Little sister. So you're already I didn't write that. You're already agreeing that she's in the family.

I didn't write that. All right. Well, let's, so we're going to figure out what to do. So, I don't know. We'll figure something out for sure, but it's, let's go. All right. Thank you. Thanks for show and tell.

I know. Bye-bye. All right. Yeah, so that's what happened. That's why I had a post saying, if this is your dog. please let me know. No one claimed it. So I don't know what to do at this point.

So obviously I have kids and they believe one way, but sometimes you have to let them know. Maybe give the kids like two-week trial period to show that they can be responsible. That's too long. I'm going to play devil's advocate here, Travis. Milo's one-year-old. Two years old.

This was already processed a year ago, right? I know. It's sick. It's six months or so of just, you know, frustration. Well, it's the summertime. And this dog is going to be big, they said. But it's the summertime. That's three months for them to be around constantly.

They won't do it. I know them. All right. Well, back to your regular scheduled program. I need, we got to get the one-minute version. Go ahead. You got the floor. No, that's it.

It's just that they walked out of the arch. there was a ranger there with a puppy that they found by the river and they said do you want the puppy because I'm going to take the puppy to the pound if not they said okay we're going to take the puppy that they called me face-time me says can we I'm like oh my gosh I don't know I don't care what you do but that doesn't mean we're keeping it and it still doesn't mean we're keeping it so there's that um I don't know what to do I don't I mean, it's not what I would choose if I had another dog, but I don't know.

They think that the dog found them. How big is this dog supposed to get to be? They said between 65 and 80 pounds. But you don't know what it is, right? Milo is 53 or so, 55. We don't know what breed it is. No, we don't. We'd have to get a DNA test, which we can.

It's not a big deal. so mastiff some sort of mastiff you know what mastiff sounds like what massive

exactly bingo exactly so anyway don't ask me if I want this dog I'm a hard out Jared why don't you get the dog Jerry

you got a house coming nope yeah and a dog is not a plan of the house my idea was just let it be the shop dog at 2311.

Like just every night somebody takes the dog home and brings it back the next morning. Right? That should be the plan. I love that idea. Let it be the shop dog. I mean, surely you have an employee there that likes dogs enough that they would open their house to it part time, right? That's kind of what a shop dog is.

You bring it to the shop when you work nine to five. It roams around. Other people can, you know, deal with it. And you just take it home, feed it a little bit. It's like half the battle of a... The thing's going to lay. massive turd, so. Yeah, that's a shiny shop floor, too.

Damn. Oh, gosh. Okay. Where were we? We just finished up a Larson Bush beef. Yeah. So that's just kind of, I don't know, that was the end of stage two.

Then stage three, everyone just kind of raced it from there. And then there were some varying strategies on who went long, who went short, They all kind of came together in the end, but it seemed like the long strategy. It was going to work out for the long guys more than the short guys, even though we all, like I was part of the short.

I think Blaney, Cindrick, we're all part of the short. So they're all good finishes there for sure, but it seemed like, you know, like I hadn't seen the six all day and then he was coming at the very end because he stayed out the latest of anyone. But it was all because there was no tire fall off. When I say no tire fall off, I wish you could see the lines on the graph of the entire field running, like the same lap time, all from the beginning of the run to the end of the run, a half a second. And when I say into the run, this is 60, 70 laps into a run, only running a half a second slower than what they were running at the beginning of the run. And so that's what you're going to see.

I mean, thank God the track widened out a little bit. if it was a one-lane track it would be not good at all. I don't think it was that great of race anyway, but it's certainly, we got to learn something with our tires and get more aggressive because they're not wearing. And I looked at the wares from this weekend and just the left side's non-existent.

They can put the freaking rain left side on at like every track because the left side just doesn't have any load whatsoever. And, you know, besides when they beat the crap out of the tire with low air, so that'd be the counter to that. But, yeah, we just, no tire fall off, so it's really track position dependent. And that's kind of the race that we had. It's like a short track, definitely not like an intermediate track. And, you know, we had the cars that were up front all race,

the 20, the 12, the two, they solidified themselves up front and we were kind of the next tier, I feel like, of cars. And so, you know, that's the way it all finished. And like many races before this one that have been kind of so-so

through 85% of the race, you had a heck of a final 25 laps with Christopher Bell charging through the field, clearly the fastest car on the track. He gets to Blaney. they battle for 10, 15 laps, Bell can't seem to just get around him, can't clear him, right?

Can't complete the pass. And then all of a sudden, he just comes over the radio that he's blowing up. And that was it for Christopher Bell. It just falls off the map. And you think that Blaney's going to coast to his first win in the season. I know it. That's crazy.

It was shaping him up to be a good battle, but you don't know in the end how close he was really going to be able to get to Blaney just because Blaney was going to have the ability to airblock. And so, you know, Christopher's tires had, you know, I noticed with the tires, they ran, you could run like 3380s on new tires and it would stay running 80s for about six, seven laps. And then it would go to a flat for like, you know, 34 flat for 15 laps or something like, or 10 laps, or quite a while. And then all of a sudden it would drop pretty quickly to a 30 and then just stay there the entire time. So, you know, that's just kind of the heat process that the tire goes through. And it seems like once Christopher got to

Blaney, he had reached that the peak heat and then he wasn't going, he wasn't going anywhere. So it would have been a good battle for sure. But it just, I think it would, he would stay close in the picture, but I don't know. So do you think he would, didn't have engine issues then that this was just no tires gave up no he he had he had engine issues for sure down the straightaway he was struggling bad I mean Turex had to push him oh really which some people were then

broadcast to their credit because they're like is this not race manipulation they went through why it's legal but there's points where Turex literally is pushing him down the straightaway and like even Bell in the post race was like you know thanks I would have fallen back even further had it not been for Turex pushing him Oh, that was good. Nice move by Truex. Maybe they coordinated that.

I guess Truex probably multiple laps down. He was two laps down. Yeah, I mean, it didn't matter for Turex. Yep. Yeah, so when I saw what he finished seventh, I was like, oh, wow. He limped at home. But I think the field was so spread out at that moment. I mean, what did it gain?

Like, I'd have to look at the lap times, but maybe he gained a second by Trux pushing him down the straightaways, but certainly was beneficial. He was still running really fast through the corners, I can tell you that. So, yeah, I mean, this is kind of the second track in a row. These mile flat tracks where the 20 has really shown a lot of speed. And so certainly if he can make it to Phoenix, he's going to be a threat.

Do you think Blaney forced him into a mistake, something with the shifting? Like what causes engine issues like that? Well, I know him and the 19 were complaining about shifting. after practice, but I don't think so. It's really, you know, the knock on wood, the extract transmissions or transaxels, they're really pretty durable. And so I wouldn't think that it would be anything like that. And when I listened to his car, it sounded kind of weird when I went by.

So I think there was something in the engine itself. Is this something that, because he's a teammate, you'll go in this week and be looking for those answers because you don't want potentially this to be an issue for you at some point? I'm not going to. But we have a lot of really good people at Toyota and JGRR that would figure it out. So Toyota, yeah, the good news is it didn't actually blow its cap off. So like it still is able to be run.

So now they can take it apart and look while it's still somewhat intact. So they'll know, I think they'll know. pretty soon, usually within a day or so of it getting back, they'll have that thing tore down and let us know. Does any of Bell's speed here translate to Phoenix? Yeah, I mean, I think that this is the same tire that we ran at Phoenix. It's very similar, kind of turns one and two at Phoenix. It's similar to kind of how you race a little bit and turns three and four at Gateway.

So, yeah, it's got some similarities for sure. to Phoenix. You got one corner that's tight, one that's wider. That's essentially Phoenix. So if Bell makes it to Phoenix, would you consider him the favorite considering the success he's had on these flat tracks? It's so weak to week, but it's, but yes, it's certainly he's stringing together some finishes on these, these types of tracks that can't be ignored. You have to be, right? I mean, he won at Phoenix. He's been in the last two championship races. like he's got the experience and he's won there. Yeah, and he was really strong last year when he made it to the final four.

He just, I think he blew a brake rotor. So I think certainly they've got a balance or something that he likes that is working well. The 12 car prevailed in this Blaney Bell battle, but then coming to the white flag seemingly runs out of gas. Yeah. Ouchy, wowy. and never had any uh

never had any indication of it right didn't no one on the team gave them any pause whatsoever um and so they clearly thought they were good uh they only put one can of gas in um versus i think everyone else took two um you know blaining was one of the first to pit so uh he had he was going to have to stretch it as long or longer than anyone but You know, it was clearly some sort of miscalculation, or they didn't have as much in the tank when they pitted is what they thought. That definitely seems like one of the more likely cases is that, you know,

the crew chief, if he only puts one can in, he's assuming there's a certain amount in the tank already. Well, if he doesn't have, because they measure the can after, so they pit, the can, NASCAR 101, they have a can that's full. of gas, they weigh it, they will then do the pit stop, and then after the pit stop, re-weigh the can. That way they know exactly how much fuel they dumped into the car. So my thinking is that they likely got the fuel, that one can in there, they emptied that can. And so the miscalculation came from what was in the tank. They thought they had a certain amount in the tank when they pitted and they did not. They had less than that.

But that would have been a miscalculation from earlier in the race. Correct. Not necessarily a miscalculation from that last pit stop. And the last pit stop will get the scrutiny. Hey, you only took one can versus other people taking two. But he's battling Cindrick and others for the track position, which is why I pitted early in the first place. And so he's wanting to protect the lead at that time. And so he wants to just put one can to not have to slow up the rear changer to have to go around the gas ban. So they got the fuel in it they wanted. That's what tells me why they didn't give him pause.

They just, it was a miscalculation from earlier in the race. So how did that fall through the cracks? Yeah, I mean, there's just little things here and there. Did you save under caution? Did you, you know, you would think the shifting would all be the same. Everyone's shifting, shifting optimum. him. Maybe he's running third gear more. You know, certainly in turns through and four, there was an option to run either fourth

gear, which was kind of low on RPM or third gear. And it seemed like the Penske cars were running third gear quite often. And when they did that, they would get really good runs off. But again, that burns more fuel because you're running a higher RPM. Wouldn't? So he pitted with 64. to go, that is Blaney. Cendrick 63.

Wouldn't the 12 team see Cendrick Pit and they go with two cans and things start? Are they not even paying attention to what other teams are doing? Yeah, they are, but everyone has a different amount of gas in the tank due to what was their strategy throughout the entire race. So you're always wanting to put in, no one's wanting to wait on fuel. And what that means is that your pit stop is done and you're, you know, if you run your tank empty throughout the day at some point,

you're going to have to wait on fuels. That means the pit stop will be done, and you're going to see them holding fuel in the car, and the car is just waiting. No one wants to take that amount of time, so you never want to run your tank completely empty for that reason. So when you decide to pit plays a big factor in all of that, and, you know, just again, he burned more gas than what they clearly calculated through some of the other pit stops.

At fuel mileage races, listening to your radio, I always hear your crew chief or spotter talk about, you know, flip the switch on the backstretch or flip the switch. Is there not a reserve tank in the car for this? Or if there is? There is. Yeah, it just depends on how far it will go and it's different for each team, you know.

But, yeah, when Blaney ran out, my team immediately came over and said, flip your fuel switch. And I'm, okay. So I didn't have any indication. So it certainly got Chris's attention when the 12 ran out of gas. So maybe we only took one can too. I'm not sure.

But like that's not an option for Blenium once he realizes out of gas, flip a switch. He can, but it will only go a certain distance. So more than likely it started running out. You know, maybe your switch is only good for a lap. And so, or three quarters of a lap. I'm not really sure, but say it started sputtering entering turn three, you know, flips the switch. By the time he enters one, he's lost his reserve tank as well.

So, you know, maybe that's the case. Or maybe he had it flipped already. You know, we don't know. Did his crew chief tell him to flip it with 10 laps to go? You would think if they were that close, he would tell him to also save fuel. I would think the broadcast would have came over and played that clip too. Because the broadcast was completely shocked also. Yeah, but they don't know what switch they're talking about.

So the broadcast wouldn't know when someone says, hey, well, if they say flip your fuel switch, then that certainly would give them an indication because Chris told me flip my fuel switch up. So that's just accessing that reserve tank that gives you that extra lap. Yeah, it didn't sound like he had any. like you said, any sign that this was happened until it happened. He said, you know, we're out of gas. He was surprised. But nonetheless, Blaney runs out of gas.

Austin Cindrick, it's a third place car. Like he said all day, it was a third place car, and something happens to Bell and something happens to Blaney, and he is there for the win. Yeah, this is the definition of if you just run the top five, wins will find you. And this is one that the win found him. But, you know, they did a great job of qualifying.

flying well and putting themselves in a position to be in the top five all day long. And he also had to cut his way through the pack at times when the field did flip that one stage. Like he had to restart and had to go by guys. It's not like it was just kind of easy sailing the whole time. This now puts him in the playoffs. Obviously a win. That's amazing.

That he's in the playoffs? Yeah, just like one race out of 25. boom all of a sudden oh you're a playoff contender now right it's just it's just crazy how the system works his average running position was in the 20s all year long and has one good day at at gateway and now he's a playoff driver there you have it but what i'm curious of that there were there were talks that you know oh is austin centric on the hot seat is you know he needs to perform better yada yada Ayada. Does one win now, like, extinguish that fire for another year? It certainly buys you more time, for sure. You know, of all the kind of the hot seats and

the driver bingo that's going to go on over the next a little amount of time, more was made about the 21 car than the two car. But I would say they've been close to equally disappointing. I mean, the two car was championship contenders for decades. And it, you know, they just have not run well over these last few years. And then boom, I mean, when I say not run well, like just not in the top five, not in the top 10. And the last time Cendrick was top 15 was Dover. Yeah, I mean, it's just. And before that he had, the only other time he was inside the top 15 was Atlanta.

so one race one race in the top 15 that was not a speedway so i mean yeah it certainly it's a it it buys you time um but yeah it you can only you know listen you can only sell the dream for so long you got to live it eventually and he lived it this weekend which certainly is is going to be beneficial but i mean also is a great guy and and really happy for him and Certainly, you know, he is part of the organization while they're not at their peak, too, right? So you would say over the last few years that he's been in the car, it's not like Penske's been lighting it up, although they have won the last two championships. They find a way, somehow, some way in September to all of a sudden get way faster.

And it just seems like they, you know, he's, you can lean on that if you're him because, hey, it's not like a, any of our cars are really running great. We're not like knocking off a bunch of winds. And so when your cars are good like this weekend and all the Penske cars are running well, you're the extra bullet in the gun that you've got when Blaney falters, bam, you got another driver there to pick up the pieces. And that's what you ask for as a team owner. You can't just have one guy be the one that is going to go out and when you races all the time. You've got to have You got to have multiple cars running the same speed to give you multiple shots to win. And Austin and his team did that this weekend.

They performed great all weekend. They were fast in practice, fast and qualifying, and then race fast. He passed a car, he looked like what we thought he would look like coming out of the Xenity series. But it just we never have seen it until this weekend. Also, though, his position at Penske's a little different than other drivers and their teams considering his father's role there, too. Yeah, I mean, that plays a role for sure in it. But, you know, again, if you can go out and there and you can win races and be a contender, that goes away over time. You know what I mean? Because, you know, like Ty Gibbs, while he's still, you know, kind of a rookie, you know, really young, he's showing. that, okay, he's going to be, he's going to be good. It's just going to take time.

And he's running up in the top five, top ten all the time. So, you know, I always say there's definitely a discussion over how long does it take to really analyze talent. Some people think it's three years. I do not think so. I think one year is enough because you're going to show me some sort of glimmer of of performance throughout that first year, even by accident.

You're going to have, someone's going to have to show me, like even though it took a long time for Chase to win, and William Byron wasn't lighting the world on fire the very first couple of years, you still saw them have like these shining races in the rookie season. And, you know, there's other that just haven't shown that.

And so you're wondering, you know, is this a moment where Cindrick, is finally figuring out what he needs with this car. And could this be the vaulting point into him being a contender in the future? Yeah, I mean, I guess time will tell, right? This was the perfect race for him. They practiced well.

They qualified well. They executed well throughout the day. And then, you know, they were going to have come home with the top five run no matter what. And just so happened. Which is the best by far, what Travis just read to us, by far the best run that they've had all year. and probably if you go back the year before that it's probably the best run they had during that year as well

so this has been a long time coming to get to this good run however I will say looking at the numbers for each driver before this race and going through the bracket and whatnot Gateway historically I mean not much history at Gateway right has been one of Austin

Syndrick's best tracks yes which is why it's been it's so interesting that this track lines up so well with the fords and when i look at the running order and certainly there was some strategy that played into it in the mid-stages but for whatever reason the fords qualify and run really well at this track i don't know why is it is the long straightaways and then the lack of drag that they have help and then everyone kind of corners the same speed i i don't know but it certainly seems like

they've got a set up or they've got something that really works well here and it seems like all the forwards have got it. Looking at the bracket this week in case you didn't know, the Denny Hamlin bracket challenge started this week at Gateway. Austin Cindrick plays a role and busting a lot of brackets.

Actually busted all of the brackets. He submitted all 30. Truex, right? No. He eliminated. Buba. Austin Dillon eliminated tracks. Austin Dillon eliminated tricks.

Let me run through this real quick. We had 31,000 brackets submitted. There is no longer a perfect bracket after round one. Austin Dillon, the 31 seed. Which is why next year NASCAR needs to offer $10 million to a perfect bracket because it's not going to happen. It'll even be more difficult next year. It is more difficult than the NCAA bracket.

And then NCAA has more teams. 100%. I would agree. Because of the RECs? You're saying... Unpredictability. I'm still saying no. The unpredictability.

Just because of the mathematical number, like you're talking about 64 versus 30. Like, I get what you're saying where a REC can change everything. NASCAR's the most unpredictable sport. Because of Dylan over Truex. You have so much more to go off of in basketball. It's attrition and it's, you know, you're not... If this goes off of...

flat out speed at every track, it's easy to handicap, but it doesn't go that way. I just said 30% of your competition will eliminate itself. Like, you can't overcome that, and there's no way any bracket predictor can predict the Austin Dillon over Truex.

It's just impossible. I mean, for God's sakes, thank God we finished second because Justin Haley was seven spots away from eliminating me. Justin Haley, top 10, Eliminated. Carson Hose of our top 10 eliminated. Figuratively, Justin Haley dropped 130 points in this game. It just happened to Denny Hymann dropped 140.

Well, I think given the situation, he probably scored more. You know what I mean? Like, I just, you know, you can't say enough about how well they're running. And certainly I think we need take this time to congratulate. We're not going to give kudos. We're not going to say hats off. But well done to Justin Haley and Carson Hosevar, who both ran in the top 10.

Now, again, some of this came from some strategy early on, but they had speed. And they had speed during practice. They did it. They're running towards the top 10. If they're not finishing, they're running towards it most weeks now. And Carson, you've got to start giving

props to because he's outrunning Corey every single week. I can't think, you know, on, I'm just thinking in my head, I haven't seen him like Corey ahead of him much at all this year. So, and Corey was saying for a very long time, he's like, I've never had a teammate to like even

remotely challenge me. And I think challenge accepted, if you're Carson Osvar. He's accepted the challenge and he's, he's, he's certainly taking over as the top driver, it seems like, performance-wise, on results, you know, this year over at Spire. Carson, Hosephar moved up three spots in the point standings this weekend up now to 21st.

Average finish of 20.6, average start of 21.6. I feel like he's running better than that. Like, it feels like he runs 15th right around that spot, which is very good for, you know, that's an improvement for that team. that's what they expect now. I think that you've heard Corey say that, you know, they expect to be inside the top 20 on normal weeks.

And so that's a realistic expectation. So Carson's living out that expectation. Corey's not quite, you know, they've got, they've lost some mojo somewhere, somehow over these last, over this last year, I would say.

It was only been like kind of the speedway. where they would show up. And then, you know, for whatever reason, that 77 is gone from running like dead last last year to, you know, they put Carson in it. And now he's running, you know, 15 most weeks, you know. So, and then this week he runs in the top 10. So certainly, you know, a really good driver there that it's showing when he made it to the Cup Series that he's certainly very deserving of that seat. Before we move on from the bracket challenge, just want to give a shout out to. to Ash Shimon, who had Lugano over Briscoe, had John Hunter over Bowman, had Cynch over Bubba,

had Gregson over Blaney, had Austin Dillon over Truex. I mean, the Gregson over Blaney. Talk about a bad beat. Had a 100% perfect first round until the final matchup where they went with Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who was also their championship pick. Are you sure this is not Brian Beeler's bracket? Brian confess. Big Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fan. Yes.

I mean. So they're going to get docked each round from here on out, right? Yeah. There was 10 people were 15 of 16 correct. That's, that had to be people's 10th bracket they filled out, right? No, you're only allowed one. Oh, really? Right.

Well, per email, I guess. Per email. Jared, do you know how many emails people have set up? Oh, last year, there was multiple. Yeah. You could fill out. Yeah, you still do multiples. It's just one per email.

So you got your Gmail, you got your Yahoo, you got your work email. All right. Well, there's 10 that had all but one. That's, I'm not going to say that's amazing. That's lucky. Y'all all got lucky. Some of them, they had the truth. They had Austin Dillon beating tricks and they missed something else.

Hmm. So, Travis, you said you're going to work on it. We're going to, because I'm getting a lot of my mentions about how people can actually look up their bracket. I believe we text something out. I'll see how that's working. And if it's still a little confusing. What social pages they need to check? Dirty Mo Media on Twitter.

Dirty Mo Media. Go check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter or X. Elon's debating whether he's going to go back to Twitter. Elon doesn't have a say in this and how I pronounce it. That's Twitter. So, yeah. check out that channel and we're going to give you a link to be able to check your racket because I know a lot of people are asking me how you do it and I said I don't know I'm racing

so um what else do we have I mean so Syriks in the playoffs bubble spots gets hot now we don't even know is Larson in the playoffs is Larson in the playoffs um do you think it's legitimately possible that it would not give him a waiver yes you think that's possible I think they're pissed. Is it because Jordan Bianchi said that Hendrik told NASCAR one thing and then at the 11th hour changed? NASCAR, I'm trying to think about this and how I word this. And it's not going to be right for sure.

But I feel as though they get offended very easily. They're very sensitive people. And they believe that they are the show in the U.S. And that you shouldn't be, if you participate in NASCAR, you shouldn't participate in anything else. That's just the short. And I just think that they don't like playing second fiddle to anyone. And there's someone in headquarters at NASCAR that doesn't take kindly

to playing second fiddle and believes that if you're going to be over here, then you have to stay here and we're going to, you're ours now. That's just my opinion. That's what I think. And that I think that when he chose Indy over this Coke 600, that person got very offended. And you just never know how they decide they're going to do, you know, what choices they're going to make.

So we may, we don't know if this will get decided this week, weeks down the road. I don't know. I mean, they could make up a whole other rule and say, yeah, you're in the playoffs, but you've lost all your playoff points. Just like that. Sure. There's just, there's no governance to keep them from doing whatever they want. Aren't the implications of not giving Kyle a waiver just too much?

much to even fathom that happening happening i mean for the rest they so first off you don't give kyle they add a jeff gordon of the playoffs he did not make the playoffs and they just added them this is not unprecedented right but i feel like the the implications of not giving kyle where i mean we first of all we saw indy 500 coverage go up in a rain delayed race assuming because kyle was in it so so kyle moves the needle yep that's unarguable the nascar rating No, I didn't. They were down. They were down.

Because Kyle wasn't there. Okay. So if you're NASCAR, you're going to say, oh, you help their ratings and then you screw up Dars? I'm not saying that's rational. I'm just saying, but that's the way that... My rebuttal be, was you better give them a waiver then. My rebuttal be, then if I'm not in the playoffs,

there's a chance that my fans aren't going to be there for all of these races. So I think this is, If for some reason he does not get a waiver, if he doesn't, I think he's just run this part schedule the rest of the year. Say, how do you like it now? Fine, I'll take a week off when I want. Well, so he spoke to Fox pre-race, and he's like, I've already won a championship,

and the car is still in the ownership points, playoffs, and that's where the money is. So he could stick it to him and just, if he wins the five could still win for the ownership. Nobody wants this Pandora box open for sure. but I agree with Jordan Bianchi that it's seriously being looked at to not give him the waiver.

Do you agree that there's an actual argument there to not give him one? Like there's a legitimate reason to not give him one? There is a legitimate reason because by the rule you have to start all the races as long as it's not an insinuating circumstance. And one in extenuating circumstances that they tell you you're not going to race because you're suspended or you're physically hurt and you're not able to. Both of those instances that they've given waivers is because someone has not been able to do it.

Either because they were told not to or they're physically not able to. He had a choice. That's by the letter of law, that's what they're saying is that he had a choice. But there's also a clause in this that says, or if we decide. you know that we want to give you a waiver like there's an out it's not like oh kyle mr rate well of course yeah of course but it's not kyle mr race therefore he is out of the playoffs it's kyle mr race therefore we need to grant him a waiver and we could decide if we want to do that you would think that maybe they got so mad that halfway through the track drying process at

charlotte they just said we're done you're not getting in that car wow now that's a theory there's the headline That's the theory. Put my tin foil hat on. That's my million view real this week. Is that the one you want this week, Jared? Yeah, if it stays in the show. Again, we're just talking to here trying to, I don't know.

It's ridiculous. I said this weekend in the media center that I thought that the five team made a good faith effort. to try to get him to Charlotte to run the double. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had its other plans. And so who knows? Who knows how this is going to turn out? I think the longer it goes, the worst the news is going to be. Yeah, I don't think it's good PR for NASCAR from here on out

because there's also IndyCar outlets that are picking this up that are talking about this. You know, because Kyle ran the Indy 500s, IndyCar YouTubers, IndyCar channels that are discussing this and the potential of Kyle not getting a waiver, which looks bad for NASCAR because they're the bad guys in this, right? Like, everyone loves Kyle Arson. He did the double. He's the racer's man. You know, everyone, no one dislikes Kyle Arson. So for NASCAR to like, you know, you know, I don't know, make a, make an example out of him makes them look bad, in my opinion. Yeah. I think that's how other fans probably look at it. It certainly sounds like when Jordan Bianchi said on the teardown that they're up the more

they're pissed off not because he chose to do the double but that he chose to pick them first. But any rational person would say that the Indy 500 is bigger than the Coke 600. So why are you, I just don't understand why are you getting so upset about that because it is bigger. I don't care how you twist it. It's bigger. That's the only bigger event that they have than 99% of our other races. We crush them. But it's, that's their race.

And it is bigger. On that day, it is bigger. So, why are you getting so offended? I don't, I don't know why. But, you know, everyone thinks differently, clearly. Storthaus racing and closed its doors at the end of this year. Yeah, you know, not, not ideal to have a four-car team shutting down, but I think that this is, again, my opinion has no facts behind it, is that I think they're just done with

NASCAR, just done screwing with them. They're, you know, they, they had their four deal that ran up at the end of this year. That was going to be a big financial hit. Sponsorship wasn't flowing out of its ears at the organization. And so, versus is Gene and Tony just keep putting more money into this and keep sinking money into it to put on NASCAR show, I think they said, screw this, we're out. You know, we don't, we're not going to sit here and go under financial water to just keep your show going. Like, that doesn't make sense to us. And so they made a decision and, you know, it's going to leave a bunch of people unemployed, but I think that the good ones are going to find homes and certainly, you know,

there will be teams that expand that try to get some of the good employees out of there. Do you think this ship has been sinking for a while? Like, do you think this is something that was decided years ago, or is it relatively? No, I think you've got some merit there. I think that this did not happen just right here in 2024, for sure. I think that it happened over time. You can debate how it happened over time, but regardless, it still shows that, you know, listen,

had, you know, NASCAR's media dollars covered what it cost to run a car, they would not be shutting down. They would, you know, but unfortunately, we're still under a sponsorship model that forces us to go get millions and millions of dollars. in sponsorship just to break even. And what that does then is it forces teams like SHR to have a tough decision when it comes down to it and they don't have the sponsorship that they had in years past. So I think that they just, they're tired dealing with the higher ups and I think they're just,

they're done with it. And who knows? And I think Jordan said right. He's like, who knows when we'll see Tony again? I mean, I think that he's just going to. it's so interesting because I feel as though for many, many years, and this kind of goes into the Larson thing as well, NASCAR has felt like the show will go on with or without you.

I don't know that that is necessarily as true today as it used to be. There's always superstars coming in and out. We had a lot of young talent coming through the roots, and it's just sponsorship was was all plentiful and it was always like you know when you didn't do what they wanted you to do it was take it or leave it and and this is our show our sandbox and feel like it get out and the show's going to run on this weekend i don't think you can treat that our sport is not like that anymore and if you ruffle feathers of a you know the chase elliott or Kyle Larson,

now you got a team that says, all right, you wanted to go on without us? We're out. Like, I just feel as though

these are the kind of things that knocks out the leg of your stool. And it's just, if you keep having these things that show splinters, it just is never,

it's not good for the sport long term. And I want to see what's good for the sport. I'm invested in it. Right, but here's the problem. But it's,

you're not going to change the way, some of these people think and that's that's that's that's troublesome it reminds me of the ncdb a little bit how so how they just had total control over the athletes and things have started to change and the ncdb a doesn't have that you know 100% control yeah i just think we've got to be careful thinking that we don't need you we are the show that that is a very dangerous way for our sport to think because these teams and these drivers are the show and if you start dinking around with things like waivers and just stuff just stuff there's just so much stuff then you're not

helping anyone's calls and certainly not your own and the one person that gets hurt by this the most are the fans, right? They're the ones who invest money every weekend to attend the races and whatnot. And here's a championship team that's not, you know, Tony and Gene aren't selling this to somebody else to come in and take it over. They're just, we're done. We're going to close our doors. We'll help our employees find jobs elsewhere, but our team is out. You know, I feel like it's a little different than when chips sold. Now, the great thing about it, the charter system is they at least leave with money, right? They got these charters

and they were able to sell them for something. And so certainly that's a reason for them to get out and they at least leave here with getting some of their investment back by being able to sell charters. Sure. Are they, is Gene Haas super worried about that? I don't think he is.

I just think they're done with the headache of NASCAR and the headache that it is to be in it. Right. Isn't that saying something that like comparing this to when Chip Gannasi Racing got out of the sport? Like he sold it to Justin Marks who is carrying on and, you know, putting investing in the sport, right? He's like transferred the ownership to somebody else.

Whereas this team's just folding. Yeah. And but they also got a lot of other things to do, right? And so for me personally, and you would ask, well, Denny, why are you investing it? Well, I'm still, I'm in my low 40s. Let's just say that. Low 40s?

Low 40s. Not quite to the mid yet. And it's, this is what I've been doing most of my life, right? I've been 20 years driving and, you know, I do love the sport. I'm not willing to risk at all to be in it. But, you know, I've done well over time. and I saw an opportunity to come in and be part of the sport and try to give back to it also while being able to be part of it in the long term past my driving days.

But I don't have any other, I mean, I've got this podcast. I'm a dad. I do these other things. But for the most part, most of my life is ingrained in being in NASCAR, a driver and an owner. Tony Stewart has other things that he's doing. He's driving in NHRA. He has a team. Gene Haas has his business, his big business, and he has an F1 team.

So this is not their life's work. It more is for people like me. Now, there's not many people like me out there who are willing to enter the sport. Because they've been part of it, they've been a driver for forever, and then they're willing to shell up the money that it takes to be a part of it. of it. Now, over the long term, I hope to get my investment back, of course, but that's more of a long-term play. But I enjoy it. I enjoy working at 2311 as the team owner and being in the meetings and being in the know. I just think for every person is different. And for Tony, he's not going to, he's never

was the guy that was, you know, hands on as much as what I am at 2311. Now, maybe over time, Now, I'm not as accomplished as Tony Stewart either. So I just, we just, we do things a little different, but that's fine. He has many other things that he is, his other hobbies, different jobs that he's interested in. Right. And so we don't, maybe me and him don't think the same way about NASCAR, which is very likely scenario. So I just think that they found the point where the juice wasn't worth. to squeeze anymore in participating in this sport. And so they weren't willing to, they weren't willing

to commit the time that it took to fix whatever it was, you know, performance wise that needed to be fixing or, or marketing to get the sponsorship act that they had before. It's just, that was going to take a lot of work. And at some point, you're just like, why, you know, if you're Tony Stewart, why, why would I do that? I've got other stuff I'm working on. And so, in just, you know, and Gene Haas has got his business and he's got his F1 team. He's like, I don't, that deal over there, all that does is cost me money. I need to cut the fat and get rid of that. Right.

Isn't, that's the alarming part, right? Is that this storehouse racing, one of the premier teams, one of the four car teams that'll be grandfathered in, or that would have been grandfathered into this new charter deal, right, is one of the ones that's saying, you know what, the juice isn't worth to squeeze anymore. Yeah. It's not the one-car team, you know, based out of Denver, Colorado, the two-car team. How many furniture row? It's the four-car store-d-hast racing championship team.

If you have sponsorship, you can make this work. You can make this whole NASCAR ownership thing work, but you've got to have serious sponsorship. And that's just hard to come by these days. And so we have been very fortunate at 2311 to have sponsorship. And so it gives me light at the end of the tunnel that it can and is going to get better. But if your team is going the other way, you can easily see someone throwing their hands up saying, I ain't going to lose any more money doing this. I got the better to work on.

And more than likely that's what happened from those two owners. I think one thing that's super interesting from this is that obviously Starast Racing has a ton of great employees and now all of them are on the market. Yeah, I mean, I think that certainly they've built, they've got a culture of guys that have been there for a very long time and certainly have some talented guys. And I think that certainly there will be an opportunity for all the good employees to have an opportunity to go somewhere and continue on their careers. there's also four charters on the market front row announced that they will be buying one so front row but they didn't say whose charter they were buying though correct we just all assume it's theirs right yeah they didn't like which car like which car number they didn't say we're buying a steward hoss racing charter they just said we're buying a charter and we all just assume it's a steward hoss oh okay

yeah i guess i guess that's fair but it sounded like bob jenkins went to steward hoss and to the employees? I didn't hear that. I thought I saw or heard that or something like that. Before you get to this, if you were to hire an employee, are they, are other teams going to say finish the season out? Or is Stuart Haas said that towards end of the year

going to be working with like a skeleton's crew? I mean, I think as, I mean, certainly you have all the employees now probably going to look around. They're going to send their resumes to the race teams. And if they don't get, bite on the line pretty soon, then they might look outside of the sport. And if so, if they get an opportunity outside of the sport sooner than later, they could leave early, yes.

I mean, that's the risk that you run in all of this for sure. But they do have a lot of employees. And so certainly they probably got some depth. But again, as people start to pick up other jobs, and if it's out of the sport, they, yes, they could leave early. because if you're you know if i say i'm going to go work wherever down the street at mccalister's right they're going to say okay when can you start i can't tell them jrary 1st you know what i mean so it's it's it just depends if you're if you're going to stay in the sport you're probably you're going to stay there through the year if you're out of the sport then yes there's a chance you leave early and i guess for everyone's sake you don't want unless i want these employees leaving this one

if it's difficult to bring people into the sport under these conditions currently. It's been difficult for sure. Is 2311 interested in one of these four charters? 2311 is interested in getting a charter deal done. We don't, right now on January 1st, 2025, we don't even have a charter. We don't have two charters. So you can't buy or sell something that doesn't exist. in our eyes. So we have two charters for the until the end of this year and until we get a charter

agreement done. That's all we have. I mean, I didn't build that facility to, to stay a two-car team, but it always has to make financial sense. I'm not going to put myself in a position to where you know, I'm having to shell out millions and millions of dollars every year to just keep this thing going. I'm not going to do that. I will not do that personally. So it has to make financial sense and the charter agreement needs to be better than what it is, certainly before I invest any more money in it.

Is it late at the end of the tunnel? I don't know. I mean, not from what I've seen. You know, we got something back last week, but I didn't see anything there that was much different than what we saw in December. Moving on We've got some questions that we want to ask

Dear Danes And we need him fast We tried to ask Junior But his answers were lame And with DBC It was more of the same Now we're caught on you Because you're our own hope

This ain't the race track So maybe you won't choke Dear Dan Moving on to Dear Denny What is your opinion Of NASCAR drivers having a union? NASCAR is the only major sport Without a Players Union

Why hasn't a union ever been developed with the arbitrary nature of Stenhouse is fine, Kyle Larson's waiver issues, etc. Great question. And I don't know the answer. Evidently, you have to, if you think you deserve to be a union, I think you have to,

see, we're not employees of NASCAR. You know what I mean? So we're just teams, but. And the drivers are contractors? Yeah. So there's a lot of red tape there, but you would argue there was a case or something like that at Dartmouth? Dartmouth tried it. Northwesterns tried it.

It's so like, I don't know the details on it. But they won, correct? Well, and the funny thing is, is Dartmouth, I can't remember if they won, but Dartmouth athletes aren't actually on an academic, or they're on an academic scholarship, not an athletic scholarship. So, but I think to your point, though, there's ways that you could union. You would have to go to, I guess, the labor force or union or something like that and say, hey, we feel like we're being treated unfairly, collectively. Will you look at this and certify us?

I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I barely made it through high school, folks. You probably can tell by listening to me. I think they gave me a diploma just to get me out of high school. I'm pretty certain of it. If you were to unionize, get whoever. represents the MLB umps because they've got the best union.

But yeah, there's a ton of antitrust when it comes down to that. And nobody here is saying that, you know, the NASCAR teams need or should to unionize. But it seems like there's there's certainly some, we wish we had more a bigger seat at the table when it comes to, you know, doing the next media deal or, you know, doing any future revenue stuff,

growing the sport. I mean, we need to lock arms better than what we're doing. And I hear NASCAR saying all the time, we're going to be more collaborative, and they never do. They never are. You know, it's always what is best for their end of the deal, and then we get what is what they tell us if we're going to get.

And that doesn't seem necessarily fair. But it's been the way that's been for a long time, and you've had a lot of owners that have been the sport long time that has accepted that as being such. And so eventually, I don't know. It takes things like that happening, those big court cases that change, that creates change. I don't know that we need that seismic change in our sport, but we certainly need something for us to, legitimately lock arms and do things together better than what we are currently.

And hopefully by the end of this chartered agreement that gets done what we hope by the end of the year, we're in a better place to do all that. And that's what the goal is. All of us, all the stakeholders want to grow this sport, make it bigger than what it is. And until we all work together to do that, it will stay with its feet stuck in the mud.

but you're going to have to convince a person to change the way that they've done things for 75 years and good luck with that. Some latehearted news to end this show with for those following. We had the better half dash last week. Denny's better half finished 11th. Just missed out on a top time. She got turned in a green-white checkered. It was three-lap shootout, restarted seventh, and I knew it was going to come down

of the first couple corners. Just don't get crashed in. And yeah, someone came in, dive-bombed. She didn't see. She went for the wide entry. Someone drove in there straight, spun her out. She finished 11th. So tough week for the fish.

And I told her you needed to create a reel for her. That's right with Mario Kart music? No. Oh, that's what she told me. from the clip from Taldega Nights where she says, I am a driver's wife. And then somehow dub in there, not a driver. So we needed to figure that out.

Jordan, she loved that idea. But because she kept saying, this is just not my thing. This is not my thing. I'm like, you did great. So it was tough because I am so competitive. I want her to do well. And she was doing well.

She just, I mean, some of these girls, like, had their own racing suits because they race carts or late models or something like that. And it's like, it's hard to compete against that when you don't do it. And the couple of practice sessions that she had last, you know, in the last few weeks, just that's not enough to catch up to the people that have been doing this for years. But, you know, there was like, it was very interesting to watch because there was, there were two really fast ones. then there was four that were really close together,

like two tents behind the fast ones. And then there was a gap of about a half a second. And then there was one girl there. And then you had about another three tents back behind that. There was Jordan. And then there was like two or three more that were all within that tenth. And that's how the race went out. Like it was just very, there was groups of drivers.

And you could tell by their experience level where they were all at. That's funny. That's a good idea. I'll work on that because I have go-pro footage of the race. There was broadcast footage. There's no shortage of footage of this race. Yeah. She just kept saying the whole time.

Because I was on the radio saying, you're all clear. There's no one behind you. And she said she was so. upset because he's like, I want to finish last. And so she didn't know. But she just thought for the longest time that she's like, I kept telling her there was no one behind. There's no one because when she spun, she saw everyone go by her and she was just crushed. But hey, 11th, there's something to work off of, something to build off of.

Maybe we can make something of it. Yeah. It's always next year. Bad news bears. There's always next year. We need a new saying for next year. Yeah. This review comes from T. Cruz, 1993.

Denny, I want to first say thank you for doing this type of podcast. My husband and I are newer NASCAR fans. I followed Gordon and Earnhardt and came back to the sport this year. Your podcast is very informative and your NASCAR 101 has helped someone coming back to the sport. Can't wait one day to see you win that championship. We will see you at the brickyard. for our first race. Let's go. Well, appreciate that review.

Yeah, thanks for listening. It's a great review there. So appreciate that. Yeah, we haven't done the NASCAR 1-1 very often. We try to do it a little bit today. But it's hard to always kind of fit in, but certainly it's a balance of us trying to not get too into the weeds because we know we do have some, you know,

early listeners and new race fans that are listening to this podcast. that we're trying to kind of keep informed of the basics. And so appreciate the review and we'll see you guys next week. Speaking of the brickyard, you go test at the brickyard tomorrow and Wednesday. This is the one, besides the championship, this is the one race that's like bucket list, isn't it for you? Yeah, I need to win that one for sure.

How much? I'm saying just for sure. I'm saying for sure now just to kind of get that couple to do a lot of of drinking. They take a shot every time I say it. It seems like any drivers that have gone and tested at a track before the race, you can get a handful of information. The field is always very, very close. And so anytime you can get lots of laps at one particular track before you actually go there

and race, then, yeah, it's going to be beneficial. Especially a track that some people haven't really raced at because it's been road course. Yeah, I mean, but it's a pretty basic track. Like, it's not, did you hear that? IMS is basic. No, I'm just saying it's, you know, by the time we give our information to JGR, like all the teams are going to be running close to the same thing anyway. But yeah, I think that it's certainly an advantage.

It's the only test I have this year. Thank goodness. I hate testing. There you go. Something for the 11 fans to look forward to. We get to a brickyard, Denny tested there. So if he's, I'd be disappointed. It's on me then.

yeah all right well appreciate you guys and we'll uh see you after sonoma