Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - "I Think They Made The Right Call"

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Denny Hamlin dives deep into the controversy surrounding Martinsville with co-host Jared Allen. After 27 minutes of debating, NASCAR made the decision to remove Christopher Bell from the Championship 4, replacing him with William Byron. Denny agrees they ultimately made the right call.But the drama didn't stop there—talk of race manipulation stirred up due to manufacturer alliances and the Playoff format. Denny breaks down the dynamics between JGR, 23XI, and the Chevy teams, exploring how alliances impact on-track decisions and contribute to tension in the Playoff structure. He also explains why banning point discussions over in-car audio won’t solve the issue, and shares his thoughts on how the current Playoff format hinders the rise of true superstars in the sport.As for his own Playoff hopes, Denny reflects on coming up short this season but remains confident about future championship opportunities. Meanwhile, Ryan Blaney secured a dramatic walk-off win at Martinsville, earning his spot in the Championship 4 for the second year in a row.Amidst all this, Goodyear’s new tires made their debut, and Denny gives his thumbs up on the performance improvements. To wrap things up, the guys preview their Championship 4 favorites and recap the intense weekend in the Truck and Xfinity Series races from Martinsville. For more content head to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What you're also doing is not allowing NASCAR to potentially have these truly great drivers. Bam! Bam! And that is the biggest problem is that you're watering down your superstars. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey guys, welcome to Action's detrimental post-Martinsville Speedway, the cutoff race in the round of eight for the cup series. I'm Denny Hamlin, drive the number 11. FedEx Toyota this past weekend. and I am Jared Red Vest number 311. Well, Jared, how was your weekend? Pretty good because I get to come in here on...

Enough about me. Let's talk about you. I get to come in here on Monday morning and talk about so much, so much stuff from... Yeah. We're going to try to keep it... We'll keep it tidy-ish. You know, I'll kind of get right to it and then I'll go back. in the end, I think they made the right call. I don't like it, but I, you know,

they wanted to avoid us wall riding on last laps to either gain or defend positions. And, you know, C. Bell didn't have to do it. I think he, you know, there was probably a little bit of panic in the moment because you're thinking, you know, he just shipped it into turn three to try to defend, you know, or try to get past the 23 in a panic, right? Because, you know, 23's got issues and has been falling back the last few laps. He sees him. He's catching them quickly.

He knows he needs a spot. So he drives in there really deep, washes up, gets out of control, gets in the marbles. And I can't emphasize enough. Like, once you get outside the concrete there and into the asphalt, all you saw how dirty the cars were right after the race all that stuff is up in that lane and so when you hit it it is literally like hitting an ice patch on the road um in the middle of winter i mean i got home and looked in the mirror and saw how dirty my face was from standing outside turn for so yeah so yeah wow the cars i'm sure were much blacker yeah so and then see bell hit

the wall and then you know in a in a in a panic situation there he just guns it to to try to get to the line as quick as he can, where I think he would have been fine if he would have just glanced off of it, pulled it down. Now, it was not going to be easy to pull down. He would have had to nearly stop or come close to it and then accelerate off the corner. But I think it was the continuous wall contact that they deemed inappropriate. Yeah, certainly on video too, it looks quite similar, right?

Yeah. You just like see. On the exit, it looks similar. On the exit, it looks similar. Because I didn't catch the, the, the, the, what happened in real time. And I just glanced up at the pylon. I was like, oh, he did the, he did the hellmellon, because he just saw the end of it. It looks so similar. So yeah. You think they got it right, though, all in all. I, I mean, I just, I thought about it for, for quite some time, you know, this morning and, and other times. And I'm thinking, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I try to put myself in both people's shoes, both organization's shoes and they're in NASCAR's shoes. And I think that, yeah, I think by the letter of the law, now there is no rule against wall writing, just to preface this, it just says anything that we deem, NASCAR is really good at this. Just putting sentences in and they're so vague that allows them to kind of do whatever they want to do. But, you know, we had discussions with drivers and NASCAR about this. This was Phoenix of 2022, right after it happened.

And all the drivers at that moment were in favor of, you know, banning this type of move, just simply because, you know, we don't want to have to go in the corners wide open and destroy the car for the owners. That's 300, 400,000, 400 grand. And then you got, you know, the safety aspect of it, you know, no telling what could come off the car and go into the stand. right so that's where they put this under the uh the quote-called safety violation why but as a driver why would you be against it's because you don't have to make the move but if you want to it's there for you

and your owner's not going to care if you damage the car if you get in if you advance so why do you want it gone well because our our fans are only sitting probably 30 40 feet from that fence and when you go around that racetrack and up against the wall you're you're you're you're you're throwing whatever is around that racetrack or on the racetrack near the wall, which is usually debris and there's excess pieces of metal. There's all kinds of stuff up there. You don't want to be flinging up in the air. It gets thrown.

And so that's the part of it. And it does, you know, these next-gen cars, you know, don't have the crush impact that the old cars used to have, especially on the side. So all that brunt force is going right to the driver, which is obviously not safe as well. Do you think in those, so I should back up,

Elton Sawyer and his press conference reiterated multiple times that in that 27 minutes that we were in flux there at the end of the race that we didn't know if William Byron was in or Christopher Bell was in, that they specifically focused on Christopher Bell riding the wall, exiting turn four. Do you think they think it was the right move to focus on that

or do you think they chose to focus on that to avoid the other potential rates, manipulation because that's just such a gray area and would involve so much more discussion than the immediate time table they had yeah i think you framed that perfectly um more than likely yes that is the case they wanted to try to rule on forget if there's any other outside curricular things that we need to take a look at um did the moves of the drivers you know manipulate the finish in any kind of way you know one thing about it is you know see bell didn't gain anything uh through this he actually you know a car actually passed him through this wall ride that he had off a turn four um but you could see

it as you know if you're them you're saying well it's also defending a position as well right a position that he potentially could have lost to the 23 had he passed him back um so i i think that yeah they were probably in that 27 minutes thinking about let's just dive into what the drivers themselves did that are in question and then we'll deal with the rest later. Do you have any problem with the amount of time that it took to make this decision? No, not as long as they get it right. I mean, my only question is, you know, I would love to be a fly on the wall to see who's in the conversation. Who's deciding this, right? Is it simply everyone giving Elton Sawyer or Brad Moran or whoever the information? Like, hey, wait, we got to get you the information. Here's the video.

Here's the audios. You know, again, if we're just talking about the 20, you can, you're two eyes. You can see it, right? They replay the, we played the, we played numerous times. They didn't need any audio from that. So my question is what is going on? Who is up there talking to Elton? I don't know. I don't know which stakeholders are up there actually making the decision, which is why sometimes, or most times, decisions are delayed for quite some time when they're an important ones because they, I think they get lots of opinions in the room. And instead of having a streamline, you you know, allowing whoever the director is to straight make the call with no outside influence from NASCAR, other NASCAR officials or owners or stakeholders, you know, giving that person

the autonomy to just make the call that they think is right, then that's the way it really kind of should be. I think you make a good point about NASCAR creating rules and using the knack of using wording that really benefits them, right, because there's also a clip on Twitter of Coach Gibbs walking out of the NASCAR hauler where they had a conversation with NASCAR post-race. And all those comments were is that they told us, we can't protest this.

We can't, you know, question us because it's a safety violation. So the call they made is the call they made under the safety violation. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. Surely, you know, you've seen how upset Joe was with it. This is the first time there's not going to be a JGR call. car in the final four since 2016, I believe. Or no, maybe it might be ever in the playoff era.

So he's obviously disappointed. And again, you know, if you just look at the scoring monitor, it looks like, you know, C-bell's in. And then obviously he goes in there and he talks to him. And I don't know what they say. But it definitely is interesting that you're, not able to pro you usually can kind of protest just about anything um but he said that you know they said it's over and you know that's the decision so um yeah ellen said it's basically equivalent of

a loose tire you know tire rolling down the track and so it's a penalty and it's black and white so that you that you can't appeal that's not true that that okay i don't agree with that that a tire rolling across the track means a tire a wheel is off right that is a definite thing this was this was a tire wobbling in the wheel well you know um i don't know again they they put such vague wording in their rules it's what allows these instances to come up where they are always in these situations well how are they going to interpret their rule this week right there's not enough clean defined rules in that rule book because they just leave it open for themselves to do what they want or feel is right. And so that's the issue that we have, right? I just don't know of any

other sport, and I've never read the rulebook of any other sport, but usually it's foot online out. You know, it's, you know, things like that. But there's also roughing the passer. It's, that's very, very vague, right? What is that? Is it grabbing around the ankle? Is it? You can do it, what is a catch? What is a catch? There's lots of things like that in other sports, but it's, it seems as though it happens, like Jared was saying at the intro here, it just happens more times than not on how are they, we just don't know how they're going to rule it because we've seen wild instances where it's been one is a white call, one is a black call. And, They look the same, right?

And, but I opened this and saying that, in my opinion, this is what we did not want to have happen on the last side. Do you think that this call, the wall ride, lets NASCAR out of a more serious discussion? Probably. About this race. Yeah. I mean, we've been saying this for quite some time.

manufacturers are just, you know, have way too much say in the outcomes of these races. And the manufacturers, I don't know, I'm part of one, but they've ruined Super Speedway racing. You know, I don't know what you do about this because, I mean, NASCAR's not going to do anything in the manufacturers because that is their bread and butter. They do not want to do anything that upsets manufacturers because they've been trying for a decade now or better to get another one in our sport and they certainly cannot afford for one to leave. So I don't know. I don't know what you do about it. Find them manufacturer owner series points, right?

Because the manufacturers really do care about that quite a bit. but we got to do something to reel this back in because it's happening way, way too often. I'm probably preaching to the choir though, but you're saying that NASCAR needs to do anything to keep manufacturers from leaving. But when it becomes so obvious that manufacturers are involved in the outcomes of these finishes,

that pushes fans away. So now fans are leaving the sport, is not good for the manufacturer. So them being over-involved in this is ultimately going to hurt them in the long run. And what we're doing here, you know, for those listening, is we are speculating. The only thing I can tell you for a fact because I am part of the Toyota Racing is Toyota Racing never, not once this week, told 2311 to do anything for JGR. They were not involved whatsoever. I've never been, I don't think I've ever been a part of a conversation saying,

if this happens, then you have to do this. They've never said that as a man, even on Super Speedways. They've left it up to the teams that just kind of, you guys, you guys figure this out, right? We're going to provide you, what we provide you, but we hope you work together. But that's it. There's never been any rules, and I can only speak for Toyota because I'm part of it. There's never been any rules that Toyota has laid out to say, you know, this is what we want you to do, ever. And like you said, we can only speculate, but are there ever any consequences for not following manufacturer orders or what, you know, what would RCR have to gain, or the one team or the 23 team have to gain from helping out a car that's not.

a part of their team that just drives under the same umbrella as them. Great, you were on it this morning, Jared. Great question. It's the 9 a.m. wake-up call versus the 10 a.m. The 2311 team, let's talk about that one first, has an alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing. We pay JGR a service fee to get their IP and obviously not have to have the crazy big infrastructure that they have over there. So that's the connection to 2311 and JGR.

What would the three and the one have to gain by letting a Hendrick car get in the playoffs? So go back real quick to the JGR lines. You then, if JGRD deem the, oh, you didn't help us out in this race, they could take things from you, not give you as much going forward? I don't think so. No, because, I mean, there's contracts there.

and, you know, really, our teams have worked really, really well together over the last, our inception, the last four years. And it's a partnership we like to keep in good standing, right? And it's, there's a lot of things that, you know, that our teams do out, you know, outside of the contracts to, you know, we saw the 2311 team help rebuild my car, right? I mean, there's things that, you know, that's not in a contract. But it's just the right thing to do to try to help. But theoretically speaking, JGR if it's at the end of the contract and let's say Bubba didn't help out Chris Verbell, they could say we're not going to renew your contract. We're not going to do business with you going forward.

Well, it would hurt their business because we lose money. We write them a sizable service fee each and every year. So it's a good partnership and it's ones that are necessary in our sport. because there's only a few teams that kind of control what, you know, all the information that manufacturers bring and all that stuff. And, you know, we know what those keep, you know, it's Ford, right? For Ford, you know, for Ford, it's, it's Penske, for Hendrick, it's Chevrolet, and JGRR. It's Toyota. So, which is, you know, those are the big brothers of really the entire field. So you ask what would the three and the one have to gain from letting the 24 go?

Well, there's a thing in Concord. It's a really big building, and it says the Chevy Performance Center. And that is essentially run by Hendrick Motorsports. The RCR teams and trackhouse teams get information from that service center. And what happens is Chevrolet says to Hendrick, we're going to allow Team X and Team Y to get this information. They're one of our Tier 1 teams.

And so any information that you come up with on these things, you're going to give it to them. So instead of how, how 2311 does it is we have to pay GGR. How it works with Chevrolet essentially is that Chevrolet covers probably whatever the cost is to run that service

center or whatnot, and then they tell the Hendrick team which teams they're going to allow to get the information, the key information. So what would they have to lose? You could lose your key partner status within Chevrolet because there's plenty of other

Chevrolet teams out there that don't have key partner status that would die to have that kind of information. So that's what they have to lose, right? Is that you're essentially the one team and the three team are, manufacturer we just talked about big brother or little brother, their little brother to the car that they're trying to protect. The partnership between 2311 and JGR versus HMS and any of the other Chevy teams is just not the same. It's not built on the same grounds.

It's not simply because I mentioned that, you know, we pay JGR, right? We, the manufacturer doesn't have a whole lot of involvement in 2311 and JGR's relationship. That is for us to figure out where Chevrolet, you know, they have the knobs that turn that say, who gets what, right? So you can kind of look at it that way and say, well, yeah, listen, I don't want to hurt my key partner status at Chevrolet, so I'm going to do what's best for all Chevroletes and especially Big Brother there. And these, listen, while this is speculation on my part, I deem this fairly accurate. So, you know, there might be a little bit of factual things that I said that are not totally correct, but I can, tell you I've been part of the sport and I talk to enough people and know enough people that

this is pretty much how this works. It just surprises me so much that there needs to be radio chatter, you know, reiterating this stuff to an extent. You know, like, that's what's so damning about it. If there's no radio chatter about any of this, then we're not even discussing it. It's just like, oh, well, we kind of know what he did, but there's no evidence that points to that. Like, I just can't understand, like, the three spotter, right? He's already was reprimanded weeks ago for the Richmond deal, right? And now, based on what he says over this race, I could easily see another, and then another reprimand or whatever the word is for that.

And then that affects his career in the sport, I'm assuming. Right? So he's like, in a way, falling on the sword for this entire Chevy organization. Yeah. you know, but I can't emphasize enough that this is not just a Martinsville problem. This is every cutoff race problem. It's the format. I hate to say, this is the format because you've only got a three race season.

And so it's always, you know, NASCAR manufacturers that we're going to make these points keep resetting and tighten them up, tighten them up, restart. Let's caution, restart. We're going to tighten it up. and it creates these moments, especially during the cutoff races, where you see this stuff goes on. I remember watching,

was it Bristol a cutoff race last year or something? I think the 22 had issues, and then next thing you know, every Penske car had mechanical issues. This stuff has been going on for quite some time. And if you want to go way, way back in history, I think, you know, RCR and whatnot, they used to field extra cars in races.

So Dale Earnhardt wouldn't finish last and get last place points in any given race. So this stuff's been going on for quite some time, but I think it's been magnified by this point system that is trying to manufacture these moments. Am I wrong in thinking, let's hypothetically say that the one, three, and 23 all either didn't pass or let up? Is there something, in my mind,

I think what the one and three hypothetically did. If no one lets up, the 24 is out. There's way more than one car that passed. I mean, there was a brigade behind us. That's my thing is they made a blockade where, let's just say that Bubba did let up. Letting up for one at the end, I think is far less egregious than what the Chevys were doing. You know, I don't know. You know, I don't know what was wrong with the 23 car.

I'm not at the shop. It's Monday morning early. I saw video and audio and he about busted his ass with about five to go, and then every time he entered the corner, I mean, he was nearly crashing. So I don't know. I'll definitely say what I don't know, and that is I have no idea what was wrong with the 23 car. I know that NASCAR inspected it after the race, which is unusual for, for the 19th place car, 18th place car to get inspected.

But, you know, they're going to make sure that what they heard on the audio from Bubba is factual, right? So they're going to look at all that stuff, certainly. But if everything, I think, plays out 100% natural between all the cars and everything, I think the 24 is out. I think that the other cars were just parked behind him. A lot of times would indicate that was the case. And certainly it only took one car to pass him for him to be out. I mean, Brad couldn't go anywhere because the two Chevy was in front

and then on the outside was another Chevy. He was boxed and couldn't go anywhere. So, I mean, the question still is, what do you do about it? And I just don't know what you can do about it other than, you know, take manufacturer points away, you know, because they care about it. The manufacturers care about who wins that manufacturer's cup. If drivers aren't filled in on the point situation by their spotters, are drivers aware of any of this and do you as a driver care?

If you're, you know, does Denny Hamlin care if Christopher Bell gets into the championship four or not? Like if you're Bubba, why does he care that Christopher Bell? All Christopher Bell had to do, by the way, was have an okay race. not have issues on pit road, not spin out. He was 20-something points up. Why does Bubba Wallace care that Christopher Bell is not going to make championship for?

These are people that you're in meetings with every single week, and they are quasi-teamates. I mean, Monday this afternoon, there will be a meeting at Joe Gibbs Racing, and 23-11 drivers and crew chiefs will be in there, and they're going to talk about their cars and what they could do better. and so even when we had Furniture Row back in the day,

I mean, those were, we considered them teammates because that's, you know, our teams work together. Why don't the drivers? Because we race against it, you have to adapt or die in this sport. And so you've been racing against it for quite some time. So you have to try to do these things to be in good standing with your partner. and that's just, that's, what the structure of the sport has become. What if you ban spotters or crucies from updating you on other driver's statuses?

It'll be impossible. We'll come up with code words. It won't work. They'll say, your left front rotor is really glowing here. That's code for you need to give up a spot. We'll just come up with code words. I just don't. see how that's going to be, you know, possible. Yeah, that's a good example because this was talked about on the... I mean, the other thing is, you know, if they do penalize the teams that are involved in it, you know, they're going to be like, this wasn't worth it. But, you know, the manufacturers you would think would just pay the bill.

I don't know. I don't know how you fix it. I, Monday morning, I mean, certainly throughout the week, I'll have more thoughts about it. and maybe come up with an idea for a fix, but I just don't know what you do right here in this. Are you okay with it? Because I think a lot of people are going to bring this up with this podcast specifically is at the Roval,

you were saying, I'll give the spot to Kyle Busch at the end. So what's the difference between that and this? Yeah, so I didn't need that spot to move on. It was someone that was involved in the title fight, me trying to avoid getting wrecked. So I just want to pull over Kyle, you're up my ass here for the last few laps. I know you want to pass me.

Just let me, I'll let you go on the last lap because I don't want to get, I don't want him to misjudge the corner and run into the back of me. The only way I don't move on is if I lose five spots. And behind Kyle was coming a whole brigade of cars, right? So at that point, I made the decision to pull over and not get, you know, I got what I thought was the best position for me on that day, which Kyle was better than me. He was going to pass me anyway.

So I waited to the last lap to give him the spot. So if there's just no spot or influence, then, it seems okay, right? If there's no outside influence, if it's a driver making a decision for themselves, and there's no, it certainly just looks worse when you have, yeah, the team communications. and I go back to, you know, this put Michael Walter up out of business, you know, and this had severe implications for him.

Quickly for those that might be new. Yeah. So, I mean, was this 2013? Yeah. To recap it really quickly, you know, Michael Waltrip had a car that it was Martin Truex, who was kind of really kind of on the verge, need some help getting in. Clint Boyer, they told him. his arm was itching.

Is your arm itching or something like that? And then he spun out, right? He spun out on purpose to get a caution. That changed really the complexion of the event. They also had Brian Vickers. They called him to Pit Road during the course of that event. And so NASCAR kicked Truex, you know, Truax ended up getting in, you know, based of kind of all those events happening.

So NASCAR kicked them out. And then they find them an enormous amount of points, an enormous amount of money. And they ended up having a sponsor leave. And that put them out of business. That was, and that was the end of Michael Walter Bracing. An organization that he poured himself into, and the manufacturer Toyota poured money into to get this team going and started, it ended their life. life cycle. People saying though that this is worse than that.

They brought out a caution though. Isn't there a difference? Because now you're potentially, you're spinning on a car and then... It's all one and the same, right? You're trying to manipulate the finish. It doesn't matter how you do it, whether there's a caution or a green

or you're... It doesn't matter. It's still manipulating the finish. I don't think it matters how you bake the cake. I think the most damning one is the three-car audio saying, does Ross Chastain know the plan or the deal? No, the deal. So that's, I mean, to me, that's what tells me that the manufacturer had an involvement in the discussion.

But we don't know. We're speculating because we're not part of that organization. But I just, you know, I just don't know. I don't know what was communicated throughout the week. And, you know, so it's what we're. We're giving our opinion on what happened. And obviously, from my standpoint, the conclusion I draw is that the manufacturer had a role in it. Brad Kosalski tweeted, this should be the last draw on the camel's back for the playoffs.

I mean, that's a whole other discussion, Jared. But, you know, I retweeted last night kind of Daniel Seped it. Cespitus. Cespitis, yes. it was very interesting to see the four in versus the four out. It looks it looks inverse of you know kind of it's your season ranks on points per race average start average finish average position which means where are you running in the field.

Laps percentage of laps lead laps in the top 15 average driver rating wins top five's top tens and in the final four there's no number ones. Nobody is leading in any of those categories at all. Um, and so it just, you know, emphasizes the win in your end format, right? Um, you know, Joey obviously, he got in on fuel mileage. And there's no other way around it, right? They, they weren't fast enough to win. So they found another way to win, which is, um, was through the fuel mileage. But, you know, that takes a spot from some of your big winners and the most dominating drivers of the year

are out because of one race. And so this is the downside to the format. I, you know, you know where I've staying on this for quite some time. I believe that there is very, very, very, very few people out there that believe that this format rewards the most deserving champion in our series. I think that's why you've seen a shift in driver's mentality to win races. Brad Kuzowski is one of them that's mentioned that over the years.

It's about winning races. That's the list because these titles are just not what they were because of all the variables that you put on it. I can tell you this, and it's not their fault or his fault or anyone. but if Joey Lugano wins this title, there is going to be a wrath on social media about this format. It already is.

I talked to Mike Ford a little bit last night, NASCAR comms. I said, man, I mean, you got, this format is getting hammered on the net. And he's like, it's bots. It's not real people. And so I says, okay, I mean, you can, you can turn a blind eye if you want,

and you can be in denial, but numbers don't lie. Numbers never lie. And the fact is, is that, you know, you've got some in propriety, you just got not improprieties, you got just some randomness to this thing. And it's just, it's so interesting because Kyle Larson, and that's the one I really, focus on when I look at this graph

has got straight ones in every category and he's not racing for a championship. You said in this format, or you said in this season or when you decided this that you wanted to put an emphasis on winning, he's won more races than

anyone by a long way and yet he is not part of the title fight. Kevin Harvick won 10 races and didn't get to race for a title. The format is broken and if you disagree, you're in denial. It does not reward the four best for an entire season. It rewards the four best on any three race Sunday. And that's just, that's unfortunate. But it's the format in which we all know that 22 wouldn't have gone for it on fuel mileage

had he known, you know, if he knew he had to, you know, maybe race for points or anything like that. So he made a call to win the race. And that's Bravo for them because they worked the system. And they've been working the system for the last few years. I think Penske's won the last two titles when Joey won a couple years ago. Same thing. They were not good for the whole regular season. They just were very average at best.

And then just magically found a way to win. And bam, wins the title. I think we went through it with Blaney last year, right? He had, what, 12 finishes of 11th or something or worse? Just not competitive. And then all of a sudden, with a couple races to go, here they come. And so there's lots of questions you could ask, and one is, well, how are they able to just turn it on like that?

Surely they want to win in the regular season. Surely they want to run better in the regular season to get playoff points to make this easier and not put themselves in a position where they have to win to get in. But they've got an extra knob somewhere that they can turn and they win. I think the only way it would change

is if ratings start to decline, right? How much further you want them to go? I'm saying, though, like, what would need to happen to get this platform that changed? there's not, there's still no concrete evidence that shows that this format is equaling ratings. I'm sorry, it's not, that's not, in my mind,

that's not factual. Elton Sawyer said also in his press conference that the playoff format has quote unquote delivered and that quote, it gives the fans the excitement they've asked for. It sucks because, in a way, in a way, it does give you the excitement because it's created,

it created this amazing narrative for Ryan Blaney, right? That he was in a must-win situation. He was able to come out and do this. But while there's that gain, you know, right? There's so much, the mountain of negative is much higher this morning. We're not talking about Ryan Blaney and what he did, and the 12th team did the win the tries.

We're talking about all the negative things that come with this platform. Yeah, I mean, some of that is our human nature, I think, right? I mean, we, we typically always try to find faults in something. But, you know, we talked about this, or we've seen it through, you know, on YouTube, the damn of legitimacy with NASCAR, right? And there's just been so many cracks over the years. And, you know, again, I believe a Joey Lagano title next week would be the icing on the cake as to, holy shit, what are we doing?

I think the problem is we want to force this game seven, you think, every week. But if you're forgetting about games one, two, three, four, five, where you allow greatness to happen, how many game sevens did MJ go in the NBA finals? Well, you're exactly right, right? It's like saying, okay, a team that is up three games to nothing, we're just going to fast forward right to game seven and now it's three three. Like we're going to ignore everything that you've done and everything you've accomplished. and now you maybe it's a tie game bottom of the ninth

but the team that performed the best of the year just got a man on first base like that's just what you're also doing is not allowing NASCAR to potentially have these truly great drivers

bam bam and that is the biggest problem is that you're watering down your superstars and even Steve Phelps did a podcast not long ago in the in the it just was

I saw the quotes of it. And even the host says, yes, Steve Parody, while y'all may deem it as great, isn't that a negative? Because you're not letting your stars shine. And he gave a long-winded corporate answer. But that is true. It is watering down the superstars of our sport. No question about it. Absolutely.

That is the gist of the... I guarantee you if NASCAR could put a playbook together and say, who do we want, what are the best four, for ratings and all that? Is this the four? No. It's the problem with parity. It's the problem with creating a format that allows when in your end.

It just ignores all the poor performance that you had before that. And so, you know, we can talk about the Patriot team that went undefeated until the Super Bowl. Well, you have to, there's a minimum standard in which you had to have to get in the playoffs to begin with. And our standards have, again, they have lowered the standards over the years, right? It used to be 10, then they moved to 12, then they moved to 16. they just keep moving the bar lower and lower to be part of it. And now it's just win. Win and you're in the playoffs.

Harrison Burton got in. Daytona on a Super Speedway race. Went from 30 something in points to 16th that quick. There's something wrong with it. And I hope they look into fixing it because as a sport, I'm not talking about me. I don't think that we performed our best this playoff. Should we be part of the Final Four?

By the statistics, probably. But I would argue we just, we didn't have it this year. It's more the Kyle Larson's of the world that you win the most races, you're leading every category, you're the most dominant car, most weeks, and yet you're out because of the system. That just, that just, that bugs me because it. does not reward greatness. Yeah, if TV ratings are your, your KPI, it should be very easy to see whether or not

this is working, right? Because you just look at the last three races. And you've had these moments in all the last three, Las Vegas. Whether you like or not, Joey Lagano's team saving fuel and somehow winning that race out nowhere is this game seven moment that they're trying to create. Homestead, you have Tyler Reddick. But the problem is, is everyone knows what you just said. They're trying to create it.

It's normal now, right? What's that? It's normal now. It's no longer great because we get that at every race. I look through all these races and every one of them had some sort of significant moment. But if the ratings aren't climbing, then... Oh, well, they're going to tell you that, man, look at our ratings this playoffs. We're up 4%.

They will turn a blind eye to anything negative and ignore the fact that they're... losing legitimacy in the sports world. Well, if the ratings are up and that's where you're judging this off of, then it is a win, right? Say that again? If the ratings are up, if the ratings are up 4% in the playoffs this season versus last year. But again, but our standards have gotten so low over last year. Like, it's been not good, Jared.

And so, yeah, I understand, but NASCAR is. is sure it's an improvement but where are you really? Yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to play to play devil's advocate. No, but you're making valid points and I think it's what they hang their hat on

every year is that well, but look how exciting that was. Of course, if you always throw, if you always had a caution at the end of the race and had a green white checkered, of course. You're going to get a short-term game because you're going to fill that bucket of excitement for the NASCAR fan.

But in the end, people have something called a brain and it tells them, what I just see was it real or was it manufactured? Right. And that's what people are seeing at the end of this race. At the end of this race. Let's talk about Ryan Blaney for a moment here, because regardless of what happened, what his team was able to do this week.

again was impressive. Back-to-back years, he's been in a must-win situation at Martinsville, and they've delivered. Yes, they absolutely delivered, and Ryan, I can tell you firsthand, he was taking no prisoners out there. I think he nailed everyone, myself included, on his way to the front. I don't know. I was really pissed. Had I been fast enough, I was going to try to get them back as hard as I could. He cleared me out so much that I didn't have time to get back to him.

But it was, he did what he had to do. And I thought he had a masterful drive. I think his car was phenomenal over the long run. It's really kind of what the race played out very similar to last year, where there was a long green flag run that led into the finish and he drove from at the time I think last year

it was about the same position like six, seven, something like that, to the front and 80 laps, 100 laps, whatever it might be, and wins the race. And so, you know, he was the fastest car by far those last 20 laps and they took it home. Did you see the move where

he hit, bumped SVG up into Byron? I wasn't sure if he was going to self-combust there. Well, I mean, I think there's no secret that I think Ryan loses mine a little bit in the race car. But, you know, he's moving on and going to Phoenix. And so I think that he knew how fast his car was. He can't afford to sit behind anyone and let laps click away. So his mindset is just, you know, get you out of the way and let's just keep this train moving forward.

If Blaney's car was a 10 or 100%, where were you at? Where was your car at? Like, how far off were you from his? Aways. Okay. Yeah. I just, we just didn't have the raw speed. I felt at times very similar to last year.

Now, last year in this race, we were the second best car. The 12 was the best. But in the spring, you know, when Hendrik had their whole, 40th anniversary, had all their employees there. Like there were three Hendrick cars better than us and Blaney. And I felt like last night was the same.

Like we were just the next in line after that. So Chess didn't have the speed that could run with those guys. And so we got to go to work to be faster. And I mean, listen, JGR, we're on like a

16 race losing streak, right? We haven't won in quite some time. None of cars. Now, you know, we could argue about other races that certainly we could have or should have won, but we didn't. And so we're on a dry spell. What's your mindset or how do you stay composed in a race that you know you have to win and you know that you just don't have the car? Like, what's going through your head during the race? Yeah. I mean, at that point, you know, I was pushing every lap as hard as I could. I never took a lap off 100%. And, you know, those for inside baseball, some drivers do take laps off.

You know, there's times you get in long green flag runs, you've got no pressure in front, you can't really see the person behind you, and you're like, let me just make a corner here and not white knuckle this thing around. I didn't have any of those yesterday. I was trying for all I could, trying to make lap time. Again, I just didn't have the it that I needed.

I didn't have that extra gear that I could just go to to run faster. So at that point, what I tried to do is run at 99% and try to keep myself, you know, I wanted to try to gain any spot I could. So I was, I mean, I had the damnedest time trying to get around Austin Sidrick who had stayed out. You know, we had 27 lap fresher right side tires. I couldn't pass him. He finished fourth. I finished fifth.

But at that point, I'm just, you know, trying to grind this thing out and trying to get a caution to maybe chaos ensues on a restart. and I find myself with a chance. Really, at that point, you know that's your only shot. Right. Just keep yourself in sniffing distance. Keep it in the game. That way, if something crazy does happen, you're at least there to maybe capitalize on it.

Right. Since you have access to every other driver's SMT data, is it something that Blaney's doing in his driving style that makes him so good here, or is it just something that Penske is setting up with the car at Martinsville? Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. I mean, his steering and other things are very unique.

But ultimately, you know, it's the car's got to work. The car has to, you know, help you manage tires. It's got to help you make the corner fast. But the driver obviously plays a big role in that. So it's not like we're seeing the 22 do what the 12 has done, right? I mean, the 12 has been on an island. Now, the two, at the end of the race, I thought, was pretty fast to be on old tires. So I don't know who's got what setups, and that's all speculative.

But the 12 has been outstanding, certainly it looks like, on these short tracks. Yeah, he just seemed very confident in his car throughout the whole race. So there were multiple times, whether he was trying to pass Brad Philly or maybe he was trying to pass you, that he was just going to try to go to the outside. That's what I noticed. You rarely see that. Right. When I was running third at the end of stage two behind Brad and the 12, that's what I noticed. The 12 could just stay pinned right to the back of the six car where I needed to kind of leave a gap there to keep my car turning well and getting off the corner well. He was able to just run right behind the six and pressure him.

That's how you knew that his car was extremely fast. You mentioned the tires. would they success or need more? What was your take on those? Yeah, I thought they were an overall success. I thought, you know, we still got room to go on the right side tires, for sure. You've got, you know, 27 laps staying out, new tires don't pass it. You know, you still, you know, whatever is on the left side tire, maybe we could put that on the right as well.

But that would be my suggestion. It's just keep inching this thing softer and softer. Because I definitely, if you look at the lifetimes, we definitely, had more fall off this time around than what we had in other years. Championship four next week, we've got Joey Legano, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Redick, and William Byron. So in a roundabout way, you're still in it. It's not a roundabout way. I'm definitely still in it. There's still a chance for me to hoist up that cup next week. So I think Tyler's going to have a great shot at it. I think, you know, for obvious reasons, the 12 would be

the favorite again these situations they find a gear somewhere in that car that they can grab and you know they find a way to be

exceptional so I think you know you're the order of favorites in my mind would probably be Blaney and then a little you know just a little bit

past that would be the 45 and then I don't know you can kind of argue the 22 and 24 which one you're going to put. I'd probably put 22 just for the experience and Joey's grit. I would probably put him right there next in line. What is the process this week to get Tyler prepared for this race? As a Toyota team, is every driver doing sim testing? Are you, you know, is Tyler sitting down with Christopher Bell who won there in the spring? Being like, hey, you know, how do I get around this place better?

He should. You know, if he's smart, he does. And Tyler's really good about that. He's certainly very good about asking questions to a given driver on whatever track they might be good at, to try to find out what he needs to look for. The 20 car obviously had a dominating race car in the spring, came from 20th to first on the last restart to win it. So, you know, I thought the 45 probably was the next best car.

So they're in the ballpark. They just, you know, they got to find whatever that 20 had in the spring for a balance because that seemed to be the best. This is Tyler's first opportunity in this championship for his first experience of this. Is there anything that you'll tell him or, you know, I don't know, any tips you can give him to keep him composed through this weekend? There is. I won't say it on here.

I'll say it to him privately, but certainly, yeah, there's some experience. that you know I can lend to them and on how to really treat the week right and and so much of it about is about just having fun and enjoying this process and and this week and understanding that you know making the final four was is most other drivers goals you know what happens in a one race winner take all you know some things are going to be out of your control there but just you know making sure you spend the week, you know, having fun, enjoying it, enjoying the process, that would be my advice. I guess lastly, before we wrap this thing up, since we may have an influx of listeners after last night's race and barring that nothing crazy happens next week in the championship race and there's no controversy,

is there anything that you tweeted last night, you made a nice heartfelt tweet after Martinsville thanking, you know, friends, family, fans, non-fans, Guess is there anything that you would like to touch on about your 2024 season here? You know, not really. I feel as though the year started out super optimistic, right? We were talking about how many wins can we get? Can we get eight? You know, can we get 10? We had won four of the first, I think, 11 races.

But then we've just, you know, we hit a slump there for a while. We weren't getting the finishes we deserved. We had a few races that kind of derailed us. But overall, our performance was pretty good throughout the year. We just, again, didn't have that extra gear that we grabbed. Now, our average finish throughout the playoff was better than it was during the regular season. So we did improve our finishes. But I think where we lacked, in my opinion, it was just not getting enough stage points through the playoffs.

So that comes through various things. A lot of it, I believe, was schedule didn't fit me as a driver early in the playoffs. You had some road courses, some super speedways in there. And I just didn't get the points that I needed to comfortably make each round. I made it, but it was just, I was squeaking in. So, you know, but once we had the opportunity to go to some normal racetracks, I thought we performed good, not great. and that was essentially the difference, right?

I mean, this round, I think our finishes were 8th, third, fifth. You had that stretch in the middle of the summer. You're thinking, we're right there on the verge. We're one of the top teams. But, you know, the winning in your end just changes everything. And it certainly, you know, those good, consistent finishes is definitely what it does not reward. One of the conversations that comes up with you and your career is

your age, and they mentioned on the broadcast of getting to that point where there's never been a champion at your age, do you feel like you still can do that, what the younger drivers can do, or do you feel like that's starting to catch up? I mean, that is a million-dollar question, and I believe that, you know, there is a day where the light switch turns off, but I still feel as though, and I'm just way too competitive to ever race when I don't think I can win. I will not go out of this sport on a downhill fall. Like I just, I have too much pride for that.

I'm way too competitive for that. I want to know that I have the ability to win my final race, whenever that might be. And I still feel as though I can go to the racetrack and dominate. any given week. And so until that changes, no, I still feel like I can win. I think, too, you forget that, you know, how much of a difference,

the penalty that you suffer a few weeks back played into this, right? Because no matter about winning three races in the regular season, the success that you had in the regular season, it was kind of derailed by that. And you were entering these playoffs under a different set of circumstances. It was as if you didn't win. two races in the regular season. Yeah.

If you were kind of backing your way into the place. Yeah, our penalty this year for the engine was 14 points, right? Because we lost not only playoff points, but we lost regular season points, which knocked us down, which gives you playoff points. So, you know, those 14 points turns out didn't matter. But again, if we go into our playoffs with the proper amount of points that we earn throughout the year, we probably don't try to hail marry our strategy at Las Vegas, right? We try, you know, we're, I think we restarted like 12th, and at that point we're like,

God dang it, we got to get back to the front and get stage points. You know, we can't afford to not get stage points here. And then we take risk, right? And then when the risks don't pay off, then, you know, that snowballs into, you know, quite the, quite the day. And luckily for us, we were able to pull some. strategy at the end to get a top 10 finish. But we were always fighting from behind at Vegas. And so I think that it's probably put a level of panic, certainly within myself, those first few

rounds that just don't make a mistake. You know, I don't have any buffer here that I, that I was supposed to have, you know, into these playoffs. I got to just play this thing conservatively, just get through, get through, get through, and then find a way to win in that round of eight. And so that's the way I played it, right, wrong, or indifferent. And certainly the penalty had more, you know, it's more than just the actual point penalty. It's the mental effect that it has on you that you no longer have that cushion. There's always another slogan. We're going to need new hat. It's always another slogan. We're going to need new hat. I appreciate the all-in crew that was at the car yesterday. That was cool.

Yeah, and then you saw it all throughout the year, a bunch of all-in t-shirts, all-in hats. You know, fans really got on board with that, which I think is really cool. At least for me in trying to like push that, you know, digitally on social and whatnot. It's always cool to see that fans get behind that kind of stuff and whatnot. Let's just bang through the other series. Just real quick to truck. Completely forgot about the truck. I know, I know.

Krishnikis. let's just what do you think about his move? I know what I think, but what do you think? You know, he kind of, you know,

Taylor Gray was in a must win. Taylor Gray goes up there, he passes him, but then Christian drives him up into the corner. Yeah, I don't know. It's like Christian wants to win the race,

right? Why does Christian care if Taylor Gray's in the playoffs? I think it's fine. He didn't crash him, maybe moving him up out of the corner a little too much, but where's the line?

I don't know. I think it's fine. It's racing. It's not, his job to worry about if he's going to get in the playoffs or not. Go get the win for your balls. I'm with that. I'm with that for sure.

It's very disappointing for Taylor because he, they had a strategy there. It had newer tires, drove to the field pretty cleanly, got to the lead pretty cleanly, and, yeah, he just got shipped into the corner. Again, I agree with you guys. Why should Christian care? He felt like he had the best truck and that the only way someone was going to to beat them was through strategy or something. They did.

They were going to, and he said, no. So that's a decision that Christian made. Sometimes you've got to live with that decision. Now, you know, he's going to be racing against that same organization in the Final Four this next weekend with Corey Hyme.

Certainly, you would think that everyone at TriCon is thinking, you race the shit out of that 19 at all cost. Yeah, but you can't do anything dirty or else you're going to get, like, You can't do anything to him next week. You can race some hard, but... Way harder.

You can make his life way hard. You can make him make a mistake. All you got to do is put it right on their door, entering the corner on a truck or a affinity car. You're on the right side. Just put it right on their door. They'll make the mistake. You can make them make the mistake.

But will he have, you know, you're talking about this, you're a season cup driver. Will Taylor Gray have that with a name to do that? Yeah, they all know that. They all know what you can do to make someone's life harder. But that's, you know, hey, Christian got the win. You know, he didn't need to win. But it, I see both sides of it.

Now, I truly do. I see both sides of it. You could argue, though. I could say, man, that's not racing. He didn't, you know, the guy passed you clean and you didn't even give him a chance to make the corner. That's dirty. But that's what we, that's what happens now. We've numbed ourselves to clean racing.

The bigger question is, should he have, though, would you rather have Taylor Gray in the championship four or Ty Majesky? That, I think, is the bigger one, in which then you say, don't do it to Taylor. Yep. Yep. Very valid. I don't know.

I'm watching the replay now. I think it's fine. Krishnikis wants to win. He'll have to deal with any consequences that come from next week. Exactly. All right, well, Xfinity, Eric Amarola wins. He won in the spring in the Xfinity race. Dominating car, dominated the race.

No adversity really for him at the end. Sammy Smith was trying his best to get close enough to make a move. Just ran out of it. Just didn't have the car to compete with that 20 there at the end. But it was exciting. He had two must-win situations. I thought that Chandler Smith had the best. car that was capable of challenging Eric, but he got cleaned out by Custer.

So what do we make of that? I think his punch looked a little too much like Kipp from Napoleon Dynamite. Oh, come on. I mean, from my standpoint, I view it similarly to the truck race. the only difference is that you know that Chandler I thought tried his best to get around the double zero

in a timely fashion he tried to pass him cleanly and he was he was just running out of laps running out of tire and so he chose to move the double zero up the racetrack it's the same thing Blaine he did to anybody that was in his way

this past weekend so we're celebrating Blaney, so I guess we should probably celebrate, you know, Chandler's move there. But Cole, in a very calculated move on a restart, instead of choosing third, which gives you the best shot to win, he chooses behind Chandler so he can wipe him out in turn one and knock him up the racetrack. I don't know. I mean, you can look at it as though, hey, that's good defense because if Chandler wins, Coles out. So that was, that's good defense.

But it certainly is, you know, again, it's a tough scenario because Chandler had to win. Coles trying to protect his spot in the final four. I mean, that was another thing. Like, if Chandler goes and wins, now Chandler has been running really well in Xfinity all year, but then that could have knocked out the double zero, who has been one of the arguably the best car. all year long and this format almost nearly knocked him out as well so um i don't know what what i think of it i you know i hate it for chanler because he's he's stated publicly that he doesn't have a ride for next year uh we've stated publicly how difficult it is to get in rides based off of you know

talent um this day and age so it's uh it's tough it's tough for him and and certainly he's going to try as best to, you know, win a race next weekend. But who do we got winning these... Well, I was just... But this is an ongoing beef that these guys have had though. Yeah, they have. Right. So, like, it was going to come to... But if you're going to throw a punch, you can't back... You can't take a

step backwards right after. Like, he threw the punch and tried to get out of there. Why? Why can't you? If you're going to throw the first, then you better be ready to throw the second. Like, throwing one and backing up. Come on. He had a chance... He had a chance to charge That's a tough fight to pick nonetheless.

But then don't pick it. That's the thing. If you're worried that you're not going to win the fight, then you're one punch better. You're either knock them out or you don't throw it. I don't know. I don't know. I'm probably just the wrong guy to ask on this.

Big winner for NASCAR. They had social media moments. Friday night, Saturday night. Game seven moments Sunday. Oh, yeah. Everywhere. Everywhere. Who do you think it's going to win?

I think that it's going to come, it's going to be a heavyweight fight between the 19, the 11, and the trucks. Echis versus Corey. I don't know track history who's got the best record there, but I'll go Corey Heim. Xfinity, Justin, Shirley, you know, I'm rooting for Justin. He's the fellow Mark Martin like me. Mark Martin's the badass who's just things never worked out for him to win a title. I don't know. I think Custer is going to be tough to beat though because I think that racetrack,

if I remember Custer's been pretty damn strong. Although Justin, I remember, oh, I was playing put-put in Scottsdale watching the experience race. Justin had it won, right? He was dominating and blew a tire. tire. So I don't know. The veteran in me is going for Justin Algeier to get his first title.

We won't make you predict the cup race. Tyler Redding. That's with my heart. My heart. Yeah, it's going to be close battle. I kind of thought, I handicapped it the cup race, kind of what I thought, favorites and whatnot would be. So we kind of covered that already.

So, all right. Well, one more week. One more week. I have a review here from Nick Switzer. I lost interest in NASCAR years ago in college. And I have a son who is obsessed with racing and I've made my way back. We went

to MIS this year and my kids met Denny after the race. Thank you for taking the time. I went there not as an 11 fan, but after that I left a fan. This former Jeff Gordon fan as a kid is now a full-blown Denny Hamlin fan. This show and the insights from it have made me appreciate the sport again.

I appreciate it. And I thought that the crowd at Martinsville was mixed. I mean, you had the loud booze. You know, I certainly get a lot of noise during driver intros. But Martinsville, I thought I saw a lot of loving gear out there, truthfully. So I, you know, I appreciate out everyone's support. And, you know, when I sit that tweet out, was for you guys that support us

weekend, week out. We know you probably take a lot of shit there in the stands from other fans, but I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you. Listening in to the podcast and we'll see you guys next week.