Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Iowa: Blown Tires, Missed Setups & Charter Talk

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Denny Hamlin is back in studio after a 24th-place finish in Iowa. Denny discusses what happened with his car and why the No. 11 team missed the setup. Even still, Denny looked to have a chance to finish in the top 10 until he got caught up in an accident with Kyle Larson.Before this weekend’s race, many were critical of the partial repave at Iowa Speedway. Denny explains why the track performed better than people expected. While the repave worked, Denny still has a request for Goodyear.Denny breaks down his POV from the driver’s seat, including the unintentional contact with Larson. Denny and cohost Jared Allen discuss how Ricky Stenhouse Jr’s strategy paid off, helping him get a top-five finish. Did NASCAR get it right with the Daniel Hemric caution call? The guys also talk about how Larson had the fastest car, but his day was finished when Daniel Suarez caused him to wreck. Meanwhile, the Fords had a quiet start to the season but they have found speed the last couple weeks as evidenced by Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric’s wins. Does that make Joey Logano the most dangerous driver on the cut line?Denny has had back-to-back bad weeks, but he isn’t worried about how things are going. In their off-track discussion, Denny and Jared wonder if Sam Mayer should be one of the drivers considered for a Cup car next year. Denny’s longtime teammate, Martin Truex Jr., announced that he is retiring from driving full time and Denny talks about what that means. Also, Denny gives the latest update on the charter discussions with NASCAR. Plus, fans send questions in for #DearDenny and we get a “pupdate” on Lulu.For more Actions Detrimental content, head over to our YouTube channel: 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.

Can we get a pup date on Lulu? She's being good. You know, she sleeps a lot. Everyone's getting pretty attached at this point. Yeah, I was going to say, is it safe to say you've lost this battle? It's probably safe to say. 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-colored glasses show. Pleading with NASCAR, 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 that's promising.

Hey guys, welcome to Action's Determinal. I'm Denny Hamlin, driver of the Interstate Batteries Toyota this past weekend. My co-hosts. Jared Allen, red vest number 311. If I hear Where's Jared one more time? I'm going to lose it.

I wish people would just like look around. He's probably in the area. He's probably around that, you know, where they're at. Yeah. So, yeah, before you yell, where's Jared? I mean, I feel like that should be a shirt. Where's Jared? Maybe.

There's just some sort of ring about it. But maybe it's because, you know, as the fans are kind of lined up or when we're walking like to drive her intros. Maybe they're in the second third row and they can't quite see all of us. But yes, just look at a 10 foot circle around me and you'll see red vest number 311. That's right, right, right. Right. Well, quite forgettable weekend again for me. Where's Denny? Exactly. Exactly. I tell you, if you're looking for me, you could have found me in dead last place in the first stage um i someone asked i saw on social media you know a bunch of dear denny questions and we'll just you know get we'll just get this out of the way

says have you ever had a car that bad and i says oh yeah i remember being like legit four or five six laps down at martinsville um i think it was the first year of next gin and then in the fall race we led like 300 laps you know it's just sometimes you miss it and we did but we were we were making gains like right before we crashed there i just gotten a good restart i mean put it this way when we were under the right front tire adjusting on the car like you know it's bad at that point but yeah i just uh the conditions for the track really really changed overnight and uh it did not suit our car one bit but Chris and the whole team and Brandon, our car chief just did a great job making it better and better. And I think we finished sixth in stage two. And then we were, man, I felt really good about

where we were at right before that caution during that restart. But you did go forward after the green flag. You started 10th or 12th. I know. We kept getting it better. And you went forward a handful of spots. And then the caution came for stage two. We pitted again. And then I got a good restart and was probably, you know, because we had to restart 12th after stage 2 and drove right back to probably I was 7th when I crashed. So we were making gains. So we were going to go possibly from last to contending right before that crash. But when did the late switch click?

You're like, oh, there's something wrong with this car and I'm going to the tail. It was interesting. When the track fired off on the very start of the race, I thought, man, my car is pretty good. I was right up someone's back bumper. You passed Byron immediately. We were, it was good for three laps.

And then the minute the car strung out, my car stopped turning. And I was like, wow, whoa, what happened here? And I was like, well, this is just a blip. And, you know, I'm going to lose a few spots and we'll fix it. And I just kept dropping and dropping and dropping. I think I got lapped in, what, 50 laps? 30 laps. 30 laps.

30 laps. Wow. Wow. That's when you say that you've had a car that bad, like Martinsville. Everyone gets lapped at Martin'sville. There's so many cars, you know, a bunch of cars go laps down at Martinsville. You went laps down in a hurry in this place. It's just more glaring than Martinsville car.

You think about the lap times there. To go a lap down from where I started, I was three quarters of a second off per lap. I mean, that's, I don't think that's a huge exaggeration. I think it's anywhere from a half a second to three quarter second. That's how you go a lap down on a 23, 24 second lap. So in 30 laps. So it's, yikes, it was crazy. I never dropped that quickly.

But, but yeah, I was at least optimistic that, you know, the changes that the team made was putting us right in the right direction. How do you help your crew chief diagnose that? Because over the radio, you just said, well, are the tires on backwards? It's like you had no idea. Right. Because, again, I hadn't felt something like that in quite some time. But yeah, I just tried to give the team the best, you know, thoughts that I have.

I mean, Chris trusts me pretty well to when I say it's doing this, he'll go work on this. You know, sometimes he asked me what I like about Chris is he's very thought-provoking in the sense of that, okay, I can fix that, but it might cause this to be worse. So are you okay with it changing this as well? I'm sorry, changing that as well. I'm going to fix this, but it's also going to affect that. Are you good with that?

So that's where, you know, the driver-cru-chief relationship and the trust that we have certainly shows up on races like this where you can start the race really, really bad, but, you know, the team can figure it out as long as you give the right information. is there anything like when you're going lapsed down like how do you stay like mentally on it to just try to keep your car going for then and hopefully a pit stop and you can make some changes yeah i mean my focus was and again i i was kind of trying to race but i had my i was in handcuffs like you know i can't go any faster if i could go any faster i wouldn't have gone a lot down in the

first place but the leader passes me and i'm like oh just do everything you can to stay in the lucky dog spot and I didn't but we were able to wave around so while it was one of those races where the finish probably would have been way worse had the cautions not fell in the correct spot for me pretty much all day long you know I was able to wave when I needed to I was able to get the lucky dog when I needed to the caution came when I was going that long in stage two like the 47 like all all those things really helped us stay in the game. And then, you know, when our car got destroyed, I mean, we were way slower than the field, but still finished 24th because, you know, it trapped other cars lapsed down for the whole race. And then my car was so slow after the, after the crash that,

you know, it allowed me to just slowly bleed those spots as the race went on and not finish in the 30s. When you fire off that poorly, is it even possible to make changes on pit road to turn your car into a top five or a race winning one? Yeah, I think a race winning one is maybe questionable, but I felt like I had faith. I had faith we were going to be better, right? And certainly I believe that we had turned the corner right before we crashed to be a top five contender.

And then who knows what happens after that. So a few more tweaks here and there. but certainly it took a lot of wedge wrenches and things like that to get my car remotely in the ballpark. But yeah, it was just a weird race. We don't normally see you guys kind of miss the setup if that's the right to call it that. How does that happen for like a novice fan, like a little NASCAR 101? Like how does you go from qualifying what 12th to basically just dropping off? I think Jared asked that question on the plane ride home.

he's like, how does a crew chief that smart, you know, have start a race that far off? I was like, I mean, it's a five percent chance, you know, it just doesn't happen often. But I think new paved surfaces always change a bunch as rubber gets laid down. We saw it really during qualifying, right? So the lap times for qualifying, if you were in group A like I was in, was almost two seconds off from what we were running in practice. Well, that was because the rubber got washed off right before we qualified. So that tells you how sensitive the track is to rubber. And there's, there was only one, you know, there was ARCA and Xfinity practice before we practice. And so my car was handling pretty good. I felt pretty good at the times. It was, it was doing well.

But once you get all the cars out there and it starts laying rubber, new surface. changes a ton and you know for whatever reason it just you know changed in the wrong direction did chris in your in your guys post-race debrief did chris say what his goal was with those changes no he didn't and really i don't care i just give him the feedback to say it's doing this at this part of the corner and i can still afford for you to mess up other parts of the corner to fix that right but i mean like the overnight changes from qualifying into the race no no i don't get it into that too much with him. I just kind of give the feedback and after that I trust whatever he's chooses to do. But we have enough experience together to, you know, he understands, he reads my body

language. He hears what I say, and, you know, I put it in my notes what I think we need to do to be better and he goes to work on it. One car that did fire off phenomenally is the five of Kyle Larson, ran up front all stage one, and then thought he had an issue with a tire, Pitt went back to the rear and then drove right back up to the front again in a matter of 2030 laps. Yeah, where usually when you have surfaces like these, racing is tough and passing is tough, but he went by me. I was still in, I still had a 30th place car at the time, but he went by me and next thing

you know, I look up, I mean five laps later and he's 15 cars ahead of me. So he had a car that obviously was dialed in great during that portion of the race and drove right back to the front, which is, you know, gives you hope that, hey, if you get your car a little better, you will be able to pass today. So, yeah, I didn't quite understand because I saw that he came out first or second or something like that. And then he pitted again. I was like, man, that's weird. What happened there? But, yeah, he was flying through the field.

Did this race play out the way you thought it would? It did, actually. the track and passing and what not. I thought after the Xfinity race, it was going to race good. I was pretty confident in that because they really moved the groove up to everywhere that was new paved. You had a car running on it. So it was really, you know, if you had, it was three lanes wide if everyone held each other tight, but it was at least two and a half lanes wide with cars giving each other's space. So it was a great racetrack. And I think that, you know, if they went ahead and finish the paving up at the top, it actually would be better yet because we would continue

to push the groove up higher and higher. So how did that happen? Because you were critical of it last week on this show. Harvick was even more critical of it on his podcast. How do you, how do you, you know, your drivers look at the repave and think, okay, this is how it's going to race. And then it race kind of the opposite. Yeah. You know, the picture that I saw hadn't had the, hadn't had the bottom lane paved yet so it looked like just one strip right through the middle but obviously when we went there i looked and was like oh this is wider than i thought it was going to be as far as like how many grooves how many feet wide is it how many cars can you fit in that space um what i thought it was is one lane you know one strip of asphalt and that would have been extremely tough because we know

next gen does not like to race on shore. tracks with one lane, you know, the Martinsville's, the Richmonds, things like that. It just, it needs space. It needs clean air space to really race well. And so that's why I think if we go back and they do finish paving the top of the corners, the groove will continue to just move up, which will allow space for us to pass each other in the corners. Is there a difference between, you know, they paved, you know, a section of the corners this time and then in two months' time, they'll pave a section of the other section. Like, is there a, does it matter that there's a difference in time there

instead of just paving the whole corner at the same time? Well, what I thought the track had was very consistent grip through the new pavement. So from when you entered on it to running the middle and then running the exit, it had the same amount of grip all the way through. And it was pretty much the entire time we were cornering. Entering turn three and one was, yeah, I would have wished they would have brought the pavement out towards the straightaway a little bit more, but it was okay. No issues there. And certainly I think there wouldn't be any detriment to one section being newer than the other.

It'd be close enough in grip that it would be fine. But yeah, I thought that it raced very, very consistent. We saw a bunch of blown tires in practice on Friday. I had to think about that for a second. On practice on Friday, had an hour of practice. Like, what would have happened if you only had that 20 minutes on Saturday. Would you guys have been able to spot these tire issues? Yeah. Maybe, maybe not, because I think most people had those issues. I think maybe you would probably saw more because when you have a 20 minute practice, what happens is those cars will a lot of times just run one run, one long run and get you some information. When you have a 50 minute practice, you have multiple sets of tires. So you'll run 20 laps, 20 laps, 20 laps, 20 laps.

to just make changes to your car, get an idea, is this better or worse? And so actually, you probably would have ran longer runs in a 20-minute practice than you did in the 50. Well, we saw a handful of blown tires in practice, and then you saw a handful of tire wear blown tires in the race. What was your assessment of this and how that went? I thought that it was better than what it was in practice. I mean, we saw it was around 20 to 25 in practice. that guys were blowing out tires.

And I do think the teams made adjustments as well to help with that. Our problems were different than the Xfinity cars. You know, they had a heat problem. So just a lot of heat. So they were blistering quite bad. Is just the temperature hotter during the day? Yeah. It's, yeah, there's no way for the heat to escape the tire.

You're on a surface. It's pretty flat. So the tire's always making contact with. with the asphalt so it's just it's just creating a ton of heat and a lot of friction and then in the cup cars it was more of a shoulder issue so um air pressure cambers things like that so uh ours ours was definitely a different problem than extended so you i wasn't too concerned going into our race after the extenity race of all those you know blister tires it was i knew our issues were different but if you look you know some some guys ran 90 some last

on tires and and I guess Blaney had 130 or something on his left so um there was just no issues. When you say camber what is that for? Yeah, it's just, you know, how much the tires leaned in or leaned or or tilted up. So when you see the front of our cars, uh, you'll always see usually the left front tires. The top of the tire is poked out of the fender and on the right side the top of the tire is inside the fender on the right. It just helps the car corner better basically. Would you until Goodyear to go softer? On the lefts, yes. I think the left side tire still has some room for the compound itself to be softer. That would allow more tire fall off because the time still they flatlined really for all 90 laps. They didn't gain speed or lose speed. They just

stayed the same and certainly could cause some tire, you know, tires to wear out if you put a softer or left side. And as the racetrack starts to wear out as well, it should allow you to run a softer and softer compound. Speaking of Larson, you were running behind him for a bit in this race. You were a lap down and moved him out of the groove. And that kind of took over social media for a moment there during the race. Was that intentional, unintentional? No, it was unintentional. I clearly misjudged the center roll speed of my. my car and his combined. But he um he's he slid us in three and four which I wouldn't mad about that at all. I'm a lap down so I got to get out of the way. Um, but he we went into turn one. I was somewhat

close to him, but then I was trying to roll really good fast center speed and it looked like he had his hands full all the way into the center. Um, and then I just, I, I coasted into him. Like I, I thought I throttled up too early, but I was just rolling speed through the center. And and clearly misjudge it because I was trying to turn down a little bit below him, but I think at the time he was a little bit free on entry, and then obviously he got really free when I ran in the back of him. So I'm glad he saved it for sure. Not one of those things where your car was just better than his.

No, it was a lap slower than his at the time, for sure. We had a caution late in this race that really flipped this one around. You were, you were fortunate because of this. this staying out. Daniel Hemrick up in the wall, NASCAR, through the caution, and then obviously a lot of drivers benefited from this, you being one of them, but also Ricky Stenhouse staying out and it sounded like his strategy was just this, that we're going to stay out long, trap cars a lap down, and if caution falls our way, then, you know, we just gained so much track position. Yeah, it was the right call because there was only a certain amount of laps left before the

end of stage two. So he knew he was going to pit at the end of stage two anyway. So as long as he didn't need to get fuel, they made a brilliant call, which is just stay out on the racetrack. So all those cars that were getting waver around, or thinking they were going to get a wave around, they didn't get it. And so I thought that what that does is guarantees you kind of a better finish, no matter how the rest of your day goes, because you're now trapping all those cars that pitted a lap or two down for the of the race because, you know, you choose to stay out versus pitting. So I thought it was a great call and certainly guaranteed Ricky and his team a better finish throughout the day, no matter how the rest of the race went or how their, you know, car migrated over the course of the rest of the

day. So he still finished top five anyway. I think that track position really, really helped quite a bit. But, yeah, they, um, fantastic call to, to say, all right, you guys have pitted. normally you would get a wave around here, but not today. Listening to his crew chief, this sounded like a strategy they had going into the race. However, watching this race play out before NASCAR threw that caution, there were two other cars that had tires go down

and then limped it to pit road. When you see that, you know, are more drivers than thinking, oh, we might be closer to getting a caution here than we otherwise saw it. Like if a tire carcass comes off of one of those two cars, then boom,

there's your caution. Yeah. And we saw, you know, a lot of social media buzzes about the caution for the 31 of Hemrick, that that's where the caution came from that helped Ricky and myself and many others. But yeah, it just was an interesting deal that, you know, I can't think of a scenario where you would like plan on doing this because it's so circumstantial to do I need to pit, do I not? but it just seemed like it worked out for those cars that did stay out. Certainly, usually NASCAR is a little bit hesitant to throw cautions in the middle of a pit cycle

until everyone gets done pitting. But we thought on the 11 car that it was a matter of time before someone blew a tire. You know, it's just numbers and odds at that point. And so we had nothing to lose. We had gone a lap down to the 12. I actually was able to stay pretty close to him before he decided to peel off. So we were making gains, but certainly it was a big benefit for us for that caution to come out. And it was us and like nine or ten others.

What do you make of that caution coming out, though? Yeah, it was close. You know, he did hit the wall. But I think there's, I don't know how long we had gone green during that moment. I always am the opinion that, you know, if we go really long stretches of time without a caution, be aware you're going to get one for something superficial at times, you know? But, I don't know. Yeah, so there had been lap 132, 165, and 174 had tires go down with no caution.

So it had been a while. Did they hit the wall, though? You know what I mean? Like the 31 hit the wall. I don't know that he brushed it, but he hit it pretty good. I was right somewhat near him when this happened. So, yeah, it's just, it certainly did not help some of the leaders, but, I mean, the 12 had pitted, and then he came back and won the race.

So I think that it's still the fast cars found themselves up front at the end. Well, it certainly created some drama, because on the next green flag restart, a few lapsed into the run there, Daniel Suarez gets into Kyle Larson, turns the five car into you, more or less ends the five cars day, and then yours as well. Yeah, it was not good for sure, but it looked like the Swares just moved up too high. He got into the left rear of the five, and he was three wide bottom. So usually, you know, the responsibility is on you to hold your car lower at that point. and he didn't and got into the five and started it.

So it's one of those racing things that happened, especially on a, you know, the restarts on a short track like this. I mean, we were three and four wide many times during these restarts because everyone is the track gets cleaned up and has no rubber on it after a caution. And so everyone's kind of, you know, feeling their car out. The car doesn't have much grip for those first few laps. And so there's opportunity. to really pounce and pass during that time.

And yeah, the 99 just misjudged his right front fender and got the five. So he misjudged it, but with your Larson, you've got this fast car. Do you put yourself in that position and try and create that three wide? Yeah, that's the only, yeah, that's probably the only thing that Kyle's second guessing. And you heard him saying in his interviews, like, you know, probably could have been more patient and not put myself three wide middle there. but he's trying to get back to the front as quick as possible. But certainly you feel like with as fast as his car was and he was that day,

did he have to go get that two cars right in that corner? Probably not. But that's hindsight, right? But that's hindsight. Exactly right. 90% of the time it works, right? And you just go on and you're unscathed and you just gained multiple spots on a restart. but it's hard to second guess that for sure if you see a gap in an opening usually you take it

because you're not you don't think about well this person is likely to misjudge the corner and run into me you know of course you always have to take an account the people that you're around when you do decide to put yourself in a vulnerable spot but yeah it's just one of those things where certainly the five teams banging their head up against the hall or door because they clearly had one of the best, if not the best car and, you know, got a bad finish out of it. Yeah, it's got to be frustrated considering you do, you know, pit earlier, go to the back, drive back to the front. You clearly have the best car in the field and then something so trivial like this takes you out of the race. How bad was your car damaged after that?

Destroyed. It was bad. The wheel was, you know, where it should be at 12 o'clock. You know, it was all the way at 2, 2 o'clock or so. But my team did a good job of, you know, I think we've some tie rods, knocked some camber out of it. It was really bad. So we were just limping it around the rest of the day. Did you feel like you were back in a position to compete at that point? No, because even down the straightaway, my car was like bouncing back. Before the accident, by the way.

Yeah, I felt so. Because I was listening to Teardown and I think it was Bianchi or Gluck said that even though you got your track position back, you were still weren't sure if you were going to be able to race up there in the top town. I thought so. I thought, you know, clearly when we started 12th before the end of stage two and then drove up to sixth, the leaders were all right there in front of me at the end of that stage. I felt as though, okay, we're one more adjustment away from truly contending. And then we came to pit road, made the adjustment, ran one lap and then crash, so never, never know. And you would have had one more caution that you could have

to restart to gain some more because you had the busher caution. Yep. Yeah, they had not a great day for sure. He was back there where I was most of the race and looked like he was fighting his car as well. I didn't see, did he have a flat tire? Yeah, I think he just blew a tire and went to the wall, I believe. Yeah, so they didn't have as strong a day as I thought that six was pretty good, but didn't have, you know, for a car that tire tested, they didn't have, you know, a ton of speed compared to what you thought they'd have. going into it, but, but yeah, it's, one thing that is kind of catching my attention is the forwards are really strong on these short tracks. Like, I thought it was just kind of a older pavement, you know, mechanical grip thing that they're, they'd hit on. But clearly these three-quarter mile tracks and one-mile tracks, they're, they're, they're certainly got some speed. That's a good segue, because Blaney decides to take two tires late in this race. The left side

tires had more than 130 laps on them and then held off the 24 and the nine to obviously win the race. Yeah, looking at the end of the race at the lap times, the nine was really coming quick with probably about 70, 80 to go or so. I looked in his graph was below everyone, so he was, he had a ton of speed. The nine had great speed all weekend and thought that when the five had issues that he was going to be the next in line to be the favorite to win the race. But I don't know how the strategy all came out. And Blaney, obviously, when you get them out front, it doesn't matter how many tires you have.

And especially at a track where lap time falloff was non-existent, you ran pretty much the same time all the way through the run. It's going to be hard to pass, very hard to pass. So the only thing that two tires sometimes can do is make it to where, your balance or your car shifts really wild to one side or another. Usually it makes it quite a bit tighter. But clean air is king still with this next-gen car. So Blaney took the two tires and it seems like kind of held those guys off pretty easily.

Yeah, that's now what, a little math here. Team Penske has won three of the last four races, including North Wilkesboro. Oh, yeah, including North Worksboro. Yeah, they have and so yeah, they've, they clearly have turned the corner again, and it seems like the common theme is it's these shorter than one mile tracks. Well, we're going to Loudoun next week with Team Penske be a threat there as well. You would think so. Absolutely, you probably could take something from this week, something from Richmond and something from Gateway that is going to be, you know, similar when you go to Loudon. So, yeah, this is a good stretch, I think, for them.

And, you know, you still got Joey looking for his first winning of the season. You can kind of see in his interviews, he's getting a little frustrated that he's not up front more than what he is. And so, you know, clearly the 12 has been, you know, kind of the flag bearer for Penske for the greater part of a year now. And the 22 is just, you know, kind of one little step behind on that speed. So still a good showing for the 22 just didn't quite have the speed that probably he was looking for. The 22 is six points out of the playoffs right now, six points below the cut line. If you're a driver on that cut line, are you thinking, man, I got a win now because of how much speed the 22 is showing of late? They're like, man, their finish or their win might be coming sooner than later?

Yes and no. I mean, if you're on the bubble, you probably shouldn't focus too much on the others, but you always got to count for at least one, at least one more driver outside the current playoff window to win a race. And so the cut line will move, you would think, one more spot. So, again, I think that of all the bubble drivers, Lugano's car team driver all have the biggest upside. You know what I mean? Like they're they've underperformed compared to what their standards are um you know from a few years ago. So I think that yeah they they're the, to me they're the most

dangerous bubble team to winning for these other drivers. Chase Elliott takes over the points lead an average finish of nine this year, which is really, really good. The next gen car, um, you know, really created, it took everyone's average finish the first two years and it moved it up three to four points. So when we were finishing the Gen 6 car, I think that we were averaging like a seven or eight, something like that average finish. And then with all the unknowns of next gen, you're going to have weeks where you hit it, weeks that you don't. We had mechanical failures all through the first year of the next year. Remember all the power steering issues and all that stuff. Everyone's average finish went up. Like it just was because it just wasn't as easy to finish

up front every single week. We had, you know, first time with pit stops. We had remember loose wheels falling off, all kinds of things. That number is starting to creep its way back down to where it was in the Gen 6 era because people were starting to figure out how to optimize the car. They're not making as many mistakes on pit road anymore. And the reliability of the car is getting back to what we had with the gen 6. So yeah, he's been very quietly a top five guy most all weeks. I mean, there's not been many weeks where he just doesn't finish well. So he's an average finish a ninth.

That means he's pretty much running fourth to fifth most weeks. Yeah, he's probably got a bad finish here and there. But that means that he's when he finishes, he's finishing up towards the top five. How are you feeling about where you're at? You had the stretch of top fives and leading laps in every race, and then you had the DNF and then the car issues, and you went from first and now to third. Like, where are you at with kind of your season so far?

I mean, yeah, we were on a roll there for a little while. I don't see, it'd be hard for me to kind of pick apart, like, well, what could I have done better? Maybe giving some better feedback overnight, but it's hard to predict when the track changes that much from from friday practice to sunday the race but both instances you know had a blown engine obviously can't do anything about that and then the five car when he wrecked right in front of us we got in it like i don't feel like i could have changed much you know yeah certainly we could have been a little better and then not been in that spot

when the five got crashed but i don't know to be only 38 back with two horrendous finishes in a row um you know we still got time. I'm guessing you also assume that at some point in the season you're going to have a little dip. And so you'd kind of like to get it now before you're kind of ramping up for the playoffs. Yeah. I mean, you always want to run well. But I feel like, you know, with the five's problems yesterday, you know, we got some back. Because, you know, if he would have finished the race like he had run, didn't he win the first two stages?

Yesterday? Yeah. I think Blaney won one. Okay. But he won the first. Yeah, so like he was up front, you know, he got, you know, probably a better part of 15 more stage points than we did yesterday. And then on top of that, he was looking to be running, you know, towards the front. And at the time, I was in the 20s.

But I was making my way back front. Like, it would have very easily been a, you know, minus 55 points, minus 60 after a lot yesterday. But the five, you know, kind of gave us a little gift there, like we gave him a gift at Sonoma. Is momentum real in racing? Like Travis just mentioned, your team had a run of top fives and then, you know, fell off for a bit. And then, you know, Sonoma and now this week. But then also on the flip side of that is Kyle Bush, where they have a bad week and then that compounds into another bad week, into another bad week into another bad week. So is momentum a thing or is it just, it just looks like that from the outside sometimes?

I mean, momentum is a thing. Yes, but it's, you know, the sport is still so week to week because you're going to. to a different type track the next week, right? And there's no guarantee that you're going to have your car handling just right. And so you can go, you can have momentum and you can be on five straight top fives and then go to Tal'Daga and say, well, we're going to get crashed here. So it's, it is a thing, but as I've gotten older, I've tried not to, you know, harp on the bad days quite as much. As long as I know that I did the best that I could on that given day, just because the circumstances didn't work out,

doesn't mean that, you know, I should be down about my finish on that particular day. It is still racing. You're still not always going to live up and finish where your potential was because you are on the track with 35 of the drivers that have their own agendas. And, you know, it's just, it's part of racing. I was just trying to parlay that into Kyle Bush, who's now had three straight weeks where they certainly were running better

than that their finish shows. Yeah, they are on a slide right now for sure. And I don't know where he was running. What, you know, I saw on social media that they thought he was a top five car. I didn't see him most of the day because of where I was running. So I can't really speak to that. But certainly, Kyle Wish is better than his results are showing right now. And the team itself is better than the results that they're showing.

but, you know, they've just some of it, some of the luck that you've, you know, I hate the word luck in racing because you do make your own luck. Most times, if you get caught up in a wreck while running 15th, well, you shouldn't have been running 15th because that's where the wrecks usually start. So luck is an overused word, but certainly they've had some misfortune, some that was on them and others that, you know, it just happened. the bracket challenge i'm not sure anyone picked these this final four we've got joey lagano versus chase elliott and ross chastain versus tyler reddick let's see so it's hard to go against

chase elliott versus legano at new hampshire but it is that track i just talked about the penske cars being very very good at so uh, Ligano the 17th seat. He knocked me out at, uh, at Sonoma. He knocked yourself out.

I know, yeah, but still, they move on. We do not. It'd be close. That'll be a close one. I think that Lugano will be in the mix when we get to New Hampshire.

So possibly an upset coming there. I'm scrolling through, um, the bracket challenge website looking at other people's brackets at the top of the leaderboard. And there's actually quite a few that have, more or less this final four, which is, I mean, surprise,

it's 17 seed to four seed, a 10 seed to six seed. Yeah, because the seeding is, you know, where you're at for the first part of the season, right? And then it's the ebbs and the flows of what happens and during the course of the season. You know, the one seed in a NASCAR bracket

is very different than the one seed in a hoops bracket just because it's very hard for a 16 seed in basketball that team versus the one team, the one seed team. But they don't have, the ball doesn't deflate on the first place team, you know, the number one seat. You know, where my engine blows up, it doesn't work that way. Like there's just too many other random factors, which is why I've harped on, you know, how we crown a champion. Like it should be a larger sample size than what it is.

it's the format that we've got. So I think that generally it's, it, that's why it's going to be impossible for anyone to get a perfect bracket in, in the next year when they, when NASCAR does this. Um, just because of all the unknowns and NASCAR's just so very hard to predict. It's going to be even harder next year with the format. Yeah, because they're only going to use a three race. Yeah. Right. Sample size, right?

So the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. or, you know, what you can go by will be even more unpredictable than what it is right now in this format by points. Yeah. What do you think about the Chastain versus Reddick and the other semifinal?

It's close, right? It's close, yeah. I almost like Chastain more, I think. Yeah. It's, I think on speed, the 45 has the slight edge, but it just feels like Chastain gets, you know,

the best finish that he can. can most weeks and usually overperforms on his finishes compared to where he actually runs. So I think, again, that is going to be a really, really close one. I think it's down to do you think Tyler Reddick will finish inside the top 10 or outside the top 10? Because if you look at Ross's last seven races, he's finished no worse than 12th and no better than fifth. So he's like right in that, you know, you've got a good bracket there to put it.

think if everything goes smoothly on the 45, they, again, they've got, they had up until this weekend, the most top tens of anyone in the series. So, but it's been kind of that,

you know, third to fourth to eighth. Like it just, they're right there in the same proximity of each other. So it will be close. I'd love to see it, you know, come down at the very end and which one's going to win it.

Right. And that same stretch of races, as I just quoted Ross. Reddick has finished best fourth twice, but he's also finished outside the top 20 twice. Right, yeah, so he's got the bigger... A wider margin of... Yeah.

Yeah, it just seems like the one team in Chastain's just a little more predictable. Like, I always feel like they're running, like, kind of on the cusp of the top 10, and then some guys make some mistakes, and then he gets a little bit better finish than what he was, his average running position. but that's I mean that's consistency that's that's what you want before we move on to some off-track news sam mare wins the Xfinity race on Saturday and then when asked in the post-race broadcast

he said that he was kind of pissed off that he his name was not in the running for more of these open cup seats coming next year yeah I guess you can kind of understand that I mean this was his second win of the season um I think he's performed really good on the road courses. I think he'd had like three road course wins or something, which, you know, that is a big part of our schedule nowadays. I think that Sam Mayer just needs a little bit more time to get a little more refined. But, you know, certainly he should be a prospect in the long run to race on Sundays. And I know, you know, he said in this post-race presser that he aspires to race on Sundays. That's what he's here to do. And the good,

good news is he's young enough that he's not even 21 yet yeah so i mean he's got tons of time and i wouldn't rush it because i think you know getting in the right situation matters um you know if you just take the first thing that comes your way you know it can sometimes lead to it being a bad look for you um but he's got plenty of time to still go out there and win more races and and that's going to catch people's eye that just it does you You're not going to be just mediocre and then, you know, find yourself racing on Sundays. Just keep doing what you're doing. Keep winning.

And the talk will pick itself up over time. Right. How do you convince these younger kids to, you know, to not rush it up to the top level of sport? Because if you don't get in, you know, the right ride or you don't find yourself in a good situation on Sunday, it's probably less beneficial for you than, you know, winning five, six times a year on Saturday. I am definitely of the opinion. Winning on Friday or Saturday is better than running 25th on Sunday. That is, to me, to me, it's not close.

I don't think it's close. Just because you race on Sunday doesn't mean it's good for you. Just keep winning on trucks and Xfinity. And then that will all work itself out after that. It will give you that opportunity to be in a better ride on Sunday so you don't run 25th. But how long do you wait for that? Because if you don't, like, you're going to race a three, let's say three more years in Xfinity and wait for that perfect seat to open up or you better off to jump at it. And then he'll be what, 24?

Like still he's, yeah, if he, you know, won, let's just say 15 races in the next three years, and he's 24 years old, to me, that's a top prospect. That's a top prospect to go race on Sundays. But again, the sample size has just been a little bit too small because he is so young. In racing, can you see the future opportunities a little clearer than you could in another sport? Like, for Sam Mayer, can you look one, two, three years down the road

and see, okay, this car may open up in two years, this car may open up in three years? Like, is it a little more predictable? in racing a little bit yeah i mean certainly you know driver's contracts in in the cup series and it spans from one-year deals to you know sometimes five-year deals um if you're on the high end but it's uh yeah you're gonna always have that cycle of of you know open rides or people that get shuffled around and so there's going to be opportunities again if if you go out there and you win a lot races on Saturday, you know, people are going to have no choice but to consider you for a ride

on Sunday. So when you say top tier, let's hypothetically say he sticks around for three more years, Exfinity, you stick around for three more years and then you leave JGR and you're done. Are you saying he'd be JGR quality? Where are we talking when you say top tier? I think all of it is a fit, right? I mean, certainly the teams are always looking for drivers that fit with their, you know, fit their other drivers, you know, are they going to be good spokespersons for the sponsors that the team has? All those things are in consideration when choosing a driver. It isn't always just about talent because, you know, these teams do have to try to survive. And, you know, with the sponsorship model that they have, it makes it a little bit more difficult

to just say, okay, I'm going to pick the best driver and that's, that's it. Now, you can do that but you know do they already have sponsorship relations do they do you have team sponsors that you think would be a good fit with that particular driver representing them all those things you know if you look at for instance the bass pro shops right with johnny morse he came to martin shurek's uh retirement um presser that was a perfect fit right and so that's why it lasted for 21 years because Johnny Morris wants someone that lives the lifestyle that they're representing. And that's what Martin Truex did for so many years. So that's why I think that those relationships are very hard to come by.

But when they fit the driver and the sponsor together, and not only that, you've got a God-given talent like Martin Truex has, that's when you've got a Hall of Fame career like he's got. Well, that's one seat that's going to open up. Martin Tricks Jr. retiring at the end of this season. Yeah. You always wondered, like, when would that moment come with Martin? I think that he always, he's competitive enough. He wants to leave on top. And I think that, you know, from what I gathered from that press conference, like he just wants more time. And the time that it takes to be. be competitive at the cup level. It takes a lot of commitment and a lot of time. And for the last 20 some years, he's had to live by a schedule that somebody else made for him and he now wants to make his own schedule. It sounded like he was open to running some races next year, an Accinity

car or something like that. But I just think that he, because I do think he'll miss it. I mean, Martin Truex definitely has waves of, you know, passion for the sport. Like sometimes it's lower, sometimes it's higher. But I think, you know, he's at an age where he just wants to go do his own thing. And he's always been very independent person. You don't read much off-track news from Martin Truex. That's just the way that he, the way he is and the way he carries himself. But you never questioned, like, his God-given talent because he just was so good.

in someone that, you know, I came out of the Xfinity series with in 2006. We were part of the same rookie class. And, you know, he was the barometer of performance. He just was so good each and every week when he was running with Chance 2. And Dale Jr. back in that year he won the championship, beat Kyle Busch for the championship. So, yeah, I definitely am happy for Martin. And it's certainly one of those drivers that you think that has a chance. to win a championship and then peace out.

Like he's still on top of his game enough to do it. You said that's like your dream scenario, right? It's be competitive in your last year. Right. And so, yeah, I said that I wanted to win my last race, right? That is very hard to do. It doesn't get done hardly ever, so it's a bit ambitious, but I am a very ambitious person.

But I just generally speaking, I just think, that Martin Truex has the opportunity to go out on top. How much of a role will you play now as the most senior driver at Joe Gibbs Racing in who takes over that 19 car? I won't have a huge role in it. I believe that you've got to rely on, you know, I'm not at that shop every single day. So, you know, they try to find what's the best fit for them. Joe Gibbs Racing wants winners.

they certainly probably lean a little bit more on the side of just get me the best driver available and then put them in our equipment and he'll go win, right? And then they figure out the sponsorship stuff second. So I think that, you know, when you look at the opportunities

and the possibilities to go in that 19 car, there's a lot of good Stuart Haas drivers available. There's a lot of, you know, young prospects in Xfinity that are. available and I think they'll get their pick of the litter because it's it is a ride that is very coveted so you don't look at the situation as which which driver of the ones available can come in here and help elevate the team as a whole like add the most to our competition meetings and whatnot yeah you definitely want that right because I'm not going to be around for forever by any means

and so you're going to need some experience in those competition meetings to help guide the team in the right direction and work on the right things. And, you know, when Martin goes away, it's besides me, it's still a pretty young team. Now, Christopher Bell's, you know, got, you know, he's nearly 30 years old, if not 30. He's still only got, it feels like, five or six years of experience. I'm not sure of the exact number. But, you know, he's coming into his own. You know, he's certainly a little bit more vocal now than he's been over the last few years.

years, which is good because, you know, when he speaks, you want to hear what he needs, what he has to say. But yeah, it's, it is always crucial for the more experienced drivers in those comp meetings to send their teams down the correct path. He's still 29. Oh, okay. Young boy. That's that, yeah. Yeah. Younger than me. Right. Um, moving on to what now is the oldest news on this list of topics we have charter talks because last Monday after last week's episode dropped we got a quote from Jim France saying we can only support you the teams as long as we are being supported and this comes after the quote in social media seemed all week has been that the teams received their worst offer yet in terms of the charter agreement yeah yeah it was uh it just seems uh to

to be going backwards time after time that the newest and latest is certainly not not very good so it just seems like we always take one step forward and two steps back and you know I just don't know the reason for it it's it was very interesting because we had one-on-one meetings with NASCAR executives and we felt like those meetings went well and we thought we were heard and then when you get a document that doesn't cover any of the things that we talked about and actually not only don't cover those things but actually starts clawing back more on their side from us, it's certainly not not good feeling for sure. So yeah, it's frustrating. You know, when I quote tweeted that statement from Jim saying that we can only support you as long as you. We can only support you

as long as TV supports us. I quickly said permanent charters don't cost anything and they still do not cost anything. The only thing it costs is control. And that's the thing is that every agreement gets renegotiated

after every TV contract. So if the TV contract went to $10 total in seven years, we still renegotiate negotiate the terms to that. So it's it's not like we were saying and we have never, ever, ever said that we're, we need this amount of money for for the eternity. As long as we're part of this sport, we need this amount of money. It's not. Those all get renegotiated. All we're

saying is that is, is, is, is, is, Rick Hendrick, Roger Penske, Joe Gibbs, have spent decades building this sport. And you cannot deny that they built the sport with their drivers, with their teams, and everything. That they deserve the blue sky, which is they have an asset that they can pass down to their kids and their grandkids,

and especially a family organization like Joe Gibbs Racing. They want to have something they can give their kids. Hey, this business is now yours. This charter is yours. Because in the instance that it all goes crumbling, down like in Stuart Haas's scenario, they were able to sell something to get back some of

that investment that they spent over decades. And they spent hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. They at least got some of that back. What we're saying is that they deserve to have a permanent seat at the table

when it comes to racing in NASCAR we're asking for and 2311 is the same. We went out and we spent money millions of dollars on charters, we should be able to own that. It should be owned because, Jared, if you, you rented for a while, you finally bought your first house, is that correct?

Okay. How much money did you invest on that house that you were renting? Well, I was in a unique situation, but let's pretend, I'll play your game. Okay. A lot of money. Okay. So you're saying on an apartment that you,

rent or a house that you're renting, you spent money investing in it to make it better. Right. Are you sure? Because you don't own the house. Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yes, you just pay monthly rent. You pay monthly rent.

And then, you know, if you want to, you know, you're not going to spend a ton of money making the landscaping really nice and all those things that it takes because you own the house. If you rent, you're not, you're more apprehensive. to invest. If you own the house, you're more likely to invest in it because it is a long-term asset that will be worth something in the long run. So that is what we're asking for is let us own these things. I paid for it. Why do I have to go through these charter negotiations every single seven, five years, whatever it might be? And then I got to fight to keep what I've already paid for. That doesn't make any sense to me. So when I say permit charters don't cost anything,

it doesn't cost them one thing. All he has, all he has to say is, okay, thank you Hendrick Gibbs and Penske and RCR for help building this sport. The charters that you own, you now own them for forever. I cannot take them away from you for any reason. And for 2311, track house, colleague and all of you guys that spent money on buying charters, you now own them for forever as well. You paid for them. They're yours. But instead, we have to fight every single, every so many years to keep what we already bought.

That is crazy. But also on the hypothetical, sorry for ruining your house question. But I think people got it. is that if you are just renting, you know, why invest in a state-of-the-art race shop that brings all these eyeballs to the sport and, you know, Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin's race shop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all this on Instagram. Why do that if you don't have a permanent seat at the NASCAR table? That's a very valid question.

But 2311 has been in a very good position as far as sponsorship has been concerned over the last few years. and we want to be part of the sport for a very long time. I think that we've been very fortunate to be in a position of sponsorship to where it sort of works for us, but that can go away and it can change at any moment. And all it takes is one CMO to say, I don't like this investment that we're doing in NASCAR.

And then we've got to go chase another one that does see the return in it. But I feel like our team has done a very, very good job of, keeping the sponsorship that we've got and returning value to our partners. And so it does work. It works if you, if you're able to go out there and raise a lot of money to go break even. But it's not really about us. It's about everyone else, right? We're trying to make sure that all teams are healthy. And so it's, for us, it's a situation where what we got offered from the money is not necessarily a game changer. So if you're not going to allow us to make money in the short term, at least allow us to build our franchise value and make money in the long run,

which is our charters. Right now we're not getting either one. You know, we don't get a bigger chunk of the, you know, we don't get a big enough chunk of the pie year to year to make us profitable, but yet we don't have a permanent charter either. So you've got to have one or the other. at least give us long-term value or short-term value. We wouldn't care about permanent charters if we made, if NASCAR gave us $20 million a year. Like, this would be a non-topic. But it's got to be one or the other.

It can't not be both. What I don't understand is in that article by Ryan McGee, he said, we need to be supported by the media networks. Well, you just signed a $7.7 billion deal. So how are you not supported? well because right now it's it's kind of a we don't have collective bargaining like other leagues have right because this this entity is owned by a family and the family just says well if you don't like this offer tough you know and so in other leagues they the the participants have a seat at the table

and they have to collective bargain on what is the fair share and ask her they don't have to do that they just say, well, this is the deal and take it or leave it. And that's certainly not fair to the teams by any means, but it's just a little different in that aspect, and I think that they want to keep it that way. And if you give permanent charters, likely what they see is that, oh, well, then, you know, we have to then get a deal cut with you guys in the future. And I don't know that they love that.

They want to keep control. But also if in seven years or whenever the deal runs up and you negotiate against, again, if TV comes to NASCAR and says, well, here's 10 bucks. That's all we got. You're 7.7. We're only giving you $10 now. Isn't this all just a mute point anyway? It is.

Like if you're getting $10 from the TVs, then there's no NASCAR anyway. So what does it matter if the charters were permanent or not to be able to? Well, we have said that we're willing to float with you wherever it goes. You know, if it goes up, we'll stay at the same percentage. And if it goes down, we'll stay at the same percentage. Like, we, we have said that we're willing to float with NASCAR up and down as, as it goes over the years. We're not, you know, we're not asking for a specific number.

It's just let us float with you. When it does well, we don't do well. When it doesn't do well, we don't do well. Like, that's fair. I don't see how it's not fair. Jennifer Reier reported in the AP that some teams were worried that smaller teams could be ready to take NASCAR's offer despite an alliance that all 15 would stick together.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know necessarily how true that. is, but you're always going to have teams that have different agendas and want different things, right? And so I think that it's understandable if some teams are just like we're done fighting and we need to just get this done. Can teams do that? Yes, you could because, yeah, NASCAR can cut a different deal with all different teams. That's one of the provisions that they've got is they can just cut a separate deal with a

separate team. It's, it's, again, it's, it'll make you scratch your head at times. But it could happen for sure. But, you know, again, I think it, uh, the teams are pretty aligned on what their needs are. It's been the same four things that we've asked for, um, for two years now. And, you know, we haven't got any movement on any of them. I feel like that's the most important part of all this is that the teams stick together because if you start having a handful of teams splintering from the group, I mean, it doesn't go well for anybody. Well, I think it's okay if teams want to do their own thing and say that, you know, this is good enough for them.

I think everyone has those rights to do that. And we've seen that happen for many, many decades. But I think the teams are more aligned in the fact that, you know, these are the key issues for us that need to be addressed. We haven't had, we've had gone through it this last 10-year agreement, and we've seen, you know, where we need to improve, and we want movement on those things, and we haven't got any movement,

and we know that, you know, we have to live by this next charter agreement for the next seven years. And, you know, when you look at the number of chartered teams, it was a pretty alarming thing. When you look at the number of chartered teams that were part of the previous agreement versus now, like there's only a handful that were that are still here that were here during that 10 years ago moment. So this is a very key moment in our sport to are we going to lock arms and do this

thing together and grow this thing together or not? And because we all want to make the tide rise and we all want to rise together. And when it when the tide goes down, we're going to lock arms and we're going to we're going to make this thing go back up together. but it's just tough because everyone just has at times different agendas on what they need to survive. I think what I was trying to convey is do teams lose leverage if everyone starts cutting their own deal with NASCAR? I don't really know about that. It would depend on which teams, right? Probably.

Like if Hendrick, JGR, Penske, 23, like, I feel like there's certain teams that if they all lock arms, like you still have some power. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's certain teams that are needle movers within our sport, right? And we've talked about those three or four teams at nauseam. But yeah, it's a matter of what they choose to do because they are, you know, they have the stars in the cars, as I say. So they are the most important when it comes to, you know, making the sport push forward. Some other off-track news, unrelated to NASCAR, is that IndyCar is a move? to Fox with all of their races on Fox, not FS1. Wow.

I mean, I saw that and I was like, oh, I thought it was like a TV window issue is why we were always on FS1 or whatever it was. But, you know, clearly what, you know, the counter to this is that I know the team owners in IndyCar were really pushing Roger Penske on how are we going to grow this thing and how are we going to make it better? And when they were going out and searching for a TV deal, you know, likely they pushed for we need more network races to get our sponsorship back in a good spot.

Now that is worse for Roger Penske, likely, because the number that they get, the league gets, is less. So TV networks are willing to pay you more if they can put you on streaming, so it builds up their platform. they put you on a cable like FS1. They don't want to use up those big TV network races because they just don't get the audience to get, you know, sales for, for commercials and things like that. It's just there's other things they can put on TV to get higher ratings.

So they're willing to pay you way, way less money, but put you on network races. Or they can pay you more money and put you on cable and streaming. So it seems like they probably struck a deal that was less lucrative in media dollars, but likely will be more lucrative for the teams and their efforts to go sell sponsorship. So Fox now has the two biggest races in North America, too, Daytona 500 and N500. Yeah. So, I mean, it's great for them and their teams. It seems like Roger Penske listened to what the teams request. was and that was go out go get the best TV deal and the more network races you can put us on the better

and the contrast to that NASCAR has nine less network races starting next year so but they took a bigger dollar amount because they get to keep you know most of the TV revenue it'll be also easier they can tell their fans Fox that's where you find the race every weekend

it's certainly a benefit to that yeah versus bouncing around no question but I mean a lot of different leagues have you know different TV partners. You know, there's basketball has got a bunch of different ones. I think football does as well.

NHL had their strike a while back, and when they came back, they were on ESPN. They took more money. And I think it kind of hurt the sport trying to regrow their fan base because people couldn't find it instead of taking a little less money be on a network like ESPN

where you're going to get the eyeball. So I think this is a good move by IndyCar. Yeah, I think so too. Certainly for the teams, you would think, and it's just going to, you know, with as hot as, you know, F1 has been over the last few years. Certainly, if you turn on Fox and you see cars that look similar to what, you know,

F1 races are, people are likely to pause and say, well, what is this? And then you get interest in the sport itself. From a sponsorship, can you go to a sponsor and say you're on Fox compared to FIS1? Does that change? How much you can maybe ask from a sponsor? Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah. You know, you got to figure, you know, IndyCar ratings.

have just not been very good over the last years, you're going to accidentally get a half a million people just have Fox on for whatever reason, right? So even if they intended to watch the race or not, you're likely going to get a big bump in ratings just due to it being on a network race. I think what's fascinating about this is that you have your ownership group with 2311

that has NBA experience, and now you have Roger Penske who owns, IndyCar. So he's running his own league separately and seeing the trials and tribulations and how he's working with the race teams, right? And then can take that and apply it to this negotiation with NASCAR. Yeah, it's very interesting for sure. I mean, he's got his toe dipped in more things than I do. Roger Penske does. But I think he did did the teams a solid here by doing probably a less lucrative deal for himself and made it to where it's, it's more beneficial for the teams to be on these networks and then have less of a chunk of the pie. Dear Danny, we've got some questions that we want to ask.

Dare, Danny. We need answers and we need them 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 only hope. This ain't the raged track, so maybe you won't choke. I have one Dear Denny here. And a reminder to anyone listening,

you can submit your questions using hashtag Dear Denny on X. The question is, how much of the variance in speed we saw at Iowa was a product of racing at a new track that teams don't have notebooks on yet? As the Cup series continues to return, do you expect the speeds to get closer in passing to become more difficult like other short tracks?

Yeah, it's tough to say. you know, it's hard to predict the future and what happens, but Iowa just seems like even when the racetrack was old and beat up, they still raced all the way around it. Like it just, you know, the drivers, the Xfinity drivers that had a race there for a long time said, man, it's just one of the best racetracks we go to. So I'm optimistic that it will continue to be a great race there. And if they finish the paving, again, I thought that, think that it's going to entice you to go even higher in the corners. So I'm pretty optimistic

if we keep going back to Iowa, then you're going to continue to see these types of races. I got one review here from Rino EZ. They say, I hate Denny. That's what I used to say for the last 20 years. I thought he was arrogant and cocky without talent. After listening to every episode of the podcast, I have a newfound respect for him as a person and a driver.

I think I speak for a lot of NASCAR fans when I say he has gained a lot of new fans. over the last year because of this podcast. Don't tell anyone, but I actually root for him each week if my driver doesn't have a chance. P.S. Go Larson. So he doesn't really root for you because of his other driver's Larson. Right. Always has a chance.

He's like Jared. Yeah, I met a fan right before driver intros. It says, hey, I promised my friend when I saw you, I'd give you the double 11s. But I won't do it, but I'll just say that I did. And I says, okay, we'll appreciate that. Yeah, it's all good. You know, root for whoever you want to. But, you know, we enjoy giving you this podcast each and every week.

And breaking the race down, it's something that certainly love talking about what we see on Sundays. And this is a week that we all definitely should celebrate in a great race at Iowa. The fans turned out we had back-to-back sold out races between Xfinity and Cup. It was so crazy that I was on a dirt road for five miles And then all of a sudden bam, I'm at a racetrack So it truly is in the middle of nowhere. I felt like I was on the scene of Twister Because there was nothing but barns, dirt roads, and open field.

So great, thanks for all the fans that came out to Iowa this weekend. And we look forward to hopefully seeing you in 2025. So before we close can we get a pup date on Lulu? She's being good. You know, she's, she sleeps a lot. We do have a DNA test pending to try to figure out exactly what she is. So we know what we're getting ourselves into, like, you know, how big or small the dog's going to be. What's, you know, characteristics?

But I don't know. I think that everyone's getting pretty attached at this. Yeah, I was going to say, is it safe to say you've lost this battle? It's probably safe to say. Yeah, we kind of expected that. All right, well, we'll see you guys after Loudoun, New Hampshire, next week. So thanks for tuning in.