Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Just Repave The Thing

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Denny Hamlin and Jared discuss NASCAR's return to North Wilkesboro. Was Michael McDowell guilty of race manipulation? The difference between slick tires and wet tires. Why the first place driver has a massive advantage over second place. Was Ross Chastain less aggressive this weekend? What's the future hold for North Wilkesboro Speedway. And, Conor Daly has a #DearDenny question. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Don't even get that. No, no. Let's not get that started. No, it's already been started. That was the end of course. I know. What I'm saying is that this, we need to cut the legs off of this story right away. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media.

What's up, guys? Welcome to Actions Detrimental All-Star episode with my All-Star co-host, Jared Allen. I'm Denny Hamlin, Charver, the 11. car for uh jeez jeez joe gibbs racing let's not get that started um and uh yeah wow what a what a weekend at north worksboro it was uh it was a fun week for sure i was a big fan for most of the week watching all the late model races uh the truck race all that and then uh we had some practice and and heat races and and All-Star Race on Sunday. So I hadn't seen that place other than driving by it many weeks on my way to Diamond Creek and Banner Elk, a golf club I'm a part of that's awesome.

And you always used to see just the old Winston signs. And I never knew what was actually in there other than pictures I'd seen on social media. But a great place to, great place, great short track feel. Did you see, I can't remember who posted it, but pictures of the, I guess, what, what is now the media center, which was the, I don't know where the driver's lounge. No, or maybe what's now the driver's lounge, but a couple years ago it was an abandoned. Yeah, I saw it. Yeah, and it had like gurneys in there and stuff.

Yeah. What am I trying to think of the, after you crash, you go to the infield care center, the old infill care center. Oh, gosh. Oh, no, I didn't see those pictures. I saw what was the driver's lounge and, you know, the driver's lounge and, you know, the infill care center. like how it disgusting it was oh no it was like this is a abandoned infield care center and there's stretchers and it looks straight out of a horror movie you would love that yeah i wouldn't be cool to see i should go back to that jared visits uh historic places everywhere we go on the road

he's uh checking out you know where do you find i mean how do you do you just research towns like whenever i don't know we go to a town that i deem not that excited like you i look and you're you're at some historical place in that town what how do it's like off the beaten path insert city here or something oh is there like a website for no granola's like you no just just google be good at googling i guess nice okay you got there's always something something interesting no matter what place you go to that's that's my take so when did you go to the track this week i was there on on friday saturday okay so you were there same days you weren't there earlier in the week No, no.

You didn't go for any of Larson's other races? No, he didn't race. He didn't. Oh, okay. He raced a sprint car on Tuesday. I was there for that. Oh, okay. I know you're the number one fan.

No, listen, this is a, this is fun because we're talking about going back to a racetrack we haven't been to in 25, 26, 30 years, whatever it is. And it was cool. So the atmosphere was second to none. Actually, I know the company that did the rebuild Chote Construction shout to John Dutus and that team. They're actually the ones building our building right now for 2311. So they did a fantastic job. Shout out to Dale Jr. And his whole, you know, his group that, you know, from eye racing that kind of started this.

You know, you had a handful of volunteers going out there and clearing the track and trying to scan the track. and trying to scan the track for ir racing. Just a fantastic vision that those guys had to bring this track back. And it's always been the track that had the most momentum to bring it back, bring it back. You know, Rockingham has got it too, but I don't know that it's to the extent that that Wilkesboro was. So, yeah, I think I was flying with Marcus and he said that that track was the first sporting, what am I thinking here? Man, it's a tough day.

Tough day. For a sporting event? No, a facility that got brought, you know, that was abandoned and then brought back. Oh, that's interesting. Out of all sports. Yeah, because usually when you leave somewhere, it gets demolished and you're done. I guess a racetrack is also a bit easier than like a building or something. That's true.

I tell you, it was, you know, there's certainly some mixed feelings about the racing. product that we saw for sure. Let's try to focus on a few other things first. I'd say that, you know, the truck race I thought was, you know, fairly exciting, I guess you could say. There was quite a few cautions there. Again, it's very hard to think when you see a truck race or a late model race, whatever it is, that the cup race should be the same.

Because the talent in the cup field is just so good that they don't make the mistakes. that the lower series do. So you don't have as much crazy action. Now, on some racetracks where we're going for it and whatnot, like you could argue that it goes the other way. But yeah, it's just, it's a racetrack that really forces you to be smooth and methodical. And with that, you're more racing the track than you are the other cars. And so when you get into those situations,

where you're the racing the track more than the cars, you're going to not have as much attrition, not going to have as many wrecks just because. Now, when you look at the All-Star Open, again, you had a transfer spot, so people knew it was do-or-die situation, so they're pushing as hard as they could. You look at the Ty Gibbs and the McDowell situation.

McDowell made some great moves on the outside on those restarts, and did a phenomenal job. He gained a row or two just about every time, but he saw an opportunity to, he had to get in that hole. Like, he knew that that was his race to get in line and then give himself a chance

to then get to the top two. He gets in there. Ty didn't want him to get in there, but, like, he had already cleared himself. You know, McDowell did, and Ty just kind of kept bumping him into the corner. and at that point, you know, he gets him up the track. Haley's up on the outside, and so Ty jams it in there,

but then McDowell's got nowhere to go, so I think he was a little upset with Ty so he hung a left. He got loose and then took out Haley with him. So it was, that was just normal, open racing, I believe. Like, I don't know that I really placed a ton of fault at anyone. You know, I think even McDowell kind of took it, you know, fairly well at the end of the race in his interview talking about you know in the end hey this is this is short track racing we're all fighting to try to get to into the into the all-star race

now i mean he he did say some other things but i just i wonder like do we can we bring up again that like on the radio he says fix my car so i can go out there and fix this like they they did not do a very good job. Race manipulation. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Like, NASCAR, let's try to be consistent here. But, yeah, it's, he definitely, I mean, when you talk about race manipulation, he did. He caused it.

It was a different winner of the race because of him blocking tie there when he was multiple laps down. So I don't know. I guess I don't like that at all. But it is what it is. It didn't ultimately affect two best cars. Eric Amarola was close, but I think he was like car 2.5 of the All-Star Open that, you know, didn't make it. So I thought the two best cars made it, so at least that was fine. Yeah, McDowell played it awful afterwards.

He said, no, no, I just wanted to let him know that I was unhappy with him. Yeah. Like, uh, you know. Yeah. You know, I think that that racetrack really changed. changed quite a bit when they did the patchwork. You know, I talked to Tyler Redick a little bit and you kind of looked through his notes from testing. And before they had all those patches, the tire falloff was quite a bit more than what we had during the race.

Because that strip around the very bottom of the racetrack was so grippy that you had to be in it. And when we look at like where does this racetrack go in the future, I'm probably an advocate of it needs to be repaved, but I think we can do, I think we could do a really good paving job to that place. And I only say that because, and I'm the last person because of, you know, how I drive and how I like to conserve tires. I'm the last person who likes new pavement. But I think you can, I mentioned it on Twitter, I think you can do some things with the pavement to really make it aggregate. really put a lot of rocks in the surface to make it wear out tires and still have a good new surface. I mean, we don't want to get into a place where it rains and the next thing you know we've got,

I mean, they couldn't even have jet dryers out there. If you notice during the heat races, like, we got the crappy end of the stick because we were the first race. And so we had to race on rain tires, the whole first race. The surface is too beat up for. Yeah, you can't run a jet dryer on it because it'll blow the racetrack up. So. I actually did not notice that. Well, I didn't know that that was the reason until I had, like, I'm texting Nilton Sawyer right before the race. I'm like, hey, can we just wait 30 minutes for this track to be dry?

And that way both races have equal amount of practice. And, you know, at the time, he told me that we're not going to plan, we're not planning to go green if it's, if it's wet. I'm like, okay, well, that's good. You're just going to use this to dry the track. well it took about five pace laps and we were green flag i'm like he lied to me damn it um so i i think that that was a bad shake for the guys in the first heat in case you were wondering first three cars were both were all three cars that got a uh real practice session the night before um

they were all in the second heat uh they all got to race um the dry tires in their race so i know Certainly from my car's perspective, my car changed a ton from practice to the race because of the conditions. We practiced during the day. We raced at night. I would have loved to have had a practice session in our heat race, but we just got bad luck, I guess. So what can teams learn from that? Because they did run the first half the race on the slicks and then they put on the wet type. I think they went the other way, right?

They started on wets and then went to slicks for the slicks for the slicks. the second. Maybe I'm wrong. You might. But either way, if the whole race is not run on slicks with a pit cycle in the middle, what are you learning from either side of that? Well, what you're learning is, you know, if it's rain tires, you're not learning much. I mean, we didn't put a whole lot of... Because you didn't run them anyway in this.

Yeah, we didn't put a whole lot of bank into how do we need to adjust our car for wet weather tires on a dry surface? because our surface was dry pretty much the whole race. The racing group was. And we ran, had to run wet tires all 60 laps. So that was a bummer for sure. And then, you know, the second race with them, you know, they got to actually say, okay, well, what do we learn from the 30 laps or so that we ran on slick tires?

So, oh, you know what? I know for a fact. It was, yeah, it was the very first run. You're right. Slicks to wet. Slicks and then wets because wet weather was coming, but it never really actually came. So it was a very in-between moment. Now, again, it got us, it started our races on time, and there's value to that for NASCAR and the TV partner.

So we can't overlook that for sure. But it was definitely an unfair advantage for the guys that got to race actually in the slick tires. So going back a little bit talking about these. tires. Goodyear actually gave you a shout out and said that you were correct and that they could make a softer compound for future races that would wear out more, something like they're doing for New Hampshire. Yeah. So this goes back to probably three or four episodes ago where I talked about the drivers and NASCAR and Goodyear all coming together and talking about how can we make this better. I am now more certain than ever.

that Goodyear can fix our competition problem. Without a doubt, I believe that the tires are the biggest factor in our competition. NASCAR and the team spends so much money. NASCAR spends money on research and development. We've got another arrow package that we're going to explore in the future. All that costs so much money. I mean, millions of dollars to develop all this, and then you've got to have new parts.

And us as race teams have to say, okay, well, it's going to be better. So we're going to have to just take the brunt of the cost for this. And what we saw was that the rain tires, while they were different in the sense of, you thought that they were going to fall off more because they get hot, especially on a dry surface. They fell off less, but there was more lap time variability. So what I saw is we have a chart on our timing scoring that shows passing positions exchanged, right? And it amounts to what it looks like an X on a screen whenever there's a position change. If you look at the first, let's go to race two of the heat races.

They were on dry tires. There was a three or four positions changed in the first three spots right after the restart. I'm talking about like lap one, lap two. Then zero position changes all the way until that caution came about lap 25. None. Like there was 10 straight lines of people that just wherever they were, they stayed. And you looked and it had about us 1.3 seconds of fall off. The problem is everyone fell off to the same speed.

We're all going the same speed, right? We all have the same cars. Everything is very, a lot of parody. so everyone's just going to run the same speed. What I noticed with the rain tires, A, the time's picked up dramatically. And you're thinking, and I'm thinking, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. Why is a tire that has less contact patch faster than a tire with more contact patch?

And the reason is because it's way, way softer. That the rain tires are dramatically softer than the slick tires, Because when they're wet, you can run a much softer compound. That's what gives you the grip in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, really, really, really softy. So it sticks. So it sticks. Um, and actually, if you look that lap times the fastest we ran all weekend, everyone was when they had, uh, rain tires on. So that says, well, wow, the tires are a lot grippier with, with, with rain tires. then I started paying attention to the race itself

and I'm looking and guys are able to run right on each other's bumper on the rain tires and then this brings me back to a conversation of why we're getting so arrow-tight or arrow-loose behind other cars. I mean, I noticed it in the main event where if I ran, I drove the second right away and then I sat behind the 99 for a few laps and my stuff just burned, slam up. Like it was, I came to him. and then all of a sudden my car just picked up out of the racetrack

and it felt like my tires were 80 laps older. Goodyear said to us during a meeting in Charlotte, I think this was last year or the year before, we were talking about why is it that when we get behind other cars, our tires just chatter. They don't even slide anymore. They just chatter and it feels like we lose all grip. And it's because there's a saturation number

in the tires. So they said that that saturation number has gone up. So the saturation is basically, now this is super uneducated, but it's like you have to load the car. The car has to have a certain amount of saturation load in the tire to the track for it to get the grip that it's built to have. Now when you have air taken off of your car, there's not as much pushing down onto the tire, so it's not saturating it as much, and therefore it just skims across the top of the surface. So that is the advantage that the first car has, is he has all the air on the car.

It's pushing the car down into the racetrack and saturating the tire to give it actually more grip. When we get behind, air comes off the car. No longer do you lose downforce just generally in the car, but the tire loses a ton of grip because you're not saturating it. So I think that there must be a much lower, there has to be, a much lower saturation number

in the rain tire than the slick tire. But now this is a mold of how can we make our slick tires better? Because I think that is this as much about fall off? Is it just about making, so it's not such a detriment for the second place guy or then the 10th place guy, when they get the air taken off of the car, you have to still be able to saturate the tire.

And the problem is we can't because we don't have the downforce of the air pushing down. So I think that we know what we can do. Good Year was definitely open and honest with us about we were very conservative in the first year of next gen when building our tires. We tried to build the same tire for all short tracks. Let's be honest, all short tracks are not built the same.

You know, we were racing the Phoenix tire at North Worksboro. In case you didn't know, Phoenix is not one of our best races either. I think we have to really work on our tires a lot. And I think Goodyear's well aware of it. They even said, you know, publicly that we are aware that we need to go softer. I just hope that the saturation numbers that they have, that I know that they have the data on it, they start bringing that number down.

So it doesn't hurt the guy that has less down force. He still has the same amount of mechanical grip in his car as the leader. That will make our racing better because I noticed with the rain tires, Brad Kosalski was literally pushing someone around the racetrack all the way around the racetrack for laps. So I'm like, wow, look how close he is to that car. Like normally our car would just slide up the racetrack if we were on the slick tires. But yeah, it's the tires, tires, tires can fix most of our competition issues

and not aeropackages. So I have a question slash reaction to all that. And hopefully this comes out and is understandable. In the truck race or in any truck race, for that matter. It works in any race. It's usually pretty good, right? because you have such a difference in the skill level of drivers. You mentioned it.

And equipment. And equipment. Okay. Well, you can't fix that in the cup series. So take equipment out of it. Okay. Say it's just driver skill. So in the truck race, you had Larson.

He's at one end of the spectrum. And then whoever else is at the other end of the spectrum. If you had the perfect tire in the cup series, could the tire and the tire where and the tire fall off and how the driver manages all that, create that wide of a spectrum in driver's skill that we have in the truck series. Yes. Without a doubt. If I, from the guy who's best, let's just say, let's just pretend it to you.

The guy who's best at managing their tires versus the guy who's worst at managing their tires. Could that scale be as wide as the skill gap is in the truck series from guy, from first place to last place? Yes. Because the proof is in the results. Now, listen, not everyone had a chance to tune their car. Let's be 100% add that disclaimer. Not everyone had a chance to tune their race cars for wet weather tires. So ultimately, you were going to have variability in lap times from the worst car to the best car.

But what I saw, if you look at the lap times from the heat race to second run, everyone, while they gained a lot of speed, everyone did, they were all running pretty close to same lap time same as they did on the slick tires but then right at lap 25 on the rain tires the field started splitting i looked in the lines so we have graphs that have lines and they show it on tv quite a bit of you know the lower the line the lower the faster your lap time is the higher your line the the the slower your lifetime is and i looked in all 10 cars it was spread out like spider's legs like it was they went from all running the same time to all the of a sudden everyone was running dramatically different times and it was because the tires were

starting to wear out we were starting to get to the treads were wearing off and then it was getting to the bald part of the tire and the bald part of the tire is really really hard so then you lose a ton of grip so right before the end of the race we were about to have a ton of position changes Clint Boyer actually even talked about this in the All-Star Open. He was like, dang it. Or him and McMurray, which McMurray, a plus job in the booth. Gosh, Fox, give Jamie McMurray a chance, please. He is so good with analyzing things that are going on.

And I thought the combination of him and Boyer together were great. I think that he even mentioned, Boyer mentioned that, man, we're getting unfortunately all these positions are about to change and we're about to throw a competition caution again you the risk is if you don't then you could have a scenario like you did in the all star race where the last hundred laps go all hundred green and you've got the whole field spread out and it could be a snoozer but it just shows that once the tire start wearing out that's when you get a ton of variability in lap times from the good guys to the bad guys. guys. Now what this means for me as a driver, right? And I believe we need to have tires that do wear out. Goodyear even says, we don't blow tires because we run them down to the air. Eventually what happens is we get them down, we wear all the rubber off of it, then it gets to the hard part, and then all of a sudden it starts unwinding. And as a driver, they start courting. And then the driver starts hearing that noise, and then they pit. A vibration?

Yes. So they get a vibration or it makes a voice. All these words that they say on TV for people who aren't following. But what happens then is now I have the option as a driver to make a decision. It's a restart. The tires wear out after lap. Let's just say 50 laps they wear out or 60 laps. That's if you're running all out.

All out. They're going to wear out in 50 laps. There's a hundred lap segment. or I could slow my pace down and make them last all 100 laps. I have a decision to make as a driver. Do I push right here and try to pass everyone I can, get all the track position I can, and then cross my fingers, I hope a caution comes out because that's going to save me. We're all going to pit and now I've got track position.

Or do I be patient and say, man, I think maybe this race is going to go green? So I'm going to just hang out here and make my tires last the entire distance. of the stage, that creates so much passing and so many comers and goers because we know there's a price to pay for being aggressive. But some people are going to be aggressive and want to gain all that track position because they believe a caution will come out and they're going to get saved by that caution. So I think right now all you're having is everyone's driving all out all the time because you can't pass and you know the advantage is so much to the leader because he's the only one that can get his tires saturated and have the proper grit well question so yesterday the

11 car started ninth drove to second and then went all the way back that was a sign to me I said it in the car when I was leaving the track I'm like boy I thought after five to 10 laps I'm like oh boy this is going to be a cakewalk we're so much faster than the field so so so that's not you pushing your tires to the limit no to grab all the position and then all of a sudden not having any because there wasn't a car nope okay it was not it just my car evidently was really it wasn't we didn't set it up to be fast on the short run I just think it was you know I started on the inside line I got to like fourth or fifth by the first lap because the outside line was so non-existent I just think that it was a case where

usually when you have a car that's that fast in the short run, either your air pressure's too high or your springs are too stiff or your shock set. There's something that is wearing out your tires more than the competition and it's pushing down on them more. So that your tires did wear out. That's

why you did go to the air. Yeah, or they got hot. You know, you know, Goodyear's tires, a lot of the times when you see the drop off, it's not because they wear out. It's because they get too hot. So when you spin them, you get them hot. but they did have some wear to them. These tires did have wear to them over a course of a super long run.

I knew that once I was stuck behind the 99, after the initial five laps and I got the second right away, I thought that, oh boy, I got stuck behind the 99. Next thing you know, I make a push to pass them, I couldn't quite get there. I backed off a little bit, made another push to go past them, couldn't get it done. Next thing you know, I just started going back.

backwards. That's what we saw, right, is the leader has the ability to set the pace because he has so much more grip than the second place guy. Or, you know, if you sat right behind somebody during the race, you just paid a huge price. Like, I noticed every run that I got stuck behind someone early. If I ran five, 10 laps behind them, my stuff would get so hot, I would then start going backwards. So it was an interesting race in how it all played out. I certainly thought that we were going to have a better race. I thought the long run was actually our strong suit. But when I look at practice and how it went down and a lot of times you put so much bank into, well, look at our last times and how good they were, we had, you know, we got stuck behind a few

cars in practice, but we didn't have in the long run a lot of dirty air. We got free of those cars later, and maybe we just didn't get the proper read on our car. Had we run slick tires, the heat race, maybe we had a better an indication that we were further off than what we thought. But yeah,

I thought that certainly you look at the finishing position, there's a couple of correlations. It was the cars that pitted for tires. I don't know how many there were, probably four or five. Four or five, right? Yep. Eric Jones, Bubba Wallace, Tyler Redick, Josh Barry, and the race winner, Kyle Larson.

So the top three were the ones that pitted for tires. They drove to the front because they had new tires on lap 16, and they never looked back. It just, it was that difficult to pass because of the tires, and it was difficult to pass because that track, you know, unfortunately is a one lane track, one lane at all. I heard Chase Briscoe talk about it and the second lane was so non-existent. You couldn't even try to battle someone on the outside. That's why I think it needs to get repaved

because it's just anytime you have a single, our cars don't race as well on single file tracks. That's just a fact. They don't, and especially if it's a short track. So I encourage the staff, Marcus Smith, to repave it, but get the driver's feedback on the repaving. I think that they can do some things with the asphalt.

He even said that if we do repave it, it's going to instantly have character. Listen, don't make it character like Atlanta where all you did is just dig up pavement and then lay down, you know, repave it with the same old bumps. The bumps isn't what fixes it. You've got to fix the actual asphalt, maybe have an opportunity to do some variable banking with it.

I understand there's a little cost associated. with it, but if you have really good racing, I mean, it pays for itself. People come back. The storylines afterwards, it's all just positive stuff. So SMI, please reach out to the drivers on this one and let us help with, you know, coming up with a surface and a track type and a trap banking that will help you have the best racing possible after race. repave. I don't think, in my opinion, I don't think the option of not repaving and doing nothing is the right one because it's just going to make us race the racetrack too much. And again, we can't even remotely battle side by side with anyone. You have to just, if they get

position on you, you got to let them go and you've got to try to find a hole. So you're not going to have any wrecks when no one races side by side. So Kyle dominates the, or wins the truck race on Saturday. And then despite starting at the rear after having a penalty on pit road after he put it for those fresh tires, he was the only driver that was able to drive through the field as quickly as he did. Right. Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace ended up finishing behind him. But Kyle was to the lead. Yep. 20 laps before Bubba got to second. Well, there was no question, right, that Kyle had the best car or he was the best driver, one of the two. Chase Elliott said that. They're like, you know, how does that happen? He said, well, it's either the driver of the

car one of the two right so i think that kyle uh is a very actually underrated talent on worn out racetracks i think for a while there he he definitely was one of those guys that would wear his stuff out quick and then he would drop an anchor when it comes to um long runs but man he he he just flat wore the field out um i love his tweet uh with bloomquist uh saying you know if they didn't put me to the back we were to lap the field uh that's just awesome you know i hated it from my standpoint because you know he i was one of the guys taking that beating by him uh all race long but you know this is this is sometimes you have a blowout and we had a blow out this week and so um we just got to suck it up we got to talk about the positives and that was that that crowd was amazing even on i mean

the crowd that came out just for to watch us do 10 second pit stops for qualifying was amazing. And so, um, hats off to the team. I will, uh, one thing I will say,

though, is that, uh, my friends were a little disappointed. There was no beer in the infield. So they said that, uh, they just kept walking circles.

Oh, and you get trapped in the infield. They got trapped. Yeah. Let's try, you know, when we do the repave, let's,

let's dig a tunnel. Um, or a bridge? Or a bridge. Or a bridge or a tunnel. I don't know. But certainly we're going, It'll be a cost decision on that one for sure.

But yeah, it was cool. I mean, I felt like I was at a local short track. So hats off to the fans. Saw an awesome brawl in the front stretch, evidently. Yeah, I saw that online. Not to encourage fighting, but, hey, sometimes it happens. What else? I mean, 2013-11 had a great race, finished second and third.

Yes. They were strong. Yep, they did. They beat up on. was best of the rest, he said. Yeah. I don't know. I love his whole Louver's comment

after the race, but yeah, that story here and over there. But I think that, yeah, we, JGR, I guess a letdown for us, all of our cars kind of finished ninth to 13th.

Definitely not what we anticipated after practice. Again, that just tells me that it's not just us that missed, missed the boat when it came to adjustments for those conditions, which all just missed it. Yeah, I thought it was interesting to see in the truck race, Ross Chastain just pull over for Larson when he got to him. And then in the heat race, he just dropped to the rear. So I think he really

took that be less aggressive to heart. Or it's some type of him trying to say, hey, this is what happens when I'm not aggressive. Yes and no. Yes and no, because, I mean, again, what, if you had a train of cars behind you and you got someone beating off your back bumper and you're worried about them passing you, you knew you were going to get passed by that entire train of cars. So it was, again, that's why,

we got to have a repaid because we need to have a second lane of some sort to help with that. I think that he did it not necessarily because of Larson, but because he's racing the racetrack. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. So what's next for North Wilkesboro?

Do we have a points race here next year, All-Star race again, a very cold clash in February? You know, I'll give props to our producer Travis on that. He's like, well, why don't we just run the clash here? And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's such a great idea. That way, you know, because the travel to the Coliseum is such, A, it's a financial nightmare for the race team.

Travel to the Coliseum for the first race a year or travel to the Coliseum in general? For the first race of the year. It's such a tough thing for us. Well, the clash in general just doesn't make financial sense for the race teams. That's just a fact. It didn't make sense before, but now that we have to go to the West Coast, it definitely doesn't make sense. And then not only that on the financial side, personnel side, it really hurts our race teams.

For two weeks, it is a tough track. travel back and forth and then you got to go to Daytona. It's just a really a strain on our guys, to be honest with you. So he's like, well, just run the clash at North Worksboro. And I'm like, oh, that's a fantastic idea. And then you forget that it's February 2nd or whatever. And it's like, oh, hey, traffic is going to be 35 degrees. So bundle up if we're going to do that.

But yeah, I don't think you can do it because of weather. It would be too cold. but that being said that spurs the imagination of well there's a lot of really great short tracks in the southeast that in the Georgia Florida area that we could run the clash at and not be such a crazy pull for us now again is it a market like LA probably not but again every year you keep doing it it is going to lose its sluster a little bit, which we did. We saw a definite jump from year one to two. My guess is year two, three, naturally, you're just going to have a little less excitement around it for sure. So I'm in favor of moving things around. One thing I don't want to see, and I heard these rumblings, do not put dirt on that racetrack. Or not, you know, don't dig up that pavement and then say, all right, well, we're going to run dirt for a year.

I thought they already did that. As an in-between. What do you mean? I thought the, I don't know, I guess not because there wouldn't have been pavement there. Yeah. The plan, the initial plan was to do this race

and then tear up the surface, right, and run dirt. No, no, no, don't even get that. No, no. Let's not get that started. No, it's already been started. That was the initial plan. I know. What I'm saying is,

is that this, we need to cut the legs off of this story right away. Don't, no. No. North of Worksboro is a dirt race. No. The answer is no. Simply put, no.

Don't do it. You're making a mistake by doing that. I'm telling you it will lose its short track. I mean, gosh, dang it. Just repave the thing. Let's fix the surface a little bit. Work on the tires. We can make that one of the best short tracks that we have.

Yeah, I think we do that. You already have the hardest part figured out, which is getting people there. Right? You already have the atmosphere. Yeah. So if, and I didn't even think the race was, was that bad. It was one caution somewhere in stage two away from being a great race.

I thought the first stage was perfect because some guys pit and then you saw those cars drive to the front. If you have a caution at some point in that second stage, it's a great race. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I mean, certainly would be more exciting because, hey, it's a restart. What's going to happen? But also if you have a... Is Bubba going to move them? I mean, he'd probably give him the bumper for sure if it's late in stage two.

But also, what if you have a caution 20 laps into stage two? How many guys pit? Then do they get to the front? Is there another caution later in the race? Good point. I mean, we were at the, you know, towards the tail end of the lead lap cars at that point, I would have probably petitioned to Chris probably been in the wrong call. Hey, let's just stay out here and cross our fingers.

And hopefully we're saving these tires for a caution 20 laps from then. Then you can really get a varying strategy. Which brings me to my next point. Corey Lejoy brought up a great suggestion on our little driver's chat. He's like, I think we should have the option to run rain tires. At any point, at our discretion, you get one set. Use them whenever you want. That would have been awesome.

I like that in Formula One is that soft, medium hard. Yeah. And do you want to run fast for a couple laps or do you want to run fast over the long stint? That's the whole point of us saying put softer tires on the car. then the drivers will be the ones that make the decision, do I push or do I save? And when you do that, you have comers and goers. So just screw the drivers,

just give them a bunch of different tires. And here, pick which when you want. I mean, it would have been interesting for sure. I mean, when do you put the soft ones on? I mean, you saw that a little bit at Cota a few years ago, right? When the guys who were out in the lead, Austin Cendrick were running on slick tires in the rain. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it adds something to it for sure, but I, you know, I don't, I mean, good year. I don't know they want to, you know, build more tires than what they have to. So, yeah, I mean, I just think that don't put dirt on it, repave the track, reprofile the track, and let's keep this on our schedule for a long time to come. All right, let's get to Deer Denny. some questions that we want to ask. Dear Danny. We need answers and we need him fast.

We tried to ask Junior, but his answers were lame. And with DBC, it was more of the same. Now we're caught on you because you're our only hope. This ain't the raged track, so maybe you won't choke. Dare, Danny Hamlin. Longtime listener, first time caller. Connor Daly here. first of all, I need to add one of your helmets to this collection.

So that's my first question. Will you trade helmets with an IndyCar driver slash part-time amateur cup series racer? Also, question for the show. When and is it possible would you race in the Indy 500, a very large event coming up next weekend? Hopefully you know about it. We'd love to see you out there, Denny. I think that would be a great thing. Also, just about to watch you here in this race at the North Wilkesboro Motor Racing Circuit,

looks like a great time. So can't wait to hear all about it. Please let me know all the answers to the questions that I just posed. Connor's my favorite. He's just my favorite guy. Okay. Let's unpack that. Helmet, first of all, you're going to have to probably wait in line.

I still owe Marco Andretti a helmet. he sent me his address and I've just I've just let that slip my brain so I've got to send Marco one first and then I'll get Connor one after that I don't mind exchanging with the Indy car guy as he likes to say How many helmets do you have?

In a given season is it one helmet for the entire year? I used to have a lot because every FedEx Opco that there was Express ground Yeah it was a new helmet It was a new paint job. So I had, and in my contract, I get to keep helmets.

I know that's important to drivers. And I keep most all my suits and my helmets, my shoes and gloves, obviously. I got Paul Swan from on Austin Dillon's team, plays my basketball league. He's requested a pair of shoes. I guess I got to give, he's a buddy. Shoes you get more. That's why I'm wondering how many helmets is. No, I don't get more.

I mean, I don't get a lot of them, but I got a, don't give me that don't roll your eyes you've got enough shoes it's difficult for me to get a lot of different like i want a lot of different colorways i like my racing shoes so i don't want to get off on a different path on that because it does take a long time to manufacture a new design now they can do different colorways pretty quick but so i owe i owe paul swan a pair of shoes i owe a helmet to marco a helmet to connor I don't get as many as you think. I go through probably eight to ten pairs of shoes a year.

I'm going to say I get probably three helmets a year that I get to keep and probably, I don't know, eight suits a year, something like that, somewhere in that range. So yeah, so now let's address the what I race in that. that event called Indy 5? Indy 500. Okay, Indy-5-00. I think it's an India.

I probably wouldn't. I appreciate, I'm smart enough to appreciate the skill level of any professional in their profession. It doesn't matter whether you're a golfer or a basketball player or a race car driver. I respect that that is what you grew up doing. I respect that you are an elite talent in that profession because you spent your whole life doing it and you got to this level because you're very, very good. And I would probably go to Indy and look silly.

So again, I think the type of racing that they have at the Indy 500 fits kind of the drafting and strategy type of. racing where you know you're you know what makes indy 500 so exciting versus like the stock cars is that the draft is so big and they're able to hold their throttle down through the corners quite a bit more than us where if they would just slow our cars down at the brickyard a little bit in the corners the draft would be huge and you would see crazy exchanges and passes down the straightway because our cars i mean literally if you just went slightly softer tire actually put a taller blade on the car, cut 50 to 100 horsepower out,

don't go all the way to Super Speedway or whatever it might be, but just cut six to eight miles an hour of corner speed out of our next gen cars at the brickyard. The slingshot passes you would see down the straightaway would be crazy. But we're so grip limited in the corners that we lose so much time in the corners that it takes us the whole straightaway just to get back to the person, and then we lose it all again. So it's like a yo-yo effect. But the Indy 500, I love watching it.

I do. Connor, he kicks ass in that race. It's like he's, and first of all, I just want to go to the Indy 500 to be a guest of his. So I'm requesting that from him because he's the mayor of Indy. We may or may not have hung out at a few bars at Indy. And the guy will have a statue outside of the Capitol one day. he he's awesome great dude but i i just don't have the urge to run the indy 500 like you know like Kyle larsen or cow bush or anything those those guys um i just i respect what they do and

i just uh the speed i'm okay with the speed i just think that it would take a lot of practice for me to get good at it and i don't want to ever compete when i don't think that I can win. Okay. So now it's your turn. What, what questions do you have for, for Connor and the Speed Street guys? Oh, Speed Street guys. This is a big week for them. This is what, you know, this is. It's been a couple weeks. Yeah. I mean, they spend, it seems like a month out at that racetrack preparing for the Indy 500. But I mean, this is their Daytona 500, right? There's no championship. It's the equivalent of the Daytona 500 is you can get, right. I don't know what viewers they get on TV, but I'm guessing it's probably equivalent to

what our Daytona 500 is. It's the same kind of thing where it's just a big race in the middle of your season. It doesn't mean you win a championship, but you've won that event. And you could probably ask a lot of guys, would you rather win an Indy 500 or a championship? They ask, a cup guys the same thing. Would you rather win a Daytona 500 or a championship? It's very, very close. So, all right, so a question I have for Connor is that when he was growing up, did he always want to be an indie guy? Did he ever say that, you know, have any interest in being a stock car guy? Did he race any local short tracks in a full body car?

I know that he's got to run a few road course races and, you know, Daytona 500 he ran this year. But did he ever think about his career path? And was it always Indy Cars? And, you know, is it because of where he grew up or whatever it might be? But, you know, did he ever have a desire to take the path of, I want to be a stock car guy? Big week for the Speed Street guys with the Indianapolis 500 coming up to check out their show. They're great. Connor Daly and Joey Mulanaro.

They're both hilarious, first of all. And then the guests they have on there are super interesting. They had a, who's the American F1 guy now? Sergeant. Yeah, he was on the show a few weeks ago and that was a good listen. Yeah, I mean, they do a great job over at Speed Street. Encourage everyone to give their show a listen. Once you listen once you're, you're going to be listening every single week.

But this is their, this is their week. Excited to hear what their perspective is. They've been on the racetrack now for a couple weeks. What does Connor like his chances? for this week. Yeah, just listening to those two. They're funny,

first of all, a lot funnier than we are. And I just love listening to their perspective of the IndyCar world. They really go over, you know, kind of the recap of the race

is very similar to what I do over here, action is detrimental. So give those guys to listen this week. Yeah, so the Indy 500, that's on Sunday. We also have the Cook 600

on Sunday, 600 miles. You finally check this one off your bucket list last year. I don't know. You're looking forward to the second time? I am.

Certainly feel like our cars have gotten better on the mile and a half. Obviously, the last mile and a half we did win at Kansas. So certainly I'm optimistic by it for sure. You know, we've had a couple weeks where we've been a little off on the setup for sure, Darlington. Again, we had some damage there. We did, to bring that back, we talked about Darlington, why my car was so haywire.

When I did hit the oil or whatever the 15 was leaking early in that race, we did bend quite a bit of parts in the front and the back in stage one. So to give listeners a recap of what happened to our Darlington Day that was so out of character for us, we definitely had a bent-up car. So I'm looking forward to it after a few weeks of just definitely not being white-hot. We just kind of pulled off. This is the last week. So of your white hot prediction.

Oh, I said through Charlotte, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's finish it off and get white hot and win this thing. I would love to. I mean, as a Coke family driver, I've been part of the Coke family now for 15 or 18 years. So the vending machine that they gave me, the vintage vending machine gets used daily by my kids up in the media room. So I'm looking forward to it.

I think our cars will be good. Obviously, the Hendrick guys are going to be tough to beat. It seems like Byron and Larson have been kind of the standard on the mile and a halfs and the speed that they bring week and week out. So they'll be tough to beat. Those are the guys that we're going to key on to try to go out there and beat. Yeah. You've got to avoid the carnage, though, in this one.

It's a long race. It is. It is a long race. It was crazy because last year. you know, we just kind of hung around most of the race. We weren't the best car by any means. I thought we had probably a fifth to eighth place car. Most of the day, that's where we hung out.

And then with all the carnage and all the chaos that ensued late in that race, we just kind of took advantage of it and stole one. So I hope our car is a little bit better so we can continue to keep the momentum going. Yeah. For everyone, thanks for listening. Just beware when you're at the track this weekend. If you're at Charlotte and you're yelling my name over Denny's, he does get a little jealous of that. So keep that in mind.

Oh, there's been a huge shift. This is how we know you guys are listening every week and I love you for it. You're now yelling Jared's name instead of mine. So keep doing it. He gets a little red face. He starts blushing. So he may act like he doesn't like it. But now we're talking about, you know, Jared wins your next autograph session or your next

Q and A. You need to have your own hero cards. Maybe we put that. We have, we have, Tyler carrying not only my hero cards, but maybe, maybe you can get the little pocket ones that Joe carries. Like, oh, like, yeah, back pocket. Yeah, and you can just grab one, sign it and hand it out to anyone that yells your name. That'd be funny. They love you, Jared. Number 520, Purple Vest team. Is that your permanent number? Oh, I don't, yeah, we have, whatever's on the front of the vest. I don't know what it is. 560, maybe. It was 511. How did you not know your number? It's just forgettable.

Okay. Never look at it. All right. Well, we'll give you an update of what his number is so you can spot him. They don't need to know the number. Well, just look for him. He's either right in front of me because he's walking and he's taking pictures of me walking or he's right behind me trying to get a shot.

He is the purple vest guy close to me. Yep. Anyway, follow on all social media platforms at Dirtymo Media at Denny Hamlin at Jared D. Allen. and then like, follow, subscribe, wherever you get your podcast. Let's do it. Check out Dirtymoe Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.