Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Kansas: Monday Morning Quarterbacking The Best Race Ever

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Denny Hamlin and Jared Allen are back from a historic race at Kansas.Denny had an upfront view of the closest finish ever as Kyle Larson beat Chris Buescher by .001 seconds. Sunday's race had the perfect amount of tire falloff to make the race interesting. Is there anything different Buescher could have done to hold off Larson? Timing and scoring is not the same as the official finish line. Does NASCAR need better cameras, and why isn’t the finish line not straight? Denny had an eventful day on pit road. Could Denny have made it on fuel if the race stayed green? Or was Martin Truex Jr. going to pass him? Denny explains why he took the inside lane on the restart. Kansas might be the perfect track for the Next Gen car. Noah Gragson scored an impressive top-10 finish. Plus, is this the final year of throwback paint schemes at Darlington? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Paint the fucking line straight, Travis. But this is the start-finish line. Yeah, but it's going to be, if you painted it. It looks like Molly painted it. The following is a production of Dirtymoe Media. Hey guys, welcome to action detrimental. Ow! That hurt Charlie!

This is not going to be a rose color glasses show. Pleading with NASCAR, who I guarantee you is listening to this. It was warm and then it was cold. But I kind of liked it. The 11. D.H. We're all in. We're going all the way

that's promising. Hey guys, welcome to action. It's detrimental. I am Denny Hamlin. I drop in number 11, Toyota Cammer for Joe Gibbs Racing and my co-host. It's Jared Allen.

Red Vests number 311 following Denny Hamlin around on the weekend. Someone asked, what is my relation to you last weekend? I guess maybe a new listener to the podcast. I follow Denny around. Saturday and Sunday.

That pretty much sums it up. I don't know what else. Pretty much sums it up. We're talking on the plane ride home, but anyone could just press a button on a camera, right? Yeah, yeah, more or less. My agent, Rod, he tried to be the social media guy once, and then Austin Payton, he tried to be.

And just, yeah. And they got to me. That's how I came into the picture. Their photos were quite blurry, so we decided to hire Jared. five, six years ago. Well, Kansas. Wow, what a finish.

I went from having a front seat to a backseat to a backseat to one of the greatest finishes. It's tough for me to call it the greatest. You had a front seat to the greatest finish. Yeah. Yes. Sort of. although I nearly crashed off a turn four by myself. I mean, it was really, really close.

Yeah, yeah, it did. So we definitely got to get an understanding of what's the best race versus finish? Because I think that sometimes when people were talking about Atlanta that, oh, this is the greatest race. No, it had a very good finish. finish was good. This I thought was an overall great race. The entire race was great. It was a fantastic show as far as being able to, you know, the tires were out.

This is another track. Now probably our best two races of the year when he comes to Bristol and Kansas. It's two tracks where we wore out the tires. There was guys that were pitting at the end. of that race because they were wearing the tires out. I mean, surely to God, NASCAR Goody or not thinking about changing the tire when it comes to this because the show is absolutely amazing. Did you see Larson's tire there at the end? Yeah. I saw his and it looked like, you know, kind of watching back and looking at comments this morning, it looks like several others had tire

issues as well at the end of that race, which that just means there's been drop-all. And if you look at the lap times at Kansas Speedway, it drops off well north of a second and a half. So absolutely just perfect racetrack for the next gen. This car is so draggy. It allows for these photo finishes because when you get side by side, you're just, whoever is just a couple inches ahead, it dumps air on the spoiler of the car that's beside them, and it slows them down. And the minute the other car gets a little bit ahead,

he starts, the other car starts dumping air and it just goes back and forth, which is while we've seen some fantastic finishes. So, Kyle, or Kyle, might as well said Kyle. Jared, what was your impressions of it all? Well, it's interesting that you bring up the tire fall off because I don't watch a Kansas race and think, oh, this race is so good because of the time fall off. It's just a, it's part of the elements that go into the stew that makes it. a really, really good and compelling race. I didn't have front side speed, but I had extreme long run speed where, you know, others like the 17, the 5 were very good on the short run. And then, you know, that's why you saw comers and goers, right?

And constantly it was yo-yo and back and forth. So, yeah, this track just sets up perfectly for the car. I mentioned it after the race that the combination of it all, it's, it's, we have lower horsepower so we have to run at the top for momentum. But there is opportunities at this track for you to run lower, cut distance off, slide up in front of somebody, and then you know, you're not going to have a good run off the corner and then they're going to repass you back down the straightaway. So it's just if you were designing a mile and a half nowadays, it would be like, give me whatever Kansas has got. Now you'd have to match the surface with it, but it just was a, you know,

fantastic race from beginning to end. I saw. started 14th, won the first stage. And it's not like I was in the top five after 30 laps. Like it, we came on strong at the very, very end of that run. And I'm watching Larson and Chastain Battle. And, you know, these are probably two of the best, you know, blockers in the, in the whole field. And I knew that they were going to slow each other up so much that they were just going to bring everyone back into the picture that was behind them. And they did. And I was part of that, but it was fantastic and fun to watch. And then I was a part of it myself. So it was a fantastic weekend. The fans obviously got their money's worth, the ones that stuck around. Thank you,

Kansas fans for doing that. That's right. I feel like this race, we completely forgot that this race was rain delayed for four hours. Yeah. And I spoke to it on Fox about how I was a little concerned, you know, from our stand being on the 11, that, ah, this trek's going to be a little fast. than what you know we really wanted and you know when when the track is faster you know what that does is it just equalizes the field a little bit more than what it does if it's really hot and slick outside what happens if the sun is shining it will pull pull the oils up from the surface of that asphalt to to the surface and the track will become slicker and hotter and it would be harder to drive and

then you're gonna have cars that are really good and cars that are really bad But when it's cooler, everyone's gripped up and it becomes more of a speedway type of race. It's not drafting things like that, but it's, it becomes more of a pack type of race. And yeah, it just was, it just was a great race. There's no, no two ways about it. Any stage, all stages had close finishes and just, it had everything you would want. Were you surprised it? this race produced such a close finish. I know we talked about a couple weeks ago. I think it might

have been Texas. You had just said, that's just not what that track does. That track just doesn't allow for that type of finish, right, after the Atlanta one. Re-surprised that Kansas produced this type of finish? No, not surprise, for sure. You know, especially when it comes down to a green-white checkered, anything can happen in that scenario. And certainly, when you have cars come off pit road, they do have tires, so, you know, at least right side tires like the two winners had, it was, it just was like, you know, it's an opportunity for cars to get side by side and then stall each other out and then have a great finish. So it wasn't that outlandish to see the type of finish that we did, but I would say going into turn three on the last lap with Buescher Clear of the lead, you would think,

well, there's no way that he's going to let Kyle get beside him, and he did. Just Kyle drove it in much deeper than what Chris Buescher did. And once he got to the outside, it was, that's just the spot. You can't, you can't give that up. It's just too much. Or you got to just drive in so deep to make sure he doesn't get beside you in the first place until maybe the exit of the corner. But, you know, bravo for them, because they allowed us to watch a great fan.

finish. It's easy to Monday morning quarterback. Crew chief, quarterback? Crew chief this? Yeah, there you go. But watching it back and watching the replay, is there something that that Busher could have done differently to avoid allowing this to happen? Yeah, I mean, I think there always is. And they're going to break it down. Their own team will break it down as much as we're trying to break it down here. But from my standpoint, I think, you know, he ran the bottom of one and two, and that I don't know that I necessarily would have done that if it was me just simply because what is the five strong suit?

It's always going to be running higher than you are and being able to get momentum when he's running higher. So thinking this through, I would think that I would say, okay, I'm going to run the middle in one and two, not the bottom. Because when you run the bottom, the run off the corner is not great. So if you run the middle, the track is cleaned off enough during the caution flag to where the middle has got clean pavement as well. So you can just run up, run in the middle, get a better run on the exit. And then you really prevent the five. You force him to now run the bottom to get position on you. Because if you runs high, there's just too much distance for new tires to really get there.

So I think running the middle one and two is what I would have done had I had a night to sleep on it and think about it. Run the middle. You then force the five car in a place where he hasn't completed a ton of passes all day, which is the bottom. So you force him to the bottom. Now you come off the corner and if you're clear, which you should be given the lead that he had entering turn one, he's going to have a worse run than you going down the backstretch and then into turn three. This all compounded because the 17 decided to go low,

gave the five the lane up. The five's got a big run now off the corner. And you saw it just all the way down the straightway. He's gaining. He's gaining. he's gaining. And then all the five needs to do is driving a little bit deeper because he's already got the momentum from running up higher. Drives in a little deeper, now gets to the outside because Busher didn't commit to kind of the one lane or the other. And it was done after that. So,

I mean, it wasn't done, right? I mean, he still had an opportunity. I think if, if, if, if Busher just barely taps the five and gets them hung up in the wall. So what would happen is the five was so close to the wall that if he touched it at all, he was going to get hung in it. The 17 would have been clear sailing and it would have cleared. But I think that Busher just is not willing to do that. He wanted to race it out fairly and then coming to the line that the five turned left on him and really killed the momentum that the 17 had.

Yeah, watching this replayback, it's wild that they, both did not wreck because Busher comes up wild. Comes up in and Kyle just sticks it there on the outside. So I had my own issues getting off turn two on that last lap because the 19 I was about to clear him and I come down the track he dumps air on the left side.

I start getting tight. I see Chase coming and I check up because I'm like, oh, I don't want to get just killed by the nine here on the outside. So I get passed by both of them and I'm watching what's going on in the front because I'm thinking, well, how do I set myself up here? So I slow down entering turn three to try to get a big run off.

And the whole time I'm just watching those first two leaders. And I'm like, are they going to keep it off each other? Really? Like they're not going to make any contact through three and four. And it was just, yeah, it was epic for sure. Yeah, the closest finish in NASCAR history is so close that timing and scoring had Chris Busher is the winner. The pylon had Chris Busher as the winner. Chris Bushers team celebrating on pit road. I was actually walking down pit road past Chris Bushers pit box and those guys were all

celebrating. Right. So I'm like, okay, I can like now take my time to get to your car or wherever. And then midway down, Kyle's doing a backwards lap across the front stretch. It's like, oh, wait, what happened? So Busher thought he won and then. I mean, talk about a range of emotions. This is why we don't need a pile on or need one. Got it wrong. We don't need it. Get rid of it. It's,

they should fix that for sure. I hate to pick apart anything because, you know, we always want to try to make things better. But, you know, the rear, where they score the cars is in the back of the car.

Okay? But where it actually runs over the, the timing lines, that it's only like three. foot before the start finish line. But the actual transponder is probably, what is that, 12 feet behind the nose of the car. So the timing line needs to be moved back to where it coincides where when your nose crosses whatever line is, because apparently lines are very unofficial. They need to have it to where it crosses, your transponder crosses the mark to time you

when your nose is hitting the start finish line. So right now where it's at is that the transponder clips it, but your nose is probably six feet past the start finish line. So it's very unscientific where they have it right now, for sure. Well, there's only one case scenario where that becomes an issue. And it only happens in one race out of thousands, right? and it's this one. Two of 12.

Atlanta. Well, Atlanta didn't have this problem. It was photo. It was photo finish. But did the... But you didn't have the transplant.

You didn't have the time in scoring saying the other car is what he's saying. Right. Yeah, but I mean, I think you want to see what... I mean, I can tell you, that would, that'd be painful.

Because I know that, okay, for instance, in 2016, when I won Daytona, I didn't know. I think it was Hamill. Hamelin by an inch. But I looked,

you know, as I was, crossed the line, I then looked at the pylon to see what was flashing. Because at Daytona, when it, on the pylon there, whenever there's a new leader, it flashes. And when I went by, it was in the middle of a dark flash. So there was no number. So it flashed, you know, like this. But as I'm going by, I know only got a split second to look up and try to see it before I'm past it. Well, there was no number because it was dark at the time. And so, I think you want to see the winner coincide on the pylon with...

Absolutely. Absolutely, right? So it didn't need to move the line back a little bit. But in that 2016-500, it didn't show Truex as the winner. It did not. No. It showed us because we had the lead regardless of whether that extra six foot was in play or not. Right.

So that's what I'm saying. There's just a very, there's one very, very, very rare. case scenario where that creates that issue where the winner of the race is not the guy on top of the pilot. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is this. Yeah, it was, it's unique, but I mean, we are NASCAR. We can find any crazy thing that can happen will happen.

But we certainly need to look at this weekend as a huge success and certainly something that we would love to replicate on more occasions for sure. heartbreaking for Ford though now that's three photo finishes this year that they're on the short end of the stick ouch i mean i yes i agree with you but it's more about ouch for the 17 team because the emotions can you imagine thinking you won and then you didn't i mean just crushing i mean you saw scott graves the the crew chief for busher just really excited and then wait a minute what did they just call did they just call the five the winner like just the emotions i hate it i just hate it for the team because i'm like oh you know how heartbreaking it is it's like

ouch ouch that that's a tough one to i mean if you just lose like you know if he's leading the last lap and he just lost maybe by car length or a few feet he knows he lost but he actually thought he'd won. Right. And that's the, that's the hard part emotionally. Yeah, I mean,

I feel like you were watching this team go through all the stages of grief. Yes, yes. Because in all of, Jared, have you had therapy in your life?

Are you aware? I have, and you see it. I think we have therapy sponsors here on Action's detrimental. BetterHelp.com? You've got a better help read after this podcast.

Okay. All right. Well, we, yeah. I'd send it to Scott Graves. So Ford is over. for 30 this year in the top three races. Blaney loses by 0.003, C loses 0.002, Bisher, 0.001.

I almost feel like the 0.001 is just a made-up number at this point. Like, how can they say it's 0.0? How can you say it's 0.001 if the electronics say the other way around? Well, Cliff Daniel said on his, whatever you all got on top of the pit box, it was zero-zero. It was flat. Yeah. You know what? It did in my bus as well. I had timing and scoring in my bus right by my couch so I can kind of watch races and watch lap times and pay attention to some things. And it said triple zeros on mine as well. That's what I'm saying. I think it's just made. I think it's just made up. It's not made up. But that's but that's not as scientific as the photos and like how how many photos are taken. So like they can narrow it down to that far. I know. But if you. You. You know. But if. You. You can't tell time by a single photo.

You can't. You see an inch, but you don't know. You can't quantify that. Right. Yeah. You know, in time, that's why I'm saying, if time and scoring showed, you know, triple zeros as a tie, like I think they just add the one on the end just to say it was closer.

Sure. Because they can't say it's. triple zero's because then people would say, we got a tie then. It's a tie. This is as close to a tie as you were going to get, I feel like. It was pretty close to it for sure. I mean, it was so close that this is what I was alluding to with the stages of grief is that in all of Chris Bushers post-race interviews, he's like, well, it looks like it was a 1940s camera. Like he was like, well, if we had like a better camera, I might have won the race, you know, a better picture may have showed that I crossed the finish line first. Roll the tape.

I asked for better cameras at the start, finish line after Atlanta. It is blurry, and I'm not disputing Kyle Orson won the race at all. But I'm telling you there is an optical illusion on this. There's a reflection off of the five's front splitter that makes it look further ahead than it actually is. Look at the photo. Because even those in F1 that were tweeting says, are all the splitters in, I think it's Dr. Dobbs, give him a shout out.

He's an arrow guy, F1. He says, it looks like the five splitter is showed further ahead. And it's like, no, they're the same on all cars. But it's a reflection. If you look at the light on the center of the five splitter, that light is blurred and shoved forward. There's no question about it. All right, y'all are looking it up.

Yeah, yeah. There is. It's definitely an optical illusion. Are you talking about the photo from the side? Like the photo finished with the line? I'm talking about, no, the one from the fence. This photo? No, not that photo.

The other one, the other direction from the flag stand. The one that TV showed. But I know that that's not, that's just a, that's just a, that's just a, camera. Right. That's not the official. Right, right, right, right. I think this one I just showed you is the official. Let me see it. Bring it over here. Let me see it again. Yeah, that's the official. Okay. If you look at that, does it look like the five's front splitter is hanging out like a tongue? Sure, but I think that you can better see that there's a little sliver of daylight between the 17 splitter and that one. Yeah, I do too.

I agree with you. What I'm using actually is the nose of the car, like where you push. What I see here is the Fives nose. The actual tip of the nose is crossing the black line. Again, he's not wrong. It's a little blurry, but it's, it crosses that line and I see a little gap with the 17. Yeah. You know what I mean?

see the same thing that I do. I'm just telling you there is photos out there that are certainly that are that are showing this photo finish and the five's reflection is looks like it's more forward than it actually is. It's fun to I I love that we're talking about this because it's a great finish and you know it's it's something that you know our sport it's good for the sport right it's good for everyone it sucks for chris busher uh it sucked for me you know another race inside 10 laps ago i'm leading um but man this is a it's it's something to debate right i mean we're here just debating whether is the finish real or not it is real um so it's it's it's we should get i agree maybe we should upgrade the camera slightly what i mean

upgrade what like what do you want in like I think it's I think you could have said too close to call what then what I'm confused on I'm saying it should have taken longer to to really I mean because we saw the the line first thing is how did they call that

you're referring to this picture it's overlaid with there you go but that's just a standard TV camera. Yeah, that doesn't count towards the official understood, but what I'm telling you

is since the five is on the banking, there's a reflection on the front of that splitter that is it's blurred forward. It's blurred forward. I get it, but I don't think that

this is the camera angle that NASCAR is using to officiate the race. I agree with you. so I agree I think they got it I think they got it right I'm just saying

what's the harm Jared and us upgrading our camera can you even upgrade it though 100% right you can upgrade it can't like I don't know what the technology I mean it

I have no issues with it it worked for the same technology technology used for the Kentucky Derby I don't know the horse photo is a little better well yeah the horses say it say it Jared louder the horses aren't running as

fast. Agree. I agree with everything you're saying. Listen, we got a bitch about something. We had a perfect race for crying out loud.

Look, I'll upgrade the camera and then because, I mean, this is, we're not done with photo finishes.

And certainly you want it to be, listen, how about this? Let me make this argument. Just for the sake of the photos that they pass around

social media, you would like to be more clear. Yes or No. Yes. Okay. There you go. That's why it's worth the investment.

My complaint, we need that photo faster. I think it took too long to get it out. How long did that take? It felt like an intern. I don't know. Yeah. More than like I think you need to have it like a minute or two. Like it felt like it was longer.

Yeah. You just need a higher resolution image camera. Look, I don't know what it is, but I know that if I hate to, I hate to complain about NASCAR because they just did wonders to get my 560 vests back. But if they send us footage of races, it's in 720, which is like not very high quality. So I don't know. Higher frame rate, something.

Yeah. I don't know. Well, well. In an alternate universe, though, in an alternate universe, can you imagine if Denny Hammond was to win the race with the crooked start finish line? I could not imagine.

No, I could not. I mean, that's what we're talking about today. Some people are talking about the finish line's crooked. Well, can, listen, you never know what's going on at these tracks, but it's, that is one basic thing that we probably should pay a little more attention to. What do you need to pay attention to? Paint the fucking line straight, Travis. But this is the start finish line. Yeah, but there's, it's going to be, if you.

It looks like Molly painted it. Why's Molly taking strays over here? But it's like there's going to be rubber on this. You could paint it before the race and it's probably not going to be even at the end. What? I mean, Travis, the restart line is straight. The paint doesn't move, Travis. You could, but you could put rubber on it and it's not, there could be spots missing.

You honestly thought that the start finish line was the official end? I thought somewhere in the mural of paintings that we have over our start finish lines now that somewhere in that would be an official line, yes. Well, the official line is somewhere in there, but it's not like... But it's invisible. Well, yeah. Because you have to have for the photos, that seemed like with the Kentucky Derby, there is no start, finish line for them. There's an invisible line.

Okay. I love to argue, but this is not going to be worth my time to argue. Because why is it so hard to just paint within the lines? Stay in the lines. I mean, yeah, it would be nice. It's a hard line, just a hard straight line. Because, I mean, it's six inches difference between the apron and what's on the track. It's big.

Someone just, they didn't use a straight edge. They just went out there and rolled it. Can you? And there's got to be, Travis, probably. 20 coats of paint on there. So they would have a tough time. So what they could do is since there's a part of the white paint that's thicker than the other is you just paint a black stripe.

You paint, you know, you straight edge it and then black paint it. So there is a straight line defined. And this goes back to the same technique as paving. You got to erase it all and go back down to the start, right? You can't just paint over the start finish line every time. I don't know if that's what they're doing. I'm just exactly right. Got to keep it.

Got to keep it 100. Wow. I mean, I don't know where else to go with this race other than, you know, it was fantastic. And stage one was a blast. Stage one was a blast. All the wrecks that we had there towards the end. Obviously, we had a tough day on pit road. You know, things kind of find the way to work themselves out.

Yeah, what happened with the first one? we're going to have to ask Brett because we came on the radio and this is precisely why I checked up for Joey Legano at Talladega. We were both pitted in the on the back half, not the back half,

the last two stalls on pit road. I was running last because I was at Talladega because I was saving whatnot and I had some stuff going on. And so Joey's up front leading the race. or towards the front, and the timing was going to work out to where I don't want to box him in or get my guys run over.

So I stopped, let him finish his stop, let him pull out, because I'm last. I have nothing to gain. And this was the same situation with Austin Hill where he was last. He was the last car on the lead lap. He was not going to gain anything. And I'm leading the race, and they boxed me. boxed me in and i'm like i it wasn't very courteous for sure but it's like it seems i i i don't know why i thought it would just be common sense for driver spotter and crew chief to if someone is

racing for the lead don't you know and you are racing for nothing you are last you're the last car let the guy leave before you know if it's going to be close but instead i nearly knocked him off the jack nearly hit one of his guys because and then on top of that he stopped short it was like i i don't really understand what they were doing there um but you know i think chris was you know he was upset about it i came on the radio and said well i probably played a role in it myself or probably should to stop shorter and not, you know, box myself in. But I didn't think he was, they told me on the radio that he was probably going to just let us go. They even before the stop, they said, you know, if it's close, we'll let you all,

we'll let you leave before we come in. Wait, so your team spoke with Austin Hills team or how'd that go? Yeah, Chris Lambert, my spotter, spoke to Brett Griffin. And as far as I understood, he said, if it's close, we'll let you go. So I just said, okay, I can come in quick to my box and be fine. I don't have to stop short because stopping short does cost your team a little bit of time. So I parked in the normal spot and then here he comes. As I'm dropping the jack, he's coming in.

I'm like, what the hell? And then he stopped. And then I had to check up and I lost 10 spot. So I'm going to play devil's advocate that if the 33 is pitting. on the lead lap, he has the potential to gain spots on pit road. Should he stop and allow you to come out because you're leading or should they be trying to move up themselves on pit road? He should stop. It's, if the rolls were reversed, what would you expect? I mean, I don't know. It's like yielding on a highway. It's, yeah, but I'm,

yielding on a highway just because I... You're yielding to the leader of the race. Someone who's racing for the win. And if you're the last car on the lead lap, it's not your day thus far. Sure, but what if you could gain two spots? To go to 35th? I don't know.

I mean, could be a big move for... You're not racing for points. But Jared's saying that you're still racing you're on the lead lap. Is this a sport or is this? But to Danny's point, it's kind of like baseball with unwritten rules that you kind of... Yeah, I get what he's saying.

And that's why I preface it by saying I'm playing devil's advocate. You're clearly playing devil's advocate because this is a mute point. There are many tons of drivers that play this the right way, which is, you know, when you,

when it's close and you've got to leave. So in other words, the same instance happened with, there we go, with Ryan Priest's. The one stop, do you remember, where he, I got out of my pit stall, we're now side by side, or I'm

kind of right there at his door and he needs to get into his stall. He knew that I was up front. So he hit the brakes, got behind me and then turned into his stall because he was one of the last cars in the lead lap. He was yielding to the upfront cars, whoever they are. It's the, it's the same thing I did for Joey and Tal'Dega. Same thing. All right. Let me ask you this. Did the Ryan pre-s situation, and you, I like you and Joey example better. So I'm going to use that one. You and Joey are both run up front consistently, competing with each other for championships every year, right? Austin Hill is a part-timer in the Cup series. Maybe, like, is there a moment of like his psyche the way he's thinking about the race doesn't necessarily,

isn't the same as you and Joey in that situation? I don't think so. I think it's just more common sense that just didn't get executed well. Exactly. Because you, you have your spot like your spotters there and if they were talking about it like they were talking about it they dropped the ball like brett should have if it was discussed with lambert then yeah so brett what an idiot brett's my idiot just because he's just an idiot anyway um so that was the first time yeah that was the first time and then we had a long stop and then the you know we had a long stop in the second stage Yeah, into the second stage.

We drove back up to third. So we drove back up to third. We had another, we had a long stop. And then the priest thing where I was checking up, he was checking up, but he ultimately gave me the spot. And I lost another, no, I think it was seven the first time, 10 the second time, because I wasn't in the top 10 to start stage three. And then when all those cautions came,

it was like I just kept going back and back and back because there was cars that would pit for tires they'd pass me on the restart caution come out and I'm like I got two laps on my tires I can't pit and then I get passed by three more caution come out by you know cars that are in the back that just kept pitting and it was like Chris are we eventually going to be you know are we going to last yet let me let me know so we can pit

and try to turn this thing around and luckily that caution came out right outside the fuel window. And so we made a good call to pit there, was able to get all my track position back by, which is one of the great things I found when you're running 20th is you have so many options when it comes to pitting. I mean, you do. It opens up your playbook of what you can try to do

to flip the field on the leaders. When you're up front, I mean, trust me, I was in a many times been in a back. spot where oh man we can't give up the lead or can't give up you know top three spot but we know people in the back are going to pit and they're probably going to be charging on new tires but trust me when you're back there and you you got plenty of options and so for us it was to even though we were going to be a little short on fuel hold on before you get to that though when you were kept falling back on his restarts you got on the radio and he said you're in a bad spot no matter if you're inside or

outside what was going on with the car my car was tight because i was in worse air than what i was in all day so my car certainly was very good in clean air. I mean, it passed cars all day long, but what happens is we're all get clumped up on a restart, and the air is so disturbed by other cars that it takes the air off the front of mine, and I just, I was getting really, really tight when I was back there.

So I just was fighting that pretty bad, along with trying to fend off guys that had just pitted during the previous cautions. What is the fuel window here? How many laps were you trying to save ultimately? I think we were like to start to run like three short or something like that. But, you know, it was, had it been during the day, we were, you know, we felt pretty confident we were going to be fine. But just with the speeds picked up because it was starting to be nighttime, you run more throttle.

And so you probably burn more gas. So we, it was interesting. the TV actually did a pretty good job. They caught into it, you know, a while into the run. But, you know, Chris Busher and myself were racing. And we were racing because I kept, every time I'd get like a three-four car-linked lead, I'd start slowing down down the straightaway

and it reel them right back in. And then we kept going back and forth. And then finally, when he kind of gave up the ghosts and realized, okay, I'm not going to let him go, I'm going to continue to try to hold the lead while saving fuel. He started backing down. Then I started backing down and felt, I felt pretty good about how much fuel I had saved during the course of that run. Gabe Hart thought it was going to be pretty close, had it gone green. But interesting enough after the race, they said, well, would you

be able to hold off Truex? And I says, Truex, what do you mean? Like, I had no idea. And so I didn't realize that, you know, he was coming as quick as he did. But if you look at the lap times, about three laps before that caution, like I'd slow down to like a 33 flat to save fuel. All I was trying to do at that point was back myself up to Busher. Use all the gap. He kept hearing Chris say, manage that gap. I need all that gap back. So I'm trying to just slow down at that point to manage my gap to the 17.

And I didn't have any awareness that the 19 was coming. And he didn't pick up the pace. We just slowed down the pace so much that we, we came back to him. I felt very confident that I could have just hit the gas and gone. Chris said... Why, though? What led to that confidence?

Because I knew how slow I was going on the racetrack. But in your head, can you equate how slow you're going to an amount of fuel saving? No, I don't have the scientific numbers, but I have a good idea how much I I'm saving through the course of the run. And relative to how I would normally race an entire run if I were running all out, I know how much I was saving. Like if I would have gone all out, I mean, we would have been so far out front that it, you know, but we would run out of gas.

So it's a battle that I'm playing as the leader to all I'm trying to do, just same as Dover, just win the race. Whatever it takes to win the race, I'm going to run just slow enough or just fast enough. to win the race. And so, you know, Chris told me, he says, yeah, I was just about to tell you on the radio, go ahead and go,

the 19's there. And I would have said, okay, I'll hit the gas down. But not go ahead and go because the 19 is there. Correct. Go ahead and go because we're getting on fuel. And he mentioned after the race, he was fine with us running out.

If we ran out of fuel, that was fine because we've got the wins. But he felt like we were going to be close enough that it would have been, we would have ran out right there at the, you know, turn four, start, finish line. Right. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of you think that you had saved enough fuel. I thought that I had saved enough fuel considering how much short we were, I was told, yes.

And Truex and his crew chief James Small were more than confident that they had that race in the bag, that that race was over, that they had that race won. Hmm. Truex was asked post-race if he thought he was going to question. Well, if I would have continued to run the speed that I ran, absolutely. He would have passed me in a lap, but I was about to push the gas down. Right, but surely his crew chief has the information that your crew chief has because you all share the same information. Yeah, and which my crew chiefs. So he knows that you're slowing down to save fuel.

Yes, right. But he is also just as confident as Martin that they were going to pass you. It would have been close. I don't know what to tell you. I just felt like, Martin hadn't, if we go out on all-out speed, I'd pass Martin three times that day. He didn't pass me at all.

So I was very confident I was faster than he was. But I don't, again, I don't know here on Monday morning, you know, and I'll find out when I go to the shop today, like, would we have made it? Or if I hit go from that point, would we have been fine? What Chris is saying is his estimated thumb-in-the-air guess is that it would have been really close.

had I hit go from that point. So either way, I think we were set up to have a really good finish at the end of that race. Yeah. Well, we've seen that movie before where Danny Hanlon runs out of gas with one lap to go. Pocono. I told you, I sit on the plane, I'm like,

I, I feel like I should win 100 races. Like, damn it. I have so many of these close calls that are, it just drives me crazy. crazy. And while I'm so happy with the wins that I've got, I'm like, God, I think about the tens and tens of races that just, you know, something crazy happens and I, and didn't win. So, but holy shit, we are fast right now and things are going well and we're going to another really, really good track for us. What part of this race do you replay over in your head more?

So like last night, what did you think about more? The fact that the caution came out with 10 to go while you were leading or that you got beat or cars passed you on the restart? Probably the caution coming out. I mean, certainly I would have second guessed or done something different when it came to choosing lanes. You know, the conversation and, you know, what happened on our radio on the 11 cars, Chris told me that it was, close to 50-50 on choosing the inside or outside. I wanted to choose outside. I didn't say this to him, I said,

but I wanted to choose outside because I just felt like I was, you know, in a green-white checkered situation, the third place guy most times will split three wide, bottom. What that does is then what it did to me, right, is that I'm on the bottom. And he told me, the key moment for me was when he said, the five car will by the numbers probably will choose the outside.

And so at that point, I'm like, good, I don't want Kyle starting behind me because I know he's going to split three wide. And whoever he splits three wide is going to go backwards really quick because what happens is that, um, so say Kyle chose the outside behind Busher. If he goes three wide to the outside of him, Busher now has air dumping on the left side of his spoiler from my car and the right side of his spoiler from Kyle's car. So it's a double parachute for him and it pulls him way backwards. Yeah, whoever's in the middle is.

Absolutely. You do not want to be in the middle when it comes to getting split. No question about it. And what happens is since you're running wide open all the way till turn, you know, from the start finish line until turn three, you lose that momentum all the way around the racetrack. and so second guessing it Monday morning crew chiefing it the absolute right play was to pick the top

put Busher on the bottom because Kyle was going to choose the bottom no matter what his best avenue to winning the race was getting the inside line and splitting me that was his avenue to winning and what that did then dumped air on both sides of my spoiler I just start going backwards they split around me even though I'm wide open, it doesn't matter. It's just they've killed the momentum right off the bat and then we just go backwards. So now he's in a battle side by side with Busher. So I would have absolutely rather chose the outside and gotten the push.

Now, if Larson would choose the outside behind me, he likely would have split me, tried to split me if you wanted to start forth to the, outside, but I feel like it's easier to defend the right side than it is the left side of the apron and everything that's going on. So lesson learned for sure. I mean, you just kind of put this one in the notebook of like, remember this. Like remember, you know, these decisions, and certainly there was one Daytona 500 back in 2017 that I had control of the green, white, checkered and chose the wrong lane. Certainly I chose. the wrong lane this time as well. You said you thought he was going to take the outside lane?

Chris told me he thought he was going to take the outside. What was the reasoning or thought behind that? Based off of... Pre-existing decisions and stuff? Based off the numbers that we have on, you know, what is the preferred lane in the second row? It's usually the outside. Is there anything you could have done even if you take the bottom inside to protect? Or is that you're kind of...

No, so what happens is... when I started accelerating and what Larson did is he started pushing me well before the zone. So, you know, to me, that's a good scenario for me because it, it allows us to link up. So we then link up. Well, immediately, as soon as we cross the start finish line, he's going to hang a left or right. So he's either going to go middle, which I probably should have hedged down lower to make him go middle to then, hey, you're the one that's going to get drug back, not me. But I just, I wanted him to stay attached, but, you know, he's, he's going, he's trying

to win the race. So he's, he's just going to do whatever he can to get, get, uh, position beside me. Uh, but it's just a hard, there's just so much room down the apron. There's a bunch of debris and a bunch of shit down there that I don't want to mess with. Um, so I just didn't, I was, I just didn't execute it well. Do the numbers and stats, um, show that, it doesn't account for green, white checkered in the, in the, in the mentality. Is that what you were going to ask?

Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't account for, those are just raw numbers that we think is right, right? And it's, a lot of it,

you know, is unscientific. I mean, it's more scientific than it's not. But it doesn't account for what is people's motivations at the end of a race, the Green one checkers.

Because I'm listening to you talk this out, and I'm hearing you say, well, I just didn't want Kyle behind me. Instead of, well, the top is probably the best place to start here. I chose the lane because I thought Kyle would have picked the other one. Like your your motivation to pick your starting spot was more based on

not wanting Kyle behind you versus the optimal spot on the track. Yeah. Um, yeah, I just think generally, and again, we keep collecting data points on like, you know, and notes on this. And this is continuing to evolve because we haven't, we've only been doing this next gen. thing at Kansas, you know, a handful of time. So it's just a, it's a live and learn situation, right? It didn't work out. And certainly I would have done something different the next time around. But yes, I did not, when he lined up behind me, I did not like it at all. Because I knew he was, he was not going to push for a very long time. Certainly not an extended period of time. Yeah. You picked the top. You maybe, the finish goes differently and you're the one who wins by.

point zero what did max for step and say about I don't know I can't say it you can say it you can say it wait what I can't say it what did Max say I actually have no idea if my mom had balls she'd be my dad is that what she's what he said yeah after the race they said Max you feel like you would have won the race if it wasn't for that safety car he says yeah well my mom had balls she'd be my dad I hope his social guy is is posting that I would I know you would for sure.

If I had that driver. Is Kansas the best track on the schedule? Is it the best track? For racing, it's certainly a top three. Yeah, hard to argue that. Maybe a top two. We've got some other really great tracks, but as far as racing is concerned.

But, I mean, yeah, I guess for the next-gen car, it's probably the perfect fit for that. So it's hard to argue. Hard to argue no on that. Is there a warrant to go back to tracks like Chicagoland and... Yes. These other places? Yes.

We should be going back to Chicago land, for sure. Does that mean no more Chicago Street race? No, I think there's room for both. So then what do you get rid of? I mean, Danny's going to say road course. You start with the roval. Unless you want to add it. Let's start with the Roval.

Let's start there. This car is made for a mile and a half tracks and we're running through the parking lot at Charlotte Motor Speedway. So let's start there. I don't know. I mean, there's Kentucky's still out there. You know?

Kentucky Speedway? I don't know. There's tracks around, but... I don't know. It is... We need to think about it. You know, you can't just make a knee-jerk reaction to say, oh, we've got to have more of this or more of that. A lot of it plays into the facilities.

You know, I don't know that, you know, Kentucky is definitely not top-notch when it comes to facilities there. It needs, it would need some major work. I don't know, Chicago land, I can't speak to the facilities, but I think it's probably, comparable to Kansas. You know, doesn't have a bunch of sweets, but it's, you know, it's decent enough and clean enough to warrant going back there. I don't, not really sure why we stop going there. I know there's a reason, but it doesn't come to the top of my head right, right in this

moment. I guess, too, you know, as you've mentioned before, that politics would play into this. Because if you take a, if you take the roval out, then you have to stick to it at, SMI track in neither Chicago land or Kentucky are SMA. Yeah, I mean, maybe they could put some money back in Kentucky in the, you know, upgrade the infield there or something or, you know, get the elevators working. You could take the money that you make all the money, you know, the millions that the tracks make every time we show up, you know,

take that to Kentucky and improve that place and we'll go back on a mile and a half. I have one request for you drivers. And it's more about the drivers who win consistently. It win a lot. Okay. When you get out of the car in Victory Lane, can you act like really excited? So the photos are good?

Sure. Did you not get any good? There was no, the Victory Lane this weekend was not very good. There was no confetti. why I feel like what there was there was no confetti I feel like just the motion was just not there

like you win a point if there's no confetti Jared you're right they're not Are you sure I guess you're sure I'm positive there was no confetti that's interesting

I've never that's very interesting I don't know why that that didn't happen for you I hate that it may not work do you hate it I could give two shit

trust me. Besides that, Corey Heim won the truck race. We didn't touch upon that. Yeah. I don't know. The truck race was, meh. I didn't watch. Yeah.

It was, I mean, he was, he dominated. He was fastest in practice. And I think that it sounded like they got a new truck that was designed for these mile and a halfs. And, you know, Corey got out and was like, yeah, this thing's got a lot of potential. It's like, whew. he just spanked the field uh zane smith you know still running some trucks he uh he gave him a run for his money there at the end but uh it's still heim time in the truck series um it seemed like he did

a pretty good job he you know yesterday he was running right around where his teammates were running um which i mean wasn't that impressive but it was uh you know if you're running right where other guys on your team are running and they have clearly more experience than you do, then I think you're doing a pretty damn good job. I think one thing to point out here of this Kansas race

is a shout out to Noah Gregson. I feel it's very compelling that last year he was in one of those legacy cars did not have the best finishes, did not have the best performance. And then to get in a storehouse car, which we all know how, they ran besides Kevin Harvick last year.

Yeah. I feel like he's performing extremely well early on this year. He's certainly finishing very well. I think he's performing well. He's, to me, he's clearly running the best of the Stuart Hoskars right now. That's just, that's a quick, uneducated knee-jerk reaction. But I feel like whenever I'm going through the field, like he's typically one of the front

for, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, HR cars.

So yeah, he's, he definitely took a, a big leap in the off season. And, you know, he seems very focused and, uh,

yeah, you're, you're seeing nothing but good things out of Noah right now. He's, he's, he's really performing well. Yeah,

I was going to ask you if, if there's anything moving from one team to another and how that can affect your performance, but I guess you can't really touch on that because you've been with the same team. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

It's, you know, the, the, the legacy cars were obviously struggling. I mean, Eric Jones was doing a, he was running pretty good last year, right?

I mean, it was just the 42 car. The 43 was running okay. Like, kind of about what it was when, when it was a petty car, right? It was, um,

and then, you know, Noah comes over there and just struggled mightily. and then and then this year it's like I don't know they're running

are they running better I think it's not about the same and it's hard to tell now that Eric you know he'll be back in the car at Darlington

yeah yeah he'll be good for sure he's just got a great feel for that place so the doctors cleared him to to do that and so

he's going to be back in so off a two week layover. So, you know, it's certainly good for him to kind of, you know, it was kind of a, it wasn't ideal, but it was a good reset for me to kind of watch my car go around and get raced by some other drivers for six races back in 2016 or 2013 when I had the cracked vertebrae as well. But, yeah, it just seems like, you know, the legacy cars aren't quite running where you would think that they would, certainly not where the other Toyotas are running. You know, it's interesting a little bit that, you know, Jimmy's having some might of big struggles.

I mean, he qualified better this week. But, you know, he got caught up in a wreck. He was towards the back of the pack when he got caught up in that wreck. But, you know, it's just a tough, tough thing to do. And, I mean, Jimmy's got a ton of experience in the Cup series. The cars are a little different. but he also got, I mean, he's got more experience than Corey Haim. So you would think that they would run somewhat comparable.

I mean, they shouldn't run comparable. Jimmy should outrun Corey in the same equipment. But it's, you know, Jimmy's just been bouncing around between so many different series of the last few years. He's probably just trying to retrain, retrain his brain back into NASCAR and Oval Racing again. Darlington this coming weekend any throwback schemes you have your eye on? No, I think the Hendrick cars did an awesome job with their throwbacks.

All of them look fantastic. You're certainly going to recognize their schemes from different eras for sure. But no, not really. The throwback things kind of lost its luster, in my opinion. And especially when teams, are throwing back to different eras. It's, I don't know. It's just, it's almost a little confusing to me more than it is anything.

Does Reddick have, is he the one with the Tim Richmond? Yes. I like his. Yeah. I feel like some of these who have kind of missed the mark, but I feel like you guys nailed it with that one. Yeah, I mean, is it an iconic paint scheme? No, I think it's from very early on in Tim Richmond's career.

But, yeah, it's, it was, It was really cool the first year that everyone kind of bought in, and it was very similar to eras and when, you know, certain decade. But it's all kind of all over the board now. So I'd be surprised if this goes past this year, for sure. Well, you see, I mean, individual drivers and teams are not participating. So like over time, it just dwindles. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it loses its luster overtime, for sure. I got a review here from Turquoise Jade. says, boo. In a Blake world of bland NASCAR drivers, I'm thankful as a fan that encounter on Denny Hamlin to remain totally unfiltered. Thank you for being who you are and saying the uncomfortable things

that need to be said to improve our beloved sport. I look forward to booing you again from my seat at Atlanta this fall. I hope your tires go flat. Screw you, Hamlin. So they took this offer quite literally. if you leave a five-star review, you can type boo into the... All right. Well, thanks, turquoise jade.

Appreciate the review. Make sure you give us five stars as well. And make sure you also rate and review and follow us wherever you get your podcast. And subscribe to Actions Detrimental on YouTube. Anything else in closing? Nope, that's it. Let's see you after Darlington. Yeah, the Lady in Black.

Let's bring it. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, an Instagram.