Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Las Vegas: Bad Luck On Pit Road

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Denny is tired hearing about Joey Logano's gloves. Dale Jr leaving NBC is good for Dale and NBC (7:50). A successful blackjack tournament (14:43). Jared big timed Bruno Mars (22:00). Rajah Caruth gets his first win in the Truck Series (27:20). John Hunter Nemechek wins in Xfinity, getting the first non-Chevy victory this year. Kyle Larson dominates Cup race (34 :00) SHR and Spire had a solid performance (37:00) . Pit road problems continue to hurt 23XI (41:00). What went wrong for the 11 car in Las Vegas (50:20). #DearDenny becomes NASCAR 101 as Denny talks about the difference between right side and left side tires 53:30).YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimentalFan Duel disclaimer: Availability subject to regulatory approval. 21+ and present in NC. Bonuses are issued in non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire 30 days after FanDuel accepts its first real money sports wager in NC. Unique user identity verification required. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I know it sucks. It's keeping the 2311 guys out of victory lane. No question about it. There was at least two to three victories that Tyler should have had last year that he didn't get an opportunity to because we messed up for him on pit road. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey guys, welcome to Axis detrimental post-Las Vegas race number three of the season. we had Kyle Larson winning the cup race.

We had Roger Carruth winning the truck race, and we had John Hunter Nemechek, winning the Xfinity. Man, John Hunter Neumchuk getting the first non-Chevi win. So Chevy's been a pretty dominant force pretty much to start the year. So we'll get in all that. First, we want to remind you guys to, Check out our YouTube page. And if you don't mind giving us to subscribe on that.

I'm trying to beat door bumper clear here and subscribers. Yep. Doing a good job so far. Thank you to our listeners for that. So thank you. We're just a few weeks into it. So let's get into some off-track stuff first. We had, obviously, you know, to wrap up kind of the penalties from last week,

I'm so tired of hearing about Joey's gloves. So we'll just kind of skip over that. You got a $10,000 fine. Joey said he took a portion of the blame, called it embarrassing. Sure, it's good. Let's move on past that. It's the glove gate thing was just really heavily played. At SHR, they had the more significant penalty.

Their roof rails were not approved. If you follow some of the media members, you saw kind of some stuff. were doing with the openings of those roof rails that kind of pressed them to make them sit up it appeared so shr getting a 35 point penalty for gregson and priest is it just me or i feel like with the majority of penalties last year maybe it's just because of this podcast but after each one we were always talking about oh will they appeal will they do this we were like really diving into the appeal process and there was really none of that for this particular penalty right yeah last year there

was definitely some appeals for sure you had you know mine you've had i think hendrick did theirs um the louvers was a big deal right i mean it was that was like the third or fourth race of the season yeah yeah yeah and then just the whole controversy because collig got you know theirs was uh convicted Hendrik was not. It was very... Let's just call it shady. Let's just call it what it was, really. And then nobody got a penalty, or basically.

It was just, who knows. So, yeah, so the 35-point penalty, it seems small... It's a race. It's a good race for one of those guys. So basically what Gregson... I mean, look, Travis, I'm actually going to use... your, Gregson got 31 points. So he had a six-place run, got 31 points.

So he just got back. You know, it took him an entire race to get it back. Yeah, I mean, 35 is a significant penalty, especially when you think about the run Gregson had yesterday. Everyone's talking about, oh, you know, Stuart Haas had speed. They showed this, they showed that. And to get 31 points out of it, which is just below the net of your penalty. It'll take, yeah, it's going to take, you know, some good runs.

Um, you know, I thought I saw some things out of Stuart Haas that looked to be better than what they've had in the past. Um, you know, it's, it's very weird because generally speaking, I thought the forwards were kind of meh, you know, and, and as much going into the weekend about Toyota's got a new body, Ford's got a new body, this, that, and the other, um, it didn't, I don't know, it just everything kind of played out normally as it did last year. there's not really a whole lot different. One thing that kind of people I don't know is that when we create a new body, NASCAR limits how good that body can be. So it's very, very difficult for each manufacturer to hit the mark because they made the mark, which you cannot be better as the Chevrolet. So the Chevrolet has the most, has the most downforce. and it has to be okay so they Ford had the least amount of drag when we when we test the next

gen cars a couple years ago the bodies of the cars Ford had the least amount of drag and Chevy had the most amount of downforce so they said from this point on and submission when you build a new car make it fit you know the OEMs you know template of what they want for their production car, but you're never going to be allowed to be better than the Chevy. And you will never be allowed to be, you know, less drag than the Ford. So we were kind of in a spot with the Toyota's where we were just kind of in between on both. And we thought we made some improvements here and there, but it's still the, we still couldn't beat the, the baseline, which is the current Chevrolet car.

Is that, I feel like if you're going to allow a car to be changed, then like the line should be moved or else like Chevy is, you can't get better. Like, I don't, that doesn't seem fair. I mean, I would agree. It doesn't seem fair, but it's, they're trying to get us to all drive the same exact cars. NASCAR is trying to get us to,

different logos on them. Yeah. Yeah, they're trying to just get us to all drive the same thing. And no matter what manufacturer you're with, you're at no advantage or disadvantage. Now, I think that the Ford's new car definitely still is the drag king. Like, it just seems like on these high-speed tracks, they've really got a car that is fast and qualifying. I thought that it was strong. Obviously, it's some other tracks as well.

but it just it seems like when I look at the data and stuff in SMT like down the straightaways the Ford still are very very fast but it didn't necessarily translate to race speed even though you had you did have some outliers that were you know Blaney and a few others that were up front so you know just I don't know why TV doesn't talk about yeah these are all new cars but but they're never going to be as good as the current shiver. You can't be better than that. So, you know, it's the ingenuity, you definitely kind of, this is the box these cars will be in for a very long time

unless NASCAR chooses to move that line. Okay. I think we'll get into that. I got more questions for you, but I think we'll get into that a little later when we discuss more of the cup race and what Cliff Daniel said post race. another off-track news is that Dale Jr. is leaving NBC. He will not be in the booth this year. And per reports will be headed to Amazon Prime and Warner Brothers Discovery Sports for 2025.

I might be, I'm probably in the minority. I like this move. I like it for both. I like it for NBC and Dale Jr. I think NBC's got a two or three really strong guys there. And Dale Jr. added to, you know, he was the one that kind of started that. But I think that they have enough talent to carry it. And I just feel like when you had these new partners in, you want to have a really strong announcing core. NASCAR will play a big role in the production of those of Amazon. and Warner Brothers. So Dale Jr. being kind of the anchor there,

I like that move for Dale Jr. And I like that move, you know, to spread out the wealth of good commentators and analysts in NASCAR. So I like, I personally like it. I think that, you know, there's, hopefully they're really going to change up the production on, with Amazon and Warner Brothers.

I think that, I don't know, I feel like I've, watched, I know I've watched Cup production and how it's done and how they put on a race and the things that they share. And it's been the same for 20 years. They have not changed it at all. And so I'd like the idea of getting us some new blood in there. And I think NBC does by far the best job, you know, kind of telling stories, keeping it, you

know, very professional. And I think they do it just a fantastic job. with their production. I know they spend a lot of money on cad cars and things like that. And Fox is getting in, they've started to do that as well. But the production has always been the same. So we're interesting to see how that all plays out, but I think it's an overall good thing for the sport to have Dale, you know, he gets a, I don't know, I guess he gets a year off. But, you know, they're going to be working this entire year on, you know, getting that production ready. and so with it likely being run out of NASCAR's production studio, NASCAR will have a big, big part in how this is all produced.

So two things that I take from this is one, I like that quote that Marty Smith had said and talking about the Netflix documentary, he said on Dale's download, is that if you want credibility, you get Dale Jr. So this is cool because I think Amazon and Warner Brothers and all that are going to have some work to do to move the fans over from the cable network to streaming. I think that's not going to be the easiest thing in the world.

It won't. I mean, that's the tough part about what every new TV deal. We're changing channels, right? That's been tough on our sport. And we've been sold for a very long time by NASCAR that, hey, this is going to be better. And, you know, it's always been up-and-coming networks. Now, those that were going on are not up-and-coming networks, which that's a very, very good thing. But it just took its toll on using NASCAR Cup Series to build up a channel, right?

Because you're always going to have a dip and decline an audience there. But I'm interested to see what the ratings are for this week. Like I said, after last week, if you didn't have a bump in ratings this week, then I think we've got a bigger problem that we need to talk about. but I think overall the sports in a very, very good positive place. And I think that certainly it should have a bump in ratings for the same Vegas race that we had last year. Yeah. Another thing is that last week, Dale had said that when call on races, he wants to make sure that he's at the racetrack.

So when they're producing this out of the new NASCAR studios in Concord, you know, if Dale's a part of this team, once his team at the racetrack. I think it might be a slight dig at Fox on that. He already talked about their camera angles. And I didn't pay attention to it as much until I watched the raceback late last night. And yeah, they zoom in. As soon as the cars are getting closer to you, they zoom in on them.

And it's like, it's the opposite of what you would think. But, I mean, they're the professionals in it. But I, but yeah, I agree. You want to see more on screen. and I really like to see Fox just change some stuff up for sure, you know, to get a little better. But we'll see. And I definitely feel like Dale Jr., he does bring the credibility, if anything, right? And I think he's got a lot of ideas, and he probably helped quite a bit with the production of the NBC and how well it's done now.

I think, you know, my personal opinion, Steve Lattart, I think is one of the best, if not, the best at explaining things being very precise and then getting on with it. And I think Jeff Burton actually is a very good compliment to that. So they got a good team over there. I think we're all heading in the right direction with our commentating. I think Kevin Harvick brings a lot of really good things to Fox. And so yeah, we'll see. Get ready, North Carolina. FanDuel, America's number one sports book is launching soon. And just in time for the biggest college basketball tournament of the year. Right now, you can get $100 in bonus bets

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Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. Fandul.com. Gambling problem? Call 877-717-1-18 5-5-4-3 or visit more than-a-game.nc.com. A few more off-track items we were in Las Vegas this weekend, and while you did not go back-to-back at the racetrack,

you did go back-to-back at the casino. Back-to-back at the racetrack. What do you mean? Well, like, you didn't win last year, and you didn't win this year. But you want a blackjack tournament last year, and you want a blackjack tournament this year. I'm trying to make sense of what the fuck you said.

He couldn't go back to back, Jared. I know. I didn't win. I did. I know you didn't win. But you said, I didn't win last year and I didn't win this year. Yeah. So I did go back to back if it's losing.

I mean, sure. That's not really the saying, though. Shit. She's the wheeze. This guy, he's got his next favorite driver winning the race and he just sh-hs all over me over here. Wow. I'm surprised you actually made it back to Charlotte. Yeah, thanks for the ride.

Yeah, all right. Yes, we did not win on the racetrack for sure, but we did, we made it to the final table again. I'd only participated in two blackjack tournaments my whole life. And I only did it because the hotel, you know, gave me in position in it. You know, I'd, in it, and the timing worked out where we were not on track or not nearly on track during those times and so I was in town casino host says hey you got a spot for you here if you want to play i did i was you know i definitely got nervous in that way more than i do anything has to do with driving

but i think that's pretty normal uh so last year you made the final table they decided to chop up the pot uh at the final table there were six or seven guys in the final table last year they chopped it and so I got a piece of the winnings, but interesting enough, this year, we got to the final table, and it was not a unanimous, let's chop the pot scenario. So there was a gentleman who was very adamant

that I don't want to chop the pot. I've come this far. I just want to win the whole thing. And then you had another one say, hey, how about let's get down to the final three or four people, and then let's renegotiate, chopping. You know, that way everyone gets more money if you make it to the last three or four. And so we played and the way they play it is that you play 15 hands. That's it at each table that,

you know, and then you've got to be one of the top two at the table to move on to the next table and the next table and the table's table. So I got through that process, got to the final. And then the, so each time it's 15 hands, you start with a chip stack and basically you count your chips after 14 hands and then you have to make a secret jeopardy wager on how much you want to bet and the winner, the chip leader wins the event, right? So it gets down to it to the 14th hand.

There's four of us left and the two guys who were adamant on not chopping were still in it. And so one of them said, okay, I'll go ahead and chop now. The other one was the chip leader. And he says, I'm leading.

I don't, you know, I don't think this is, let's just play this thing out. And so we played it out. And we did take like a portion of the money, like 20 grand, something like that and took it off the table. Everyone got, you know, hey, here's your, you know, we did it pro rata of how many chips you had. We split that 20 grand up and then played for the rest. And so for me, I was the third chip stack, third highest chip stack of the four. And I went all in. All in.

We said, we're all in. So I said, all right, I'm going to place my bet to the amount of chips that I have. I won the hand. So I doubled up. The chip leader lost. He didn't bet that much, but he lost in my double up. me over him. Then the other guy, who was the second leading chip

stack, he won, but he didn't, he only bet half his chip stack, which didn't cover my chip stack. And so I leaped over both of them. So you went from third to the first. Yes, in the final hand. So really, the only way

you could have went there was if you bet everything. Yes. Or they both lose, I win. There's a lot of scenarios, right? but I mean, you're just doing math constantly because you're always looking at the chip stack of the person beside you, and you're not really playing the dealer.

It's very interesting, the strategies of some of these guys. Some of these guys, it's crazy. They'll bet $100 a hand. Now, $100, this is a $10,000 chip stack. They just want to screw up the deck for everybody else. Yeah, so they'll get to 19. They'll keep hitting. And they're like, yeah, we're not trying to,

I'm not trying to win my hand. I'm just trying to screw everyone else's hand out. Very, very interesting. Yeah, I'm not really familiar. Because other people were betting more. Right. So they're just trying to wreak havoc on the deck. And so make the cards not come out as they should.

I know. It's very weird. It's expensive their own money. So it's just strategy. It's a lot of it is strategy. I played pretty conventional to how I normally would play blackjack. And I just kept chipping way and gaining chips, gaining chips.

And after every, so after 15 hands, the first table I had quadrupled my money. After 15 hands of the second table I was at, I tripled my money. And then the final table, I had 24. So I almost five times my money in 15 hands at each. So it was a good run. Pretty good day. It was a good run. Was it winner take all?

Yeah, winner take on. So what was the regret like on those guys' faces that didn't want to chop it up? I always love this. I feel like that's karma. That's the God's talking. There was a guy there who, he was kind of a country guy and he was just like, you know, he's like, that ass. That's what he gets. You know, he was the guy who was like fourth.

He finished fourth. He was just like, that's what he gets. I'm glad you won. Screw that guy. You know, he didn't want to chop it. And so it's funny because I go to. the cage to cash out. And so since we agreed to chop a portion of it, they're all just like waiting like vultures right over my back for me to pay them, their portion. So it was a, it was fun. I definitely

enjoyed it for sure. You know, I'm not totally keen on the strategy, although I did make final table twice and the two times I've done it. But I think a lot of that is just you got to get good cards and, you know, you got to be all in. There's nothing wrong with beginners luck. There's nothing wrong with it. One more thing. I know everyone jokes about my celebrity, my newfound celebrity from this podcast. But I think... What do you mean?

I know. I hear you. I think it hit a peak the other night because I realized that I big-timed Bruno Mars. Did you just skip right by him? I did. Yep. We were in line at this place. Yeah.

And it was like you. It was like Ty and then you and then Charlie and then me. and then you were introduced to Bruno Mars. There was like a longer exchange there than anyone else had. So for a split second, I was like, wait, should I take a photo of this? Like, this would be great social media content. And I'm like, no, there's signs everywhere that say no phones allowed whatsoever.

So I'm like, no, I can't do that. But I threw off my focus and then I looked away. And then I guess it got to me and he reached out to shake my hand. And I just like blew right by him. And then- Cheer! Nico who was behind me was like, hey, you know. like he was trying to introduce himself right i was like i had no idea wow yeah so we went to i guess

bruno mars's lounge in uh the blasio uh a friend of ours kind of said hey come here so we went there and i had forgotten about that because we walked in and uh there was a no phone policy yeah but i can tell you this the the crowd there They didn't. They didn't have phones. They didn't have phones. They had, they used telegraphs back in their day. This was an old folks home for Vegas.

It was. It was. I mean, I'm just thinking, I understand the policy, no phones to be in there. However, you ask any 25 to 35 year old to not use their phone, and they're like, screw this. I'm not going in there. Like, this is stupid. You know.

So the crowd was seasoned a bit. Yeah. It was seasoned. And, but it was, it was fun. I liked how small it was. Music was good. Evidently, like, he sits, he has his little back table and then he'll go up on stage every now and then and just.

Right. Well, 24-carat gold was playing. And so he, like, walked out from his table, you know, gave a little, and then went back. That's awesome. But I wanted to know. I was thinking about this. In the moment. Obviously, you're great friends with Michael Jordan. I would say that on a celebrity scale, everyone knows Michael Jordan. Right. So like, say, let's say he's 100. Okay. What is Bruno Mars on that scale? Like, zero to 100. Give me, give me a 20 person. I don't know. I know. I mean, because I need to know the scale. Like you're, you're saying the ultimate D. Yeah, Travis, who's a, who's a 20 person? NASCAR driver? Well, it also depends like, okay. Because probably, that's probably, that's, That's probably, I mean, more, I hear you, but more than four times the people know Michael Jordan than an ASCAR driver, though.

You know what I mean? I kind of base it off of notoriety. I don't want to put an ASCard driver like a 5 or a 10. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of celebrities. Okay. All right. Let's just base it off of that.

I'm going to say Bruno Mars is a 35. A 35. Yeah. If you're walking down the street, you could ease, I could see you not. A 35? Recognizing Bruno Mars.

Yes. You walk down the street. He's very recognizable. Michael Jordan's 100 and Bruno Mars is a 35. I was in the U.S. Yeah. No? No, I was going to say more like 90.

Oh. Are you kidding me? That's too high. For Bruno Mars? Okay. I see Jared's point. He played the Super Bowl. He has like 80 million Spotify listeners, monthly.

All right, fine. I'll give him a 60. He's not a 90. Well, then what is a 95 though, Jared? I'm just saying this came about because after that moment, I was like, I think that was probably the most famous person I've ever seen in the wild. And you just blew them off because you're a celebrity yourself now. Apparently. Like it's just in the back of my mind, you know?

I didn't even make a rational decision. It was just... I always judge a famous person, but like, if... Like, at an airport and I'm walked by, will I notice them? You will for Bruno, right? Because he's very... He has a very distinct look. He looks just like he does...

Like, he looks like he was dressed up for the Grammys. Like, that just looks like his everyday appearance. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe we probably lowballed the 35. I think you really lowballed the 30th. At least we didn't, you know, big time. I'm so...

I mean, it's probably a better story that way. I'll tell my kids one day that I big time Bruno Mars. Anyway, you have an announcement? No. Okay. Definitely not. All right. So let's get into the racing.

Let's talk about Roger Caruth winning his first race. How do we feel about that? I know how I feel. Yeah, I think it's big news for Roger Cruth from going from what happened at Daytona. You know, Bubba was not too pleased with him. and gave him a, I guess, a stern talking to to two weeks later, he wins this race.

I think it's great for NASCAR, obviously, Raja. And we talked about last week, that Spire truck is clearly a very good truck. Yeah, they seem like, you know, the KBM old, Spire now new,

trucks certainly seem to be, cream of the crop for this particular moment, for sure. I think it was great. Certainly, I didn't, because we were, you know, meeting celebs and stuff like that, didn't really get to see a whole lot of the truck race.

But obviously, from what I saw, there was a lot of social media. You know, you saw so many people talking on social about it. You saw many, many drivers congratulating them on social media. You know, it is big. You know, whether we like to say it is or not, you know, first win for any driver, is big but to have i think is this a third african-american winner um yeah so that's a big deal for sure not since bubba back in 2000 i'm at the route 14 i think i saw that something like that so um absolutely great accomplishment for sure um it's not like he's been in the sport a ton you know

a really long time either and he won it you know he won it outright right he did it and it wasn't some kind of trick strategy or anything like that. He just, uh, in the field. There was low, I mean, Kyle Bush was in it. Strong field. It wasn't like this week field. He went toe to toe with a really strong field. Yeah. And he showed speed the entire race. I did, you know, he was up front. I saw all that. So, um, congratulations to him and his team and Spire for winning another, uh, it's just, uh, they're definitely on a role and it seems like, uh, this could be a big momentum boost for Raja and could propel him to who knows where, right? I think if he can continue to continue on this trajectory, you know, winning a handful of races, he could, he could be the next

level, you know, the next level soon. Yeah, I think one thing that's interesting about this is that, you know, Raja goes on to win three or four more races this year. I don't know. Any, any amount of races this year, right? And he then all of a sudden becomes a hot prospect. Right. to move into potentially the next available cup ride. Yeah. Yeah, or Xfinity. Or Xfinity. Yep.

Yeah. I think what I like about him is how humble he is. He certainly is someone that I've seen hanging around, you know, cup garages, you know, when cup practice or qualifying is going on, he's right there at the wall and he's not afraid to come up and ask you a few questions about the track or something somewhere he hasn't got a ton of experience. very well-spoken, very humble. I like his demeanor.

I definitely like what I see out of him. Yeah, I agree. And if you want to hear more from him, he'll be on DBC today. Oh, that's right. Xfinity, John Hunter, ain't, you know, not a whole lot to talk about there other than I thought, actually, this is the first event that Toyota's kind of, you know, someone other than Chevy in the top three series didn't dominate.

John Hunter kind of dominated that one. Chandler Smith looked really good. Um, any kind of standouts from the finishers, um, of, uh, Exfinity that we didn't, didn't plan for. I know I'm looking, I'm looking as well. I mean, Riley, another top five. He continues to get better. Um, Austin Hill, top five. Colcuster. So, yeah, it's Ryan Seek, seventh. We can talk about Ryan Seag. I like, man,

their program's getting slowly but surely better as well. They were always kind of like a 13th, 15th place team. And it just seems like they're, they're, I don't know if their alliances are changing or anything like that. I'm not sure

who they're affiliated with. I know it was SHR at one time. But you know, giving a shout out to the Ryan Siegs of the world and I know that's, It's a family run team. Getting a top seven there on a legit, hey, you've got to have all parts of your team together type of race track. That's a really great run for those guys.

So, yeah, everything else seems to be status quo. Surprised that Justin Algar didn't show more speed. I thought he was good in practice from what I saw. And just he has had to start in the back, but just didn't have the speed that they had before. And so none of the JRM cars were really standoutish from the results or what we saw on TV. So interested to see where that plays out here in the next few weeks and see if they can get a little better. But I thought right now, you know, Joe Gibbs Racing, Stuart Haas Racing, they had two of the top four each. Yeah, and like you said in the intro to this show, John Hunter's win is the first non-Chevy win of this season.

So eight of the nine NASCAR races across all three series have been won by Chevy except for John Hunter's win in the Xfinney race. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been a Chevy dominated year. And certainly for whatever reason, but it seems like they've got a really good program going on there. They're massaging the current bodies that they've got that they've been working with for quite a while. I don't know that they haven't had any changes to the Xfinity car.

cup car or truck in a few years now so I said it in the media center this weekend they said you know what do you think Ford Chevy who's you know who's who's who's got what I'm like you know there's definitely something to be said about being able to work on the same car for an extended period of time and so while everyone you know Toyota and Ford are getting kind of all the publicity Chevy's been the dominant one so far this year so yeah and obviously kept their their streak alive. Well, not really. Restarted the streak. Yeah. In the cup race on Sunday with Kyle Larson winning the Vegas race. Yeah, it's just an absolute dominant day. I think that you know, Tyler Reddick's pit troubles helped with that dominant day. I thought that those two

were, I thought they were equal. Well, I would say that Kyle Larson was a little better in the short run. Tileretic was definitely better in the long run. But it seemed like they just kind of merged together right at the end of stages or the race win. But a lot of that was aiding Kyle that Tyler just kept having pit troubles and losing spots and it would take them forever to get back up there. But I would have, you know, I would have liked to see more laps of them dueling it out, right? It's, you know, Kyle was pretty much untouchable to to the rest of us. Dominated the event, no mistakes on his end, on, on, in a, race where there was tons of mistakes, all kinds of pit road troubles throughout the entire day.

He did avoid. He got hit on pit road by the 54 and avoided what could have been. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. That was, I saw that. He was kind of merging out. He had somebody on the outside of him. He couldn't go all the way out. TIE's trying to get out. Pretty typical pit road incident when you got three or four wide leaving pit road. So yeah, he dominated the event. He dominated really the weekend when it's all sudden done. He started up front. He was really fast in practice.

This is a track where Hendrick Motorsports has won. I don't know how many Vegas spring races in a row. It seems like a lot. At least three. Yeah. And they won the fall as well. So this is just slowly but surely it's just becoming a Hendrik track, you know, basically. So it's hard to beat.

I tell you, it's definitely hard to beat. They're definitely on their games for sure. You know, a flawless, flawless day in their camp. Not so much for William Byron, who had all kinds of issues with the trash and whatnot. I guess y'all said there were something in it. A silver bullet. A silver bullet was in the trash bag.

Yeah, according to Rudy Fiegel. A silver bullet is in like a quartzite beer camp. Here's Vegas winners. Larson, Larson, Biron, Lugano. Bowman, Hamlin, Larson, those are the past few spring in. I hear a lot of, hear a lot of Hendrick. So, yeah, this is a, this is a good rebound. Kyle has obviously had some issues on the speedways before.

So this kind of kicks off what we consider the regular season. And, you know, kind of get in a feel for what we saw and who's going to be strong, who's still got some work to do. who in your mind do you feel like they weren't as strong as what you thought they were going to be weren't as strong I feel like more so I'm thinking

some cars were stronger than I thought how about who? Well the stored host cars Noah Gregson finished 6th and Chase Briscoe showed some speed throughout the day despite not getting to finish a show for it also the spire cars the joy ran up front for a good portion

in this race and Hoseau were finished 15th yeah it seems like there was some, it's interesting because I saw Drew Lugano's comments after the race about yeah, it's, it has speed, but it we still have a little bit of work to do. But I would argue that, you know, for whatever reason it could be, it's not just the bodies, people.

This is, these are very, very small changes. You know, Stuart Haas could have, their simulation could have got better in the off season. A lot of things, you know, know, to make their setups better. A lot of different things go into the result that you see each and every Sunday. You see the cars going around in circles. You have no idea what makes. That car a little faster than that one or that driver a little bit better than that one.

But for whatever reason, I definitely agree with you that the Stuart Haas cars were slightly better. Now, the results weren't all that great. A few of them dropped at the end of the race. but I would say that Noah certainly with the top six run was I think the best finish that they've had or the tin cars had in quite some time as well on a mile and a half. Yeah, and post-race Cliff Daniels said the exact same thing that I was just thinking. So I mean, what was it? I'm just almost as smart as Cliff Daniels pretty much.

It said the field is much closer together competitively than what he may have initially thought. Yeah, as it should be, right? if everyone's driving pretty much the same car depending on what your crew chief or engineer does to it for the setup, the drivers get to see all of each other's information and data. Yeah, the field's going to get close, which, you know, the downside to that is that when you have someone close in like a Tyler Reddick, you can just airblock and keep them from passing you that way, right?

So it's just there's not enough disparity in speed for someone to overcome that. So you can see a Ross Chastain or whoever, you know, once he loses the lead or loses the front row on that last restart, he can just hold off guys with four tires because he's just, he's got the ability to block well. And the speeds just don't, you can't overcome it. He also said that he was impressed with Toyota's pace and that Chevy was going to have to keep evolving in order to keep up. So I guess impressed with the way Toyota started this first mile and a half race with the new body, right? Because you don't have too much to work with. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know how much you get better in the course of a year. I think you really kind of got what you've got. That's why we said at the end of, or midway through last year, hey, we know what we've got. We just can't change it because this is the car we've got and, you know, there's not much you can do it to it. So that's why it's very important when you submit a new car that you try to hit those targets the best you can. But trying to hit a target of a car that is built or shaped differently than yours, it's very, very difficult. But agree. I thought that the field had parity. I didn't think that one stood out to be lights out faster than the other.

what i'm curious is that you're going to go into this 2311 competition meeting later this afternoon as the owner and you're going to discuss you know pit road troubles right and tyler said stupid mistakes on pit road same same different year and we've been having this pit road discussion for years now back to when jgr was supplying 2311 pit crews i feel like that's a pretty damning quote in a way same shit, different year. Yeah. Like you're, it's trying to be a different,

you know, you're trying to, new shit, not the same year. Yeah, it's, this is the new team blues. And this is why,

as smart as Justin is, he just bought a team that already had good pit crews. I, you know, when I had to start this damn thing from scratch, I had nobody.

And so anybody that's really, really good, they're under long contracts. These teams lock these guys up for years and years. And so, you got nobody. And so you got to find talent within the field somewhere that's got experience

or you try to get some young guys that are very inexperienced. And this is just part of starting a team and trying to do this on your own. I certainly feel like generally speaking, yes, this is a topic this weekend and it's the hot topic for sure and it will be here in a few hours. but it's a process and it fucking sucks. I know it sucks. It's keeping the 2311 guys out of victory lane. No question about it.

There was at least two to three victories that Tyler should have had last year that he didn't get an opportunity to because we messed up for him on pit road. And this is one where do I give him the race win? If he has Kyle Orson's pit crew, it's going to be a hell of a race. I'm not saying that he's just going to beat Kyle

because that's going to be a tough feat. I think that Kyle had a better short run car than him, generally speaking. But it would have been a hell of a battle. And Kyle would have had his hands full most of the day versus just kind of cruising out to a two-second lead and watching us in the rear view. So I don't know.

This is the painful part about it. Pit cruiser can be able. such a big part of the result. And a lot of it is, you know, certainly pick crews can take you out more than they're going to help you, right? And what we hope to do is increase our speed in the offseason, increase our reliability of non-blow-up stops. So that stops worse than, you know, 13 seconds or so. It's a process. I mean, this is the first weekend where the pick crews really we're under a microscope because the other ones where we are running super speedways, it's fuel only two tires, if anything. The pickers really didn't have time to shine yet. This was, you know,

we'll get some numbers back here shortly about where do the pick crew stack up. Let's try not to overreact too much in one event, but certainly there was issues on the 23. I didn't really see they had a nut or something that got stuck. The 45 had, it seemed like, multiple issues. You know, I've got, everybody's coming to me saying, fix this, fix that right after the race. And I got Lee Spencer asked me, you know, what do you feel about the bubble?

I'm like, Lee, I just got out of the car. If it's not 11 related, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. So it just, you know, this is part of the, the grind of the new team blues and and even in our fourth year now our second year of having our own pit crews it is just not not easy this thing is not easy and trust me if if we could go out and just grab the best pit crew then you just can't it's not that easy and i feel like we've got a good set of guys there and we have this isn't the same teams that we've had last year either there was new guys brought in on each the 23 and the 45 from last year so um we also have a

partnership with legacy uh they'll be training out of our new facility as well our pit our pit facility itself where we'll do pit stops that's not even going to be done until probably july so we're at JGR right now and when we're at JGR we get limited time. We don't get as much time as others because we're not the house guys right so we're having to share facilities and so we're building our own and it's going to be absolutely freaking amazing

just like the actual airspeed is in headquarters but it takes time and so for the next six months we're just going to grind this out until we can get some more reps at our own spot. Is that area connected to airspeed? Is it all in the same property? Yeah, it'll be as you're driving up 77 north, it'll be kind of the first thing you'll see.

So right before the building there. Got it. What can you do in season, though? I don't know. I mean, this is, trust me, I was this two years ago? I was just every single week having issues. I'd get to the front, boom,

we'd have a bad pit stop and I'd go to sixth or whatever it might be. They'd just work it out. I mean, that's where you got pit crew coaches, strength coaches, all that stuff to figure out what happened, what triggered it, and then what caused the train to get off the tracks, and then you try to fix it. Could you ever see pit crew members being like actual athletes where you could trade them and you could upgrade positions or whatever? I haven't thought of it like that, but yeah, I mean, you probably could. Yeah, more than likely. you know there's there's a few very key positions in a pick crew there there's two that really you know can make a break and that's your jackman and your tire changers the carriers are important i'm not downsiding the carriers but it's just it's not as a crucial position to how fast your pit stop is

is what your jackman and your changers are yeah i'd actually like to see i feel like we're getting a little better at that with TV interviewing pit crews and whatnot, but, you know, getting to know these guys more because now they're such an integral part of the race. And I feel like at the end of day, if your favorite driver doesn't finish well, it's like, oh, well, it's pit crew didn't do well. Well, who's the pit crew? You know,

we don't actually know anything about the pit crew or like where they came from. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I actually like that Fox interviewed one of your guys. One of our guys. Yeah. AJ. So that was really cool. And I do. I definitely think that the pick crew guys deserve more notoriety for sure. And listen, I have faith in the guys that we have

at 2311. This is a bad week. I'm not going to understate that whatsoever. But let's not, it's easy to be, it's easy to overreact in one given weekend. Let's just see how this thing plays out in the long run. Speaking of Bubba and more so from like a big picture standpoint, is that when you have a car like his that has issues on pit road and can't get a lug nut off or whatever it may be and then is running the race laps down. How

what can he add to your meeting today? You know, your debriefed today about the race considering he may have been the car may have been irrelevant for the majority of the day. It was relevant. He had, his car was up to speed. So as long as it didn't have

you know, the lug net issue right. His car was still up to speed had no damage. So he was able, he's going to give feedback on, you know, how does his car handle? Because he needs to give that. That's a crucial information that he gives to his team so they can work on the setup for that track next time around. So we'll, we'll listen to as much feedback from Bubba as Tyler. It doesn't matter really. Their finishing position is what can you give the team information-wise for them to work on to be better. Right. So it doesn't matter if you're on the lead lap or 10 down. No. I thought it was, I thought it was pretty cool.

I was actually in third place when I guess he came out and was on fresher tires. So he was helped pushing Tyler Redick towards the lead towards Larson. They were catching them pretty quick too. Yeah. That was actually pretty cool to see. But I know Bubba has certainly as frustrated because he felt like he probably had at least a top five, top 10 car as well. Yeah, especially coming off.

back-to-back top fives. I guess good news for everybody else that Freddie will now cut his hair. He was not cutting his hair. Oh, really? Yeah, he was superstitious. Huh. Well, I think he should do whatever he can to keep his face covered up. So let it grow.

Yeah, and he's to let it grow. We got a dear Denny here. Hold on. I want to, Denny, at the end of the race, you were like third and then kind of fell back there. At the bed? Yeah. okay uh we just we we missed it on the setup side um a little bit i just feel like i thought man i'm in a good spot here we had worked with our balance my balance is off to start the race we got it

pretty good towards the middle um but i felt like i was just a little bit too free um and that's when we lost the lead to larsen fell back to third but we kind of stayed within shouting distance We never really let it get too far away. Made some adjustments. They weren't really better. We went back on those adjustments, and I thought it was better. And leading to start this third stage, right after that Green Flag pit stop, I thought we had a very, very good car. We were running very good competitive lifetimes, and we were catching the group in front of us pretty rapidly.

And then, you know, the caution comes out late. You got 20-some laps to go, and you got to shoot out. there and it just required a little bit different things out of my car than what I had. And so it was so frustrating from my standpoint because I'm like, I know I've got a top three car and I keep losing positions here late in this race, but I was hamstrung. I couldn't, it was not doing what it needed to do in that short run scenario. So that was frustrating on my end for sure, but at least, you know, we had a good stage day and somewhat made up for it,

but you always like to get top fives when you know you've got a top five car, which I did. Do you have any advice for Blaney who seems to have a simmering beef with Ross Chastain? I saw that. I don't know that we should really overreact. I think Blaney goes off the deep end most weeks.

This is just who he is. He just loses his brain over the radio. I mean, It's one thing to just maybe yell into your helmet or chew the steering wheel when you're really upset. But he just clicks the button and just goes haywire. So I wouldn't read up into it too much. But I guess he was talking mess about Chastain or something. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Going back to their air blocking at Phoenix last year when Ross was in front of Blaney trying to win the race, right? And Blaney was racing for a championship. so now the kind of rules are reversed a little bit here. Interesting. Travis has got the quote. The quote was from Blaney, tell that dumb f*** to be smart.

What a dick. E, yikes. PG there, Travis. I have an edit button when I censor those things. Okay. Sometimes. All right. So, yeah, I don't know.

We'll just keep an eye on this whole Blaney chastain thing. I don't know. And then I think there was chastain made kind of some snark comments. after the race as well saying, you know, I saw him air blocking and I'm proud of him. You know, so it's just I don't know.

This is good. Interesting people. Yeah, we need a little beef. We need a little drama. Yeah. On the track. All right. Well, Blaney and Chessing,

give it to us. Please. Dear Danny, we've got some questions that we want to ask. Dare, Danny. We need answers and we need them fast. We tried to ask Junior,

but his answers were lying. And with DBC, it was more of the same Now we're caught on you Because you're our own hope This ain't the race track So maybe you won't choke Dear Denny Here for you

Are right and left side tires Different compounds Or if you take two rights Can you use those Saved Lefts as rights later? No, you cannot If you put those left side tires On the right side, you will have a

Tough go at it Isn't that what Truix did a few years ago at Homestead? He did at Homestead, yeah. So it just takes all the stagger out of the car. So NASCAR 101, the right side tires are bigger than the left side tires. So that's what it helps the car track around the corner. The bigger the right side is than the left side. Think about this.

If you had a car and you just pushed it, right? If the tires are bigger on the right, it's going to make it go left. So that's you can't use left side tires on the right. So basically, if you take right side tires during the day, and you only get a certain amount of tires in the course of a race, if you take right side tires, you likely are done with that set because very rarely will you come in and then take lefts in another pit scenario. Okay, follow up question.

What about at road courses? I believe they're square. Your tires are square. not literally Jared they're the same size got it so you could so

this question if it applied to a road course could you use yes they're all the same yes because you lay them the pick crews lay them out in a certain manner

in the pit box right to make sure you don't forget and then they're written on it as well yeah they try to match the tires the best that they can the teams are much smarter in that than what I can explain but they do they match

the tires, build a tire set out of the tires that all the tires that they get. And then they'll kind of put them with, hey, this left side tire works good with this right side tire. And so that's why you see them all planned out and whatnot. It's a tough job being a tire, tire person, because it's, you got tons of tires any given weekend to, uh, to have to deal with. And you're managing them all. And, uh, you're trying to keep the stagger of each set consistent, which that's, that's a job in itself so it's a big part of what we're doing what's the person that's burning off when you see the tires get taken off what's what's were they trying to accomplish there yeah they're trying to get the excess rubber off so when you see us uh go as we're running at speed we're laying rubber down

on the racetrack when we slow down for a caution those hot tires those it they're probably the surface of them is 200 and something degrees, right? It then picks up the rubber that has been put on the racetrack. So there's a layer of loose rubber on those tires under caution, which is why you also see us swerving back and forth before we go green. If we choose not to pit, you'll see us doing some heavy swerving. We're trying to get that loose rubber off of the tires. So that way when we charge in the corner on a restart on older tires, we're not. We're riding on actual tire rubber that is stuck the tire and not the loose rubber that we just picked up

because your car will just take off if you don't clean your tires up well. Interesting. Yeah. Whose job is it to make sure that the correct tire goes on the correct wheel? Like does each tire change or go get their specific tire before they piss up? Or is there a guy specifically that says, okay, here's this tire for you, here's this tire for you?

No, they'll just put them up on the wall and yeah, they'll know. that here the guys that are going to go across this side, you're going to use the tires for this. Yeah. Yeah, it's, they know each tire. They basically probably set them on the wall and they know each person who's going to be touching that tire

to put it on the car. They know that that's their tire. So what's the point of, when the tire is taken off, though, you see somebody. Yes, yeah. So I was going to get back to that. They, what they're doing is they're scraping off that old rubber to then measure.

there's little pinholes in each of the tire to then measure how much the tire has been worn. So they've got a little gauge that they'll stick in these holes in the tire, and it shows how much of the tread has been worn during the course of that run. A lot of math in this sport, Travis. There is. That's why, you know, these are the stories that definitely need to be told and to kind of, again, what you see is cars going around circles every Sunday. it's a ton of stuff that makes him go. Yeah, yeah. There's more to racing and just a guy driving the car, right? You're good at math.

You probably have a home and racing somewhere if you want it. 100%. I have a review here from Skyline 2413, and they say, Denny's first time finally peeing in his seat was hilarious. I about dropped a 50 pound weight while working out because I was laughing so hard. Would have been worth it.

Hashtag all in. Yeah, I didn't, hey, I didn't go back to back, Jared, as you call it. That's good. Yeah, it's good. So I kept it in this week, didn't really have an issue. Yeah, that was a, I was hoping that that would kind of break the seal for me and allow me to do it on a more regular basis. Maybe, you know, I went right before I got in the car. It was, it's interesting. All the Porter Johns right behind pit road, if you want to get a driver autograph, I'd wait there. Because everyone seems to go to the,

The Porter Johns, I'm kidding, we're likely not going to sign right then. The Porter Johns are just lined up with drivers right on pit lane right before we get ready to strap in. So yeah, it's a thank you for that review. I appreciate you listening in. Don't drop the weights, please. But appreciate you being a part of your, letting us be a part of your workout. Be sure to rate review.

and follow wherever you get your podcast and don't forget to subscribe to actions detrimental on YouTube before we wrap this thing up do you have anything else you want to add what's your week look like um i don't have anything else to add you know i don't know the worry talked enough about kyle larsson but i'll just you know give a few sentences here saying strong run right i mean this could be a this definitely could be a kyle larsen type year um you know anytime he starts off uh this early in the season getting wins it's you're looking at you're looking at you're looking at, ooh, how many can he get, right? So he's on it right now, especially on the mile and a halfs. The mile and a halfs, he's got to package, him and Cliff that it seems like it's going to be

tough to beat. So we all got to go to work on it. The question will be, can he avoid the DNFs? Because last year he had some wins, but then he'd had some drop-off races, right? Yeah, he's definitely an up and down guy as far as results concerned, you know, finishes or concern. So, I mean, but that's, everyone's looking to get better. So everyone's looking at their weaknesses right now. I think we're going to know a lot more after Phoenix. Phoenix, this is a big week for all the race teams that think they have championship aspirations of, hey, if you want to try something,

it's going to be this week because you're not going to get too far out of the box once you get to the championship weekend. Yeah, I think you can say the same for the 24 team too, right? Because they were hot early, and if it wasn't for the trash bag, who would have known how... I think they were to have a tough time with Larson, I do, given the pay. that he had.

But certainly William was going to be in the picture. Chase had a, you know, kind of doing our Hendrick Motorsports wrap up here, Chase kind of had a, you know, probably a ho-hum pedestrian day. You know, he was back half of the top 10 most of the day. Not great, not terrible. Alex Bowman, probably a little worse than that, right? Probably in the teens somewhere in there. He struggled, which is, you know, kind of not what you would expect.

Alex Bowman typically has had pretty good results in the spring Vegas race. Yeah, that's pretty much the wrap up on Vegas. Tune in to us next week after Phoenix, and we'll check out you guys then. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.