Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Less Give & Take

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Denny Hamlin explains why he changed his mind and will appeal NASCAR's punishment for comments made on last week's podcast. Kyle Busch says there isn't respect with the drivers in the garage (8:12). Josh Williams went viral on Saturday (14:36). Joey Logano won on Sunday in Atlanta and showed why he is one of the greats (22:51). Denny explains what happened at the end with the Toyota cars and why he didn't make a move to get in front of Logano (30:20). Plus, #DearDenny (41:15) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirtymoe Media. By the way, ooh, spicy, salty. I'm not making believe that, like, oh, we're best friends now. You're really good with these tangents. Who's Jared Allen? Not the football player, obviously. In the Twitter video, you flip them off, right? I was just pointing to the cars below me.

Poor guys over there having a write down every single time that I threw out the bomb. My mom is not going to be happy hearing all these beeps. Let's just buy cars for the whole family. Let's just have a fleet. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Actions Detrimental. I'm Denny Hamlin, drive the number 11, Toyota camera for Joe Gibbs Racing, and my co-host, Jared Allen. What up, Jared?

How are you doing? How was your week? It was good, actually. It was really good. It was cold. Cold is cold. It was cold. It was cold.

I know. Coming back from the West Coast, it was, uh, yikes. Coming back to Charlotte, I'm like, can we get some warm weather around here? It was 80 when we were gone, but of course it's, you know, like 40 when we come back. But, man, it was a – so tell me about your week. You know, people always like, well, Denny, whatever, you know, talk about myself. Let's talk about you for a second. Like, give me – tell me about your week.

Okay, well, I went to the races. I went to the – that was this weekend. Oh, you want to know, like last week. I want to know about your week. Oh, okay. I want the people to know and figure out who is Jared Allen. What did I do last week? Um, we came back from, that's a problem.

Yeah. You don't know what you did. Every week just blends on next. We came back from Phoenix. Oh, I had a lead climbing class. Um, so as you know, I'm into climbing. Yep. Um, so the next step in my climbing journey is learn how to lead climb.

So pretty much climb up the wall and take the rope with you. So the rope's not attached to the top anymore. You take it up with you. Yeah. And you're putting in your own protection. Man. It's almost like a pilot, airline pilot, right? It's up to you to do all the.

checks, checklist of making sure. You don't have somebody at the bottom all, you know, being your safety net, I guess. Correct. And that was on Wednesday. And then Thursday, believe it or not, I went snowboarding for the last time this season in North Carolina, which had the best conditions we had all year. I saw that actually. In the middle of March. I follow Brad Panovich, the meteorologist here in Charlotte. He's like one of my favorite follows, actually, because he explains meteorology and like why the weather is doing this. He makes it cool. He does. I love his vlogs and stuff. It's pretty cool. I'm such a nerd when it comes to that. But he mentioned that the conditions were going to be good in the mountains of North Carolina.

So glad you got to enjoy that. They lost all the snow like two weeks ago, right, when it was 80 here. And then they had a day where they got another foot. That's awesome. This is maybe my first year where I haven't got no snow exposure. Maybe I think the only flakes I saw in person were in L.A. That's right. We had nothing here. Yeah. So, I mean, listen, huge newsweek, obviously, Hasbula came to the States.

He did. To L.A. Las Vegas. Yep, just missed him. Man, that was cool, right? Actually, I went to his Instagram live, and I saw him, you know, riding in the car down the Las Vegas strip. And, you know, of course, this guy has went into down videoing.

And all these guys and girls are like, you know, just, you know, approaching his car. and dying to get a photo with them. And, like, I find the guy so interesting. But, yeah, so, I mean, obviously, last week was interesting for myself. Really? Yeah, it was. Certainly didn't believe, you know, talking to the fans here, listening to this podcast, would result in any kind of penalty of any sort.

But to my surprise, that happened. So for people who may or may not be listening to this podcast for the first time, last week, NASCAR fined you $50,000 and penalized you 25 points for admitting on your podcast, this podcast, that you intentionally wrecked Ross Chastain on the last lap of the race at Phoenix last Sunday. NASCAR cited you violating section 4.4 of the Cup rulebook, which includes actions detrimental to stock car racing. It's interesting. You quoted what they said.

Now, I'll tell you this. The reason I'm appealing is because I don't believe, I don't agree with any of it. And a lot of people are also asking, well, you tweeted initially that you would not appeal to NASCAR, but you would appeal to the people here on this podcast today. And I had all intentions of doing that. I had, I mean, how long was the list of notes that? that I had for our podcast today that, you know, it had to be at least three episodes worth of talking points, right? Examples, talking points, all kinds of things that I was very, very angry about.

And I initially was not going to appeal this because my owner, Joe Gibbs, who I love like family, because we are family. called me and says, hey, I know, you know, this is obviously not ideal, but I've talked to sponsors, I talked to the team. We just want to let this go. We just want to move on and, you know, everyone's fine, but let's just not drag it out and move on. And I was like, fine. That, you know, it's not what I like, but I'll do it because, you know, dad's telling me so.

I need to be a good teammate and, you know, someone that respects when my team owner, you know, asked me to do something. So then I slept on it and I just, I woke up and I looked at, you know, I got the email from NASCAR of the things that they said I did. And I called Joe back and said, Joe, I didn't do any of these things. And he says, well, you know, Let, Denny, I don't know. Let's just, let me get the team together.

Let's, you know, let me get Dave Alpern here and get your crew chief in here and some other other executives. And let's talk this out. And he says, okay, he put me on speakerphone. And I explained to everyone, you know, exactly, you know, here's what they said I did. This is not, this is not truthful. This is not right. And at the end of it, they just said, we, we, we, we, we, we, understand. If you want to appeal, then we support you. And so here we are. We're not going to get

into it today. We will when this appeal is over. I'm not going to sit here and explain my argument because it just gives the plaintiff time to prepare. I think it's smarter if I just kind of keep my opinions and my facts in my pocket and we'll go from there. But my job on this podcast and what I did last week was give the fans listening an inside perspective of what they're hearing here. What did the TV not show?

What did they show but maybe not explain? I'm trying to make sure and inform race fans that watch the race on Sunday or are new to the sport and need explanations you know, layman's terms of things

because they want to understand the sport. How many times have we heard people say it's too damn confusing I don't understand NASCAR I'm coming here on Monday to try to help with that this is helping the sport so

we'll move on from that and go ahead no I was just going to move on and say we could weigh in on someone else's opinion we don't have to weigh in on yours on this right now but we can weigh in on someone else's yep we can do that what do you got which is Kyle Bush who was interviewed

this weekend and he'd said this is a long quote so bear with me we have completely lost any sense of respect in the garage area between drivers that's where the problem lies nobody gives two expletives i think he said about anybody else and it's just a problem where everybody takes advantage of everybody as much as they can we're all selfish granted but there was an etiquette that did live here mark martin started it tony stuart really lived by it i think jeff gordon lived by it so i mean it did exist i've tried to talk to guys they don't listen

so I've lost interest in talking to them. Fair statement. I can't refute it. Anyone that follows me throughout my career, I feel like I've been one of those guys. And of course, I've had moments where it looks like I don't live by these ethics or rules, but I talk about them often. But it certainly has change, absolutely, within our sport.

And agree with him, too, that also tried to talk to people. And it's like, it just doesn't. doesn't get through. And so you just feel like you're done talking, right? And so it is a shame. Certainly, I think, you know, I've talked about Kyle Bush. I think he's, you know, one of the fairest people on the racetrack. So I think he's, if you look at how competitive he is and how few of incidents he's been in or started, like he's got a really good ratio. So he's probably somebody that we should listen to in that instance. But I agree with him. It certainly is a loss. things have changed. But I have an opinion why it's changed. It's harder to pass now than ever.

And that's a fact. That's interesting, though, that you're pinpointing that is one of the key reasons for this, right? Because I think, I don't know if we talked about just amongst ourselves, but I feel like the sentiment has always been, oh, it's the younger guys coming up. They don't come up with the same amount of respect, right? But it doesn't sound like that's necessarily the case at all. It's because it's harder to pass. So that's my opinion. My opinion is, there's less give and take because you cannot get that spot back. Like back in the day of, let's see here, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, those guys. I remember the first three to five years of my career, I would let people pass on restarts to save my tires to then blow their doors off after 25 laps of Green Flag Racing.

Like, it just, you could do it. You know, passing was just more, it was easier. If your car was significantly better than someone, then you could take it easy at the beginning and then step on their throats in the long run and then just demolish the field. But as tire fall off and lap time variation has changed in our sport, actually, you know, I gave...

I was going to say this goes hand in hand with the lengthy arrow discussion. Yeah. Last week. Yeah, and it's not. just arrow, it's tires, it's racetracks, it's all those things. You know, lat time falloff is a half, maybe less than half of what it used to be at all tracks just because of reduced power. Tires are getting harder, made differently, surfaces, things like that. It's just all equals

tougher passing. So people don't feel like they can give a spot, get a spot. You know, it used to be a, we used to say give and take. Yeah. Like, that's, it's long gone, right? But it's just different now

because passing is more difficult. Track position's more important than it's ever been. Like, it is someone coming back from a speeding pillar or something? Like,

your ass is done. I mean, you might get back towards the front, but you ain't winning the race. Like, it's not like it used to be in that sense, which I'm the, you know,

the old man, talking about, you know, walking in the snow uphill both ways of school right now. But, but yeah, it's just different. I think that that is a factor. And so rightfully so, you have to fight for positioning more than you used to. But, you know, is that a bad thing for TV and entertainment? Maybe not. I mean, they want to see us, like, closer together, fighting with each other over track position.

I don't know that NASCAR. or TV really wants to see us, you know, the old Mark Martin give and take, you know, pull over to the right, wave them by. Like, that's not as entertaining. Now, for the purest, they absolutely love it, but it's that we're in a new age. Yeah, there's probably a fine balance there

between the two that you got to strike, but, I mean, it seems like it's quite difficult to find that, right? To have these good rivalries, but also this, I mean, give and take passing, like I mentioned. Yeah, I mean, that's, it's, We're all fighting for track position, but I agree. He even mentioned his son, you know, or even in the short track ranks, like they have a black flag,

like they have a black flag for a reason. Like if they see intentional contact, I talked about it after the clash, all it takes for NASCAR to black flag one person for, you know, going out and, you know, sending somebody in a corner, obviously sending them into a corner and spinning them out on purpose for them to reel back, you know, what we're seeing on the weekends and maybe it fixes some of this what Kyle's talking about, but I don't think we're ever going to see it.

I mean, I don't want them getting involved in any more balls and strikes calls as it is. So let's just leave that one as it is and we'll just, you know, fight it out on pit road when we need to. So, you know, it was, that, we hadn't even got to the weekend yet. No.

But, you know, those were the comments that Kyle said on Friday. We had, man, kind of a show, Xfinity and truck race to start anyway. Unfortunately, one of the social media stars from the weekend is Josh Williams. And he was a star because he got a lot of attention after parking his car on the front straightaway at Atlanta. So if you didn't watch it, the Xfinity race on Saturday, which is the next level down. from NASCAR Cup racing. You know, that field is mixed with all kinds of different drivers.

Drivers coming up to the sport, drivers scratching and clawing to kind of make a business out of it, and then you've got the ones that are competing to go out there and win every single week. And, you know, Josh has been in this series for a few years now, and I'd love to hear his story. I think he's going to be a door bumper clear. So make sure you tune in. I believe when you hear this, it'll be Monday morning.

It'll be up. So I ask you. So I asked you guys, like, because he says, hey, if you need a podcast guest, and I'm like, oh, could this be our first one? And then by the time the race was over and y'all actually asked me the question, say, hey, are we going to do the Josh thing? I'm like, yeah, sure, it sounds great. And they're like, oh, well, he already signed with. Your boy, Freddie beat us to the punch. Great.

Beats me everywhere, buffet line everywhere. But no, it's great. It'll be great to hear his story. I heard he does some really good things with some charities and whatnot. I love the old Taylor Swift heart into the camera is cool. So he is certainly a blue collar scraping and clawing to keep this thing going type of guy, you know, this business or, you know, the career or whatever. And so he gets called to, well, he gets called to take it to the garage and park it.

and I think this was kind of a NASCAR was just frustrated that the race kept going caution caution I know it was on Twitter you know that's kind of halfway how I was watching the race because you know it it was the cautions were so long and so often that like I'm like man I can't I can't this isn't entertaining me so I'm checking out you know March Madness game in between and I see that you know people are really frustrated with the race and then we got to talk about practice. Is that one thing or not? Is that the reason for this?

But anyway, the beginning of Xfinity race was a completely show, filled with nothing but cautions. And I think NASCAR really got frustrated with that. I think they blew through their time window by the end of the second stage on TV. But Josh was, I think, in my opinion, one of the more unfortunate people to be in NASCAR's path of anger when this happened because we have cars that so if you missed it Josh was part of a multi-car wreck a caution or two before they try to repair his car there's bear bond it's freezing cold outside bear bond doesn't stick well which is why a lot of times you'll see teams back when they

could use bear bond in the cup series they would clean the car with break cleaner try to get it as clean as they could and even heat up the bare bond and make it stick what's freezing cold outside So that doesn't stick well. And, you know, probably the people on his team are not aidless mechanics that you see at Joe Gibbs racing or Penske racing or whatever. And so these guys are trying, you know, more than likely they're probably helping for the team more than anything. They're trying to get his car repaired, keep him on the racetrack to get him a good finish.

And I guess a piece of Bear Bond, which is essentially people at home, a large piece of tape that it's just like it's duct tape but it's probably three by three sheet you know that they can just peel off and put it on the car and act as a fender or whatever to hold stuff together

well it comes off and then causes another caution and the tower loses it I guess and tells Josh to park it and he took exception to that so he to say the least

he parked it he parked it at the start finish line and got out and left his car sitting there and he walked casually to pit road across the infield. Yep. And they didn't like it, understandably so. People were home or waiting for this race to go green eventually,

and now they've got to bring out a tow truck and move his car off the racing surface. So everyone's like, oh boy, this is not going to be good. He's certainly going to get fine for this or get penalized or whatever. and so I someone's social post is kind of a behind the scenes and you hear him go over the pit wall and the NASCAR medical staff is telling him you must you need to go to the infield care center because your car was involved in a wreck and he says something about again I'm paraphrasing

but it looked like he was just like you know I'm not going or whatever like that and he's like you know, what are they going to do? Find me? He's like, I can't afford to, I can't afford to pay it. I can't afford to pay it. So at that point, that's where you saw me respond saying, I'll pay your, I'll pay your fine, bud. Like, you know, I have some sympathy for someone like Josh

that is trying to make it in this sport. And it's actually, you know, I'm hearing more and more about a story about how good of a race car driver he actually is in the lower ranks and late models and whatnot. And it's like, man, this guy's, really got a story and it's you know i want to help out you know years ago uh the 32 team um the fast track team something like that with matt de benedetto i know tires yeah so i bought them some tires to to make it to the cup race because the team didn't have funding and i saw

matt on social media trying to get funding to go to the next race and i'm like you know hey i'm in for five grand or ten grand whatever it is uh to to keep this going and you know, so I sympathize with guys that are really trying to make it in the sport and listen, I know I'm going to get tons of requests on social, but you can't help everyone, right? I can't, you know, but I want to help when I can, and I just thought this is an interesting

situation where, you know, I'm probably a little hot out of the collar as well, and this guy certainly has a story that was interesting, and I'm like, you know, and I heard him say, hey, I can't afford to pay it. I'm like, well, I'd love to see it the next race, buddy, so let's get that. taken care of. So I've had direct messages with him. I just said, you know, pinning any outcomes or whatever. I meant what I said and I'll take care of it. So, uh, great dude. Would love to hear a story.

Yeah. He actually, um, I don't know him personally, but, um, I was introduced to him through his charity stuff because I have friends on Instagram and social media, right, whatnot, um, that do a lot of work with the Levine Children's Hospital. And I've seen their post that include, have included Josh Williams a bunch of times like race car driver Josh Williams so wanting to know who that is right I'm in the racing world who is Josh Williams I've gone out and Googled right oh he's an exfini driver blah blah blah blah but also one of my favorite things about this story is that Antonio Brown quote tweeted the video of him walking across it but like oh did he I think I saw that but like awesome stuff right it was like it was a heart and a dragon so I don't snake and I don't know I don't know I was trying to say there yeah so those who you

also that don't know, Antonio Brown is the infamous wide receiver that bounced around a few teams, but then finally decided he would quit on the sideline while playing for the Bucs. The Bucks, right? With Tom Brady. Yep. So he took his shirt off, walked through the end zone, waved by to all the fans, and I don't think we've seen him since, have we? No. Yeah, that was it.

Hopefully we see Josh again, though, this weekend. So that was kind of cool. But, you know, for the race itself, on Sunday. How about let's talk about the cup race. Okay, so that was Saturday night. Cup race today. Joey Lugano wins his 30th race with Penske. He's only, what we say, 32 years old?

Yeah. Man, it pains me to say this because we've had such a robbery over our career, but dude's making serious argument to be like Mount Rushmore? I mean, so he's averaging. let's think about this real quick. He's been in the series roughly 10 or 11 years. Yep. 32 wins.

Yep. Let's just bump him up on the average and say he's averaging three wins per year. Yep. He's got at least 10 more years. I mean, that's on the low end, right? If he wants it, right? 10 more years. Double his win total?

Where is he at? 60 plus. That's pretty legit. I mean, he's, man, he's on it. And two championships for what it's worth. Two championships, like, man, you know, I don't think he'll, I don't think he will get to whatever Kyle Bush's total ends up being. Kyle Bush's got a less shorter runway than what Joey's is, but Joey's on top of his game. You know, I don't think how, I'm not really sure how you can argue, you know, how, you know, how.

goody is, especially super speedways. The Ford's itself, I mean, you know, I had written down here that while the Ford's still, they have less numbers than Chevy, they dominate speedways. And I thought about it. I was like, why is that? Well, they got four of what my opinion

of the top five super speedway racers in the Ford camp. And so they work so well together and so committed to each other, it's hard to beat. I mean, man, I just, it was Super Speedway racing being so different than it used to be now that it's just too wide racing, you get some guys committed to each other, it's, it's going to be tough. I mean, Brad and those guys, you know, led a bunch. I thought Brad was in control. He was kind of playing the lines at the end, but Joey got the push. He finds ways to put himself, in the right position at the right time, and it ain't luck,

because he keeps doing it over and over and over. So you got to tip your cap to the guy, and, you know, maybe he's the most underrated. We had that on our show last year. Who's the most underrated in the cup garage? Like, why does no one ever say Joey Lugano? I don't think, Kyle Larson. I don't think Joey can be underrated, though.

He's a two-time champion with 30 wins. Absolutely. Well, why are they never saying he's one of the greatest, you know, best drivers out right now? I don't see him on those lists. Oh, yeah. I see those lists all the time. And it's, he's never at the top of it. But how can you argue?

He's averaging three wins a year. Win percentage since he's moved to Penske is unmatched, I think. I'd like to see those lists because, in my opinion, since I've been in NASCAR. I'm not arguing that he's not on the list. Right. but I'm arguing should he be at the top? Oh, of the best in the series. Yeah, arguably, yeah.

Yeah, I think so. I do. I think so. I think he deserves his, all the credit he gets. You know, it's interesting because you kind of look at like, you know, how he, he still gets tons of booze. I think it's just, you know, you wrecked the wrong people at the wrong time early in your career, and they just, you know, fans don't really let it go. But, you know, as far as talent on the racetrack,

it's hard to, it's hard for me to put many, if anyone, on top of them, especially right now. He just continues to win. Big moments, wins. He gets it done. So the race itself, I thought, was pretty uneventful, I guess. The first two stages. Yeah, it was.

I mean, a lot of it is because, it's just this style of racing where no you you can't pull out i mean you can't you get a big run unless you know there are four to five cars at least behind you that is willing to take the same make the same move you are at the same time you are going to go straight backwards doesn't matter how fast your car is you can't pull out of line past the car in front of you then get back up now you can at the very front of the field you know you see the slide jobs that are going on but not in the the pack. You just can't. You know, it's so, so difficult. So what we do is we typically race for about two to three laps after restarts, and then we settle in and we ride. And riding is a very loose term.

We're all racing, right? We're trying to keep our position, making sure we keep the gap in front of us tight. That way someone can't slide us and go from behind to sliding in front of us. but it's just the nature of this car and how it races on these types of tracks you race for about two three laps then you just kind of settle in because you know there's not a lot of air getting disturbed there's not two and three wide where there's big pockets of air for you to dice around and move around you have to stay in line because it's a numbers game uh i think clint mentioned it on the on the broadcast that or maybe it was tony one of the two about this is strictly a numbers game it doesn't matter about the speedier car most times the moves you make it is like

get in whatever line has the most amount of cars and you will go forward um so that's that's what we're racing and and it's a different type of skill set than what it used to be but in my mind too is the best at it in super speedway racing five years ago or 10 years ago Joey Lugano and Brad Kazowski are battling for the race win on the final lap. So, you know, while it might be different, the guys with the best skill set still are up front. So does manufacturer matter? It does. I think that I think we at Toyota made a strategic bad move.

I heard Reddick speak about it in his post race that like it sounded like they were trying to get me clear of Joey. and I think with a few laps ago, I was briefly clear of Joey on the inside line and the Toyota's led by either, I think it was led by Reddick. Then Bill. Yep. And then I was behind Bill.

I think they were trying to move down to the bottom. But we always, our spotters that are in our ears telling us when the car that is behind us is pushing when they are clear. And I'm thinking that it's possible. They told them that I was, not clear, so they stayed up the racetrack, which then left the bottom wide open for Joey

to just take a big run and make it run towards the front. So, yeah, certainly we could be better. We're at a numbers disadvantage anyway, but you just look at the guys that do it well, even though, even when the numbers are stacked against them, like they just do it so well. They find a way up front and especially the Penske guys that you know you saw joey kind of playing some games at the end of the stage he didn't want to lap the 12 car because he knew he was going to need him at the end of the race that was so smart right i mean did i think he was going to be able to check up the field like that and keep us all behind hell we would listen when i saw the 3 the 12 and somebody else about to get lapped you know for a second time you go down two laps you're you're in big trouble

I'm like, let's lap these fuck. Like, we don't want to, you know, that might come back and haunt Joey that he didn't lap the three and the 12. But it was so smart and strategic because he kept one of his allies in the race, right? Someone that he knows that when he's behind him, he's going to push him no matter where he goes.

And so they just do an extremely good job of working together. And you see the results of it. That's just a fact. So, you know, There were two big wrecks. There was the first one, I think. Well, which one happened first? I think it was.

Harvick and Chastain happened first. Yep. And I can give some insight on that. I think what was going on there was that I was leading the outside line. Harvick was beside me. And Chastain was given big pushes to Harvick down on the bottom. And I think they wanted to get up in front of me. I don't know about Harvick, but I think Chastain did especially.

And so he ran into the course. corner really close behind Harvick because I thought that they were going to try to both get clear of me and then move up, which, I mean, that's what I would have done. It's the best move. And I think that when Chastain committed to, hey, I need to run through the corner as fast as I can down here on the bottom to clear the 11, he got just close enough to the four that it got the four car loose, which that's just, that's just racing. That's, you know, basically the closer you get to the back end of the car in front of you, the more rear grip it takes away. And the forecar was just too loose, spun out right in front of the one. And it was a huge wreck. And so that took out,

you know, some cars, some good cars, certainly. And then you got... Real quick, before we move on to this next wreck. When you're driving, do you realize how close you are to being caught up in these things? I knew I was close. I didn't realize the seven I didn't see that. No. There were many times where I didn't, I don't see the car coming from the bottom to the top and barely clipping,

you know, barely clearing my rear bumper. I didn't see that until I saw the end car. Okay. So you don't have like a sense of close. Yeah. Very close. Very close.

So that, you know, that kind of shook up the race. And then I'm thinking, okay, so that put us all in a fuel window. We were then all good to pit. and then make it to the end of the race.

So there was going to be no green flag stops from there on out. We all pitted. I came in second. And unfortunately, at these types of racetracks were not a lot of cars go a lot down. When you take fuel only and you're pitted in the middle of pit road, you really kind of are in a vulnerable spot of, especially when you're up front and there's a bunch of cars all in line.

Haven't got to their pit box yet. I haven't got to the pit box. I come out. the 43 Eric Jones, thank goodness. Well, he checked up first to let me out because usually that's kind of the ethics a little bit. Not everyone kind of plays by it,

but usually if the car, if it's simultaneous where both cars are leaving at the same time or one is coming in, one's going out, you should give the right away to the guard going out because he's earned that spot. He was there first, right? He's to the spot first.

It's like a blocking foul in basketball. But he checked up. The 77 went around him, then needed to turn into his pit box. And I'm leaving mine. I clipped the 77. I have to stop, go back in first gear, take off. So I lost seven positions on that. And I'm like, daggone it.

You know, track position means so much. Normally, I mean, listen, it's 70 to go. And I'm running, restarting ninth. I would, back in the day, I've been like, I can be ninth with, Two laps ago. I'm good. But track position means everything.

So it just kind of, I knew that I was going to be in that line for a while until things got shook up. And we had another shakeup with 50 to go. Almerola blows a tire in front of the field, which is interesting. We didn't see any of that. And last, you know, we saw it last year with cars that were leading at Atlanta. They would, but I thought that we kind of, you know, changed some things and kind of got that problem under control, but I think he was the only one of the day that blew a tire

kind of out of the blue, and right in front of the field took out Larson and a few other guys. And then from that point on, it's just all about trying to position yourself. Like, how can I stay in the line with the most cars, but if I see an opening down low, should I take it, then risk going back to 12th, definitely not going to win from there. and so I'm just kind of stuck in that fifth to six for the last 50 laps and that yo-yo effect. Well, that's kind of what I want to ask you about because there was a moment with somewhere between 25 and 30 to go where you were, again, you were in line with the Toyota's, right? You were the third car in that Toyota line. You were clear of Joey, who was the first car in that bottom line.

I'm just wondering why you may have not have moved down in front of him with 25 to go. Because that would have made a move on the 20. Okay. So you were, that was not going to happen no matter what. You were committed to that line. But I also didn't. I just,

damn it, I just feel like, you know, there's just been such an emphasis on team that like, that's not how I won Super Speedway races back in the day. I just kind of used whoever is around me to propel my car to the front.

But I tried to stick with a 20. and he actually pulled down to the bottom. At the end of the race. Well, during that moment, when I barely cleared, he pulled down and I'm like, if I pull down, Joey certainly is getting to my right rear or whoever's pushing me, and now I'm going to be stuck on the bottom in the third lane.

And my car wasn't working well on the bottom anyway in traffic, so I'm like, I don't want to be down here. I'd rather just stay up top, which is why you saw me decide to stay up top. but that kind of put me on an island. Okay. So that thought did go through your head. You did think about that.

I did, but I just, I did, I never want to get caught third car, fourth car on the bottom. I'm boxed, you're boxed in at that point. You got a yellow line right below you. You got cars on your outside that probably are going to crowd you. It's just a, it's a box I don't want to be in. At least if you're in the top line, you've got outs. You've got chances to, you know, go higher. put someone through wide middle something like that but it's uh i just i second guess myself but i also

was kind of didn't have i didn't think a car in traffic that i needed to to make the moves that i needed to be aggressive so that's what what we had but you know it was um i thought it was a great race a great finish you know last lot pass no caution no rec you know proud of the field let's give a round of the applause to the field for not crashing and the last last night last 50 laps of a super speedway race or 40 laps. I saw where Brad said that, look, hey, we can, we can do it. We can do it. It was cool to be able to at least not have a green white checker, just complete wreck fest at the end. But a lot of that has to do with the people that are up front, honestly. They're some of the best, and that's why you see them winning so much.

What did you make of the new pit road at Atlanta? Man, it's a lot. It's a lot of. It's long. I mean, I thought it worked out okay, though. I mean, certainly it's a disadvantage if you get caught pitting and then a caution comes out because you're going to be about two laps down, two, three laps down almost. But I thought it worked fine. I didn't see any issues. It just definitely puts an emphasis on don't make any mistakes, that's for sure. Yeah, is there any more challenging getting on to pit road when it's set up like that? Yes and no. Yes and no. NASCAR did a good job actually putting some markers on the inside that, you know, like they do for breaking markers that they do for road courses.

I think they had them one through six, so 100 feet from the break from the spot to 600 feet. And I thought it was a pretty good reference. I'm kind of referring to if you're in the top lane, like you've got to make sure if you're running a double file, you've got to make sure that you can get to the bottom lane first before you're going to come to pit road, right? Because you can't get to pit road from the top lane,

which I guess in some situations you kind of could at Daytona, right or wrong? Yes. yes it was interesting because as you're leaving pit road it's right at the point when you merge onto the racetrack where then people are then turning hard left and then breaking so it's it's the same spot but and i and i saw kyle arson raise those concerns but it uh you know in our our chat but it's it didn't it didn't look like it affected anything but again i was in a spot and i'm in a cocoon so i don't see everything that's going on during the race but um i thought it all working out okay to be honest so Atlanta don't new Atlanta thumbs up thumbs down it's just different I mean

it's just different I mean it is what it is now right we've reconfigured it it you know it's just a different different type of race I mean you know certainly Saturday's race wasn't you know the greatest look wasn't the most entertaining for a very long period of time but you could look at Sunday and say, well, that was pretty entertaining, pretty good race, last life pass, what more do you want? So I think that it's a balance for sure, but I mean, we've got what we got now, and I thought that what happened on Sunday was probably the best case scenario. Dear Danny, we've got some questions that we want to ask.

Dare Danning. We need answers and we need them fast. We tried to ask junior, but his answers were lame. And with DBC, it was more of the same. Now we're caught on you because you're our own hope. This ain't the race track, so maybe you won't choke. Dear Denny. Well, with that, let's move on to some Dear Denny.

This is probably my favorite section of this podcast each week now. We've got a few listener questions. First one I'll start with is how important is practice? In the broadcast today, Clint Boyer said it makes no difference. Tony Stewart said it allows teams to save a lot of money. They don't have to buy rental cars and hotels and all that stuff. Both are right. I just, I think this goes into a different type of category.

I'm a team owner, so I agree that the savings that we found during COVID when we didn't have practice was a large number. I do think, though, we miss out on storylines. And I got to thinking about this a little bit. And, you know, because this has been a topic for a very long time. No, it doesn't make a difference in the on-track product. Probably not. I mean, we saw Daytona. You know, guys had some mechanical failures.

That's a bummer. You wish they could have a few minutes to see that coming. But how has most sports boomed? gambling gambling and so how do you get people interested in NASCAR on a recreational level the casual fan right people love to have action on a game and you know and I think that people that like to have action on game at least like to know something about what they're betting and if you don't have any practice speeds there's no they're just guessing. And I think that, you know, people that, you know, are religious betters or whatever at all sports during all seasons,

I don't know that they get a ton of information about the sport to make informed bets, probably. I mean, if I had to guess. So, you know, why, when you don't have that, you don't have that for information, I think that that maybe limits you on on that side right and i know that uh you know fantasy and um you know sports betting on nascar is something that nascar i think is trying to push to help grow our audience and to get the casual fan you need we need to get more information on it and the next is the storylines right we do miss out on some storylines in the buildup of the weekend right there's always who's fast in practice.

What storylines came from practice, right? This team's got an engine, they got to go to the back. What happened? What caused it? Was there a wrecking practice? Like, there's just some things that I think you do miss out on without, you know, practice. But we do, you know, we have 20 minutes to practice a week, but it's on Saturday. If we're just talking about super speedways, I agree.

Generally speaking, let's not include the Daytona 500. The race is way too big to not have practice. Just something. I think most team owners would agree that Daytona 500, let's get our cars on the track. Let's start talking about this biggest race of the year. Atlanta is such an in-between. tween one. Tal Dega, we don't need practice. I agree with that. Atlanta's definitely a tweener of like, if I had an air on one side, it probably needs, it wouldn't hurt to have 20 minutes to practice,

but also I'd be fine leaving it as is as well. So I definitely think that practice though is important for our sport. Do you agree with the practice times, right? Because practice used to be an hour, I guess still is in some cases. Like do you care 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour? No. No. You know, we used to have hours of practice, right? We would have maybe an hour, even 90 minutes.

Yeah. On a Friday, we'd follow that up with, you know, a 55 or 50-minute practice, which they called happy hour on Saturday to fine-tune. But no, I think it's, I think certainly it's fine. that's an adjustment to our support that we've made because we've gotten smarter. But there's certain extenuating circumstances where I think we can change it and be a little different. You mentioned leaving a city, a couple weeks ago on the podcast, you mentioned leaving the city of a race during that race weekend.

Did you leave this weekend in Atlanta? This weekend, I did. I went back and forth. Simply put, because like it's a 30-minute flight from Charlotte. and, you know, I'm lucky enough to be able to fly right into the racetrack there at Atlanta so I can be from, you know, the racetrack to the airport in about five minutes, and then I can, you know, I'm 25 minutes from the airport here in Concord to my house in Cornelius.

So I can be door to door in an hour, and so I just figured, hey, if I'm done around 1230, one o'clock on Saturday. I don't have anything to do till two o'clock on Sunday. I decided to go home. I had my dog with me. I knew the kids were, they were with their mom on Saturday. So I needed to have, I needed to go back and get them because they were going to come to the race with me on Sunday. So I went back for that reason. Not just like, you know, listen, there's plenty of nights I'm going to be, you know, on my bus. us and so why not take advantage of when I'm close? And so that's what I did. And I enjoy it.

I like kind of coming back home. I watched the Xfinity and truck race. And, you know, just chilled out. Didn't do much. Worked out this morning. Went and picked up the kids off to the airport and go. So I do it pretty. I wouldn't say I do it often.

But I do it every now and then. There you go. If you want more answers like that, you just have to ask whatever question with, the hashtag Dear Denny and get them answered on this show. You didn't have much going on today before the race, like you mentioned. Did you watch any of the F1 start at 1 o'clock? I didn't.

I didn't see it. I just saw a few, you know, I was kind of dipping in and out of the bus through appearances, watching it. Then I had to go do my own stuff. And so what you got from it? I was just going to, we followed up from last week about wondering what fans thought in one word, F1 and NASCAR. So we got a few of those answers.

Yeah. So we wanted to ask the fans that because, you know, because it's interesting that, you know, sometimes we put F1 on this pedestal or at least the people, you know, it's interesting. We're in such a bubble. Like, you know, the people I follow clearly have one view. And so I wanted to hear from the people that follow me. Like what are they, what are their feelings, right? and what did we get for answers?

I asked for one word, tell me how you would describe F1. Tell me how you would describe NASCAR. What was our answers? Well, we got a bunch of stuff on both sides of aisle for both F1 and NASCAR. A few that came up here for F1, thrilling, prestigious, technology, pinnacle.

But then on the flip side, we got boring, casual, pretentious, boogie, which I think actually probably is a good thing. And then on the NASCAR side, long, grit, restricted, blue collar, family, crashing, diehards. Yeah, so it's, now again, should we, should we probably say that the people that are following me are NASCAR fans? Yes. We should also, right, right, we asked this question because we were trying to pull from F1 what NASCAR could do better. We could do in NASCAR to grow the sport like F1.

Yes. It is growing. Can I just say we shouldn't censor our athletes? Let's move on. You know, when I look at these answers, I think that they're saying pinnacle because people view it as the highest warm motorsports. It's hardest to get in, hardest to compete, hardest to win. It's international. Tens of millions of people watch every single week.

So it's hard to argue that. I think that the NASCAR fans are probably biased, that, you know, boogey, all those things. Technical agree with that. That's what interests me about F1 is the technical aspects of it. I think, you know, TV does a great job of inform of me. of I would have no clue what the hell's going on in the race if it wasn't for them.

So I think those answers are fair. NASCAR one, I mean, long, boring, action, racing, gritty, blue collar. Sounds like our fans, right? I mean, this is, it's what I see when I log on social media. It's what they're, you know, it's how, you know, you would stereotype our sport. I do think that we're going through some changes with it, though. I think that while this has been a southeastern regional thing for a long time,

we've branched out, we're spreading our wings, we're going to Chicago and the city, we're in Sonoma, we're near the L.A. market. We're in Vegas. I mean, it certainly seems like we could make some changes, but I feel like we're on our way to doing them. I really do. I think that we're on a very good path as far as that's concerned. I would like to see us be more technical,

but it's very hard to make this super technical when we're all buying the same things. We're taking this 200-piece Lego set, and we're all just there. Here's the Lego set. You can put it together any way you want. We're all putting it together. the same way. I mean, it's not much to that. The cars are also close. We're all running the same

times that it's hard to kind of make it super technical. We've taken the technical aspect out of it to try to save some cost on the cars themselves. So long, I agree with that. I've definitely been an advocate for shorter races. Now, I don't want to show. short the fans that come for, you know, 600 miles away and drive their RV and come camp out for the whole weekend and give them a one hour show. That's not what I think anyone wants. Would love to see it fit in a under three-hour window somehow, right? I mean, even if we have to fill it with some post-race, like, that's a good thing, I think. We used to really have a lot of post-race, and now it's just, hey, if you want to check it out, go.

log on to peacock, right? I mean, so we do lose a little bit of that. You don't get as much driver interviews as you used to. I know today it was great to hear Fox. I know that I sat on pit road because they said, hey, we want to have the availability to talk to all of the top 10. It's like, oh, cool, we must be under our window. That's a good thing.

So I'd like to see us undershoot the window we've got because we usually go over anyway. and then if we need to fill at the end, we've got plenty of good content to do that. Yeah. The two words that really stick out to me here are the bougie for F1 and the blue collar for NASCAR. And there's nothing wrong with blue collar.

I actually think blue collar and NASCAR is one of the best things or best attributes. That's where we came from. Right. The bootleggers and all that stuff, right? I mean, this is what our sport is built on and came from. You know, people, you know,

taking their car that they, you know, or driving to the racetrack, knocking out the damn headlights, you know, putting racing tires on it and maybe not even that sometimes and going and racing. Like so that is us, right?

I mean, you see the people wrenching on the cars. That's what, man, as a society, I really hope we can, it's not just all about Uber's and like that, right,

and lifts. Like, yeah, I really, and I believe it. I believe that there will always be an aspect of people that love to have the fastest car, right, and have a great ride. And so, and some people working on it, right, and fixing it up on their own. I think that that's, that's where our sports built on and

a lot of what our fans do. Yeah. On the flip side of that, though, the bougie thing is like, in today's world, that's, that's what sells on social media. And social media is your, I mean, it's your key marketing platform, right? People want to see Joe Burrow walk into the stadium with sunglasses they can't afford and fair very fair all these other things they're superstars because they can do things and buy things that most people can't right and a lot of times it's it's why that's they're superstars they're movies stars they're athletes like they're they just do things that we can't and and that's that that's interesting it is to me anyway not to everyone lastly one of those superstars is coming to kota next week kemy rikinen along with a handful of other uh give me the

list. So we got, yeah, I'll give it to you. We got Kimi Reichenen, who's driving the 91 car for track house. We got Jordan Taylor,

who's taken over the nine car. We got Jensen Button in the 15 car, Connor Daly, Jimmy Johnson, and that's it, Jimmy Johnson. There's five of them.

Wow. I had another name here at listed, but they're not driving. Like, these are legit, these are legit, badass drivers that are just, they have their own accolades and different series and whatever but I mean these are these are superstars in

their own right right like it's Kimmy Rikiden Jensen Button Jordan Taylor I mean I might run 20th I mean well I did last on road courses but I'm gonna contest that that was not my fault that was a machine problem but man it's that's great that we've got those guys gonna come compete. There certainly should be a lot of buzz around that event with those people competing. So it's going to be cool to share a racetrack with them, that's for sure. And in the booth, we got Gunther. Yes. Right. Yeah. This should be interesting for sure. Gunther and Kurt. And Kurt. I mean, a great duo. Can't wait. Props to Fox. You get Fox a hard time sometimes, but yeah, that'll be great. To pull this off is awesome. Yeah, it is. And yeah, listen, I'm always a fan of,

you know, having a booth is very consistent. They, they certainly build chemistry and they know, you know, when one talks, the other one starts and, like, it's, you know, there's no talking over each other, but, uh, that's going to be interesting for the fans. Uh, people don't, you know, tell people who've gone through his. He's, yeah, he's the president of Haas F1. Yeah. And just, uh, I don't really know how to explain him.

Just a very fascinating guy. He, he just took over the Drive to Survive series, like, with his attitude. the way he speaks. I think it helps that he cusses a lot. He cusses a lot. That's why I like him. Okay. Yeah.

He actually lives up in Lake Norman or has a house listed under his name. Near you, right? Yeah, down the street. Boy, you're in the high rent district or what? Yeah, me, Austin Payton, Justin Allgaier's up there. Nice. Must pay well. You would know.

Yeah. Well, that's all we have for everybody on this sixth episode of actions, detrimental. Before we close out, remember to rate, review, and follow dirty-moe media across all social channels. Anything else you want to add? Yeah, what about me? I feel like they know that. At Denny Hamlin.

Well, yeah, you know, don't know. What about you? Me, everyone can follow me at Jared D. Allen. How's your followers? Is it going up? I've gotten like an extra 600 or 700. Not too much. Yeah. Come on, folks.

I feel like Ron gets more. Give Jared D. Allen to follow. come on he's worth it so anyway we'll see you next week peace check out dirty moe media on Twitter Facebook TikTok and Instagram