Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Logano’s Vegas Win: A Shocker for the Championship Chase?

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Denny Hamlin and his co-host Jared Allen are back to recap an eventful Las Vegas event where Joey Logano secured a spot in the Championship 4 with a crucial win. They debate whether Logano's victory was a surprise and break down the Playoff implications (6:00).Denny reflects on his own performance after a solid qualifying position of 4th turned into a challenging race day (12:00), and why the two-tire stop worked for Martin Truex Jr. but not for him (18:20).What exactly happened on Denny’s pit stops and did him stopping short in the box cause their problems (22:10)?Tyler Reddick went airborne after getting in a wreck with Chase Elliott and others. But, who was to blame for the wreck (24:15)?Plus, they discuss Christopher Bell’s dominant 155 laps that didn’t lead to a win (30:30), and what it means for his Playoff chances. They also take a look at what each Playoff driver needs to do in the next two weeks to advance.Joey Logano winning wasn’t good for Ryan Blaney, but Blaney still helped out his teammate at the end (38:20). Jared asks Denny what he would have done if he was in Blaney’s position. And, once again Logano won a fuel-saving race. Denny explains why the Fords are the best at fuel-saving strategies. For more content head to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimentalFanDuel disclaimer: 21+ and present in North Carolina. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. 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.

Do you think it was just Cabo is the reason you guys didn't race well? Maybe. Banana boat curse. Larson had a bad pit stop. He was in Cabo. Like, who else was in Cabo? Is that what the problem? Me, Ricky, Larson.

Maybe that's the problem. Something in the water down there. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey guys, welcome to action's detrimental. Ow! That hurt Charlie! This is not going to be a rose-colored glasses show. Pleading with NASCAR, who I guarantee you is listening to this.

It was warm and then it was cold. But I kind of liked it. The 11, D.H. We're all in. We're going all the way that's promising. Hey, guys. Welcome to Action's Detrimandall. I'm Denny Hamlin Driver, the Yahoo Camry.

This past weekend at Las Vegas. Jared. And I am Red Vest number 311. Good morning. Everyone. Good afternoon. Yeah, it's later. I told you I could have used three more hours of sleep, but it was okay.

Here we are with post-Vagas reaction. We had Xfinity A.J. Almendinger knocking his self and putting himself into the round of four. What's our thoughts on that? I mean, I think we had two shocking winners, really, when you think about it's two. I don't know. Yeah, I just don't think that, I mean, when's the last time AJ won a oval? But you said two shocking winners. I'm questioning the two, not AJ.

That's a shocker. Where are you going with this? Lugano is not a shocker. Of the, I agree. We all said, but. Okay. I mean, he was out seven days ago, and then now he's in the final four. And what did we say, though, when he got in?

oh, I'm not disagreeing with that. I said it was wide open and agreed. But it's, you know, the way the race was playing out, you know, he's going to have a okay day. I thought he was kind of falling back there a little bit towards the back half of the top 10 and maybe even outside of it slightly. But it, yeah, you think Ligano was, I mean, I know any of these. guys winning is not a shocker but it's of the contenders that are still alive i would say you know legano and almondinger are not the two that you thought would punch their ticket to the final four first i would say the way the race is playing out it's shocking that he was able to win because

you didn't see the fuel saving coming but coming into it i if you said that you're going to be shocked that he'd win one of these races that's like everyone on twitter's like oh i called this i'm like this not a hot take to say Lugano was going to win. I don't know what the odds to win were, but I would say he probably had the longest odds to win. His odds were plus 1,800. Oh, way to look, why to be right there with the. Well, yeah, well, you guys are going back and forth on if this was a shocking win.

And I don't think it's shocking, but it's certainly surprising. Yeah, so. Considering the last 10 weeks of the season. It is surprising if you're. 18 to 1, right? Trave, I mean, you do a betting show. I mean, I don't think people had him winning. I'm just talking about he's a two-time champion.

Like, you can't be shocked that he's going to... I don't discrue with that. That's my point. He had the same odds to win this race as Kyle Bush, and I would have never bet on Kyle Busch to win this race. And he's a multi-time champion. But Almondinger, yes. Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, I think Almondinger, the ovals, I mean, of the eight that were left, I would have put him probably sixth strongest on, you know, team driver, everything kind of right there, you know, speed-wise on these ovals, but they found a way to get it done and now they're going to race for a championship. So it's crazy how this format can lend itself to just, you know, you get a win and all of a sudden you're moving on and now it's you know the stakes are big for a

championship yeah i asked you last night if you believed in momentum and whatnot on the ride home and you know whether you do or don't this format doesn't reward momentum it just rewards being in the right place at the right time on the right day yeah and that's it yeah it's true and and there's nothing really much you can say to refute that and I think even Christopher Bell after the race mentioned that right you're like hey is this momentum and our reporters ask those questions so often um which is you know what does this do for next week or what what does this do to your mindset for next week and it's like it's it's a new week and I told you in the on the right home I was like nothing I think it's I think this sport is week to week well especially like you're it's not

the same car. Like, so it's not like this car was great for Bell, but that doesn't mean, it's not like football where like you can find plays at work and you can take it to the next week. Like you're not taking this car to Homestead. Yeah, I mean, certainly, you know, from a car setup standpoint, I'm sure, you know, they're, they're not that similar homestead to Las Vegas. But, you know, it is still a mile and a half, so still aerodynamics matter, things like that. So, but it's just, you know, Homestead's kind of a beast of its own when it comes to

racetracks and yeah one one week's result does not guarantee the next yeah if you're christopher bell i feel like you just have to be sick to your stomach because while you are plus a lot of points to the good Tyler reddy could go win next week in homestead chase elliott could win at martinsville and then you're a handful of points separated from kyle larsum for that last points position so yeah just because you finish second and or plus 40 something you're by no means locked into the championship four. Correct. You know, would you, if you would ask the 20 team or Christopher Bell,

will you take plus 47 leaving this racetrack, he would say, yeah, I'm not going to win the race. I won't run the race. I'll take plus 47. So, yeah, there's a distinct cut line now. We're on the other side of it. Lugano's in by advancing Bell plus 42, Larson plus 35, Byron plus 27.

On the cut line below it is me at 27, Reddick at 30, Blaney at 47, Elliott at 53. So, yeah, I mean, if you want to talk about must win, it's probably going to be Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney. and if you're going to talk about must run top three in every stage and the race for the next two weeks, it's me and Reddick. That's, that's, you, no exceptions. You must, if you don't run in the top three, every stage, that's four stages and the race,

there's no way we make up that kind of ground on Byron, Larson, or Bill. And that's assuming also that, that one of them doesn't have a great week. You know, it doesn't have a great finish. So you need some help as well. So it's looking more and more clear on what needs to happen right away. I would argue that your mindset just has to be we need to go win.

It's probably more difficult to run top three in every stage for the next two weeks than it is to just go win one of these next two races. Well, the one thing about Homestead is it's not an alternate. at strategy type of race. So you're going to come in and take four tires every time you come to pit road. So that is a track where you could, if you're up front and dominating, you could just stay there all day long. So it's possible there. Martinsville, you definitely do get some varying strategy there because, well, I was going to say because there was no tire wear, but we have a new tire there that's going to change everything. So that's going to be exciting to see how that race plays out.

So I think, yeah, I think it can happen at Homestead and the big question mark is Martinsville. How are you looking at this now that you've slept on it and are looking at your points position? Yeah, you know, I'm just kind of disappointed in our playoffs, certainly. It hasn't been clean by any means, especially at the racetracks where we know that we got a chance to contend. it's just been a rough go at it for us Kansas and Vegas You know two races You only get so many of these

Normal style You know cookie cutter racetracks that we've got In our playoff schedule And we've had one of them That which is Bristol And our pick crew is You know great there And we had a flawless day

We ran up front Stayed up there Throughout the stages And got a great finish but besides that it's just been a really tough go at it we've had crashes we've had all kinds of things throughout this playoffs and i told you it on the way home i says i frankly i'm amazed we're still in it you know i'm amazed we're still part of the playoffs so it just is not gone well well that's why i asked about momentum not necessarily you know like do you need momentum each week to win but just

you know like do you let any doubt creep in that says you know we haven't looked like we had a winning car the last 10 weeks. What makes me think that we're going to have a winning car the next two weeks? I don't know. I just, I know this team. I know what I'm capable of. And I just,

so I always have new optimism. And yeah, I'm certainly down about the results. It just haven't been good. You know, our standards are really, really high, right?

And when you look at the racetracks, you know, Kansas and Vegas that, you know, we had just horrible days on pit road, and we still clawed our way back to finish eighth, right? We found a way to, you know, get a good finish out of them. Bristol, we finished, you know, P4. So it was like, we're just not, we're not leaving laps.

We're not, you know, doing the things that we were doing throughout the summer months. And so, yeah, we just got to get back on the horse. And certainly this thing has ebbs and flows, but we are yet to put it all together completely together for sure. Hey, NFL fans, the NFL season is in full swing and Fandul, America's number one sports book has you covered. When you're locked in and have a hunch on a game that's underway, head over to Fandul to make a live bet.

You can check on the latest stats, view live play-by-play, and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets, guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. That's Fandul.com slash Denny. Never waste a hunch and make every moment more with Fandul, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL. 21 and older and present in North Carolina,

first online real money wager only, $5 first deposit required, bonus issued as non-mithrawable bonus betts, which expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. Fandul.com. Gambling problem, call 8777185543 or visit more than a game.

NC.gov. What goes into, you know, I asked you this again last night on the way home is you qualified well, practice well on Saturday, and then come Sunday, and before the race, you were telling fans at Q&A as well, we typically don't qualify well here and then we race well and we qualified well, so I guess that's probably a good sign. how does it change? How does it go from good stuff on Saturday to not as good stuff on Sunday? Disregarding the pits and all that.

Man, I just, I can't emphasize to you enough how much track position matters. And I found that out firsthand. And certainly, I think I came into the pits fifth under that green flag stop. It was me, Ligano, and Larson all kind of. right next to each other we come in and then i came out i don't know in the teens it was way you know i was back there and then all the sudden you know you know this is this is what happens with dirty air right and the air just keeps get dirtier the further back you go these cars you know nascar 101 here they need they want clean air and what we call clean air all the time is essentially no cars in

front of you so these cars really rely on the air pushing down on the car and getting underneath the car to create downforce. That's what pushes, you know, this is your race car here. I was watching on YouTube. The air's coming into it and it's pushing down the car and that's what's creating the grip. Well, the more cars you put in front, that air becomes really, really disturbed.

And next thing you know, your car's like, where's my grip? It's just, it's floating on top of the surface now because all this air is disturbed by all the cars that you've got in front of it. And so the worse, the further you go back, the slower your car just naturally becomes. And so when I went back there, I'm like, oh, shit. Like now I can't pass the 14th place car where I just, you know, got around Chastain.

22 was, you know, a little bit behind me, three, four car lengths. And then I was starting to, you know, kind of catch or maintain right there with the five. All of a sudden, I come out and I can't pass 14. place and that's just was like oh man and it was like a wad of cars it was like seven eight cars within one second and so it was like oh man this is really difficult but i'm i'm hanging tough i'm i'm close maybe past one or two and uh and at that point then the caution comes out and then you know chris and my team they're trying to get me back to track position and you know whether it's me getting in their head or whatever it might be, you know, I tell them, you know, I just

need my track position back, you know. And so at that point, they're trying to strategize something they're like, let's try to do two tires here that, you know, restarts us, you know, in a decent spot. And, you know, we just were on our heels from that point on, right? From then to the end of stage two, we were just struggling to, you know, we were, we dug a hole and then, you You know, we were in quicksand. We were trying to get out of it where we just kept getting deeper. And, you know, it just, it happens. And luckily we were able to fight and stay on the lead lap there when we had those old tires.

That was a crucial moment for us to just keep fighting and stay on the lead lap. And that allowed us to, you know, grind away this type of finish. So it's just, you know, when you get sent back there, it's tough. And, you know, in hindsight, maybe we probably should have been a little more patient and just said, you know, let's take our lumps and just chip away at this a couple of cars per run. But, you know, you just never know when the cautions will fall, right? And, you know, if you tell Chris will always say, if you tell me when the cautiones will fall, I'll tell you the perfect strategy.

But, you know, it just didn't work out. Can you adjust for that, though? Can you, you know, can you go into practice on Saturday and run in a pack with all the Toyotas to simulate dirty air? I did. Yeah. I mean, I passed Christopher Bell four laps into practice. pulled away, he pitted, caught Barry past him.

I was very happy with where we were in practice. But what I was getting around to, sorry, I kind of lost the subject a little bit, is that how does it not relate? Things change overnight. You got weather that changes, you know, temperature, you know, more cars on the racetrack. We only practice with 18 cars on the track. We race for 36, so there's more disturbed air out there.

There's more rubber on the racetrack. There's lots of things that you have to equate for and plan for from Saturday to Sunday. But typically Sundays always are better than what we are in practice on mile and a halfs. But I thought this one went really, really well on Saturday. So I was very optimistic on Sunday. still felt pretty good about it until we lost our track position and then it was like man passing is really really difficult and um again we just got on our heels from there so i don't in the end i don't know that we were that bad now were we where we where the 20 was or 45 before he

crash no there was nothing those guys pulled away early in the race and i i had nothing for them But it's tough to say, given we fought track position all race, to really analyze the car and say, you know, do we have an eighth place car? Do we have a second, third place car? It's really hard to say just simply because of the track position. Chris Gaberhart made the call to take two tires. Was this in stage two, Travis, stage one? this was in stage who did this was stage one you guys took two tires after the Dylan caution yeah came out piece six

at the time it seemed like the good call because Chris had looked at the tire wear from the previous pit stop said hey it's it's marginal yeah we just need to regain some track position here your job is not to keep the lead just keep some track position and obviously that didn't work out yeah it just i went through the first

corner and immediately i feel the tires not having nearly the grip that everyone else around me had and so i fell back to sixth and then at that point that's probably where we should have pitted no no no no this is a dip you're talking about when you came out with the lead when you stayed out yeah he's talking about after the austin dillon you guys took two tires when you pitt it and he came out P6, but then that restart, you kind of fell back. Yeah, and so we had pretty old left-ish, left-side tires, and it's just, you know, tires actually mean more probably at Vegas is what they do at other racetracks.

And so, I just, yeah, I couldn't hang on. I was dropping like a rock. I was getting run into from every angle possible. So it just, it did not, it was not going well. And, yeah, we were lucky to stay on the lead lap there. What's the difference between two and four tires? Well, it's, you know, while wear might be small, it's a temperature, surface temperature thing. So you're naturally not going to have as much grip as others because of the temps.

And the tires want to be colder. So when you put on sticker tires and you put four of them on, they're going to have more grip naturally, even though the wear might not be that significant. So I just got eight and up really quick there. So the 19 also took two, but he, Turek started out first. So there's a difference, the clean air then is why he was able to hold on. Yeah, he had a little buffer. I think there was a few of us that had four tires.

So when he was racing, he was racing around others with the same tires as him, where I was the last car on that. So everyone with four tires is behind me. They're looking to split me. They're looking to just, let's get rid of this guy. He's in the way. and so Truex has got a little buffer there and you only need about a lap and a half

for them to start to equal out but that lap and a half is big well it sounds like then the odds were never that good that you were going to hang on if you're the last car on two tires well I mean if we you know again if we knew that that was going to be the case then maybe we do something different but you you never know do people behind you then stay out

out, then it gives you a buffer. I mean, there's all kinds of different scenarios. I was behind the calls that we made. I just thought that, you know, they didn't, they just didn't work out. But it's, you know, I didn't think that there was anything alarming on my end that thought was wrong. Your pit stops on pit road were slow. Jeff Gluck had mentioned in the tear down that you were getting into the box short. How much does that affect the choreography of a perfect pit stop? You know, and I have a bad I hate talking about our day all the time. I replay my day constantly from when the race ended to now. It's like, what could I have done?

What do I need? All that. And then I got to come on here and talk about it. But okay, what's your other question? Pit stops and stopping short in a box and how it affects perfect choreography. Yeah, it does that when you don't stop on the sign, typically what happens is the time. and gets off for the pick crew because they're kind of scheduled you know the way they run around the car they can they start to go to their knees as the car's stopping and if you stop short

they got to got a shimmy over one way or another so yeah that was um that was under yellow I believe yeah it was under yellow um yeah I miss hitting the sign on that one but that's where we had the left rear tire loose wheel. So it didn't affect that because they had already ran around the other side. It usually messes up the timing on the right, which can affect the left, but it doesn't affect loose wheels. It affects more, you know, pulls and positioning and bodies, things like that. They mentioned on the broadcast that the pit boxes normally are slick. Was that something of concern for you that so you were trying to stop? Yeah, I knew. I knew Vegas has some of the slickest pit boxes that we have on the series.

So, yeah, I never want to overslide the line. But, yeah, if anything, it's, you know, I try to be more safe than sorry. And we, you know, we just, we've been messed around with some different stuff. And I just feel like, I don't know, I got to, I got to just go back to the way I was doing things. You mentioned that you replay this over and over. How long does it take for you to kind of flush it out? Are you still until you're getting in the car next week? Are you still replaying things like that?

I would say, you know, probably Monday, Tuesday, and then you kind of turn the page, you know, your focus really starts to go on to the next racetrack and then, you know, what do you got to do better there? A few other guys that did not have the best days that you had a front row seat for. Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney. What did you see in this Tyler Reddick Chase Elliott incident? Could you see that happening?

Yeah. Exiting for? Yeah, you could see it brewing. You know, you had the 19 and the 9 kind of mid-race track. And then 19, you know, the spotter Drew was probably telling him he was only, you know, one car outside. Well, the problem with that is Tyler Redick was coming on the top side, on the very top side. So you got to kind of plan for that.

But in these next-gen cars, you can't just turn left and say, okay, you don't have that excess grip. We're all taking these cars to the limit of the grip. So the 19's using all the racetrack, and he's getting closer and closer to the nine. And as these cars get close to each other, and we've seen these arrow situations, boom, they, they, take a hard right, right? Because it takes the downforce off each car, really biases towards tighter. And so it forces them up the track naturally. Well, the 45 is coming with this huge run and it doesn't get to the outside of the nine until late in the corner. And by then, the nine, he wanted to back out. Chase was like, he saw this coming. I bet you three seconds before it

happened. And so he tried to back out, but it was just too late. And so, I mean, looking at it, I thought that it was probably a little bit too aggressive on Tyler's part. At that point of the race, I understand, you know, he's trying to get stage. He's trying to have one of these big days, right? And he's clearly got a car that can win. He doesn't want to get trapped back in traffic. But it just seemed like you're really asking a lot from your competitors down low to leave a lane really late on the exit of the coin.

and they didn't. And, you know, I thought that, you know, the blame probably goes, you know, 1A is the 45, 1B is the 19, the 9 had nothing to do with any of it. Like he was just an innocent bystander in the middle who held his lane, saw it come and tried to back out and it was too late. Is there room for Reddick to back out of the gas there and keep himself out of that incident when he's come with that run or is just like you're committed at that point? It's just, you know, a rule of thumb I've found is that if you, if you want to make a move three wide high, you need to get established three wide probably at least by three quarters of the way through the corner.

That allows time for the spotters to tell the 19 and the 9, hey, you're now three wide. You know, that means, so because we've already started gassing up, halfway through the spotter. the corner or really probably at the 40% corner mark of the corner we're already accelerating we're wide open we're trying to accelerate off the corner so to ask us to change direction that late in the corner there's just no opportunity to do that and it's also too late to lift so typically on mile and a half so if you're going to get three wide you need to get there sooner than later because if you try to just put your nose up there late there's just not enough time for a reason for a reason for you direction. When the spotter would come over with radio and say three wide, what does that mean to

the driver? Like, what does that register in your brain in that situation? At that point, if I'm on the bottom and my spotter tells me I'm too wide with the nine. And then, but he'll usually tell me, but the 45 is coming with a run up top. That's given me, he wouldn't say outside. He would say 45 is coming in with a run up top. That tells me my responsibility of being the bottom car. and that is, okay, when I'm looking at the lanes and I say, all right, I need to make sure that I leave two lanes because if he says he's coming, he's going to be there at some point. And so it's my responsibility to keep my car a little bit lower on the exit. That leaves room for the nine and the 45. But again, it just, the 45 got there just so late. It was going to be hard for anyone to change. Is this just a little bit of an experience of Frederick in that knowing you got your 10 stage points? You don't need to force the issue right now, or what do you chalk this up to or just racing? Well, I mean, that's what Tyler is, and that's what he's so good at, is being fast and on the gas.

So I caution a little bit, you know, yeah, every situation you need to live and learn and you need to evaluate and say, what could I do better? you know let's put the big picture in play but also you got a you don't want to temper or pull back the reins too much because then you get too conservative and and so it's just a balance that you know you live and you learn and certainly playoff experience it'll you know these things you'll remind yourself of these things when they come up in the future yeah Steve LaTart had said on the broadcast that if you're not attempting or trying to make those moves and pass those two cars at that time that you're not going to pass many cars in general like you if the opportunity is there you need to take it unless you think your car is really elite and you got plenty of time in that day to

to get there right right this is a race to the checkered flag and the checker flag falls long time you know there was plenty of time between that move and the checker flag so it's about the timing thing. Can you get to the lead by 270 something? The answer was yes, right? I mean, these guys were going backwards on old tires. But, you know, I don't really fault any of the moves. I just thought that it was, you know, it was, it was risky and

certainly, you know, ended up in a bad spot. Christopher Bell had a, if, I mean, I guess the best car after after everyone else knocked themselves out. But Joey Lugano makes a strategy call at the end of the race to stay out and preserve his fuel, and ultimately that pays off and locks him into the championship four. Yeah, I mean, if you're Bell, you've really got to be proud of, you know,

the effort that yourself and the team put together this weekend, they were top-notch, qualified P1, which that's, you're always like, you know, when Bell qualifies P1, it doesn't like you're not like holy shit he's going to go dominate this race because he qualifies p1 a lot you know um and i i i forget the stat that i saw online that you know p1 starters is not won in quite some time but he was about to change at today um they stayed up front uh it looked like his car was really really good uh they were on it really had no contenders um to to challenge him certainly after Reddick, you know, got in the crash. But, yeah, there was an opportunity,

and we knew when that caution fell right before the fuel window, we knew that, like, oh, it's going to be tight for someone. And someone's going to try this. And certainly, you know, the 22 teams and typically the Fords themselves get pretty good fuel mileage. So they were going to be the first ones that tried to make it happen. And truthfully, the 22 is in a, you know, all or nothing situation.

Like while he still had a good day, I think in stage one, he got three points. Stage two, I'm not sure. He was like plus seven at the time of that decision. Again, he's on House Money. He got a phone call that got him in the playoffs last week. So, you know, we heard him stay publicly that, man, this is House Money. Now we can just go for it. And they found an opportunity.

That caution fell at just the right time for that team to say, okay you let us you gave us an opportunity to go for it now here we go and so um it just it the timing worked out perfect and yeah they made it happen but uh for bell um it was uh you know heartbreaking not to win for them but they still got a really solid day at it um just i'll go down the list and talk about each driver here the byron i thought good weekend for them uh it seemed like they had a quiet but very good weekend. Stage one, I guess he took two tires, but still got good stage points and then finish good. So they had, they did the day that they probably went into thinking about. They executed it really nicely. So Reddick, we talked about

him, you know, Crash. He's probably in a must run great. Although, Mark, Martinsville is kind of a questionable for them. He's probably thinking go to Homestead and win. Speaking of that wreck real fast, grass is a debate again with him flipping. I know. It's just, it's unfortunate. And certainly we don't have really any kind of standard of consistency when it comes to, you know, the grass and the infield and, you know, what we have on mile and a halfs.

I'm not even sure. Someone mentioned to me that the Legends cars have not even run that track in the last 10 years. You know, because it's the Legends cars track or Bandereros or whatever that run on the infield there,

but they said they haven't run there in 10 years. So why is it still a track there? I mean, I don't know. Maybe it might be a question for SMI, but I don't know if they run something else there. or just, hey, it costs money to dig this up and we don't want to plant grass. I'm not really sure. But I just wish we had something, you know, more consistency or something, some sort of,

here's an end field, here's the standard in which we have, we want the infields. I certainly think that the grass was low compared to, we have some tracks where, you know, there's definitely higher. But, you know, Michigan was one where, you know, you go through the grass. grass there, you're going to just destroy and it definitely can grab the car. Charlotte's the best. By far, they've got AstroTurf there. It's the smoothest.

You can run through it. It's the easiest to maintain, you know, but it's the most expensive to, you know, to initially put in there. But certainly the grass was a destroyer of cars and certainly caused this one to flip. So if we're so hell bent on these cars not flipping, because we think that that's a problem, what are they going to do about Las Vegas? Right? I mean, it's, if that, if the other issues were a car problem, this is a track problem.

So are we going to fix the track problem? Shark fins on the track? Yep, right through the front straightaway with a jump and some fire. If you just put a wall on the inside of the track as well, then you don't even, the grass is irrelevant. Right. Then we could just ping pong off the wall. and demolition derbyum. Nice.

It's where we're heading. All right. I'm going to try to touch on all the other guys here. Chase Elliott, we talked about his points position. He's in the cellar. Not good. He was definitely kind of an innocent bystander. Looks like he, you know, watching the beginning of the race,

he was coming to the front pretty quickly. And I saw after the race, he was pretty happy with his car. you know, before that crash. And so he had got the track position. He didn't qualify well, but he was making it up rather quickly. And, you know, so he's in a position where Homestead, he's probably stronger at Martinsville than he is at Homestead. So he's, you know, he's going to try to win both, but I give his best shot to win at Martinsville.

Blaney, again, what I feel is a must-win situation for him. I think he has an equal shot to win. Homestead and Martinsville. While he won Martinsville last year and he did it, I thought in rather dominating fashion, I think we were the second best car to him that day. He was really underrated at Homestead. I thought that he had maybe one of the best cars at Homestead last year. If you remember, that's when Kyle Larson ran into the sand barriers coming to pit road

because he was trying to get around the 12 in that pit cycle. So if you're a Blaney fan, I wouldn't panic too much just because I think that they do have two good tracks ahead of them and that he's shown he can win at. Myself, yeah, must be great or win a race. And then, you know, who else are we missing here? Kyle Larson. Kyle Larson must be good. Yeah. You can't have a, I don't think you can have a bad race or else myself or Redick could take advantage of that.

You know, we have the potential to take advantage of that. So, Larson, you just, I think that they, you know, they're going to be themselves, right? They're going to be fast and whatnot. But can you avoid the mistakes that keep you from having a detrimental day? And that's finished 20th or worse. I know you said you haven't had a chance to watch this race back, but there was a few moments before Joey had passed Daniel Suarez for the lead that Ryan Blaney had helped push him down the backstretch,

created a draft for him, knowing that that, if Joey were to win that race, which he did, makes Blaney's position to make the championship for a bit harder, despite being a teammate. Like, how would you view that? If you were three laps down and Christopher Bell needed assistance

or could have used a little assistance to get past the leader to win this race, would you have helped your teammate in that situation? Knowing that it's going to make your road to the championship four a little more difficult? I didn't think about that part of it. My quick reaction was, yeah, certainly, and especially if I was told to, you know, for whatever reason. but yeah i didn't think about that you know lagano winning did does hurt blaney's point situation right so um yeah i mean i we've seen though that the penske teammates work as well or if not the best

of any of helping each other in those types of situations so um you know while you know what what that was helping right is that by having the 12 are he can either be in front of you or behind you. He's helped pushing you down the straightaway. Even if he's not physically pushing, it's taking drag off of your car, which allows it to go faster down the straightaway with you having to run less throttle,

which is why you see at Super Speedway races, the guys that can save the most fuel or mid-pack or tail of the pack, because all that air gets disturbed, and so you can run just as fast down the straightaway at 50% throttle, say. So he had an ally there that was around him helping them down the straightaways,

which allowed him to run the speed, save fuel and run the speed to pass the 99 and get the win. What makes the Ford so good at saving fuel in the first place? Well, they have less drag. They have less drag than all the other cars, which is why they qualify so well at super speedways. And essentially, to break it down, like drag is essentially how fast you go in the straightaways and downforce is how fast you go in the corners. So, you know, the less drag that you have, and it's a tradeoff, right? If you had more

down force to your car to make it go fast in the corners, it's going to add drag typically and make it go slower down the straightaway. So the, yeah, the, the, the fours just seemingly, you know, for whatever reason in their car builds, have less drag and it allows them to naturally just get better fuel mileage. And, you know, you never know what the engine mapping, things like that, they certainly have been good. Even at tracks where drags, not a huge deal like Nashville, right? They made it a long way at that track. So there's clearly something in the engine mapping or the engine itself that allows them to get it. Homestead next week, you're going to go into a couple different competition meetings today. What are you going to look at?

Are you going to look at data from last year? Are you going to look at data from similar tracks? How are you going to create a baseline setup for homestead without having any prior experience there this season? Yeah, you just really rely on notes from last time you were there and then you kind of create offsets from, you know, what is progressed in your cars and your setups from a year ago and then you put it all on a sheet of paper and you try to put this Lego piece together in the correct way. And so, yeah, you do sim work. things like that. You just trust the process. And when you go there, you hope that you've hit it. What do you think the percentages of times where you hit it and times where you don't? Like,

is there like an 80% we're going to get this right when we get there? Yeah. It's, I feel like with the 11 car typically, you know, are there races where we fight chronic handling problems? Yes, but it's a low percentage. I would say, yeah, we're probably, in that 80% that's probably a good number on where I feel like we're just a tweaker to a way. One more, you know,

in-stop adjustment from being, you know, capable of running fastest lifetimes. So, yeah, but there's sometimes that we don't. And then we got to go back to the drawing board and say, okay, well, why was, why did our tools tell us that this was the avenue to go down, but it didn't work out? and so that's just part of our personal process that I will not sit here and tell you

be alive. Anything else we want to touch on, Travis? Do you think it was just Cabo is the reason you guys didn't race well? Maybe. Banana boat curse. Do you guys get on a banana boat? No. Larson had a bad pit stop.

He was in Cabo. Like who else was in Cabo? Is that what the problem? Ricky. Me, Ricky, Larson. Maybe that's the problem. Hmm. Something in the water down there.

I don't know. What did Ricky do? You may know? I don't think I saw Ricky all day. You did because he passed you at one point. Well, yeah, when I was... You put an anchor on your car. Yeah.

He finished 27, so you could put... You could add the curse to him as well. Yeah. I want to turn the page, focus on Homestead, and figure out what I need to do to win that race. So... All right, well, that's kind of all I got. You got a review?

I got a review here from half a fan. Great name. Hey, all, I just want to say I'm a big supporter of the podcast and a fan of Denny as he gets great insights into the sport as a driver and an owner. However, I hate Denny as a driver and still hope the round of eight leads to a happy Christmas and a merry off season. Go Hendrick Motorsports. Nice, nice little Chase Elliott quote there.

Yeah, what do you say? I hope they have a happy Christmas and a merry off season. Yeah, it's a harvick. That was the Harvick thing, right? Yeah. Well, I appreciate half a fan for the review. Making sure you keep listening every week.

Let's try to go get a good win here at Homestead. We've done it before. Let's do it again. Got to turn the page, fellas. We've got to turn the page. Vegas behind us. We're moving on.

Was Vegas good for you outside of racing? It started out really good. Really, really good. And then I went to another hotel. A friend was there, and so I gambled there

and lost everything that I gained at the hotel I was staying at. So I ended up netwash. You should have known better. Can't leave. I know. Oh, well. That's Vegas for you.

Yep. All right. We'll see y'all next week.