Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Luck Ran Out On Sunday

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Denny Hamlin reacts to Josh Berry’s shocking first-career NASCAR Cup Series win in Las Vegas and explains what went wrong for the No. 11 team on Sunday. Plus, an inside look at pit road drama, including Christopher Bell’s costly mistake and why speeding penalties continue to be a problem.  7:44 Denny recaps playing slot machines14:37 What went wrong for the 11 team on Sunday26:30 Josh Berry shocks everyone and gets first career Cup win36:40 Race strategy backfired for Denny46:37 Christopher Bell pits twice on same pit stop51:50 Why pit road is a speed trapDirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Actions Detrimental merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff. For more Actions Detrimental content: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It is so refreshing and great to see, you know, a self-made cup series driver like Josh to be successful. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. I believe that I've been a competitive for 20 years. Opinions from tonight's podcast, strictly biased. You're going to hear from my point of view. I'm a fighter. No, you are not. The spoils of victory for Jared Allen.

He's got better luck to drink and drink. I know, you do. Two trophies missing from your collection. A championship and the most popular driver. Salon told me that their drinking game is when I say for sure. Yeah. And I've already said it. Hey guys, welcome to actions detrimental.

I'm Denny Hamlin. I am not Irish, but I am lucky. Not on Sundays. Yeah, yeah. On Friday and Saturdays. Yeah. Welcome. It's St. Patrick's Day.

Monday, March. Where was it? 15th? March 17th. 17th? I don't even know anymore. I haven't been home. But we had a fun day,

a fun week. I didn't have that fun of a day yesterday on the racetrack. But we were out in Phoenix. Thank you all for tuning in to our on location episode last week from Phoenix. Yeah, so St. Patrick's Day today.

we got in so late I am so tired Molly and the kids they're on the worst sleep schedule ever they came in at 1 o'clock in the morning and stupid of us to say, you know, tomorrow's St. Patrick's Day

and then she freaks out she's like oh my God we didn't set a trap we got to make a trap right? And Jared you know because you were in Phoenix with us she's obsessed with catching something. It was all during Phoenix, it was bunny rabbits. You know, there's rabbits all over Phoenix, the middle of the desert, just everywhere. So she got within a foot of catching, you know,

of touching one. Like, these are wild rabbits, you know, and so, you know, but there's so many of them, they see so many people. I think they're, they're not tame, but they're, you know, they're not really scared of us. So she just became obsessed all week with catching a bunny rabbit. which she didn't. And as a side effect, she got stuck by a cacti. Hang on, folks. This gets better.

Hang on. So all I hear in the living room is a bunch of screaming. And I'm like, you know, I hear the kids scream all the time. So, you know, you would think that I'd be like, oh, oh my gosh, what's going on? But I'm just sitting there watching TV. I'm just like, ugh, what now? You know? Right.

So here she comes, and I look at her leg, and there's at least, I'm going to call it 10 thorns that are stuck in her leg. And so she has this thing where she doesn't, whenever she gets injured, she doesn't want her to touch her. like she just i'm like molly we'll just get those things out like they they they hurt on the way in they don't hurt on the way out hours and hours and hours she spent in the bathroom telling us just give me space just give me space i mean to put an estimate on the time you watch the entire prisoners movie i know and if anyone who's seen that movie it's a long yes and so this is where it gets Travis. Austin's like,

I'll, she'll let me do it. I'm like, she's not going to let to you. So he goes back in the bedroom, bathroom where she's at, and he comes out, and we're sitting there watching this movie,

and he says, where's the cactus at? I said, I don't know where he's going with this. Like, is he going to whack, you know, chop off the cactus and say, ah, I got it.

I killed it. Nope. He goes out there and proceeds to stick himself to make her feel better. I couldn't believe it. But he did it multiple times because he came back in. She said he didn't have enough thornsome.

So he went back out there and stuck himself some more by this cactus and then she pulled it out. Do we have video of them? No. Jared. No. Jared. No. You had one job. To be honest, Travis, there was so much going on in the house.

You know, you've got Taylor calling play by play. Molly, she's just being such a baby. She won't get out herself. She's going to be in there for three hours. I, in the house, I felt like it was just my job to just stay as far away from the situation as possible. It just did not seem like something that I needed to be up close and personal with. I did not have Austin's. with a cacti on my bingo card today.

I just, I mean, God bless them. I mean, wow. That's commitment for sure, but it seemed to work. So that was great news. What else? We, you know, we played a little pickleball. I was undefeated in that. Jared one-on-one.

Has Charlie played before? Some of the videos look like he's. No, no. He's a person, though, too, that. is, you know, you would think one of the most athletic persons. Yeah. And he is, as long as he plays one sport, basketball. Other than that, his hand-eye coordination or something, I'm not really sure.

It's questionable. It's a question of. It's a question. It was embarrassing. Yeah. So, but he did, he did get better. We did win, like, two or three games in a row against Jared and his partners. Yeah.

I didn't win at all. Wait, so Charlie, who was uncoordinated. you lost to Jared? Not one-on-one, but... Yeah, but... In a doubles game, yeah. Here's my problem, Travis. I get more enjoyment

out of hitting one or two incredible shots that completely trips Denny up that he can't even consider getting to than winning the game. Have you thought... But have you seen the joy you get when you beat him?

No, he hasn't. Like one shot does not like... Because then he gets a tall... afterwards. He wants a highlight. I want to be on SportsCenter. I lose the game, but as long as I hit that back corner shot from

the backhand day, he's like, oh, I can't go backhand, can't go backhand. If I get one backhand shot that just really shuts him up, I'm happy. Well, we know how that turned out for you. Yeah, I lost the doubt. That's how Denny's week of collecting money started.

I gave him $40 in pickleball. Hey, this is Dale Jr. And for the latest actions detrimental gear, go to shop. We've got plenty of options for you. We're adding new stuff all the time. That's shop. Dot dirtimomedia.com.

Well, yeah, so that was our Phoenix trip, basically. Kids playing the pool all week. It was spring break for them, so we stayed out there, and it just made sense to stay out there because I like the city. Then we went to Vegas, and we hit the jackpot.

How many times? Yeah. So there were other times that we had. hit like um it's not it's not a jackpot i know it looks like it you won yes like a significant amount but you know we didn't see those and so we get i've seen many many many many questions on social media but but how much should you invest how much did you actually win right right Jared, you were there. I was there.

You started with 12 grand? 11, 11 grand. I put it in there because this was, you know, I watched Austin play this Buffalo game, and he's been playing this thing for years. But I was like, he was winning, and he was just playing little, you know, $7 a hand, something like that. But, you know, when he would win, it was like a few hundred bucks. And I was just like, okay, well, that's not going to move the needle for me.

like on the excitement level. I said, so how much can you play on this? And so I looked and it's got this denominator. It's got many options for you to play. And I'm like, all right, I'll just play. I'm only willing to invest $11,000 in this thing, but I'll do $300 a hand. So I'm going to get at least, you know,

a fair amount, you know, 30 hands or so, 40 hands in this thing. So I'll give it a chance. And it never went down. below eight at the i mean 10 hands in you know it was a significant buffalo buffalo um i hit the bonus there so then it went up and up and up so that original 11 grand never went down hardly at all and then at the end of the night you saw the 126 uh the win but if you look to the right there's also a credit there of 50 or 60 or something that also was on top of that.

So take out the 11. You know, I end up winning, I don't know, somewhere around 170-ish, you know, about 170 on night one. And so what they did is they paid, you know, at the end of the night when after I started hitting, hitting in, I'm like, okay, well, I'm not an idiot. Go ahead and cash me out. I'm not going to get this back to you all.

So they paid in cash the 126, and then they gave me a ticket for the remaining 50-something. And then the second night I took that ticket of 50, put it in there and said, okay, I'm only willing to go down to 35. And so it never even sniffed 35. It just started hitting again. And it started hitting again. And then, you know, we won another 160 the second night. I don't know.

So that's how, and I cashed out. And so I liked our strategy. The casino didn't like the strategy of me cashing out every jackpot that I hit. So what I was doing is I was using up all the credits of the 52 that I put in. But every time I would hit a significant win over $10,000, I'd say, give me cash. Just give me cash, give me cash. instead of transferring it to my balance. And they weren't fond of that.

I didn't realize they weren't fond of it until I went to go play like Blackjack or Baccarat and whatnot. And I was like, hey, give me X amount for my credit line. And they're like, your credit line's on hold because you cashed out. I'm like, cashed out. I just took my winnings from slots.

And trust me, I'm up. You're going to want me to hang around a little while longer. So needless to say, it was a wildly successful slot machine that I thought, I thought it had a short in it. I mean, I was like, we kept saying, Jared, right? That like this is, this doesn't seem right. It seems like it's just giving us money over and over and over and over. Yeah, it just felt like you were printing free money. They're probably reviewing that slot machine as we speak.

they probably pulled it off the floor and I can tell you this is between two different machines that's that's that's that's where some maybe some controversy comes into play is because austin was on it he won a little bit and and he was like and he offered he says do you want to sit here i said yeah sure no he primed it i got on there and then within 10 things it just started going right and so then while i was playing and hitting on this one the first night there was another one on the opposite side so like kind of they face face each other and also played on that for the rest of the night and i don't i don't think he really won a lot it wasn't as successful no not as successful but the next night would i do i went to that the one he played with the night before and so i didn't

play the same one because i was first of all i looked on chat gbt i says if i win on one buffalo machine does it hurt my odds of winning on another? Like does the Buffalo game algorithm? Does one hit take away from all? And it says no, they're all independent. So I said, sweet. I'm going to go

back for more. So I went to a different machine and it just I put a quarter in. I went a car. I put a quarter and I went a car. That's basically how it went. Every five, ten minutes. It was just a new pay.

So that's what we did. It was a lot of fun. I did lose some money in blackjack. Not a whole lot, but I did lose some. So I didn't bring back the full 3.30-ish. But it was, man, what a weekend. How was the Raiders Stadium? I saw you guys were there.

It was cool. Just got a great tour of that. you know, it's amazing that like everything is a show in Vegas. Like the tour itself, like you go in the Raiders locker room and it's like an interactive experience, right? They got like a hologram that comes and does like a speech to hype you up. So it was pretty cool. Let's get to the race. Yep. Sunday was not as lucky for you.

The Buffalo luck ultimately did not carry over. Yeah, I mean, it was unlucky, but nobody forced us to pit when we pit and things like that. So I don't know that it's necessarily luck. We certainly for the first half of the race were not contenders by any means. I mean, it was crazy. I was looking, and as I'm racing back there, Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs, and I look behind, and I'm like, there'll be a pack of, you know, there'll be 10 cars. There was nobody behind us.

We were, we were racing for P-Last and, like, hard. That's as hard as we could go. The cars behind you were about to be the lap, the lapping cars. And I guess Ty was so bad. He ended up going down, you know, and I'm one lap down, so I'm kind of, I'm trying to race to 12, which that for him was the easiest lucky dog race he had in history, is racing me for the lucky dog. he was so much faster it wasn't a competition so I'm back there and I'm trying to push my car to the limits

trying to give the team the proper feedback on what do we got to do to get this thing better and then we just by the second half of the race we just started heading in a direction and it was significantly better and it looked like we were going to actually salvage a chance to win out of it somehow some way um but yeah we we pitted there with 30 something to go and that was the end of that because the caution came out were the jjr cars just off to start all weekend like usually you come to Vegas and your contenders right off the bat right yeah we've it's interesting i went through a phase there of about a two to three year span um where every time i went to Vegas it was we were the fastest. I mean, it was just, you know, I'm thinking this is the year's probably 19 through

22 or something like that. I mean, just so fast. We had something figured out there that allowed me to just really get a lot of speed out of the car. And here lately, it's just, we kind of just been average there. But, you know, I personally believe it's because I sent the team down a direction that probably was not, is not the right way. And, yeah, I think the second half of the race affirmed that. Are you talking about the speeding penalty or something else? What do you mean you sent them down? Sent them down the wrong path.

Just, you know, here's what I need out of my car to be faster. And then we go down that path to fix that one thing or fix the thing, and then it slows me down. and so I think that, you know, the drivers, one of the drivers' most important responsibility is to, you are the computer, you are the data that that team has. You've got to give them proper information because they can fix it. But if you give them data, you're going to get data back. And that's going to be, you know, you're going to have a car that's, you know, you've caused,

it's a cause and effect. Anywhere that you work on your car around the racetrack, if you say, A, I need to be blank on corner entry. Well, there's an adverse effect to it. Usually, you're going to, there's going to be other parts of the track where your car will not be as good. And so, you know, it's really important as a driver to make sure you're giving your team, you know, the proper feedback.

And, you know, that's our, that's just, that is our single biggest obligation and importance is giving them the feedback because the team's got great tools now. They know how to make improvements to the car, make it do what you want it to do. But if you aren't telling them the wrong thing or sending them down the wrong path, it can just, you know, you can have days like yesterday where you're just not as fast as you were. What do you think made you give the wrong effort? Because I'm guessing this doesn't happen that often if you've been in the sport that long. Like, is it just a misread or like what?

No. I mean, yes, it's in short. short it's a misread but it's just um me trying to get better and faster on saturdays and and and you know and what's happening is I'm compromising my Sundays for that um so I think that's generally speaking what what's what's been going on but but what does that mean how do you compromise a Sunday for a Saturday right aren't the track is dramatically different it's not even close to the same track yeah I mean Vegas, it just might be just a total, it's like we went to a new race track. And that's because.

And it's the same every single Sunday for the last, ever many races, the track is the same. But you go there Saturday, it's like, oh, it's wide open. It's, you know, I don't know. It's just not the same. Is that because of the time of practice, the temperature of the race track? The time, rubber, yes. You know, the cup cars lay the rubber down throughout the. race. Yeah, we usually practice on Saturday mornings. It's cooler. It's a little, it's not as sunny,

all those things. So then how could you ever take any information you learn on a Saturday and apply it to a Sunday? I would think that the team probably looks at historical information from Saturdays and sees, you know, because we did have a new left satire this week. And so I think that they just take that information and they try to put it in all the factors and all the variables that we have every weekend to draw some sort of conclusion to what we're going to have for the next day. So you find a place you're happy with on Saturday and then try to just account for what Sunday's going to bring and hopefully you're close? Roughly. Yeah. That's an oversimplified way of saying it, but something like that.

How do other, like how can, I don't know, there's other teams that are good on. Saturday that also are good on Sunday. Well, I think some of it is me. I think generally speaking, you know, am I a pedal to the metal type driver who's, you know, going to be lightning fast on Saturdays? No, I never, I haven't been in quite some time. Typically because, you know, I've, I've made a few mistakes on practice days or qualifying days. You end up going to a backup car and then now it's like oh my car's not as fast like so i always make sure i've tried to protect my car as much as i can on saturdays um you know i i typically to my fault what i'll do is i'll drive the car on saturday like i know i'm going to drive it on sunday and in the car the track has way

more speed capability on saturday so when you see the lap times and it's like whoa that is you know guys are running nearly wide open i'm like i'm not going to to be doing that tomorrow so why would I do it on Saturday? You know, but it's, you know, drivers get the most out of their cars all the time. And so I just try to do the best I can to drive the car the same Saturday and Sunday to at least, okay, when I get out of the throttle, it does this or that so I can kind of predict and give the team the right information for the adjustments for Sunday. This might be a silly question, but on any given weekend, when you see the

practice results come out and everyone's numbers and lap times and whatnot. How should fans like read that information? If you're 26th in practice on Saturday, is that mean that you're just going to suck on Sunday? And if someone's first in practice on Saturday, then they're just going to be good on Sunday. How do you, how can a fan take the information that they're able to gather from Saturday and apply it towards what they can expect to see on Sunday? Really, really, really good question. I think you can, you have to try to weigh it as much as you can. And probably, you know, a lot of the fantasy owners and things like that try to figure, they ask that same question that you ask every weekend.

You know, what should we take from this? So much of it actually comes down to what group are you in. You'll see some people that are in certain groups and sometimes groups are just faster in the sense of, well, for instance, when we go to Richmond, okay, group one, whoever goes out in the very first group at Richmond will be significantly faster than whoever's in group two, simply because the first group is going to lay rubber. And what happens is as they do long runs on the racetrack, it's laying a bunch of hot, slick rubber on the racetrack. Okay, so they go out there. The track is pretty fresh. It's been sitting overnight, typically.

And so the track is fresh. It's got more grip. So you're going to see most of the people that are fast in practice will be from group one at that track. Group two, then we go out there. Well, we're going on a track that three minutes ago, people were just making long runs on, right? And they were laying down this hot, slick rubber.

Well, the track has less grip in it because of that. So the fastest lap time at Richmond and the second group will be significantly slower than what it was from group one. So that's what makes it a little hard to look at just the standings of practices and why you've got to kind of break it down into groups sometimes. And some tracks are more sensitive than others. There's some tracks where group two is faster. Maybe group one is going after something, picking it up, cleaning it up, you know, and maybe there's a, you know, a lot of factors can happen. If there's a caution late in group one, cars will go back out there, re-clean the racetrack up,

then the red flag comes out, practice is over, now group two starts on a fresher racetrack. So it's really wild and it's very, very sensitive. especially when all of us are running close at the same time. But it's got a lot of nuances to it for sure, and it's hard to draw conclusions. But, you know, there are people like myself that typically we always practice way worse than we race. And a lot of that is just driver-based. And so you can draw some conclusions to it. You can get a general picture.

But is it the, you know, is it the Bible for who's going to run Sunday? is there any public information that comes out on Saturday that fans can use to get the closest idea of what they'll see on Sunday? I think NASCAR's kind of been working on, you know, what data they're putting out as far as, you know, of course you hear the TV talking all the time about five lap, ten lap averages. I don't know that, you know, they'll tell you on TV who's leading the five or ten nights, but I don't know that that they put that information out, which they should. definitely should. So I'm not really sure. I know you can see averages if you, like, log on the app. Well, let's get to the race at hole.

Let's start with Josh Berry. Josh Barry wins at Las Vegas' first career Cup Series win. Is this shocking to you? Surprising? It is. It should be for all of us, right? I mean, was it out of the blue? Yeah, yeah, sort of.

I mean, he had a strong run. last week in Phoenix he you know he he's the real deal i mean somewhere Kelly Earnhardt Dale Earnhardt all those that had you know kind of invested in him and believed in him and gave him the opportunity when he didn't bring his own money are rejoicing and and as they should because you know um i was a skeptic of of of Josh Barry at times, not of his talent, but of, you know, he's,

he was, in my opinion, like, cut from the same molded as I was. And we came from the same background. Is that I mentioned a few times, even the Xfinity series, I'm like, man, but he's never, like, fastest in Xenity. Like, he wins a few races,

but, you know, Al-Gyre and those guys, you know, they were always faster than him. And, and I was concerned, when he came to Cup that is he going to be fast enough to really to run with the best and um you know I thought he had some pretty decent races um at Stuart Haas but he walked into a dumpster fire yeah I mean I guess that's true um but I don't know you know you just never know what what they had or what they really had or what they didn't um but yeah it wasn't great

but we talked about the off-season moves here over the winter, right? Did we think that the 21 was going to be an improvement? No, I'm shocked. Right. We're all shocked by it, right? And so what the question is, right? And I think that it's fair, and the guys on the tarotile talked about it last night, it's a very fair thing that what happens is when the 21 car runs bad,

it's the development team for Penske, right? This is the Wood Brothers own the charter, but I don't know how many necessary, I don't think there's any Wood Brother employees that are actually working on the cars. They said it's out of the Penske shop. Well, we know it's, that's going, that's where I'm going with this, right?

Is that Penske owns the charter, or I'm sorry, Wood Brothers own the charter, but I don't know that, I don't know the employees like if you ever see them at the racetrack they're all Penske employees people that we know that are Penske employees so but we're all guilty at times of when things typically have been bad for the 21 car we just say it's well it's it's it's it's it's it's it's the it's gonna be but so good um you know they're just priming people for their house cars.

You know, it's a deal that they cut with the Wood Brothers to run, run that car out of their shop and, you know, help them out. I'm sure they got some sort of financial deal worked out. But when things are good, we're definitely quick to give Penske the credit, right? So I think that the 21 cars always kind of been, and in my mind, too, like I'm not saying that that's what others think and I don't think that. I'm guilty of thinking that as well. Kind of wondering and scratching your head, yeah, but if it's, even if it's a, you know, just a straight-ass development team of Penske, which I don't know to be true,

how could they be so far off for so many years, like way off of, you know, of the worst Penske car, whoever that is, right, on any given weekend. And now it looks like it's just one of the boys. It's just one of the cars that come out of that shop that's just like the two and the 12 and the 22 and it's got the speed that they've got. And so I noticed it firsthand. First off in practice from Phoenix, I was like, wow, the 21 car is good. He pulled out in front of me, and I expected him to kind of be in the way, and he pulled away. And it was like, okay, that car's got some speed to it.

And then this weekend, they were contenders. They were inside, you know, now circumstances fell their way, but they had, they were, they were in the race for the lead before things fell their way. So they, they're racing strong. And, you know, is this a Josh thing only? Is, did they make significant team changes in the offseason that more closely aligned the 21 car with the other Penske cars? We don't know any of these questions, and I'm sure they'll get asked throughout the week as Josh does interviews. But for right now, I think we've got to get full credit to Josh Barry for turning. that thing around. This has to be a win though also for drivers like you and Josh.

Yes. Because it's not the person that came from money and so teams might be willing to give drivers a shot that are skilled. It's so, it is so refreshing and great to see, you know, a self-made cup series driver like Josh and, you know, to be successful. And, you know, all over the mid-Atlantic in the late models, you know, I, you know, I, I watched him just a few years ago, winning late model races. And to see him win now a cup race just a few years later, it's just it's very gratifying to see guys from my discipline and how I grew up being successful in the Cup series.

Like it's not all about dirt, folks. Like you can come from something other than dirt and be successful, and it's good to see some of these asphalt late model guys, you know, really doing well. Caden Honeycutt. is another one who I think is very, very good and has a chance to tie Majesky. These are all asphalt late model guys. The list goes on and on and I don't mean to leave anyone.

Lane Riggs. Like, it's just, there's many coming down the pipeline from our background that are going to be and will be successful given the right opportunity. So does this mean that Josh Barry has found speed? The one thing that you wondered that he wouldn't have on a consistent basis? the Cup series of speed? Does this mean he found speed? Or is he also just a guy who's good at executing because that was key to whoever was going to win this race yesterday is who didn't make mistakes? I think what it says to me is that he's continuing to learn, right? He's not plateauing as a

driver in the sense of, well, that's all the speed he was capable of. He's capable of more. He's showing that he's capable of more. So I think it says a lot about probably his worth ethic. and just his skill level. So I think great drivers, they find a way and they continue to learn. This is now the second straight season that they'll be in the Cup series playoffs. Big, big deal for John Wood,

the whole Wood Brothers team that owns that car, you know, it's a significant jump for them and pay that if they didn't make the playoffs that they were going to have to take a cut next year because of the historical standings. But great for them, certainly. You know, this, you know, while we didn't have any kind of wild card winners through the first four weeks, everything was kind of going status quo as far as, you know, all right, these two guys between William Byron, Chris Rebell.

We expected them to be in the playoffs. Anyway, I'm not sure any of the other teams budgeted the 21 car in Josh Barry to be in the playoffs taking a spot. And not from a Vegas race either. If it was, it was going to be Daytona, you know, one of those. Right. But when I say taking a spot, like the way he's running, he's not just taking a spot. Like, he's someone that could, you know, go in there and win, you know, get in to a couple rounds deeper than just the round of 16. So the way he's running. Are you happy while you're searching for your win, are you more relieved when someone like a Josh Bearer, an upset win happens versus a Larson, Bell, Byron, those guys can get those playoff points? Yeah, I mean, if you aren't going to win, you want to see the playoff points spread around.

And was it right that Kyle Larson, when he won a stage, it was the first multi-stage winner of the year? Yeah, first and second stage. Yeah, that's good. I mean, at least, you know, again, it's getting spread around a little bit. So, yeah, so you typically want to see points spread out. You don't want to see one, someone just start really piling them up. Because then, you know, if you play this thing backwards and you look at, okay, well, in the round of eight, they're going to get at least one car off a points.

You know, Chris Rbell's got a really big jump start, really already to being, you know, having a significant amount of points, you know, towards that. So, yeah, it's, it's, it was a shocking win. but he earned it drove great I was around on throughout the race we had just it man this is what kind of frustrates you like he we had just passed him on the racetrack you know before we pitted and we're kind of catching up to sweres we were right there behind sweris and reddick and it was sworez reddick Barry legano and myself all battling for the race lead there it was a great battle by the way, it was about 35, 40 to go when you go back and watch it. And then me and Tyler, our teams decided to pit us to try to split the stint and get, you know, kind of a, I guess, get a good finish.

And those who did not pit ended up racing for the win. So that's the way that worked out. How much longer could you have gone a long time? can you break down the different strategy plays from all the teams there towards the end of the race? Because what was it? With 50, 60 to go, you saw Larson Pitt, Byron Pitt, who were some of the fastest cars all day. What were each of the strategies that teams were on late in this race? So there was, it kind of got split with about 70 something to go.

Yeah, right around 70 to go. there was half the field came in got tires topped off whatever it might be to try to at least give themselves a legit chance of making it on fuel that was the Kyle Larson that's correct then there was the other group that was me read it there was 12 or 13 of us that that said no no we're going to take the track position track position here and then bank on a on a caution coming out sometime within that last fuel window. The tires actually mean something, so everyone's going to pit anyway.

And then we've just gained track position on those who decided to top off. So you essentially had two groups. One says, this race is going green. We're going to make it on fuel. The other group says, no, no, no. A caution is going to come out. We're going to stay. Get track position.

When a caution comes out, you guys are screwed because you're not going to make it back through to us. And when we all pit for tires, it's going to play itself out. You know, what was different is that the 11 and the 45 chose to cut the stint short to try to optimize, you know, obviously the run. And we got burned by the caution. So we just, you know, others saw that strategy all the way through. And, you know, we just, we wanted to run optimum time and, and. You know, make sure we didn't get passed by those behind us that maybe we're going to pit.

It also gave us an opportunity to, if people were going to fuel mileage save, we would catch them on the back end. So if you remember Christopher Bell last year, he made the extra pit stop still came all the way back to second. We felt as though, and this is a discussion I had with the team afterwards, that, you know, hey, it gave us an opportunity to pass some of the back half of the game. guys that were going to have to save fuel, but it obviously took our chances of winning to zero. So if you and Redick and the teams that pit with 35 to go there, split the stage in half, is that, is that a decision? Are you resigning at that point that, hey, the strategy call that we made 30 laps ago did not pay off? So we need to make an audible here? I can't get in the head and kind of tell you what, you know, kind of what, what,

we were thinking. But yes, I think that that's what they're... By pitting, yes, you are resigning to the fact that we're not going to get a caution and that this thing's going to go green. Because a lot of it, you know, all it takes

is a caution three or four laps after those guys pit. And we all come back in anyway. Now, the only difference is we would have taken tires. They probably wouldn't have because they just took tires again. so you end up getting flopped right back to the same position you were in the first place. Only thing is you've got maybe a couple of fresher tires.

So it is resigning to the fact that probably your strategy is not going to play out and you're hedging your bet at that point. Is this the most agrating part of the sport is it's a roll the dice? It's not a roll of the dice. I mean it's a strategy, but like you can't predict the caution. So it's like the call could have been right. It's not like... Well, I mean, if you think about it,

the prediction that we had was 70 to go saying that a caution was going to come out, it did come true. We just didn't stay on the field long enough to see it through. Do you know what I mean? Okay. It's like playing buffaloes.

You just go to stay on there a little longer. Yeah. I wish. If everything was like the Buffalo's game, I'd be Christopher Bell right now. No, so it's just, listen, this is a hard, hard game because the team has so much information in front of them, and they're trying to make split-second decisions, and they're trying to do the right thing. They're trying to get the best finish out of the day.

And typically, you know, if you look back and if you want to be reactive, you're going to say, well, the race went green, the last race here in Vegas. So, you know, when you're sitting there with 35 or 30 to go, the cars are spread out. Like, you're not going to get that restart caution. You're probably thinking at that point, this race is going green and we're not going to make it. And neither are the 12 cars behind us going to make it. And then there's some on the other strategy who are going to have to save so much fuel that we could pit and still catch back up to them. So that's kind of probably the mentality that was thought of. And it just didn't work out because there was a caution.

When you're trying to account for a caution, are you taking into whatever the tire falloff may be that race? And if a driver is going to lose control of a car because of the tire condition? Well, that's a good question. No, the first part of your question was, was a yes the second half is no. The first half is yes we take into account

tire fall off things like that so that's why we chose to pit chose to pit kind of halfway through the stage there is to have the best tires on it for the entire 60, 70 laps that's you know that's trying to cut the stint dead in the middle and we're going to run the fastest lot time

that way you know any of those that just stay out there stay out there hoping for a caution it you know By the time they actually do pit, like we're going to be so far ahead, it's not going to matter. Race will be over before they're remotely close. But, yeah, it's just that's what you try to do. And sometimes it works out. But as far as like the tire fall off, yeah, that plays a factor in it.

But do we call strategy based off of, you know, these tires are going to make people wreck? No. But we do look at race history. You know, that is certainly a factor that all teams look at when deciding what strategy they want to play. Right. I'm just wondering, you know, when you look at race history and when cautions have happened,

if you're not equating a caution to tire falloff, then it's just driver error. Yeah. And how can you create a graph or something? Like, oh, a driver consistently makes an error with 30 to go in this race? Like, how can you create some data that you can, you know, bet your entire race on if it's all kind of just random?

Because you try to use the biggest sample size that you can. I mean, how many NASCAR races go green within the entire last fuel run? Not many. All right. Then you separate it. Now, how many have done it at Las Vegas? Truthfully, not many. You know, it's just the last fall was really kind of the only,

it was one of the outliers that went green. for a long period of time to end the race. So the team always looks at all that day. They probably look at all data, then they break it down in the track. Then maybe they break it down into the spring race versus the fall because falls a playoff race, do drivers race differently,

all those things. So are you looking into the cause of cautions? And especially, you know, if I'm playing devil's advocate for the team, I'm going to say, well, in a typically in a fuel mileage race, where you're not really racing people, you're just racing the gas in your tank,

you're typically not going to make as big a mistakes because you're just slowing down, you're running a slower speed, you're not going to be battling side drafting people because you're just trying to make it to the end on fuel. And that is what makes races go green at times. So are you accounting? So you are then accounting for the cause of cautions?

I don't think that the teams are accounting for the cause. They just know that there's been cautions. I mean, they account for the cause of it, but I don't know that they, all they see is, has this thing gone yellow at the end or not? We don't care why. Have you ever seen a car pit twice on pit road? I know it's been a thing. It's not the first time it's happened.

But, no, I don't think I've ever done it. Have you ever considered it? Like, this seems so big brain play because on the radio they're telling Christopher Bell a pull into someone else's box but if I'm the 22 team and Christopher Bell pulls in my pit box why am I tightening his tire well I think that's why he was looking for

a teammate I don't think he was there's no other team that would have helped them out so Adam Stevens said I believe I think I heard on the tarotum they had talked about this scenario so it's something that he had thought about yeah I mean it's it's forward thinking

It's certainly something that, you know, I don't know what they saved by doing that because it was under caution. You saved a lap of going around and coming back in or potentially the tire coming off while on the track. Okay. Yep. Yeah. So that's what they took the risk of actually losing the tire. Then you go two laps down. Then you lose your pit crew for a couple weeks.

So, yeah, I see that. Should this move be allowed? Now, he had a penalty for servicing outside his pit box, but should that even be allowed where you can pit, have another team help your car out? Because what happens if you are a one car team or you don't have? Now, the argument Bozy made is if we're worried about safety, then you have to allow this to happen because the last thing you want

is a loose tire on the track. I agree on all those fronts. I would think being a single car team is, listen, if you're a single car team, you're not doing your own pit crews anyway. So more than likely, you can stop in a box of whoever owns your pit crew. Like, does that make any sense?

Yes. I don't know where the 47... So you're saying for you guys before you... I don't know where the 47 gets his pit crew, but it's somebody's development crew. Before you guys took it in-house, Tyler could have stopped in a JGR pit box. Yes.

is what you're saying. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So I don't think that it's a, maybe you just at that point, you have an agreement with whoever owns your pick crew

that you can stop in any of their stalls to get it done. That way it wouldn't be a detriment to be in a single car team, two car team, whatever it might be. I personally don't have an issue with it because there was a penalty for the action.

So it's not like he got away with something. That's right. That's right. It's not like there was no penalty. right you still had to go to the back yeah so i agree that you know i wouldn't i wouldn't mess with it let's not create another rule in the middle of the season do we do we we have to be the only support that changes this many rules in the middle of season right uh big 10 uh changed one with uh member oregon with the 12 men on the field they changed it midseason at the end of the game that's right

they didn't no they didn't change it in the middle of the game well at middle season sorry right after they saw kind of a kink in the system. I could know. I mean, I just, I feel like we update our rules every week. Change the language, make it more vague. Like, they're starting to add at NASCAR's discretion to everything. Like at the end of every rule, at NASCAR's discretion. Well, if teams are consistently pushing the boundaries, isn't that part of a cause for that?

Yeah, but. maybe you guys know does f1 continually change the rules every week or no i don't know but don't cuss there because they don't like that i know they i know i heard i'm okay with adding rules if it's understood what the rule is but if it's vague and then it's at the end says at discretion that's where i have an issue but if you create a rule and everybody can understand and it's clear then i got no problems with adding i mean that's probably what my beef is with it is that it's it just when you say, but we can use our discretion, then you just open yourself up to just so many inconsistencies.

And people are going to point out the inconsistencies. So I don't know. It's, I don't know how we got on this subject to begin with. But, you know, it's basically, I don't think they need to adjust any rules when it comes to this because of what they saw this weekend. Why so many issues on pit road between drivers and James? I don't know. I mean, it's not that complicated of a pit road, but it is a speeding trap.

For me, my speeding pit road infraction came coming on a green fly picked stop. I didn't get it slowed down enough before the first segment, so I was speeding coming to the pit road. It wasn't like as I was rolling. It was, you know, as I was deselling off the track. it's a speeding trap. So it's got a little bit of a bend in it. So if the pit road is dead straight, then when NASCAR does its timing of, you know, between segments and then that's how they calculate how fast you're actually going.

They don't actually have a radar gun pointing on all the cars to determine whether you're speeding or not. It's a time-based thing, and it's black and white because a computer will say, boom, it'll pop up red, that they were too fast in a certain section. When a track has a bend in it, they typically will drive the pace car, I think, on the inside of the bend.

Okay, so they'll cut the shortest distance, mark that is the time. And so what that does is that we don't travel that shortest distance because we'd be in people's pit boxes, right? We wouldn't give them room to get out. So we've got to be all the way up against the grass. Well, that's a further distance. It takes us longer to travel that distance. Therefore, we need to adjust. We typically speed faster than the actual speed limit in corners of pit road,

because we're going a longer distance, right? And we calculate that. So what makes this tricky is that the entrance of pit road at Las Vegas has a slight bend to it. So you probably can run a few more lights. Then when it straightens out, you got to back it back down to your green lights. Let's just call them greens and reds. And then as you start to exit, it's got a bend. If you want to take advantage of all on pit road that you can, you'll start to speed up again. But it's, it's, so it's got these nuances of it's, you know, it's bent, then it's straight,

then it's bent, and you can manipulate it. But I don't know. I just think it's a very sensitive track to it. And so I don't know. I think just historically we've seen a lot of guys speed at Vegas. And we've seen a lot of pit road, generally pit road penalties as well at that track. I was asked this weekend on the bus watching the race, what is like the average differential between the top pit crew?

and the worst pit crew. Probably two seconds. Like absolute best pick crew to absolute worst. Probably two seconds. Maybe a little more on any given weekend. Which is pretty significant. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, the absolute worst pick crew, it's probably somebody's really green, young group that they're getting primed in reps for when they make it to the big cars. Yeah, developmental team. Yeah. Yeah, this Alex was asking. It's like, when Denny comes on pit road, should I be expecting him to gain spots?

Like what is the, when he comes on pit road, should we be expecting him to gain a few spots when he comes off? I, I expect to gain. You know, it's really, really tough, though. Inside the top 10, all the drivers, all the pit crews, they're all really, really close. and it's hard to gain. Well, mathematically, if you're in fourth, there's only so many spots for you to gain too. So it's just, it's harder to begin with no matter who you're up against.

Exactly. Yeah, I guess too harder to win a race for some of these cars that have developmental teams, right? If they're not coming off pit road in the same spot or consistently. Yeah. But we've had quite a few years of next gen pit stops now. So all the pit crews are getting closer and closer together. The spread was bigger. than what it is now.

The driver that would really like his last pit stop back as Joey Lugano came in with the lead and came out 20th. Yeah, that was a killer for them. And they were going to be contenders challenging Josh Berry for this victory. And obviously that's just a, I couldn't see it. Did he just come in sideways than get too close to the wall? I didn't see it. Yeah, I think that's what I looked at his roof cam or something like that.

when I saw a highlight and I was like, oh, I've been there before where you come in, you're trying to get all the speed you can come into your pit box. So what makes Vegas unique is these have polished concrete boxes. They're very, very slick. Some pit boxes we go on are brush concrete.

That's got huge, huge grip. Not only grip for the cars themselves, but grip for the pit crews also. And so what happens is if you don't come in dead straight, You hit the break, it'll lock up the fronts, it'll hit that polished concrete, it'll just go straight right towards the wall. So it looked like to me that's what happened.

And when it happened, I guess he lost about 20 spots and that was it. Yeah, it just looks like I'm watching the roof cam here from the max cameras. It looks just overall, not a clean stop. And his nose is angled towards the wall, if I'm looking at it correctly. Yeah, it just puts the team in an impossible scenario. and at that point, you know, they're just trying to make sure they get four tires on the car because it's, you know, the angle it's in, you know, the jackman's probably pinched up against the wall. He's having to pump the thing probably 10 times to get it up.

Yeah, it's a killer. But all that is is Ligano trying to get all he can to give his team the opportunity to get him out with the lead. So when you pit and when these teams are practicing pit stops, like at 23 of when you're practicing pit stops, Are you pulling the car in the same way every time trying to just dial in when the car pulls in like this? All the guys do this. You're trying to dial in a. Sure, yeah. I mean, the drivers, that's your responsibility is try to park the thing on the sign.

That gives because the pit crew, when they run around, they don't want to have to chase you side to side, right? They want you to, they want the car to, you know, when they start to squat, the changers, they want the tire in front of them. They don't want to have to shift to one side or the other. So to get the fast pit stop, yeah, you need to hit your side. And if you were to, if you don't come in, your pit stop, you know, perfectly, right? If one guy on the team doesn't adjust to that optimally, it's going to slow down the entire stop. And it just takes a few tents. The next thing you know, you've lost a couple spots on pit road.

Because these drivers and teams are dialed in. I mean, you can, there are stops that that I think, man, My pit crew nailed it there, and it's like, I came out right where I came in. And it's like, oh, well, that's probably on me to not, you know, I'm probably not doing a good enough job, you know, and all the things that I need to do to be fast on pit road. I get late in the race, obviously, you're going to push it to the max. But early in the race, is there any thought of, I'm just make sure there's no speeding here. Get in, get out, and let's not put us behind the eight ball to start the race off. Yeah, it was Chris Gale's last words to me when they put the winning at up.

No mistakes today. I heard it in my head after he said speeding as well. Yeah, it's just, I don't know. I just, I screwed up. You'll have that. But I don't know. It certainly cost us maybe a few stage points here and there, but we just, we weren't fast enough the first half anyway.

I don't know that we were really going to contend, but we rebounded. We were going to have a shot to win had, you know, A, we're not pitted or B, the caution I came out. We had found a way to rebound. We made dramatic changes of the car to make it better. Justin Allgaier wins the Xenia race on Saturday, Corrie Heim, truck race on Friday night. Anything you watch from these two races? Just dominance of Algar is really impressive.

I mean, it's great to see, you know, I don't know how. old Justin is, but he's just, it seems like he's getting better. And he's done it with multiple crew chiefs for the last few years. So, um, they're running great. Um, oh, wow, he's younger than I thought. I thought he was at least 40 net by now. Um, he's been in the sport, it seems like, for as long as I have. But, um, but, but yeah, they, they just, they were the best car dominated. Um, I thought was the best truck, the best driver on that day, right? So I didn't think,

I didn't really come out of the trucks or Xfinity thinking, oh, wow. Some other off-track news. You have a big announcement coming tomorrow at a JGR regarding a new partner that may be coming on board. Yeah, exciting stuff for sure that we're going to be able to announce tomorrow. I'm not sure probably in the morning, I would say. but yeah in the evening

in the evening in the evening okay well I'm excited about it I don't know what I'm allowed to say I was surprised

that you all had me teasing it today I was just asked to put fans in the loop just keep an eye out be on the lookout my social JGR social so yeah

I think you're going to see some consistency on our car a lot this this year now coming up. Tune in. See what happens.

I got a review here from Soup Cat 48. Booing reduction. I have been booing you at races since I was a young Jimmy Johnson fan. However, your podcast is my favorite bit of NASCAR media that I consume to the point

that I cheered for you at Atlanta this year. Much to their chagrin of the gaggle of Chevy fans around me. You all do great work. Appreciate that. Soup Cat, 48. Appreciate that review.

This is a five-star wasn't it? Yeah, of course. Four stars don't get red. Ooh. Thank you, Travis. Appreciate that. And a reminder, too,

get your actions detrimental merchandise at shopdirtymoadmedia.com. Got some great. Shop. Dot dirtymoadia.com. Oh. Shop dot dirtymodea.com. That hoodie I wore it in Phoenix,

The thing is fire. It's very comfortable. Next week, we're in Homestead, Miami. You can watch the race. I think it's going to be on FS1 at 3 p.m. Eastern. I also recommend. And also, just don't forget, this week, I have an in-car camera on Max.

Well, it's there every week. Oh. It might be like a featured one, but you can watch. So what's the difference in the regular ones than the featured ones? I don't know. I always see every week there's four that are featured. Yeah, those are like,

because you can watch all up. You can have four, like a four box, or you can just go find, you can pick any driver and have that. So what I do is I have two TVs and I have one with the race and I have yours up. What's nice, though, is let's say something happened with Josh Barry. I can go to Josh Barry's channel and rewind to whatever and see what happened with the wreck. And I can go back to yours. And so, like, you can rewind and fast forward on any of the drivers if you miss something. Like, I think that's probably the best thing that NASCAR is.

done this year. So you're an avid max cam watcher. Yeah. Seems like a lot of the media is as well. Like they can. Because you can see when those wrecks, you can go back and pull up if the driver that just missed the wreck or whatever you need to look at. Question.

If a wreck happens and you weren't on HBO Max, right? Can you then get on, log on and then rewind? Yes. Wow. Or like I said, like if I'm watching yours, but, you know, Noah Grex. in Rex, I can go to his and rewind to see what happened. That's great. Yeah, that's cool.

I want to give a shout out to Cowbush. What a great job. He should quit racing. He did crush it. He should quit racing. Wait, what did Kyle Busch did? He was calling. He called the Xfinity race.

And then I heard him on Flo doing the high limit race as well. I thought he was good. man. CW as a whole crush on Saturday. They've been doing it all year, but... He did really well. Really, really well. I know we've been given CW flowers all year on, you know, they're play by play and, you know, how they're meshing.

But I thought Kyle blended in there really well, like he has been there for quite some time. I do want to give Fox credit. They interviewed Ryan Blaney. He clearly was watching a highlight of what happened as he's being interviewed. I, so, I heard that. He's like, I got to go back and watch it and I saw him look like, because usually they have a screen. But I don't know that he was watching it, though, Travis,

because usually that monitor only shows what the TV is showing. And it was showing live racing. It wasn't showing a replay. He made it sound like he said, something where he's like oh it looks like it was my fault or something i'll have to go back and check maybe i have to retake take back my credit uh you might be right maybe they did play it at the very end i don't know how i'll break down that wreck i don't know whose fault it was i think seabell was up high for sure but it looked like blaney was higher than he needed to be he wasn't really like right up

against the 20. And you heard him say in his interview that he wasn't, I don't, either he didn't hear it or they didn't call two cars outside. But there was definitely two cars outside. They were squished up against the wall. So that took out. The 23 had a really strong run all race. They were top three strong.

So I don't know. that that was a difficult one to break down during that same time i think a j got in the back of ricky spun him out so it was we're going to have a caution anyway uh but it that took out some good cards make sure to rate review and follow wherever you're your podcast and as always full video is posted on youtube every monday hit that subscribe button folks on youtube all right let's get that number up yep let's see you next week