Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Mastered the Mileage. Can't Rush the Baby

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Denny Hamlin and his co-host Jared Allen are back from Michigan and in a good mood after Denny captured his 3rd win of the season and 57th in his career. This week they cover:2:15 Jared ranks the top 5 drivers7:30 After practice Denny was confident in his car13:30 Was Denny aero blocking Kyle Larson?15:50 The key to successful restarts at Michigan17:40 The 11 team pit crew saved Denny on a pit stop21:40 Trying to get better at restarts25:55 Not having to worry about saving fuel31:00 How confident Denny was that he would pass William Byron37:30 RFK had an awesome day with 3 top 10's42:10 Will Jared take a lie detector test to prove who his favorite driver is?45:00 What to expect at Mexico City next week49:30 Ram trucks getting back into the Tuck series51:00 23XI loses their injunction hearing Dirty 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 FanDuel Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. 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 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How does it feel to finally have a fuel mileage race to go your way? Oh, first of my, it has to be the first of my career. 57 wins, that's got to be the first fuel mileage win. The following is a production of Dirty Mo 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 a victory for Jared Allen. He's got better luck the drink and drink to win. I know, you do. Two trophies missing from your collection. A championship and the most popular driver. Someone 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 Post-Michigan International Speedway from that state up north. You like that, Trave? I like you correcting LaTart there at the end. what did he say? Well, because he said, you know, he's worried about those fans. And then you said, no, it's either school up north or the state up north.

Yeah. Is that correct? That's correct. Am I doing that correctly? Yep. Okay. ESPN Sports Center said that you're a long time devout Ohio State fan. This guy's been Ohio State fan for two weeks.

I've done it. I'm Danny Hamlin. I was driver the Yahoo. Toyota Camry from this past weekend. winner love getting dubs we'd have our winning cars out here uh we don't have the trophy trap because the team gets to have it for a couple days they they take pictures so it goes back to the shop all the you know it gives the opportunity for the employees take pictures with it and then i come snatch it away and uh put it in the but we do it would be good to have it like just say hey

we'll get it to you Monday morning right the problem is it's uh but it's probably not even they got to get get back. Yeah. Right. It's a good point. Yeah. But not really. No.

I could take it home on the plane. Yeah. Right? Okay. My co-host is Jared. Hi, Jared. Hey, were you conflicted at the end of that race? Who you wanted to win?

Me or Byron. That's just life right now, you know? You asked me on the way home who I thought the five best drivers in the series are right now. And three of the five are. Give me your list Is you Byron Give me your

Elite of elite Top five right now Rank them The top tier The five guys on the top tier I think is you So he's just trying to generally Put him in a group

Okay go ahead Byron Larson Agarini Agree agree And who was my last one I don't know It's your list

I know B Bha Oh Christopher Bell Yeah Yeah Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, I would agree, those are the guys that are consistently up front most weeks. Like the 12 is never out to lunch.

Like, you know, he never has, like Joey had a tough day yesterday. It was way back there in the high 20s. Like, you never really see that out of the 12. Same with the 24. You really don't see it. The 5, you don't see it. the 20 has had, it seemed like the bigger tracks actually has been not as good for the 20 this year. But again, you don't just see them running in the 20s, which that's why I agree.

That that list is probably correct. It seems like those guys are consistently towards the front and you can bet on them probably bringing a race winning car more often than not every week. Yeah, and if you look at the stats too, it's the guys that are getting stage points there. I mean, there's a group of us that have a lot more stage points than everyone else, and that just is because you run up front. Yeah. Christopher Bell is only finished outside the top 12 three times this year.

Yeah. And even when he has a not-so-good day, I mean, even like Nashville when he crashes, like he finds a way to come back and finish really well. So they're doing a pretty decent job at executing. You mentioned Ohio State. Have you heard from MJ's publicist yet? Is she not Ohio State fan? Oh, no, no, no, Jared.

Oh, she went to Michigan. Yes. And I think quite a few of our, my legal team is Michigan grads as well. Damn, and I got to root for them. Yeah. But that's okay. Listen, I was never even smart enough to go to college,

so I just jump on the bandwagon of winners, you know? I want to get you an honorary degree at Ohio State. That's my goal now. Huh? Get you an honorary degree. Oh, okay. Well, it seems like some of these college athletes, I mean, they just kind of get a degree or they get, do they even go to class? If racing was a college sport, you would have, you would have been good.

Travis is going to have any given the commencement. Well, I tell you. That's my goal. I'll tell you, Trav, you know, to be factual, though, it's good to see us Ohio State guys finally be. Michigan. It felt good. All right, where do we want to go with this episode? I see the topics and stuff like that, but, you know, we always kind of go all over the place. Let's start with the beginning of the race and build to your win. Okay. Well, the beginning of the race was, you know, we, we stayed

inside the top five for most of the first stage, all of the first stage, actually. And we, you know, we kind of closed in on the 17 and 24, finished third that stage. But I just felt like my car was just lacking a little bit of an overall grip. I was saying that it was a little tight, but still a little edgy. So, you know, that's the worst thing a crew chief ever wants to hear is that I'm both. And when I watched the broadcast back, you heard Kyle Bush talk about that. He's like, I don't know. I'm tight and loose.

And I can tell you that is just something that's really, really hard. for a crew chief to kind of sift through. So at that point, they're like, that's essentially the driver saying, I have no clue, please help me. What do you see in there? And so at that time, I just didn't want to send my team down a direction that was incorrect. So you kind of lean on them to, you know, tell me where I'm losing time. And we kind of go from there.

And yeah, we just got a little bit, our car got a little bit better throughout the day. You seem to be, at least Gail seemed to be communicating more than what I perceived to be usual. Do you think that or was it just maybe me overthinking at? Well, I told him to communicate with me quite a bit throughout the day. I told him before I got in the car, you know, keep an eye out. You know, there were a few key things that I wanted him to look at during the race and then let me know what he sees with those certain things. That way I can continue to work on it.

work on my game, work on my driving to see if I can and improve it and help them out. So he was communicating quite a bit about what he saw and then those thoughts then, you know, trigger my mind to think about, well, how can I be better in those spots? And so that was kind of the key for me. I feel like going into this race, you were pretty confident that you were going to have a car to be. You said that. Yeah, you downplay it because you texted, you texted. You texted Travis in the group chat saying you were going to hit the Ohio State celebration after you won, blah, blah, blah.

And then I was like, oh, no, go back. Who said. Charlie said that. Charlie said that. Charlie said it. You got to hit him with the OH. And you confirmed. And I said, I will after I win. Right.

And then I asked you. And then you said, oh, you must be pretty confident. And you're like, well, you know. Because usually, you guys asked, well, how's your car today, right? I don't, I mean, have I ever said, oh, we're money. We're really, really good. Like, not often, right? No.

But there's times I'll say, if I ever say, oh, pretty good, that means we're really good. I can just tell you how to offset that when you hear it for me. Is that you not want to jinx it? It's just, I like to, you know, under promise over-deliver, you know. But then you also said you had one of the best Saturday. Saturdays you've had. Which told me if I'm good, if those people

are out there watching practice or crawl. If I'm ever in the like top five of practice or remotely close to it, we're probably going to be pretty good on Sunday. That's usually the way this goes. Because truthfully, I'm usually in the teens and

my averages are in the teens. I just, when they put all the cars out there, things get slick and you got to put, you you know, all the things to work. That's where I typically get better. Why is that? Well, I think that a lot of people can drive a car fast

when there's no other cars out on the racetrack or you're not in dirty air. But once you get in dirty air, the air gets disturbed around the racetrack. Your car doesn't drive. It's not going to drive like it does Saturday to Sunday. There's just, there's half as many cars on the track. The track temperature was probably 30 degrees cooler on Saturday.

So the car just has an excess amount of grip. When it gets hotter like that, you have to have more off throttle time. Now your setup actually starts to matter, and your racecraft starts to matter. So it's just two different things. There's guys that historically just practice really fast every single Saturday. And it's like, you know, what happens on Sunday is you just, yeah, sure. That's like I said, anyone can be fast. when they're out front.

Like leading a race, everyone's going to be fast in that scenario. Can you outrun your position? If you're eighth, if you're an eighth place, can you run seventh place times? If that's the case, you're pretty good. When you get to fifth, can you run third place times? That tells me that you're destined to make your way to the front. It's when you're running fifth, running 10th place lap times, that you're in trouble. And if you lose your track position, yikes.

So then what are you looking for on Saturday? Are you just trying to make your car as fast as it can be? Or are you like knowing that you're going to be in traffic? I'm not going to come on here and give away all my secret sauce. I know that a lot of drivers listen, you know, trying to catch, find one thing that I say that, ooh, maybe I should think about that. You know, never, never do that. I try not to do that.

I'll probably overshare on this podcast more than I should anyway. But I just, I make sure, generally speaking, I try to drive the car like I think I'm going to have to drive it on Sunday. And sometimes that is not the fastest way on Saturday. So just because you're fast on Saturday doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be fast on Saturday. It means very, it means very little in my world. But for other drivers, it could mean something totally different. Correct. That's exactly right.

Some drivers are good at both. I am not as good at both. So therefore were you concerned at any point in this race when you lost, you qualified third, lost your track position on that one restart? Were you then like, now I'm in traffic and this is different? Yeah, I made a bad decision. It was kind of 50-50 at that point of the race. I believe it was the beginning of the second stage. Yeah, it was, beginning of second stage.

I was second. We didn't wait on fuel. We were behind the 12 and I was like, you know, I had the choice of either taking the bottom lane up front or stacking the top row and going behind Blaney. And at that point of the race, I was not 100% confident running the bottom of the racetrack with the speed that I needed to to even take the lead. So I should have just stacked the top. I didn't took the front row bottom.

I got shuffled four or five spots. I got passed in one and two by the one and somebody else. and then the five comes around and literally blows the door numbers off because he was going so much faster than I was. It sucked me around. I get up the racetrack and we nearly wrecked and it's like, I think I fell back to like 12, 13th at that point. I just restarted on the front row and I'm like,

holy crap, I just shi-de-away 12 spots on this restart. So I still wasn't panicked, but it certainly as hard as it is to pass, it's like you look at all those spots and it's like man i hope i don't regret i just cough these spots up because like it's going to take a while to get all that back well i got two questions number one were you mirror driving the five i actually was quite the opposite um i did hear his radio when he was like um you know keep your look out your front windshield not your mirror i'm actually one of the worst defenders i think in the series because i do look out the front too much but the five just caught me by surprise actually i didn't know he was there until he was all the way there and you know

when you drive up you know let me try to explain this from an aerodynamic standpoint let's see can you know see my hands you can't so when the fives so i just got passed by two cars that that passed me on the bottom so at that point i'm running the mid to high lane of turn one and two anyway well the one the five is sees me getting passed and so he's trying to predict the corner to figure out okay i need to i want to counts on him as well because I can see that he's lost momentum. Well, I'm not even paying the five any attention because I'm just, I'm letting off, these guys are clearing me. And at that point, I'm coming off the corner.

And then the one in somebody else, like you can see, they come off the corner a little bit higher and it starts taking air away from my car. So at that point, I'm starting to have to check up and lift. The five then comes with a major run. And when he, you know, let's see, I'm trying to. to do it for my YouTube watchers here. When he gets to my right rear quarter panel here and then gets up beside me, he dumps all this air right on my right rear spoiler.

Well, of course, I've got bad air now in the front and on the side. So it just makes my car just go dead straight. So I crank a bunch of wheel in it. I'm off the gas, trying to slow down. And at that point, the front tires actually start to bite because eventually you slow down enough to where front tires grabbed, that's when you get dead ass sideways. So, you know, the effect was that I was getting bad air from the front, didn't even pay the five any mind, didn't even know he was a challenger in that corner, but he had set up the corner so well

that it caught me off guard and put me in a horrible arrow situation to where I nearly took both of us out. Hey, it's Dale Jr. Did you know that we've got brand new merch from our Star Stripes and Beers Collection available now? We've got tanks, teas, beach towels, and more just in time for summer. Check it all out at shop.dirtymomedia.com. Now, because momentum is so key in these restarts, are there moments in that particular restart we're talking about or any sequence where you can say you restart third,

you lose two spots now. I'm just like, all right, I'm going to cut my losses, fall in line here instead of trying to race these guys. Because it felt like you kept losing spots because you kept racing guys and never completed a pass. Exactly right. Michigan is one of the toughest tracks for that where when you actually have a lot of corner speed,

it can be a negative thing. Like I feel like so many times I've been caught going in the sucker hole of like, okay, I'm just gonna go down here and pass this guy because I'm faster. Well, I don't clear. And then next thing you know, here comes one, two, three cars down the straightaway.

And it's like, it's like if Atlanta is a mile and a half to Super Speedway hybrid, Michigan is a hybrid of Atlanta to a mile and a half. Like it's just, it just steadily, there's more drafting, but handling does matter. It's just a perfect,

and I said this in my post race, Michigan is just wildly one of the most underrated racetracks that we go to, just simply because it fits the car's characteristic, so well. There's a lot of tracks that doesn't fit well, but this one certainly is one where it puts on good racing just because of, you know,

it has so much drag in it. You see these big runs down the straightaway. So it's just, it is. It's just, it's a momentum game. And I got caught on that restart where I lost all those spots just breaking momentum.

You nearly screwed yourself earlier in this race, leaving the, pit box you're supposed to wait on kenneth you didn't wait on kenneth no i didn't i didn't i didn't listen well so i didn't realize we were that close and i just took for granted that well when i'm taking off here he's just going to follow me out like he's going to walk with me out of the box oh yeah i'm gonna walk with a car with gas can i just thought he would um but now i i definitely would you know i got to do things a little differently next time but i just i waited for a beat i

I'm looking in my mirror. I'm starting to see these guys leaving pit road. I'm like, I don't want to go back to 10th right now, waiting on fuel. And surely we'll just, maybe we'll put in that extra gas during the green flag stop. Screw it, right? And so I went way too early.

And then luckily, you know, Dylan grabbed the can as it's coming by. Like, that's such a great defensive move. There's, you see so many of these pit crew guys. Sometimes they finish their job and they'll just kind of, turn around and head towards the wall. And he's on the left front fender watching things as they go to like prepare me.

Hey, if I got to stop because I got a loose wheel or something, he's there. And when he sees the car and the can coming, like he's like, he's like the guy that's like the safeguard to catch all things. Yeah. Yeah, he's just standing there at the left front. I don't know. To, yeah, as a dam almost. He's kind of, his job is really, especially when waiting on fuel.

He's kind of another point of reference for me to when to go because, you know, there's two things I'm looking at the fueler. I'm listening to the crew chief say when to go. And also he's giving me a hand motion. So I've got three points of reference. I don't listen to none of them. Exactly right. Which of those guys gives you the most accurate or closest to notice when you're like actually supposed to go? Well, for us, it's the fueler when he nods.

that's the quickest thing, you know, versus, you know, Chris Gail seeing the nod, then keying his radio, getting it to me, like that's milliseconds, right? It's just, it's time. So I just try to look and see, you know, and I can see in my camera, you know, the bubbles coming up through the vent of the can. So when I kind of see that, I'm, I'm checking out. Yeah, I imagine in those situations where you're trying to get as much fuel as possible, the fueler probably can feel when he's just about done already, right? So then when you take off, he's disengaging at the same time versus... Yeah, but you know, if you stay in the pit box for like an extra half a second,

how many cars is that? How many rows is that on a restart, right? And so that's why it's so cutthroat. And it's why essentially the 77 was four laps short. He just said, yeah, I know we're short. We're not going to fill it up. We hope we get a caution late, and that'll be our saving grace. There was no shot of winning if it goes green,

but they wanted to put themselves in position to control the race up front. And if they get a caution, now being four laps short like they were, it was going to take, I think, multiple cautions for them to make it, not just one. But they're at that point, you know, I don't know where they're running, but they're thinking this is our best shot. Let's fast forward to the Bowman, Custer Briscoe, Monswarres, Rek. I mean, just a massive lick for Alex Bowman.

Who, major. I mean, I knew it had to be a big lick because they wouldn't even let us go through this crime scene, right? Like, the caution came out for us. I think I was somewhere on the backstretch, and we were stopped right after the start, finish line. So at that point, when it goes red that quickly, I'm like, oh, must have had a big one. And, you know, I point myself out to look at the screen to see the replay. And it was like, whoa, that was a big hit. Are you looking forward to cautions and restarts at this track, or is that just not your bread and butter?

It's usually not. I mean, I think I was pretty decent on restarts yesterday via like racing insights. But not really. I'd rather just string out, go green, and let the speed of my car shine. Ninth on restarts. Yeah. So considering where I was starting, that's, you know. middle of the road. I feel like that's been a point of focus for you this year. I've been trying

to get better at them. It certainly has been a weak part of my game. It's kind of been the only place where I feel as though I can improve. Not the only. That's not true. It's part of the area in which I can improve. And so I just really have been working on that. And I look at certain things to see how I can improve it. Without giving away state secrets, like what the art of restart for just an average fan, like what makes someone good or bad? It depends on the track, truthfully. I mean, I think that I had a different approach the second half of the race that I did the

first, and it was a lot better, the second half of the race, because I just, I learned from the mistakes that I made in the first half, and it just really depends on the track, truthfully. sometimes it's advantageous to poke out a line and go three wide bottom. Sometimes at a track like Michigan, you could lose 10 spots in one corner doing that. Like even though you get the run, like do you always take it? That's just the chess game that you play at a track like Michigan. How much of a success on a restart is dictated by what you do versus what your competitors do?

Well, that's a big part of it too because we know some of these restarts. You know, you've got cars that are staying out, older tires. It's how quickly you can maneuver through traffic. There are some drivers that are super elite at, you know, pouncing right away. It usually takes me a little bit more time, but I just play to my strengths. That's my best avenue to winning weekend, week out,

is that, you know, try not to change what I'm good at. Yes, I want to improve on the things I'm not, but I don't I'm not going to change my game I just want to play to my strengths and that usually leads me to a spot where I'm in contention to win by the end it the only thing what it doesn't do is it leads to not leading a lot of laps but if you notice like I'm I get better as races go on because I just the way I manage the race I know what my car is capable of and I play to that strength and usually by the end of the day, I can usually hem up some of my weaknesses to then keep better track position and then being strong in the long run, hey, just put myself in the top three with 50 to go. I should have a great shot by then. Back to the Bowman hit, we see you guys get out of the car, you go do the interview, you say it was bad, but like what are you feeling, you guys act like it's nothing?

Like, what's the pain? well you certainly feel it more so the day after the following days like you know for instance my wrist from Daytona like I this thing is still not right from where it was like I'm so old now it's like will ever be right again like it just sucks to put any kind of pressure on it um so it's just I think it's different for everyone people recover differently um but yeah I mean head on impact like that certainly when the next gen originally came out and it was solid as a rock, you know, before they started cutting up the roll cage and all kinds of stuff to get the impacts a little bit softer.

Yeah, that could have been a way worse wreck than what it appears that it resulted in. Late in this race, Travis brought this up this morning before we jumped on the show. He was talking, texting with Bozzi. and Bozzi had said that he missed the pins when he placed the tire, so he stopped and had to re-index it and then made sure it was tight before they dropped the car, which potentially may have allowed more fuel to get in, which is why you got to cross the finish line.

Yeah, I don't know. We were full. I think we only took one tank or one can. Was the blunder allowed us to get a little more fuel? don't know that. I'll find out today. But yeah, certainly when you have a slower stop, that's more time that you're plugged in to the car. So it seemed like the 54, they seem to be more worried about fuel than what we were. So, but you're showing here that he had like a nine one stop. Yeah. I mean, they, you're, you're lucky to get in one can at that point.

With four to go when you were battling Byron, they were still telling the 54 to save. Yeah. So, I mean, And we're looking at the same fuel stuff as what they are. And more than likely what they're showing is that if, you know, I'm right on the number, he must have been getting worse fuel mileage or didn't get his car as full. I'm not sure. When you flip the switch, how much time or how far can you go at Michigan?

Not exactly sure. Can you make it around? A full lap? at that track probably not but you can go away you could if you took the white your car would still be rolling at the checker i just don't know how fast it would be going were you ever told to save once you pitted no no but i did anyway manage yeah i mean there were times where like even with byron when i didn't have a good run or i was battling the 54 and those guys like i still was doing things to like if he says i'm right on the number i'm going to try to make sure i'm good by a quarter of a lap like i just made sure that i didn't use fuel whenever i didn't have a run and didn't need to what's your mindset um restarting with 40 something to go the final restart you got a bunch cars in front of you that were obviously contenders all day but then you had a bunch of cars who

were up front for the first time all day yeah you had a there was a there was a was a mixed bag and certainly there were some pit stops that were a lot faster than others i didn't know where like zane was at before i didn't know where the 77 was at all i knew is like you know the guys that the 77 was up there for most of the day um he kind of was meddling in there towards the top five but like i was looking more at that where's the 24 the 45 those guys and um the 17 uh i thought he had really good elite speed this weekend. I was just kind of seeing where they were at relative to myself, and I just kind of blocked out everyone else. But you got to pass everyone else. Yeah, that's what's the difficult part about it, is that it was important for me. I think I restarted

fourth on the inside. That's ninth. Typically at that point, the numbers are going to show you're going to come out about 10th, maybe 11th on a restart. I think I came out of pit road 12th. So it was just a net gain because people were stacking the top so much that it allowed me to move up. two rows actually so that's just what the numbers show but I was very fortunate not to lose any positions and I came out ninth you know once at all

the wash of the restart came out and we're all running single file I'd gotten back up to the top lane I netted three spots from where I came out on pit road I didn't gain on the restart but I didn't lose that was the key right so yeah you came up where I was where the numbers would show

I'm supposed to lose in that spot yeah so at that point Yeah. So at that point, your car is better than everyone else's. Do you know the fuel situation of everyone else and how they're driving? Well, we got a little damage. My car was actually not. The last run of the day was the worst that my car was. I know it probably didn't look like it on TV. But just I was out of the gas, which maybe why my fuel mileage was better is I was out of the gas way more than I had been all day because I did get some right front damage and right rear damage that I thought slowed my car up a little bit. How worried were you on pit road when you had that damage? I was worried that like I that the fender got ripped apart. I mean it inside the car everything feels more exaggerated but I was like damn like we hit pretty good so but there was just nowhere for anyone to go. Tye's on the inside of somebody I'm on the inside of tie the eight's got to leave his stall.

Somebody's going to leave like it's just the pit roads are just it's hard to believe on a two mile track just not it's too narrow. Do you know that you're going to pass the 24 at the end? You just have the luxury of picking how you want to do it. No. It wasn't a given. He made it difficult, but I thought that since I got there with 10, 12 to go, I thought I had enough speed to where it was going to be difficult for him to hold us off for that long. Like, surely I was going to get position on him at least once during the course of that.

just so happened, it happened with, you know, four to go or so. Now, I thought these cars are super stable and you can't really get them out of shape from behind. Again, I'm not going to come in here and just give you all the secret sauce, but there's ways you can manipulate the cars, even though that it certainly is better to be the first, the front car, but there's still ways from behind you can, you can change their car. Because that's what you did. I tried. It looked like it.

Was there any part of you that was like, I'm just going to put pressure on him, but not try to make a risky pass because I'm going to run out of fuel if I just put pressure on him? I never wanted to assume he was going to run out of gas. I treated the end of that race as if he was fine on gas. And even as crew chief said, just run it all out here. You've got to keep the lead. So, you know, whether it didn't matter because we ended up, you know, passing him. But we, yeah, we forced him to run out of him.

of gas anyway because of the pace. You know, he was, when he was in the lead, we were running fourth. You had the five behind, he had the five behind them. Everything is cozy at that point because he can run half throttle. The five can run half throttle because he's not going to pressure him. The 54 is trying to save. But I'm the first in line that is like, screw this. I'm going all out.

We forced him to use more gas than what he was budgeting. When did you, when you started making your move, at what point did you know, okay, this is my race. Really not until I got to the inside of him. At that point, then it's just a cat and mouse game of trying to position yourself to complete the pass. And then also I was a little worried about the 54 of passing both of us if we Mickeyed around a little bit too much.

But I think we were only side by side for maybe a lap and a half or so before I was able to clear him. but it's just at that point kind of a timing thing to try to get the pass clear. I knew once I got inside of him, he's going to be a tough spot. Win number 57 and the first one after Start 700. Man, I wish it was last week, but I'll take it this week. The most in Joe Gibbs racing history. Yeah, it was great to break that tile with Kyle.

Obviously, you know, he had been the most successful JGR driver for quite some time. Yeah, so it just feels great. You know, it's just this is one of the top organizations in NASCAR, right? I mean, you've got the big three, the Hendrik Penske and Gibbs. To be the winningest at one of those, right, is very meaningful. They gave me my opportunity, my chance, when I was just a late model driver. They're the ones that took a risk and a chance on me. I didn't bring anything to the table.

other than my talents, and it paid off for both of us. So it just really makes you feel good, especially with a team that gave you your start. I'm surprised that in the prime post-race show, they asked you if you thought you'd get to 60 this year, and you kind of like hemmed and hauled, like, oh, it's just so hard to win races. Yeah, it is because, you know, I look at it as, you know,

is there six road courses or five? I know we got three in the next five. Yeah. I just look at it as someone that's very logical, right? Is that is my, where are my opportunities to win? And for 31 of the 36 races, if we have five, if it's 30 of 30, whatever it is, the oval tracks is where I'm going to have my best opportunity. And it doesn't matter if it's a half mile or two mile racetrack. I feel really good about my chances of winning as long as I'm turning left. Here's your, you got three, right? So then you win Kansas, you win Martinsville, you win Phoenix. There's your six. Easier said than done. Let's just pretend I have the fastest card all three of those.

By the numbers, I will win one of those. It's just, that's the numbers. If you have the fastest car, you just, if you can win 30% of time, 40% of time, that's what it normally is. So you're just, to win three more races, I need to have the best car thing. about this nine times in the next 20 races. That's hard, that's hard to do. Sure, you can look at it that way, but you can also look at it as if, and then you got to take the road courses out.

So maybe it's, I got to have the fastest car now nine of the next 17. Sure. But if you're going to be, you understand the numbers of it? I get it. But also if the 11 teams going to be a championship threat, you're going to have to win. Yeah, at least two. races. I mean, statistically, no. Joey Lugano, you know, got high at the end of the year. But we've seen you in the playoffs in the final in the round of eight. You're going to have to win

one of those races. Otherwise, you're going to be barely sneaking in, right? You don't want that. And you're going to have to win a race at some other time in the playoffs probably. But I'm just, am I capable of getting 60 this year? A hundred percent. But will it happen? Again, this goes back to under promise over deliver. I'm not going to say, Yes. Okay. Well, that's all you got to say then.

Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's, you don't always control your destiny. Ask every single driver out there. They, you know,

they'll ring you all five races in the last 10 where they got a shudier finished than what they deserved that day. So he can't be as confident as AP is. No. No. He thinks you're going to get to 70 this year.

Okay. I kidding. He didn't say that. Anything else for, for Michigan? You want to talk about some, some noteworthy finishers. RFK, three top tens.

Yep, yeah, I do. I definitely like giving some of these guys, you know, credit. The, like I said, the 17, I thought it was one of the strongest cars. On the day, he was able to pass. You know, he rallied back there towards the end of the race. He finished second, right? Second. So, great run for RFK, three cars.

First time in how long? I think they said 2016. Yeah, it's like 10 years since. they'd had three cars finish in the top 10. All their cars were pretty strong. I didn't see Brad as much. I know he cycled up towards the front at one point of the day, but I thought the 60 and the 17, 17, obviously the strongest.

I thought the 60 was next in line on speed. But all getting a top 10 finish is, it's great for that team. Ty Gibbs getting a top three finish. I know he was very, very frustrated at the end of that race to, you know, not they didn't let them take the reins off i've been there trust me where you know i think multiple times this year you go into the last fuel run they're like yeah i know you want to go but sorry you can't indy last year uh had one probably had one of the fastest cars and just sorry can't do it not going to let you run fastest run so looks like we've got a visitor who is it does he have a crutch

he's got two we got two visitors here Hey Ron How's it going? Red Rocks Ron here If you need some good food In Burkdale We got you On the cake

When we dropped the 5 on the road So The 5 We're supposed to say 57 Can you all hear this? He says we got you a cake So I said 57

You're going to try to tell us That you didn't purposely Drop the 5 off that cake Ron Completely crushed on the floor Of the golf cart That says 57 That's your 57 win

Well it doesn't say 57. Well, you have to imagine it says 57. Okay, we'll imagine that. Thank you. Nate Dogg here, fresh off his trip from God knows where. Do you have a good vacation? We had a great vacation.

He says. He's going to be, Nate has committed to training me for Fanatics Fest on June 20th. You probably saw this on my Instagram story. So I'm going to compete against all these other. Like athletes. Actually, real athletes. And all these skills challenges. Like, it's throwing football, you know, targets.

You got to knock hockey pucks into a washer and dryer. We got a closest to the pin. I like my chances there. Three point contests. I like my chances there. What else do they have? UFC striking challenge. I do not.

Denny claims to be a fighter. We're going to find out. Here's the only thing. here's the only thing. William Byron is also going to compete in this. We're going to be the only two NASCAR drivers to compete. I just want to beat William. I cannot let Mr. Country Club beat me in a striking contest.

Is there a Lego building competition? There is not. What else is there? We have, oh, pitching contests like in a strike zone. You said there were six. No, there's eight. They take your best six scores. Okay.

Ron. Come on, man. All right. So there's eight competitions. Oh, they have the one. Listen, I'm pondering my ideas on how to do this. One is a 60 second walkout, like a WWE walkout intro. So you have to essentially, it's what we do every weekend for driver intros.

But like, they're going to grade you on creativity, you know, fan, you know, what is, how do the fans react and all that stuff um your props so i'm i'm thinking about what i'm going to do for that so it's going to be pretty entertaining this is in new york city um june 20th i just i have a couple goals one is to not lose to william byron in these competitions and not be ranked in the bottom 10 of, I think there's 50 athletes that are, you know, current and, you know, like, it's Tom Brady, the Manning Brothers traffic,

Scott, I mean, the names are the names. I just don't want to embarrass myself during these competitions, but we're about to find out whether drivers or athletes or not. Yeah, needless to say, this is going to be very fun for me, Travis. This is Jared's Super Bowl. And Jared gets to go and shoot all this?

Yeah, and he's got his two favorite drivers there. Who you've written for, Jared? I don't know. So I thought about this. I'm rooting for entertainment. The old, wow. Ron knows all about rooting for everybody. Can I ask you a question?

We're getting it off the rails here. Jared, I want the listeners to hear this. Would you be willing to take a live detector test live on air here and us ask you questions about your allegiance? For the views, of course. Okay. Just we need to think. about how we're going to make that happen.

I think he would pass though. I think honestly he's rooting for you. I truly believe that. I mean, he's not flying on Byron's plane. I can tell you that. I know, that's what I'm saying. There's different motivating factors. Yeah.

And all of this. Larson's already got a championship too. Like, I think he truly wants you to get that championship. I got a few questions here for some fans. All right. Just answer these as quick as you want. What made this race in Michigan better than previous Michigan races.

I think it was actually the fuel mileage. There was a little bit of like mix of strategies which allowed the guys that were good on fuel to go all out and then you had the leaders say, we can't make it. So it was almost like a super speedway race where you didn't want to lead because you just burn more fuel. So it just mushed the pack together that final run. I think that was one of the contributing factors. Have you talked to your dad yet after the race about, I beat your favorite driver?

Yeah. Still doesn't love it. Doesn't love it. No. Has a baby boy been served in eviction notice yet? Yes. Yes. Trying, trying to get him out.

How does it feel to finally have a fuel mileage race go your way? Oh, first of my, it has to be the first of my career. 57 wins that it's got to be the first fuel mileage win what's your thoughts when you finally it wasn't a fuel mileage win i passed him before you know he ran out of gas what's your thoughts though when you finally get the lead and you're are you just like at that point i know he's going to wave the white flag on trying to pass me back because he's he's sweating he's even going to make it to begin with and he probably knows he can't

so at that point like i take the lead and it's like clear by 5 10 15 20 and at that point I'm like, all right, I'm coming out of the gas. Just bring it home. So it feels great. We're going to Mexico City this weekend. Yeah. Are you excited for that? I am. The track seems fun. I have, you know, again, I won at this track 20 years ago, but it is a different track. There's a few more corners that are different than what it was back when I ran it, you know, 20 years ago. But running it in the Sim, it seems like a very good track. It's got some good passing zones. So, yeah, the atmosphere was awesome when we were there with the Xfinity series. So, yeah, looking forward to checking it out.

It's a long way down there, though. Are you, you've already been down there once. Are you going to go out and about this year? I kind of had a bad experience when I went out in Mexico City 20 years ago. So, stand to close to the hotel on this one. What's the plan for, I mean, it's easy to get back for Nashville or Michigan on Baby Watch. What's the cutoff here? I don't know, I've got to figure that out because I certainly cannot leave.

You know, it's one thing when you're in Michigan, you're an hour and a half, ten flight away. There's no customs. I fly, you know, right into the airport. It's just, it's not that in Mexico. So I can't leave certainly until we have a baby. And then, you know, I guess we're on track on Friday. Yep. I don't know.

We've got to play this one by year. You got to serve it. Surely, man. Surely he's got to come out. I mean, I don't know. They say up to two weeks is normal. Two weeks late. Maybe he's just holding out for the 11th.

It's a Denny Hamlin, baby. truth be known the original name of 2311 racing was supposed to be 611 611 you guys picked a better one LeBron James Denny Hammer wow

Jesus wow what is what is 611 6 championships 6 11 there was like when they were doing renderings and all this stuff but it you know on all the gear like it was 611

611 was our team name for a while but I just was like eh let's change let's rethink yeah it kind of had to be 611 you couldn't do it the other way around mm-hmm well I mean we're

two days away from 611 could it be nice some off track so back to Mexico City though the elevation. Yeah. What impact was that for you?

I don't know. Do you recall 20 years ago? I... I guess you're young, though. Now you're old. I've recalled what I did the night before, and I... I... It's hard for me to remember a lot from A that night, and then how I felt the next day.

Have you done any sort of training? Has any... I have not. I have not. They gave us kind of a lot of the information in which we needed to prepare ourselves. I know that quite a few of the Toyota guys are staying out in Aspen over the last week or so, last two weeks, to try to get acclimated to the elevation. You know, it just wears you out.

It's no different than, you know, basketball players to go play at the Denver Nuggets. You know, your ma-ha there, your cardio is not as good. So I'm not. winging it. There's some guys that have hyperbaric chambers and things like that that they're, you know, elevation tents and all kinds of stuff.

I think I'm going to make it just fine. Do you think that that could bite you in the ass? Maybe. Maybe not, though. I guess what could bite you in the ass more of the elevation or your road course driving, you know? 50-50.

Do you want to try to go to some off-track news? here. At Michigan, this weekend, Ram announced it officially that they're returning to the truck series next season. Yeah, great to have another manufacturer. And Asker has been telling us now for 10 years that another manufacturer was coming. So, yeah, I didn't think any of us thought it was just going to be in the truck series,

but, you know, hopefully Dodge has a great experience and then, you know, thinks about their participation in the Cup series. I think that's probably an ultimate goal of everyone's. but I don't know how strong their car market is. You know, what are their goals? I know that bringing back the prestige of the Dodge Ram is probably high on their list. So I thought, you know, great to have them back in NASCAR and hopefully they have a good enough experience where they see the investment and, you know, is worth it. And then they step up and come back to the Cup Series.

I know we've been talking about new manufacturers in NASCAR for years, but this has to be a good sign, right, for other series as well, not just a truck series? Well, I think it's the best and easiest point of entry for a manufacturer because if you remember in the truck series, they don't have to build their own engines. They all run the same engine. So whatever the body is on the vehicle,

that's essentially what the manufacturer does is just put a body on it. I think it becomes a lot easier for them to just, it's a cheaper point of entry than coming in the Cup series where you have to develop your own engine. You've got setup software, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then 2311 loses the injunction last week. Yeah, this is just part of the, you know, certain little battles that happened throughout the litigation. It does not have anything to do with the actual lawsuit itself. This was just essentially, we asked the judge to give us an injunction to allow us to race chartered,

as we go through this, he gave us the injunction based off of the facts. And then we had NASCAR appealed it, took it to the appeals panel, and they overruled that, the initial judge. So we're checking out our options now, and we're going to be racing this full year no matter what and look forward to our day in December. Anything else you got going on this week before leaving from Mexico? Really, I mean, well, I got a lot going on.

I need, you know, again, I've got to prepare for, this fanatics fest. I don't want to look like a fool. Don't want to embarrass myself or my friends that help me through this journey. Got a boy on the way. Got to prepare for Mexico. I got meetings out the ass. I mean, it's a full week.

It's a half week. Exactly. Got to fit it all in a shorter amount of time. Does this win at least give you a little, you feel good knowing with these road, you got a bunch of road courses coming up that like, all right, got another one I can you know this could be a it is you know am I optimistic I can go with there and perform well I do you know but is it my strong suit no so it feels good to at least

have some really strong runs leading up to these road course weeks yes that part of it is very optimistic for us and certainly makes you feel good that you you're taking advantage of the races that you should be I got a review here from Garabell 5780 who called it last week Let's go 11 team Another win coming soon Yeah

Appreciate that Man It is good This is kind of how we started last year We just need to make sure we don't tail off right I think we won three of the first 11 or 12 races last year Start off hot

And then we just lost some car speed Throughout the year Versus the competition I don't think we got slower I think maybe maybe a little combination of both. All right, well, I appreciate you all tuning in. We'll see you after Mexico.