Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Michigan: "I Got Greedy"

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Denny Hamlin and Jared Allen are back after a bittersweet race in Michigan. Before getting into the race, Denny and Jared talk about NASCAR taking away Austin Dillon's playoff berth and how the appeal process works. Denny also explains what happened last year during his appeal hearing for his incident with Ross Chastain.Tyler Reddick was victorious on Monday, getting his second win of the season, but a late-race caution almost ruined it. The guys debate whether NASCAR's caution for Martin Truex Jr. was the right call. Another decision discussed was the start time of the race. If there is bad weather expected like NASCAR got on Sunday, should the start time be moved up? Or, should the start time be earlier for every race?Denny had a fast car when the race started on Sunday, but things got bad when he spun out trying to pass Bubba Wallace. He explains why the mistake happened and what was going on in his mind. Denny and Jared also answer a question circulating on social media: is Kyle Larson a better driver than Max Verstappen? One factor teams didn't expect to play such a big role in the race was the wind. The driver who got the worst of this was Corey LaJoie, who found himself airborne. And while it looked bad, Denny believes flipping is a better outcome than hitting the wall head on. Tyler Reddick ended up in Victory Lane and has been on a tear lately. Denny isn't shocked, and it's this kind of driving that made him go sign Reddick in the first place. Denny then gets into the struggle of trying to win while, at the same time, helping 23XI drivers and his fellow teammates at JGR, who will then try to beat him on Sundays.Finally, there are two races left in the regular season and the guys chat about what to expect next weekend in Daytona.For more content, check out our YouTube page: 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.

Gotta hate me sometimes. Yeah, I just, I got too greedy. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey guys, welcome to action's detrimental. Ow, that hurt Charlie. This is not going to be a rose color glasses show. Pleading with NASCAR, who I guarantee you is listening to this. It was warm and then it was cold.

But I kind of liked it. The 11DH. We're all in. We're going all the way the promise of it. Hey guys, welcome to Axon's detrimental. I'm Denny Hamlin, drive the number 11

Yahoo! Toyota, this weekend. That's what I was saying when I was spinning through the infield. Yahoo. Yeah. And Jared, sorry, you do not get an introduction because

Jordan said, stop introducing Jared. Everyone knows who he is. Jordan said that. at least in Michigan they do at least in Michigan how many autographs you signed I heard a few I heard that you were popular yeah I mean so much so right we were flying home and Austin was like oh you said I witnessed Jared in his natural habitat this week and Austin is like yeah he signed tons autographs yeah that's not what you were referring to but I know but weren't we walking somewhere

from the garage. I thought I heard someone in a distance say, I want Jared's on a crap. Yeah. Yeah, on the first day on Saturday. That's what I thought I heard. I was like, kind of as I was passing and I was like, wait a minute, I just hear that. Yeah. Yeah. It's your die cast. I was like, the driver is right here. Oh, that's right. That's right. You know, you want him? He's like, no, no, no. It's more yours. So this week kind of was Molly's birthday. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And, We went to cliffhangers and Jared showed us his element of, you know, climbing rocks. It was quite entertaining, which pretty impressive stuff.

Which your daughter is also great at. She was there as long as I was. I tell you, she was climbing some stuff. I think she got extra motor. I think they were about done. And as soon as those kids came, like, that were 10 to 14. Yeah. They all got motivated to start climbing again.

So it was fun. I would get about 25 feet up, and then I'd just give a quick peek down, and I was done at that point. So I just, heights, man, I just, there's a lot of things that I've found in my older age that have changed. Like, I used to be able to spin my ass off on the teacups. Like, it was my job to, you know, get Jordan sick when we get on that. Like, I just was, like, trying to get her nauseous. and now I can't do it.

I get nauseous all day. It's so weird. So that and then heights. Man, I don't handle heights quite as good as I used to. Would you go skydiving? For some reason I feel like, yes, because it's so far up in the air that it's not, I can't really see.

What about roller coasters then? Yeah, I'd really don't have a issue there because it's when I'm not held in. Okay. Like we were at the top of this castle on vacation, and like there was a wall probably three and a half, four foot. But it was enough to where you could lean your whole stomach and chest on it and look down and it's probably 75 feet. I just didn't like it. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm good on that.

That's crazy because I feel like with heights, most people's fear of heights is actually a fear of falling. they're afraid of heights, but really they're afraid of falling from that height. But if you're not afraid to go skydiving, that doesn't make sense. Well, I haven't been strapped in a plane yet and thrown off of it. So, I mean, I might have second thoughts,

but I feel like it would be something that I would do. I guess I probably should, you can just kind of sign up for that shit now, right? You got a person on your back and... Yeah. Like, I would go tomorrow and do it. I've been talking about wanting to go. Seems like one of those things you should do before you die.

Yeah. Hopefully just don't die doing it. Right. Right. Well, we got a couple races from Michigan. We can recap. First, we had the Xfinity race. Justin Al-Geyer won it.

I noticed right from the get-go, I thought Justin had the best car. Like, he was making moves when others weren't. I wasn't... I didn't love the Super Speedway. package at Michigan for Xfinity. I know they did it during, for the Indianapolis race. I thought that put on a great show. It's just the straightaways are just so long at Indy.

It allows you to kind of get those big runs, slingshot runs at the end of the straightaway. It just looked like to me, no one really wanted to pull out of line at Michigan in the Xfinity series. So you had some really good handling. cars, Reddick, or I'm sorry, Algeyer looked like he had the best handling car, the fastest car.

He was able to make moves when others couldn't. So I thought kind of the rightful winner there won that one. How much of that with him is, he's got so much experience and he's racing against kids that can't even, they're 20 years old, that he's able to do some things that they're just still trying to learn. Yeah, certainly the experience gives them a sizable advantage in the Xfinity series. and Xenity has had such turnover rate year after year with young guys coming and going and things like that. When Justin knows that, okay, this is where I'm going to be, and he's been with the same team for quite some time,

all that just really, really helps him be up to speed probably quicker through the weekend, and then the experience and the racecraft that he's got really paid its dividends. So I think he's found a great home in the Xenity series, and he's going to, as long as he's in it, he's going to be one of the dominating drivers. Yeah, stability. I mean, that's something that a guy like Sheldon Creed has not had yet, another runner-up finish in the Xfinney series. And, you know, and he got, he had his opportunities in Cup. And really, even as a fill-in role, I thought he did a good job at Charlotte, right?

I mean, just getting in there and going. So, I mean, he certainly, you know, he's never, I don't think going to be on the top of anyone's list of, okay, we're going to pick up this Xenity driver to go to the next level. I think, you know, sometimes when you do stay in a series a while, you're trying to kind of just, you're there, kind of like, you know, Matt Crafton's of the world, Ben Road, like, no one ever talks about Ben Roads. Like, these guys are just going to be there for, for quite some time. So it's just, it's a weird thing about our sport, but it's, it is what it is. And, you know, I think that he certainly challenges these young guys when they come.

in even when they're in the same equipment as him surely he makes you know having a person like just an algeyer on a team like jr motor sports that has some different drivers come in and out like that's that's a good staple for your team to kind of foundation for your team to build around so they got a great thing going there and i saw dale's tweet he was like you had one win one somewhere else a wreck and last or something like that he was like it was I'm pissed I'm mad, I'm excited, and he has all these different emotions, which I experienced as a car owner today at Michigan with having the opposite ends of the spectrum. So, great win by Justin. Any of the off-track stuff y'all want to touch on?

Let's touch on Austin Dillon and an update on that situation. We were watching the Richmond race in the bus on Saturday or Sunday, whenever we were delayed. and now there's a bar that runs across the bottom of the race broadcast that says update Austin Dillon's win stands. However, he is no longer playoff eligible. That was, that had to be the first time I've ever seen that. Now, again, we don't have a ton of post-race penalties, but we did back in the day. And I never remember a recap where it was like, disclaimer, what you're seeing is not real. What they're saying about being in the playoffs, it's not real.

So that was interesting that they put this, you know, Surgeon General's warning right there on the TV for us to see. But he's going to appeal. You know, I think that he did make comments about, you know, he's going to use Actions Detrimental Podcasts from back in the day to, you know, be more informed about how they should prepare. Good luck. It didn't work.

Good luck because we had a great, great case, a great case. And it didn't work. but you know NASCAR has changed some language in the appeals process where you know after the hendrick louver shenanigans or whatever it might be right where the panel says they're guilty but we're going to just change the penalty like NASCAR did not like that one bit like not even a little bit. So they changed the language, I believe, to say in the sense of that, you either, you have, the, the panel has to judge, are they guilty of what we said they are or not? And if they're not, then you can take, say there is no penalty, but you can't just change it and come up with a new

penalty like they did for the Hendrick guys. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, if I'm thinking about what are they going to build a case on? I think it would be really, really hard to build a case to say it wasn't intentional. So probably that's not their angle. More than likely it would be of the angle that it's unprecedented that they've never, a win has counted, but not. been eligible for the playoffs. You put in your rule book that you have a win and it puts you in the playoffs. I would argue that a little bit because I read some language to you last week that was in

the rule book that when it comes to kind of the fairness of the sport, they can make, you know, unprecedented calls. And, you know, I think that what NASCAR, if I'm thinking about what NASCAR is going to defend. So maybe they're just not going to argue. And again, this is, I'm just guessing. Maybe they're not going to argue that he did it intentionally or not intentionally, whatever it might be. They're probably going to say people will wreck for the win for quite some time and you've done nothing. And this time you chose to take us out of the playoffs. And that is unprecedented.

And what NASCAR probably would say was that we saw an unprecedented move. And it caused us to make an unprecedented call. Um, that's what I think that both sides are thinking about. Um, I could be totally wrong and they might have some sort of evidence or, or reasoning behind, uh, their appeal. We don't, again, we really don't know what they're appealing, right? So they're, they're probably, they're going to appeal that this wind should count. If you gave us the win, the wind should count towards the playoffs. I understand that argument, right? Which is why I said, you should take care of it at the track. Don't, you know, enforce the rough driving penalty right then. Then everything else just fixes itself. It doesn't

have a split outcome. But that's something for the future. It's something that everyone can learn from. I think NASCAR will learn from and hopefully we'll be better for that. So we're not in this position. And so you got to understand from NASCAR's perspective as well, they probably had, I'm going to guess, 10 different stakeholders call them between Monday and Wednesday when that decision was made. It could be the OEMs. It could be one from Toyota, one from Ford, one from Chevy, one from RCR, one from Penske, one from Gibbs, everyone with their side of why this should or should not be a penalty, right? They got everyone coming at them in multiple different directions and say, man, this is big for us if you do this and it's going to hurt us if you do that.

But I hate that it's come to that where we almost give the stakeholders too much what's the word I'm looking for here too much of a voice too much steak too much steak yeah yeah this by the way was one of Austin's arguments in his interview with Travis's old boss what's that

with Marty and McGee oh Marty McGee he he didn't he had mentioned that the stakeholders played a significant role in this decision and that back in the day it was NASCAR made the call and that's what it was. It's become more political than it's ever become. I mean, it's for good, bad, worse, I don't know.

But it has. Whenever these decisions get made, it's, you know, whenever they see an infraction, they, trust me, they get tons of people in their ear saying, please don't do this. It'll hurt that. And then you got the other side saying, oh, you've got to do what's right.

And so you have to almost, if I were the league, if I were NASCAR, I would say to whoever is on the good end or the bad end, like, we're going to make what we deem is the right choice. This is a sport. And you never can go wrong by making the right decision. And when a player comes in and, you know, so much. contact happens in other sports, it could be a pass interference, it could be a foul to the bucket right at the end of the game. The officials don't want to blow the whistle, but they have to do what's fair in the name of sport. And, you know, if you if you didn't want the penalty and it's going to be big to you, you shouldn't have done it, right? And so I think that you can never go

wrong just making the right call what you think is the right call and the whoever's on the good end or the bad end has to just deal with whatever that call is um you know i i while i disagreed with you know their call on me at the end of it it was like okay well that's that's that's what it is we made a case they said no and that's it right um but you know for the first fans out there, they just have no idea how much, this took three days more than likely, because they were just being talked at from every angle of like, please don't, please do, please don't, please do. And they're trying to figure out, how can we strike a happy medium here? So they said, all right, we'll give you half of it, but not the other half, right?

That's more than likely, in my opinion, of why they came to this split decision. Did NASCAR call you to get your opinion? No. since you're involved, no. No, no, they do not. They involuntarily got it though. Yeah. I mean, that's, if any other driver thinks that, you know, NASCAR, you know, is swayed by what I say on this, I think in some instances they do. And other instances, you can go get your own podcast and maybe you can get something go your way.

Or you can come join this one. I mean, I'm the one that puts the work in. So, we spend a lot of time down here, you know, given our fans a lot of. lot of content and things that they can bitch and complain about, things that I say or Jared, you know, everyone loves Jared, so that doesn't really apply. But I just think that I'm always going to give my opinion. And sure, I am biased because I'm the one that took a 32G hit. My body didn't like it. You can't convince me otherwise from what I saw in the data that it was not intentional.

The contact with me was intentional. I've been doing this for too long. I've seen Rex happen from so many different angles that I came to the conclusion that I did. And I, listen to me, I tried to give the benefit the doubt right out of the race car before I saw anything, right? I felt like I was like, yeah, I guess. Maybe it was off out of bounds, but like I didn't know. I needed more information.

I never went at Austin personally. I didn't think that that was kind of the right angle. But I felt like certainly we were wronged in the situation. And it was an unprecedented act. And it calls for unprecedented penalties. And it came with a split penalty. The only thing I worry about for Austin's sake is that I guess they do have the authority to say, all right, well, then you don't want split penalty.

we'll just take everything away. And then you've really lost some momentum because you think that could happen in this appeal? I think that that's where I went wrong in my appeal. I had, I don't know if there's confidentiality. Who gives it? It really doesn't matter. It's so old. But I had, you know, a judge or one of the panelists asked me, it's like, what outcome would satisfy you?

Is it all or nothing? or can we separate this? And I was so gung-ho that my case was correct, it was prepared, we did everything right, that I said, all or nothing. And I think I messed up there. I think that they were thinking about taking away the point penalty and just giving me the fine,

but I wanted to go all in. Yeah. You know what I mean? that's me right and and and to a fault at times i i feel like i i need to just kind of take what it'll give me aka stage one of the race um and i just think that i made a choice there when they asked me that um that they said okay it's all in guilty then so so but they wouldn't take they get they've given in the windows i don't see how they would this is a little different it's not like they've taking the win and everything away and he could only maybe fight for half of it right they're going

in there trying to get their playoff eligibility back so they're not going to take the win they've made penalties worse absolutely so you think that there's a chance they'd come out and say denny hamlin's the winner of richmond oh i think it's a less than five percent chance okay i think it's just going to stay the way it is um i heard on the tear down today when they were like, I guess they asked Jordan and Gluck, you know, one said it was like 5% or something like that, and the other said it was like 33. I think it's like 10% that it changes.

Maybe it's higher, maybe it's 20. But for them to just take all the penalty away, I just think that NASCAR has, they have protected their self with the language that allows them to, to do essentially whatever they want. So it doesn't matter that they're, let's pretend there's panelists who are listening to this case this week

or whenever it's heard that are looking at this, you know, with a racing view from 20 years ago, I have like these rose-colored glasses, which we see all over X. Like you're saying that doesn't matter because the language that NASCAR has is so good that it'll dispute any opinions.

Yes, yeah, every year and even during the year, NASCAR constantly updates. its rule books. And so, again, I think they were so displeased with the Hendrick outcome that they changed. They really made an effort in the offseason to hem up any of the, you can't make up your own. Hey, panelists, you can't make up your own penalty. Either has to be what we said it is or not. And so I think that they have just enough language to govern the sport, how they see fit.

The old action is detrimental. In the rulebook, I mean, you might need, you know, maybe, maybe Austin Dillon should go in and say, all right, well, what is detrimental? Let's look at the, let's look at the, you know, that's not the right way to go upon a NASCAR panel, but it's, you could say, what's detrimental? It's, look at all the engagement that this got. Right. This isn't detrimental.

NASCAR, I'm playing both sides here, NASCAR is a, it's detrimental to sport. The game we play, we have to govern the sport to make sure it's played properly, and that's on us, and we've chosen to throw a flag on this one. So with this ruling, Elton Sawyer was asked about drivers,

and he's aware what they can do, and he said they know where the line is. Do you feel confident in knowing what you can and can't do racing for a win going forward. Do I completely know? No, but generally speaking, yes. I believe that I didn't hear a lot of drivers' comments through this weekend when they got interviewed

that they were just totally confused on, well, what's good, what's not? There was a few. There was a few. But generally speaking, what we know now is that if you choose to go and wipe out the leader on the final lap or on the green white checkered and it looks real bad. Now when I say wipe out the leader there's many ways a car can be spun.

If that driver has no opportunity to save it that is wiping someone out. Spinning someone my definition, my personal definition is that you got into the back them, they got up the track, they tried to save it, and then they spun. Like, Joey's, when they spin around really quick, the driver had no chance, right? And I even brought up in my media session this weekend that I think that the 2017,

under the, if they were going to govern taking out the leader, that in my mind would have fallen under taking out the leader. I think that Chase Elliott didn't have a chance when he entered turn three when I was on his back bumper, right? There's been many others where guys were battling. They made contact. One hit the wall a little bit. It's just different. When you're side by side and the contact is so minute, that's racing.

It's the wiping out and the car never even has a, the other person never has a chance. chance. That's where I think you could essentially say. And I've looked back and there's, of course this week has been filled with examples of, well, look at this, look at that. You know, I remember seeing one where I think it was Stuart Friesen at Martinsville. He kind of right hooked one of the drivers. It might have been Todd Gillen at Martinsville. And I'm like, okay, boom, that should have been a penalty. It wasn't. But NASCAR needs to set a new precedence now and say, and trust me, it's not going to keep us from making contact. We are still willing to take the risk of going in there and moving the guy up if that's

the absolute only way to make it work on the last lap. Now, we want to work them over and just pass them for real. But I think they're going to have an opportunity in the next few weeks to see are they going to be consistent. And I don't think that it needs to happen on Wednesday. I think that they need to let the men in the tower, whoever it might be. If it's Elton, let it be Elton. He's a driver.

He can see right when he sees it and wrong when he sees that. Let them make the call for rough driving, tail end, and then we move on. And whoever's on the good end or bad, it has to live with the result because he's the official and he made the call. and sometimes up there it's a it's a few people some weeks there's other you know NASCAR executives in the tower in some weeks there's less people but they just even if it takes 10 minutes to just kind of look it all over like just make the right call and I think that there'll be an opportunity when we go to martinsville and we get to these other lower series it's been the last few years just an absolutely train wreck of racing and we certainly, I personally would like to see it cleaned up a little bit

and I think there's an opportunity for NASCAR here to start to draw a new line. You don't think it'll make drivers too timid? I don't think so. I mean, if it did, then why did three drivers in the cars tour race all get put to the back spending, like everyone's willing to go for it? It's just you're willing to go for it. And so, but there's just a difference. There is a difference.

And I think in the cars tour, I think they're a little bit more strict on, if the car spins out, it doesn't matter how egregious it was, they put you the back. That might be wrong, but from what I've seen, it's pretty much a straight line,

and that is you are not, you cannot be responsible for that leader spying out. So, you know, I think, listen, I think this, moments like this in our sport, there's always opportunities to grow from it and get better and hopefully both sides get better. The competitors, we all get better and kind of how we handle the end of the races. And then, you know, certainly NASCAR.

And one other example, I think that probably warranted a penalty. He might not like this, but like when Kevin Harvick spun out Kyle Bush. Now, it didn't result in a him. making it, but he was trying to wreck Kyle to make the next round. And that would have knocked me out. It would have knocked me out. Now, is that fair?

Right? That's not fair. He shouldn't be able to wipe someone out to move on to the next round. And we're going to have these instances. We're going to have in the next few weeks, it could be a Darlington, right? When it comes down to the playoff bubble,

we could have someone on a restart say, I got to have it. And if they do something that looks egregious, they should not be able to get into the playoffs on that move, just like Austin Dillon did. Yep. I forgot about this Kevin Horvick, Kyle Bush move. Yeah, it was, it was bad. Yeah, it was bad. He hooked him off the final corner. He just turned right on him. But listen, it's not something that Kevin was proud of by any means. He even said after the race, he's like, hate we were even in that position, you know? but I think let's clean it up.

Let's keep, I'm all about entertainment, but we need to keep sport in this. Well, it was clean today because you had almost the same situation. You had Tyler Reddick, who got out to a two and a half second lead or whatever it was at end of this race, and then late caution and restarted them, and they kept it clean at the front. Yeah.

When we were kind of going green there in that, final stage, I was thinking, all right, I'm in the top 10. No way I thought this was possible about an hour ago. Let's just get out of here. And then I heard there was smoke coming to pit lane, maybe an engine issue, no caution. I'm like, okay, good. They're going to let us get to the finish line here. They're not, unless it's a legit caution, they're going to let this thing, you know, play out. and then, you know, Martin goes up there and kind of scrapes the wall and

then we got a caution. That was a quick one. That was a quick one. Yeah. I couldn't figure out. I saw where Austin Cendrick got into the wall early in the race.

Was there no caution for that? I don't believe so. I mean, you would say his hit was definitely harder than Martin Truex's, right? I mean, I don't know because I didn't find the clip from I saw Cindricks

but that wasn't a caution, right? It was not a caution. I don't believe so. Yeah, I don't think so either. I can kind of, I'm looking at all the cautions. Got the Truex, the Corey flipped, mine, Larson's, Chastain's, and that was it. So this is

where I got to have our fans back a little bit. It's like, this is kind of the inconsistency you're wondering about. It's like, man, why do you have your finger so close to that caution trigger at the end of the race, but not when Austin Cendrick pounded the fence in three and four? They have a point. And so I think now more than ever, you know, because of social media and, you know, you've always got, you know, people having an opinion of what they're seeing. And of course, there's always evidence that,

I'm sure they're going to bring up when Ricky barely scraped the wall at Texas. That's when Ryan Blaney put his winning net down because he thought the race was over. Like, that was a quick on the trigger. Like, why are we so quick on that trigger at the end of the race? Well, because the late race caution adds excitement to the race. but that's not fair in the world of sports. I'm just telling you why. I just think that, listen, he hit the wall.

There's no question about that. I don't know what his speed went down to, but I don't think he went below 100 miles an hour. Like, he kept going at a decent rate of speed. Did it warrant a caution? No. Has it been a caution in other circumstances? Yes.

So it's, this was just one of those 50-50 calls. and they chose to do it. My only question is, it seems like they are starting that getting quick on that trigger finger again. I just don't think we need that, right? Because you want, just the best car, the best driver on that,

they deserve to win and putting them in a spot where they're about to lose, and they almost did. They almost gave this thing to Byron. They didn't give it to him. He earned it when he got the lead. But it was, man, you know, these things, just really change the outcome of races.

And we just spend so much money, and drivers spend so much time on their craft that just have it all wiped out in green, white, checkered finishes. Yeah, I mean, it certainly altered Ross Chastain's race, right? Because he was going to cruise to a top 10 finish or right outside the top 10, and then green white checkered, he ends up in the fence or riding through the infield in the backstretch,

and now he's at the cut line again. Yeah, I mean, it kind of, kind of was at the end of Nashville, right? We had an Austin Cindrick spun down to the infield that a 360 kept on going. We had a caution there and look what it did. It took, it wiped out everybody that was at the front of the pack and everyone that was 15th on finished one, two, three, four, five. Like it was, it completely flipped the results upside down.

So it's just there's a lot of, there's a lot of things at stake when you decide. and it's up to then to decide now. It's up to us to critique it and talk about it here on the next day and give our opinion on it, but we don't always have to agree with it. It's just there's a lot that can happen positively or negatively when you have those late race cautions. Let's rewind a little bit here. This race started in the late afternoon. Should start times be moved up?

to avoid rain. Yes. Yes. I think Jeff Gluck made a fantastic argument in a very calculated one on why, you know, yesterday should have been moved up. And certainly it would allow us to give the fans that came there on Sunday a race to watch, an official race. The advantage that it would have gave, right, is it would have gave us more time on the front end.

So let's pretend that race, you had one hour more of racing on the front end, which you would have because we didn't go caution until like right when we fired our engine. So one hour start time up. If we go green, you're looking at 50 laps there. So stage one happens before that first sprinkle happens. Then after the sprinkle happens, we run, we get another 50 laps in. Now we're at halfway. So what happens then is when we get that shower at 5.30, we think we can be done.

We can have this thing dried by 6.30. The end of the race is at 8.20. Yeah, we can get the entirety of the race in. But if we have one more drop, it's over. We've got an official race. But if the rain can stop by a certain time, we're going to give you the entire race. And I believe, I can't be exact, but I'm sure, pretty sure that that big shower that we had that canceled us was the last shower for quite some time. And so we would have been able to actually get the entire race in because there would only been 100 laps to go, not 150.

To Jeff's argument, is it a matter of moving the start time up when you see that rain is in the forecast or is it just across the board? let's start these races earlier in general. I mean, there's an argument to be had both ways. I believe, now again, I don't have all the information that NASCAR has, right? But man, we have chased ratings for so long. We're willing to be on different networks and we're going to streaming and our start times are all over the place. Just chasing rate, chasing it.

and is that the best thing for the sport versus having, you know it's Sunday at 1 o'clock, you had a race to watch, right? I think when it's on a big network, I kind of understand the later you're wanting to be later because then it leads into something that people were supposed to, we're coming to tune into. And that was the whole point, right,

with the later start time, more houses that tune in later in the evening on Sunday. Sunday during the day people go and they do stuff and you know by the time they're done doing their stuff they want to come home because they've got work tomorrow so they come home at a reasonable hour and get their stuff done and then then they turn on the TV right but like you just said it shouldn't NASCAR should their goal should be that their race is more important than the stuff, right? Like, let's not be second to people's stuff, right? If you're a big Panthers fan, you're going to watch the game at 1 o'clock.

You're going to move your stuff around the game. You can't compare to the NFL because people will tune in at midnight. You put a game at midnight and that thing will get 10 million views. It's just... But that's the goal is you want to be the NFL. You have to be at the big boys table, but instead we kind of, we're chasing around these, all these slums. and things like that.

And I would just argue that on USA, what are people, what, why are you starting at late? What are you trying to get people to? So I guess you're trying to get them more households to turn on the TV. But then you're trying to get whoever's turning into the, to the thing after yours, that if our race runs long and it turns into, you actually get to watch the last 10 laps, maybe that person while waiting on their show sees the end of your race and they're like, wow, this is amazing.

Man, that is such a damn stretch. I would believe that if it's... That is such a stretch. If it's ESPN or Fox, but with all due respect to USA, it's either going to be NSA reruns or SVU, and that's not going to hold it over. That's my point.

That is certainly on USA, I just don't know of a big audience ready to turn on USA as soon as the NASCAR race is scheduled to be over. You know, so... Well, let me ask you this. Let's pretend that the charter negotiation is going great and you all put a bow on it and it's excellent, right? And NASCAR goes to TV negotiations in the next TV window or whatever and TV says, well, you can start all your races at 1 o'clock, but we're going to give you less money.

So as a team owner, would you be okay with that? Would you say, yeah, let's start all these races at 1 o'clock and I'll accept a little less money in favor of our fans, you know, who may get to see more races in person? Well, this is where the interest of the teams and NASCAR does not align. NASCAR is wanting to get whatever dollar, every penny of media that they possibly can, because that's money that goes in their pockets. For us as teams, which is what we've been saying for years and years and years, we're so sponsorship-based. So when you take us and you put us on all these other networks and all these other start times,

fans, it gets confusing. I hate to say, it's confusing. There is many times. I don't, I'm like, where do I need to record? Like, where? Like, because I like to come back and watch and I'm trying to figure out what time and where, right? And so this can't be easy for, you're going to have your avid fans that are going to just, they'll figure it out. But that number is just not as big as it needs to be.

So I just feel like our interests aren't aligned to answer your question. We want it. we wish every race was on Fox or NBC, the big network. That's what they do with IndyCar, right? They just said, all right, we're going to take way less money. Since the teams are dependent on sponsorship, this is going to be good for the teams. And it's going to be good for the sport

because it'll grow our sport. We're going to be on a big network, and IndyCar is going to grow because more eyeballs are going to see us, and we're going to get more money on our next TV deal. Instead, we have taken the approach. of like we've bounced around and when FS1 started oh NASCAR we'll we'll help you start that or the NBC you know when they had their NBC sports is like oh we'll help you start that like yeah well it's they're those companies are willing to pay a lot of money for your rights because

they don't have much of an audience they don't have much so they're just hoping your few million will come on over and and that will that will help so um I'm sure someone from NASCAR is going to be just like, no, don't say all this way. Let's be real. And it's just a, it's just a tough balance because if your NASCAR, you just want to get as much money as you can because you want to make a lot of money. And to do that, you're going to put your shit on all kinds of different networks and start it at prime TV slot. Because that'll give you the most audience in the short term to try to get you a better TV deal. Others, say, okay, we need to grow our sport.

We're going to be more on air TV, take a little bit less money, that this will be good for the teams because they will be able to sell sponsorship quite a bit easier. And so I think that it's just, this is where, you know, sometimes we want to go this way

and they want to go that way. And you try to strike a balance the best you can. I'm not saying us going to streaming is a bad thing next year. I think that Amazon is going to be a great partner. Turner is going to be good for us, all that, because they've got such a reach with their bleach report and whatnot. But it's more of the bigger thing of just getting us a more common starting time.

That, A, I think that's a good thing. I think if it becomes more common, you get more races in on the day of the event. And I think that it just becomes a little easier for your fans to know when you're on TV. Well, you certainly don't want fans to stop showing up at the racetrack Because they're concerned or nervous that they're not going to get to see much racing or a race at all Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, no doubt how much cost does a team incur when they have to stay an extra day? Not sure. I'm not sure I want to know Truthfully, I mean, it's just it's more hotel rooms

I there's other cost, but I'm not exactly sure. I don't dig into those numbers for sure. There's others how to dig into, but that's not it. Well, poor Denny Hamlin fans, the ones who came to see you race, only really saw you race for 80-something laps before you. 40. 80-something?

40. Then we did 51 on the first day. He was... I was hauling ass for a little while. He was slipping and sliding. I almost tweeted that, God, I hate me. You know how many likes that would have gotten? A lot.

A lot, right? A lot. Like this if you hate Denny Hamelin. Gotta hate me sometimes. Yeah, I just, I got too greedy. You know, I'm trying to do this whole regular season thing and standpoints racing. And I'm trying to win the stage because that's at least one point that I can leave the weekend with. and, you know, me and Larson, we were putting on quite an exhibition there and just let the 23

blow right by us down the straightaway. So we were all, people were wondering, like, where in the hell that come from? It's just, we were playing games, you know, try to position ourselves to to try to, you know, get this surge into the corner. And we just slow down too much and let the 23 go right by us. But, and then I, I, at that point, we still run side by side through one and two, and then down the back stretch. And then I think finally Kyle was like, okay, we're killing each other here. I'm going to back off and let's go try to make another run at this. And then I ran back to the 23.

I thought he was struggling when he was out front with his balance. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to get him real quick. And I just got too much. Got too greedy. My car was so good to start the race. I'm like, man, I can go anywhere. I never usually go pretty high, pretty early in a race, kind of push the resin up. But my car was so good, so comfortable, and so fast, I felt comfortable anywhere I took it.

And unfortunately, just demolished the bottom side of it. So you didn't see, you know, as a race fan, you're looking around, like, there ain't no damage. Like, it looks fine. All of a sudden, you go from the fastest in the first stage to the slowest car on the racetrack. I wish I saw that coming too, but with pictures that Chris showed me overnight with our car, he was like, it's, it's pretty bad.

It's pretty destroyed. Where was that voice in your head that always preaches you have to see the checkered flag? Hmm. It was right in front of me. It was five laps away. It was just green and white, not black and white. Right.

And you all would have finished the stage under green. Like no one would have pit, right? Had you not caused a caution? well I should have looked at it in the sense of that you know I had more time left to work over the 23 I'd just gotten to him I saw he was struggling to get off turn four and so I knew I was going to get a run on him and I had enough laps left I you know I just got impatient there thinking you know I'm going to get get around them quicker sooner than later so It's just one of those weird aerospots where it's like you have all this grip and then all of a sudden it's gone.

Are you aware of that though? I'm aware it can happen, but it's been a long time since one has just taken off like that one has. And a lot of it too is we have a new right side tire at Michigan that is harder yet than what we had before. And so when you break traction on it, it's gone. And you heard Larson talk about that when he came out of the infield. care center was like you know these things they just you have grip and then you don't you know the tires are so hard it's you know you you have all these Gs pushing and that's how we know as drivers a little NASCAR 101 how we know like what the balance of our car is right is we're sitting in a

seat and we can feel our body loading towards the right side and there's a certain amount of pressure that when I know that I know kind of the bank of the track, what kind of load I should be feeling in the car to be pushing my car to the limit. And when I feel that pressure pushing down on my body, pushing me to the right, I can feel that, okay, that's about all the tires will hold because I've just done this for forever. And when you're constantly, okay, you keep getting that load in your body, every corner, it becomes like a muscle memory. Yes, muscle memory of like, we're good here.

Yep, yep, we're good there. And then all of a sudden, all it takes is a car in front of you to change directions. And that load completely goes off of your car, off of your body, off of your car, and the thing will just spin out. And so the tires need to be loaded to actually have grip. And so the only way to load them is to have all the air, pushing down on your car. When you have a car in front of you, there's not as much air pushing down in your car. So not only do you lose down force, but you lose tire saturation and it doesn't,

the tire won't grip as good. It's almost a double negative. When you saw Josh Barry off by 1.5 or two seconds at the beginning of the race, his problem just compounded because the slower he kept going, the worse his car kept driving. But he was at a point where, and I experienced it when I went back out today, if I go any faster, I will wreck, so I have to slow down. And then when as I slow down, it just kept making my problems worse. So it's just a very, very interesting thing that we fight, that people in the stands or the people watching on TV, you'll never see it, you never understand kind of why that car is making the turn the way it is. So it's just a unique thing that sometimes happens and certainly what I saw is that not only did I have the 23 in front of me,

but as he comes up and then gets close to the wall, it causes a pinch off point for the air and it then my car has no air. At least if he stays off of the wall a little bit, what happens is that the air will then go off of his front end, down the right side and go between the wall and his right side of his car. When he goes all the way up against it, it shuts it off. It shuts all the air off and now I'm in no man's land. Right. But don't you, aren't you in that spot and recognizing like, okay, 23 is out front? That's a good thing. That's a car I own. Those are 10 stage points that Bubba desperately needs. And you kind of, I'm a selfish son of you. Yeah. No doubt. I'm myself. So I get it. I wish I had, I wish I could do it all over again. Trust me. Was this worse,

knowing that like the race suspended and you have to sleep on this and go back out today rather than the race being over and you can move on. Yes, that part was definitely worse knowing that I probably took certainly the best car I've started a Michigan race at and just destroyed the bottom side of it, where I know it is so sensitive and you just cannot mess up the underside. So yes, it was painful, but I thought I had a little bit of a sample size right before the rain came and I ran on a restart, and it felt fine. So I thought that my car at 95% still going to contend. And unfortunately, it was probably 90%,

but they did an amazing job at the end of the race, like adjusting for, well, that's as good as we can get it. Let's just fix your balance at this point. And so thank God, because we need the whole race to get back in somewhat of contention. Is the greediness that you had there? Is that just because of where we're at in the season? When we get into the playoffs, is that going to change? You're like, okay, I'll just take these nine stage points?

You're getting closer to the playoffs. So I'm looking at the playoff grid thinking I need more points, more points, more points. So I'm trying to leave the weekend with something. And if I see there's one point that I can take through the playoffs, one car length in front of me, I'm just going to push to try to get it done. But if we get into the playoffs and you're in that similar situation, you will just take what you got. Again, I didn't think I was really pushing it until I got in that situation.

So it likely can and will happen again. But generally speaking, it depends. Tell me where I'm at in points. I'll tell you how aggressive I'm going to get it. So, yeah, it's fluid. Well, if it makes you feel any better, the best race car driver in the world also spun out in very similar fashion. That's what I heard.

Yeah. I saw where this episode turned out to be longer than I really was hoping it would. I thought this is going to be a little 50 minutes. We talked about a lot of stuff, but I mean, there's some newsworthy stuff, but at least Max for Staffen, like, I saw where he got interviewed by someone who's like, what do you think about these comments? He's like, why are we even comparing? It's two different things.

He's like, I grew up doing carting and F1. And so that's my special. I've never run dirt, but if maybe I practiced dirt, I'd probably be, I feel like I'd be good at it. So I don't think that there is a fair comparison when people, I guess Kyle probably brought it on himself by saying he was better. Man, those F1 guys are good. So I just would temper those expectations. I mean, why don't we just say that Kyle's better on ovals and Max is better on roadcourses?

Can we just leave that as a blanket statement? Can we put Max in a 2311 car at some point? We can do whatever you want to do. Yeah, absolutely. He's going to have to change energy drinks, though, to the better one. I think Lewis would be the one that would give a NASCAR start a try if there were ever one. I mean, Daniel Ricardo perhaps would. But, yeah, I just think that it's such a tough argument to have.

and you're going to be good at whatever you practiced and grew up doing. So, yes, Kyle Larson definitely will beat Max Verstappen in a dirt sprint car race because that's what Kyle Larson's been doing for forever. That's a silly argument. I guess it's just not a, you just can't compare the two. It's sillier than like some of these regular sports debates that we have every day because when they're trying to compare generational guys, right? And it's like, well, at least they played the same sport.

Michael versus LeBron, at least it's like comparable. They play the same sport, right? And yes, rules change, but like you can compare stats because it's the same sport. They're not running the same thing we're running. And I just, I mean, those, the F1 guys are elite, elite. So I wouldn't try to throw shade on any of them because more than likely with any kind of reps, especially on a road course, even if it's in a stock car,

they're probably going to be pretty damn good. On the spin, though, was Kyle feeling the same thing that you felt when he went around? I looked at how he spun, and it was not the same, but similar. He had gotten to the right side wake of, I don't know who he was trying to get up,

first of all. He was trying to get to the top, lane. He was clear, so he's like, I got to get up before we get to the straightaway, and this train gets going on the outside. And so when he tried to let his car go up the racetrack a little bit to get in the top line, he crossed over one of the cars that he was following's wake, and he was probably already loose a little bit. And all of our cars are a little loose, the very first lap on a restart. They just don't have the load in them. They're not down as, as, as, as, as, you know, they're a little bit. And, like they are when we're running green flag racing.

So they're always a little bit sketchy in the first lap anyway. And then it looked like he just crossed over to the right side of whoever he was following and just got in a bad spot there and spun it out. Do other drivers see these incidents happen like yours with his? And then do they race differently for the remainder of the race? Like, oh, okay, that happened to that guy. That could happen to me if I put myself in a similar situation. Yes.

And, you know, the turns three and four was way, it was sketchy today. Sketchy, sketchy, because the wind was coming from north-northwest, which is kind of pushing your car loose on that side of the track anyway. But it was a lot gustier, a lot more sustained winds today, which is why we saw turns three and four be so sketchy. Which way was that wind pushing you? Was it coming at headwind or tailwind or? Well, it's kind of a transition point.

So when you go into turn three, you've got a headwin. As you start making the corner, it just constantly frees you up. It just pushes, it swings the background. It pushes the front down and the back end swings out because of your changing directions, then going with the win. So it's coming from the infield or it's coming from outside the track? No, it was coming from like turn, say there's a middle point of turns three and four. It's like the 50% mark of between that.

it was coming from that way. Got it. So it just, it changes it and certainly change the characteristics of the car. You are talking to Jeff Gluck after the race. Did you mention that that wind also affected Lejoy's flip and why his car? It could. It could have.

You know, because what happens is when the car turns sideways, right? So he turned sideways and immediately, as his car goes sideways, he's got 30 extra mile per hour. Say there's a gust or a sustained wind. It makes his car believe that he's going 30 miles per hour faster than it's actually going. Because when he turns sideways and now the broad side is going up against a 30 mile an hour headwind, he's already got a certain amount of wind that it's coming, even if it was still, because of the speed.

Add in 30 miles an hour of wind hitting the side of his car, probably just pushed it right over. Should these cars flip over like that? Is that a concern? It's not a concern on my end. You said you'd rather flip over it then. Then hit a wall. Yep. I just, there, I guess,

statistically speaking, there's always anomalies, right? There's always instances where cars go airborne, and we had that incident at Talladega with Brad Kozowski, Ryan Newman. You've had cars, get up in the catch fences and there's been some collateral damage from that. But generally speaking, I feel like from a driver safety perspective, we haven't had a whole lot

of flips equal bad injuries. We've had contact with wall equal bad injuries, but not. Well, that's just because wall is more common, right? You have a bigger sample size of you hitting a wall than a car flipping. Yeah, but one just looks more violent. than another. When you flip over and the thing starts tumbling, right? People were thinking, oh my gosh, look at all the hard hits he's taken. It's not really. It's more just like a, you know, I would think probably like a spin cycle, right? It's not any really hard hit. It's just a bunch of real small ones. It's just when you hit in these cars, especially flat-sided or nosing in, that's that one big spike and that's what really can cause injuries. I mean, your hit last

week on TV, it didn't look bad, but it was bad. But the numbers. It was bad. So what's the pain that you felt instantly and then last week? Just my whole right side. You know, I felt like I got crushed into the right side of the seat. So everything on the right side of me, my leg, my back, my shoulder just was all just felt like it got hit and hard. So it just that's, that's, that's, when you look on TV, some impacts are, or not all equal. They, some, look bad that aren't and some that aren't that actually are. So it's just weird. I just think that cars flipping over happen for forever and it's going to continue to happen.

And slowing us down is not the answer. You're just going to make us run closer together and then cause more contact and cause more cars to flip. So I just think that it's just a product of it. I didn't really see anything wrong. And it was a unique situation where he turned sideways at 185. miles per hour against probably a headwind that that helped this thing flip over. But what about when the car catches the grass then and then starts tumbling? That's still not a concern.

Yeah, they've tried to get rid of the grass that they did at Daytona. Taledega has, you know, went to all asphalt kind of on their backstretch. NASCAR is definitely recognized that, you know, grass causes the car to catch and flip. So they're working on updating their tracks to try to get more asphalt. You also had a pretty good view of this. It's just a racing incident. Yeah, I guess. Corey was, he was bobbing and weaving. I hadn't, you know, you don't, you always get consumed in your own race week in, week out, and I don't, you know, where Corey's been for the most part of the year, I haven't kind of seen anything, but I definitely, when my car, was off, I got to run around him quite a bit, and he's definitely zigs and zags a lot, a lot.

And so I think he's just trying to make something happen. But, yeah, he had such a run on the 10. I didn't think he needed a side draft that close, but, you know, it doesn't take much. Just a little bit of contact to his right front right there, and it sent him. Let's talk about Tyler Reddick for a minute, because there's a few guys have been on a run like he has the last, what, since Darlington of last year? Yeah. On a run.

What do you make of that? I love it. I mean, I love it and I hate it. I was going to say, you're a competitor. About that much of me hates it, about that much of me loves it. Because this is why I hired Tyler Rick. I knew what he was capable of if he just put it together. And he's a great student of the game.

He asked a ton of questions. And while my crew chief doesn't love that I always give him what my true answer is, you know, but it's part of being teammates and it's part of being a leader and a team owner, you know, I want to see 2311 succeed well beyond my driving days, but there will be a few years where I'm going to have to go up against myself in some instances.

And as they continue to get better and better and better, they're proving to be viable contenders. And they're doing a fantastic job. Everyone that's at airspeed and the competition and business, everyone is just killing it right now. Everyone's doing a great job. And short of Bubba having his incident today, they were on their way to running top three,

you know, two cars in the top three all day like they have over the last few weeks. They're just, they're all doing a great job. I mean, it doesn't, like there's not a part of you. Because this is really the first year that it's been like this, where 2013 11's been as competitive as they are. But you're like trying to run for a championship, and this guy is very much in the way. And you have a role in how good he is every weekend.

Yeah, I mean, I do. But it's my job. I mean, if, let's say I didn't own 2311. If 2311 was owned straight by Michael Jordan, they would still be in our JGR competition meetings. Tyler Redick would still be coming to me asking questions on what, on advice on certain things. And I would give him my honest answer,

just like I would to any of my teammates. Ty Gibbs, same thing, asked me a lot of questions, and I try my best to help him as well. I mean, I feel like that's part of the role of being a veteran in the sport is, and it's part of being a good teammate. to give an open book, and sometimes that open book bites you right in the ass. It bit us in the ass at Martinsville last year, two years ago. The 20 was out to lunch during the test.

They were terrible. We were by far the best. They got me to go in there, drive their car. This is before the playoff race. And I was like, Adam, this thing is not good. You're going to have to change all this. It's just not good. What I have drives good.

you put it in our setup they won knocked me out of the final four so it sucks but you know what can you do I need to be I'm biased to the 11 always will be biased to the 11

in my team but I need to do the right thing as a teammate too when I'm asked upon so there's not a part of you that goes so I shouldn't have given the 20 of course of course but I consider it an obligation. How does a guy like Tyler Redick stay on this run for 12 more weeks?

We know that NASCAR very much ebbs and flows. How does he stay on this path and keep it hot through the crucial part of the season? Yeah, I mean, I talked to Tyler a little bit during his, when I was at his wedding, he was like, man, I just feel like we're so fortunate right now. And I'm like, and at the time, I was on the other side. Like, I was like, we are so unfortunate right now. You know, we're not finishing nearly where we should. And he's finishing better than where he should.

And there's statistics that supported that, like, he is out kicking his coverage. What that means is they're executing well, whether it be on pit lane or Billy with the strategy or the entire team with the strategy. Like, they're doing a good job of managing races and picking up the pieces when other people make mistakes. And that is, that will win you a championship. No doubt about it. Now, oh, I'm sorry, it will get you to the final four.

Winning a championship, you got to run good in that one race, right? And sometimes that means just not messing up. Jimmy Johnson won his seventh title, worst car of the final four by a mile, but everyone else just took each other out. And so then he won his seventh championship. So there is an element of that where you just need to be good in executing. And it's been as the cars become more and more similar and everything becomes the same, it becomes a race of execution.

And they've just done a great job. And they've had some good fortune, yes, but they've had speed that has kept them out of the mess. And so they've stayed up front. And yes, they've had a few cautions go their way. but it's just been a clinic by them in their execution. And so this was what, and I said it in the media center today, it's where I thought Tyler was the weakest when I hired him, is that I thought his race management was not as good as it needed to be.

But I thought, well, surely we can work with them a little bit and teach them these things, you know, it just helps the learning curve so much when you kind of get coached in this stuff. And then he has aha moments and he's like, okay, so I can win the race sometimes without being the fastest car. I just, I win it this way instead of that way. So he's putting it all together now and it's showing like where he, how many wins, you know, although it's just two this year, probably could have been much, much more. We know. And he said, what, three runner ups and.

Yeah, it's just, he's not going anywhere. He's not going anywhere for a while. and so I think that you might as well get used to it because he's going to just keep getting better as a driver and I think the team's going to just keep getting better. I think the cars are really, really fast, really, really fast. And then it's just about executing, doing your job, and you're going to see the results that they're getting. And now he's first in points.

How do you beat him for the regular season championship? I'm probably going to need some help. truthfully, which will be difficult because more than likely we'll run in a pack of Toyota's, right? And so... If he goes out, you go out more than likely. Yeah, or the gain would be a couple of points.

You know, so I don't know, I think I need to have an exceptional... I think I need to have a pretty good Daytona and exceptional Darlington. But even if I'm exceptional at Darlington and say win the race,

if nothing happens, and there's no, if let's say that my competitors execute as well as we execute on that day, it's going to be one through four. The best four or five cars have been the best four or five cars all year long. So I just don't think we're going to make up chunks and chunks and chunks of points, but that's why they play the game. We were looking at probably being 50 points behind somewhere in that second stage. When Larson's leading, he's putting me a lap down, we're done.

one restart flip this whole thing around and now I'm ahead of him in point. So it's just that's racing. That's why he runs the game. Yeah, it's got to be tough for you to look at this

considering that if you're going to make up a good chunk of points on Reddick and the next week, it's also probably going to cost you a lot of money. Remember that selfish son of a thing I was talking about? I'd rather have the paycheck going to my banking count directly versus mine and Michaels.

Michael's got enough. He can deal for one race where he doesn't get as much. Let's talk about the bubble drivers here because Bubba obviously had a very competitive car today until he got caught up in Larson's wreck, and now he's one point out behind Ross Chastain and Chris Bisher, Travis is what, plus 17 at the moment? Yeah.

Yeah, he's one that certainly, again, that the late race caution has changed things he went from not being in a great spot made up some spots on the restart put himself in a better spot ross went the other way right he had a wreck and then it put him a lap down and that was it for him so i think he finished right next to all that's you know way back there so um yeah it's uh it's gonna come down to the wire and i think it's just uh i think you know we're all going to have let's just say the rough everyone let's just pretend everyone's got the same speed at Daytona. It's going to be about who doesn't get it caught in a wreck,

what team has the best strategy, they're going to get the most stage points, things like that. So it's going to come down to the wire. I really think it is. All the cars run good at Darlington. Who is battling for the race win in the spring? Tyler Redick and Chris Busher. So, you know, 2311 car is going to be battling for a race win

more than likely Bubba's, he's, I think, finished in the top 10, or ran in the top 10 every Darlington race that I can remember. So he's going to be a contender. Chris Buescher's going to be good. We know Ross was a challenging for the race win at Darlington a few years ago. So I don't know. It's going to be close.

It'll come down to it. But Daytona being the second to last regular season race this year is interesting because, you know, typically, you know, This is it, right? This is the finale. Whatever happens and this decides the playoffs. Whereas now there's one race after this. So you don't want to necessarily put yourself,

I feel like you don't want to race Daytona and put yourself out of contention that you have to win Darlington. Right? So like if you're Bubba, are you racing for points at Daytona or are you just? I think everyone's going to race to be at the front and whatever it takes. At the end of stages, at the end of the race,

you just can't lay back on super speedways like you used to be able to because you used to be able to pass quite a bit easier than what you can now. Now it's just a two by two line and that's it. And so I think it's everyone's going to be battling for the same thing. The thing is we're probably going to get grouped, right, by our manufacturers. So which one comes out of pit lane on a pit cycle at the end of stage? Well, that makes this interesting because the bubble is Ford versus Chevy versus Toyota. Yeah, that's a good point.

So three different drivers. Anything else you want to add to this? I don't think so. Yeah, I thought, you know, it was a decent weekend considering kind of what I did to set us back there and got two races to go out there and get some more playoff points before we call this a regular season. I hate how the regular season is coming to an end.

and once again, the lack of attention towards how valuable the regular season championship. It's every year, I feel like it's not talked about. Yeah, because usually the bubble just kind of takes over the headlines. Because it's the regular season championship battle, we know we've got 10 races to cover them. We're about to stop talking about two of the three of these guys, right? so or one of the three so um it's it's it's a little more of the storyline because it's you know we're not going to talk about this guy once he's eliminated so it's you got it you know we saw it with netflix they're going to put the emphasis on the cut what then once we get in the

playoffs we're going to talk about favorites for the championship who do you think gets into these playoffs who do you think the last three guys at the bottom are do we get a new winner at Daytona i don't know um I mean, there's some really good super speedway drivers that could win. I mean, I don't know. It's very possible. Is it likely? No, but is it possible?

Yes, I'm going to put it at 30 percent chance that we have a new winner. 30 percent. So that's 70 that says no. So, but. there's still enough between Gibbs put himself in a better spot

but between Busher, Chastain and Bubba even if there's a new winner you're still going to take one of these guys to the playoffs that's why the Austin Dillon was

in even more unless Austin Dillon comes in then this thing moves up and if we get a new winner those guys are screwed all of them. Do we know if that

case will be heard this week Wednesday? You have to have a hearing before you go into Daytona. That's what I'm wondering. It doesn't matter that this race was postponed to Monday. Yeah. I think it's good. We'll get that out of the way. All right. Well, tune in post-Datona.

Appreciate y'all tuning in and we'll see you next week. Before we close out, I got a review from Butta Milky. Well, I had one person say I was walking back. It was raining. It was like, hey, I left your review. and he said his name, but I couldn't quite remember it. Was it butta milky?

What do you say? What did butta milky? Drove eight hours to watch you race in Richmond, my first race. Enjoyed every lap. I find that hard to believe. We'll be back. Let's F and go. I doubt he enjoyed a lot of time.

I enjoyed 399 and three-quarter laps and hated the last quarter. But appreciate the review. you guys keep giving us a five-star review if you wouldn't mind and uh hit that subscribe button yeah subscribe we're doing doing a great job we're growing um it sounds like we're getting more and more listeners as this thing is going on so it's great great y'all are tuning in and we'll see you next week