Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - NASCAR Was Getting Ready to Create a New Penalty for Denny Hamlin

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Iowa was a survival mission for Denny Hamlin. While Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell battled for the win up front, Denny was dealing with a brake issue that made an already demanding race even tougher. He breaks down what went wrong, why NASCAR’s parts supplier requirements left his team with limited options, and how the issue impacted his race from inside the 11 car. Denny also takes a closer look at what made Ty Gibbs so tough to beat at Iowa and how much the young driver has changed since last season. Was the No. 54 actually the best car of the day? And why did Ryan Blaney look so dominant out front before losing some of that advantage in traffic? The physical toll of the race was another story. Denny shares his WHOOP data to show just how demanding Iowa was and why this race took so much out of him. Plus, Denny reacts to some of the weekend’s biggest moments, including the Reddick/Jones wreck and a wild four-wide restart involving Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson, before looking at what Iowa means for the playoff picture with 100 points still up for grabs.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And you've got your accommodations, right? I don't know if Ronnie's bringing the fifth wheel or not. We have room for it. Yeah. Apparently, the site, the three sites together is like 70 feet long. Yeah, oh yeah, he should be good then. He needs to bring it. More than enough space.

Because I can tell you, y'all do not want Ronnie using the same tool that you use. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. I believe that I've been a competitive for 20 years. opinions from tonight's podcast strictly biased you're going to hear from my point of view I'm a fighter no you are not the spoils a victory for Jared Allen he's got better luck the brick and drink don't win I know you do two trophies missing from your collection of 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 hey guys welcome to actions detrimental after iowa speedway

race number 23. Yes, race number 23 of the regular season. Ty Gibbs gets his second career win over Christopher Bell finishing second again. Seven in a row seven second finishes? I think he, this year seven, right?

I mean, that's a lot. But I think it's like four out of five. I'm not mistaken. If JGR car wins, Bell's in second. Well, I thought that for the bulk of that race, where I was running, the speed that I saw, I thought the 20 was JGR's best car. I don't think any refuting that.

But the 54 just made a bold call there. I don't know if it's so bold. A lot of guys did it throughout the day. Chase Elliott even stayed out one time from being in the back of the pack. Did it twice. Yeah, to staying out, being able to maintain its track position. I mean, I think us and two other JGR cars stayed out with, what, 30 laps on our tires, maybe? Yeah.

Yeah. So it just, yeah, it's interesting. You know, the tires, we had a new tire this weekend. It certainly was not, I think Chase Elliott said it best. It was like probably not what the drivers would have picked, but there were some manufacturing issues that Goodyear wanted to make sure that they had good quality. tires for that racetrack and they had a you know it's just with the turnaround you know it was a soft compound that they really wanted um they wanted to make sure the tires were consistent and you know probably didn't have enough time to do that so they picked this tire and um you know it felt very similar

to past iowa races it you know if you would have said we ran last year's tire i would have believed you i mean throughout the day you could just not pit and yeah stick with the tire you as you had pick up the track position and that's really all that mattered for the most part. Yeah, that's just, you know, the wear, especially on the less sides was, you know, very minimum. And that's why you saw two tires work so well. At the end of the race, Josh Berry took two, came out right in front of me as, and he pulled away. You know, he's very strong on the last run, but still, you know, I didn't think that two tires hot like that would be able to just take off. But it did.

And it worked for Ty Gibbs. And his crew made a choice, his team to take two, put him in front of Christopher Bell and see if he could pass him and he couldn't do it. And his team told him early on, make him pass you on the inside. And that's where Bell was probably at his weakest. So, like, Bell even was trying to bait him into going lower so he could go around him because that's what we did with Blaney. And, you know, Gibbs did a good job with just making him go low every time.

Yeah, and that's the cat and mouse game that you have when you're the leader and you're trying to defend is you're ultimately trying to predict what the guy, you know, you need to find out what is their strength first and then defend that. That's priority one. And then if they make different moves on corner entry, maybe through the middle, then you then try to defend that way. But, you know, that's what the strength of this car is is defending. It's not being on the offense. It's the defensive part that makes, you know, the passing so difficult.

So it was a good race to watch, you know, from me, you really didn't know whether Christopher Bell was going to get them or not until, you know, really when they took the wide, it, there was enough gap there. You kind of knew that it was settled. But, but yeah, it was very typical of what we've seen at Iowa. Yeah, I'm not sure that that's what was expected because correct me if I'm wrong, I'm pretty sure LaTart had mentioned on the broadcast that he didn't think that Ty was going to be able to hold on. Right. to the lead. Yeah, just once you sit on someone's rear bumper that long, it's just going to make it really tough for Bell.

Like it'll equalize his advantage on tires will equalize over time just simply because of how hard he was pushing it. And when I look at the 20s in-car camera from the last, you know, let's just call it 10 laps, you can see like he's slipping. And every slip you do like that, it just, it's getting stuff hot. and it's not what's best for the car long term, but he ain't thinking about the long term. He's just thinking about, you know,

I got to get him in this corner. And it's just compounds. And by then, by the end of the run, it's like, you know, the 54 and the 20 basically had the same set of tires because of how hard the 20 had to push to try to get around. How good was the 12 in relation to the 54 and 20? Good question. And I don't know.

I thought at the beginning of the race, Listen, if you would have asked me before the race, I would have said the 12 winning was nearly a sure thing. From what I saw in practice, he obviously does not get a ton of holes. So qualifying was an indication like he was fast, the fast all weekend. I saw in the bro's chat that y'all didn't think he was that strong

when he wasn't out front, but I don't know. I mean... I think there's also a little bit of sarcasm too with the clean air merchant. Well, no. I think that was valid because when we saw him out front,

the two instances where he was out front, I texted in the group chat. I was like, if you didn't have a pile on, you wouldn't know if Blaney was in last place or the leader, because he was so far out ahead. But then once he was in traffic, I mean, he was still good,

but he didn't seem like the dominant. car like he was when he was out front yeah i mean it's it's tough from my standpoint because he was never out in front of me when he wasn't at a tired disadvantage that makes any sense yeah it does so every time so it just our strategy is kind of flip-flopped at yeah at times right um and so i just think that um yeah we when i was on two tires he was on four when i was on four he was on two like so i never really got a good gauge i never really ran around him much i guess the indication to me that maybe he wasn't as strong was that at the end of stage two when i was fading i was expecting any one of those next cars to pass me to be the 12 and it was like nope it's the one it's the 54 here's the 22

like, wow, we're still ahead of the 12? Like, I thought he restarted like 9th. But, yeah, those were all the two car, the two tire cars that got around us. Really, none of the four tire cars got there. And posters, I'm reading Blaney's quotes here. He said that Gibbs and Bell were definitely better than him. Yeah, I mean, I trust what he says there. But I thought Bell was strong.

I mean, even when I somewhat liked my car, given the circumstances, he was able to pull away from us. So he was strong. And then the 54, too. I mean, I didn't think he was, he looked to me as strong as the 20, but that passes the eye test. I had asked you, Denny, before, I can't remember what caution it was, but when you restarted with Bell on the front row,

had you have, you know, grabbed the lead there and then, you know, restarted on the next restart, in the lead, do you think you could have held him off? Or your car just wasn't. Yeah, I don't think so. I just, there's no way the way I had to drive it with the brake situation. I had no confidence in corner entry and what it was going to do when I hit the pedal. So, no, I don't think so.

I think that we got the absolute most out of what we had for the weekend. I mean, before the race, the day before the morning of, all negative vibes. I mean, it was... The first I was down. It was tough. I never... It had been a long time since I went into a race with that negative of mindset

of what the outcome, what I believe the outcome to be. Yeah. So I think that's one of the most challenging things about watching and following NASCAR is that you just... It's so difficult to see any of that. You know, like, as you just said, the vibes were down, you know, I feel like we're all expecting and be lucky to finish the race

on the lead lap. But then halfway through, it's like, oh, we might be contending for the win here. Yeah, I, I, what are you, what are you fighting in the car? What are you, what are you feeling? Why was that such a challenging race that you needed to say that, you know, that might have been the best drive of my career? Well, because of what I had to do in the car to make it, first not wreck on corner entry and you know it's a little bit of tech talk but it's like

I don't know whether the brake pads are going to grab the rotors or not and it just depends on how much they get knocked back on the straightaway and it depends on how hot they are at the time like there was times that it was hot enough to where there was no pumping of the pedal pumping it did nothing

So I just had no breaks for, you know, probably, I would say, you know, zero percent breaks, never, 10 percent breaks, 20 percent of the time, 50 percent breaks, 60 percent of the time. And I had full breaks for, it's a math adds up, 20-ish percent of the time. So when I would have it is after a caution. on the restarts, I would have it for about three laps. I'd have decent brakes to where the pedal was good. But the minute it got any sort of heat to it, it just, they went away. And when they went away, they went away right off the bat.

So it just didn't slowly work its way down. The pedal then would just go all the way of the floor. So then I'm chasing the car. Hopefully nobody's around me. So then now every straightaway I'm trying to pump these things up. Well, the pumping worked for some of the time to get me like to the 50% break. But if they got really hot, sometimes because I'm pumping them down the straightaway, it would go all the way of the floor.

And then I'd have the 10% break. So it just was not, not ideal. Not ideal. I just, if it was practice, I definitely would not, which I had the same issues in practice. I just stopped. It was like, I can't. There's no way. I can keep doing this.

So, but I had to do it for, for the whole race. And, you know, that's why I was just really happy and proud of the team for giving me something that, like, I could race with with 10 to 15, 10 to 50% of the break most of the time. We've seen you with out the power steering last year and then this race and afterwards you look exhausted. Like in terms of how exhausted you've been after some of these races, is this the hardest race you've had? In years, for sure. I can't remember being that gassed after a race. I was looking at my whoop score, and usually, I mean, I'm usually pretty low. I'm usually the heart rate, I can keep it really low.

But not this race. My whoop gave me a strain of 19-4. Jared, you know that's high. That is very high. I mean, my average was 144, which that is extremely high for me. Usually I can keep it around 115 in that range. So what that does is, you know, as your body. So just imagine cranking the treadmill up an extra two miles per hour for three hours, right?

So let's say I have it at that 4.0, like a brisk walk. Well, yeah, I can do that. No problem for three hours. But you put me on a 6.5 for three hours. My heart rate's going to be up. I'm going to be way more gas at the end of it. And it works the same in the car. Whether, you know, because your heart rate is up, you're burning more calories.

Your body's working overtime. And it's just, I mean, you get out of the car and it stop. And it's like, oh, I am. done. The Cookout 400 at Richmond Raceway is coming up, and I hope we have a couple reasons to celebrate. This is my number 11 Bob's discount furniture team on the car this week, excited about having them. A lot about furniture shopping has changed over 35 years, but Bob's has still done it the Bob's way. No gimmicks, no phony sales, just every day, low prices on quality furniture. Whether you're upgrading the living room, dining room, bedroom, or all the above, Bob's has

styles for every room at prices that make sense. You can refresh your whole home and still stay on budget. Yeah, and they've managed to keep furniture shopping fun. If you don't know, they've got ice cream in most of their stores. My kids love that. My family and I love the total experience of going to a Bob's store. You've got free coffee, candy, even ice cream at some of the stores like I was talking about. And you've got a whole wide variety of furniture there. Even Mom loves Bob's. Her whole... Mom loves Bob's. her whole new house outfitted with Bob's furniture, fast delivery, got rid of the old furniture, and then there's convenient monthly payments with special financing options.

Yeah, so whether you're looking for a new sofa to watch the cookout 400, or you're finally ready to upgrade your entire room, Bob's has got you covered. I wouldn't want to race a car that was built in 1991, but I'll absolutely shop with a company that's been getting it right for over 35 years. Listen, they've got thousands of real five-star customer views that back that up. check out your local Bob's discount furniture location or visit my bobs.com. Fast delivery and winning styles for 35 years. Shop the Bob's Way at Bob's Discount Furniture.

Can you go back and explain how this all came about for those who aren't following? Like practice and then the process after practice to try and get this fixed and then ultimately how you enter the race. Yeah, we tried. to run something a little bit different, not unknown. You know, other teams have run it quite a bit before. I wanted to lean a little bit on 2311. They had been pretty strong at this track over the last year or so. So I kind of want to lean on their setups a little bit more this time around

since I hadn't had success at this racetrack quite yet. I hadn't found what that good feel is around here. So I needed to put someone set up that has run well and then let me learn from there. So, yeah, we, you know, then you make a decision. What, do you want to run, you know, a different breaking package to try something new as well, you know, otherwise we'll never try it for the chase? Sure, no problem. And yeah, just realized pretty quickly that it, you know, it was not going to work for me.

I am pretty confident. The team I believe is pretty confident that it was a bad batch of actual brake pads. We believe the pads to be the issues simply because everything else is the same for all the other cars. So the calipers themselves that you heard about the teams switching overnight.

So those who don't know a ton, the brake pads squeeze so the caliber is the big silver thing you see on the inside of the wheel. Well, there's a big bulky silver thing that holds the brake pads, and that squeezes down on those rotors to make it slow the car down. Well, what happens is if the pads get the rotor hot in a certain spot, it will warp the rotor.

So now your rotor, the thing that's going around is oblong. So it's not straight anymore. So what it's doing is every rotation that the tire is going around, it's knocking those brake pads. So while your foot is off the brake, it's knocking the pads further and further and further and further away from the actual caliper. So when you do press the brake, now instead the pads being right next to the caliper to squeeze it and slow it down,

it's got a distance to travel before it gets there. Well, unfortunately, your throw of your brake pedal only goes so far. far, right? So once you, so let's just pretend that the, the brake pads squeeze one inch worth of travel from where they start to where they finish. Well, usually the pads are right there on the caliper when the caliper is straight. Well, when it gets oblonged, knocks those pads back. Now your pads are, you know, three quarters of an inch away from, you know, the caliper. You press your one inch of travel, now it's barely just grinding on, it's not, it doesn't have the energy to slow it down again. So you try to pump it up to get that pads closer, closer, closer. So when you do need it,

it squeezes it, but it doesn't always work that way. So we got in a situation apparently, and, you know, I didn't know this. And I knew that NASCAR typically lets you change your, you know, break breaking components when it comes to, you know, when it comes to safety because they don't want, they don't want people having, you know, NASCAR doesn't want you having break issues. They don't want people failing brakes, blowing rotors. Next to you know, a rotor goes across a fence, hits somebody like it's happened this year. So nobody wants that. But what's interesting is that the pads are the only things the teams are not allowed to change.

overnight. Now, not even with a penalty. Like, you can't just go to the back and change it. So it puts you in a box to where if you've made the wrong decision or you have what we deem as defective pads, I can't get out of the box. Like, we know we have a problem, but they're like... So why is that? Because it is a product that we choose, the calipers, the brake lines, master cylinders, all that stuff, that's kind of, that's a mandated part by NASCAR. They're saying,

since we single source that, if it's defective, then that's on us. And we'll let you change it. But if it's the pads, that's something that you choose. And so I just, that's not what the intention.

But why can't you change, why can't you change them overnight? What's the argument for not being able to change them? I understand that you get to choose them. But like, let's say, I don't know if this is how it works. Let's say there's two brake pads, correct? And you choose breakpad A. And you go to the racetrack and it turns out that,

we like brake pad B better. See, now you're trying to get a strategic advantage. That's what they don't want. Which is what you guys could have been doing. Correct. And that's their argument, right? Is that we don't, we do not want 36 teams running, a having a qualifying brake pad and a race brake pad.

Like that's... Even if it comes with it to the back penalty and whatever. But that's what I'm saying is that nobody's going to voluntarily go to the back just to run a different... To even gain an advantage on the brake pad. Or even a pass-through? Pass-through plus? I told them I'd start on pit lane.

Like, I just let me get out of this box. Like we have a major problem. And they were like, it's just that's not the way it's written right now. And I says, I know that. However, like this is where common sense has to come into play that this is not for some strategic advantage. This is to hopefully keep my car from blowing a rotor or going into a corner dead straight and wiping someone or myself head on into the wall. You know, that's what we're trying to do here. So that's where I wish there was a asterisk at the bottom and saying, but we will use common sense.

So let me play devil's advocate though. So you're saying that this is for safety, but couldn't you guys have tried this? And if it worked and practiced and qualifying, you're like, great, this new one that we were trying is worked. We don't need to go to our original. But if it goes bad, if it doesn't work, we'll go to the other one. We'll go to the back. We're fine. We've got a fast car.

We can probably get back up there. Like you, JGR and the 11 team put yourself in this position. Why should the other teams have to say, well, you know what? They tried something. It didn't work. Let's let them fix their problem that they created. because I think you're still looking at it through Jared's lens which is that we were just trying something

but you were but it failed what we're saying is that this is this part we deemed defective because others have run this and not had a lick of problems but sometimes you get so it's no different than valve springs in an engine some valve springs they call them bat when you blow an engine. Most of the time it's a valve spring that is that that fails. And then what happens is the manufacturers go in there like, oh, yes, we have failed this batch of valve springs before.

We got to quarantine all these. We've got to get them out. Got to get them out. So, which is why I'm not going total scorched earth is because I understand the intent. I just said to them, Sunday morning, please look into an option where if a team legit has an issue that, I mean, you guys, I said, you guys watch practice. It's not like we sat on pit lane because we wanted to.

We knew we had a major problem. Look at the data. My foot is to the floor and I'm barely getting any break whatsoever. If you're willing to let teams change any other break component possible with no penalty, least let, I mean, when you talk about the brakes, the brakes are not made up of one component. The brakes are made up of calipers, rotors, master cylinders, lines, fluid. Like, that is the braking system. It's not one part, but the one part that we control is the pads, and that's what they don't want you to change.

And I know why they don't want you to change it because it will open up Pandora's box if they do allow it. I'm just saying extenuating circumstances where you obviously see there's a problem. Give me the penalty. I'll start on pit lane this week. I'll start last next week. That's enough to where you ain't going to

be screwing around running you know, no one wants to take that penalty. That's a really rough penalty. But like just give some sort of avenue out if a mistake is made. That's where I'm at. You just don't have that

precedent set. And they don't. And they don't. Right. Which is why they were not willing to change it in the middle of the race weekend. Yeah. Had they taken your penalty here, penalty next week, I think you open yourself up to a bigger issue because then it's like now like they're just making up stuff as they go with the penalties and what you can fix. And like what you deem as a penalty.

Speaking of making penalties up, I said to them, I mean, listen, I did my best in that hauler. I just laid out my case. And I says, what if I just tell the team, nope, I will not go on the racetrack with those brake pads? Absolutely not. I'm not putting, I'm too old to be hitting this wall head on. Absolutely not. They said, well, we would make up a penalty.

And it would be worse than what it would be if you just came in and changed them under green. And I was like, oh, well, I guess I just got to go slower then. If I lose breaks, I'm just going to put around the racetrack and end up however many laps down that I end up. So they did acknowledge that they were willing to make up a rule. Here's my question, though. You go to Iowa, you try this new break system.

Why is it worth it? You're 100 points up. What happens if the brakes fail? You've got to come down pit road, change them in a green. you finish 20 laps down and Ryan Blaney wins the race and has a perfect 75 point day. Like why was... I just swear I thought we were heading.

Right. So why was that worth trying? Because this is not like some experimental thing. This has been run, I would say, in combination. I don't know, like 20 races, maybe more, amongst all the cars. And that's just, you know, in the cars that I know. So sometimes, so you would ask, well, why would there be no issues?

And then all of a sudden that this track, there's three right there. And all of us were the exact same. We could run two laps, we'd lose our brakes. There's a combination of track length, what kind of breaking energy that you have when you press the pedal. How fast is that rotor going? when you know that's why you see it places like st louis so many break failures at pocano you used to see it because that rotor's going so fast because the wheel is going so fast that when you apply those the brakes to it and it squeezes it creates a ton of heat really really quickly so with it being

quote unquote the fastest short track on the planet it it doesn't have long straightaways to cool but it has fast speeds that it's trying to clamp down on the rotor. So it creates heat really, really quickly. So this could work. It probably would work fine at Nashville or somewhere else. But or another short track like Northworksboro maybe where the straightaway speeds aren't as much. So the tires are not going as fast. They're not spinning as fast.

So it doesn't create as much energy when it does squeeze, when this pad squeeze on the rotor. This was presented as... So it's just a... I think Iowa just fell right in a unique spot to where speed of the track, breaking energy, things like that. That it just... It was not a good combination.

So was this... For me, anyway. So it really wasn't about you guys trying to find something for a track and the chase because that's how it was presented by some media folks. Yeah. That's what Jared was asking. No, sir.

No, I just... My message to my team and, you know, I'll take responsibility for it is that I can't hit my ass with both hands at this racetrack. Put in somebody's setup that's been pretty good. Okay. That's some Scotty language right there. What?

You can't hit your ass with both hands. No, I've never heard that. I've never heard that. What? No. Oh, well, that's what we learn in Virginia. I can't wait to learn. So, so I, the next question.

My question my team will ask is, well, do you want their breaks as well? Because if you want to be exactly like they were, then you know what I mean? They're quite a bit different. Yeah. And I'm like, it was fine for them. It'll be fine for me. And so that's the approach we took. Back to Ty Gibbs real quick.

This win now moves him up to second in the standings. I mean, this is quite a 365-day transformation from where he was at last year to now this year, that 54 team. No question about it. Yeah, it's, what I saw last year was that they were, they were always fast in practice, but just in the race didn't really have the race, I don't know if it was craft or understanding what the track's going to do. It just seemed like him and Tyler kind of struggled with understanding what to do or what adjustments to make for Sunday.

And I just feel as though he's carrying the speed that he has on Saturdays now into Sunday. And, you know, some of his experience, I really believe that he's had a more positive attitude this year. Now, when you run well, it's easy to have a positive attitude, right? What's really tough and what challenges you as a driver is go run 15th and come into the shop on Monday and be positive. It's tough. It's tough.

But you have to do it. That's how you get out of the slum. And I think he was willing to put in the work to be better. And I think he's got a great mentoring staff around him. I think that Kevin Harvick spent a fair amount of time with him. I think some, you know, JGR's got some drivers that are helping other drivers on the side that's helping him. So I think that he's getting all the attention that he needs and he's getting lots of different perspectives that is probably opening his eyes to, well, I need to try this this time. And so, and I think he's been willing to learn. And that's been the biggest change that I've seen in Ty. And I mean, I see it on the racetrack.

You know, there were times last year at Las Vegas and we're all in the back of the pack. I think all this JGR cars were. bad Vegas won last year. And I see Ty like, man, you're bouncing off this guy, bouncing off that guy. Next you know, this guy's getting pissed and he's doring Ty down straight away. And it's like, and we're like 25th. And we're like, man, come on, man. That's life in the dog pound though. We're less than a year away from you, you know, mad at him how he raced you in the playoffs.

Like this is just a different tie. It is. And, you know, yeah, there were some serious conversations around. after that as well, right? And like, here's how we're going to race each other. Here's how we're going to do things. And I don't know. I just think that I think that the Hamlin family and the Gibbs family got closer this

off season. You know, when we went through things with my parents, the Gibbs family was there and and very supportive. And they just, I don't know. we've Charles just become closer there's no question about it and Ty has just went through a change that is

makes you think that you know he's this isn't going away anytime soon this is not a flash in the pan I don't believe I believe that you know he has found the answer to being successful weekend week out you now set second on points

second let's take a look at handful of these wrecks throughout throughout the Iowa race let's start with with reddick and jones at the beginning of this one really unfortunate for for both guys well really unfortunate for eric jones because he had nothing to do with it right he was just kind of caught in it redick i looked at it and it looked like the one was kind of showing his nose a little bit low so i think that a couple things was going on. I think Tyler obviously was loose anyway and he got caught in an interesting arrow situation where he was a little offset to the car that was in front of him. I can't remember

the car. I'll look real quick. Let me turn my volume down. Austin Dillon. So he was a little offset to the right. Now here comes Chastain showing low. Well, he doesn't want to give up the bottom. So now he needs to turn his car a little bit extra on corner entry to get the thing down to the track. Well, all while when you do that, even if you're an open track, you're going to make your car looser. Now he's in an interesting arrow situation where, well, I've crossed in the wake of the three. Now here comes the one right near my left rear. I can see how you would wreck in that situation. I just think it was a combination of three different things that made that car go around.

And unfortunate that it took him out and took out Eric Jones with him. Yeah, tough Eric Jones. He's now sits 20th in points. He lost two spots. Now he's a clean 50 to the cut line. Right. I mean, he's thinking, man, if I just have a 20, 25 point day, right? I mean, be right that he'd be 17th.

Yeah. So tough. Meanwhile, Redick now is fourth in points. That's crazy. I mean, the stretch has been really bad. No doubt about it. The wreck now with Bowman, Larson, that four-wide debacle. So we were talking before the show like, well, how do you get out of the groove?

And then, you know, my algorithm feeds me lots of quotes from in car. and apparently Larson was upset with John Hunter. And so we did our best to look back and see what happened. What it looks like is on the restart, the five car went three wide high. So he, you know, cars are two by two. He's behind John Hunter on the top lane restarting. He wants to jump to the outside. Now, you put yourself in a little bit vulnerable situation there,

but it's nothing out of the ordinary. And so they go down the back, stretch and it appears they are only two wide. So instead of three wide, now they're two. So the five drives in and he's thinking, okay, I'm going to be in the second lane. The 42 is going to be in the bottom lane. That's how you run too wide at that track. Well, it looked like John Hunter just ran the preferred group, which was the second lane, and it chucked the five wide to the outside and into the fuzz. So could John Hunter have run lower?

If you're too wide, yes. I don't think that you should run up that high, but it's like, it wasn't like crazy egregious. I just, one of those things where it's like, it's not really anyone's fault, but there could have been, there could have been some different choices made because they were two wide, not three,

and he forced Larson into the third lane when they're only too wide. And that probably is what got Larson upset. Larson now goes up the racetrack. He's trying to merge back into cars. And Larson just realized when he's merging, all he can see is really the cars that's to his inside. So all he sees is the 48.

And I'm sure his spotter's telling them they're three wide. You're about to be the fourth, but you can't see that. So Larson's up as high as he can go. Riley's all the way down at the bottom. Who knows if he got told you got a car emerging, like more than likely not. I think that's what's happening here. There's four cars and not all four of them are being told that there's no way.

There's no way all four cars got told that they were four wide. And it really starts from the bottom. You know, it starts with the person on the low lane. They have to, they have to, you know, you try to calculate in your head. okay cars this wide how how much space do i need to leave to the wall as i'm exiting but for riley in defense of him he's just oh he's he's he's three wide he's left plenty of room for three wide he probably can't even see i actually i'm confident he doesn't even see that the five is up in the fuzz trying to come back and merge it just was a bad situation and i can't really blame it

on anyone. I just was, you ran out of lanes to just not, not wide enough. When did you think that like, okay, this day is more like, I can salvage a day here and then like your mentality change? Probably at the end of stage two when we hung on and finished ahead of Blaney that stage. Like, yeah, I bled some spots at the end of it, but I was like, wow, I did not budget this into my day. is being ahead of him in one of the stages, right? Because I was. I was worried, truthfully, when you talked about,

you know, Blaney having a 70, I had it in my mind. He's going to have a 75 point day, and I'm going to finish 30. And we're going to look at the standings, and he's going to be 50 back. Like,

I, that's where my mindset was. And so, and that's, but that tells you how quick things can change, too. So 100 looks good. Listen,

you tell me it's 100 after next week. kick your feet up. Well, it will be because we're winning. But what I'm saying is that, you know, it can flip really quick. An early wreck like Tyler Redikad, somebody goes out there, dominates the race, both stages wins it.

Big points jumps. Big points of jumps. Who's got lunch this week? Todd. Todd Gillen. Todd's trying to say that I need to pay for it. I'm like, because he finished 20 seconds. Sorry, bro.

Like he's saying that that was a good run. Because the dog pound raced well that I should have to pay. No. I told Jared before I walked in the dryer. Just send him to Red Rocks. That'll be expensive. I, uh, I, I, this is the first time I can remember all season well.

Certainly since they did the seating chart that was in the back row. I was in the dog pound. I was next to Riley, you know, I was, I was with the group. I was like, hi, I'm Denny. How are you? Nice to meet you. From Chesville, Virginia. I drove the 11 car.

Nice to meet you guys. I tried to be, they say that they're very hospitable to each other. You know, it's like a, it's like a fraternity. Brotherhood. Yeah. Yeah. That they have. And I just, I met new people.

I met new people this week at the driver's meeting. I think Connor had his career best oval. But I looked at like row two of the driver's week and row three. I'm like, wow, these guys. has had some great qualifying efforts. I mean, it was a mix-up from the standard qualifying. Yeah, it was. Yeah.

Let's see, what else we got here? You got the standings next year there? Yeah. Anything stand out to you? Remember that dog I was talking about in Ross Chesting? Mm-hmm. He's moving up. He's not out of it.

He's not. I know, I mean, even pre-practice, I think he did an interview and was like, it's too many points. He says it's just too many. I'd love to just run better at this point. So, you know, I think he's taken the very under-promise over-deliver approach, which I respect that. So are you back on him now or where are we at?

It is too many points if he's only going to score upwards of 30 a weekend. It is too many. He score more than 30 this week. What do he score? NASCAR.com. and updated. Well, luckily, I have Travis here. Hamlin, Briscoard, Chastin.

43. Okay. Mm. That's finishing seventh with 43 points. I mean, he's up front to do that. Every stage, yeah. Right. He needs, what, which you would think.

Does it translate? That's where I'm going with it, is that these next two tracks are similar-ish. So can they carry that speed to this, this track? Connor had, you know, a, that's true. I don't know if it's, you call it a career day, but it felt like a career day. You know, he stayed right there in the top 10 most of the day. So has track house turned the corner?

Maybe. It's too early to say. They do it two, three times in a row. Then we can start to acknowledge it. But I just, these guys around the cut just can't get out of their own way and finish 15th. But that's why they're at the cut line. I know, I know. But I just, I think that that's what's going to make it interesting, right?

We're sitting here trying to guess performance, right? Oh, well, is Ross going to outperform Cindric by 47 over the next three? that's probably a little bit too much to ask but these guys run they'll get caught in wrecks and they'll finish 30th and like you just don't even know nowadays it's very hard to predict you've got a lot because you got second third and fourth

they're going to fight fifth through 10th they're fighting like yes there's a lot there's a lot going on in the points no question about it boy I'm going to hate a reset aren't I I told Jared that why can't we just full season chase God, dang it. Well, let's just get past these next three.

Then we'll figure it out from there. That's it. That's all I got for the cup race. Carson Quappell wins his second career in Back-to-back. Back-to-back races. Awesome job, Carson. I mean, he tracked him down.

Ross had the lead. There was a caution. things were going to get interesting, but there was a caution he beat him on, got ahead of him on the restart. Ross really looked like he just struggled to get going on the restarts. I mean, he was spinning them really, really bad. And it ultimately, you know, let Carson get to the lead once he got to lead.

I mean, he was the best car. It appeared that whole last run. Shout out to Ryan Sieg, though. I mean, career day on a non-drafting track. for Ryan Seag. I mean, had Pit Crew been a little bit faster and if you could have just kept his track position better,

I mean, I think they would have had their hands full of Ryan Seag all day. So he's still searching for that elusive first victory, but after 422 starts got his first pole. Jesus. That's a long time. Jared's giving you a clap. That's pretty much all my takeaways.

No? yeah that's it we got some we got some off track um yeah speaking of the race we're not done with that race but we also need to talk about last year's iowa race one of the denny bros was watching man Alex presley i i i just don't even know what to say at this point he he's he's follow it's just recently he started engaging in the denny bro's chat he was in addition but He's like, I just don't understand what y'all were talking about. The guy was watching last year's race on Amazon Prime. And he's like, I don't understand.

I thought you qualified the progressive car. Why are you in the Bob's car? And he's like, man, I just, I was so confused for half the race because y'all's text was not lining up with what I was seeing on the TV. Wow. Wow. I mean, unreal. I thought he was joking at first.

Unreal. I mean, that's what you do it for, though, isn't it? That you bust your ass in a three and a half hour race is just to get out of the car, go read your text messages. I know a buddy was watching last year's race. I mean, that makes it all worth it. He would have really preferred to watch this one over last year. Right. To just.

So who texted? I couldn't figure it out because when I opened the text, obviously it's what was said last. And someone said, Alex, how did your race go? And I'm like, did Alex run a race? Like, did you like find a car to go run a race? What is he talking about? I didn't, not till this morning, did I scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll to find out, oh my gosh, this dude was watching the wrong race.

Yeah. So is he coming to Richmond? I don't think he's officially said it, but like, I posted that photo of some of the beer that I bought. And he's like, that's not enough. I'm like, well, it's not. Oh, then he's coming. That's not. But he hasn't like said that he's, I mean, he's got to play Thursday.

So you got space for him, Denny? How's he getting up there? Oh, I don't know. But I mean, yeah, of course I have space. All right, well, we need to make sure. Am I going Thursday night? Well, you've got a game. I think you're going whenever you want to go.

How I look at it is I need that whoop score to be high because we need a win. So if that means you get your rest to you. I don't mind going Thursday night. I mean, I'm not going to get there until 10, but I'll be there. It's your call. Okay. I got to see. Bring out.

So can you give the fans kind of, We have a campsite in the middle of gin pop LaBernum, the LaBernum campground? Yeah, that's where we're at. Okay. We're right in the middle there. So apparently there's some sort of concert on Thursday night at the track

and they're going to end? Is it a moving concert? It's like on a flatbed? Yeah, the concert's on like a flatbed. It ends at the Denny Bros. Campground. Capsight. Sick. Y'all are going to have so many fans.

I'm looking for it. And you've got your accommodations, right? I believe, I know we have one. I don't know if Ronnie is aware that he has to, if he's, I don't know if Ronnie's bringing the fifth wheel or not. We have room for it. Yeah. Right.

He's just got to get it. The site, the three sites together is like 70 feet long. Yeah. Oh yeah. He should be good then. Yeah. He needs to bring it. More than enough space.

Because I can tell you, y'all do not want Ronnie using the same tool that you use. I did request a portopody because we don't have hookups, which is fine. By the time we made the request. But will you have a generator? You got to have power. No? I don't know. I don't.

You got to have AC. I don't know what we have or don't have. I went and bought beer and chips. Oh, my gosh. There's honestly so much back and forth that no one is. There's a grocery store right nearby. Y'all are fine. So it sounds like, too, that Austin, the fixer, had to use somebody else to help fix the accommodations.

John was like, yeah, I got to take care of. That's what a fixer does. Wow. Okay. Well, I look forward to that. We'll see you on Richmond. Yeah. Let's go get a hometown win.

So we'll be there Thursday and then all day Friday, all day Saturday. Sweet. This is my first time camping out of the NASCAR race. You're going to fit right in. Is it your first time camping? Are you going to have one of those tables to say, Danny's the goat, tell me I'm wrong. Or like, you know what I mean?

We could. Yes. Absolutely. Why wouldn't call it camping? Yeah, it is. It's camping. You don't have hookups. Then it's my first time camping.

Okay, well, I'll be in my bus. I'm going to come by and hang out with y'all and the fans. We'll see y'all there. It'll be a good time. All right. See y'all next week.