Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Need Leadership To Step In

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Denny Hamlin is back int he studio after an eventful Sunday to unpack how everything went in New Hampshire with his co-host, Jared Allen. This week they cover:1:00 Corey Heim continues his dominance8:10 Why Team Penske was able to dominate Sunday’s race12:20 Missed setup by Joe Gibbs Racing20:25 Is Penske the team to beat for the championship once again?27:15 Restart struggles for the 11 team32:30 Cody Ware forgot the first rule of racing34:40 What exactly happened between Ty Gibbs and Denny47:00 Is next weekend a must-win for 23XI?51:00 Playoff format changes coming? Real fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/For more Actions Detrimental content: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimentalFanDuel Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's too difficult to win naturally, much less if we're going to have the, well, everyone just races for themselves. And it doesn't matter, you know, whether you're racing for a championship or not. And, you know, from my standpoint, I would think that Ty would want one of us to win a championship. It's his names on the building. 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 drink and drink to win I know you do two trophies missing from your collection 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 post loud New Hampshire State? No. They'll live for your die state. Live for your die. That's their slogan?

That's cool. Yeah, round no, round two, race one of the NASCAR playoffs. We have Corey Heim, I don't know what round or race

they're in, I guess this is a cutoff for them. Right, because they had the green and red highlights on the TV. Yeah, they moved to round of eight now. I'm glad I saw someone else on social media bring this up because I saw someone say, I'm confused.

And as someone who understands playoffs, NASCAR, whatever, I turn on the TV onto Fox and it says that Corey Himes' name is in red. Others are names are in red. and I'm like, but he's leading the race. Why is he in red? Like what's going on? Red is obviously, you know, when you have red and green, green is good, red is bad.

Is that, am I crazy to think? Nope. That's typical, right? Yep. Red is bad, green is good. Well, they had all the people that were advancing in red and everyone that was being eliminated in green. I'm not really sure.

I couldn't make a whole lot of sense of it. Because when I got to the racetrack, there was about 50 laps to go. We turned on the TV and I'm sitting there going, I'm confused why these names are in red and the other names are in green. And at the time, there was no kind of live ticker of who was, you know, how close it was or anything like that. They did give updates every now and then. But I'm just not, I'm not really sure on. Fox's

graphics department as a whole maybe it's maybe it's time to rethink it but certainly inversing red and green

eliminated to not eliminated would be a good first step for them in Fox's defense maybe there was a key on the screen

at some point before we arrived but it probably should be on the screen more often because I don't think it came up in those final 50 laps

that we were watching I think that's just would have made things worse for me. If it said, here's... Just simply because I would have said, now they know it's screwed up, so then they have to clarify. Do you know what I mean?

Let's just try to keep this uniform to what everything else is, is that green is good, red is bad, okay? Eliminated red, advancing green. Let's just start there. We can work on the cartoon character, years later. But it doesn't mean eliminated. It just means you haven't been. I'm not advancing right now. I turned on the TV and as someone in the sport, I didn't understand what the hell it meant because it seemed backwards to me.

Okay. Corey Hymn gets his ninth win of the season. I thought that he was probably going to go into Phoenix with like 10 wins. I don't know how many races they have left, but he's four, right? Round of eight. Yeah. So he might have 12, 11. 12. I just hope for his sake he wins Phoenix. They have Roval, Taledega, Martinsville. Can you imagine crowning a different champion than Corey Heim this year? If you win the truck series and you're not Corey Heim, like, just go give him the trophy. Just say, you know, remember how John Crease?

No, no, it was, who was Daniel LaRousseau's? adversary, blonde hair in the karate kid. Remember he handed him the trophy at the end after he tried to take his leg out? You're looking at him. Daniel Russo's main adversary

depends on the context, but his most significant enemies are Johnny Lawrence. John Lawrence. John Lawrence. John Lawrence. Yeah, so John Lawrence handed Daniel Laruso the trophy in the karate kid. That's what, whoever, if some

reason Corey Haim gets a flat tire or something like that or just has a bad pit stop, perhaps. They should just go hand on the trophy and say, you're the most deserving.

This just doesn't feel right. How do you see so many movies? Your movie knowledge slash references runs pretty deep. I watched a lot a long time ago.

I mean, I have not watched very many movies over the last few years. But just when I was younger. I don't think you quote like deep cuts though. No, these are wildly. These are wildly known movies. There's some deep cuts though.

The fact that though that you don't know office space. No, I don't. You're going to bring this back up. Absolutely criminal. I mean, over this time, you still haven't found an hour and a half. The fact that he still remembers that, Travis, Because you haven't watched it yet.

It's my point. The stapler. Oh gosh. Just please, just take an hour and a half out of your day at some point and watch office space. It's funny. So anyway, Corey Hymn wins, advances, moves on. One of the surprising eliminations from the truck series probably would be Chandler Smith. But he just had a bad start-th

the playoffs he had a good run finished second um give it his best shot there at the end to to kesh kori just wasn't quite enough and so you know i think that um the path without chanler probably for kore becomes a little bit easier because you know i thought that the front row um trucks were kind of the closest ones to um uh tricon or and or kore's truck uh so uh so That's one of those two that's eliminated. Now I think Lane Riggs is the only real challenger in speed to what Corey's got. So it seems like the path got a little bit easier after this elimination. Plus 69.

Going into the next round? Yeah. Yeah, he should be like plus 200. Like it should be just an automatic bid at this point with that many wins. But anyway, Corey Heim won that rate. We had the cup race, X-Finity was off this week. We had Ryan Blaney win in a dominant fashion. Well, maybe not dominant from a laps lead perspective,

but from a raw speed, hey, that's the fastest car on the track. He won from that standpoint. And it really started on Saturday in practice. Penske dominated practice. Penske dominated, when I say the dominated practice, not just the position, it's, you know, the lap averages and whatnot. They dominated qualifying and they dominated the race. The closest vehicle I saw closest to Ryan was Josh Berry. He had an exceptionally good long run car. He drove the wheels off of it came from the back of the pack.

That didn't take him long to make his way back up to the front and challenge Ryan for that late race win. But what y'all's takeaways from kind of what we saw this weekend? What about Lugano? I thought he was strong. You know, certainly strong. A top five run, I mean, they're the ones that tested up there. I'm wondering how they field today.

on one hand, I would say that this was probably one of Lugano's best runs in a few years. I mean, truthfully, when it comes to, like, probably if you look at, like, the overall driver rating, things like that, I feel like this is Lugano's strongest race in years. He doesn't lead a lot of laps, rarely qualifies on the pole anymore. But he did. He dominated... the beginning of the race and while the 12 had a slightly different strategy than what Ligano did during the day, where Ligano was making sure they did everything to keep him up front.

They wanted to keep him with his track position, even if it was taking less tires or no tires, where Blaney's team says, we're fast enough, we're going to be able to come through the pack. So they took four tires more than the other Penske teammates. and they, you know, while it took a little longer to show, obviously the 12 and the 21 were the two fastest, and then I thought Lugano was right there behind them. When a team like the 22 does the tire test, is it safe to assume that all that information that they find and they get goes also to the 12? Yeah, yeah. You would think that the others would probably base their setups around whatever the 22 team came up with during that test. And what we've seen is that Penske's got really good test plan.

When they tested North Worksboro, I think it was last year. You know, the 22 team was not very strong at all during the course of the season. They tested there at that track. And I think they even attributed that to their championship was that was a pivotal moment in their season where they found something at that test and it worked then on all short tracks from that point on. And he dominated and won the All-Star race as well last year. Bell was at that test also, though. How does Penske nail this and JGR seemed to miss it?

Yeah. Yeah, and we missed it by being like the eighth through 13th fastest cars, right? It just seemed like that's where we were all hanging out for the bulk of the day. obviously C-bell took four tires that last restart. He was able to get back up to six with those fresh tires. But, you know, he was strong for five, six laps after a restart and then just very, as we would say, pedestrian after that. So I don't know.

It's not like we were, well, I'll take this back. We were off by a lot. We weren't off by a lot position-wise. There was just, you had all the Penske car. really except for Austin Cendrick, which they got to be thinking, man, what a missed opportunity for them. You got to run better when your cars certainly are that fast. You know, he certainly needed a better result than what he got, I think, 17th. Yeah, 17th.

Just an off day, really, for the two. And so we just, I don't know. You know, I felt really good about the weekend. um you know in sim i felt very good about it i felt like the balance was there even in practice i felt like the balance was you know within reason um certainly something that can be worked with but man we just did not have the speed um and so that's a that's a usually a grip problem um where essentially you know what i try to equate it to is that you know the Penske cars whatever combination they came up with with their setups or their cambers and whatever it might be it was

like 3% more grip than what the field had and that's probably even over exaggerating slightly it's probably one one and a half percent more grip which i mean it makes a difference it exposes everyone else if you've got that much more grip um while it seems like a small number it is you know it's a big, big speed difference when you have one or two percent more grip. So just the combination of whatever they figured out, certainly they put it in all their cars and they were all just untouchable. So did the weekend go as you thought it would? No, I thought we would be faster.

I thought we would be better. I thought that I didn't get, you know, kind of looking at like the test report. You know, I didn't, nothing jumped off at the page. that the 22 was going to be, or Penske was going to be, you know, that lights out fast. Seabell, you know, I trust him that his feedback was that car's good, feels good, this is what I need to go win. And so when we kind of work around that, it, and it's someone that has had that much success there, you pretty much take it to the bank that you're going to be able to compete, but just none of us good. In practice, he said he felt like the car was good, but then the team's like your lap time, though, isn't there.

Like, is that maybe why, like, there's just something off? Yeah, well, I agree with Seabell on that is that I felt the same way that the balance did not match the lap times. And when I say we were off, I mean, over, you know, on lap 30 or 35 of the run and practice we were four tenths off of what the 12 could run in a single lap and that's just four tenths you're you're i said to the team i thought we could get one tenth of balance out of it like you know we're probably you know if you tweak this tweak that make it do this make it do that i can get another tenth out of it but the other three you're going to have to find the grip meter and turn that thing up because it just i don't know we didn't have that capability

When you do these tests at these tracks, are you competing against the other teams that are there? Like, is it possible that during that test the Toyotas could have seen like, oh, Ford's got something here that we haven't found yet? Or they've got something here that we don't. Their lap times are stronger? Or are you just kind of like trying to gather as much information for yourself? The teams all log them. They certainly keep track of other cars that are at the test, keep track of their lap times.

because you do need to measure yourself at those tests. So I don't know. Was there a run where the 22 popped off a lap and then was really fast in the long run and it just got overlooked? I don't know. But certainly we didn't have any indication that it was going to be as dominant as it was.

This might be a larger discussion for future time, but with these tests, are the drivers, trying to find what's best for them and the team or for the sport, if that makes any sense. Yes. It's a combination of both. So typically, so they went there for a tire test. So they wanted, Goodyear to, wanted to run this new tire, this new short track type of tire that has wear. And so they're kind of rerunning a baseline of what the previous tire was. They said, you know, here's what they call the control tire. This tire is what we ran last time and then they'll start to put different tires on and figure out what the drivers like now

It depends on which driver does it I typically try to figure out You know if if you want a tire that just The guilty things that the drivers do sometimes is is just say I like the tire that blank made my car feel good The problem with that is it's going to make everyone's car feel good. And so I try to figure out what's going to make for the best racing. I want a tire that maybe it is a little bit out of control or maybe at the end of the run wears completely out.

I'm going to want something that we're going to have to manage or where setups really going to matter. If you can just put on a set of tires to an ill-handling car and it makes it handle well, that's not going to be good for, competition and certainly not going to be good for the race. So there's a combination there. The drivers usually come to somewhat of a common feeling on which direction to go to, to tell Goodyear to, we like this tire, don't like this one for this reason or that reason. But you typically want them to think about what tire will, I like,

I need to hit my setup with to run well because then you're going to have an advantage as a driver because you're the only one to get to run that tire before the others get there. So you typically want a bad handling tire on your car because you now have the advantage of that extra practice day. Would we be better off if there were drivers that were there to test and not active cup drivers? I don't think so I think you need the guys that are actually competing week in, week out because they understand what we fight in the cars during the race.

And they understand that lifetime falloff is what produces variance in speed of cars where someone like, you know, that's what allowed Josh Barry to come through the pack is that he had a faster car than others. And so he was able to show his talents and show off his car speed. You want that to be able to be a thing. And so, yeah, I just think that you got to keep it with your current guys because they're the most knowledgeable. You just couldn't bring in a quote-unquote test driver

because these cup cars change week in, week out. too much and you need to be in tune with them. Chris Gabehart said post race that the biggest takeaway from today is that with this arrow package and with the same tire at Phoenix, the Penske cars are completely untouchable again. Is this a huge red flag for anyone not named Penske? Probably should be. Yeah, this is, I think this is our Phoenix tire. and I do know that this is the Phoenix Aero Package.

So yeah, I think we're, could be deja vu. Is it the same arrow package and Tyre that was at a gateway? Or is that different? No, different. That's different. I know. It's how we pick that week in, week out. I do not know.

I don't know the algorithm to it. So at this point, are you just hoping? that a Penske car doesn't make it to Phoenix? Is that the best defense? If you're not a Penske fan, that's probably what you should hope. Yeah. Because you can't.

You're just not going to be able to make up that ground in the next five weeks. If we re-racked and ran tomorrow, we would have the same result. Right. What if you re-rack and run in five weeks? It will take an extensive overhauling of philosophy to get,

another 2% of grip out of our cars. We're not going to be able to tweak our way to the speed that the Penske cars had. And if they carry that speed, yeah, we're not going to be able to, we will not overcome that. If it correlates to Phoenix. Right. Let's assume it does. This camber and 1% grip, like, where does that come from? well i i say cameron that's it's over simplifying it's that you know what makes a setup of a race car

if you actually looked at a set up a set up sheet of you know this camry right here it's probably hundreds of different settings that you both you know again this is a lego set right right and you put it together any way you want to come to an outcome um it's moving this piece okay I move this piece, now I need to adjust that piece. And it's just coming up with some, like we said, the balance is good. It's, how can you get that balance with some kind of different, how can you put it together differently to come up with that same balance, right? Right.

Yeah, I don't know. If, what's your question? I don't know. You're just like, I'm, I'm, maybe I'm oversimpline, but if this is a Lego. I see the best final product is here, right? And that's Ryan Blaine yesterday. Right.

And I have the pieces that I'm working with. And I know that the pieces that I got here can get me here. I just got to figure out how to get. We think. Yeah. We think. I mean, there are still small differences in the car itself. But, you know, I don't think it's aerodynamics.

I think this is a, this is a mechanical grip thing. It's just we're not running really fast enough for there to be that big disparity in speed. So you're saying if we know that this is possible. I know what X equals. I don't know what Y is, but I know Z.

It feels like there's smart people in the garage. Jared, it is, it would be, it's just so difficult. I mean, it's, it's difficult. You need almost tons of track days to, to figure that out. And maybe, maybe Penske came to New Hampshire in that test and says, okay, there's two types of setups we would like to try, because the computer shows that they're pretty equal in lap time.

So which one, you know, put it in, Joey and tell us which one you think has more grip. Now, there'll be two points of reference. One is the actual lap times and one will be Joey's feedback of, I think this one has more capability or this one handles better or whatever. Sometimes the computer doesn't always give you, it gives you, mostly the correct answer, but it's still, you know,

like what theoretically the computer would say is your fastest setup that you can build, you typically can't drive that. Because it saturates all four tires evenly and you're just going to be out of control. It's, you would have to drive it so perfectly that you, it's almost impossible.

It's why they say Max Verstappen is so fast in F1 is that, When you turn the steering wheel on his car, he says it's on like ultra-sensitive mode. He has it turning so aggressively by itself that each tire is like gripping the track the same. But most drivers can't handle a car that drives that way. He can. So his cars always have more capability of speed because he has mastered. his craft in driving that car that is super sensitive.

I know this is really getting technical, but I typically can go faster myself. Like the team knows that my setup might not be the fastest on paper, but I'm going to be able to get the most out of that setup. That makes any sense. How much change? And every driver is different. But how much changed from last year were Bell 1 there?

I don't know I don't I'm not really sure I thought last year Bell was P1 and speed I thought we were right there I thought we were probably the second fastest car

and by a little margin not a lot of margin and then I don't know this year I thought the balance was not bad and just clawing and fighting for 10th

is the grip what was the problem for you on restarts? Yeah, it was a combination of things, but yes, the bottom lane restarts that I had were horrendous. It's not like the initial jump was bad. It's just I would get pinned down there, and I couldn't, I could not get back up when I needed to get up. And so I always kind of took, I didn't always, but, you know, the number. that we have says okay take the inside line here and while I might gain a row I end up you know I lost far more than what I gained with my choose so why take it then it just takes one bobble from someone up

high to to get you three free positions all it takes is one person on that outside line to to bauble leaves you an opening now you got that free lane of cars for free. It costs you nothing. And you're able to get up and the next thing you know, you've gained spots and you essentially did nothing.

The preferred lane is the preferred lane for a reason. People sometimes take back a row to take the preferred lane and say, all right, I'm willing to have to gain multiple positions on this restart just to break even from where I was. now we weren't we weren't great on restarts anyway so

we biased our numbers to make myself choose more of the preferred lane but the preferred lane was so stacked that so many cars took it that I had no choice but to take the extra two rows of cards and then when I couldn't get up

I couldn't get up and and you know lost 18. spots. So I don't know. I just, my car was not good on restarts. I wasn't good on restarts. I couldn't get up. I felt very low on grip for, you know, five to six laps. In the long run, I felt like I was competitive. But yeah, it just, that was a restart type of race where you needed to make all your positions up those first two or three laps. You rank 22nd. On restart? Yeah.

I thought that was generous. Yeah, watching it, it just looked like your car just fell back to probably where it should have been. You know, like you ran six for a handful of laps, but then you fell back to 10th. And then you ran 15th for a little bit, but then you moved up to 10th, 11th. And just felt like that's where we were. That's where you're supposed to be. All day. We were, you know, that 8th to 12th, all the first.

all day. That's just where we landed. And yes, you know, why I thought, man, I mean, the pit crew did a great job. They were first. They were. Yeah. Yeah. They did a great job on that last restart or the last pit stop, four tire stop and last two tire stop. We gained on both. Got me to restart, I think, fifth. Just couldn't, couldn't freaking make up. Couldn't make anything happen, which was disappointing because they got me the position that I wanted. And still, I mean, we're going to finish fifth before freaking Cody Ware tried to wreck Austin Dillon. I think we were running fifth right behind Byron and Marston. So we're still going to have a good day.

What do you make of when a driver that far back is doing something like that? That was just stupid. Just dumb. Rule number one is you never wreck yourself when you're trying to wreck someone else. And just, I don't know. I don't think Rick Ware racing is in a position to be tearing up race cars. But I don't know. I get he's upset.

I guess what happened was Austin spun him earlier in the race. Is that what it was? Austin was about to go a lot down? I think so, yeah. Yeah, well, it was 40 laps to go, and Cody felt like that was the time to get back at him. And instead, you know, altered, certainly altered our finish and probably others. Some for the better, some for the worse. But, I mean, just got to let these races play out naturally, and that one didn't.

Hey, this is Dale Jr. And for the latest actions detrimental gear, go to shop. Dot dirtymo media.com. We've got plenty of options for you. We're adding new stuff all the time. That's shop.durdymomedia.com. All and all, were you happy with or content with the way this race shaked out for you now plus 27? No, I mean, this is a race where I wanted to leave plus 40.

So, I don't know, just a little behind schedule on as far as that is concerned. But I don't know. It's, it was, it was an okay day. I think we finished, again, like you said, within like two positions of where we were supposed to finish. You know, we, we were probably going to overachieve by running top five there. But you don't always get what you want. Because the 11 teams mindset, right, still leave Kansas with enough of a buffer that the Roval's not a huge.

Yeah, I don't think anyone wants to have to go to the roble and need a 45 point day to advance. That's just a lot to ask. So, I don't know, you just do the best you can to get these points on these racetracks where you feel like you should be strong. But we just missed it. You know, all of our teams missed it. How many points up after Kansas would make you happy going into the roval? I'm not really sure.

You know, as long as we just keep extending over the cut line, I'd probably be happy with that. Again, anything over 35, 40 points is going to be hard. It's just the roval is a really tough track to score stage points and finish well. So you're not going to see, typically at that track, you don't see a lot of big point days out of that racetrack, just simply because if you take one, it's really hard to finish well.

And so, you know, a typical day for someone that runs up front at the roval is probably 35 points. Like, that's a really good day. Another noteworthy event from this race early in stage two between you and the 54 or what happened there? Yeah, we just, we were racing

really too hard and what in my mind was entirely too hard and I know this is going to trigger some people about oh racing hard when you're racing a teammate

you know a teammate and B a teammate with nothing to gain like we're not we're not we I agree that everyone should race to win the race. However, we're not racing to win the race. We're

racing at the time for 11th place. We're battling me, the 20, the 19, we're all battling and scratching and clawing to try to get some stage points, which is going to be life or death for us. It's our air that we need to move on. I felt as though, you know, a little bit wronged in the sense of, you know, my teammate out of the playoffs should not be the hardest car on the track to pass. I mean, for God's sakes, Ross Chastain let me buy. If there's anyone that probably, you know, he's on the cut line. But even in the first stage, like, I pressured him. I pressured him. He's like, well, you know, he's more than likely what he thought was that, well, I'm not going to hold him up for this entire 60-lap run. I might as well, just get back in.

you know try to keep it from someone else joining this party and passing me along with you and so it's just this is the racecraft that I feel like is missing that understanding the situation and certainly I felt as though this thing is hard enough to win anyway but if you're going to have to race your teammates harder than anyone on the racetrack then this will be really, really tough for any one of us to win. Is there a philosophy within these race teams or even just in JGR on how teammates should race each other in these situations? Or is it not like a clear thing where everyone's on the same page about it?

Well, first, I don't think we're on the same page. I have always went back to what is the last thing Joe has said when it comes to non-playoff cars and playoff cars. He has had this conversation multiple times with everyone in the room, but I think it probably needs to be said again. And so what I've heard is that if you're a non-playoff car, any break that you can cut your teammates, please do. And so I probably got a little upset.

a little hot under the collar because first of all, I was a witness to the 54 and the 20 thing, right? I was right there behind it and I'm watching it just shaking my head. Now, you know, there was just a lot of tire smoke, both from the inside and the outside on that one. It was, it was, but it was just tough to watch. and then I apparently you know when you go back and you listen to to Ty's audio he got really upset about the 20 car at that point

and I think whoever got to him next he was going to be difficult to and unfortunately I was the next guy in line to pass him and again we had actually me in the 20 were fighting so hard to get around the 54

that we ended up fighting each other and then finally when we got singled out we both ran him down again and we're thinking and i'm thinking okay i'm just going to go on by i'm clearly faster and it was just aero block this corner arrow block that corner and then when you get beside it's like okay like what else do i have to prove that we're clearly faster i'm definitely going to pass you we got 60 laps to the end of this stage, what are we doing? You're not going to hold me off for 60 laps. The 20 is right behind me. These are your two teammates that need these points. I just didn't, I didn't understand where the mindset was there and still, and I still don't. But if, you know, it's possible, Ty feels like he

doesn't know us anything. And that's just a different mindset. And it's okay to have, but, you know, you would think that one day the rolls would be reversed, and certainly he probably would be upset if we did not let him go if the roles were reversed and he was fighting to move on to the next round. Were you going into turn one, were you just trying to move him up out of the groove and get by him? Well, it was twofold because I was pretty much there into turn one, and then he moved down to the middle.

lane to like cut my cut the nose off to make me you know get really lost my page so if you cut across someone's nose especially if they're running really close to you it'll make their car kind of lift up and take off so i think he was just trying to cut across my nose to make me lose air you know just to further arrow block me and i was so close to him and i'm like hell no you're not going to do that And so, yeah, I tried to shove them up to the next lane to get my position. And unfortunately, it spun them out. Y'all are going to have your competition meetings this afternoon. How does this get resolved ahead of that or during that?

Is it a conversation with just Ty? Chris Gavehart is obviously in this now who you have a great relationship with per past years. Yeah. I mean, what I'm asking, what I want to happen is just, leadership step in and tell us what do you want us to do um if you want us all to just race each other cut throat no matter what your position is and and stature in the standings we can definitely do that like i expect myself and the 19 and the 20 to race really really hard because we're all battling each other to get above this cut line or or maintain our status above the cut line

if I get eliminated or the 19 gets eliminated or the 20 gets eliminated and then we've established this no rules you guys just do whatever you want to do that's just we're none of us are going to win you're racing against where we have seen year in year out and it will continue to happen more and more like it or not

teammates are going to start giving spots this time of the year. This is just, this is the time of the year. And it's just going to get more and more. You're not always going to see it. It won't always be on TV. But starting with about five races to go, you're going to see those that are out of playoffs or those who have affiliations will start heating spots

to those who need it. And so if you're going up against that, and not only not being good teammates but yet being the most difficult ones to pass none of us have a shot we might as well just hang this thing up because it's just it's too difficult to win

naturally much less if we're going to have the why everyone just races for themselves and it doesn't matter whether you're racing for a championship or not which you know for my stand I would think that, you know, Ty would want one of us to win a championship. It's his, his names on the building. What do you say to those that say, you're too talented of a driver, you didn't accidentally

wreck him, that you did it on purpose? What do you say to those people that are saying that? Well, you can see that there was, we, we were making contact when he pulled down to the middle lane right in front of me. We were already together. like it took nothing and no I wish I was that good

if it was the that's the case then I wouldn't have wrecked Chase Elliott when I try to move him up the racetrack back in 2017 so it's just

it all depends on what point of the racetrack you're at loads of the cars there's just lots of variables on whether you hit someone at a point where their car is already on it edge or not. So there hasn't been any dialogue, text. Like, like, for instance, who hit, who hit

who harder? Brad Kozowski to Christopher Bell last week or me on tie? Like, let's be real. They're not the same because of load variances and things like that. You know, point of the corners, all that stuff kind of matters. And so certainly the, the pump that I had was more of a push, not a actual hit. You said that you wanted them to, the higher ups to, you know, handle this. But Joe said, this is the drivers. So is that you and Ty just having a conversation, or the four drivers getting together? Yeah. The challenge is I think that me and Ty are going to be on different,

we'll have different opinions. Therefore, you need leadership to step in and say, well, this is how we want it done. And then we will play by those rules, whatever. those rules are, I will play by those rules. But I've been told in the past, if you're not in it, you do everything you can to help your teammates that are in it. When's last time that statement was told to the drivers? It's been some time. Yeah. Last year sometime. It feels like though. Okay, so but Ty was in one of those meetings is what I'm asking. So yeah. It's been set. Okay. It feels like too that that it's just a

difference in opinion. Which that's what set my expectation that this wouldn't happen. But it, you know. And you look, the Penskees are hard enough to be anyways and you look how much they work together. I agree. Speaking of, Ryan Blaney, now on to the round of eight. They say that if you're going to win a race, you want to win the first one in a round, right? It's typically the best. Yeah. Yeah, he doesn't have to worry about anything in the next couple weeks. He can focus on his Martinsville, Talladega, and where else? Las Vegas. In Vegas, yeah.

You can work on those racetracks. Yeah, it is. The win in advance just kind of, you know, now these next two weeks essentially don't mean anything to Ryan, which is a little bit of the beef of the format, is that the win and you're in next to you know, like Bristol for me, you know, two weeks ago. or last week it was like, oh, well, our 37th place to finish really didn't matter or whatever we finished. And the reset. And the reset, right? And so, yeah, you can just focus on those racetracks because that's ultimately going to be your ticket to racing at Phoenix.

And they know if they can get to Phoenix, it's, they're going to be heavy favorites. Some cars that weren't as fortunate in this race yesterday, 2311 Toyota's of Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick. Not good weekend for them, and it just seemed like wherever we were, they were 10 spots behind, right? It just no speed. I kind of looked at Bubba's end car when I rewatched the race. He had his hands full. He was peddling his car off the corner. all race long and and like his car looked like how mine felt now i wasn't quite as active with

my hands is what bubba was but um yeah it just seemed like you know if if we were mediocre they were below mediocre just uh didn't didn't have the speed didn't have the handling whatever it was it just uh not good are they in more or less must win territory now with kansas no must win is not something must win is you're below 30 points out going into the last race like that's must win with two races to go just too much other stuff can happen you can go out there and you can have yourself a 50 point day at kansas and next thing you know i bet you're going to be minus five but what's maybe flat but what's a 50 point day top five in each stage and then top five in the race uh that's like a top three all around.

50 point A is top three all around. Yeah. So it's more or less must win. You're going to have to go to the... It's not must run really well. You're going to have to go to the track with a car that if you finish third throughout the race, you probably have a car that's capable of winning. Right.

So it's go to the track with the car that's capable of winning, I guess. Right. You must run really well. It's much... They are in a must run really well part of the playoffs. Yeah. they have to run well the next two weeks. They have to run really well at one.

They need a 50-point day, and then they need to follow that up at the next track with a 35-point day, and I think they have a chance. It's got to be a bit deflating, especially for the 23 team considering how well the first three race of the playoffs went, and then you get reset, and then you have one bad race, and now you're...

I know. It's crazy. It is crazy. Same goes for Chase Briscoe. He's only 12 points up, right? I mean, the start of his playoffs couldn't be any better. And then they just, they reset the score on them. And so, you know, it's just part of the format. And so, yeah, just one bad race just makes it look really bad,

especially when it's the first race after a reset. I mean, look at where Lugano was going into the, this round. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they've got to feel really good about being minus and now plus 24. I mean, I guess they feel pretty good. Probably feel like halfway through the race, they're thinking, okay, we're going to win this thing in advance. When they didn't win, that's why I said at the beginning of the show, I wonder what, how Lugano's team is feeling, right?

Is that, man, we had a great, great points day. We ran as good as we run in years, but yet we're still only plus 24, and our mile and a half performance has been, eh, okay, you know. But at the Roble last year, the 22 team, I thought was very, very impressive. I mean, they needed to have a great day, and while he didn't advance until the DQ, I was really impressed with how fast the 22 was. was last year at the roble. Your predictions for who gets eliminated,

you already have one wrong pick. You had Blaney? I had Blaney, what? Getting eliminated. Oh. Well, that's clearly wrong. Speaking of, we talking about the playoff format, Gluck said the playoff committee met this week.

Anything noteworthy that you thought came out of the conversation? That I can share. share not really I think they probably covered it I just would not

get your hopes up on a 36 race I feel like that's ship sailed yeah I mean there was a lot of arguments for it a lot

a lot of arguments for it and I understand and it definitely definitely would crown the most deserving champion however we would be one of the only

I'm trying to think one of the only sports without a playoff but I mean F1 doesn't have a playoff right they just have um just standings and just I might just hope

is that it does get simplified um you know I I want those that perform well over the you know first two thirds of the season to be rewarded more than five points if there is bonus points,

playoff bonus points. Just, you know, whatever it is. Like, I just want the guys that show excellence every week to be rewarded for that and not have to fight every three weeks with a reset to take away their advantage that they have built. And so surely there's a format out there that can give a little bit to everyone.

And I, I think it's possible. From what I've seen, what I've seen proposed, we're on the right track. We're on the right track. And it's certainly going to be better than what we have. How many points would you like to see the winner get bonus? Well, I think that it should reward more regular season points.

So right now, I think it's, man, it might be bad. I don't know this. I think it's 40 to win the race. and 35 for second or something like that. Yeah. Like that needs to be much bigger gap, which is why I want to eliminate the win and your end type of thing. Just reward the win with a lot of points.

So, you know, it, I don't know, it's 60. You know, it needs to be a significant amount over, you know. I think that one thing that was kind of brought up is that the winner of the race only scored the most points. of the race, 30% of the time, something like that, right? And it's like, you probably, they need to be rewarded by winning the grand prize, which is getting the checkered flag, you should probably get rewarded more regular season points for that.

Now, if we have bonus points as well, you know where my stance is on that, is that I thought that all bonus points should be doubled. stage wins should be two not one all all points all playoff points should be double that gives your your front runners a bigger and righteous head start and then you don't reset that is my stop resetting if you want to reset it once that's fine but but they got to stop the reset you're looking like this past weekend kyle larsen finished 7th and more points than josh barry finished second. Yeah, it's pretty common.

Assuming we had a 36 race format, who do you think right now would be most deserving of that based on the totality of the season? Wow. That's a close one. I think William Byron has been good. They got back on the horse this week.

I mean, you could make it argument for four to five guys, really, and I don't think we could call them out, but you're not going to be surprised by any of the names that I say. Here's the Winston Cup standing. Yeah, but just remember

with Winston Cup, I see those standings all the time. It does not reward stage points, which I am a proponent of. I do think that it's it is unfair. If you run up front all race and get

wrecked on a green white checkered and finished 36 and you get one point like that's bullshit you should be rewarded for running up front the entire race which is why we give stage points i think stage points are important for our sport it gives us something to race for throughout the entire race so the Winston cup does not equate it you know it's the old format but it only rewards finishes not how you're actually running which my guess is chase elli it's probably pretty high on that it is bell briscoe elli yeah it's and those are probably your best three average finishes you know that that pretty much is how that equates yep 12.3 is bell's elliott's 12.5 brisco's 12.6 yeah so it's just it's just going off of average finish uh essentially so um i think you know

Byron runs up, feels like his average running position is really, really good. So is Blaney's. I think they would probably rank pretty high if you gave stage points and ran it through the whole year. Hypothetically speaking, if there's a change to this playoff format come next year, and let's pretend it's just no longer a one race finale, and you've got like a three race finale or something. The schedule's not changing, so Talladega would be in that. Do you feel any sort of way about Talladega being one of the final three tracks? You know, not if it's not if it is a part of a bigger sample size.

I guess you got to be okay with it because you can't change it type of thing. Yeah, you just have to deal with it. It's better than one. Just as long as we get away from the one race thing, that's, and honestly the more races they can give us the better you know if we want the playoffs why i'm just i was such a fan of the 10 race chase because it you never questions jimmy johnson's one of his titles you just knew and that guy would he'd fall behind in the first part of the playoffs and that dude would make a run and then you know race five six seven nine just reel off wins and next thing you

know that dude is back up to the top Like just the runs he would make would be epic. And I just, I would love for them to give us the biggest sample size that they can give us. Whatever they feel comfortable with, anything more than one. In that type of format, how many, how many duds could you have? Like a dud of a race and still compete. And how many races? In that 10 race format.

Two. if you can be exceptional the others yeah you can have two races but also depends on how your competitors yeah I just mean

on average yeah I think you you know you still got 80% of the time that you can go out there and bust off a bunch of stage points win a few races absolutely

we got Kansas coming up next week 1 p.m. Saturday practice and qualifying 3 p.m. Sunday race on USA Network Yeah, look forward to Kansas One of my favorite tracks Certainly one of my better mile and a half race tracks

Won there plenty of time So look forward to that Who won the spring Kansas race? Gosh, I don't even know It feels like a year ago God, Tom is flying like Oh, Kyle Larson, I should know that Your favorite driver

Um Yeah, I don't even know what happened that race. I don't know. I'll start to work on it today. What you got? Off track. Is the boat working? Where are we at?

Yeah. You're like you're going to Instagram for help. What's going on? I was really wanting to go out for the sunset fish. Fish jump around my house, man, right around sunset. It just started jumping out of the water. and so I was trying to go out there. And my kill switch, I know this sounds really simple,

but it was like in an in-between position where it looked like it was up, but it was slightly off. And so it was, that's essentially what it was. And so Instagram did work because many people were like, Kill Switch, Kill Switch. And I was like, no, no, it's not that simple.

And I'm thinking, I'm like, well, it worked when I pulled it up. I did reach over there and put a water bottle down near it. Maybe I hit it. And so I did. But when one of your power pulls isn't coming up out of the water, you got a boat guy that you call. When you got an issue with your boat, you got a boat guy you can call. Not at that time of night. What time was it?

9 o'clock? I don't know. It was something like that. So Instagram works? You're telling me. I did. I contacted the person and he was like, yeah, not really sure. I'm going to have to get with the tech people and we'll get back with you tomorrow.

And so I'm like, I don't want to wait until tomorrow. So I ask Instagram for help. And the consensus was check this. And so I checked it. And it was like, oh, yeah, I did hit it accidentally. Amazing. There was a guy fishing right next to your dock this morning. I almost went out there and told him to get away.

You're like the dogs. Shoo! Rao, grow! You know, can't be getting the geese away. Can't be getting our fish. No, I know. We're a hot spot out here, man. I'm telling you this is, I got a honey hole.

Have you brought much fish up out of it? A few. I called two fucking catfish. the other night. Those things put up a great fight. Why is that not, like, why is that... Why is it not rewarding? Yeah, exactly.

Because you just can't really reach into their mouth like a bass. Like, just, I don't know, they're slimy. But isn't, like, the fight, like, a little more rewarding? No. Not really. Bass are harder to catch. Clearly. Yeah.

I got a review here from Midpack Hack. 813. That's a great name. Still not a Denny fan, but his podcast is the best look inside the car and a driver's brain for any racing series out there. Keep it up. Hey, shout out, by the way, to New Hampshire this weekend. That felt like a great crowd, great atmosphere. That was. I love going out to the Toyota. Yeah. What do they call it? The Toyota. Not this again. They have a name for it. What? Do I never know the name? I know. It's the Toyota stage appearance. I know, that's what this is on my calendar,

but it's called the Toyota something. Anyway, it was right outside the racetrack off the turns one and two. Yes, the crowds that come for my Q&A's, man, they bring the hype. It makes it a lot of fun. Certainly my favorite appearances to go to. And any fans listening to this, whether you're a fan of Denny or a fan of any other driver, the signs are a great way of showing your fandom to any driver.

Any driver. Does it have to be you can be anybody. They're amazing. I wish the tracks would, like, create more opportunities like that. Just any opportunity to showcase more fandom of this sport, the better. Yeah. It gives you something to take a picture. Exactly.

And that's really all I'm looking for. It's all about Jared. But it's great. I loved when they did at Bristol that when you had that one appearance with Kenny Wallace, and they gave out signs for fans to write messages on. and yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's a good idea, for sure. It's a little college game day-esque, I guess.

All right, well, Kansas, man, let's just go get it over with, right? Right, Trave? That'd be nice. The second race again. I don't want to deal with the roval and the stress. Me too. I'm with you. All right, see you next week.