Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Phoenix: What More Do You Want?

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

What happens to Denny if he doesn't spin out (7:30)? Fans are overreacting calling the race in Phoenix bad (10:10). Just how easy is it to fix the horsepower problem (24:15)? Toyota makes a statement in Phoenix (39:15). Austin Dillon's run of bad luck continues (43:20). Chevy had a bad day. What was wrong with Denny's car (49:40). Christopher Bell cruises to victory. Off to Bristol next weekend but no dirt. And, #DearDenny (56:15).YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental 21+ and present in NC. First online real money wager only. $10 Deposit req. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Does it cost more money? The engine bills are the same. I've been saying this forever. The engine bills are the same now as they were when they were 900, Jared. All right. Well, I'm going to ask you the same question. We buy engines. We know.

I'm going to ask you the same question that I asked you last year. Is it then why not? What is the argument for not doing? I'll tell you the same thing I told Dustin Long. Call Jim France and ask. I don't know. I don't have the answers for that. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media.

Hey guys. Welcome to Actions Determinal Post Phoenix. Bell weekend, Chandler Smith in the Xenity series, takes home the W as well. Back from the West Coast, we escaped the West Coast. I think we're only about 20 some points behind. Not too bad. Certainly have not gotten the results we were looking for, but we're running pretty decent. So let's get into what we've seen at Phoenix. Man, I'm certainly, my body's happy. to be back to the East Coast for a little while. You're not used to this.

You're not used to going out there twice, right? Typically, you go out once, stay out, and then fly back. Yeah, I didn't stay out on the West Coast for this trip around. Just had too much going on during the week. And kids have just been the worst sick I've ever seen them. I mean, you probably saw it. They just laid around. They just slept all day, every day.

So they got sick earlier last week, and they're still unwell. I mean, they are still not feeling well. Taylor's thrown up three, four times a day, and this has been going on for four or five days. So it's just tending to them, just a lot of stuff going on, didn't make the trip out. So it was a quick trip into Phoenix. Just stayed in the bus. I don't think I stayed in the bus in a long time out there. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, it sucks for Taylor, right? Isn't this their spring break? It is. That's tough. I know. Tough, tough going for them. Have you ever had moments where you thought like you're going to throw up while driving?

No. Not in this decade. Wrong driver to ask that question. Yeah, I was running behind that guy. of the day at the end of the race. No, I never have been sick, knock on wood behind the wheels. So, yeah, I thought, you know, we had a lot of storylines leading into the weekend. A few of those being, you know, we had this new short track package that everyone's talking about.

There was a lot of anticipation before the race started. on what was it going to be like? They talked to, you know, the reporters were all over the drivers in their media availability before the after practice happened on Friday saying, you know, what's it like? Is it better? Is it worse? You know, and I'd say that the majority said, well, it feels the same as it did or it felt worse. I came out and said it was maybe just a hair better, I thought.

to me, I didn't think that the race didn't change anything for me. I thought that good cars made their way to the front. Now, it took them a long time to do it for sure. But it's still difficult because we still have shifting. We still have only a second or so fall off. So there's a lot of things that play as a factor into it. Is it frustrating getting asked that question? every time you come to these tracks or a short track where it's like, oh, you know, what's the

difference? What's the difference? And you're like, guys, it's the same freaking thing. It hasn't changed. Yeah, I mean, but it has changed, but it just, we knew that it wasn't going to be a big change. You know, they came and they hauled the teams out there, I think December of last year after Phoenix and did this test. A lot of the items that they were going to work on got even nixed off the list. They didn't even work on the shifting. that was one thing they were going to work on is no shifting. They, I think that will be very, very tough to get rid of shifting until you add horsepower and that's a whole other subject.

But yeah, this is just, you know, the tire is the biggest thing that in my mind changed over the weekend. And I do think that the tire was an improvement. So I guess what I don't understand from the driver's perspective, perspective is that how is this worse because the tire is clearly better it was faster on the short run it fell off to um about the same as what we had uh maybe a little better uh in the long run so that if that's better we know the simple diffuser that's in the back of the car is not you know it's not a huge game changer so how is it how is this package not better um so i guess from my standpoint

it seemed like I could stay a little bit closer to the cars that were in front of me, just barely. It's not a huge change, but it is just barely. But, yeah, I mean, we got a long way to go, no doubt about it. I don't, I guess, understand quite what, you know, the fan's problem was with the race itself. I mean, I thought, short of the last stage where Seabell kind of got this buffer with cars with old tires, like he went through the pack, right? He started, I'm not sure.

Let me just say 10th. Let's just say on that final restart. I think he came out 21st. Yeah. He drove up from 20th in the 20s. So what are we, what's wrong with that? He drove from 20th to take the lead and win by five seconds. Six seconds.

And 90 lapsed. Like, he had a good car, so he won. So, and he was able to come from 20th. I've restarted 23rd. I can only make it until 11th. Now, I got stuck behind two guys for an extended period of time. But, I mean, that's just kind of... Is that just a result of?

He was better than I was. His car was the best car on the day. Yeah, absolutely. And he was able to... go through the pack. I think, you know, the ability for him to run kind of in a different line than others really benefited him for sure, but it seemed like what happened is he had a restart where he really got a chunk of positions and then he got to those older tire cars quicker than everyone else did and he just disposed of them really, really quickly. So you got to tip your cap to him

and his team for kind of staying in the game. They got to the front at the end of stage two, had a not so good pit stop. And then, you know, it was going to be interesting to see how that race played out once, you know, if I didn't cause a wreck, right? It was like, because everyone was short on fuel except maybe the six cars that stayed out

on that last pit stop because they, because of the previous wreck that had happened, I think the Legano wreck, that put everyone close on fuel. So six cars pitted. So then they're saying, okay, we're not going to pit anymore. We're good on fuel.

They then stay out. The field pits, and it was interesting, it was almost like Atlanta where I didn't, certainly I didn't gain positions, but I came out of the pit area right behind the cars

I was just racing, Tyler Redick and all those guys when I spun out. So it didn't it didn't change the world for me but it's certainly Well, what happens if that caution doesn't come out? So if I didn't spin

Yeah. We would all had to pit. So the, the, the, the, there's 23 cars on the lead lap. You had six that were good that were not, they had just pitted two laps previous. They were not going to stay out there. They were going to stay out.

So that's, 17 cars that we're going to pit. You know, we were going to restart probably, you know, well, so the caution doesn't come out. We're going to, there's 17 cars that has to pit. So we're going to finish, you know, in the back half of the top 10, I guess. Because the seven cars that pitted the previous restart, they don't need to pit at all. We would have had to pit under green if there were no more like Martin Truex did. So the winner would have been whoever of those six cars.

So you're saying you would have been in the same situation regardless. Not entirely. Right. We wouldn't have won. If there were no other, if there were no other cautions, if I didn't cause that caution, there would have been 17 of us that needed a pit under the green flag. The six cars that pitted right on the edge of that fuel window, those would have been one through six.

right so I don't know who that would have been that would have been your bushers your whoever yada yada yada I'm not sure who those six were so yeah I thought you know to get back to what we were talking about the aerodynamic package listen I I am the last one to stick up for NASCAR on anything I shoot everyone as straight as I can on this podcast and I don't play favorites and I try to call it as I see it and I am very unbiased.

I don't understand the uproar of the race because I thought that throughout the entire race, certainly the first two stages, I was in third and I could see first right in front of me. So it was never really spread out. Now, there was the three of us, right, the 20, the 45 and the 11 that we're kind of breaking away from the pack a little bit.

But I thought, yeah, it's not easy, right? I actually saw Derek Krause's interview, I think, after he got in a wreck, and he was like, man, these cup cars are 10 times harder to pass in than any other thing I've been in. Now, he's been in, you know, trucks and Xfinity, and he's raced in a lot of different things. And so he's not wrong. He's definitely not wrong, and it is difficult.

But we have to, we have an identity crisis. As fans, we need to figure out what we want, right? Do we want all the cars to be, and I guess I'm asking, do we want the cars to be the same as what they are, right? Do we want all the cars to run close to the same speed? There's a bunch of parity and just whoever's out front is going to win that day. or if you don't want that and you want more ingenuity and you say, okay,

let the teams play in this areas and that areas. We're going to add more horsepower. Go back to where we were eight years ago. You're going to have blowout wins as well. You're going to have ones where people hit it. You know, Kevin Harvick days where they just go out there and they dominate. Martin Truex days where they just stink up the show. And it just, you know, what I'm saying is it just,

but through the pack there's more passing because there's you've got to create there's got to be fast cars and slow cars if there's no slow cars and everyone's fast passing will be difficult because then it will be about air which we've seen and that's the topic we've been seeing over the last couple weeks is that it is being about it is about air because the first place car or the car in front has such a dramatic aerodynamic advantage being the car that's the car that takes the air first and the second car is at a deficit. The third car is at a bigger deficit and on and on and on. And not until you catch lap traffic,

is it like, does it level out the field? But then you're just running around in a roller skating rink because then we're all getting dirty air and no one's going anywhere. So we have to figure out what we want. Do we want parity? NASCAR seems to want parity, right? They want everything to be the same.

the negative to that is that you'll have everyone running the same lap time and no one passing. You've got to have the haves and have nots if you want actual passing. It sounds like there's just not, it's just not all roses, right? There's going to be pros and cons to whichever.

Exactly right. You prefer. Yep, 100%. And at some tracks, parody's good, right? Where everyone's the same. That's Atlanta. That's why you see those finishes

that you see at Atlanta and maybe some of the other tracks. but on the shore tracks it can cause this type of conveyor belt that we just see right and what happens in the negative to parity also and where you can't you can't you're getting stuck in the dirty air like we have less side by side racing so then there's less accidents so there's you know we've seen less you know i actually thought last yesterday there was more wrecks than what we've seen at phoenix and quite some time. So, and then, I think Josh from NASCAR, Josh Hamilton tweeted out, you know, and NASCAR, I love NASCAR, they'll be the first to do it. When the stats support that it's better,

they'll put out those stats. And it was like 2,800 green flag passes. We can argue about the green flag pass's stat, but it's been the way that they, they calculate that has been the same for the last X amount of years. And that number was higher yesterday. So I know that the amount of caution flags has a factor in that as well. Because every time we line up two by two by two by two by two, one caution can equal 600 more green flag passes, you know, over two laps. And I'm sure the restart at Phoenix help too.

Yeah. Yes. I guess my only thing is I think the fans fed off of what the driver said a little bit in practice and they had this thing under a microscope and they looked at the race and said, oh, it's not better. Not better. It looks the same. It's looked the same for a very long time. Right? So, you know, I see in our notes here, is this just what Phoenix is? Should we accept it as such? probably should. I mean, it's, it's just a difficult track to pass on, you know, and so, it has been for quite some time, Richmond will be the same. I mean, it will. So we have to just understand that this is kind of what we have now, and let's make the best of it. Here's that number, 2,813 Green Flag Pass is the highest total of any next general. race at Phoenix.

There was 19 green flag passes for the lead. How does that relate? The 19 or the green flag or the passes for the lead, you said? 13. 19. Yeah. I mean, I thought there was, there was not utter domination by anyone, right? I mean, there was three cars that dominated the first two stages.

And then, you know, you had C. Bell driving from. 21st to the lead in the final stage. To me, it's maybe just about how this is all presented to the fan. Yeah. Right? Because clearly Phoenix has no problem selling tickets to this race, right? They sold out, again, the March Phoenix race, right? It's no surprise that they'd sell the championship, but then to sell out the March race

based on how we talk about this racing and always being so poor, to me is kind of surprising. So clearly something is working there, right? The fan experience. The promotion. promotion is great in Phoenix. I think it's a great sports town anyway, but I saw someone griping about one of the big stories, you know, kind of now, during the week was, you know,

a lot of teams were giving Roger Penske, you know, gripe in Indycar about, you know, growing the sport. You're not growing the sport. You're not, you know, whatever. And they said, you know, as soon as we get off an airplane, to an F1 event, you instantly know there's an F1 race there. The activation is everywhere. That's the one thing I could, I certainly noticed when I went to Las Vegas F1.

Now, that takes a lot of, that takes a lot of work, right? It's activation through, you know, the teams, the series, certain, you know, venues, hotels, or whatever, they buy into it, and then they figure out how they can make a few dollars, off of activation, airports, things like that. Certainly F1 has got everyone smashed in that,

for sure. You know that they're in town. Now NASCAR, when you go to Phoenix, I see billboards. I mean, my kid's sick as a dog. I'm going down the 101, and they're like, oh, daddy's car. It's on a billboard.

And again, that's very small. I mean, certainly, there could be more, you know, grassroots campaigning that, hey, we're in town, more activation. But Phoenix, I think, does it as good or better than anyone, which is why they've had six consecutive sellouts. Right. But what I'm getting at is that, in my opinion, it seems way more difficult to bring fans to the racetrack physically than try and present them, you know, in a positive light on TV or such, right?

I feel like there just could be work done to present this Phoenix race. it's not that bad, right? It just seems like the the talk around this race always is just how bad it is just stuck in people's memory. They're like, oh, Phoenix is bad. Phoenix is bad. But clearly something is working because people are going to the track. So now if we just present it in a better light, I don't know. You know, the fact that Christopher drove from 20th to first in the last 90 laps seems noteworthy. Like there's something in that alone. Yeah. And what I would love to see from NASCAR media this week is let's walk us through that last run for Christopher Bell. Show us where he gained those chunks of positions because the TV wasn't on Christopher Bell until he got towards the front, right?

So walk us through that. Tell the story of, hey, the first three laps on the restart, look at all these spots he gained. He gained a chunk here, a chunk there. Next thing you know, he's only within two seconds of the leader in eighth place. Now he's catching cars with, worse tires. He's going to get around them pretty quickly. Like, tell that story. That's kind of the production that I challenge the Foxes and the NBC's and these guys to really do, is tell the story of how compelling that last run was for the 20 car. The weight is over, NASCAR fans, Fandul, America's number one sportsbook is officially live in North Carolina. And right now, new customers get $250 in bonus bets,

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Call 877-7185543. or visit more than a game.nc.gov. Yeah, like, I learned about Bell making a move on Twitter from reporters saying, like, he's making these moves. I didn't see it on TV. Currently, Jeff Gluck's poll, 59% are saying it was a bad race. So I wonder how much of that is fatigue from,

we just came from two super speedways and a mile and a half, right? A mile and a half in which we were just, we saw last couple lap battle, right? you didn't know who was going to win that thing until the last lap probably and then you came off Atlanta the greatest race ever so this is the first short track this is normal short track racing I don't I think fans get greedy too like if it's not an amazing race they'll vote no when if you were to like ask them they'd say yeah it was a good race but they're not going to say yes for on the like they're not all going to be great by the way this is this is this is

just sports. This is sports because you can't have that three wide finish all the time. It doesn't become special if there's a three wide photo finish every single week. I'm sorry, you will get tired of it. It will get boring. And so I think that there's plenty of other stories to tell. There's battles within the field that you don't see unless you're at the racetrack. I'm just not ready to, you know, shit all over it and say, well, it's, it's definitely not worse. To me, it just doesn't matter who says what. It's not worse. Was it dramatically better? No. But, yeah, we still got some work to do. I would love to challenge Goodyear and say, okay, what was the tire wear? We had clearly, we had a hundred lap run.

Show us some tireware. Was it, you know, I think it would, it definitely was improved from the previous tire that we had, can you push it more? Give us a little more because if you create that variability of, you know, fast, running really fast and then running really slow because the tires start to wear out, that's when you're going to see tons of overtaking. I was just trying to think of a title for what we, for what we give Bozy. Twitter's, Twitter's Pit Crew. He's our Pit Crew Insider. Twitter's Pit Crew Insider. Yeah. Had tweeted that Truex on lap three old tires ran a 28 point two to nine and then bell on 59 lap old tires ran a 29.0. Can you give some context? That's eight tenths. It's two tens. Eight tenths. Eight tenths. Yeah. Eight tens. Yeah. It's not much. I mean, for sure. I tried, me and Dale Jr. had some back and forth probably a year ago. And I mean, we've been talking about the short track racing, you know, since next gen started. And I showed them, I gave him, I gave me.

some screenshots of like Richmond, right? Richmond was about one point, back in 2017-18, Richmond was about 1.8 seconds, maybe two seconds over the course of a 40-lap run. I use 40 laps as kind of the barometer. And then since next gen, that number has been reduced. It's been cut in half, essentially. So anytime you have that number reduced, it's going to be a challenge. And really, the comments I said in the media center is that every time we've reduced horsepower we've all we started reducing horsepower years and years ago

but it's just been a slow cut really could you imagine though we were supposed to run 550 horsepower that's what NASCAR had on tap for us to run this next gen car is 550 until we ran a December test at Charlotte the year before the next gen came out and everyone was like this is terrible.

You cannot do this. This is so bad. And so then they bumped it up to 6.50. So it was, we were supposed to run 550. I could not imagine. It would be the racing. I'm sorry, it would just be really,

really bad for sure. That's why I argue that, hey, why can't we just, just give us what we had a few years ago, the 750? Travis, you brought up a good point about, you know, Jeff Gluck talked

about on the tear down yesterday about it's not that easy. I simply said in my media availability, I said, well, how do we fix? I mean, why can't we do it? And I says, well, it's easy. You can be done with one phone call. It can be done. And I based that comment off of not my feeling. I don't build the engines. I listened to TRD. I listened to Doug Yates and who was the engine builder for RCR. I'm not really sure, but I listened to them all say, yeah, it's not, that is not a game changer for us. He said it was not that easy, correct? Yeah, he said that he talked to somebody, an engine builder didn't seem as easy as you made it out to be. Right. We can't just replace the plate, basically, is what I was saying is that it's a little piece of aluminum.

that choked these engines down. Yeah, that's probably a little bit. It's oversimplifying it. There's a few more changes, but it's not like it's not a hard task for sure. It certainly... Does it cost more money? The engine bills are the same.

I've been saying this forever. The engine bills are the same now as they were when they were 900, Jared. Well, I'm going to ask you the same question. We buy engines, we know. I'm going to ask you the same question that I asked you last year. is it, then why not change it?

If it's just such a simple fix, what, like, what is the argument for not doing it? I'll tell you the same thing I told Dustin Long. Call Jim France and ask. I don't know. I don't have the answers for that. Have you called him? I think he has my number blocked. I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. I don't know. I mean, I've seen, I've seen, star 6-9 or 6-7, right? 6-7. I don't know. I mean, you hear O'Donnell talk about it, you know, because the reporters ask them constantly, you know, the drivers overwhelmingly want this. That seems like the media or the fans want this. Why not? And they usually have a reason, but sometimes it's, hey, we're looking at all options, right? We're not ruling it out. We're not saying we are, right? This is the first thing when it comes to horsepower, it's the first thing that I've not seen NASCAR react. react to the media about.

Usually they react to everything. When something is hot media-wise, they react to it. This is the one thing they've been, they've dug their heels into the ground and said, no, right? So there's clearly a reason that is not being explained to the people or the drivers of why we are where we are.

So this is also not talked about behind closed doors. with drivers. We have competition updates with NASCAR all the time. And I mean, it's every time we have a meeting, someone says, why not horsepower? There's just, I wish, I can't even give you the answer because I don't recall what they even said because it didn't matter. What they said was so, it wasn't an answer. It's an answer that's not an answer. It's just not, it's just not.

I think that we need to know. what is keeping you from this. I mean, certainly, you know, that what has happened over the course of time is straightaway speeds have gone down, corner speeds have gone up, and anytime you have super high corner speeds, passing becomes difficult. And the more on throttle time you have, the less chance it is for me to have more balls than you to drive in the corner deeper. and because you're driving in really hard. So when my crew chief asked, why couldn't you pass Noah at the end of the race?

I'm like, he was driving in so deep. I could never get positioned on him until it was too late off the corner. And so had his car been, had he had to get out of the gas because he's carrying too much speed in, then I would have had a chance to charge in the corner, maybe slide him.

But just that, that aspect of it made it very, very difficult. And so I just, I understand what the people want. I understand what NASCAR wants. I wish we could just meet in the middle, right? We don't need 900 horsepower back. I mean, it'd be nice, but those days are gone, I think, in the near term. I would certainly like to see them just try it.

just try it at a test. I mean, we know it's going to do. It certainly would put, in my opinion, the driver's skill more as a showcase. And if we want to create stars, stars are the ones that are good week in, week out. The Kyle Larson's of the world, Ryan Blanies of the world,

Christopher Bells of the world, they just find ways to win week in, week out, and be competitive because they're just, better drivers. That's just a fact. And so we want to highlight their skill, not their track position. Didn't we talk about at some point that if you added horsepower, you'd be able to use an engine less? Like you wouldn't be able to use it over and over again. But you had said before we started that these engines only get used maybe twice. Yeah, they get used twice right now. I'm trying to figure out the year and I ask, okay. Okay. Okay.

just got a text back for seven or eight years we've been running engines twice a year for seven to eight years so that we were running 900 horsepower seven to eight years ago is that right so seven or eight years we've been running the engine bills have been the same for seven to eight years um we we were running 750 horsepower on short tracks um the last year of gen six which was 2021. Is that correct? 2021? Yep. Okay. So, yeah, I don't see, more than likely, when an engine builder says to us that it's not that easy that we can't just replace the plate, what I've been told just from the people I know is that, yeah, it's maybe not that easy,

but we have the parts. We have the stuff. to make that 750 horsepower engine optimum and be able to run for multiple races because we've run these engines for two times a year for seven or eight years now. It's not like we cut this horsepower just so we could run them more races. It's the same.

It's part of a bigger plan from NASCAR, but we just don't know what that plan is. You know what it means? there's just not been enough transparency of why that the horsepower has been reduced. And I think we're all open to listening to it. I certainly would be. I'm not going to just say,

this is ridiculous and, you know, I can't believe you're not doing it. Like, tell me the real story so I can understand your point of view. Like, we would love to have the discussion with NASCAR. What would it hurt? Just what would it really hurt to add 100 horsepower of these engines? and 100 is not going to change the game for sure, but it will make it incrementally better.

Honda only won 650 horsepower. Honda only 1,650 horsepower. Listen here. There's going to be a day in the very near future where you probably can build any engine you want, and NASCAR will just have torque sensors and say you can only have this much horse. power. Build whatever engine you want. It could be a V6, fucking V-24. Who know? Like,

they're going to make it to where everyone runs the same horsepower anyway. And really, that probably would help the engine builders save as much money as anyone. Is that if you look at like sprint car engines, whatnot, yes, they're very, very expensive. But the cost is down because there is kind of no limit as far as I understand. There's no limit on your engines, right? I mean, they have to stay within certain parameters, you know, general parameters. But it's because they can't even use all the horsepower they've got.

So it's certainly if you opened up the engines to where you told these engine builders, listen, I don't care what you bring. We're all, you can only have this much horsepower. then you potentially could lower the engine bills dramatically because they can run cheaper parts in there, more durable parts, and then everyone's just going to be the same horsepower. And it could be all kinds of different engines,

and I think that that will happen in the future for sure. Before we get back on track to the race, I just have a quick NASCAR 101 question, and this might even be below NASCAR 101, is why can an engine only? run be run twice what see you ask all the questions i'm just i'm not specialized in engines by any means right um i am to the engines what kyle larsen is to the car like Kyle larsen is like an an incredible wheelman but like as far as you know telling you it's on the left shock or the right shock or

I need this. He's not that guy. He's going to tell the team what he needs and the team's going to figure out how to make that cargo faster. I'm the same way with the engines, I would say. And I never grew up, you know, building engines or whatnot. But more than likely, it's the stress of the parts and the pieces, you know, the valve springs, things like that. There's a certain amount of reliability that the teams have built into these engines that, you know, they're made to go 1,500 miles or 1,300 miles, right? They've noticed that they can get the most horsepower out of the current engine with the rules that they have

and still make it go that 1,300 miles. But if you go more than 1,300, you run the really big risk of blowing up, which is why actually Christopher Bell blew up during the Phoenix test back in December. He actually didn't get to run this package, because it more than likely was an engine that had already been run twice, and they were, you know, they just, they went over the mileage that the reliability says that they could run.

So, you know, TRD is very strict on us to, you know, hey, what's the engine, you know, how much has it been running, how many laps have you run, and we have certain caps that we can only run on it because that's what they feel comfortable, what they built. And so we're always griping at Toyota to, we need three more horsepower, two more horsepower. And they're like, okay, we can give you that. But we could give you 10 more horsepower, but it's only going to last one race. And with these sealed engines, I forget how many seals you have to have.

I think it's, I'm not even going to speculate. Let's just say 15 times you must run an engine twice. They're not going to build an engine that's good for one race. and then throw it away, right? So they need, they have to put parts in it that are more reliable that don't necessarily produce more horsepower. I have one last question. If NASCAR today were to say we're going to up the horsepower,

how soon could there be an engine? That's more of a question for, you know, the Andy Graves of the world, the Doug Yates of the world for sure. But I wouldn't think that this would take over a couple weeks. I mean, I don't know. It depends on how far in advance they, they build the engines. I would say that

if I had to guess these engines are probably built three weeks in advance. But we're talking weeks, not months for no, I don't think so.

I don't believe so. Now, the manufacturers would want to just kind of run it across their durability test to make sure that, hey, we're going back to where we were

on the horsepower. Let's just make sure that the durability is still there, but I would not, there's no way I would imagine that this would take months for sure. Do you care to share what Toyota found at Phoenix to lead all but 14 laps in this race? I don't, I don't necessarily know what they found. I know that I can only speak for the 11 car. I know that we really were trying to get more competitive at this racetrack. You know, we were, Uh, certainly we were kind of the back half of the top 10, um, most, you know, probably for the last

two years on speed. I thought we were a little better than that this time around, obviously. Um, I don't know. I mean, I think that probably, I don't know the setups, but I'm guessing we're all probably spread out all over the place. Um, I don't know who's similar to who or who's different from who. Uh, but certainly, you can't ignore the fact that, the Toyotas were up at the front, right? So that's a good sign for us. I mean, this is typically not been a Toyota track. I would say that this has been a Chevy and Ford track for many, many years.

In the previous four Phoenix races, Toyota has only led 15 laps. Yeah. So there's a change there for sure. So from my standpoint, it's very encouraging because we've all been at that track for quite some time. So, you know, we can make a big uproar about, oh, it was all Toyota. As long as you drive a Toyota, you were fast. I don't know that that was necessarily true.

But hell, we'd been bad there for many years, and so we had a good race. Is this a bigger picture for Toyota? Is this more of an example of what the Toytas will look like on short tracks this year? It's encouraging. They also ran well at the clash, obviously. Yeah, it's encouraging for sure from my standpoint. You know, the biggest kind of question mark was like Hendrick. Hendrick was not, you know, they seemed off from their normal selves yesterday.

I know that, you know, Byron and whatnot and Larson, I thought that Chase probably had the best speed of the Hendrick cars through the weekend. Now, he didn't finish well. it seemed like when you put their cars back in the, you know, in the midpack and the teens, they kind of, you know, like most people, they struggled more than what they were when they were up front. But I thought the chase showed good speed early in the race, top five speed. But it's, you know, it's ebbs and flows. And a reporter asked me this weekend, they said, you know, how much should we read into this race?

And I said, before the race, you know, before the weekend started, I says, it's easy to overreact to what you see at the racetrack this weekend and say, okay, these guys are going to be the ones to be when we go to short tracks or Phoenix. And I says, but this is the first time with a new tire and a new arrow package. Teams catch up. All these teams that struggled, maybe ran in the teams, they're going to make adjustments. They will get better the next race. and the next race, in the next race. And by the time we get the Phoenix in the fall, they'll have a new identity.

So I wouldn't overreact to what we saw. We certainly can't ignore it. It's something to keep our eye on for sure. But I think you've got to kind of take these first races with a grain of salt. You just, until we get to the summer and we've gone to the same types of track two or three times, we get another Richmond under our belts, you know, Bristol's, Martinsvilles, Loudouns,

then you're going to kind of see it's everyone's going to have enough data on this, this simple diffuser and this new gauge tire, and you're going to hone in on who's got it figured out and who's going to be the ones to beat when we get to the end of the year in the playoffs. Looking out across the field in this race, Austin Dillon's, uh, street. of bad luck continues he's involved in that in that first wreck arca breaks he had arka breaks i mean he you know alison dillon has had some crap luck and and i love austin he's he's a he is a good person austin gets a lot of that's um you know because he's racing for his grandfather and he's

people think that uh he's silver spoon this that and the other austin dylan is a great person he is a a fantastic human. Doesn't deserve a lot of the flack that he gets. But man, he's had a bad run at it. The last year, just enormous amount of DNFs. I think, listen, I think a lot of that is because of where you're running. I think when you get back towards the back of the pack, middle of the pack, you're going to get him more wrecks.

That's just a fact. That's what Alston Cendrick said is that he screwed up. He didn't qualify well and he put himself in that position. Yeah. So, you know, he's on a bad run for sure. You know he wants to turn around. That kid's got drive. He is as competitive as I am, maybe more.

He's certainly more athletic than I am. I play a lot of sports with Austin Dillon. And he is competitive. So it's not like he's happy running where he's running. But, yeah, we saw as a whole RCR just struggled mightily, mightily this weekend. Kyle Bush, I was reading tweets. Obviously, when you go on X now, you know, and you're on the 4U stuff, it just feeds me, you know, comments from drivers and whatnot.

And it feeds me a lot of Jeff Gluck stuff. And Jeff was like, Kyle's running last, like legitimately the last. The last of the cars on the racetrack. Yeah, I saw it during practice. He was just fighting that car big time. So it seems like the Chevy's as a whole weren't as strong, and it seems like it was kind of in order of, you know, of the Chevy guys, it seems like Hendrick was the best of them.

And it kind of went in order of who's been good as a Chevy team. You know, then it was kind of track house, then it was RCR. So they certainly got some stuff to figure out. Only one way to go for RCR after this weekend. You know, Kyle was just kind of a non-factor and struggled quite a bit. Who else? I mean, you had Noah Gregson and Chase Briscoe. Noah was trying for his life to stay in the top 10 at the very end of the race.

I got him in the last corner for 11th. Truex passed both of us and finished in the top 10. But Chase Briscoe with the top 10, I'd say SHR is improved? That was the next question I had for you Is what takeaways can we take from these first four races? Is it that SHR is improved? Are you ready to say that? Yeah, I would say we're four races in.

We've had one mile and a half, one short track. Yeah, we can start to draw some sort of correlation to who's consistently running towards the front, for sure. It's hard to say, I mean, the biggest jump from year to year probably is a 77 car, right? I mean, Ty Dillon was in it last year. Now they made dramatic improvements to their program. You know, I don't know who has what at Spire. I'm assuming all the cars are the same

from the 777 71 Zane is struggling struggling hard but it seems like Carson Hosefar has taken that 77 car and he's another top 15 for him He hasn't pissed everybody off yet either

Yeah he's He's got speed And as long as he continues to just You know show those good runs and not cause havoc, I think he'll continue to gain and gain more and more momentum as the year goes on. So, you know, Corey LaJoy's had a tough go at it this weekend. He didn't qualify all that well.

Then he got his first DNF, I think, in 40-some races. 44. Yeah, 44. Wow. So, yeah, you've got to give a nod to some of these other teams. Now, you know, the teams that finish in the top five, you know, the six and the 17, were they going to run there? I'm not really sure about that, but, you know, things worked out. Luckily, I spun out and it really helped those six guys that pitted.

And it's very easy. When you're on the back half of the lead lap, every time a caution comes out, you're going to pit because you have nothing to lose. You're not going to go back in position, which is why those six cars pitted, amongst other reasons. is that it's very easy to have great strategy when you have nothing to lose but to go up. And so, you know, they were able to capitalize for sure. The 54 car led some early laps. He fell off a little bit in the mid part of the race, but got a good finish out of it. So Ligano, I mean, he's struggled to get some finishes for sure,

although he did not race well on Sunday. He was one of the cars that we lapped in the first or second stage, I think of the second stage. So he's 100 points back and 30th in points. I wouldn't overreact too much. Obviously, they have speed. It's not correlating to race speed, but they have speed. I think Joey will be all right this year. I think he's going to be all right, too, for sure.

That's my bold statement. Yeah, bold. your car you said you had no rear grip was that an all-day thing or was that towards the end what was going on there yeah it's just kind of an all-day thing i just felt like always the next best car there was always someone just a little bit better than me at times i thought overwhelmingly we can't take anything away from the 20 i thought regardless of where he was on the track he was turning probably the fastest lap times when i kind of looked when the race is over and looked back at it um but But, yeah, it's, again, there was many times, and you probably heard over the radio me saying,

he's like, you know, what do you need? And I would say, I don't know. You know, I feel I'm good some laps. I'm not good other laps. I'm not consistent. I think personally, I still have a little bit of room to grow at that track and to get better. So before I can really get them to work on the car, I probably got to go to work on myself a little bit more. Do you think this is CBO?

year and not necessarily that he wins a championship but you know a four or five six win season for him it could it could yeah definitely could be for sure um you know it's again it's it's easy to just take the performance you saw this weekend and say oh man this car could dominate but i think you know christopher bell is certainly one of the more underrated drivers that we have in our series i i'm i'm super high on christopher and um i remember racing my very first exfinity race with him This was years ago before we made to the Cup series. It was actually one of his first Xfinity series races for JGR. And I told Joe, after the race, he always visits all the guys on pit road after the race.

One thing I love about Joe, he comes to sees all the losers first. So whoever didn't win, he's coming to your car right after the race. Just sit there and wait. He'll be there. He'll ask how your day was. What do we need to do to improve? love that about Joe and then he goes and celebrates with the winner

but I remember at an Xenity race where I was battling Christopher in one of his very first starts and I said Joe that kid's over there he's pretty good he's really good so he's showing it now he's now mixing his experience with his talent

and that's why you're seeing such great results from him I want to follow up on your your comment about needing more from you so what can you do? Where do you feel personally with your racing at Phoenix and what can you do? I don't know. Just need more time to think about it.

Need more stuff to look at to figure out what I need to hone in on. I don't know any specifics as we tape here on Monday morning. It's still too fresh and need a little more time to download. I was going to say a pretty good weekend for coach, considering that JGR sweeps, right? Yeah. Great win for Chandler Smith. We need to shout him out.

Another great kid for sure. Great values. And he just, he did a great job. He was up front, put himself in contention throughout that race. I was actually playing mini golf at the time. And I'm watching on the big screen. They had it.

Mini golf? Yeah, I went to Popstroke. I guess Tigers. designed put putt-putt golf and they had this big projector screen kind of in in the background while you're playing golf you can kind of watch TV and so I'm watching it was just a few laps to go and it's like yeah Algari's got this one and I'm playing a hole and I look up and I'm like oh my god he crashed how the hell did he crash and and so it was man talk about you know having the rug pulled right out from Underview um I guess maybe they showed

where he got on the apron and turns three and four and then blew a tire right away. So I don't know if he maybe ran over something. That could be a possibility for sure because, you know, wherever we're not running, stuff gets thrown out of our cars in and around the groove. So sometimes if you go too low, what happens is those jet dryers that you see going around the track, they blow stuff from the outside in. Well, there's an inside wall, right? So where that inside wall is, is it blowing it out onto the apron?

It hits the wall, bounces out, and next thing you know it's close to the groove. Now, I'm totally speculating. So did he just get too low run over something and then immediately blow the tire? I think he said he thought he ran over something. I could be wrong there. I feel like he said that. It's just the way that they clean the track, it's sometimes you run over stuff that got blown there from the previous caution.

Right. I mean, you're certainly using most of the track, right, at least on the front stretch there. So, yeah, good possibility. Headed to Bristol this week, not on dirt for the first time. Hooray. How many, three, four years? Yeah, yeah.

Looking forward to that. Obviously, we had a great run last time we were there at Bristol. Excited for, to get, you know, another race on the concrete there. It's one of the best short tracks that we go to. encourage the fans show up. You want this Bristol concrete. We all said we wanted it. So look forward to seeing y'all this weekend in Bristol. But yeah, we'll see how it all turns out. This is another race on this simple diffuser. I don't know whether we have a tire change or not. TBD on that, I think that they were working on this bigger gauge tire at all short tracks.

But, you know, it's another data point for all these teams. We're going to have to make a adjustments from the setup that we had in the fall just because of the different arrow changes for the car. Since we haven't raced on concrete while the sun's been out at Bristol in quite a while, are the cars that are good? Are the teams that are good at night typically going to be good in the daytime? Yeah, it's not a super temperature sensitive racetrack from that standpoint, which is interesting. You know, like I would say Dover is one of the temperature sensitive and it's also concrete it's probably because it's a little higher speed but yeah it's it doesn't change that much you typically if you can get better in practice

that will equate to a better race for you dear Danny we've got some questions that we want to answer answers and we need him fast we tried to ask junior but his answers were lame and with dbc it was more of the same now we're caught on you because you're our own hope this ain't the race A couple of dear Denny's here for you. First one I got, why does NASCAR use gas cans instead of fuel hoses when fueling the cars? Probably because it's contained. You know, it's in this, it's in a container and you're simply just plugging in. If you had a hose or gas hose, you know, that's something that can get ripped off.

And then it's easier for gas to escape that hose than it is a can. So more than likely for the containment and the safety aspect of those fuel fillers. If teams weren't allowed to cut the dog leg at Phoenix, how much would the race change? Ifs and buts. I don't know. It certainly wouldn't change a ton on the actual race once we, after restarts, but certainly it's one of the more exciting parts of the restarts is, you know, watching us fan out there and just go all over the place, right?

And then we got to get to a corner and get to at least three wide to funnel down. It probably would just be a little less exciting, honestly. But, you know, sometimes you use it to just get beside. Say someone's running the bottom line and one and two, and you want to take that away from them. If you can stay close enough to them off a turn four, you can cut it down and at least get to their inside. in turn one to make them have to run another line.

So it's definitely a tool that the drivers use to make passes and sometimes defend. How to think about how to put this. Do you have a preference when you're heading into that corner? Are you a driver that likes to cut deep there? Not really. It really kind of messes up the angle for me, which is why you saw in qualifying. I was probably one of the least aggressive in cutting the dog leg than others. I didn't cut it at all in round one.

I barely cut it in round two just because I wanted to put a little bit more emphasis on making the corner where I wanted to make it. I wanted to place my car in a certain spot. So when you run the dog leg and you cut way down low, not only do you sometimes get stuff on your tires, which that's a big part of it, but then your angle getting into the corner isn't quite as good. So it's definitely give and take.

Is there a driving style that makes that more favorable for some guys than others? I don't think so. I do think that there are some that are better at it than others, but it's hard to identify it. We have a review here from, I mean, I could assume, former Super Bowl champion, Deuce Daly. It's spelled different. Honestly, it was not a fan of DH,

but I started listening to the podcast last year. Now I always look forward to the pod on Monday to hear Denny's thoughts on the weekend. Just purchase my first D.H. T-shirt and hat, all-in. Love it. Appreciate it. Yeah, I heard a lot of all-ins this weekend. You know, the fans have amazing access at Phoenix. They can see you right there, driver intros.

I mean, they have access pretty much everywhere but the garages, right? And so even in the garages, there's a great viewing area. for the fans. And so, yeah, signed a lot of autographs this weekend and appreciate the fans coming out to Phoenix and big numbers, six consecutive sellout. Thank you all, y'all for showing up and look forward to seeing everyone this weekend in Bristol. Yeah, shameless plug. I think those t-shirts are still available for pre-order on the Denny Hamwin store. What's the web address? Dennyhamwin store.com. Okay, thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, get you an all-in t-shirt. My boy Ronnie Hats will be happy about that. Just to see his brainchild at work. Right.

All right, guys, make sure you give us a rate and review wherever you follow us on the podcast. And don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube. Our subscriber list is growing. Thank you very much to doing that. We hit 11K last week. We just started at the beginning of this year. So we're making really, really good progress. Let's keep that going.

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