Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Playoff Teams Would Like a Do Over

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Darlington started off as a promising weekend for Denny Hamlin, but it didn’t go according to plan. Denny and co-host Jared Allen break down how the race slipped away—from losing the lead at the start to costly problems on pit road. They also cover the biggest stories from around the garage and off the track this week:4:15 Connor Zilisch uses loophole to secure victory11:30 Producer Travis lost his voice this weekend17:00 How Denny lost the lead at the start of the race20:00 Problems on pit road costs the 11 team a better day28:00 Why so many playoff teams want a Darlington do-over34:00 Chase Briscoe’s dominant run45:00 23XI’s impressive day53:00 The latest update on the NASCAR antitrust lawsuit Dirty Mo Media has a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Actions Detrimental merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.For more Actions Detrimental content: https://www.youtube.com/@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 a loser's strategy, but it is a strategy, and it is beneficial if you can, you know, if it works out the way you plan. 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. This spoils of victory for Jared Allen.

He's got better luck than Rick and Drake to win. I know. do two trophies missing from your collection a championship and the most popular driver someone told me that their drinking game is when i say for sure yeah and i've already said it hey guys welcome to action's detrimental post darlington southern 500 weekend my favorite it might be one of my favorite weekends of the year just the historic track i love it i didn't love the result but i love the track um a great crowd this weekend. We had trucks and cup at Darlington. We had Xfinity all the way out in Portland, Oregon, for some reason. It just occurred to me that I asked you last week if you were

running the Xfinity race at Darlington. There wasn't even an Xfinity race at Darlington. Usually, they always used to have a doubleheader and I would do it, but I guess I didn't need to turn that ride down because I wasn't willing to travel to Portland. Yeah, so we had, I'm going to give you breaking news. Corey Heim wins the truck race. Eighth win of the season for him. I thought he'd have 10 by the time he got to the final four. Might be more than that.

I mean, he's on a role right now. That team's on a role, which has been interesting because I felt like, generally speaking, like high tire wear tracks have not been like the forte of that 11 team but they were good they were really really good i say that because it's just i don't know i don't know why like milwaukee comes to my mind like richmond like they're not they definitely weren't the cream of the crop but first playoff race gets to work done moves on to the next round any surprises there there's a lot of blowing tires. The reason you saw a lot of blown tires, sorry, I haven't let you guys even speak yet, but there was, you know, it's different on cup cars versus trucks and definitely Xfinity

if they were there, but trucks still have steel body cars. So when you hit the wall at Darlington, what it does is it knocks that steel into the tire and then they blow tires. So there's a lot of blown tires in the truck series this weekend due to that wall contact. And so just not quite as durable as those next gen and Xfinity cars with those composite bodies. Yeah, locked into the next run. I was just looking at the truck schedule in a round of eight. Corey's got to keep stacking them playoff points. Roval, Talladega, and then Martinsville. Listen, we all know Martinsville's show. It's going to be a show for the truck series. It is for nearly a. every series, you know, the way this thing plays out. Roval, I don't know, I haven't seen another full-time

truck driver as good as him on road courses. So that should be pretty straightforward, but you just never know with restarts and stuff. So yeah, I think he's going to have to, you know, with him having so many playoff points, he's probably, he would have to have two and a half bad races of a three race round. You know, you'd have to finish like last and last and 20th. You know, like I just don't see a path to him not making the final four. It's possible, though. It is possible.

You just never know. Yeah, that's kind of what I was trying to highlight. I guess since we're on the racing stuff, we might as well keep it on that. You want to talk Cup Series here first? What about Xfinity? Connor Zillich. not a whole lot of surprise. Go look at the Xfinity NASCAR's website of the Xfinity schedule.

And Connor Zilich's face, he's won seven of the last eight. That's... He's on a roll. Yeah. It's wild. It is wild. You've forgotten about the Justin Algeyers and whatnot, right? Justin was kind of ruling the series of the last few years and it's like the fastest car most weeks.

And now it definitely has changed. And it changed. It seemed like right. after Kyle Larson got in his car and they won Texas. From that point, you know, whether Connor just was able to look at things from an outside perspective, maybe learned something from someone else driving his car of his style versus what Connor style is. Maybe he learned something there, but it seemed like whatever it is has clicked for him on the ovals. He's already had, he's had the dominance on the road courses, but the ovals itself, I mean,

Yeah. You think, you think about during this stretch, he's going on this run, Algar's there, and then Austin Hill lost 21 points, playoff points. So, like, it's just, everything's gone well for him. I didn't think about that. I didn't think about that. So where is the Xfinity series at? Do they still have one more regular season race?

Are they in the playoffs? No, no. They have this week, and then the round of 12 starts for them. Yeah, round of 12 starts at Bristol. anyone else in favor of making all the playoffs start at the same time too well then so you want more drivers in for Xenity and truck you can't start at all unless you expand to 16 for those two

why wouldn't you just eliminate the bottom two instead of the bottom four but even still we start XSini starts the round of 12 the night the Bristol race while Cup is ending that's the last race of the round of 16 for the Cup series. Ahead. The entry for fans to watch the playoffs is so confusing.

It is. Is this more confusing or Jared, you in that courtroom for three hours on Thursday? This actually. Because, hey, not to break to you, but trucks now have a round of 10, where they cut off two to go to around like eight and then cut off four. Do they really? Yeah.

I thought it was a typo. I'm looking at the NASCAR schedule. I thought it was a typo. Playoffs, round of 10 started at Darlington. Round of eight begins at the Roval. I don't know. All right. There's a brim of reason.

It just, we don't know it. Okay. So Zillich wins. It was very controversial in the way he won it. Jared, have you seen the replay? I got it pulled up here. Yeah. So I guess the uproar is right, is that they feel he didn't even attempt to make the first

corner. He had it in his mind the entire time that I'm just going to go ahead and blow this, run that chicane and see where I net out. So that does two things for him. One, they figure that, well, it's really not that big of a time loss. And two, it would be, well, now I'm going to avoid the corner where the incidents happen the most often. So you take yourself out of the opportunity of getting wrecked. What do you see?

This looks crazy because it is. And this is where, you know, I'm going to give my opinion on this. And Connor embraced it. He's like, don't hate the player, man. Well, he did it once prior, and NASCAR said it was clean. So they... So he just got faster at doing it the next time. And from what I understand is that Xfinity teams were practicing running that chicanine during practice.

They were planning on blowing turn one because the net time loss was not substantial. And especially if you're bottled up on a restart, it was actually a gain. So if you blow the chican, obviously you weren't in the driver's meeting, but if you blow the chican, there's no stop and start. What's the rule here?

In retrospect, that probably should be the case. However, no, it was, you just got to weave your way through those white barriers. I know Jerry's looking. You can't believe what you're seeing. Now I'm seeing, I can't pick out whose car this is, but there's three cars that are coming from

the back of the field that don't even bother running the corner and they just are weaving in and out of reason. So I traveled with Ty Gibbs to Darlington this weekend. He's like, oh yeah, Portland. That front chicane, he says, when it was raining and I ran there, he says, I had it in my mind the whole time. I'm just going dead straight. I, you know, into a turn one like that and more than likely in the rain, there's going to be spins and wrecks. He's like, I started 26th. And he says, I came out of that chican, almost in the top five. He did. He said when he ran it, he's like, I just said in my mind, that that's the better way, not the actual racetrack. And so he said, yeah, yeah, I could see why he did that. I did that years ago, and it worked out well. So they,

it's just, it's poor planning. Do they not run like, Sims about like how the time and apparently not. Apparently not. But kudos to them to do it. It's yeah. You know, there was a discussion, you know, I guess the argument is, is that, and I can't remember the whole Ross Chastain thing,

but I have seen it on social media. When he did it at indeed, NASCAR penalized him. And I think by the letter of what they, the law that they said, he did it correctly. But he did the, same thing. He said, screw this. I ain't taking turn one and getting wrist wrecked and all the

bottleneck and get damage. I'm just going dead straight. I'm going to take this alternative route and wherever I come out, I come out. And Chastain ended up well ahead of where he was supposed to be. And so NASCAR was like, whoa, whoa, no, you can't do that. Even though I think, and I know you all correct me on this, I think he did it the way they intended Friede to. do it. But then the next time they said, no, you've got to stop because they realized that it was beneficial to go ahead and just not run the racetrack. It's wild, right? That's wild. This is the 15th time I've watched. Also, some of these cars didn't even go around like the barriers. Travis, what's wrong with your voice? It's slightly gone. It's actually better. You heard the voice Sunday.

I did. I got a FaceTime from Charlie and Travis. They were coming home. from the Ohio State game. Man, you love doing the horns down, don't you? Yeah. You just... Well, because it's like... But those are good people. Oh, fantastic.

Had the ones that were around. Did you have good interactions with them again? Had two behind me. They were nice people. I didn't do horns down into their face or anything. Is it just a social media thing? Yeah, because it's just like, throw the horns down. Like they, you know, it's like, I think it's like a penalty if a team, a player does it

in the SEC. Really? Yeah. Oh. Well, not to get off subject, but we are off subject. How was it? How was the game? It was good. Charlie and I didn't sit together, and I think it was probably good. You didn't? No. I went with the, I took it with the friend, and Charlie was lower around some house. Was he with Nate? Yeah. And so I don't know if how I watch games would have been suitable for. Well, you know he would have had the phone on you 24-7 every day.

is like damn TMZ. I know. I watch him like... I can't get in a elevator without Charlie shooting a video. I know. Well, first he makes up, you know, fake news stats about me on Hoop Group Instagram that are not true, by the way. I was not two for 10. I was like three for seven or six. Like, I did my part. Yeah, he just, he tries to make me look back. I don't know if it makes him feel better or not. But then he does the same thing to you in our group chat. It's like sends you, sends videos of, of, of your worst moments or your worst looks. But I mean, so you're upset about the hoop group though? I mean, yeah, because I know he's, you know, I don't know who he thinks he's fooling, but he ain't going to lie straight to my face.

We're going to let that go. But no, it was a, it was fun trip. Nate and Charlie apparently are Whimps and didn't want to go out Saturday night. After the game, they didn't want to go out? We had some drinks at the Blackwell, which is a hotel right outside the stadium. Well, Nate didn't have any Charlie had won. Then went back to the hotel. I think they, like, napped. I met a friend went out to the bars.

They were wimps. You didn't see Will Howard, did you? I did see Will Howard on Friday. Did you say, do you remember me? I didn't talk to him now. He would only recognize that. Raspi voice the post beer voice I was relatively sober when I saw him so I don't think he'd recognize me yeah different guy yeah um well that's cool I hate I missed it gosh dang it I had

fomo seriously bad but I was uh I was working in also internet service was amazing could pull up I could stream the game I was trying to find something I was trying to figure out a stat or something what is it with our tracks that you cannot freaking use your phone. They've got to have things spread out through like High State has like modems or whatever throughout the stands. Wow. Wouldn't that be an experience, Jared?

Yeah, so I'm saying to share your experience while you're there. Replace the, bring back the pylons but just make them also cell towers at the same time. What a great idea. Instead of masking them as a tree, let's mask them as a pylon. That is a fantastic idea.

I love that. Speaking of Hoop Group, though, quickly, you got traded to an undefeated team. I did. And now they're defeated, right? And you're still winless. I did what I'm supposed to do on that team. We are our leader, our captain, Michael Ransom was injured, evidently from playing golf. Jesus, you go from Cush with the plane injury and now Ransom with the golf.

You know, he's our defensive leader. He's, you know, he certainly would have gave us more than the two points that Travis, our sub-gave. Davis, so. Not me. Not that Travis. I don't know. Anyway, yeah, we're, we're still three in one. We. Notice I said we? Um, moving on. Uh, cup racing? Cup racing. So, I mean, just, hold on. We got to put a bow on the Zillich thing. Is there any doubt that the best car won? No, or the best driver one. No. It's just, it's just not good. That's, that's, not good sport. Not on Connor's part.

I'm talking about like on the sport, like you got to do better than that. Like these chicanes have been exposed for a few years now and you haven't figured out a way to actually make them penalize you when you, you know, miss the track. Just poor planning, poor, poor lots of stuff. Yeah, it doesn't look good. Yeah. Cup race. Cup race Chase Brisco goes from

maybe the 35th fastest car in practice maybe to qualifying outside the pole got the jump on me Yeah what happened Did you Do you hear my radio or do you not? I do. Sometimes.

Yeah. Just on the initial start, I was like Go to the 45, let him know understand what his job is here on this initial start. Understand the job. And I look back and I take off and Tyler's just back there, just not even close to the rear bumper of my car. And so the 19 gets the jump.

We battle side by side. And unfortunately, the way the timing marks work, you revert back to when a caution is thrown, it reverts back to the previous scoring loop that your car crossed and the 19 was ahead of me. So at that point I'm like, God, dang it. Like, the initial start is so important because once you can get out front at Darlington, it's such, such an advantage until you get damage, which I had at one point.

We'll get to that in a minute. So he was able to control the beginning. I just kind of rode behind him for a little while there, wait on, you know, his tires to wear out. By the time they do wear out, they pit, you know, and then we do this whole thing all over again. and so the leader just has obviously a tremendous advantage and they just executed a flawless race on pit lane and Darlington has become that it is a qualifying race and an execution on pit road race nothing more than that that is what Darlington is and now has become their average pit stop was 9.7 seconds

yeah and it is hard for pit crews to do that every single stop I mean it's you know you more times than not you can do it and then you're still have the one stop that's a 10-5 right and you know i had we had our bad one and it was bad enough to take me from third to um 23rd 23rd with last car on the lead lap and but that was a that's what we call a blow-up stop that is you know all hell's broken loose and we don't have this isn't a bad stop this is a blow-up stop obviously we saw it with the 48 as well it is race changing pit stops what's impressive about the 19 is that they never even had that 10-0 or 10-5 10-0 was their slowest stop of the day right and so you never gave up the lead on pit road because of that and so thus you're trying to

for someone to try to overtake someone that is in control of the lead at that track, with it being so narrow and the car being what it is in traffic, it's just qualifying and execution. Those two things are the number one factor in the Southern 500 winner. And TV kept bringing it up that the code number ones. TV kept bringing up that, hey, when some guy leads 250 laps here, they usually don't win the race. and I think it's just highlighting that something,

there's many, many, many opportunities for you to just not be perfect. Yes. To give up the lead. That's right. Yeah. And the ones that find themselves up front during the course, you know, at the end of the race, usually are the ones that have just chipped away at being good. Others, you know, damaging their cars or having wrecks and or bad pit stops.

You know, you just have, if you just have a solid day at Darlington, you can usually find yourself with a really good finish. Um, unfortunately for us, um, there was two, two key moments. One was, um, obviously the pit stop that took us from the front to the back. And, and I knew, listen, I resigned. I'm no quitter. I'm no quitter. I knew instantly, though, that that was the end of it for us for, for having a chance to win the race. Um, but let me go back a little bit. So before that, the restart where I actually took the lead, Tyler Redick did do his job well on that restart, but almost too well. So if you look, me and did they show it well on TV? Me and Briscoe hit hard. Yes, they did later in the replay. Yeah. We hit hard. Wheel to wheel and it bent the damn toe link pretty good. My wheel kind of went from, you know, I usually like running it, you know, my straight up. mark, you know, if straight up is 12, I usually like for my line to be at 11.

It moved itself to 1 o'clock or like 1230. So I knew that, man, you know, and instantly I went, my car I could feel was tracking differently and just not optimum. And so that's when I went from, you know, I was leading, chase passing me back pretty quickly. I realized my car was in trouble. We fell back to, I think third, it might have been fourth. we pitted third i think third or fourth bobbed past you and that's when and that's when uh then we had

that blow up stop right right then so there's two things right to back to back in that short window that derailed the day and when i got back there in traffic now again my car was not optimized simply because i did have some damage um holy crap man you're just trying to pass back there and i looked and i was like what's it 24 doing back here what what is the 12 doing back here what what is the 12 doing back You know, because I was 23rd, but they were 21st, 22nd. I'm like, what the hell's going on? And then I saw, and we were all just like really bad. And it just, it's that dirty air at that track.

I mean, there's just nowhere for the air to escape at Darlington. So it's, the air is just so turbulent when you're back there in 20th that your car drives horrendous, worse than any other racetrack that we can go to. And it just took me the rest of the race to march back to the top 10. And I mean, it was a grind. One position here, one there. Get me one back on pit lane. It was just such a freaking grind to get back to the top 10.

And it took, you know, 100 or 200 laps or something like that to do it. It seems like the strategy helps though, right, that you can maximize your ability to drive on these old tires or stay out a little longer. Yeah, as long as your car and or the driver can do a good job of maximizing that long run pace, unfortunately for us, the damage that I got during the restart, you know, it just, it hurt our long run speed. Certainly, certainly, certainly hurt our long run speed. and so then we're a little bit hamstrung because you're like gosh you know I got to do something

different if I want to gain a chunk of positions but but I'm now handicapped by the card that's only going to it's only going to run for 20 25 laps and then it's going to you know be in big trouble so it just it was a unfortunate day but I was very happy to get out of there with the top 10 considering all the mayhem that happened to the playoff cars there Yeah, based on the damage you had to your car, do you feel like you finished and performed to its capability in the end, or do you think you over-performed it? I thought that that was about the limit.

Now, our car I felt was very, very good under green flag pit stops, but just, you know, when we had them all bunched up, I could just feel my car was not tracking properly. I just was struggling a little bit on restart. So I felt like seventh was like the ceiling. And truthfully, when I resign myself to not winning after I go to the back, I still got 200 laps to go, but I'm low that I'm not going to win. I'm thinking top 10. Like, I got 200 laps to gain 13 positions here.

That's the new goal. That's where I'm going to try to get back to. And I'm happy we did. I know the answer, but I'm going to ask it anyways. It's another race in recent weeks where the pit crew has. messed up massively, where's your concern at, level at? I don't have a huge concern because they're capable, right? And other than that one stop, you know, I mean, I threw, you know, I threw everything at him.

The 22 picked behind us on pit lane. And so then I had to come around him for most of the day. And then I'm trying to maximize, you know, my speed coming in. So then I'm sliding up against the left. side wall and like I didn't make their jobs very easy. And they still performed really, really well other than that one stop. But that's just that is the difference. And are you going to contend for the win that day or not?

And that's just modern day NASCAR. 22 loves picking behind you, correct? Yeah, it's a strategy. The reason that teams choose to pick behind fast cars is because they think they're not going to run in front of that car all day. That's, you know, I'm not making that up at a thin air. That's what crew chiefs do is that if you don't feel like you're very good, you pick behind someone you think is good, and therefore you think you'll have an opening out all day long because that guy is going to be gone by the time you finish up your pit stop.

And not only that, there's an advantage to being that far down pit road because he doesn't have to accelerate that far before he gets to the end of the time. line. NASCAR 101 teams draft pit box choices after qualifying. After qualifying, exactly right. So as the number one poll sitter, the guy with the fast qualifying, we have the first option of pit road. So we always pick, you know, usually 99% of the tracks.

We're picking pit stall one because it's a very short distance from your pit stall to the actual mark where they time you and lock you into your position. The advantage of stall two is that usually whoever qualifies on the pole is probably going to run pretty well that day. So people are thinking, well, I'm going to pick behind this guy that I know is going to run up front all day. And then I'll get my opening out and I'm also going to have a short distance to that timing mark. So it's a loser's strategy, but it is a strategy and it is beneficial if it works out the way you plan. you were able to get seventh place and kind of disappointing in a way but when you get out the car and then see where the other playoff drivers landed and then where you're at in the standings

did that kind of help make things a little better for you yes I suppose so um I hate you know leaving points on the table but I mean there's probably 13 guys saying damn I wish my days were better so it's you got to put it all in perspective right being in the position I'm in now up 43, 43. I could look at this chart that you spend so much time doing, like, he doesn't believe in, you know,

digital. He likes to write it. So I like about you, Tribe. You're old school. 43 up, absolutely. I would, I'll take that. And what was our discussion before? It's, would you take, turns out I would have taken that 3-3-3. Yeah, yeah, it was, if, would you take third in the first stage,

third and the second stage? And I know it didn't make sense in my post race. I was so confused. I know. I get it. I delivered it. I delivered it. I delivered it so poorly. But essentially we were talking about at the beginning of the day. He's like, okay, now the playoffs start. Now this is a three race season. And points matter. So would you take a day where you finish third in each stage and third in

the race right now and don't run the race? Or do you roll the dice and say, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to have a chance to win, but I could have a chance to have a day like Alex Bowman and finish 31st also. What would you, what would you take, Traff? This format, you got to take the 333, right? I think the person that this discussion was with, I think he and Travis are cut from the same cloth. I think Travis going for the win. I'm going for, if I'm you at Darlington, I'm going for the win. If I'm somebody else. But do you know the percentages are not in your favor? Just it was. It worked out today. It worked out yesterday to where, you know, once the person who got the lead,

they just stranglehold it for the rest of the day. That's a possibility, but there's also a possibility. You, one of your 10 stops is a, is a bad one and you've just blown that 3-3-3 finish. Yeah, but you're really good at this track. I get it. I get it. It's a tough. It's, it's, I love throwing out these hypotheticals because it's meant to also because it resets. If you told me that the points carry over after the first three, then it would be different. I think you're probably right. I think you're right because I think it's the first race. It's not the last race where it's like, all right, we need a good solid day here to move on.

Right. It's, you still got two more chances, right? So I think you're right. In the hypothetical, you would probably, in my position, you would roll the dice and say, Let's just see how this turns out. Because you've got room to give. Right. Yeah, I was going to ask that, it's like, you know, if you're the 11 car,

finishing 7th at Darlington is perfectly fine for you if your strategy is just to move on in the next round. But it is. It's also one of your best tracks and you gave up a chance to win. I'm not playing it safe. I'm just, that was just a hypothetical of, you know, would you take this and get out of here right now, not run the race. I was like, hmm, let's think about that.

But you're right. I want to capitalize on the wins, and obviously this was a great opportunity starting on a pole at my favorite and one of my better tracks, but just didn't work out. You also had clutch issues? Yeah, we've got all kinds of clutch or shifting stuff that's, no, not been just gremlins that are like rear in its head. I don't know. It's weird.

The first few years I've had no issues. Clutch or shifting or anything like that. And just over the last year, yeah, just had some issues. My car popped out of gear quite a few times entering the corner. That was not fun. I don't know if you can answer us, but is this something that other JGR or 2311 cars are dealing with? They are. Yep.

So is that more, that's a bigger concern then if it was, or if it, it's more man I can't be there's no way I can be consumed with this I can't control I got too many other things but that's why I I'm trying to be you know as very loose

in this playoff as possible is that I'm just there's no way I can let every little negative thing that happens in the playoffs like take your emotions one way or another other too far. I got to be loose and free and just say, you know what, I did the best I could. If the engine blows, the engine blows, oh well, there's nothing I could do about that.

And that's, I think, the difference between fan who just watches a sport and someone that's actually out there, the mindset and what you have to do versus what a fan goes through. It is. It's hard. Yeah. Fandum, as you know, it's just, you know, you live and hang on every moment. It's like you watch an Ohio State game, you know, but, you know, I just found what works best for me is be, be loose with it and just be okay knowing I gave it my best shot. Now, there was a few things I wish I could have changed throughout the race and, I mean, maybe got a better initial start. Maybe, you know, not, you know, well, not spun my tires on that restart. Then the 45 hits me. I get knocked in the 19, damages the car.

But then what does it all matter? If I go back to 23rd, it's over anyway. So who knows? Sol the ifs and butts, but they're like we talked about, there was a lot of teams wishing they could do this race over with. How does Briscoe go from, as you said, being one of the worst cars in practice to dominating this race like you did? Good overnight adjustments.

You got to give them their due there that, you know, they made some good changes. and James is really clicking on all cylinders with that team and seems like him and Chase are in a good spot and starting to understand each other's and their needs quite a bit more. But then the clean air. I think the clean air is the biggest thing by far

is it can just completely change your race car when you have nobody out in front of you versus just, I mean, just putting one car. you know when I was in second behind him I'm like holy crap man couldn't believe the difference of you know whether I was directly behind him or not just it's crazy how how turbulent that air is there what changes can be made overnight you know you're you're somewhat boxed in um from what you initially build in your car setup like you can't change um like springs and things like that um But there's little fine adjustments that you can do inside, which they do usually on Sunday mornings for a Sunday afternoon race.

The teams will have times where they're doing final adjustments. So the team gets the information from the driver. They then, you know, put this in the computer, okay, we need to fix blank, blank, blank and blank. And the computer usually spits out these things are what's best to fix that area of track that the driver needs. and then it's up to the team to implement that and change it in the car. And then they see if the results work. But he was quick and qualifying, obviously. Only beat by you.

Yeah, he's never, even when he's had bad practices or even races where they didn't have a lot of speed, they've always qualified well. Right from the very beginning they've been qualifying well. And I'd love to know, like the 19, didn't they get the last three, poles of the season last year with Truex? Like the last three races in the season, I think Truex had three poles in a row. It's just like, trust me, folks, I don't know. We'd, we'd do it, but I don't know. There's just qualifying really, really, really well. And it certainly helps, it gives you a big leg up on your weekend when you can go out there and qualify well. You think this car is a threat for the final four this year, the 19 team? I do. I think that, you

know, they have all the tools available to them. Chase is certainly capable enough. So, yeah, I, you know, I don't think it's necessarily a sleeper team anymore. I think this is a team that certainly you could look at and say, you know, it's one of the upper echelon, you know, add it to the top four or five that have been fastest all year. You could probably add that on onto that. But, you know, Bubba's making it his charge as well into that conversation of week in, week out performance. Is this the deepest field? I mean, I think we've said that last year,

but I just feel like a lot of guys right now are surging forward. It's the most robust field as far as capable teams on speed. I talked about last week there's four or five that I thought stood out as being a little faster and better than everyone else. But you've got these surging teams, like the 19 and the 23, you know, the Blaney, Larson, William, myself.

We've been fast all year, but you've got these other teams starting to surge now. And so, yeah, I think it deepens the field and certainly makes it a little bit more wide open. And what makes it more wide open than anything is that, you know, these bad days. I mean, you know, now

you got Bell only plus 11, Elliot, plus 9, VG lost his entire gap to the playoffs. So he's going to have a tough road to make it. I think he's going to need some guys to have some bad days, which they did, but he didn't have the best day either. Ligano minus three. Gateway is probably going to be a good track for Penske,

so I expect him to run well. It's just very interesting. The Hendrick is not. been good at Gateway. You know, not looking too far forward, but it's, do they turn it around? Because a few of their cars, they need it. They missed it this past weekend. I think 17th was their best.

Yeah, I just don't know. I know that's what the result says. But if I had to guess, I would say the five probably bent a toe link at some point. I only can say that because I looked at his right rear quarter panel versus my, I know I bent mine, and his right rear was worn out far more than what mine was. So, you know, if you have damage, it's the hidden boogeyman that you don't see, right?

You wouldn't, my car probably looked fine on to you. The five probably looked fine. All it takes is one little solid hit on that wheel. You bend it slightly one way or another, and that car's performance loses a ton of speed. And so we don't even know in the field how many people had damage that you just didn't even see. Byron, I don't know. I think the team kind of conceded they just missed it, right? I didn't, you know, he dominated in the spring.

You got to think that they didn't veer off from that too far. But that just shows you the difference between being out front and where he was, starting 10th or 11th, he just never was even part of it because how different your car drives back there. So you mentioned how important it is with damage to the wheels, right? But not necessarily the rest of the car

because Tyler Reddick, we glossed over the Josh Barry incident to start, but Tyler Reddick drove 306,7 laps with Josh Barry's tire markings on his door. And I think when you watch that replay, you would have thought, ooh, Reddick's probably done here. He's had some significant contact with Barry. If you don't know what you're looking,

at? Yes. But when I look at it, I'm looking at it and I see, you know, of course, under caution, all the drivers, by the way, we're looking at, we're trying to find a video monitor because whenever there's a caution, we're trying to see, who's in it, how to start? Like, you know, that's, you'll typically see me under caution. You know, if they have an in-car camera on me, I'm looking to the left while I'm on the front straightaway trying to see, you know, you know, rubber neck and trying to find out what's going on. I looked and the 45 never hit a tire, never hit a wheel. So he was fine.

Body, that thing ain't going anywhere. So the only thing that, you know, he had concerns of is when he hit the right rear on the wall, it was such a glancing blow. It wasn't likely to do any damage. But if you hit that hard enough, it'll knock the tail over to the left. Next thing you know, you've got some aerodynamic problems. But when I saw it, all I saw was a hit in the door. Yeah, it gives you a tire mark.

It actually looks cool on TV. But he hit no tires. And so there was no concern. I don't think that he had any damage. When you're looking for the monitors in the race, is that because you're just interested in what's happening in the race? Or are you also scouting your opponents and maybe what happened to them? More just looking.

You can't gain any advantage. Yeah. I mean, we're sitting around there. we're running 50 miles an hour at pace car speed, you know, we've got to do something. So we got to find out how the wreck started, who started it, and who's in it? Just for our curiosity. Do we want to run through the playoffs standings now?

Talk about a few guys who either had a good night or not a good night at Darlington? Yeah, I mean, the hindric guys, obviously, the result was bad. I think they were better than that. I think they're getting a, you know, the fans are getting a little, to Overselles on like, wow, they were, they performed 17th or worst. They did not. The nine obviously got caught on his strategy, unfortunately, by that yellow. That hurt him. Larson more than likely had tolling damage if I had to guess. Byron wasn't good. And then the 48, I don't know. They had that awful pit stop with the hose wasn't plugged in. But like was he any good anyway?

It qualified bad to start. Yeah, so. I don't know. Surely it altered the result. Wow, it was like a skipped record there. Surely it changed his result, but I just don't know whether the 48 was really going to be that good anyway. So what did it, you know, if he finished 31st,

was he going to finish 25th? I don't know. I need to see his times to see whether he was actually capable or running. good speed or not. Yeah, he'd still be double digits below the cutline. That's right. Josh Barry, not a good night for Josh Barry. Was this a second race in a row?

He wrecked right off the bat off a turn two? Then he did it in the spring. If I remember, right? Or maybe it wasn't early in the race, but he definitely did the same thing in the spring to where he crashed. Now, in Josh Barry's defense, it's very hard to control a car

that bottoms out the way his bottomed out and you could hear it. Like, it hit hard and he completely lost control of it. Yeah. It's going to be really hard to save a car that bottoms out as bad as his did. Are you surprised that more cars weren't collected in this? Very. I mean, there was more collected, but you couldn't see them.

I didn't realize to watch in some of these instant replays after that, like, there were a bunch of cars in the back that got spun and that, you know, I didn't really see. There was a couple arc or break situations where someone was not slowing down very good. But overall, I don't know, it's surprising that more were not caught in this.

But Darlington is one of those tracks where typically you have an issue and you go down to the left towards the inside wall and so that's where he ended up. Some other guys on this list, Boba Wallace, Tyler Redick obviously had a great night. Reddick went from below the cut line to now plus 35 on the cut line. Yeah, 2311 had a really good day.

You know, Bubba, I thought right in the first stage was super strong. He passed us and was kind of catching the 19 before he pitted. But I don't know how he got back. He probably had one mediocre stop and then it put him probably, I saw him towards the middle of the pack. You know, when I say middle of the pack, like middle of the lightly lap cars, like 10th to 12. Right, right. And it was like at that point, again, you might want to reset your goals. If you can get back to the top five where he ended up six. But like, that's pretty much your ceiling at that point, folks.

So good day for that 23 team. You know, they're showing good speed most weeks now. Reddick got back on the horse of speed. I thought, man, I thought he was going to pass the 19. I thought he was leaps and bounds faster than he was at the end of the race, but obviously the dirty air and whatnot, he wasn't going to get around him. Yeah, you thought he was going to pass him? I feel like if anybody that knew what the car in the lead's going to do would be you.

Yeah, it seemed like the 19's long run ability is where their Achillesia was, and it seemed like that's where the 2311 cars were strong. The legacy cars were also very. strong in the long run. But it just kind of worked out where the cautions fell and the pit sequences and all that the 19 really never had to run very long on tires. The last run was the longest run of the day. I think they ran on it. But again, you've got to be a lot faster than the car in front of you to pass it Darlington. It just is going to be hard for the 45 to overcome that. It looked like Reddick's best chance at the lead was before the Derek Krause.

caution that that's when he was starting to reel briscoe in and i know in the briscoes post race on the tarotony talked about i may have you know given up too much uh early on in the run and i didn't have as much left when reddick was coming and the caution obviously saved him and they could yep race differently in that last run despite it being the longest but yeah not enough time it's yeah it's all these little margins all these little things factor in who ends up winning these races. And Briscoe's moving on. Not a playoff team, but Legacy Motor Club also had a stellar night with Eric Jones and John Hunter, both top fives. They did. Really, really solid day for them. And it's probably one of their best company days, you know, non-super

Speway company days that they've had. And it seemed like I talked about earlier, the long run is where that team, that's where the speed were in those cars. So, uh, great run by them. Um, John Hunter actually, I think started in the back. So, you know, good, good charge towards the front there. If you look at your notepad, it'll tell you starting position. Oh, really? Wow. He started 30th. Wow, you did that too. That's nice. A little strategy on John Hunter's part. Right, Travis? Uh, was it? Don't recall. I definitely don't recall because I was in the race. I was too busy tweeting about the 11 team.

They're fine, they're fine, they're fine. One thing I like about Darlington, and it gets me every time, especially on Redic here, I'm watching the replays, which reminded me of it. Darlington is at one track where the guy who goes into three and four and dives lower. It feels like it always gives that optical illusion

that, ooh, he's going to get side by side with him, but the car on the top always. Yeah, it's just you get such a big run when you're running up high. It does. You definitely put yourself in a vulnerable position, especially on the last lap if you choose to run the top, because they can get to you if they want to get to you. Yeah.

And I was actually quite surprised, the 45, because the 19 was so close to the wall, all it would have taken was a tiny nudge, and it would have pinned the 19 on the wall where he would have had wall glue and couldn't have got off of it. That would have made it wildly interesting coming to the start finish line. But I think Tyler's like, you know, I'm not going to risk taking out a Toyota teammate here to win this race.

We're taking himself out. Right. He gets sideways. Right. Late in the race, Hosevar and Chastain were kind of battling and you were behind them. I was. Were you just like I'm, let them just do their thing? No, I was trying to keep up.

I was. I was trying to keep up. but they were side by side for like two or three lapses. It was actually a good race to watch. But yeah, it seemed like Chastain was struggling a little bit on the short run. The 77 was fast on the short run and then they flipped. But yeah, I mean, it was tight. It's a tight racetrack, tight racing, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

Anything else you want to touch on on this? this race. No, I just chastain, I mean, if we're going to talk about, try to talk about all the playoff drivers. I thought that was a strong run by the one car. They got mired in traffic there. Same thing. You know, they were up front, top five. Next thing you know, they're, they get mired in that 10th, the 11th, and they just get stuck there. Well, they also didn't get enough fuel in the car. Yeah, I asked him after the race. I got out and asked him, and said, man, were you blowing up? Because I noticed all the sudden he was going really slow down the straightways because I was trying to I pass someone for eight and then I'm like all right

I got 15 laps to get chastain here he's probably a second and a half in front of me so I make a hard push I'm like I want to get there want to get there and all of a sudden with like two laps to go or three laps to go he just starts going really slow down the straightaway I'm like oh shit he's blowing up I'm going to get this spot but I talked to him after and he said yeah just didn't get quite enough fuel in the car. Luckily, they made it because that could have been, I mean, he's plus 21 now. I mean, you could have lost, I think he finished 10th or 11th. I should know this because it's in front of me, right? He finished 11th. You know, he could have lost 15 spots. Had he had a pit for fuel very easily. Next thing, you know, he's now right on the cut line. So, so Lugano, Dylan, Bowman,

Barry currently below the cut line. Any movers? Anyone going to get above that cut line coming out of the gateway? I think Legano does. I mean, Barry's part of the same family of Penske that have been very good at that flat track.

Bowman at 19, I don't know. I just you're going to have to show me more speed and certainly I just feel like it's not a great track for Hendrick. Now I could again, this team is not just sitting around and saying, oh, darn, this is one of our crappy tracks.

I hope we do well. They're working hard on it. So it'll be interesting to see what kind of speed they bring. Well, you think about it also, for a driver to move up the cut line, someone has to move down and outside of SVG of Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell, Cendrick, Chastain, Blaney's Lila. It's like, who are you going to be? That's a tough.

That's a tough group. You know, the Cendric Bell Elliott is one that you think that, okay, there's three of the top ten. know if you're just kind of playing the race out naturally. Yeah, maybe you can take advantage of SVG here at this track, but I mean, you have to do it by a lot. Yeah. And then overtake Lugano while you're at it. Gateway this upcoming weekend, practicing qualifying Saturday, 430 on True TV,

and the race Sundays at 3 p.m. on the USA network. Mm-hmm. some other off track news from this week a little lawsuit update here yeah uh you got to attend you came on thursday you said you wanted to you know as a media member i guess you could call yourself like you know you just wanted to kind of know what was going on before we get into the actual trial can we get into that doesn't happen until December 1st anyway can we get at the injunction can we into courtroom attire. Thank.

Jared. Is this in the Denny Bros? I thought, I thought also just texted. Okay, this is equally on me as it is on you, though. I just, because last week when we told,

you were, you told me you were like, yeah, I think you should come. It would just be a good experience as to, as someone who's on the show, right, just to hear this for myself.

Right. And I said, what should I wear? Right, can't tell you, right? I know things that the public doesn't know. And I can't tell you those things because it's confidential. So I said, why don't you just go for yourself? Right. Hear it for yourself and you draw your own conclusions. So on Travis's topic though, I said, okay, well, like, I've never been to court before. I should know this. It's basic knowledge, I feel like, but I said, oh, what do you

wear? And you're like, oh, just wear whatever. I took that to heart. I did not say, we're whatever. I never said that. Jared dressed like he's going to Billy Bobbs. He was. You were a little. It was not. You had the Canadian tuxedo basically on. It wasn't great. I'm glad that Austin picked me up and I opened up his

passenger door and he's wearing a suit more or less. And I'm like, I think I've got to go change. So you did? You went back and changed? I mean, obviously you did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very, very, very, very, very happy Yeah, that decision.

I wouldn't have went in for the record. If you would have seen everyone in suits and stuff. Yeah, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have went in. Okay. But I had different, I had just had different expectations for what this was. That was wrong. I probably shouldn't have, but I, because it's a public case, I thought it, I don't know. So what was your, what was it?

It's public casual? I don't know. I don't know. That's the dress code. Public casual. So what was it like for you, Jared, to be in there? Because I've, I've seen what reporters. have tweeted, but you were there firsthand. Yeah, it was just interesting to hear both sides. And

honestly, when each side is speaking, the lawyers are very good at this, obviously, but when each side is speaking, you can easily find yourself on both sides of this. When Jeffrey Kessler is talking, I'm like, okay, wow, Kessler's got a great argument here. This is, this sounds really sound. But then when it goes the NASCAR side. It's like, oh, okay, I can see that perspective too in a way and whatever they're arguing. So that was interesting. I can't imagine being a jury member. And all that both lawyers and teams are going to have to go through to make sure that they give every bit of information they want to this jury. Yeah. You know, it was, you know, there was obviously some public, you know, things that became public on both sides. What I feel

generally speaking, not generally, but actual speaking, is that, you know, we provided documents and we provided evidence based off of, you know, the case itself, the antitrust case. They provided text messages of our ownership group talking about investments and other things and I don't know casinos and golf courses like I don't know what that has to do with the case but you know eventually you know there's going to be a point where you're going to have to answer the things that you've done yeah a few things that stood out and Matt weaver posted these as well Is a quote from Matt Waver. At one point, Yates said the teams were welcome. Yates being NASCAR's lawyer and team said the teams were welcome to create their own series and Judge Bell interrupted to say, your clients have made that impossible.

Yeah, you know, what he's saying there, I can't, I'm not going to talk a ton about it. But, but yeah, that's essentially what we've said this whole time is that through restrictions and whatnot and strategic thinking on their end, that they've made. any competitive series impossible to start. Yeah. And be successful. An additional point here that we've had reported was that NASCAR document stated that the collective teams asked for 720 million, what the document characterizes, a third of industry revenue. Kessler said the initial counter was for 450 million and that NASCAR ultimately gave the teams that signed 430 million.

NASCAR says it pays more in team payment percentage that Formula One pays to Concord. agreement teams in the form of 70% to 63% in 2023 and 69% to 62% in 2024. NASCAR claims a payment increase to teams in 2025 of 62%. That was another thing that I took away that I found interesting is that NASCAR used a term relating to F1 that they paid NASCAR teams equal to or more of. profit revenue? Yeah, it was not a little slide of hand, tricky, it was not a defined term.

Right. Yeah, what we know, right, is only public information, not regarding this case, but just in general, F1 shares in 50% of all revenue, 50% of all F1 revenue from all revenue, not just TV goes to the teams. why they get hundreds and hundreds of millions in NF1. We share a far less percentage than that in just the TV.

So again, I don't, you know, I think, you know, where the numbers came from, I'm really not sure. It's obviously there's a discrepancy there that the judge said we're going to have to work out. Speaking of numbers, Jared, you said that NASCAR countered with 450 and then it was signed at 430. So the actual sign deal became less than the original counter? Correct. Correct. That was, yes.

That is true. I went to school for journalism, but that doesn't seem to be adding up a whole lot. The hearing on Thursday was for the injunction to sell the charters, which Judge Bell was going to rule on this week. And then NASCAR then said, we're not going to sell them. I'm still trying to figure that one out, Trave, and we're trying to figure that out. But yes, they presented their argument of why they wanted to sell our charters. And we said that, no, you cannot or should not do that until after the case is over with. And then they changed their minds the next day.

I don't know if changed their mind. They made a decision. They made a decision to say, okay, well, we'll change our thinking on that. And so we need to respond to that. I think we'll do it tomorrow. Another point here, Travis, that I picked out of this case, it was Operation Gold Codes, which from my perspective seemed like a plan to eliminate the teams entirely if they didn't sign the agreement.

Yeah. Yeah. That's very, very unfortunate. And obviously, you know, it, yeah, it's, I don't, I don't know how to explain it, but it's just, it's not good. And it's certainly something that was unfortunate to see. That's all I can really say about it. It's just, yeah.

Bad deal. Your team files, you just said a response, possibly tomorrow, and then Judge Bell said that he was going to rule on this sometime later in this week. After that, what is the next step in this process? I'd have to look at this schedule, but I don't know truthfully. I'd have to kind of look, but I'm sure there's other motions or summary judgments. There's, you know, counterclaims, things like that that they'll all be, you know, they'll start to be decisions made, you know, basically the whole discrepancy of, you know, if they say they're paying us more than F1 and we say, no, you're not, you have to

work, usually try to work that out to where it becomes factual before the actual case, or you're not arguing it in the middle of, you know, because there's no time to really do, you've got to do the work now to figure out what is actual factual and what is not, that way you can go into the case with facts, not just whatever you say. The jury be, and both sides are held to that, you know, both sides are held to that standard of like you're going to have to, we're going to have to come to facts, not just, you know, hearsay at this point. Ahead of the trial.

Right. Yeah, that's, to make it easier for. Neither side can present opinions. That's right. Yeah. That was an interesting takeaway that I had listening. sitting in the audience and listening is that I'm listening to this with somewhat of a knowledge of NASCAR and auto racing

and different serieses and what's not. And, you know, things are being said, whereas if a jury is listening to this who doesn't have a knowledge of auto racing and the different leagues and whatnot, are they going to be able to understand what's being discussed as well as I am? Yeah, I think the difference is that, each side only had 20, 30 minutes to present.

You know, there, you know, here's where we think our facts are. The other side says, no, this is where our facts are. And then the judge makes a decision, right? So you only got 20, 30 minutes to do it. But when we go to the actual trial, we've got a few weeks. So you can slow things down and break it down quite a bit more. And like, you know, I think there was, maybe six total documents we had.

That's all you can do in that amount of time. There's much more that when you have more time, you've got time to explain things more and present more evidence, but it just takes, you're restricted by essentially kind of the schedule that the court gives you because they can't be in there all day, right? They've got lots of other stuff to do. And so, you know, it's just part of the process. You've got so many things that you have to do during your week.

Your owner and driver and kids and everything, how do you not let this consume you? Because this is a big thing. It is a big thing, no doubt about it. But I don't know. I've always done this, right? You know, the first time I got on track after we were in court on Thursday was practice and qualifying and look how that turned out.

I have a different switch. I've always had a different switch that can turn on and turn off when I need it. And when it comes to the weekends and I've got to be a race car driver for that 11 team, that is my focus. It's probably your sanctuary where once you put the helmet on, no one's talking to you. Absolutely. No question about it. I enjoy being at the track in that mode of like, well, this is all I've done for the last 21 years, right?

It's, you know, NASCAR racing. So now I know my process, know what I got to do. I know how to prepare. This is my time. Now, during the week, all hell breaks loose. But it does for everyone. I just, I know how to turn that switch on when I get to the track. I got to kick out of Mike Ford on Saturday.

Your poll winner for the Southern 500, Denny Hamlin, because why would he be? You're right. Yeah. Love the, yeah. It just always works itself out that way, right? I told, you know, many people a long time ago, I'd love the chaos. And yeah, of course, of course, you know, why wouldn't we be here, you know, up on the stage, you know, a few days after? I got a review here from Zach Lee Drums, 9145 on YouTube.

As a diehard Blaney fan, I've never been a Denny guy. however off track podcast Denny is awesome which has made me a fan on track if the 12 isn't in it let's go 11 awesome well appreciate that um thank you for tuning in um i don't have anything else we got st louis coming up one year anniversary of lulu oh the f*** bad logged out bad luck they have once since then i know she's a winning dog you got two top fives there is that right Yeah. It feels like a, it feels like 10 years ago since we race there. Like even New Hampshire, I can't remember the last New Hampshire race.

I guess I'll get into that mode when it's time, but was it, it was rain too, wasn't it? God, it felt like 10 years ago. I guess it was only a year ago. But anyway, I'm looking forward to it. You know, we got another mile, what is this, a mile flat track at Gateway? way another chance another opportunity we're not going to take the three three three okay yeah maybe maybe bristol even though i don't want to you got to you got to stop get that out of your mindset no i just it depends on where you are you listen i'm racing this freaking format i'm not racing you know anything

else but this i mean you format you could realistically lock yourself into the round of 12 this weekend Can't you? You're plus 43 right now? Ah, you're right, I could. Right. That'd be awesome to go to Bristol locked in. Then I could just put them up on the dash and just let it eat. That's what I want to do. I don't want to have to race points at freaking Bristol. Anyway.

Good stuff. Yeah, we'll appreciate you all tuning in. We will see you after St. Louis.