Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Racing In San Diego Was A Success For NASCAR

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Denny and Jared are coming from an undisclosed hotel room somewhere in San Diego for this week's Actions Detrimental. Denny gives his thoughts on why NASCAR's road course race at Coronado was a huge success and why this week's race felt like a big event. The guys break down some of the race's noteworthy moments, including Connor Zilisch and SVG's continued struggles. Did Noah Gragson deserve to be wrecked by Kevin Magnussen? Was the race shorter than drivers expected? Will we see a return to San Diego next season? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Travis, anything I got from the peanut gallery back there? Um, no. I'm glad the media center didn't get mad at me for cheering. You cheered? A little bit. Gosh, you're ruthless. 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. you are not. This spoils a victory for Jared Allen. He's got better luck to brick and drink to win. I know, you do. Two trophies missing from your collection,

the 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 Actus Determinal here in San Diego. We're in room 4-1. I don't really. You're staying for three more days. We have Travis right back here.

He's hanging on my couch. This is the best we can do. We're live on location here on the island in San Diego. I drove the Bob's machine this weekend, by the way. Any of you all that don't know, this accident's detrimental is brought to you by Bob's. Discount furniture. It's one of the fastest growing. furniture stores in the country.

Bob's good. It was actually pretty good today. So we're thankful for Bob's and everything they do for me, JGR. And while the Andrew 50 is over, we're still celebrating the 250th birthday and the furniture. And the furniture America has waited for for 250 years. If any of you guys need anything from your living room,

your kitchen bedroom, Bob's has it all. at Bob's discount furniture. Make sure you go check them out at a location near you. Mybobbs.com also. So thank you to Bob's for bringing this on location. Actually, detrimental to you. Trier, are you just going to hang out there for the whole time?

Yeah, pretty much. Awesome. This is just the most camera time Travis has got all season on this show. And Shockery, he has an OSU shirt on. Is that Jeremiah? No, it's Chris a lot of being here at Wilson. Okay. I don't know. This was quite the race today, right? Quite the event. I thought it was like a good race too, though. As far as road course races go, I thought this was

better than Koda, better than some other road course races we have. I think what makes it good or made it good was it was very similar to Chicago and there was lots of passing zones at this track. Like, you can defend, like at Watkins Glen, there's essentially like two to three, you know, legit passing zones. Here, I don't know, I felt like it was like five. So it was a very racy track. I thought that they did a really good job planning this track out with the landscape that

they actually had to work with. Were drivers involved in the planning of this track? Or did they bring this to you and say, here's our street course. Here's our road course on Naval Base. Yeah, I don't, not that I'm aware of. Yeah, not that I'm aware of. You're just going to keep going in and out of the shot. Oh, he's going to go get some ice.

We do have some cocktails here waiting for us when we're done. We're celebrating an 11-team win. Where is he's going to get ice? I think there was a lot to celebrate today. We set the goals for myself. It was looking like it was going to be better than the goals, but a very untimely caution for myself. I mean, I was on a damn pit road line.

And he's like, you're not going to make it. And I'd steered left and didn't make it on pit road. So you're not going to make you weren't going to make it. So there's a there's a there was about, let's call it 50 yards, maybe a little more than that. Between like where the wall is that takes you to pit road and then the actual start of the speed line. So I think I had to be committed to the yellow line that starts pit road. but once I get inside that wall, there's no going back. You know what I mean?

So I had to make a quick decision to stay on the racetrack. So team was on top of that. Had to restart, I think 19th or 20th on that last restart and only could get back to 14th. But still, I felt competitive. I thought we were really good in the long run. And we had decent speed, a lot better speed than what we had Friday. And certainly Saturday.

Gosh, I wish I could redo qualifying all over again. Did tire saving play much of a factor in this for you and your team's performance? I think every driver had to do a certain level of tire saving. It seemed like it went away as the race went on. The first run of the day, gosh, look at my man. Look at me. Not coffee. The first run of the day had the most fall off.

And then as the race went on, this is very typical for what we see when it comes to like road courses and even ovals. The first run, you're going to have the most fall off. And after that, the track just rubbers in and it becomes less. But it was interesting watching the lap times of the field definitely got faster. I mean, the field was running way faster than they qualified yesterday. Jerry wants to know why he doesn't have a drink. I know I'm not a huge drinker, but you're just going to assume I don't want one. It's a national turn into a new man.

No, it could just be as a prop. Come on. Hmm. Well, I mean, it was, I had no idea. I was, I was pleased, not like happy, not great. Like, I was pleased with our day when they told us, all right, that's P14. I was like, hmm, okay. Could have been worse.

Could have been better. but then when they were like the 67 one I was like I don't know if you heard on the radio I was like what like yeah 67 one and then here's what's wild I thought the whole time cheers

you're you idiot you idiot he just got club soda all over enough for clean up So you know what we think about it? Can I have to say that whole last time? I thought Reddick was behind me.

No. I'm like, he got lucky with the question. I know. That's what I'm saying is that I, so I didn't see who cycle wear or anything like that. I just knew that, oh my God, there was only like eight of us got caught by that caution. And now we got to start tail in the lap, right? So I didn't see them until they were like. 45s up with a flat tire.

And I'm like, what? I thought he was behind me. So I was just amazed and I'm anxious to go back and watch the race to see like, why to get to the lead? Was it through the cycle or did he drive to the lead? I think it was, I was, Travis and I were in the media center talking about this. He just pitted. He had just pitted.

Yeah. And then everyone else came. And he was third, I think. Okay. All right. Before we move on from that, just back to this tire wear situation. Because this track has a million different surfaces, concrete asphalt, are there sections of the track that wear the tires more than others?

Yes. Section of the track where it rubbers in more than others. Yes. And how does that affect your driving strategy through a lap? I didn't figure it out until halfway. That's why I wish I could go back in time and like redo how I approached this racetrack. Now, I knew that all the different types of services surfaces would have different amounts of grip. But it took me a hot minute and, like, on Sunday to figure out, and I told the team this,

like, God, I wish I could go back and redo practice, redo mostly qualifying. I would, I was driving the racetrack completely different by the end of the race than I was. on Friday or even Saturday. And that's why you'd mention like Austin Hill having that experience. Just more laps is huge. It doesn't matter what kind of cards. We have a FaceTime.

Hey, man. Yeah, we're live right now. Someone wants to talk to. Who is it? Hey, winner. You're, you're live, but not live on action is detrimental. It's true. Then no.

What are you talking about? Well, we haven't got into you yet. We'll get there. We're talking about my day first. You know, that's what no one really wants to hear. 14th, baby. Should have been better. We got caught by the caution.

We didn't, we did not, when the caution came out, we had not put it yet. So we were part of the group that started last. So, yeah. I mentioned that. So those y'all don't know. Corey, usually, you know, whenever he races his part-time schedule, we have dialogue about, you know, what should I look for at this track? What, you know, what about this?

What about that? And I'm like, weird. You just, you never contacted me this week in San Diego. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll meet you at the bar in a little bit. All right. See you.

Nice little cameo there by our winner, Corey Hahn. I mean, it's a decent enough segue to, like, move on for me. Like, I'm finished 14th, guys. No, before we move away, though, you came in 19 back. You leave 8. It's a win. We got to feel. The Denny Bros.

I've got to feel good about the amount of Denny Bros. Shoutouts this weekend, San Diego, walking to the fan zone. Denny Bros. Jimmy Brahms. Really? It's a movement. Love that. We've got to have our own line.

Fans were to Larson Church are yellow. Elliot fans are yellow. Gosh, love that. Thank you all. Makes us feel good when he yelled at the baby bruce. Okay. So, so, so Corey Hime, you didn't see this, but he was racing Redick for the wind for. Yep.

I mean, all 23, 11 racing cars were up there. Bubba was, they were one, two, three late in this race. Yeah, I didn't know. I got to go back in law. Try it out. I only sold it from my little cocoon. But I tried to catch as many highlights as I could. I mean, I guess, you know, Tyler and Corey pulled away from the field, right?

First, we had to acknowledge that Corey did get in the back of Carson Hoos far and spun him out. And so, I, interesting enough, Carson, Carson. notes for our text me right after the race says hey can you send me Corey's number and I thought oh that's nice let me wants to congratulate him I had no idea I had no idea that he'd spun him out so sorry Corey I shared your number um but is that just like it probably wasn't intentional but is that just like coming coming around is that just like just so happens that this like you know comes around I mean, I don't know. I'm a 19 spots behind it.

So I don't know. I mean, it looked like Corey just made a mistake there, obviously, at that second tire. So that's new pavement over there. And so you got to try to get a good launch off of that. And, you know, the closer you can cut that second barrel, the better off. And it just looked like he tried to get a run on Carson. and just misjudged it, spun them out. That's my quick analysis from watching a highlight.

Yeah, so then he and Reddick pull away from the pack. They go up 10 seconds on the 23 car, and he and Reddick battle for this race win. Yeah, I mean, it was great, but, I mean, Corey was keeping Tyler honest. When I say honest, like, just pushing them. And, you know, I don't know if he pushed them into a mistake or not. But, I mean, it looked like he showed his nose.

Tyler missed the apex next to you know, the 67's beside you. Racing now. And what it sounds like from Tyler is that he felt like, you know, he didn't touch me at all when he went around me. And it, I mean, it speaks a lot to Tyler's character that, like, he's willing to just say, no, I'm not going to take the lead that way. Now, if it was anyone else, not a teammate, I mean, even me, there's more than likely he was just kept on trucking. But I think that, you know, he felt like he did Corey wrong and knocked them, you know, he ran him wide. First, he ran him wide in turn four. Corey was kind of up in the smuts up there. And then

he ran him up in turn five in the stuff. And so, and then he, you know, you can see that he just checks up and lets Corey have the spot at that point. I still don't know how he cut a tire. Do you know how he cut a tire? I don't know how he cut a tire. I imagine just battling with Corey, right? I don't know. I might attack the wall at some point, but I'm not sure.

Hmm. I mean, the tire's not going down naturally with that amount of laps, right? No. No, you either run over something or you hit something. That's pretty much the two ways. Or a flat spot, but it didn't sound like spotting was an issue. So, Corey Heim and his, how many starts this? 13?

Wow, I can't believe he's from 13. Gets his first win. Pretty incredible. I mean, we were talking, not we, but NASCAR talking heads, or it was just saying a handful of weeks ago after you guys announced this deal. he'd be full-time. They said, oh, there's no way that Corey needs 100 starts to get his first win once he gets in this car full-time. He's not even full-time yet, and he's a race winner.

That 100-starts thing is for losers. Let me. You okay? I don't believe in that. I think it's for people that are just trying to buy time. I just, I'm sorry. I know it's probably unpopular opinion. Go ahead.

You all roast me. I don't care. drinking my coffee. I just, I don't think so. I mean, there's a few exceptions like the Chase Elliott's

that it took a minute to get his first win and then once he got it, you know, it started rolling, but Hunter starts, you need three years? I don't,

I don't agree with that. I think that, like, you got to show me something. Like, soon. Like, I understand the whole,

and I know, I take for granted, it's really, really hard to win in the Cup series. But like, even before Chase won in year whatever it was, he showed he could win far beyond well before his 100th start. Like you knew it was just a matter of time. So, I don't know. That's just my opinion. Hunter starts through.

People are going to bring up your teammates. Okay. No problem. Let's bring up my teammate. He has shown signs that he was on the cusp of winning many, many times. He was running in the top five, many times. So, yeah, you're able to say, yeah, it took Ty Gibbs a little bit to win his first, but it was way overdue. Others, I feel like, are using it as, You know, it just don't have a whole lot of experience. And if I start 100, we're going to start contending. I don't buy into that. So, but, you know, that's my philosophy. It's right or wrong, but we just had a part-time car and driver win. JGR and I have really enjoyed having Bob's long affair for the Andrew L.

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and America's 250th with unbelievable values that'll keep both you and your wallet comfortable. So why did you react the way you did when you were told that Corey won then? You did sound a little surprised but also now that what you're talking here

it doesn't sound like you're surprised he won at all. I'm not surprised here because Booty Barker shout out to Booty he mentioned in his post race that, yeah, I feel like we could have won Nashville. I'm thinking about it.

I was like, he's right. Corey blew. I won Nashville. I don't think it was any secret. I had probably the third to fourth best car. Corey was way faster than I was at Nashville. He blew by me on restarts. He had really good pace.

And so, like, that's all I need to see. So I knew it was just a matter of time. Now, did I think it was going to happen here? Absolutely not. But I did race around him enough today to see he's got phenomenal speed. So I was surprised, but not because I didn't know where anyone cycled out. Again, when I'm restarting, hey, you're restarting your number is 10. Well, that means I'm starting 20th.

I can't see the front. I have no idea who cycled to the front when that caution came out. So I didn't know where any, like it just said, I thought Renick was behind me the whole time. So I didn't know where who was leading, like even from the driver standpoint, like there's very few video boards that like we can check to see lap and position. There's no big scoreboard pylon up there, obviously. So it was a surprise to me when they said 67. I was like, whoa, wow. But I'm not surprised based off of the pace.

And when you look at the lifetime, it was a rocket. So now what? I mean, when's this next to her? Is it bad? I don't know. I don't know. It's all it's been publicized. Let me ask this.

How good is the equipment that Corey's in as the fourth 23-11 car? That I'm curious. Are you guys have a developmental pit crew on that team? Where the crew guys come from? The guys working on the car. Yeah, I mean, this is what Dave Rogers and his team does over there is they put the best part-time team together that they possibly can. It is a mix of young and old, right? You got Booty Barker with tons of experience there as a crew chief.

You got some young engineers that, you know, some are new to the sport, some not. But, yeah, pit crew. These are part of our pit crew development guys that, you know, hope to make it into the top three cars, obviously, one day. So this is, the odds are stacked against him every time he comes to the racetrack. First, obviously, you know, the metric's going to have him going out first every time on the ovals, which is a massive disadvantage. I actually saw I love using Bozies as a great example. But he does a really good job of hearing topics that we bring up and then showing data to prove it or disprove it.

But he was like, Corey Heim is the tops of the list that beats his projected started position. when you go out first, you're probably going to qualify about 30th at best, and he doesn't qualify as quite a bit better than that. So, yeah, I think that the odds are stacked against, no doubt about it. I mean, he's still working on, you've got to gain respect from your competitors, and I think it's very easy for the cup field to bully you when you're young and inexperienced. but I also think I think the cup field respects him a lot. When I watch, I think they respect him a lot and are not treating him like a rookie kid.

Now, there are others that don't get that treatment. That is factual. But for whatever reason, I think he has the respect of the cup garage. I saw Ryan Blaney after the race. And parked next to you. I was walking by and he was like, my kid's going to be a problem. It's like, yep, no doubt about it.

MJ's my young killer. That's right. So do you think that he now hits the ground running next year? Because there's going to be a little bit of a change, right? He's mentioned that he has a little bit advantage with these tracks because he can spend weeks preparing for them and then weeks debriefing on them. That is the advantage, right?

There's not just a bunch of disadvantages that they have when they come run. They do get to spend weeks and weeks to prepare for the events that they are going to run. So, you know, more time for Corey to study things and look at notes. Again, he probably talks to all of his teammates about, you know, what he should be looking for. and yeah, I mean, the objective this year has always been, and I know it was not popular with social media, but it was like, you know, we had three drivers and, you know, we had four drivers. We had only three spots.

And it's tough because, you know, when we sign Corey to a development deal, it was, you know, the charter agreement was under negotiation. And we didn't know that we were only going to be limited to three charters going forward. So we hired four drivers. And when they changed it and you heard the testimony from Jim France and he was like, yeah, I did Hendrick and Gibbs a favor. And by grandfathering them in and everyone else is just going to be three from here on out. And it was like, oh, wow, well, maybe we can level the playing field one day.

But it's unfortunate because while we're really high and we're talking really high about Corey, I mean, Riley's doing what we hoped and expected, right? He's running considerably better than what he was last year. And, you know, hopefully, you know, he has an opportunity come his way next year where he can go out there and still show that he can do it because I'm on the racetrack for the people. So trust me when I say, he is considerably better than what he was last year and deserves to be racing on Sunday. Riley Herbs finished eighth today.

So the top 10 for Riley. I think with the feel after it goes a little better in that. Yeah. But he was in the top five. I have a question. Are you okay with Redick just giving back the spot? I think it is a very Tyler Redick move. I think that's his character in a nutshell.

If I have to give you my honest opinion, 99% of the field would just say, I'll apologize later. But that's, I mean, that's who Tyler Redick is and he wants to race fair. And, you know, I think he, when Corey was behind him and Corey chose not to touch him, he felt the need to pay that back. And I think what he felt is though, and again, I'm trying to play psychologist here, but you know what? If I'm good enough to win, I'll just pass him back.

You know, you got a rookie here that's a lot. only got a few races. Surely if I can just put pressure on him, maybe he'll make a mistake. And I'm just going to get him back eventually. I won't give it up. He was ahead of me before I did him dirty. So I'm going to put him back where he was, where he belonged. And, you know, it's interesting. Things like that happened throughout the field all the time. The people don't know it. And the TV doesn't tell the entire picture. Like Michael McDowell came over to me after the race. He's like, God, man, I hate to put you in that bad. spot in turn five. He's like, I hope you saw that, you know, two corners later gave me the

spot right back. You know what I mean? So like, which impeded his progress that he was making at the time, but he was like, eh, I just, he's like, I just didn't feel good about it. And he gave me the spot back. So that's, that's, that's the right way to race. And this too, this was very much a race between Tyler and Corey at this time. The third place is 10 seconds back. So by Tyler letting him go, he's not affecting his, his, you know, positioning, falling to third, whatever it may be. Yep.

It's just those two guys one-on-one. Some other drivers in the field, we thought this was going to be an SVG day through and through, but he ends this one in the garage. You know, this is kind of like, this is the, this is the. what the field needs to beat him is he's just going to have. And let me just say this. If it's based off of speed and all that stuff, he's, he would win every time. But in NASCAR, sometimes you get unlucky and he got unlucky today.

And I've been frankly very surprised. He's not been caught up in something in other races. But I think he's just been so damn fast. at the other races. He's in control of it. He'll flip a stage and still be so fast that he makes it back into the top 10 field pits. He cycles back to the lead. So it this is like the only way to beat him. You know, and it's not intentional. You know, Austin Hill overcooked, the overcooked turn one. You know, I kind of watched it. It's all where he drove into. Got it on the brakes. hard, got, you know, just up the race track into Connor.

Talk about a nightmare year, by the way, freaking Connor. I, sucks for him. I'm a big Connor fan, but it's, uh, he has just had just some luck and some learning curve year. It's just not been good all around. But, you know, and SVG was just wrong place, wrong time. and just, you know, got bitten by the unlucky wrong place, wrong time, NASCAR bug. Now, Travis, I got to bring you in here.

You probably saw them in most of, between us three, you watched the most of this race on the broadcast. Did SVG look vulnerable early on in this race? Good question. He was still good, but he was being passed. Oh, he got passed? Blaney, Greece, like, people were passing him. How early? because the dude is a tire manager first 15 laps

it looked like he just didn't have this came on like was it the first two or three laps is my question no first 15 laps he dropped two or three positions oh well then okay so so if you got passed in the first two or three i would have said he's just managing his he's he's getting you know managing his tires knows they're going to wear out but if you got past late in a run that is that is something new no doubt so and and we've seen them vulnerable on other road courses before like coda right i mean reddick beat them straight up there um but i i don't know

the the racetrack was a lot different the second half than it was the first half like the tires did not wear out quite as much the second half and i think that's the where he would have really excelled. I mean, he's good. He's the best tire manager on road courses anyway, but that just tells me maybe his car wasn't, you know, invincible like he usually is on the long run of road courses. Yeah, I mean, like you said, this is NASCAR, right?

The best driver doesn't win 100% of the time. And when you think about his win percentage to best car percentage, I mean, it's higher than anyone in the field, right? Like what's pretty standard is the fastest car wins 35% of the time. You know, his win percentage when he has the best car, when I say best car, it's the best driver driving the car on road courses. You know, it's got to be 75%, 80%, right? So he's got an unbelievable win percentage when he should win.

It was, I was walking through the fan zone. I guess it might have been Saturday, maybe it was today. But over here, SVG get announced at some appearance and they say, what was it, six-time cup winner, seven-time cup winner, Shane Van Gisberg? And it's like, whoa, this guy's won seven races. So I have to bring it up because we were just talking about it. But A.J. Almondinger has three career NASCAR Cup series wins. And Chris Rice is doing his best to put him in the hall of fame.

All good. that was triggered. That was triggered. Travis. Everyone gets back. All right. I don't have any really comment on that in particular. Very ambitious. But, you know, whatever.

Who am I to judge? Hey, everybody. It's Dellenhart Jr. And there is no better way to support Denny Hamlin. than wearing actions detrimental gear at the racetrack. You can also flip him the bird or head on over to shop.dirtymodemedia.com to see what we have. Talked about the wreck, Austin Hill, SVG, and Zillich. Yeah, it's just Austin Hill overpicked it.

And it looks like he got loose and corrected right into... Right into Zilich. The only track building recommendations I'll have for NASCAR for next year is that that zone, that area of the track, maybe just needs to be reinforced a bit because, you saw it yesterday, saw it today, they got to repair the ball. It's a sketchy part of the track. I mean, super high speed. You're going opposite way of what we're used to.

Like our bodies, right, are so used to going to the left. It's a high speed right. So, you know, from my standpoint, it's where I gave up tons of speed on Friday, Saturday. but on Sunday I thought I was actually rather good there. So, yeah, it's super different. And it's just to be fast, you've got to put it on the edge.

And that corner is tricky when it comes to that. So I don't know whether, talking about reinforcing walls. Like, as a driver, I don't think we want strong walls. Like, we'd rather, you're going to hit it, I'd rather that damn wall move.

Something needs to move, right? Cars are, you know, stiff. So you'd rather the way as a safer barrier when it moves, right? If it doesn't move, you're just hitting a concrete wall. So, yeah, that watered up a bunch of good cars, no doubt.

Noah Gregson and Kevin Magneton got in a little bit. Yeah, I... It didn't match at the end of this thing. It did. from what I saw I saw that Noah was ahead of him early in the race. He goes into turn 12

covers the bottom and Kevin just I mean hit him hard. He hit him hard into turn 12. And then the game of grab ass is on from there. And so yeah, I mean, I thought Noah showed a lot of really good restraint, you know, post race. He kept asking him, why did you wreck? Why?

And I couldn't really hear what he was saying. Could you hear what he was saying? Mindson didn't. There's a motorsport.com version of this video with some subtitles and just based on, yeah, just based off the subtitles. He just says, get to get to my face. Get out of my face. He doesn't answer Noah's question as to why.

He wrecked him. I think he did a really good job this weekend. He was the fast. Did I see he had the fastest flat? Is that true? He had the fastest flat. Son of gun. I mean, that's, that's freaking impressive.

But if you're coming over here for a one-off, you do got, you got to show your, you got to show the competitors some respect that are here full time. I didn't, you know, if I went and did a one-off somewhere else, I mean, you just, I guess stereotyping us and NASCAR as well, you guys just run into each other. So I think it's okay to just power drive you into turn 12 on lap three. I'm not, I'm not a huge fan of that. And I have nothing against him at all.

I raced around him a little bit today. He was fine. I think what he did was wildly impressive. But yeah, I'm going to have to side with Noah on this one. We saw Brent Cruz get in the car for Christopher Bell in this before his car ultimately expired. Did he miss a shift? How long did, when did I, first, let's start from the top. When did Seabell get out of it?

Did he go a while? Or was it right at the beginning? He did. Was it not going well? Every time he passed by. Yeah, every time Seabell passed by me while I was doing laps around this track by foot, he was at the tail end of the field. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, the asking him with a broken wrist

to take this track on, as bumpy as it is, you've got to hold the wheel, you got to shift. I mean, you've got no support, right? You just, I just, I knew this is going to be a really tall task for him to try to compete, at least at a high level. It's going to be really hard to do. And so getting out, the right thing, no question about it. But I just, so, so to run get a decent sample size, Like, how was he doing?

It wasn't that long. Yeah, a couple, handful laps. Brent said he was going through the gears and it just broke. I'm not really sure. I'm going to have to have Adam Stevens look over it and myself to figure out if it was something I did or just a freak accident. So there might have been updates to this since the end of this race, but that was the post-engine quotes. All right. Well, I mean, that's unfortunate.

I was actually interested in how Brent did up. Saturday. I thought he was the fastest of course slash driver. It didn't work out there, but, you know, he put quite a bit of time in over the week, you know, preparing in case. And, you know, I can tell you first damn that going from the O.H pattern to the sequential shifter. is a learning curve. I blew up my car at Las Vegas first year next gym. Even guys who win 64 career races miss shifts and blow up their car.

I'm not saying that's what happened. I don't know. But it can happen. No question about it. Boba Wallace battles back from a loose whale. really fast at the beginning of this race. He looked like a real road course racer. Yeah.

You drove straight from 12th or 13. Is that where you started? Right to P2. Is that correct? Yeah, he drove to the lead. Drove to the lead. Travis said, did that have that wrong? He drove to the lead. He's up front.

Anyway, he's up front. I mean, yeah, that's impressive stuff. And then I was behind him when the, When the tire fell off, right away I'm thinking, crap, that's two laps. You know, damage, splitter. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. And so, you know, it's, you know, the ride with Bubba is, she has some swells. and she goes,

that roller coaster goes up and down, right? But this is one that, you know, while, you know, you maybe think that, man, I could have, could have won if things would have played out correctly. You're probably right. But you're still got to be really happy with the day

if you're him and his team about the resilience of overcoming adversity. And that's what 90% of NASCAR is about is that the race freaking never plays out the way you think it's going to. And then to go to a road course, something that for a while was not his forte by any means, to, I mean, be the best qualifying 23-11 car,

probably the best to do. Probably the best to get. Come back for two laps, drive through the field. You drive to the lead. Then you have the tire. You drive back to the front, it's like really, really impressive. And it's something that like you got to take, you got to take, you know, your, your wins when you get them. And sometimes the winds aren't actually carrying the trophy.

It's like, man, I'm proud of myself for what I have, how far I've come on road courses. Like, I was a legit contender today. I can't wait to get to snowmunk. You know what I mean? Like you got to, that's the only way because, oh my gosh, Mike Ford told me my rookie year. Danny, if winning is the only thing that brings you happiness, you're going to be one miserable a hole. And he's like, you've got to find little wins.

You have to set goals. You have to understand that, you know, yeah, while you always go to the racetrack thinking, I'm going to win, sometimes you have to change. your goals to be a little bit more realistic. You're racing against the best drivers. And this is one where I just see for Bubba Wallace in that 23 team, they ought to pat themselves on the back of just the resilience and just the skill set that Bubba has gained on these types of racetracks.

Yeah. And they were also beneficiary of that late caution. So there's no guarantee that he's running first or second midway through this race. He's not caught up in that same wreck that ended Zillich in SVGs day. Right. He was lapsed down at that point. Yeah. So just different strategy allows for different outcomes in this thing.

Yep. What did you make of the San Diego Naval Base Coronado race weekend as a whole, the event as a whole? I thought the event itself, a whole pre-race. Now, again, I didn't experience it as a fan. I experienced it as a competitor. It was very convenient for me and where I stayed to just ride my bike over to the track. I didn't wait in any traffic. I didn't have to walk 500 miles.

But I thought it was just definitely, definitely. a felt like a big event. It felt like a big event to me. Pre-race, the driver's meeting, Steve O'Donnell, you know, giving his little speech there. It all felt big, big to me. And so I just think that we severely underestimate

what it takes to put on these races and just all the logistics. Like I, as a business owner, I look around and they're like, gosh, they had to plan. Every minute is planned, right? Boom, fireworks scroll. Boom. This goes off.

Hey, this person comes up. Like, it's a massive undertaking, right? And there's always things that you can learn. But, man, I just thought they did a really, really good job making this feel big. Felt big to me. I can tell you, the fans that left that racetrack that I talked to, absolutely loved it. They loved it.

And that's what's so important, right? And like, it sucks like the first year of Chicago was like so much rain. Like we had a freaking hurricane of rain. And because the number one, like if you're going to put on an event like this, where 60 some percent or 70 percent of your fans that have tickets are first, time attendees, you have got to make the experience over the top better for them to work. That's the whole point of coming here, is that you're introducing the sport to someone, to people that have not gotten to see it before.

So you want to make the fan experience the absolute top tier. And so I understand, Jeff Gluck, you know, tweeted some things on. Saturday about just how far the walks were and not enough concessions and the merchandise was low and whatever, right? It sounded like Ben Kennedy and his team made adjustments overnight to get more food out there. You're landlocked a little bit with the layout of where your parking is, where the track is. You can only do so much. But I just, And I know it is absolutely their priority. But if I own NASCAR, it is, if I'm going to do these events, I have got to make the fan experience like so good.

Better than it is for the other 35 events because I'm trying to get them to the other 35 events. So this is the one you have to focus on fan experience, absolutely number one. I think they, from my perspective, I thought they crushed that. The Midway was incredible. The Midway on Friday before this event was open to the full-on public was packed. It was great to see. And NASCAR and the Navy did a good job throughout the weekend, like pulling back the restrictions a little bit. Right?

When we got here, we needed a QR code. Then to pick up a D-Bids, whatever. So hard card users didn't need that. And then by Sunday, anyone with a credential was good to go. Yep. Yep. I just, I can't sing their praises enough. And let me kiss in their rear lines.

Sorry, I'm helping me with the language that draft. It's not what I would say. But it just, I know that this is a massive undertaking. And I think they just did an amazing job. Now, I'm sure they have a book of notes to, got to improve this, got to improve that. But well done. That's all we can say.

Yeah. People are already asking if they come back. I don't know if it necessarily need to come back. But I think this is like the first time in the last four years where one of NASCAR's experiments looked like it went off without a hitch. Right. The first Chicago race was impeded by that monsoon. And then it was just never the same for years two and three. This one, 75 degrees in sunny for all three days is best.

can ask for. Absolutely. And, you know, we don't know where they, I mean, I think, you know, the street racing is something that is here to stay. I mean, we're, we're, you know, I'm making assumptions. I have no idea. But, you know, I just, I hear it's part of, you know, Amazon cons contract. So yeah, I mean, I don't know. We went to Chicago. I thought great success. Well done. When here, great success. Well done. So they're, They're doing a lot of good things. Where do you think the challenge of designing a street course plays into how difficult it is to have one of these events go off well? Like you got fan experience, logistics.

Fan experience. Yes. Logistics. And then like designing a course for a race. Like is that kind of easy? I don't know. again, if I own Nassau, I'm going to say, you know, designing the perfect course is like number five on the list.

I don't know. But it's, it's the event. People aren't leaving usually road course races and saying, God, that was the best race I've ever seen. They're going there to socialize and see something they've never seen before. They want to hear the cars roaring by. Like, that's what the new fans care about. So I just think that, you know, if I, you know, I'm just trying to think, you know,

the course is really big. You know why it was pretty big? Because I had to fit everyone's parking inside of it and the garages and all the other stuff, right? So that's probably why the course was so big is that you got to, you know, there ain't like outside parking. So they got this big tarmac where they're parking all the vehicles and it sounds like what, 120,000

is what I'm hearing? That's great. Do you get a chance to check out any of the O'Reilly or a truck race Friday, Saturday? Watch on TV everybody else. Yeah, lane rigs went out on Friday.

Yeah, I mean, great battle with and Honeycutt. And I think it was apparent that Riggs just was a little bit faster. Honeycutt was faster to start practice and qualifying things like that. But over the long run, it just seemed like Riggs was the guy to beat and he took it home. Great job. It's a short track, short tracker, right?

So I always like seeing those asphalt late model guys win races. Austin Hill on Saturday? I thought Austin Hill was wildly impressive with that Saturday race. And, you know, if I'm being truthful, what it looked like to me was that Carson Koppel had the fastest car and or driver. And when I say fastest car, it's not, I'm not saying that to downgrade the driver. because on road courses, the driver means more than the car. On ovals, the car plays a bigger factor in your finishing position.

So when I say fastest car, I'm talking about the driver as well. Adark Carson should have won the race. I think he got conservative when he got to the lead, which that's the hard I've been telling you guys. It's hard, especially in the O'Reilly series, to be the leader. because you just was drove in there, you caught Taylor Gray, you passed them. Now all you're thinking about, I'm telling you is don't F up. And so what do you do?

Start slowing down your entries. You just start taking a more conservative line. Well, what does that do? Taylor Gray, your lifetime starts slowing down. here comes Taylor Gray. He's thinking, oh, I'm back in this thing. So now they get to racing. Here comes Austin Hill,

who clearly I thought had the third best car at the time. Between, you know, he was not, not, didn't have the speed those other two had me that you pulled away. But Austin Hill just kept trucking along, run his lap times, hitting his marks. Those guys, one of them gets, in my opinion, gets a little tight. and got to the lead, let the other guy back in the pitcher, and then you ended up getting wrecked. So that sucked because, you know, I'm a big person fan.

And again, I always, I love the asphalt short track guys more than I do. Everyone else, you know, these are graduates of the cars tour. But, you know, this is just the learning pains of being a young guy. And you've got to learn how to finish. And sometimes if you remember, and, you know, they're different scenarios. But what did I tell you at Michigan, right? I didn't want to think, I didn't want to let them think they were close enough to make a move. I wanted to step on their throats as soon as I got the lead, I'm pushing harder.

I'm going to let you know that this race is over unless there's the cost of them. Like so and there's a psychological part of that that you know, I don't want to let them think that they're, oh, we're now breaking even on time. Ooh, I beat them by a tent. Let me go get more. No, no. Like, and it's very hard to do. But, you know, I think I feel as though Carson got conservative when he took the lead and let Taylor back in it. And he let him back in it enough to end up getting the spot.

We head to Sonoma next week. What's your early outlook for that race? Top 15. I mean, if I can leave all the road courses finishing in the top 15, 16, that's enough. This was a big bullet dodged, no doubt about it. you know, we would have met our goal and Tyler would have won. I mean, we're back to 50 points, right? 60 points.

So, but, but yeah, I thought we, you know, we got lucky to, to gain on him leaving this racetrack. But that's a reason. You know, it's going to be weeks where he finishes ahead of me and you should know. I mean, you were locked up with him all day, though, until that last caution. Yes, we were not that different on speed. I can assure you of that. We were a lot different strategies that put us in different spots. When I was around them, we were not that different.

Yeah. What's the plans for this week? I, we talked about kicking the feet up thing, right? I had been grinding so hard over the last. couple of months, obviously going to these tracks that I know I've got such a great opportunity at winning, just grinding so hard on them. It's taken, you know, it's taken some energy out of me. And so, you know, with this whole West Coast, two road course races, I've just, you know, decided to stay out here for, you know, until, until Thursday, we're going to go to the

USA World Cup game in LA on Thursday and then go to Sonoma from there. So I'm going to stay out here in San Diego for a few more days and absolutely have no plans. And I love that. So I'm just out here, got to explore a little bit. Me and Charlie probably find a fishing hole somewhere. Although I'm looking around like it ain't like they got a bunch of like a little ponds around here. The bodies of water are big and like it seems like you need a boat to bass fish. So I'm not really sure what I'm going to do, but I'm definitely going to be feet kicked up for these next couple days.

It's a pretty nice couch. I might just stay here tonight. No, you're not. This room is not suitable. I'll move back to my room. Yeah, so Sonoma, I mean, I, I mean, I, I, I know it's great. I learned some things today, too, that I think I can take to Sonoma.

So, but the goal remains the same, right? And that's get your top 15s, which, you know, that means for me, staying on the race track, don't hit anything, and execute times when we are good. And we feel like we can do that. And if we do that, we keep our, you know, keep Tyler's lead manageable. Then we go racing from there. Look ahead. You look past the corner.

You got to look past the apex. Yeah, you can't just look right there on your hoodpins, man. You got to look up there. Got to look for the corner. Travis, anything we got from the peanut gallery back there? No. I'm glad the media started to get mad at me for cheering. You cheered?

A little bit. Gosh, you're ruthless. You're going to relax, relax. I did. I mean, just three... I actually never went to the Denver's cat. Is it... It's probably not like...

Right, so like... Oh, wow. Yeah. It's tough. It's tough to follow these road course races. Because everyone goes to share our strategy and stuff. Like, I know it's silly, but like, what's your name? Okay.

Okay, Adams. Yeah, like I saw in her timeline, she was like, I love this. I just wish I knew what the hell was going on. You know what I mean? Like, that's the challenge we have in motorsports, right? Is you go to your race for the first time, and it is confusing. You know, I know it seems so simple to us, but for the new fan, it is hard to explain, right? especially at a road course.

For me, I feel like there's just so much strategy involved. Yeah, he's the leader, but don't worry about him. He has to pit. That's just, I mean, there's something you're never going to get away from, but it's the thing that really is hard for us to overcome. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's pretty much San Diego. I appreciate you all being so accommodating here on actions,

detrimental on location. But thank you to Bob's for making that possible. And our partners at Bob's discount furniture are celebrating both summer in competitive racing and America's 250th birthday with the furniture. America has waited for for 250 years. So if you want to join in on the fun before the next race, head to your local Bob's or shop online or score tons of winning styles at everyday low prices of whether Bob's discount furniture.

and it's going to get shipped you pretty quickly. So thank you all for that. Travis left my review box blank here, but I'm going to put in a customer review, and that is from the waitress at SDK last night. You had an SDK? Yeah, yeah. You like SDK?

I do. I do like us. I like the vibe of this. This one, this one, so that's a great analysis. SDK is a great analysis. of why do you go to SDK? Is it because they have the best stakes?

No. You go for the loud music and you go for the social atmosphere of it. So this one. And that's what NASCAR racing is. So part of my review is that this one, the only SDK I've been to is the ones with you in Las Vegas,

but this one stopped like midway through everyone's dinner, lights dimmed, they came out with all those party flares. And it was like a whole like NASCAR thing. They were celebrating NASCAR being there and brought shots to every table in the building. Free shots, I guess. No one asked for them celebrating NASCAR being in town. That's awesome. And listen, the town knew we were here.

There's no question about it. There were many businesses all over with cars outside saying, you know, this is a NASCAR spot. You're here for NASCAR stop in. And let me be clear, too. I think we have to remain doing the best at what we are. and that is to have the best motorsports. Don't. I don't want it to get twisted that,

oh, we need to be just about the show, not the actual meat. No, no. The meat of our races, we still need to put on the best shows possible, and that means great racing. I'm more talking about it's the spectacle of the event,

not the rate. You're going to the event, not the race. Does that make any sense? Yeah. I mean, this is a topic for, another conversation, but I don't see why you can't take what was done here and apply it to another big market event. Why can't you take this and apply it to Las Vegas in a way?

I don't know. That's a like I said, bigger topic, another show. But what you did here, I feel like could translate. Yep. What's something else. I mean, they deserve their flowers for everything they did. I thought the race went off well. I think was executed well. And hopefully our fans enjoyed it. Race didn't go five hours like we thought. I made a friendly wager with Brad Kozlovsky on the race time at four hours and ten minutes. Actually, I won that. It was over?

Three hours and 26 minutes at me? Alex Bowman actually texted me after the race. He says my watch is I was in the car for four hours, 10 minutes, 10 seconds. And he's like, the 10 second count, it would definitely count against me if it was official, but it's not official. That was in the car, in the car, in the car. Before we go, speaking of bets. Shout out Todd, Todd, Todd, Top 15. Yeah, and he was pulled me up, too.

I wouldn't let me pass. I think he kind of knew out there on the racetrack. Todd didn't have any faith in me at all to finish in the top 15. We were at the first long conference. Charlie said, you know I'm sorry. No way. No way. Drive, do it.

Give us a live how to do it. All right. Time for more coffee. We'll see you all later. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.