Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Richmond: Integrity of the Sport On the Line

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Denny Hamlin is joined by co-host Jared Allen after an interesting end to the race in Richmond on Sunday night.Denny explains why he wasn’t mad about restarting third on the final restart and he was expecting a wreck. Once Joey Logano was wrecked by Austin Dillon, Denny thought the checkered flag was his. Dillon ended up right-hooking Denny and while some claimed Denny went up the track, he says the SMT data shows Dillon hooked him.Denny is now calling on NASCAR to make the tough call and enforce the rules.Dillon’s spotter was animated at the end and Denny wasn’t a fan of how he handled himself.The guys also discuss what the penalty should be for Dillon if given one considering a points penalty or money really doesn’t change much. If no penalty is handed down, does this mean it’s open season for drivers to wreck people going forward? And what stops anyone from wrecking someone to win the championship in Phoenix?The format of "win and you’re in the Playoffs" didn’t help prevent this incident either. And, should one win punch a driver’s ticket to playoffs or does the format need changed?The integrity of the sport is on the line depending on what NASCAR decides to do, especially since Dillon wrecked not one but two drivers to win the race.Logano made it known on pit road he wasn’t happy with Dillon, but Denny doesn’t see a fine coming to him for what he did.Plus, NASCAR had option tires for the first time and Denny thinks they need to use those tires full-time on short tracks.In other NASCAR news, 23XI has a third driver coming up at Wakins Glen and Corey LaJoie is out a Spire after this year. For more Actions Detrimental content head over to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey guys, welcome to Action's Determental. Ow! That hurt Charlie! This is not going to be a rose-colored glasses show. Pleading with NASCAR, who I guarantee you is listening to this. It was warm and then it was cold. But I kind of liked it.

The 11DH, we're all in. We're going all the way to Promising. Hey, guys, welcome to Actions Determinal. I am Denny Hamlin driver of the... FedEx Rewards Twitter this past weekend at Richmond International Raceway. My co-host

is Red Vest 311. Photo guy, video guy, social media guy for Danny Hamlin and just about every other driver in the garage. This is true. All right, I got to just get out of the way. Damn it!

I feel a little better now, but it's just bottled up inside, Jared. It's just, gosh, just eating away at my soul. How do you not get out of the car and do that? How do you not get out of the car and just like, let it go? Because I feel like as time has gone on in my career, I've learned to just take a breath. Like, you know, it's easy to react, right? Reacting is the easiest thing to do.

But try to take everything into a. count first and then react um you're not always going to get it right um i tried my best in my interview to see all sides of it right let me think about my side what did i see how did i feel about it if i were the three car how would i felt about it what did i see you know what was my motivation things like I try to put all different perspectives into my thought process and then react, right? That's why we're here today is to kind of expand upon that a little bit. You know, I have additional thoughts about it. But, man, it's just, I never found it to be super productive to try.

just react and think about it from your own perspective. You should be. You should be very selfish for you and your team and how it affects you. But I think through our conversation today, we're going to try to put ourselves a little bit in other people's shoes and and draw what our opinion might be from it. I think that's the best way to possibly do this, right? I'm sure we will have a large audience tuning in to here where we go with this.

So I guess we probably should just jump in it, Trav, right? Yeah, let's not keep them waiting. Okay, all right. I appreciate you not going anger on your interviews, though, and I wanted that. Saving it? Yeah, I wanted it here. So thank you for saving that. You should thank Tyler Overstreet.

for that he he said say what you want to say but save most of it for tomorrow yeah so thank you so tyler tyler's listening in right there on the zoom those you who don't know i i do have i do somewhat have bumper guards um each episode i mean we might take out one percent we had very little to be honest. Less than 1%. I mean, if we edited 1%, you probably wouldn't have lost $50,000 last year. That's true. That's true.

So I can see down here, we have a computer down here at the bottom, kind of near my feet. We've got Austin Payton on it and Tyler. They're just there to just flag things that might be controversial and then ask me later on, Are you sure? And what's my response? You're Travis? Yep. Yep.

I'm sure. Keep it in there. So, I don't know. I mean, what do y'all want to know? Let's start with the restart. You're coming in third. Let's start there. What's going through your mind?

Like, let's go there. I'll be honest with you. I thought when I came off pit road third instead of second. you know, because we came in second. And at that point, I'm thinking, oh, man, I can, maybe I can get to the lead again like I did in the spring, right? Same thing, same deal. I got a better pit stall.

But when I came off third, I was not that disappointed. Because I felt as though I knew Austin was going to be very desperate. And if I got a good restart, I thought he was just going to wash up into me. Because forgive me if I have PTSD about not finishing where I should be finishing week and week out. So when the caution came, I'm like, how are we, how am I going to get wiped out here and not finish where I deserve the finish on this day?

And I thought if I came out second and had to choose the front row because I was, you know, that's what you try to do. I thought, I'm going to get wiped out. This is just not going to be bad. So when I came out third, I'm thinking, oh,

I think I still got a shot because I knew that the three was going to be desperate. Now, I didn't know how desperate until the final corner. And, you know, things kind of played out like I thought,

in the sense of hey, these two get together and then I pick up the pieces. But I didn't think it was going to happen kind of like how it did. I thought it was going to be more of like a first corner, second corner type of thing. So I wasn't

crazy disappointed coming out third, being on the bottom, and especially just being on the bottom in general. I'm thinking at that point, at least I'm going to finish pretty good. Like, because I've just, I've had so many weeks, of just not finishing correctly, you know? And so at that point, I'm like, let's, I really just want to

get out of here with the finish my team deserves. And if I'm on the bottom, I can control that a lot more. When you're on the top, you're at the, you're at the, you know, liberty of the person underneath you and how they feel that day, whether they, you want to be their, their, their, their bumper or not. So it was, you know, I thought the restart, I mean, you want me kind of break down the restart because I, you know, what I saw is a good restart by the 22, not a great restart by the three. And the three had had bad restarts all day long too.

Yeah. I follow these racing analytics folks on X, and they said that Austin Dillon loses, has lost the most positions of anyone on restarts all year long. I think he was minus 87 going into this race. So by the numbers, you know, Joey's probably thinking he's got a pretty good shot. And Joey rolls on him just a little bit.

He rolls on them a little bit, but both, I think, you know, they kind of left same time there. I'm right behind them, and I'm thinking, man, it's just, I thought the three was going to carry a little more speed in just just a little bit. I mean, it carried a lot, but the 22 really carried it in there. And the 22 just beat them fair and square through one and two, clears them, clears them, and then goes and set sail. So I believe they kept telling me on the radio that, you know, just keep an eye out, you know, keep an eye out of what could happen. And I was very aware. But certainly didn't think it would go like it did for the final 200 yards. Did you think the race was more or less over coming in, going into turns three and four?

Did you see the gap between the 22 and the 3? Yeah, I did. And like, okay, Joey's winning it. Yep. I thought it was too much of a gap to make a legitimate racing move. But when I saw the three not decelerate, you know, I mean, he just kept going. He obviously was not going to make the corner in a reasonable fashion. I thought my eyes got really big because I knew that he carried so much speed in, regardless to whether he made contact with the 22 or not, he was going to have such a bad run off.

I had a legit shot to get around him. So my eyes got big. And then when I saw actually that he was going to get to the 22, which was, I mean, we're talking split seconds here. This is really, really quick. And I start to see the 22 turn sideways. I'm like, this is it. Finally, I'm going to get one like the other way.

you know i'm going to get one i probably didn't deserve um but yeah i the track clears and i come off the corner just the same as i always have because i i think the 20 i think the three is up in the smoke up there and next thing you know i my car turns dead right into the fence and just crushes crushes me, crushes the car. And I see these, you know, I see the checkered

and we're not the first to get there. So it was crazy set of events like your, your emotions peak. You know, it's like,

ah, we're not gonna win. Oh my God, we are? No, we're not. Like that quick, right?

And so that's, that was what was crazy from my standpoint. And, you know, kind of the emotions I had over a three second span. What does the SMT data show?

Because people who watch this replay will say, well, the 11 car came up the track. And that's why he ended up in the wall. Is the three car, you came across three cars nose. What is the SMT data show? Well, that's not true. The three car turned 70 degrees to the left. You know, like a normal corner is when he turned the wheel to about 35 degrees.

So double the amount. So whatever you make to make a corner. Let's just say that's 35 degrees of steering wheel angle. You know, he doubled it to after after he got the 22. And so, yeah, the natural movement is to go from the bottom of the racetrack. You don't just follow the yellow line down the straightway. So you come off the corner, you drive up to the wall. I was making a normal corner exit.

and you can see it usually you can see these things by the cars that are behind and when Austin starts you know the people that were coming off the corner behind me the 45 and and someone else you can then see him cross into our lane to to get us in the right rear when do you like when was that data what were you thinking in the moment like when you end up in the wall you know what are you thinking like how do you think in the wall you know what do you thinking like how did i get here or what just happened or yeah my what's your initial reaction my initial reaction is that he must have ricocheted off the 22 into me like i didn't i had no idea it was just like a deliberate i'm going left you know oh you're going to win no you're not like i didn't know it was

that until i watched it you know because i can't see it because all i see is literally the checker flag straight ahead clear rate track and when you get right rear trust me I have enough experience at this now you never really see it coming so now that you have seen it and heard everyone talk about it what is your reaction to the situation I mean we had you'd have to break it down in parts um because it has so many different layers it's you know how do I feel about the ethics of which the three car chose in that moment, the format that kind of, you know, lends itself to this kind of, these kind of acts, what do we do in the future with, like, which part? You know, because there's so many different

layers to it that, you know, all of it needs to be addressed. All right. Well, let's start with the ethics of it, because you, I think, agree with Jordan Bianchi and that you see why like the three would would do this right like a win at all cost situation for a car that's in 30th place in the points but like what about the ethics of it like should you do that

well when I listened to the tear down last night I agree with Jordan Bianchi about 5% of the time I thought that in last night's episode oh yeah it was it was bad it was bad I thought Jeff Gluck was trying to be like Jordan what are you talking about and I think Jordan

was just trying to make arguments just to arguments and it was in my mind silly I love Jordan I got a great relationship with them but I'm at some point I'm like Jordan like I get it your team chaos but this is this is not there's an ethics problem here like this is you're this if you think stuff like that is okay this is hurting the sport long term and that's in my opinion the turn that our sport has taking over the last decade and and i you know mike ford i'm leaving the nascar holler and he's like do any of your comments i'm like what he says uh about you know our sports not going to get taken seriously if we don't i'm like i stand by that like at some point you are the sanctioned of body

you are the big boys in the room you have to make tough cars call sometime. Sometimes you have to make the right call, even if it's a tough call. And I just, I don't know how much Liberty Elton Sawyer and Brad Moran have in that moment of, you know, can they say, well, that's blatant. Like, I don't need data. I don't need that. You can't knock two guys out of the way, like you can't wreck two guys to then go win a race and then reap the benefits. of the reward of that. Like that's, we've reached a point where it's,

like a flagrant foul was made, but you still get the win. Like it's, no, a foul is a foul. It's, there's provisions in the rule book that said this is inappropriate behavior. I just don't, Jordan, I don't know, I just, I didn't like the conversation that Jeff and Jordan were having

because Jeff was being very matter of fact in saying Jordan. Like, do you want us to be taken seriously or not? Because in a league, I get it. Okay, let me stop saying league because we're not a league. Okay, in a major sport, because we like to put ourselves in an upper echelon of sports in the world, you have officiating for a reason. but you know I just don't know why

we've allowed it to get this bad over time and I believe you have a responsibility as a sanctioning body to set an example not only for your competitors but the people that are coming up through the ranks to say this is how we professionally race this is how racing goes and so I just think we've

let me ask the question if this is not over the line and i think just said what is over the line but where is the line you have to figure out where is the line first like is what the three did to the 22 over the line if he yes yes he did not try to make a corner he just drove until he wrecked him right he kept going until he wrecked him but how do you like how do you define that going forward how do you you know, like to me, that just seems like such a black, a gray area. Let me read this. Let me, okay. It's a gray area.

Well, I have the rules right here. Okay. Right. General scope of penalties, the NASCAR deterrent system. Okay. NASCAR may issue penalties as it deems fit to provide for the orderly conduct of the sport. Orderly conduct of the sport. Such determinations may be made by NASCAR before.

during or after an event and may consider and this is highlighted to the extent deemed reasonable by NASCAR in the interest of racing competition and fairness any modifications caused are required as a result

of damaged caused by in race incidences so there's there are rules that this is a headline this is a subject in the it's called a deterrent system It is to keep us within parameters of not getting out of control on the racetrack.

And if this is okay, if NASCAR is saying right now, hold on, they said yesterday, they didn't say it, but I'm saying if they didn't rule on it yesterday, if they don't rule on today, they don't rule on it tomorrow, tell me then what is unacceptable? Just crashing someone under caution? Are you saying that you can do whatever you want? on the racetrack and it will be no penalty whatsoever like that how can you ever take us seriously is and as a car owner I spend tens of millions of dollars to make sure our cars are fast my drivers

have an equal opportunity to go out in race however if you're telling me that anyone can go out there and just wipe us out intentionally I that's not the sport I invested in. So I have a problem with that. But as a fan watching NASCAR, how do you separate incidents between what the three did to the 22 and then like what Joey did, when Joey put William in the wall at Darlington

or when Bowman got into the back of you at Martinsville a few years? How do you separate those? Like what's okay? Like surely you can't like rule out, you know, bump and runs or just knocking a guy out of the way at the end of the race. How do you separate that? Like as a fan on watching the race and an incident like this happens, how am I confidently going to know, they're like, oh, that was legal or that

wasn't legal? You make common sense decisions. And they're not always going to be 100% right. You can always make an argument one way or another. The one thing about balls and strikes calls is you at least you have a, they put a box on TV now to show you where that dot lands. And it's like, it's right on the edge. It could be a ball or a strike. Just kind of depends. this is just part of officiating. This is just part of being the big boy. And NASCAR is the big boy, and they have to make big boy decisions sometimes

in the best interest of their sport. And so what you're saying is, well, how do they determine? Well, when you see the 22 running the back of William Byron at Darlington, I would argue he's making a racing move, the 24, you know, it was kind of, he squeezed him. The 22 went into the corner, ran into the back of him,

and the 24 kept going, right? And so they made what I would call, I don't know, tedious contact or whatever. Joey says after the race, yeah, well, he got me, so I got him. Listen, this was part of what I brought up in my intentional wrecking of Ross Chastain. It was like, well, he said that he did it, so what's the difference? and why I have a problem with this is that if I were to go out and spin Austin Dillon and wreck them next week, I get a penalty because they said you intentionally wrecked him.

How can you look at that and say he didn't intentionally wreck the 22 and then intentionally wreck the 11? You cannot say that with a conscious mind. 99%, the only one percent are going to be the people in Welcome, North Carolina, that see it one way. Chocolate Myers. Those guys. I'm just arguing that I feel like it needs to be very blatant and everyone needs to agree like, okay, that was intentional.

It's kind of like roughing the passer though. You just, you watch it and you see and you make the call. Like sometimes it was a clean hit. Sometimes it was like there you can't have a black and white. And so with this, it's like you see it clearly it was a dirty move. That's what I'm saying. Jared, how much worse could it possibly get? Like it's roughing the passer even.

There's some that happened on Sunday and you're like, Yeah, by the letter of the law, it probably is. So they threw the flag. But they could have let that go. How much worse could this be? The problem is, though, in NASCAR, it affects the results so much. Because let's say last night, you know, Austin wrecks Joey, right? So now Joey doesn't win. And then he wrecks you, so then you're going to disqualify Austin. So now all of a sudden, Tyler Reddick's the winner? Like, and then you're going to, you can't have this happen more than, you. I don't want to see it happen at all during the season, let alone like two, three times. I was the first person decued in 63 years for a sticker on the car. A sticker. That's a different conversation.

And then not only that they decue me, they decued second place, which is Kyle Bush, they gave the win to the third place guy. So, for stick, for a sticker on the car. I don't want to the race to finish and then wonder, oh, did that guy win? And if he didn't win, well, then he wrecked the guy that should have won, so then he can't win.

So then the guy who finished. there's just fourth wins. Like, that's, but, okay, this is what I've been talking about when it comes to, like, the clash. Eventually, make a call and it will deter us from doing these stupid ass acts. You have to make a call and draw a line in the sand as the sanction body and say, no, that is unacceptable. That was not a racing incident.

That was intentional. And we've seen it at the clash really the last few years, right? People just, I think Austin Dillon, he wiped out. uh true x or something two years ago like he wiped him out no it was above wallace he just cleaned him out that is that was not a racing incident he did not attempt to make the corner in a normal fashion he was driving in until he made contact if they can officiate it in the cars tour why they don't have they don't have the they don't have the technology we have you don't even need technology to use your brain that's my that's my problem with it

is that tell me a person with legitimate sense that says, yeah, that was just a racing incident, that the three accidentally spun the 22 there. No, he didn't. He went, he drove in until he spun him out, as instructed by his team. Okay, well, now you have another variable in this, as instructed by his team.

Well, hold on, let's, can we just play the N-Car audio? Yes. And let the people hear it first before we give our opinion. Yes. What I love hearing is in the post race. You know, we're trying to listen to Press Pass because I'm just dying to hear what Austin said, Austin Dillens is saying about this, is that I, the media is trying to keep Richard Childers from, you know, they're trying to keep him somewhat in line.

and saying, hey, Richard, you know, your guys told them to wreck him. He said, ah, no, it didn't. Yes, sir, they did. We have audio. Well, you can't believe everything you hear on the internet. I'm just thinking, oh, my gosh. I mean, you know, I just, that's a little bit of kind of, I think, what puts a little bit a bad taste in others' mouths at times is that, you know, at least when I got out of the car,

I tried to hear, let me think about this from Austin's perspective. Well, he gets rewarded for it. He, his season was terrible and he saw this as a way, this is just the easy way out, and I'm going to take it and, oh well. But yet, these guys are celebrating like, you know, they won the World Series and, like, think that they did something that was admirable. like it's not that's the only kind of problem i have with this is it's like okay well then just take the checker flag and like you know suppress it a little bit in the media don't just say oh well it's you know i really didn't do anything it's it was fine i just did what i need to like at least have some empathy that you just wrecked two guys to win the race like like don't be doing ticotx um that you know

you just won the race and like look how great we are like that's just It's just a, that's just bull-hs my mind. Devil's advocate, should it matter what the spotter says in the moment and like how you judge this? Yes. It's ain't going to be, I'm starting to be more and more of the boat of get rid of these stupid spotters, man. DBC might not like it. And I know it'll never happen because, and you can't because we have super freeways and it's a safety thing. But they've got to shut the fuck up, man.

They do. they're not driving the car like it's just it's interesting that they they believe that that's like a legitimate way to win you you were on your way to a legitimate win but then you got beat and you have to live with getting beat on that restart you didn't do a good enough job that the 22 did and you have to take that l and say damn it i had to do it all over again i would have got a better restart and I would have beat the 22. But I didn't. And the 22 earned the right to win that race via his restart.

But it took zero talent to wipe someone out and then wipe someone else out. So it's a shame that his win's going to get tainted by this because he had a legitimate win coming. But I just don't agree with the avenue that he chose. And I think it's wrong, and I think the rulebook says that it's wrong, and it's up to our sport to lay their foot down, say that this is unacceptable. They do it everywhere.

Every series officiates these kind of things to keep us within bounds. Conduct. It says it to have proper conduct on the racetrack. I just, you guys, tell me how it could be possibly worse than this. I mean, at the end of the race, it probably can't. He wrecks a third car The only way it could be worse. So why have a rule

if you're not going to enforce it? That's the problem I have with this. Who up there has got the big enough pants in the tower to say, that's bull-h-that's against the rules, you're out. I mean, but they also, they got to call it in the moment. It's got to be called.

That's not what it says. But you don't have to. That's not what it says. It says it can deem it can do during, or post. And they, you know, not to get in our private conversations, but they said, we'll look at everything. We're going to look at everything.

We didn't like what we saw. Okay. So I just, I just worry about the long-term effects. Let's take me out of it. Just the long-term effects that this has on racing. We've started to see this morph its way into ridiculousness at the end of these races. Martinsville, God knows, I mean, we all know what's coming in a few months, right? We're going to get a green-white checkered and everyone going to wipe each other out because

they have not enforced the rulebook in these situations. But this one was, and you could argue, I mean, you can argue different ways about like, well, this one was this one, this one, this one was that one. You cannot find a more blatant. I'm going to drive until I wreck you. and then I see another car, I'm going to steer left and take him out too. You cannot find a more egregious,

you know, rough driving or bad on-track conduct. As a fan, I don't want to lose that aggressive last-lap driving at Martinsville, with a race to go in the season. Well, then it was his job to get a better restart, and if he wanted to wash up the 22 in middle of one and two, and I think even you heard Paul Wolf say, in his post race or to

serious he says listen if he washed up into us in one and two I get it like we're racing both guys neither one wanted to let off but just wiping someone out we're no longer in racing anymore and this is the highest form of motorsports so someone

someone with the authority has to say this is not that was not NASCAR racing NASCAR racing NASCAR racing is hard racing we make contact sometimes there's incidences but we not stand for intentional wrecking. You know what's dumb is people, well, Dale did it.

Well, Jack Tatum used to not do its heads off and you evolved the sport and there's rules and it changes. So like what changes, that's right. Drivers did in the past has no implication on this. I think that's so dumb. Well, Dale did it so it's cool. Can't you blame the format though? Because I think you made a good comment in that if you were in Austin's position

last night, if you were running second to Joey going into that last corner, You probably, you wouldn't have done the same thing because you think long term, well, I'm going to have to raise Joey in the playoffs. We're both going to be contending for a championship. If I wreck him here, there's going to be consequences that I'm going to pay. So it seems like that your team, a team that wins often and is constantly racing up front and a team like the three car who doesn't find themselves in position to win all that often are playing two separate games here. The consequences for them. Yeah. There really isn't any.

you're correct which is why I said that I don't I don't I don't fault Austin that much because what he if he if he gets no penalty if he believes he gets no penalty for this yeah you just live with a result you can get he could have a DNF every race from here the end of the season and he just increased his position 15 spots in the points now can Can we just pause over? Like, can you, there, there is no, there is no monetary or point penalty that affects this whatsoever. It, it has to be positioning. You, you, you did not make the playoffs by doing that.

That's, that's wrong. Like, there, there is no, you can find them a million dollars and it doesn't matter. It's still worth it. You could find them 200 playoff points. matter. He was never going to be 16th in points anyway. So, you know, it's no, any, anything, any points or monetary fine is simply just going to be, all right, well, so what? I still reaped a bit, I still got rewarded for doing what I did. You have to make it not, you cannot reward that type of on-track action, in my opinion.

just we've gone too far. This is too far. I understand side-by-side battles. Sometimes someone spins out, but that was cleaning someone out and not a racing move. So isn't the format at fault? Yes, it is.

It's partial fault, right? The format didn't make Austin Dillon make those decisions, but it rewarded it. it if if NASCAR doesn't enforce its rules. So yes, it is. Listen, do I believe a win in you're in is the right thing? No, because obviously the three team is not a top 16 team. I just, the win in you're in, it's too, racing nowadays with fuel mileage and this, that and the other,

wins are too easy one win is too easy to get to like say that okay well then you should battle for a championship no I think they had a top 30 rule in place for a reason

to keep people from you know being absolutely horrible all year long and then lucking up and getting a win now he wasn't going to luck up and get a win until he did that right it was he was going to get a win legitimately right so I don't

but I still don't agree that cars 25th, 30 second points deserve to be in the playoffs because they get a win. I don't, I just think that you're watering down what this is all about for sure. But that's a separate conversation. Can you explain quick? I mean, it makes it easier for me, by the way,

because I just, you know, the road of the championship gets easier. What is the difference in finishing 16th in points and 30th in points? Probably about, two million bucks and in what the charter will get paid right so that's the that's the key that's the key is that he gets to put a i'm a i'm a playoff driver he's quite the different playoff driver than others when you think about in the context but in you know if this stands then i believe that months and months and months and years from now

ain't nobody going to care it's just going to say what is the box score say oh you made the playoffs wow great job it's not going to they don't care about how you did it right so I'm playing devil's advocate why does Austin Dillon why does he care yeah why does he care besides oh he doesn't care we saw it

we saw it with us both for his interview and family and the whole team just celebrating like they just did it I just think that that's the way that they think, right? Is that, well, that's, we did whatever it took and we don't care about ethics. It's, it's, you know, we just, we did, we did what we wanted to do, not what we had to do. Drivers don't have to do that. I hate that statement that I did what I had to do.

Now you didn't have to do that. You chose to do that. That was a decision you made. Well, is it, is it worth it for him to do that? You're not in his shoes, right? You're in a completely different position. You have a chance to win every week. Yes, it is worth it to him.

Absolutely. Yeah, because the system rewards, all you've got to do is win a race. And you're going to put yourself from 32nd to 16th in points at minimum. And that shouldn't be the case. The system sets this up for that. That's what I mean. You'd say, don't like when drivers say,

oh, I had to do that. but in a way he he kind of did have to do that he was in that position you know here's a win on the doorstep for him yeah but he felt like he had the best car he felt like he had a you know i understand the ethics and that he got beat on the restarting you know just take the l but it's but it's but it's a rule also it's not like we're just but NASCAR's not going to enforce it well that's my point is that they need to enforce because it cannot get him any more egregious than that's it cannot so what does NASCAR do now you pen? penalize them like you're supposed to.

What's the penalty? It's up for them to decide that. I don't know. But there's no monetary, no point fine that does anything. So take away the win? You have to do something to tell us you cannot intentionally crash someone for a win. Intentionally crash. Drive in the corner and say, sorry, bud, it's you. Not me.

It's you. Like, that was not a racing move. I go back to racing. for a win is very, very different. Me and Kyle Larson at Pocono. There's two cars battling side by side, arguing over a couple feet of space. When you drive in

and just say, I'm going until I wreck you, that is not a racing move. That is blatant, intentional wrecking, which is against the rules. So do you... Times two. So do you strip the win away? Do you take away the playoff eligibility?

Do you institute a new one? rule that you have to be top 20 in points to make the playoffs? No, you can't do those things. Any of those things? I think, I don't know if all since then. If top 20, yes, they need to make a bigger picture, yes, you should make a, you should make the eligibility of actually being a playoff driver a little harder than just winning a race.

But that's a bigger conversation. You can't do that mid-season. Yeah, you can't do it mid-season. But you can take away the win. Yes. You can basically say to everyone that this is, we deem that as not a racing incident. That was intentional.

It altered the finish of the race. Therefore, this person does not deserve the win. So you strip the win, which means you strip the playoff eligibility to someone else get the win? Does a win go to somebody else? Or do you say nobody, you know, this, no one. no there was no winner this race i don't know i mean that's that's up for them to kind of decide all that stuff but certainly rewarding a playoff spot for what we saw was is not in the best interest of our sport long term and i hope that they can see past the headlights right in front of them

and see that this is if we allow this this is a bad bad way to go because at phoenix just wipe all your competitors out. Like, if I were in the final four, what keeps me from just crashing all three of the guys I'm up against? This is not the first time I've heard you hypothesized, you know, say that. Because we've had similar situations in the past that has brought that. Because what will happen now is that when we come to a cut race, someone's close to another guy, just wreck them.

You'll say, well, I did what I had to do. They're not moving on. I am, you can't allow that. That is not you are ruining the integrity of our sport. So stop it right now before it gets there. Because if you say that this is okay and you allow it and you allow someone to not only get into the first round, into the playoffs,

if you allow this egregious of an act, then you open up the door for someone who's outside the cut line to just wreck someone that's in the cut line. Move on, that person's out. it doesn't matter if you get wrecked the next round and you've made the next, you've made it. So you have to put the bumpers on us because clearly we're not thinking straight as drivers.

And so that's why we have rules in place to keep us within, you know, the roadway here. Do you feel like that drivers will know where that line is? If NASCAR comes out tomorrow or today or whatever and strips the win away and says, you know, that was, you know, aggressive driving or whatever. It's a penalty. Do you think other drivers, every other driver in the field knows the line of where they...

100% of them. 100% of them would say, that was warranted. I can't imagine any other driver saying, well, yeah, the way he did it there to get in the... That was fair. Nobody would say that that was fair. But going forward, we're at Martinsville and so-and-so is, you know, trying to get into the champions before and so-and-so is ahead of them. If you wreck the person, yes.

You should be out. Go to the back. Again, we have these rules in Legends cars. We have these rules in cars tour. We have them in every other racing series because they know you cannot just open it up to allow these drivers to do whatever it takes,

crash someone, hurt someone. You can do whatever you want. You cannot allow that. Not as the top form of motorsports. you have the sanction of body need to be big boys and make big boy calls so you think all the drivers are on the same page they know what they can and can't do with two races they go in the season i think it i think it is like what travis says it's a it's um roughing the passer call some of them will be questionable but it's up to them to make the call you can't just not make not make calls if that

happens in the middle of the race is it do they just look the other way or i i know that's i mean probably yes the move on the 22 yeah probably you you'd think differently i don't know i think it's i think it's blatant intentional wrecking no matter when it is like what's it like what's what stops the driver for me like oh well i didn't mean to to spin them out i just mean to like But he did spin out. In order to spin someone out in these cars, you have to hit them with such force that you can't miscalculate that much.

You can't. It's very, very hard to. These cars, in order to wreck someone like he wrecked Joey, he would, he misjudged the corner as much as he wanted to to know that the 22 was not going to make it out. So that's my thing. It's not like the old generation car where, man, you can just get right up to the rear bumper and they're going to spin out. We don't have that in next gen.

You have to, I mean, over the top hit someone. You have to be so much faster than them entering the corner to spin them out because of how much grip the car has. So I think it actually makes it easier to officiate because if that car goes around, you've hit him really hard. As long as you think that all the drivers know where the line is, as long as you think the competitive, there's no where the line is that like if I do this they may call me for this I may get sent to it. Well it's not up to me to be the sanctioned body and say okay here's the statement I'm going to make on it. Here's why we drew the line and they would say publicly like they'll talk on Tuesday why we we chose this penalty. It's because we saw that he did this, this and this

and that will not be stood for. So that's that's how you inform the driver. of kind of, you know, what is acceptable and what is not? Yeah, I mean, surely listening to all the drivers post-race last night, the ones that spoke Bubba, Tyler, Joey, obviously, everyone seemed to be on the same page with that this was out of the line. Bubba had said that he was going to go shake Austin's hands, say congratulations on, you know, great race and whatnot, and then he's at the end of it.

He's like, well, I don't think I can go do that anymore. And I mean, that's what frustrates me, too, is that, that Austin and the three team were on their way to, like their first legitimate non-super speedway, non-gas mileage race win. Like, it was their first full weekend they put together probably in his entire career. And they did it.

And they did a great job. They passed us and they were set in sale. They were going to win the race. But sometimes things don't go your way at the end. And you don't do the best job on the restart. and you have to live with that result. You can't just throw... You can't just throw everything out of the window

and say, well, I should have won the race, so I'm going to make sure I do. Like, we have rules and parameters for that. You know, there's protections in rulebooks to make sure that we don't do things like that. So, we'll see. Your crew chief quote tweeted, Paul Wolf's tweet and said that he was confident

that NASCAR would make the right decision this week. Yeah, I mean, I think that I think Elton, if I'm just looking at what he said to the reporters afterwards, I think that you can look at it and say that they did not like what they saw. I mean, Elton was a competitor himself. What, you know, if you're Elton and you're me or the 22, what do you, how do you feel about it, right? you just got wiped out by someone that intentionally crashed you. And on that intentional, I'd like to play one more sound by it's of,

I believe it's you, Gabe Hart and your spotter and what your spotter was told by Austin Dillon spotter. Yeah, no doubt. And I got a text from my spotter saying, here's exactly what he told me. He's like, oh, that's probably my fault. I told him to do it.

and so but you know Lambert being the rational person that he is the one that thinks halfway straight he's like yeah but also you're not driving the car that guy's got to make his own decisions but

yeah I just man nothing chaps me more than spotters thinking that they should drive the car give advice on what they what actions drivers should make it never ends well it never ever ever ends well when spotters chime in and try to make decisions. So you spoke with NASCAR. Is there anything that

you can say publicly of that conversation with whoever you spoke with? No, not that I'll say publicly, but I thought it was a cordial conversation and, you know, it was myself, Joe Gibbs, Heather Gibbs, Dave Alpern, Chris Gaphart, myself. And we laid out, you know, kind of what, how we felt about it and um and you know they said like always they'll they're going to look at it they obviously uh said post race they that uh wherever the line is that that's that's that's about us he may have crossed it if not he's about as close to it as possible so you know they certainly if you if you care about integrity of the sport and and you want to see us taken seriously it'd be hard to uh it'd be hard to look away.

As someone who is a team owner and is investing millions of dollars into this sport, how much does it bother you that, you know, the entertainment factor is being maybe put ahead of the competitiveness? It already is right in the format, right? We have elimination styles and all this other stuff. I don't think anyone, I think that NASCAR. trying to fabricate, you know, these exciting moments through eliminations and, you know, the smaller and small, the sample size of a championship just keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

You're not fooling our core fan base that follows us, the millions that follow us each and every week. You're not fooling them. But are you going to lose them? What do you mean? So, oh, I think, so like Sports Center led off 10 p.m. last night, highlight of the race. Right. of the interviews and everything.

Are you going to lose the core fan? I don't think so, but you might gain a new fan. Yeah, because a new fan that likes it, you know, A, they're not going to get to see that pretty often, but you still can have highlights like they did on SportsCenter when we had a three-wide photo finish. Why does it have to be, hey, look how lawless we are. It's just anyone can tune in to watch a demolition derby,

but it's you know you're watching a professional sport that has professional officials and you have rules against this so you know it's um is that what the average joe watching sports center think so like oh look how lawless this is like i love this like yes i mean sure i think that um i think we've built up a reputation over time that certainly would say that you know we're just a bunch of rowdies and that we're you know We're demolition derby at times. I mean, look at all the crashes and stuff we have. I mean, that's part of natural racing, but we set it up through double-wide restarts, green white checker finishes. You know, we've allowed it to get this far. And show me some information or data

that's showing that that's growing our sport. As a team owner, I don't think the direction in which we're going or have gone is necessarily putting us at the adult. table. So that's how I interpreted Austin's answer to a question last night in his press conference.

Someone asked about this and he said, well, we're trending on Twitter. But that just shows how tone deaf you are, right? In my opinion, it's just tone deaf. It's, you know, you're not looking at, you're strictly looking at this through your lens and you're not being empathetic to the people, two people you just put in the fence.

Interesting nugget is I play Austin Dillon on Thursday. Our team's battle. Yeah, how is the hoop group commissioner going to handle this? We'll handle it on the court. I'm already hearing some people on Austin Dillon's team are thinking about... Boycotting? Boycotting or maybe turn the ball over intentionally.

I don't know. Listen, I can separate. I can absolutely separate on track and off track. Have you spoken to him since? I have not. Have you spoken to anyone in this situation since? No. Any other drivers?

Oh, yeah, Joey Laganow, he called me when I was on the plane. And nice of Joey. He was like, you know, how's your shoulder? You're all right. I'm like, yeah, you know, it sucked. You obviously got the worst end of it. You know, I at least was able to finish. You got second.

Yeah. but he's like you know what did NASCAR say I went to the hauler nobody was there we just had those conversations but it you know yeah I've heard from other drivers and lots of other people I had as many text messages as I do when I win a race and and they were all like what what the hell that was bullshit what's the protocol should Austin reach out to you when you when this something happens how does there an unwritten rule on if you're the one that reckon you reach out to the driver case by case? It's case by case, but certainly in the fashion of which it happened, you would think so.

What could Austin possibly say to you? That's what I'm saying is, what do you say? Do you try to back up a little bit and say, man, sorry? I just, I don't know, but his actions would say he's not sorry. He's happy with it. You know, actions from teams and family and stuff like that says that, you know, They're not sorry. They're happy with the result and they don't care about anything else,

which is fine. It's your prerogative. It does show a little bit of character that you've got. But it's, you know, if he does, he doesn't. I mean, I'll see him on Thursday. But, you know, I feel like I'm a rational enough person that, you know, I could say, Austin, really? Like, damn, man, you got the first one.

You didn't have to get the second one. you know like i you already know that like oh crap i wreck the guy oh i'm going to do it again like i i don't know you're not going to convince someone you shouldn't have to convince someone of what they did or good or bad except for their own conscience to uh to decide that but everyone is different and i respect that everyone is different um and so i'll just uh you know what i have to live with a result because I can't change it. Well, maybe. So.

I don't know. I just think about what Jeff Gluck said last night and he had, you know, said, you know, you know, Austin's got a team behind him, you know, and he's going to be taking over RCR one day. And how does he, you know, look those guys in the eye and say that he did everything he could to, to win this race? It's a very legitimate argument. Absolutely. I again I I put the fault on Austin less than I do with probably the format or his people you know I I you know when you're people you're in your radio you're you got to make split second decisions and when someone's telling you crash wreck them right like what are you doing um it's you know it's hard not to make those decisions when you got someone in your ear telling you to do it Like, you've got to make a decision. Am I going to do this or that?

Well, I'll choose what you said, you know? So I just, I don't fault him because he saw an easy avenue to get what he wanted. But unfortunately, for him, we have rules that keep people from doing acts like this. It's just a matter whether it gets enforced or not. See, I just. I think without the, the, the, you hitting the wall and right rearing you and without that incident, this is, we talk about this and it's, you know, there's, you know, it's a, a moment that is remembered, but I feel like this conversation is probably over. Like, he just drives in, knocks Joey out the way, he wins the race. Like, I don't know. I feel like we've seen that plenty of times before. I feel like it's not until the second that you also end up in the wall that it's like, okay, whoa, now this is over the top. Yes, because you could. you can't argue twice that it was unintentional. It was an intentional wreck, the first one.

Anyone with two eyes and a brain can see that. The second one just affirms where their head was at in the first one. Does that make any sense? So maybe you could make an argument. I just made a mistake, got in too deep. I didn't mean to spend the 22 out. But the second act shows, okay, we know where his mind was at entering turn. three because we saw it happen not once but twice so it just affirms it which is why i say it can't

get any more egregious than that it can't right so that that's where the line is yeah then yeah watson this was the tires thank goodness thank goodness yeah another actions detrimental tire episode is saved. Yeah, well. No, because the fans love the tires though, this time. So it would have been positive talk. Yeah. I think when it comes down to the tires, I think we found our new short track tire.

We need to just run the reds. Because what you didn't see and what so immediately what the public would think is that, well, if you just put us all on reds. we're going to have the same race as what we had before, which is not true. And the reason it's not true is that what was happening is that while we were on, there was a few cars on different strategies, so you got to see them do some passing, things like that.

If you put us all on Reds for the entire race, you will see a lap time fall off to a big number, and then you would see tons of passing mid to the end of the stents with those tires. So I think that they need to just put a bow on this and say that the red tire is our Martinsville tire. It's our Phoenix tire. Whatever it might be. Just the softest tire they can get needs to be our short track tire and then let us figure it out. And what it would fix is when we go to Indian, we start just saving fuel, saving fuel. The whole race, just saving fuel. It's because the tires are outlasting the fuel tank. With the red tires, the tires don't last as long as long as they're. The whole race,

as the fuel tank. So it would force us to, do I push now? Do I push later? I need to make sure my car is handling correctly or else I'm going to really fall off a cliff at the end of the run. It's back to the tires that we used to have on short track. So I think Goodyear did a great job experiment with this. NASCAR did a great job of rolling the dice without doing a tire test with these tires on this track and saying, you know what, if there's ever going to, we need to find a way to fix short tracks, let's try to do it through the tire. And the only way to experiment that is to put it in a real life situation. And they did. And I thought it was a success in the way of, we have found a tire that is softer than Goodyear ever thought that they could produce. And it lasted

at least 40, 50 laps. That's good enough. That's all it needs to last on short tracks. Let us figure out the rest. And so I think they should just make it our short track tire. So get rid of the two tire compounds. Yeah. I mean, I think that you could end up having something more, you know, something fluky happen in the end. But I think so. I think you're going to have more of a natural, we're supposed to reward excellence in our support. If anything, it's starting to reward not excellence in many, many different ways. But I think that it would fix a lot of our short track issues with passing because this tire would fall off so significantly at the end of a run, you would see comers and goers.

And so I think that it would be a drastic improvement to our short track passing. If they just went with the Reds and said, that's our tire, we're good to go. wasn't the element of last night of Daniel Suarez and his strategy and coming on the reds at the end of the race? Wasn't that fascinating? It was. It was for sure. I found it, you know, interesting watching the race back. And so, yeah, there was an element of it for sure. But in the long term, does Goodyear want to produce like multi-tires and stuff like that? We already kind of had a little bit of an issue this weekend with some of the tires that were produced were a month or more older than others and we've seen when tires you know when they're not matched right

or what have you it certainly there can be a big disparity in speed you're you're wanting to create the most level playing field as possible and one tire would do that are you saying that different sets that you had were older or like you yeah everyone did everyone in the field had you know some newer tires so you could put one on that were made last week and then Kyle larson could have had three months ago tires or something. Yes, yes, which would make Kyle Orson's car much slower. One of the best examples that is we had

in Martinsville, I can't remember if it was this race or the last one. I think it was the last one. You would put on a set of tires that was just a little bit newer and your car would go three-tenths faster. Change nothing. All you did was put on a newer tire and it would go faster. So I

definitely think that we've got to be careful with our quality control of the tires that we do bring to the track to make sure everyone has an equal you know has an equal equal sets because you shouldn't be at a disadvantage just because the luck of draw of the tires that you get i mean i feel like that should just be the case normally why why are you bringing a track of the three month old tires and like one week old tires because goodier wants to get rid of their inventory in their warehouse so what happens when we go to tracks and we don't use all the tires, they put them back in inventory.

Well, it shouldn't be about that. We just argue that NASCAR is the top tier professional sport. Why are we worried about getting rid of inventory? You're making my argument. I'm not arguing against you. We're on the same team on this one. Professionally, you should just if you have excess inventory, you eat it.

That's right. Your sport should be making enough money that it doesn't even matter. That is irrelevant. Preach of the choir, Jared. Thank you for making the argument, so I don't have to. You're right. You should just have to eat it because everyone should be on the same tires week in, week out. Does the handling of the car change when you switch between the Lows and the Reds? Oh, yes.

It does. You know, you try to make adjustments for it. It's never perfect. But it is an element that comes into play. We didn't exactly have the balance of our Reds, you know, quite where I needed it. But, you know, you debrief, you come over time, you make it better. That seems like a fascinating element. than a variable that you get with having two different tire compounds.

Yeah, it is. And again, I'm more, I guess I'm just trying to be too much of a purist and say that like, we just want to reward the fastest car and the fastest driver every week. They should be rewarded. And so they shouldn't have to deal with elements that are out of their control. So that's why I'm trying to put it all in control to say, just give us all the same tires, you know, and we'll all will figure it out and let the best man win on that day. but what best man's not going to win though regardless of if you're all on the same tire or not

because you're going to get a caution with three laps to go and the best man's not going to win right i know because it's uh that's the way it's been going right it's yeah like the fastest car wins like 30% of time now it's such a low number i mean if they're back in the day um you know joe gips and naskar remember would have conversations they said that our number one priority is to have, keep the integrity of our sport and reward the best car and driver on that day. And we've, over time, gone further and further away from that. If they don't punish Austin, I think starting third is, you don't want to start first in any of these races going forward to start third so you can not get spun out.

Yeah, I mean, or if you're Austin Dillan, just do a better job of wrecking without giving up, you know, letting the third place guy go by. but he had you so far back that he wasn't gonna he had no chance to make a legitimate quarter unless he hit the 22 what else we got from this race do you think joey lagano will get fined um for uh spitting his tires doing a little burnout in front of austin dillan's pit box i'm not sure uh or maybe i was behind it but i didn't i wasn't like totally keen into it. Certainly NASCAR doesn't love, you know, any kind of acts on pit road because it is a... I mean, family members and stuff were out.

It's a hot pit road and whatnot. But yeah, well, nobody's supposed... You're not allowed... No one's supposed to be over the wall at that point that the cars are coming on, you know, onto pit road, but it's just kind of gotten loose over time. Maybe they tighten that up a little.

a bit, but yeah, he certainly, I mean, he was seeing Red at the moment, and, you know, he saw the guys on the three team, so he did a burnout in front of them. And so I don't know, it's, I doubt I doubt they do anything. It was interesting, though, seeing you and Lugano fans coming together yesterday. Yeah. Did we just become best friends? Right. Yeah, I saw that, I saw that meme. That's funny. Yeah, you hate that you end up forming an alliance for the wrong reasons because you both got wrecked. But yeah, funny how things work. Yeah, when was the last time you got a cordial phone call from Joey? Oh, gosh, I don't know.

It's been a minute. Maybe when we were your teammates? What was that? 15 years ago? Long time. It's funny that lost in all of this was his quote. he said something about like towards Austin like oh he sucked he sucked his whole career you know it's he's a hack he's a Austin can make a teacher I don't know who would do that post

race just call someone a hack and that they're not any good and I don't know why they why anyone would ever do that I thought that it's amazing what we will we will say when we're really angry yeah or not say yeah seems like you've gotten pretty good at that um well this uh this race ended a two-week break, and we had quite a bit of news over the break. One of the more noteworthy things is that Corey LaJoy will not be returning to the seven car in 2025.

Yeah. You know, that's... It's unfortunate for Corey. I understand why Spire made the decision, right? They felt like, you know, this is a performance-based business, and the performance hasn't been what they hoped. I listened, I tuned in to Corey's podcast to kind of hear what his take was on it.

I thought he was very professional, very matter of fact. I think he took it on the chin and took responsibility for what his role was in it. I do think there's multiple layers to it as in like, is it all Corey's fault? no, probably not. But you know, you do have this obligation to get the best that you can out of your car each and every week. And I think he took responsibility there. So, but I don't think it's the end. I think there's an opportunity for him.

And what my advice would be is to, the same that I've said for a long time, is go win, man. Go get your, you know, go get some win. wins, you know, because he battled, you know, this is back a long time ago, but he battled with Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott in the Arka series, and he raced with him heads up. He did. He raced against him and won races and was very competitive. Now, you know, he kind of skipped truck series and Xfinity and all that and just kind of started racing cup, but, you know, he got into a cup opportunity. You know, it was a backmarker. team but like he got an opportunity to like race on Sunday so he took it right and so you never

really got that warm and cozy feeling that what is he able to do right and so I think this is an opportunity for him to go back down I think he should go back down a series or two and win it worked for John Hunter Nemechek for him to build his legitimacy back up into the sport Cole Custer you know in both Cole Custer and John Hunter are both going to get back an opportunity in the Cup series but you got to do it

you got to show these people that you can win and I think that you know he's going to work hard enough and hopefully he gets an opportunity to show what he can do and you know I wish the best for him but I got a ton of respect for how he handled it and how honesty was

with us and himself when he talked about it on this podcast. Do you think the Pocono situation had anything to do with this? I think they're surprised. I think if it's my opinion and I don't have any firsthand knowledge of it, but I think their decisions were made before then. At Spire, I think, you know, just a long enough time and period had gone by of lack of performance that they just, I think they probably knew in their head. And I think Jeff Dickerson said it that, you know, they've been thinking about this for months. And so I don't think that that one incident, you know, was a factor.

2311 hired Juan Pablo Montoya to run a car for them at Watkins Glen. Is that correct? Yes. Going to run for the mobile one 50th anniversary car. We're excited about that. Excited to have Juan back in our sport. He was such a great person to have in Cup series racing. and, you know, just from his interviews, the sound bites that he would do, the on track, how exciting it was to watch on the racetrack. He was someone that we definitely missed in our sport in the last decade, but it's cool to have him back. And I think he's got a little rust. But, you know, someone as talented as him doesn't forget how to drive a race car. And, you know, it's not like he's 55.

no offense to 55-year-olds. I think he's still young enough to where he's still got some good reaction time and still going to be good and competitive. I do think that the competition is harder now than it's ever been on road courses. I think the field through analytics and data and working real hard, the field has gotten faster. It won't be as easy for him to just go out and set fast time at Watkins Glen like he used to. But, you know, because when we added road courses to our schedule, it forced all of us to have to get better at it.

And so I think it'll be exciting to see him at probably his best cup track for this one start. How does this come about? Do you do 2311 reach out to him? Are you like, we need a road course ringer for this car? Or is he like, hey, I love to drive it if there's any opportunities? Well, it's a collaboration with mobile one. So it happens between Steve Lleudder, our team president, and mobile one, the relationship there. And then they talk about who's the best fit for this campaign that we're doing for our 50th anniversary.

And so, you know, it was highlighting up-and-coming drivers like Corey Heim. And it's also highlighting champions of our sport, you know, and so I think, you know, when I say our sport, motor sports. and so you had that in Kemi and obviously in Juan. Did you enjoy your first vacation and who knows how long? Yeah, I did. I actually didn't think of short of, you know, a little time and place where I was talking racing during that trip. I never thought about it.

I really didn't. I really enjoyed kind of the moment and, you know, loved, loved that break for sure. after the last night you're like I'm ready to go back I'm not you know it was just another race

where I was in contentional win and it's like every seven days I have that I'm in contentional win so I'm looking forward to six days from now when you have a tough loss like this is tough that you have to wait a week

and you're like I want to get back out there today and like go get that win I mean it always I always have the moment in time where like Monday's the like like Monday morning is the, listen, I came on this podcast and just unleashed a bunch of F bombs, right? So I just, uh, yeah, we didn't do much prep for this one. We just turn the cameras on and

away. So I, but then now I get over it, right? I go into my meetings for the rest of the day and I just, I move on. And so you definitely have, you know, this is the valley of the emotion where it's like, all right, I got to vent. I got to get this out. And now I need to go back to going to, work and figuring out how I'm going to win the next week. Because I can't go back and change anything I did in that moment. And there's been many weeks, right, where it's like, man, if I would have done this or I would have done that, I felt like I could have changed the result. This one, I certainly don't feel like I could have.

So the questioned, growing illegitimacy of NASCAR and whatnot doesn't really sit with you all that long? You know, because I feel like I've made the best case that I can, right? here in this last hour of why I think this is an important moment in time for our sport is to do something about it. I laid out the reasons why. Now it's up to them to be the big boys and either say yes or no to that argument and whatever discussions that they have internally, right? Like it's, there's nothing more really I can say about it. I speak as a competitor. What I see, someone that wants to see this sport grow and evolve and continue to get bigger and better

and sit with the big boys at the table like the NBA and MLB and NFL. I want us to sit at that table. But yeah, sometimes you make decisions that are tough and they've made tough decisions in the past and I think this is no different. Last question I have on this is that since you work with so many people who came from outside now, car do they have any perspective on this yeah i mean certainly i think that uh i mean i've got tons of screen grabs and things like that of you know like how is this real how is this allowed like are you i have probably five or six different people asking me questions how is that allowed are you able to just wreck people and and keep a win um and the short answer is

technically no, but most times yes. So it's a very kind of difficult thing to explain because, yeah, we have rules and provisions to stop this, but does it get enforced? Not really. It's like someone's driving to the basket and you just throw your leg out and trip them. Yeah, you can get away with that.

Wait, what? You know what I mean? It just doesn't look right. But I mean, other sports, like I think we are being a little to Arshund like saying these other sports are perfect. I mean, you had the Houston Astros cheat, Michigan just cheated. Like it happens also like I do think we need to not be as hard in acting like these other sports are full proof. That's why I'm saying.

But they all make cause to say it is or is not, right? And NASCAR will have their moment to do that. But yeah, you have to live sometimes with improprieties or things like that that happen in sports. and you as the sanction of body has to be the ones to make sure that you're keeping the integrity of your sport at a high regard. And they have to do it when they have cheating scandals and things like that in other sports. Right. They lay down the hammer enough to where it's like it's a legit deterrent. You know, rarely is it ever they lay down a hammer of a penalty and it plays no effect in the outcome.

Right? I mean, everyone has, I'm trying to think, Travis, and maybe you can help me here. Like, if Michigan has a scandal, like you say, well, they pay a price through sanctions and... That one's ongoing. But, like, the Houston Astros kept their World Series. No, granted, that's a bigger picture, not like a singular game, but you see Miss Calls at the end of a football game. And, like, the Failure, the Packers, like, they didn't go back and change. the call.

Yeah. Like so like yeah it happens clearly. It happens. But I think that I don't know that any other sport has something in the rulebook that says we can change the outcome post the event. Yeah, I'll give you that.

They had that in ours. They always give themselves an out to do what's right. Yeah, I agree there. That's how we're different. I think what I'm just a little surprised about with NASCAR is that they, I mean, they don't hold back when it comes to, you know, enforcing teams modifying parts or things like that.

Like they are, they enforce that to the 10th degree. That's the integrity of our sport. They're trying to keep the integrity. They want you to know when you see something on TV and they want you to believe that all those cars are the same. And they're going to monitor that through inspection. and when you put a clear piece of tape on your nose, they deem that, well, Denny, you won the race?

Nope, not anymore. It's like you weren't even here. You got zero. You're dead last. Right. That was a tough decision that they had to make. But you just said protect the integrity of the sport. But they protected the integrity.

And I, which is why. Driver actions. Which is why I feel like in that moment when they decued us, right? Did I ever say that was bull? They shouldn't have done that? No, I did not. I backed them and I said, by the letter of the law, our team cheated. Yeah.

And we got caught. Your five-year-old daughter also agreed. I said, well, dad, you broke the rules. Yes. And so I at least could see it out of not only my lens, I could see it through NASCAR. And so that's the kind of, that's how you're supposed to look through this. Look through multiple people's lens and then form your opinion. Not just, well, that's bull crap.

They had it out for us. No, they didn't. You broke a rule. So they said, we're going to make sure that we send a message here. And they sent a message. They decued me. First guy in 63 years. DQed.

I've been on the crap end of a lot of stuff. It's true. It's like talking to a handful of people last night. And you're like, well, when's the last time they decued a winner? I was like, well, funny you should say that. You should ask that. Seems like you have a knack for finding yourself in and around. I didn't do any of this, though.

I was an innocent bystandard to some recklessness. I was just minding my own business. I was sitting back and going to watch the fireworks fly on the last restart. And I was like, wow, that was anticlimatic. Joey got the jump on him and that was it. It was over. And then all hell broke loose. But, yeah, I don't know.

I guess I do find myself in it quite a bit. That's a good thing because it's usually at the front. Yeah. They don't talk about Rex and 20 that often. Unless it's the one that rings a caution out to restart at the end. Man, Ricky Stenhouse got some. Man, what, damn it, what is Ricky doing at the end of these races? He wasn't even racing the 41.

Do you think he wanted a little revenge on R.C. RCR? No, that's looking too much. I love a good conspiracy. I love the tinfoil hat. But, man, if I could... Whether he was or wasn't, it worked out. If I could just help a brother out and be like, buddy, you kind of get this thing to the finish. You're not...

You shouldn't be driving into turn one with two to go, not racing anyone that you're actually racing. you shouldn't be driving in so hard that you go out of control. Like you're not, you definitely didn't do your team any favors, things like that. If I could just wrap my arm around, I would say, you know, these are the incidences that like forms a reputation that you just,

that maybe we kind of need to change the narrative, you know, a little bit. So it's just, it is agitating that we can't get to the end of these races because of these, you know, incidences, you know, it certainly caused, you know, something that we're all talking about here on Monday. But I hate it for him because it's like, oh, when I saw the wreck, I saw the 47 up by the wall, I'm like, yeah. I mean, man, I've seen this before, right? And it's like, damn, I wish I hate it for him and his team that it keeps happening. Tom's hairpiece left us a review.

What? And they say, never thought it was possible to miss Denny, but here we are. Oh, because we took some time off. Yep. Yeah. I mean, people were mad that we weren't taping last night. They wanted the podcast. It was too late.

That's what I told him. Way too late. I mean, we had content lined up, right guys? Yep. the day after Indy we're supposed to have Kyle Bush on this show to fill the off week

we're going to interview Kyle but he had a wrist issue had to go to the doctor He's still dealing with it he was trying using scissors in the car on Sunday Yeah it's not been a good year for Kyle And I thought it was going to be interesting

because we ended up He ended up getting loose and wrecking underneath me at Indy that caused that whole show Get to the finish. Fellas. We should just publicly shame. Shame.

Shame. To everyone that causes a caution inside five to go. Like, come on, fellas. Let's get to the finish. You're going to finish where you're going to finish. You have to start to. Realize who you're racing. You have to start the rear of the next race if he calls a wreck with five to go and you're like 20 back.

Yeah. I don't know. It's part of racing. But man, we sure do do it a lot. Interesting that we keep causing these. caution. I don't know what, I don't know, I guess everyone's got their different motives, but maybe 25th, finishing 25th versus finishing 26th is going to be a big deal for you. I don't really know, but instead, you know, a lot of people crash cars at the end. I'm hoping maybe we

might have a reason to have a bonus pod this week. Fingers crossed. Oh, I don't know. I think I'm just, you just got to live with the result. Um, because you can't. change it but it's uh i don't know we'll see i think there's you can always make arguments either way right i made the argument that i saw uh from my lens and it's all my opinion it's not this is not a fact based show this is an opinion based show um and so i gave my opinion on it and you know i thought that the 22 was deserved to win the race based off of what they did at the end to deserve to be in the spot that they they were entering the last corner. Then I thought the 11 deserved to win the race because, you know, he was a fortunate beneficiary

of an unfortunate incident between the three and the 22. And then I got taken out and the guy that calls it all ended up apparently winning the race. So that was my opinion of it. didn't love it but we'll see where it goes from here hopefully you know no matter what

I'll say this no matter what the outcome from NASCAR is I encourage all young drivers out there to this is not the way this is not the correct way you're not impressing anyone if you wipe somebody out for a win it does not impress anyone

as a car owner I try to look for talent in different places and you can see when guys really try to perform or performing good and better than their equipment device to give for young people is always drive your equipment to the best of its ability, right? We knew Brad Kizowski was going to be good when he was driving his six laps down.

I told Dave Rogers that would be the next good driver. He's like, wait, what, that guy? Yeah, you could just say, see it. He was getting everything he could out of his equipment. You don't necessarily always have to win, right? You don't have to win. As long as you outperform or perform as good as your equipment will let you, people take notice to that. And they also take notice of those who, you know, take the easy way out and, you know, fortunately short tracks and other series, even MSSA, Australian supercars

All the other professional motorsports, F1, they all have rules in place to stop behavior like this and keep the integrity of their sport. And I love seeing it in the local short tracks right away at the cars tour when someone spun someone else out.

I think it was at Langley or somewhere. Immediately they said, no, we're not going to allow you to just drive in. And that was a blatant one. He drove in way, beyond where he should have wrecked the guy and they said get out of victory lane you're not you did not win this race uh they reward it to the next guy and uh you just hope that we as as the sanction of body we can we can keep our integrity and uh if not young guys don't do that that's not the

example that we're trying to set for you guys work on your craft work on your restart so you don't put yourself in that position work on your craft so you're not finding yourself in 30 second in points in a desperate situation. Just do the best that you possibly can every week, and people will take notice to that, and hopefully you'll get the opportunities you deserve.