Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Sonoma: “Hell No. It F****** Detonated”

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Denny Hamlin and co-host Jared Allen are back after a short trip to Sonoma. Denny explains what happened on lap 2, which saw his engine fail, ending his day. Stages 1 and 2 had 8 cautions, and Denny explains why this might have happened.Tyler Reddick had a good day until he made contact with Kyle Larson after pitting (12:00). Kyle Larson had a fast car, but it was their strategy that set them up for success (14:45). Ryan Blaney saw his race ruined last week when he ran out of fuel and we saw that happen again this week with Martin Truex Jr. and others. (24:15)Who is to blame for Ross Chastain running into Kyle Busch at the end of the race (29:30)?There are only 10 races left in the regular season. Who should be worried about missing the playoffs (37:30)?SVG and Austin Hill have a little rivalry brewing in the Xfinity Series (43:00).NASCAR returns to Iowa next week, but Denny has no idea what to expect (51:40).Plus, #DearDenny on how NASCAR should handle testing at tracks. And what’s the latest on Denny’s newest family member? For more Actions Detrimental content, head over to our YouTube channel: 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.

I'm well-rested, ready to go next weekend. Usually it takes me about a day or so to get my back, loosen back up again. No, I'm ready to go now. Yeah, I hope you enjoyed your Sunday off. Pretty much, weekend off. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey, guys, welcome to action's detrimental. Ow, that hurt Charlie.

This is not going to be a rose color glasses show. I'm pleading with NASCAR, who I guarantee you is listening to this. It was warm. It was cold. But I kind of liked it. The 11. D.H. We're all in.

We're going all the way that's promising. Hey guys. Welcome to Actions Detramental. I'm Denny Hamlin, drop of the FedEx, Toyota this weekend for two laps

and my co-host Jared Allen, Mr. Red Vest number 11, 311. Yeah, photographer this weekend for two laps as well. Yes.

My ride. On the early ride home. We definitely beat everyone home. That's for sure. That's for certain. Were you out of there before the stage one ended? Yeah. Yeah.

Thanks to all those cautions. Yeah, I was thinking maybe we're going to make it home in time for the end of the race. And this is no short flight. It's like four and a half hours. But it was a quick one. Certainly never had a chance to break a sweat in this one. And I drove for exactly two laps and then we blew up. So I don't know exactly what it was.

Still, it seemed like something in the bottom in. So Christopher Bell's last weekend was like a valve spring. So something on the top end. Ours grenaded something on the bottom. It was the third race on that engine as well. Or it was scheduled to go to Pocono. so maybe it's a second race either way it ain't going anywhere else because it is destroyed is that rare yes very rare it's very rare at first you said the third race and that makes me think okay this is

its last race regardless right but then if it's the second race and it was scheduled to yeah i'm just putting it together because it was supposed to go to polkano but obviously it's not so we don't run on four races so this had to be the second but initially chris told me this is the he thought it was the third then he looked it up he was like no i think so it's the second either way is it just happened chance that this blows up the second lap of the race and not like your last run of practice that's what i'm saying like gosh it just what if we would wrench two more laps of practice right would it have happened then you would think so i yeah you would think. But it's interesting that it's, you know, it's right. The engine's just starting to get some

heat in it or whatever. So you would, I'm not an engine guy. I would think that if you just ran more practice, you would have found it. It would have blown up in qualifying. If you ran four more laps of practice, it would have blown up at the end of practice. And then you wouldn't have had all these issues but but still it's um unfortunate it was like we were not even there we like pulled a kyle larsson this is the first on this race yeah just didn't show up somebody asked if you're gonna need a waiver for this race probably it's funny how the universe works itself out isn't it funny for who yeah what do you mean well just that you know you were dogging on me for saying oh you retook the points lead thanks to kyle larsan not showing up for yeah but i

I had multiple D&Fs in the last, you know, other than the top five streak. I, you know, I went from racing for the lead to crashing out and finishing like 38th. You got points in hour. No, I got like, uh, I don't think, at Texas, I'm not sure I did. I can't remember. Anyway, it's a long time ago. But it's, you know, this is the ebbs and flows of the season. You're going to have weekends like this.

Certainly, you like to be a, if you're going to finish bad, you like you at least. to want to have a part in it that you know you played a role in like texas with me reckoned myself but um so you mentioned in your interview there's something like shifting what were you talking about there that might have been the reason yeah i couldn't remember if it happened like right in the middle of a shift or not it wasn't it was at the top end of third gear when it blew up um i was mentioning that the gearing was kind of wonky for the track you know they tried to take some gear out but they didn't take out enough. So everyone was in the chip really, really hard in a couple areas of the track. It just didn't make sense to shift. But we were in the same gear as the entire field. So everyone was on the chip

of this, you know, entering turn four. And there's a few other corners as well where you would touch it if you, you know, got a good run off the corner. So yeah, it's just, it's just part of it, part of the bad look lotto that you get sometimes. And I can't remember the last engine failure I've had, but, you know, they've been, you know, knock on one pretty reliable, but, you know, it just didn't last this race. Did you know that was your 666 career start? I found out on social media about that. Yes. So, yikes. And just so you know, I weighed myself last night, and I was 166 pounds and six ounces. I'm not kidding. I was one six, six, six. This is probably the 66 episode.

Is there a silver lining that this is a road course where you probably aren't going to finish up there is more likely than if it's up. You're having engine failure at a track where you're thinking that you can win and compete. That's a good way to put it. I mean, yeah. And I guess when you're like, you're trying to think is it good or bad a happener? early. I guess it's probably best it happened right away because you would have never finished to begin with. So if you went to the middle of the race, yeah, maybe you probably finished two or three spots better because there's a few DNFs that happen right after mine. But generally

speaking, you hate to run the race. I mean, you do get some data points to try to figure out, you know, where's your car stand? You know, the team makes adjustments overnight to see, did we make improvements versus practice? And I literally have no feedback for for the race. Now, for the practice qualifying, I do. There's always things to learn, but certainly in the race, it's like, hmm, I hate to steer you wrong in a wrong direction here. So not much to get out of it other than, you know,

I got to watch the race a little bit, and that was it. Yeah, this is interesting. This is the first podcast where both of us, the only data we have on the race is watching it on the broadcast. Yeah, it's definitely different for sure. I mean, to kind of watch it live. There's not many times where I'm outside the car. Usually it's at the end of the race.

If I do getting into something and then it's, bam, it's over. But like for an extended period of time sitting there watching the race live and it's just like, definitely feels weird not being in it. So, yeah, it's definitely a different feel for sure to fall out this early in a race. Well, you weren't the only one. Your caution was the first of many in the opening stage. We nearly had a record number of cautions right after you, Ty Gibbs. He was done for the day.

Eric Jones into Josh Berry later on lap 36, a big pile-up between Cindrick, McDowell, Gregson. We were watching the replays of that from back in the dead. and how gnarly those got before the tire barriers were updated? Yeah, they would hit the tires and it'd be like a rubber band effect and then they would flip the cars up in the air. And it was interesting to see back in the day the way that that was. But yeah, we haven't seen cautions like this on a road course in quite some time.

Don't know what you can really attribute that to other than, you know, cold tires. You know, the racetrack, I did watch the racetrack got faster as the day went on. It started to get some heat in it. So maybe just cold tires, cold track, and, you know, just people trying to get after it. And so, you know, in practice, we all give each other quite a bit of space, and we space each other out to try to get clean runs. And you have time to let your car come in. Well, when you're firing off on a track, a new pave, especially, we've seen this with the ovals for many, many decades, that new repaves are always treacherous. because the tires usually are so hard that are there that it takes time to build heat in them

and then, you know, for them to get some pace. And so I think it's just, you know, people slipping up here and there because of the conditions and the different conditions than what we've had in the past. Do you, like, can you adjust to that in practice? Like when you're practicing, do you realize those things like, this might be a little more treacherous on race day with? Not really because we give ourselves like a whole. whole lap to warm up. And we're still doing it to start the race. But there's nothing like saying,

okay, you have to go now. And so in practice, we're always warming the brakes up. We're swerving back and forth. They're trying to get heat in the tires and everything. And then you're kind of running the first corner 20%, then the next one 30, then the next one 40, and on and on and on, all the way around the racetrack, where we go from running pace car speed to, bam, you have to go. right now. And so I think that that causes people to overdrive corners and, you know, slip up when they normally would not. After the seventh caution, Kyle Bush came out of the radio and said, this is where old man France comes on and says, pull your head out of to everybody. And then Blaney said that we all look like a bunch of buffoons. Do you watch the race as a driver and think the same

thing? Like, man, this is embarrassing for us. Or do you watch it like, ooh, this is for the new fan, watching this is probably entertaining yeah it's i see both sides of it for sure but i don't yeah i don't know i think that uh it's a good opportunity for fox to get their commercials out of the way um because you know they definitely have some ill-timed um commercials at times but um yeah i don't know i mean it's certainly it's frustrating inside the car when you when you're trying to get a rhythm and and you know for some it's an opportunity to hey i'm not very good but i'm good on these restarts let me get some spots here and there and then oh we got another restart i can do it again i saw ross chastain really being good on restarts um you know throughout the beginning in that race and so

um you know for him it's he sees as opportunities to be able to gain some spots and so um but certainly it's it's a tough watch on tv because the cautions are just so long the pace slaps or so long that it's i mean you'll spend on a general easy cleanup caution 15 minutes maybe 20 under caution and you're just like okay you're going to hear some storytelling from the booth for a little while you're going to see some old highlights for 1950 and 60 and you're going to see a couple people in the stands eating snow cones and you know these cameras kind of pan off into to the wilderness. I don't know.

It's just, it's a tough watch for that 15, 20 minutes. Your car, Tyler Redick, looked very good early until making some contact with Kyle Larson and then locked the tires up and just not the same afterwards. It wasn't seen again.

Yeah. I'm not really sure if he had damage or not. I didn't see that part of it, but I saw him um, racing Larson, and again, then he locked up tires. But certainly, you know, from my standpoint,

I was kind of watching all the lap times there for the entire race, and he just didn't have the speed. It seemed like that he had at the beginning of the race. He certainly did not have that at the end, for whatever reason that might be. Could be traffic, could be that he had actual damage on the car. We don't know. Here's what he said.

Visually on the body, it doesn't look like much. The wheel was off a little bit, just stupid. I was on cold tires, and it was going to be really hard to hold them off anyway. I kind of just fell for it. I don't know. Yeah. What he's saying is that Larson,

usually when you have these tight by hard tires I've talked about, the reason that we slip or slide around for a lap or two is because they need some heat in them. Well, typically, on ovals, you don't really have that. Usually you go the fastest that you can go really on lap one. Well, in road courses, it usually, and I was watching the times, it took about two to three laps for you to get to your, your prime grip in the tire.

Well, Larson had pitted a lap before Tyler Redick, and so Tyler's coming out on cold tires. Redick has already got that one lap of heat. So he's going to get around you anyway. You just have to concede that. But it looked like he was not willing to concede that and wanted to fight for the position right then because he thought, well, if I can hold him off, then I can keep him trapped behind me, and then he's going to have to follow me through the field. I'm not so sure about that.

I think that I saw enough out of the speed of Larson's car that made me believe that he was a little bit faster than Reddick was. So thinking you're going to hold him off was probably a tough ask, even though he did leading up to the pit stop he had held him off. But I just saw too much speed from the five group later on in that race to make me think that the 45 was ever going to hold off the five. Larson later talked about that he was confused on his own strategy that Cliff Daniels put forth. Are you ever confused on the strategy and just have to drive it?

It was interesting because I got to observe a race from a distance and observe the whole thing and watch the strategy all play out. I was a little bit confused about the Larson strategy. but for like a lap and I'm like what are they doing and I'm like okay the only thing that absolutely screws them is a caution

if they get a caution and they're in that last fuel window which most of the other teams were then he was going to be screwed because he was going to have to pit otherwise because what happens is the field bunches up and then when he pits under green

he's going to go back to 30th place everyone has already pitted for their fuel he never makes it back to the front. But his strategy was to go out there and lead and stay leading and run the fastest lap time he possibly could to then get the field strung out to that way when he did pit, he had like a six second lead over second, 10 second lead over.

So by the time he pits, he only falls back to 11th or so. He came out eighth. Well, he was 12, I'm sorry, 11 seconds behind. That's what it was. And I'm thinking, it's going to be close because he's making up all this time and I'm like yeah but he's going to he's going to pass a few really easily then he's got the tires are going to get hotter and then

the passing is going to get tougher I thought that the 17 and the in the 19 were in really good position to hold this thing off but looking at the times Kyle larson's car just never fell off he was still able to run those low 74 lap times and the leaders like truex and the 17, we're running, you know, low 75s, and it's just, you're not going to overcome that. One second of lap time, you're not going to be able to hold off. If you're a half a second faster, I think you can hold someone off on a road course, but not a second, and it just seemed like that those two battled their way, and then, you know, here comes Larson.

So I thought it was a great strategy call by Cliff and their team just to let him go out there, make lap time and then wherever we come out you know it's just you know the faster he can go while he's out front he's just going to be in that better position when he does pit he's going to have that much left fresher tires and he's going to be that much further up the field in case the caution does come out so say he pits caution comes out well then now he restarts eighth with the leader right in front of him right and he's got a big tire advantage so he just he there was just a window there of about 10 laps where where he was on an island by himself that if a caution comes out, he was done.

When I say done, he was struggled to get back to the top 10. He probably would have as fast as he was, but they were willing to risk that 10-lap window to put themselves in a great position as long as the caution didn't come. Is that a strategy that the crew chief will put in place going into the race? Or is that something, okay,

this is how the race is going based on stage one, now I'm flipping to this new strategy. Yeah, so I think everyone goes into the weekend with an idea of what strategy they would like to play. With all those cautions that happened at the beginning of the race, more than likely everyone just took, you got to have a clean sheet of paper saying, okay, here's what we planned on.

That didn't work. Let's start from scratch. We now have this much fuel, this many laps in the race. How do we optimize our finish? here. And then they worked their strategy from there. And there was definitely a clear-cut strategy difference between a group versus the others. And it seemed like to me, I thought initially the 1917 were on the winning strategy. They were up front. Once everyone had cycled, they were up front, but they were only on 10-lap older tires. But they just, they could not overcome

the speed that that five-car had in Kyle Larson. And, you know, he just moat them. down because when you think about it, he's really the only one that made that late pitting strategy truly work. The rest of them. Ross Chastain was on the same one and he was confused how he didn't have the same success. Yeah, and he would have finished seventh or six or seventh, except for that last lap fiasco that happened with Truex dropping and then Kyle Bush. But yeah, he was, and he was the next, to me, Ross had the next best speed in the field

and he only was able to get to the top five. So it just tells you there was a pivotal moment in that strategy call or during the race that the five was able to make up spots really, really quickly. He was able to gap the field, pit later, and then just be on, you know, beyond that fresher tires. And mow those guys down and pass them. So, I mean, that takes skill technique and in a fast car, the above. So he was the only one that was able to make that work. So which,

which strategy do you say, we can, we know which one won the race, but not everyone has that ability to do what the five card did this weekend. So if you're everyone else, it's, defense on your driving style, though, right? Like, you want to give Kyle, you want to put Kyle Larson on the offensive, but some drivers, they might be better off. Right. Being out there. ending. Yeah, exactly. So it's it's kind of a split argument of which strategy you think was probably best because one won the race, but the bulk of the other finishers in the top 10 were this other strategy. So let's take the fuel thing out of it. Had Busher and Trucks not been battling each other and been able to just focus on going, do you think it would have been easier? Because they talked about if Trucks could have passed Busher, he was faster, he probably would have won, but they had to fight each other for so long. Yeah. Um, Yes is this short answer to that. It had the 19 gotten out in front of the 17 quicker. I thought that it was kind of a perfect storm for Kyle

because he had the 17 kind of backing the field up to him. So he was slowing up the 19. Now the 19 actually got around him in a fairly efficient manner for his few lapses he was running behind him. But then he blew the next corner that he had. So yeah, it just, It was just interesting to see it all played out, but I just think that the best driver and team won on the weekend.

The right car won, for sure. But now, despite running out of gas at the end of the race, what about Truex's strategy to go from the rear of the field after, you know, crashing essentially? Yeah. Back to the front to be in a position two way. Yeah. So that's what running in the back allows you to do sometimes.

is to do strategies that get you back to the front. It happened to us, where were we? Charlotte? Yeah, Charlotte, right? Where we kept, we had some issues, and it's like, what the hell? We're going to finish terrible here. Was it Charlotte?

It was one of the weeks. We were really, really fast, had a few bad restarts, and then, no, it was Kansas. And then we cycled back to the front because we decided, all right, let's just take fuel here. You know, might as well, we're near the end of the, the last cars on the lead lap. It's the same kind of thing.

When you have trouble early, it actually opens up your opportunities to do different strategies to jump the field. If you've always got more gas in your tank than the other cars, your options always open up. And so when you're running... If you have a fast car.

If you have a fast enough car, which the 19th clearly does, Martin Trux is clearly competent enough to be very, very good at this track, And so while they had issues, it allowed them to keep putting fuel in the car to then allow them to flip the entire field when one of those cautions came out. And the leaders are like, oh, we're in a fuel window. We got to pit. Martin Truex is back there saying, oh, well, I just pit a few laps ago after we spun.

So it's just those opportunities come up when you are running at the tail end of the lead lap. But the way you explain it, like you make it sound so easy. Or it's like, oh, well, you have all these other opportunities to capitalize it. But nobody is going to voluntarily run poorly. So they have that opportunity. No, but it's how bad cars get good finishes a lot of weekends is that, you know, it's very, very tough to call a race when you're the leader. Because you've got one of the fastest cars. Everyone behind you is thinking, I'm going to do the opposite of what you do.

I mean, it just puts you in a very, very tough spot. However, again, when you have a full tank of gas in the car and you're not having, when you don't have to stop, and the only reason you would have to stop is because you run out of gas, it gives you options to stay out when the bulk of the field needs to pit. It sounded like a lot of these drivers towards the end of this race were trying to save fuel. Obviously, Trix runs out of gas.

Kyle Busch the same. Bush said he was saving fuel on the last handful of laps. Yeah, it looked like the cars that pitted on lap. 68 if I remember correctly when I was looking they were all were cutting it you know the fuel window was 40 something you know if you add 40 to 68 you get 108 so you come up too short but um you know it just depends on how hard you run I was looking at the pace the pace kept picking up as the race went on so that definitely hurt fuel mileage so if you were using fuel mileage from the very first run of the day where the track was maybe a second slower,

you're going to get better fuel mileage than you are when the track starts picking up speed. So the reason you're picking up speed is you're in the gas more. So that's kind of one of the guessing games that these teams have is looking at how much throttle that the driver is using knowing that we're not going to get the fuel mileage. We got the very first run of the day. We need to adjust from there.

So driver, I need you to start saving. here to make it to the end. Wouldn't you assume that at the end of the race you're going to be going harder and you're going to need the gas? Or is it they were assuming there'd be a caution or something? Well, yeah. All they needed was all one caution, right? And they had just had a slew of them the first, you know, 30 laps of the race.

So any one caution that happens in that third stage is money for them. And then, but we didn't hear anything over Truix's radio, at least that I'm aware of, that he was, it sounds like he wasn't aware of that was going to be an issue. Is that them just not telling him? Or like, yeah, it's just, again,

but that he got clean track for the first time that he had all day. So did they actually even get a good fuel reading throughout the day, right? So he didn't have clean track until, you know,

that 30-lap window or so at the very end of the race. And so, but you still can see how much gas that you're using, the crew chief can see and the strategist can see. but again

now you're kind of making assumptions on how much gas is in the tank which is Ryan Blaney confirmed what we thought last week on the show that they didn't have the fuel in it that they thought they had they knew how much they poured in the last tank they didn't know how much they had in the tank

before they pulled in that put in that last can so same kind of thing is all you have to be off is just a little bit and you don't leave yourself much room for air we've seen this now two weeks in a row as a driver are you going to Chris and just saying, hey, let's make sure this is buttoned up and we don't have this happen to us going

forward or not a, not a thought of years. No, I just let them do their own thing and they kind of calculate and the risk as they see fit, right? I mean, certainly there was an opportunity. The reason they pitted it on whatever lap they pitted on, it was very cutthroat to make it to the end of the race. And they were, their calculations probably showed that they were going to make it to the end, but no green white checkers. And any caution that they had. have in that window is just going to add laps of a buffer for them. But there's a clear reason why they pitted on that lap. They were either battling someone on the track or a caution fell during that time that allowed them to do that. So it's just, it was a perfect storm where they had to

pit there and they knew it was going to be close, but they were willing to take that risk. Are you watching the, if you're a Creechie, are you watching the early part of this race with all the cautions going like, okay, here's the precedent. This is what the day is looking like. we will probably see more of this later in the race. Therefore, you know, we're going to account for that or not necessarily. Yeah, I mean, I did. You kind of saw it coming for sure because I know you were checking with the time of scoring as I'm looking at it and you're and you came back to the plane because you were like,

wait a minute, you guys are looking at this computer and all these numbers like you're watching the race. Right. Right? You were like, what are you guys watching? I'm like, oh, I'm watching, watching time and scoring. You're like, well, how do you know what the hell is going on? I'm like, well, I can see everything.

I can see who's pitted when, how fresh are their tires, who can make it, who can't, what's the gaps that they have on each other? And I can, I'm watching this race play out. I don't need to see the cars. Right, you just are looking at a screen of numbers, and it's almost like you're watching the broadcast of the race. Jared got a NASCAR thing. 301 class last night sounds like.

Yeah, because I'm back there going, oh, man, oh, because I see someone, like, I, I saw the race. I just, I did not need to see the cars. I saw the, I saw it playing out in front of me. It's just, it's very interesting to watch a race that way. Now, I did actually go back and watch the actual broadcast because I, you know, I did see the broadcast for the first stage before. I got to the plane. I was watching it on my phone. But I didn't need to see, I didn't need to watch Fox after that. I was, I had everything I needed right there on that screen. So when you're watching on the last couple laps, what did you think happened to Kyle Bush based on timing

and scoring? I was watching Ross catch Kyle. And, all right. So, all right, so, All I can see is a name, and I see that name dropping, dropping, dropping, because other cars are passing start finish line to finish the race, and the person that was in this position just keeps, like with every car that finishes, it knocks them down one, knocks them down one. And so I guess I assumed what happened, happened. like I knew that a top five was on the line and honestly other than driver ego and we definitely have that like what's the difference between fifth and six it's one point but I just knew that the one was going to go for it now I don't know what we don't know is that because he came from entirely too far back in turn four to run into Kyle, was Kyle running out of gas?

And then that one car panicked and overdrove the corner. You know what I mean? Because he was two car lengths behind entering turn four. There is no rhyme or reason you should even be close to being beside somebody in the middle of turn four. Just trust me on this. I drive, I race, I understand. You're two car lengths back entering four.

You're not getting there. You might close it to one car length. if you really drive it in. There's no rhyme or reason he should have been beside the eight unless he entirely missed the corner like by a mile, which that's a possibility. Or the eight had stumbling issues. I need to, I'm going to get you that answer before the end of this podcast

because I'm going to look it up on S&T because we know that eight eventually did run out of gas. So my question is was he stumbling at that point and then trying to hit his fuel switch? and then here comes to one like holy what's going on and then just totally blew the corner listen the one blew the corner no matter how you look at it he wasn't gonna i mean he he drove up way beyond the rumbles and there's no disputing that it's just a matter of did Kyle not help his own cause by running out in that spot i mean ross drove aggressive against daniel sweris earlier in the race and sworez was like on the radio like what the hell is that so i think ross was kind of in a

old school Ross mood. I mean, that's what the internet thinks for sure. Do we want Samantha Bush's thoughts? Because I think she's a, she just said quote, locked up my tires, aka overdrove the corner, included a GIF that said schmuck.

I mean, she was watching the same. She wasn't impressed. She was watching the same broadcast. We were watching. Okay. So I'm watching here. Turn 4. The eight car, without a doubt, had some issues entering turn four.

Because he lifted, like, all the way out of the gas on corner exit, or halfway down that short shoot. So we can't, yeah, we, listen, we can try to put it on Ross because of the reputation, and I totally understand that. And it's warranted, trust me. But the eight had issues. The eight had issues down that short shoot before turn four. He definitely let off for whatever.

I think he was out of gas. I think the eight was out of gas entering turn four. And then the one was caught very off guard by that. He definitely missed his mark by just a little bit, not a ton, but a little bit. And then got into the eight there. So it was just kind of a perfect bad storm. And the eight pitted on the same lap 68 at the 17 and 19 who had gas issues. How quickly do you have to make a judgment call on that if you're Ross behind someone?

Like, you know, you're, I'm assuming you're going into this corner. You're just anticipating them. Well, yeah, he's thinking, I think he entered that last lap like four tenths behind the eight car. And you know that you're running sixth and he's fifth and you're like, damn it, I want to get a top five here. I mean, it's a mark in the stack column, right? And so he's going to look for any opportunity he can to get a top five. And when he sees the eight going down the short shoot and stumbling, he's like,

oh, I'm going to get him right now before he hits his switch. Because as soon as he hits his fuel switch, his car is going to pick back up speed again. And then, you know, you might not pass him. So he's trying to jump on this quick opportunity when he sees. the eight having an issue and you know you just again it doesn't take much by missing your mark to just run right into the side of the guy that's you know off the pace right because you're going to go into this corner like you always do and you're expecting the guy in front of you to go into this corner like he always does yeah i don't know that the one expected to be side by side with the eight

you know had an eight not been there the one runs over the rumble strips yeah he runs a little wide but that might be the line he was running all day so it's he wasn't running and by what I saw he didn't drive in any deeper than what the eight car drove in the lap before that's what I'm looking at and what I'm also looking at is the fact that the eight had stumbling issues and was off the gas where you would normally be wide open throttle so I think he ran out during that time which you know it could be too why he wasn't ballistic I almost quote tweeted Bob Pockeris when he says when when he quoted um kyle after the race and was like you know we had a great blank blank Chevy and you know we had didn't have as good attires and um we just it was it was straight out of

a PR person's mouth and I was going to quote tweet ha ha funny Bob what what did he really say like because you just knew because everyone was thinking oh man Kyle's going to lose the here if he didn't run out of gas he probably would have lost as he should have but i think he i think he gave a little bit of grace there because he knew he was a sitting duck rolling really slow speed in the middle of the in in the middle of the groove and just got ran over you know because of it right he knows he had an issue regardless yes nonetheless a tough stretch here for kyle bush um you know how to top how a top five day what you'd think coming into the last lap and ultimately falls out of the top 10.

And I don't know, it's just taking up hitting the point standings. He's not, obviously, he can still point his way and he's not out of it by any means. But no. The potential of these last couple weeks has really got to hurt him with what the results have been. Yeah. But, you know, he's a good enough talent that you just, you just never know. And, you know, he certainly, he started back there where I was at. and from the lap times that I saw he was he was a top 10 car yeah probably not a top 5 car but he was

a top 10 car and was going to get a top 5 out of it before he ran out of gas at what point do drivers start to worry about their place in the standings if they don't have that win right now right now yeah there that whole bubble group from um I'm going to use your sheet here I know you spent a lot of time on this you were you're here it early this morning. I went out and I'm here early every time we take it. I know, but you come in an hour early? Yeah. Wow. I come in, get everything set up,

make sure everything's working. For those who don't know, guys, I basically just roll out of bed and come on down here. Yeah, so how did you see that he was here an hour early? There's a puppy. We'll get to that later in the show too.

We don't have that kind of time. All right. Yeah, so, I'm looking at, so you're asking, who's worried, right? Lugano, Bush, Bubba,

Bisher. They're worried. They're worried. They got a little bit of a gap there to, you know, Ryan Blaney, Bowman has got like, they got like a 50, 60 point gap which, trust me, that can go away very quickly. I got to do is blow up.

lap one or two. They got a little bit of a buffer, and I think they're running good enough that they're not really crazy worried. Then they've got Chastain right ahead of that. He's, you know, he's running good enough. He's getting, he's running in the top 10 or chis outside of it most weeks. And that, you do that week after week. That's going to be enough.

you just can't have runs in the 15 to 20. Too many of those, you're opening yourself up to a new winter coming in, moving that cut line again. So my sleepless nights people are Lugano, Bush, Baba, Busher. Those are the people in my mind who are sweating it right now. Are you sweating it because you're worried that you don't have the potential to win a race? Well, you haven't yet, right? So if you're those guys, you haven't won yet.

So do you just think that magically you're going to have an Austin-centric weekend? Maybe. Maybe you have that outlook. But they're in that position, 180 or 170 behind because they haven't had the speed all year that it takes to really win. you would argue out of the most dangerous out of all of them you would say are it's busher closer you know him or legano legano qualifies so well he's he's going to put himself in position to win races

more times than not because of his qualify busher finds way to put himself up front by the end of these races and next thing you know holy shi might win when when rarely do i see that he's the fastest car Like, I never really see that, but he executes great. Scott Graves and his team just does a great job. Calling races and strategizing and building a solid enough car that gives him a shot to win a lot of these weeks. So those two are the most dangerous, I feel like, as far as execution,

Bubba's got speed, but I haven't, you know, since the short tracks, he hasn't had the top five speed that, you know, we, we want to see. Bush, again, not top five speed that I've seen. And his finishes fluctuate quite a bit. So that's kind of my tend to go feeling, is that you got two are the most dangerous, but they're, you know, they're already kind of near the cut. Now, those that are outside the cut, I'm not really sure who I think is a huge threat to go win a race between, but we have a super speedway going up. You got Brisco at 17, it's Cendrick and Sauras next, and then McDowell 20th

goal. I mean, I haven't seen enough out of them. You got to run up front first. I mean, we say that, but Cindric didn't run up front at all before his win. So I guess you never know, but if you're really counting on a weekend like CinderCad, then, you know, I guess hope is a strategy, but you got to run a little faster. Yeah, and it also, you know, it took luck of an engine and gas, too. Yeah. Yeah, exactly, right? Without those things, it doesn't happen. But if you put yourself in the top five, you just never know. But I haven't seen top five speed execution within any of those other cars thus far. Doesn't mean they can't change it.

So are you, if you're those cars, are you, you're going for a win or do you still do you, you can point your way? No, you can, no, you still want solid finishes. Yeah. You still, these guys are, what I think they're doing right now is they're trying to get the best out of the weekend and they're still. they got one eye on the pylon looking to see where those other cars are at. That's what my guess and assumption is, is to see where's the cars I'm racing around that bubble. On the Xfinity side of things, we've got a little rivalry here brewing with Shane Van Gisberg and Austin Hill. Yeah, I guess so. Shane, he's a, he's a rough dude.

Hey, he's a, not. He's not afraid to lay the bumper to you for sure. I don't know how to say it. I mean, he's, he was the fastest in the Xfinity race. Now, Ty Gibbs was on his back bumper the entire first run. I think they pulled out to about a 10-second lead. So they definitely solidified themselves as the two fastest. Once Ty did whatever he did during that pile up,

it seemed like there was kind of a one horse race. But yeah, Shane, he took an opportunity. He ran, you know, he wanted to stay beside Austin Hill on that restart. But I think he made a bit of an ambitious move to do it. I think he still had enough speed and technique to get around Austin because the tires cooled back off. So it's very easy to hit your marks when everything is hot. It's very difficult to hit your marks when everything cools back down. And I think that that's where Shane really, really excels, is that when everyone else is slip sliding around, trying to get heating their tires and they're

missing their marks, that's where he's going to pounce. So I think he could have been a little more patient and picked Austin off cleanly, probably by turn 11 on that first lap on the restart. But he sees an opportunity and he's run in NASCAR enough now he's like these guys just run into each other and so I'm joining the party I love this so

and you know of course I see on social media now like probably all the haters of Shane sending all these highlights of where he's like dumped people over in Australia and crashed them and they're like oh yeah this is nothing new he's been doing this for a long time

he just knows now that you won't get a penalty for it yeah exactly So I think he's adapting to NASCAR well. It won't go over probably as clean and clear on Sundays as what it is on Saturdays right now. But he's taken full advantage of the Rubbins Racing mantra. He's also been on the other side of this. Has he, though?

Cota, this year or last year? So explain to me, Cota, because he said that Austin took a win away from him at Cota. So if I'm remembering correctly, and I'm trying to remember, maybe you can, there you go, you're going to look this up. I guess

Austin pushed him into the first corner, correct? If I remember in this right, Austin Hill pushed Shane offline into one, got around them, and then Shane just destroyed his own car and like just ran directly into the back of Austin Hill

and turn 46 or whatever it is on the backside of the track. The hairpin way back there. He plowed into him and then Kyle Larson got around both of them and won the race. Does that sound familiar? It kind of sounds like how this weekend played out. but I don't know that he says, you know, Austin costs me a win at Coda, and so I guess I cost him a win here.

Okay. I think that Austin's probably been, and there are people that love to just hate on Austin because they feel like he doesn't take responsibility, whatever, but he's been on the worst end of this. exchange. There's no question about that. So I think that if the score is level, then I think Shane probably needs to keep it clean from here on out

because he's certainly opening himself up to Austin really knocking him out of the way when he needs to for a future win or a future position. Listen, it's good for Shane and all. It's, you know, we didn't need proof that he's good on road courses and certainly in the Xfinity series. But it's fun to watch. He's got great technique and great car control and to watch him do that burnout, you know, right behind Austin. He clearly gives no, that is for sure.

He gives no, I can't do it. I know. I was thinking about doing an accident. And I just came off. That does not get it. I just stopped. I'm like, I'm just going to sound weird. Did you see Austin Hill during that burnout?

Of course I did. I mean, what a great photo. Yeah. Whoever that is that got that photo of him flipping off. It says it's Justin Sheldon photography. So clearly though, Shane might think it's even, but I don't know if Austin thinks it's even in that, like I hope it kind of carries over a little more just because it's great for the sport.

Yeah. Listen, when it's not you, it's always great for the sport. Who wins in a fight between the? those two guys. I don't know, but I like to see it. I'd like to see it. I'd like to see it. I mean, Shane's what, 6-2?

Like, he's like... Big country versus big down under? I mean, it's intriguing to me. I'd pay. I'd pay to watch it. It is down under New Zealand. Yeah. New Zealand and Australia to me is the same thing, right?

Tomato. Sure. It's not, but sure. I know it's not. But to me, it's just still in the same part of the globe. Yeah. All right. Well, I don't know what else to take from the X-Friety series other than that.

I mean, that's really kind of the only thing that I love a celebration too that he does. No, it was cool. I don't know if they called a football or whatever. A rugby? Oh, yeah. A rugby ball. Oh, it didn't make it over the fence, though. Oh, we got to work on that, Shane.

Yeah. I think he needs to stretch his hamstrings. before because when he kicked it and who am I to judge someone's athletic ability but he short-legged it and he didn't have you know the kickers their extension is really really high and again I like the celebration because it's like you're you're not you're putting something back in the in the fan in the kind of the the bleachers there that is like a signature hey you you collected at his football. When I was, the very first concert I ever went to when I was younger was

Rod Stewart. And it used to be a thing to catch one of his soccer balls that he would kick off the stage. And he would kick like probably five or six during the course of his concert. And my mom would always say, we're going to get one of those soccer balls. And we must have went to three Rod Stewart concerts, never got one. But, you know, I'd just kind of equate this to that. I was like, yeah, it's a cool moment that, you know, you get an opportunity to

to catch one, but he's going to have to get it over pit lane. It sucks because there was, he had a, he had a long way he was going to have to kick it to get it over. This is just trackhouse marketing. You notice that all of their drivers have a, a schick when they win the race. But this one's better than the other ones. Yes, by far. I mean, he's signing it. So a fan's getting a gift, instead of, really?

Watermelon in a, yeah. Yeah, it's just not as good. The watermelon's P2 and then you've got the pinata. The Piazza, right? Penaena smash. Yeah. Like they're cool, but like, what would Denny's be like, hit a pickaball over the fence? No.

No, I hope not. Not very good at that. I could go downstairs and skunk you right now, 11 to nothing. I mean, just 11 to nothing, Jared. The days are done. You can't even compete anymore. Yeah, I think you've quit. Certainly haven't played in a while.

All right, let's move on. Iowa next week. we've got a partial repave So interesting to me Gluck that's because NASCAR told them they didn't have enough time to repave the truck Time because of it was going to get cold And then they also had to get testing in

How many more days do you need though To just finish off a couple more lanes I can maybe understand You didn't do It's not All right folks I guess when we see this. It's not, you're going to see it is, it, it does not look great. Um, it's one lane on the bottom and then it's a partial lane up top. So like, you're telling me you ran out of time

because in the course of a day that it would have taken you to, to move the top lane paving from, you know, at the beginning of the corner to the end, you didn't have time for that? I don't know. This is, it's just, it, it shows where NASCAR is a little different. You know, we don't have standards when it comes to, um, facilities. Uh, don't, we don't have, you know, we have standards, but they're very, very loose and they're not, you know, they're not, you know, surf, we don't have surfaces, surface standards or anything like that. And it just, I, I don't buy the fact that we ran out of time and it's too cold. Like, they literally

just patch this thing up. And so I just praised NASCAR and their paving jobs like a month or two ago. And then this. So it's just, it's not ideal for sure.

We just hopefully, we wish we could have raced on the old Iowa, but evidently it was torn up pretty bad. And you know if it did rain it was it was going to be really bad so i i understand why naskar has to pave tracks and and that's all understandable but you know not leaving like two at least full lanes worth of paving um is is a head scratcher what do you anticipate seeing this weekend i'd have no

idea it sounds like there's it was the the group was very narrow it was very fast and passing will be extremely difficult because of you can't go anywhere else on the racetrack. The tires are very hard, so we're not going to run any kind of soft tire at that track. There wasn't enough time to test a different tire or get it manufactured. So it seems like we're not allowing enough time for things to happen. Is it going to be similar to a Richmond race?

I have no idea. I've never raced there. I've never, I didn't test there. So it would all be speculation from my standpoint. But I just think that as a sanctioned embodied, we probably need to do a better job of having standards when it comes to paving and making sure facilities are all at least to a certain standards. Track surfaces to a certain standards.

Safety is to a certain standards. We do, but it's all very, very loose. And so, yeah, it just, we, could be a little more professional in that area. Dear Denny, we've got some questions that we want to ask. Dear Denny. We need answers and we need them fast. We tried to ask Junior, but his answers were lame.

And with DBC, it was more of the same. Now we're caught on you because you're our only hope. This ain't the raged track, so maybe you won't choke. That segues well into this Dear Denny I have for you. Which is, should NASCAR have non-cup drivers do testing to avoid advantages? Yeah, so the testes for this past weekend was, or the testers, would be Martin Truex, Ross Chastain, and was it Busher? Who ran the tire test at Sonoma?

I'm not really sure. be interesting to see who it was. But if you think about it, it was like, that was going to be your top five this weekend. Now, we just... It was Ross, Truex, and Josh Berry. Oh, okay. So, yeah. So what happens then is that each manufacturer then we'll go back to that racetrack about a month later and do their wheel force testing for a couple of days.

And Shane Van Gisberg, Van Gisbergen, did the Chevrolet test I think Drew Herring might have done the wheel force test for Toyota

and then I don't know who did it for Ford but so non-cup drivers doing the testing no I don't think so just simply because you want the cup drivers

input on when they're choosing a tire things like that on what they think that will race the best so I think gets keep things the way they are there i don't i don't think kind of you know you're going to have

too much too many question marks if you have a non-cup driver running a cup car at a tire test just not enough experience what if it's a former cup driver that's retired you need to be up to date you need to be you need to understand how these cars drive now what do we fight uh when we're you know racing each other what kind of fall off do we need to be able to pass so i think it's You know, everyone gets their shot throughout the year. Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, and Brad Toslowski did the tire test for Iowa. So those drivers will be ones to look out for this weekend, having the only prior experience on this track. On the bracket side of things, you were obviously knocked out this weekend, but Noah Gregson, 21 seed, still alive.

Who did he beat? Because he ran. William Byron. Oh, gosh. He's now knocked out Blaney because of gas. And I was up against Lugano who had a lackluster day at best. And I think I saw where he felt that something was tweaked in the back of his car because he got in that incident on the backstretch or in the S's back there.

Might have got hit in one of the tires. So he was going to have not a very good day. So I could have beat him when I was thinking you told me before the race started. You're like, hey, just have why you're up against Lillian. Ligano, and I'm like, oh, really? Damn it. But we could have done it, given the day he ended up with, but we were already loaded up on the truck by then. So in the third round, we have four key matchups. We have Ligano versus Kuzlowski. We're at Iowa. Who are we taking here? I mean, if they got to take Kuzlowski.

Okay, I'll agree. Travis. I'm good with that one. All right. Elliot versus Gregson. Probably Chase Elliott. I think the luck runs out. Chase has been racing too well. Yeah. We're all on the same page there. Which means this probably won't happen. It's like, you know, on the game day when everyone picks the one team. Yeah, 100%.

Busser versus Chastain. I think I like Chastain here. I'm going with Busher. I agree with you, Travis. Larson versus Reddick. Ooh, heavyweight. and that's my championship. Heavy weight of the lightweights. And so these might be the two.

Reddick's matchup would have been one that they could have talked about because he advanced by one spot yesterday. Oh, really? Yeah. Over who? Uh, who did he beat by one? C-bell? Yeah, it was C-bell.

Yeah, he beat Bell by one spot. Wow, and Bell was faster than him at the end, too. Like, as far as like lap times that I saw, like Bell could pop off laps a little quicker than. But I'm picking Larson. Yeah, I mean, he just did the test. it's going to be hard to bet against them, but yeah, it'll be hard. It'll be hard for Reddick, but go Tyler Reddick.

Go Tyler Reddick. We have one review here. This comes from S-U-E-B-229. Love the podcast, keep the puppy. I think the latter part of that has already been decided. It has not. It hasn't been decided. This is a trial period.

it's been decided you're going to crush the girls if the trial period and the dog goes away no I think I think in my mind what happens is that they lose their love of it and it starts being who loses love of a dog 10 year olds

I know Taylor's 11 people but I'm kind of averaging it out here so eight and a half year olds all right well we're in week two how's it going in week two it's doing what puppies do the Taylor and Pissing spots that shouldn't be pissing, chewing on things that shouldn't be chewing on.

But Milo loves her. They had a weekend apart this past weekend. My sister had Milo. She usually takes him on the weekends. And then the puppy stayed here with the kids. And they saw, they, I was a little late coming down here because they saw each other for the first time. For in four days and they were just tackling. It's already been decided.

Yeah. They love, they love each other. So you can fix the potty issues? No, I, Milo had the same thing. Yeah, she's just really young. She's like seven weeks. So, yeah, and then with some good training and whatnot, all dogs can be good. If you train them right, treat them right, all that.

That's not the issue. But are you willing to go through that headache? It's like having a baby And it's like as soon as they start wiping their own ass You're like oh gosh So much easier now right It's no more blowouts Yeah it's just

Are you willing to endure that six months Of just Banging your head against the wall And always having to watch it Where's it at? What's it chewing on? Like you know That part of it is just a pain Are you at all concerned that

It looks like this dog going to be a pretty big dog? Well, we submitted, the DNA test to try to figure out what she is. We keep hearing different people and they're showing their picks of their dogs that are very similar.

Yeah, I mean, my concern is that it's got Mastiff in it, and if that's the case, then it could be definitely a big dog, but it's too early to speculate. This thing's multicultural, for sure. What does your sister think of it?

Because that was the leading, she was the leading candidate to take over this dog. At least it's how much you know. I wanted her to. But the folks at 2311 have raised their hand to say that after extensive training,

they would love to have a shop dog. Shop dog or an airspeed dog? Yeah, what's the going rate for a fine for saying shop these days at 2311, Denny? I wasn't referring. to the actual building. I was referring to the dog. You can have a shop dog at airspeed.

Do you know what I mean? The shop dog at airspeed. So you know what I'm saying. You can't say airspeed dog. People are like, what are you talking about? Shop dog, you get it. You understand. So I would, I think that's good.

I think that'd be good for the employees, have that hound just walking around. you know just cuddling up the next to somebody in their office for a little while somebody who takes it home that night and it's no obligation

to them long term you could just have a little like calendar and you like hey these days I want to take Lulu home and Jordan gets sensitive every time I she hears that I'm trying to

She's not a shop dog She's not a shop dog Well she just is like mad Because I'm trying to pawn this dog off But I just I'm not trying to pawn I'm fine with this little trial period Let's just see how

goes for another week and then let's decide but if she left tomorrow i wouldn't i'd be okay because i got my lo here he's great i'm gonna call i'm calling my shot right now this dog is going to stay in here it's it's a it's a high possibility anything else you got no i got nothing else i'm well rested ready to go next weekend usually it takes me about a day or so to get my get my back loosened back up again i'm ready to go now yeah i hope you enjoyed your sunday off pretty much weekend off yeah so uh appreciate all y'all tuning in we'll get with you after iowa next week