Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Talladega: Michael Jordan Finally Tastes Victory

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Denny Hamlin and Jared are back after an eventful Sunday at Talladega.Denny was on the way to the airport when Tyler Reddick won and had to make a quick u-turn. Jesse Love won the Xfinity race on Saturday. Thanks in part to drivers not understanding how to keep a run going. Kyle Busch voiced his frustration with the Next Gen. Denny explains what the problem is with this car. Sunday's race as expected, turned into a fuel saving race.The Toyotas had the perfect plan until they wrecked. Denny explains why this plan would have worked if they didn't wreck. One driver that didn't get caught up in the wreck was Tyler Reddick and it paid off for him.Michael McDowell went for broke trying to get his first win of the season and it ended with him starting a massive crash. Denny debates if this move was smart or not.Michael Jordan was in attendance for the first time when 23XI was victorious. Denny chats about what it's like being a co-owner with MJ and the impact MJ is having on the race team.Plus, why were there puddles on the track. And, #DearDennyFor more Actions Detrimental content, head over to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental21+ and present in NC. First online real money wager only. $10 Deposit req. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Travis, how many lapses this race? 188? I'm going to go with the guy. 188. Trust me on that one. I'm going to go with Denny on this one. Well, how am I supposed to know? You didn't run them all.

How are you going to supposed to have to have many lapses? The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey guys, welcome to Actions Detrimental live right after Talladega. We have just arrived back in Charlotte about race ended three hours ago. Yeah, probably three hours ago. I had a unique way of watching the last few laps. You did. We were on our way out of the track.

We were 10 to go. We had conceded. We had taken the L, and we were heading home after the crash. You had taken the L. I still had a handful of drivers in the race. Nice. Well, you were in the car with me, buddy. You were going.

And it was interesting. I found out what life is like without a pylon. We had no fucking idea who won the race. Yeah. I mean, I'm in the infield, in the heap of the infield, right? Like there's campers everywhere. There's tons of people. And we didn't know who won the race.

Like we saw Reddick coming by after the cool down lap and we're like, does that mean anyone? I don't know. Where's the six? Where's the 34? We're like, yeah, surely Redick didn't win. Like, he's so far out. The winner probably would have slowed down.

if they passed start and finish line. You should I would just turn around and look at the scoring order. Right. Imagine all the fans of them. They also have no idea. No, it's okay. They were looking at their phones. Well, we had to.

We had to. Luckily for us, cell service actually worked okay this weekend. I don't know about the internet, but I actually turned the internet off and it was better. I had better service. So we watched via your mom's phone. My mom's phone, which is one minute. It was basically a lap behind, right? Because I was saying, oh, that's the white flag.

And I'm looking down at the screen and showing two to go. And they're in the same corner. And I'm looking at where the cars are. I'm like, well, that doesn't match that. So they're a lap ahead than what I'm looking at. So if you are looking at your phone, you're going to be a little behind. Right. I don't remember, when did you realize that Reddick won?

I think we had to wait for the, for the, for the phone to catch up, right? For the phone to catch up. Yeah. So we found out about a minute after everyone else. Yeah. Well, I guess we found out a minute after the people in the stands saw it. Right. Right.

I guess. Anyone who had a visual. They didn't know. The people in the infield, they didn't know either. Because we heard the scream. Like I definitely heard the screams. Like I, when I sit in the bus, and I listen or watch an Xfinity race,

the TV is always behind, you know, it feels like it's almost a minute, but it's more like 30 seconds. And I can always hear the crowd screaming when there's a wreck, and then I have timing and scoring right by my couch, and I can see yellow flag, and I'm like, oh, where's it going to come from? Where's the wreck going to come from?

And so it was different, you know, I was, I had, 20 minutes of just misery, you know, crashed out. I mean, sitting here, we're running on the other side of the track from the lead pack and we all, we call all crash out. But that's a good segue to start from the top and segue from the cup race. And we'll get into that to let's start with the Xfinity race on Saturday. Are you saying crashed out is a good segue into the Xfinity race?

Yeah, it is. It is. Because when you crash out, there's no love. There's Jesse Love. Jesse Love. Exfini Race, man, it's... I watched it,

it was a good race. It definitely was a good race. When I was looking at the top 10 there, just to kind of fast forward to what it really matters at the very end. I'm looking at the dash for cash guys, first of all. I'm seeing them, and I see that it's down to two guys. Ryan Sieg and, who is it, A.J. Almondinger.

And AJ's car is destroyed, and Sieg hits the wall by himself on the straightaway, and then gets a flat tire, goes a lap down, so I'm like, oh, he just needs a caution here. He gets the caution, he's not the lucky dog. Gets another caution, gets back on the lead lap, passes AJ on the white flag. that gets a hundred grand a little consolation prize for him last week for last week right um so then i'm watching i look at the names in the top 10 um going into the that green white checker and i'm like oh man what in the world's going to happen here and it was uh it was it was it was better than the arca race but also so frustrating at the same time because so many of these drivers are so

and experienced and and doesn't doesn't quite know that to go forward you must use other car and I'm watching these these guys and girls they're they're running and instead of pushing whoever they get a huge run on they try to pass and then it just destroys their run they go nowhere and Jesse Love just you know has the easiest victory uh and first victory in the Xfinity series for him so this is one he got back for uh Atlanta dominated Atlanta had brain out of gas there I guess and man just RCR cars were just lightning fast on these super speedways and uh Parker Kligerman him and Austin Hill got together that was just kind of a racing thing where one pulled up other wasn't willing to give any space and you know it it all kind of worked out in the end

they ended up both crashing it you know at one point But it looked like Parker was going to get his first win in the Xfinity series, but not to be. That was a tough beat there at the end. But I thought the Xfinity cars put on a pretty good show. They definitely dice and slice and they ain't riding around like we are. That's for sure. I was watching this finish. I had one question that I wanted to ask you when we got on here to record the podcast.

Brennan Poole looked like the guy. If anyone was going to take this win from Jesse Love looked like he was going to do it because he had gained the lead. off of turn four. Off of turn four. And he's running side by side with Jesse Love. And both of them are disconnected from the pack behind us. And then Jesse Love peels down to the bottom of the racetrack. If Brennan Poole was to follow him and maintain the side draft, would he have had any chance?

A much better chance, for sure. But it was just utter chaos from everyone behind. Like Riley, instead of pushing Haley Degan, he went to pass. He had a massive run. And then, like, in that instance, you got to. you got to push the car in front of you to keep your run going. And that's more, you know, Xfinity racing on Super Speedways is like Cup racing has been for many decades, decades,

where like you just take runs and you get them and you can pull out of line, you pass and you pull back in line. But Cup racing, oh my gosh, it is a whole other thing now. I hate to say that skills not even a factor anymore, but, man, it's getting close. close to that. But yeah, you have skill in the Xfinity series, and when you get runs,

Tony Stewart always used to tell me, like, do whatever you got to do to keep the run going. Like when you get a massive run, if you can keep your run going by pushing someone else and then creating another run, do that. Because you're attached and that keeps it going. And you can bounce from car to car to car. In the 2016 Daytona 500 that we won,

from like I think fourth or fifth on the last lap I just used that mentality of I went down so I drafted this guy so I drafted that guy got to push and just kept that run going the entire last lap and it I ended up passing all the cars and when you watch the Xfinity they Fox actually did for a change a good job of keeping it on one camera on the last lap and it was the aerial camera and like you could see everything happening and you're like, no, don't do that. No, don't do that. And it's easy for us because we're just couch racers, right? We're just sitting here saying it's so easy because we can see a bird's eye view of it.

But in the car, it is so difficult to know what the right thing to do is. And most of these drivers are, you know, heavily inexperienced. And that's how they get the experience to get better, is to experience what it's like to race for a win at Talladega. and we had some new names up there that obviously got some great finishes. Well, how do you keep a, I'm rewatching this last lap on my computer, how do you keep a run going in a two-lane race? Like Riley, for example, right? He has that run on Haley.

Is he just supposed to continue pushing her? When he comes up to her, just push her, just push her, because that keeps his momentum going. It gains her moment. You're using her to keep advancing your position. So when does he then pull out and try to pass? Well, he probably should push her to where then she gets beside, she probably would have been up beside Jesse Love or whoever it was.

I think she was probably third or fourth or something like that. So you use her to advance herself to the next group of cars and then the next group of cars. And so it's not all rightly. I'm saying it's all, the whole top 10 was just so disorganized that it created. kind of an easy win for Jesse Love because he never really had to defend anything because they were all fighting just amongst themselves. And you'll have that too when you have cars that like this is their best team finish, right? They're just, they don't care, you know, they care about winning, but they're like, oh my God, I'm running six. How can I finish fifth? That'd be awesome for us. So it just, it's a little different. I imagine too that if you're one of those drivers that are in that spot where like you might have a chance to win here. You don't really have a plan. You don't really have a plan. of action when it gets down. It's just like, you know, you don't, you haven't been there before.

Right. Yeah, I mean, it's the same thing when we watched the Arca race and it was single file for all 60 laps or whatever it was. It was just like, oh, this is so painful to watch. Like, you could put, I don't know, just the worst, I don't even know how you category is the best or the worst, just the worst cup driver in the Arka field

and they would just dominate that race. Like, they would be able to bounce between cars and move themselves up. through the pack, but that's what the ARCA series is, is to get experience to watch the video, learn, and how are you going to do it better next time? The only thing is with the ARCA series, they keep doing the same thing every time. That's just running on the yellow line because there are people up, stop and the spotters are all yelling, stay in line, don't get out of line. And it's because they do and they go to the back and there's just not enough people with

experience to keep those runs going. How much also is it them knowing? how those other drivers will do if they push them so then they don't know how to drive with those. That's a factor as well too. Man, if you get in the back of an ARCA car now, it's like, can that driver handle that push?

Probably not. But it's just so different. Like I've never seen in a race weekend three races that raced so differently. Like the ARCA was a type of race. The Xfinity was a type of race and the cup was a totally different type of race. race right from a just from a visual standpoint yeah which is fascinating because the only thing that's i mean i mean i guess there's a lot of differences but mostly it's yeah it's just a driver's yeah but it's a super speedway track like if you think that they'd all be relatively similar i don't know you would think

so but it's just it just shows like how good the cup drivers are right is that they are they are they would know how to um you know manipulate the draft to make runs happen and stuff where the others are just like, I'm staying in line and I'm going to be happy with wherever I'm going to finish because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. But also how limited the cup drivers are by the circumstances of the car and the type of racing. That's the whole, that's where we're going with the cup series is like, holy moly, how can we do something, a little something different to combat what's going on right now? To quote Kyle Busch, ride in line equals finish.

where you are. Try to race for the win equals finish last. I hate these expletive emoji cars. I'm sure he's probably saying I hate these cars. He's so right. He's so right though and that's the tough part about it is that when you look at the final restart, it looks like the last lap. The two cars that control the outside line and the inside line were the same cars the entire last 30 laps because you cannot afford to get out of line. If you get out of line, it's over. So the reason that is, these cars have a ton of drag. So those who don't know at home what drag is, that's basically how fast the car can go down the straightaway. So it's, you know, we have a big spoiler on the car and there's a ratio of horsepower to drag ratio.

And then you're going to reach, you know, pretty much a top speed, mile per hour based off of how much drag your car has. So if we were to cut maybe an inch off the spoiler, it would go faster down the straightaway and on other tracks it would go slower in the corner so this car in general the next-gen car has a tremendous amount of drag in it on top of that we've changed to a common engine because we want to save costs you ever heard that before we want to save cost so we now have more horsepower than we've ever had on a super speedway but we've had to put a giant spoiler on the back of the car to slow them down. And we've slowed them down even more because cars have flipped over in the last few years.

And NASCAR wants to limit liability there. So they keep slowing the cars down more and more and more. Well, what happens is when you get in a line, the drag of your car reduces by a huge amount. So the air is divided up over, you know, not one car, but 10 cars in a line. So the drag is kind of divided up between all of them. And it really varies based off of how close you are to the front and back of the car in front of you and behind you. And you can keep going faster and faster the closer you get to those cars. The negative is when you go to pull out of line and actually pass, it is a parachute.

Exactly right. It's like pulling a dragster parachute when you're done with your run. the car stops immediately because it doesn't have it's so heavy on drag so in order to get back to the what we used to have for super speedway racing where we actually could race and you could drive from the front to the back um now there was massively changes and that was because this was bristol 2.0 no one really was running hard at any point of that race um i think I maybe ran wide open two laps. Today.

Yeah. Two laps. Two laps where I was running to as hard as I could possibly run. I mean, that's, that's crazy. I wrecked with. Was that the final two laps that you had? No. Even then, I lifted when we were kind of in that single file line there with the Toyota's.

But I think I ran wide open early in the race to try to just grab some track position. I started in the back, so I'm like, I'm just going to go to the top, drive up to the lead here, and then I'll start saving. And we did that, but then once I started saving, it was like, eh, I need to save some more. So I just kind of, the pack just kept getting slower and slower and slower. Because what happens is no one wants to be the first car in line. You have to use more fuel to go because you don't have anyone in front of you to draft off of. So you never really want to be the lead car.

for sure. And so what happens is the lead cars get out there and they're like, well, I want to save fuel. And the person behind them saying, well, I want to save fuel too. And the person beside starts going forward and they start passing.

They're like, wait a minute, am I going too fast? I need to slow down. And everyone starts reacting to each other saying, okay, we're going to keep slowing down because if this person's going slower than I am, they're saving more fuel than I am.

their pit stop is going to be shorter than me and they're about to jump in front of me when we pit. So it's just a battle over who can slow down the most. That's, it's so counterintuitive. They need to stop calling Talladega the fastest track in the world.

It's not. We run faster probably half the racetracks than what we ran today. It was just, I mean, we were creeping around the racetrack just fighting to run slower than the guy beside us. If cars in packs are laying off the gas,

can't you pull out and then just step on it and offset guys that aren't pushing as hard? Or does that not how it works? Okay, so that's a good strategy. So you're saying, okay, why doesn't someone from the back then say, well, screw this, I just want to go. so they would have to hold their throttle wide open so they you could you could drive up to the front and you might even if they if they really really are slow like we were today we're running 53 54 second laps they would actually pull away from the pack but all it would take is the

the pack itself of cars it's almost like the peloton right in a in a bike race I call the pack let's call it a pelton it will start to speed up to they could probably keep up with that car running wide open that just drove to the lead they could probably run half throttle and run the same speed so then the person in front's like well why am i burning all this gas when the person right behind me he's running half throttle i don't want to be doing this let me get back to the back of the pack or let me get in the middle of the pack and then it's just a constant battle that's that's why the field keeps slowing down is that the leader automatically is like, I don't want to be using more fuel than anyone else.

And so the pack would react to someone pulling out of line and pulling away from us. We would just barely put 10% more gas down on the throttle and catch right up to that car. While he's just hauling ass trying to go, we would just be back there feathering it. feathering it, getting twice the fuel mileage, and we're right on their ass. So it just wouldn't work.

But you want to be up front at some point during this race. It's interesting. We spend 150 laps riding to race the last 38. That was the goal, right, is to once you get inside that last fuel window, then you can actually start racing. We saw racing today, but it was after that Toyota crash. So lap 155 on is when we actually saw racing, but it still was just two by two racing because like Kyle Bush says, you cannot pull out of line at all. So the only way to fix it, well, we got to ask what do we want to fix? If you want to fix the type of racing where you can't

pull out and pass, you got to take drag out of the car. You've got to reduce the spoiler height. You've got to do something. But then we're going to be running too fast. So then they need to restrict the engines more. Then the engine builders would say, and now need to build a new engine based off of the new specs of this plate.

So it's just we keep going in these damn circles where we're making adjustments, you know, and it seems to always go back to these engines. You know, we want to run a common engine. We used to have, you know, three engine packages basically, right? We used to have a 550 package, a 750 package, and a restrictor plate package, which is probably around 300. I'm totally talking out of my ass, like 375 horsepower. But it had a really small spoiler on it, so the cars were really momentum-based.

Now we've got more power than what we know to do with. We have to put a big-ass spoiler on it to slow us down. I think we should reduce that spoiler height by a large, amount and then restrict the engines. But then you'd go back to having different engines. You'd have a different engine for your mile and a halfs than you do at your super speedways. That's right. Ideally to keep the, because the mile and a half racing is good, right, with the way this car is set up.

Yeah. And then that's what the engine builders or NASCAR does not want is to have separate engines. And because apparently somewhere down the line we've saved costs by having the same engine at all tracks. Okay. So you, we got to reduce the drag. That's, that's one thing. Okay. So that's, that's for the raceability of the car. Right. Okay. If you want to stop, multiple issues here. Multiple problems. The, the, if you want to stop the fuel mileage thing, then you've got to put, you've got to either have more brakes, stage breaks. So Rodney Chilters, what did he say? He was talking about if they just added like another stage so at each stage you can get there on one stop, whatever, so then you're not fuel saving. Yeah. So NASCAR, what you could do is just take this speedway down to 400 miles,

and then the stages would actually probably line up quite a bit better to where, yes, if a stage was a fuel run, we would never save because we're always going to fight for stage points. That's why we're fuel saving. We're fighting to have a little better pit stop that 10 laps before the end of a stage so we can jump ahead of the next guy. That's the whole game that we're playing. So Rodney's right is that if you made the stage lengths, the length of a actual full fuel run where we could run wide open, you would see balls out racing for the entire day.

But instead we run, you know, we're pussyfooting around this, for the entire race until 30. lapse ago. So I don't think we should add another stage to it. I know he said, you know, we have an extra stage at Charlotte. Listen, Super Speedways already account for way too many points. I hate to see them add even more points to Super Speedways just because they shouldn't be worth more. What if you knock them down then? So you add a stage, but the stage points are are less if there's an extra stage. Yeah, so maybe like they're...

Instead of 10 points. Seven points for each stage win or something versus 10. Then you've got different rules. You just decrease the length of the race, I feel like, is the most logical decision. But why are... You said super speedways are worth too many points? How are they worth any more than any other race? They're not.

I'm just saying you shouldn't make them worth more than a race at Texas or something, you know, because it is such a, I guess it maybe wouldn't be such a game of chance if they had the stages to where they're in a fuel run. But yeah, it all is coming down to, we've got to get rid of this fuel mileage racing, and the only way to do it is to make it to where we don't have to pit in the middle of a stage.

So there's a math equation there, and, you know, today we could run roughly 50, is that right? 50 laps under green? Maybe it was 40. I forget which one it is. But yeah, I think it was 40. We could run like 41 laps under green if we ran all out.

Yeah, you would have to make the stages 40 laps, 40 laps, 40 laps, then we got too many stages. So I don't know what the right thing to do is there. Well, you just decrease the length of the race. That's an option, right? Yeah. Or I'm just kind of thinking here, could you make it to where, you know, a stage is two full fuel runs? You know what I mean? So, so if you ran all out, you pit, then you run all out again, and that gets you to the end of the stage, then saving wouldn't really do you anything.

How many times in this race are you hitting pit road? Six, right? Oh, man. I'm fresh out. Oh, I pitted once in stage one, once in stage, at the end of stage one, so that's two, middle of stage two, into stage two, that's four. We pitted because there was a caution, the Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell, that's five, and then we pitted under green. Six. align these stages

differently. I don't crawl off top of my head what lap each of the stages are ending on, but the only way to not... But you can only go 40 laps of green. The race is 188 laps. You'd have to have four stages.

Travis, how many lapses this race? 188. I'm gonna go with the guy. It's 188. Trust me on that one. I'm gonna go with Danny on this one. Well, how am I supposed to know? You didn't run them all.

How are you going to supposed to have many lapses here? What a dick. Damn. I don't know. I'm just trying to think in my head. You said you could make them two whole fuel windows. Yeah. Which is obviously currently not.

So just shift the stages back a little bit. 80. And then you'd have a 20-lap shootout at the end. Sounds fun. I mean, it could be. I don't know. There's a way to do it. I just don't know the right way.

Is it maybe the first stage is 40? I'm just all the listeners out here, sorry let's figure this thing out together. If it's 40 and the first, maybe your second run ends at 120. Hey, hold on, here we go.

That's two full fuel runs. First stage ends at 40. Second stage ends at lap 120. That's two full fuel runs. So you should be able to run all out, okay, and then you've got, oh, we're short on the back end. Damn it, we're short on the back end.

The race is too damn long. It's 500 miles. We don't need 500 miles anyway. We race for, it's a two and a half mile track. We race for 30 laps today, so. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. You don't race 500 miles anywhere.

I know, I know. I don't know. There's a way to do it. I'm sure they'll talk about it. it today when Elton Sawyer gets on Sirius XM and they'll talk about well do you like what you see and maybe this they might say yes because we were three wide

now we weren't going anywhere just because I it was a bona fide parade around there just kind of showing off our cars but yeah it's uh it's just an interesting predicament it's we've the team searches smart

and they found that the least amount of time on pit road is the way to the front and once one team figured it out. It circled within their organization. And then that organization linked it to the manufacturer and the manufacturer started linking it now the whole field does it. So it's just, it stinks because like I want to, all I want to do is race. And I want to race all out. You know, I want to be able to use everything that I've learned over the last 20 years on drafting and apply it to see like, does it work? Does it not? But I'm, I mean, how,

Did you hear my radio today at all? Yeah. Did you hear Chris just barking at me to keep slowing down? Right. I'm like, damn it, I just want to fucking race. And he's like, nope, slow down. Yeah. Get off the gas.

Get off the gas. Damn, I mean, that's not gonna, that's not what we're shooting for. For sure. NASCAR fans, FanDuel America's number one sports book is here. And right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you bet, your first five bucks. Just go to Fandule.com backslash

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You said that one car couldn't go out and do it, but what if the Toyota's got together and said, we're going to just go? That's what we did. They got together, Travis. I was wondering why Jared wanted to do this podcast tonight. He had some bangers in his back pocket. He just couldn't wait to you. I got a lot of questions.

Yeah, that's what the Toyota's tried to do, is say, screw this, run around half throttle, we're going to go ahead and pit, and we're going to run. And I think it was going to work out quite nicely. But it, and it did. It did for the guys that survived the crash. They were all up front because they had made their pit stop. So we said, okay, we can make it on fuel from here. Lap 150.

We said, all right, we're good to go 100% from here on out. Let's just pit. Instead of us run around here half throttle, we decided to pit. And then we came out of pit road and said, now let's run wide open. And look at our lap times versus the field. And it was going to work out quite nicely because they were still saving fuel. Now, they would have adjusted their strategy for certain. but it was it was going to work out nice to where once everyone else pitted it would have been too late we would have been in front of them well when did this strategy begin for toyota and when did it differ from the other cars like is this a strategy that was put in place from lap one or was this strategy that was implemented midway through the race because we talked about we just talked about the math of the fuel saving and whatnot so how was Toyota able to get to this spot where they could haul ass where the other cars couldn't

I mean, nothing happens by chance. I mean, I was at the Daytona 500 when we were running four seconds off the pace, I came up with the radio to Chris and says, what are we doing? Let's just pit. We'll outrun the pack. Like, if we can make it on fuel to the end of the stage from here, let's just pit. Like, this is silly. And we, you know, it all happened.

We all decided we were going to pit because we were in our fuel window and we were just going to see how it all panned out. And up until we crashed, it was going to pan out great. But it still did, right? Because any caution that comes out from the time that we pit to when the others pit, we're good on fuel. We don't need to pit. So when the caution comes out, we catch up to the back, everyone else pits to try to make it on. They have to make it on fuel now. And then we've already pitted.

because you don't go a lap down. Anytime you cannot go a lap down at a racetrack, this happens at Pocono quite a bit. You have to be with a certain distance of the leader to be able to pit and still stay on the lead lap. So that's why Pocono is always known for its strategy because as long as you're close enough to the lead, you can pit, not lose the lap, caution comes out,

boom, you cycle right to the front because everyone in front of you hasn't pitted, but they need to now. So this strategy worked for the Toyota's that didn't get involved in that wreck because of incremental fuel saving throughout the day? No. I know this is so confusing. We shouldn't have to. I know.

It's frustrating because I know what went on and you were there and you don't quite know what's going on. And I just want the fan to know what's going on. Right. All the cars have the same size gas tank. Right. The guy who's leading the racer runs out front is burning more fuel than the guy who's at the back. Technically, yes.

Theoretically. Okay. So you all have to pit at relative to the same time to fill up. I know, but when the pack is all close together, the difference between first place and 20th is, let's just call it, 1.5 seconds. Okay. Okay. If I save just a little bit more fuel than you, my pit stop will be 1.5 seconds.

shorter. So now I cycle from 20th, as long as I do the same job as you getting on pit road, running pit road, excelling off of pit road, I technically should then be in front of you when we leave pit road and now we're all running 100% trying to get to the end of the stage or the end of the race as it be. So the Toyota's pit had a little less fuel to put in the tank. They were going to jump the guys, the other cars. Because they were on the other side of the racetrack running slow. So it's just about lap time, right? And so if they run two seconds slower than us for four laps, do the math.

What's two times four? Eight. They, if we're on their ass when we come to pit road and we run four laps, two seconds faster, when they pit, we should be eight seconds ahead. But why are they not running just as fast? Because they were still saving where the Toyotos were good to go to the end of the race. they could put the throttle down and go, correct? Right.

But that's because you pit before them? No, we chose to go wide open for a longer time. So when we knew we could make it on gas, we said, we're going to go wide open this entire run. The final stage starts. Yes. Okay. All the cars have the same amount of fuel.

That's right. Okay. Yes. Midway through. Stage three, the final stage. It wasn't midway. It was about 15 laps in. There was a wreck.

Everyone then, let's just pretend everyone still got the same amount of fuel. Right. Yep. The Toyota's pit at this point? We did it. We did. But nobody else did. No, everyone else did. So now everyone has the same amount of fuel again.

That's right. Okay. And so then we only have to run 15 more laps on the racetrack before it's, remember how I said we can go 40 laps on fuel? Once it gets to 40 laps to go in the race, we pit. Got it. Boom.

Right then. And while the field is still saving, saving, saving to try to have a shorter pit stop when they actually do come, we're just out there hauling ass making time. Got it. You did not go a lap down. That's right. Got it. So that's where the strategy, that's where the Toyotas differed from the rest of the pack. As soon as you got in that fuel window, you pit, the Toyota didn't go a lap down and you were able to haul ass while the other cars.

cars were saving because they had a different plan. Mm-hmm. Got it. So hopefully everyone listening in right now is keeping up with all this. I think if they're thinking like me, they used to be able to just watch Dale Earnhardt just be better than everyone else and drive through the pack and, uh. But it worked because the person leading the Toyota's was Tyler Reddick. Exactly right.

He left pit road first. Therefore, when we crashed, he cycled to the lead. lead chose the outside line and that was it. He led that line until the end because no, go back to Kyle Busch's statement, no one can afford to pull out of line. You have to just run where you are. Well, we saw it too. I think Gibbs tried to make a third line at the end and it just went backwards. Yeah. It's typically that third line is really, really tough to make work when when everyone's running hard. Well, it worked for the Toyota's.

I actually had a note on my sheet here that I said, what's the point of teamwork? Because everyone has meetings about working together's team. Toyota's decided to work together. There was one mistake. It knocked out half the Toyota's, two-thirds of Toyota's. But ultimately, actually, that teamwork did pay off.

And the Toyota did win the race. Exactly right. while it was a fail from my perspective, it was a win for Toyota because it did. Any caution that happens from the time we pit to when the Peloton pits, it's going to be good for us because we cycle to the front. And that's what happened with the 45, the 19 and others. Is there a, would this strategy have worked in years past when Toyota had less

cars. No, very good question. No, you have to have at least a certain amount of numbers. You know, it's kind of imperfect science of what the numbers, you know, how many cars you really have to have to be able to run faster than the pack. But certainly we've gained some numbers over the last few years to make it a little more comfortable in doing that. So Toyota's teamwork, their strategy, pays off Tyler Reddick wins.

But you thought for a moment here at the end that Michael McDowell, was going to have a shot to win this. And if not, McDowell, Brad Kosalski. Yeah. I mean, it always comes down to a bad block. I mean, it's just what we talk about every super speedway. And it usually starts with whoever's leading the race. You know, I just never have been successful being able to swerve eight lanes across the track.

And, you know, especially on the last lap, no one's going to lift. So I'm wondering, you know, just armchair quarterbacking here when I'm watching the race via our phone, even though they're watching it live, I'm watching and I'm seeing Michael swerve from one, you know, from the top to the bottom. It's like, you know what's going to happen here. Because even if you do, even if you are clear of the six, he's not going to check. up. So he has a run coming. And when you swerve across the lanes, he's just going to end up spinning you out from behind. You know, it seemed like he was barely clear and it just kind of swiped across the back so it wasn't an abrupt hit. But I just don't see how the success rate of that is going to work out. Even if you are clear, that person is not going to lift.

and they're coming at a rate of speed that it is going to spin you out. So it's almost like you got to just kind of take, this is easy for me to say after I blew second last week, you know, just take second, right? Or take whatever you can get. But, you know, live to run another corner. And I know the checker flags right there in front of you. But like even if the six got beside him was at the,

I don't know that it was the end. of the world. At least you can battle it out. But I just think when typically the leader starts swerving abruptly, most times, I mean, in the spotters, while as great as they are, there's no way they can keep up with and know whether he's clear of that six car. And I'm looking at the angle of, you know, because where the TV camera is is actually pretty close to where the spotters are. And it's like, there's no way they can tell when you're a foot clear or two foot clear. Like, it's just a bad angle. So you're guessing. And he's probably got an in-car camera that he's looking at. But man, as fast as he was switching lanes, what happened was like a 100% chance of happening.

And just no way of avoiding it. It happened because Brad backed off of him off of turn four. He allowed the gap to get a little bit too big to the sixth car. And that's what created the run coming to him that he had to block. I'm watching, re-watching the replay. It just seems like, though, that this is an all or nothing move. I know, but it's going to end in nothing. 99% of the time. But don't you have to?

If he gets the win, he's in the playoffs. You've got to go for it, right? The second place finish doesn't do much for this team, right? They look at the Super Speedways as their chance to win. Super Speedways and the road courses. That's probably fair. No, it's a good point. especially

I mean does this team that they think they can make it in the in the playoffs through points or no well I don't know

I don't think so at the current moment you don't think I mean I don't know where they're at I do know where they're at because Travis writes it down for me

um wow he's not on the list that's not good so no your points valid then Jared that this is a I still think Michael McDowell is

they're 26 in point I still think that the better chance of winning is allowing the person to get beside you maybe but if you're talking about momentum the 34 car on this final lap

has no momentum because he's so far out there and the pack behind him is not anywhere close and he's about 400 yards from the start right so the only way he could have defended this

is to back up heavily to the six, when the six started backing off of him, he should have backed up heavily to the six. And then that would have caused some sort of stack up off a turn four where they probably would have jumped to the outside of the six and then the 34 can then bounce between the two lanes to keep his position. But it's just a hard, it's a hard track to defend at.

It's so wide. It's extremely difficult. and that's why we've seen so many crashes in the tri-oval there at this track. So he's just in a tough spot. You know, you always think about, well, I want to be leading on the last lap. I mean, I don't know, do you? Do you not? It's just a tough spot to be in, and he knows that this is a big opportunity for him and his team,

and you're probably right. He's thinking that blocking's going to be the best chance for him to win. if you slow the game down though and think about it it's like I don't know maybe letting the car get beside you is not the end of the world maybe you have a chance I mean hell

if it gets beside you then just hook a damn left on them sent them to the end field I don't know but certainly they didn't get the finish it or over and man it crashed a ton of cars except for your car of the 45 man that worked out nicely it did i i watched it and when when i when i did watch it i'm like oh my gosh that's just like

the wind that i had back in um i think it was 2020 with was it 2020 or 20 yeah 20 20 20 with ryan blaney and ryan newman when they hooked each other and newman came across to the right and i came in through the middle and side draft the 12 and beat him to the line It looked just like that. And Tyler just had, you know, the instincts to hold a steady wheel, you know, let them crash around you. You don't make any, you know, some of the most common mistakes made in Super Spoo are racing in crashes when they happen is people just swerving hard to the left, swerving hard to the right, and they end up crashing themselves. And so he just was like, I'm going to hold this line here and see what happens. And when the 34 and the 6 made contact, it just slowed the 6 down just enough to where the 45 had all the momentum.

What do you make the decision of the race being raced back to the line? They didn't throw the caution immediately. It let Tyler pass the start finish line before throwing the caution. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, there was some pretty junked up stuff. And the only thing I don't like about it was that it promotes, it really kind of promotes the drivers to just hold the throttle wide open and pray. You know what I mean?

You know, it's usually it's like, hey, if you see cars crashing, just stop. You know, just slow down because there's a caution coming and you're locked in your spot anyway. But when there is no caution, you know, they, what NASCAR does is they look at the photo and they, they look at the video of everyone who's crashing and they start marking all these cars that are in, they consider in the crash. Well, if you can pass them while they're crashing,

they give you that extra spot. So some of these crashes that happen back in the back of the pack was from drivers saying, I'm holding it wide open until they throw a caution. And if I destroy my car, then so be it. Yeah. Does it matter if it's just that close? Like it's two seconds.

Yeah, it was, right? I think that, you know, they held it off at least until the actual, the line. So, yeah, maybe was it 300 yards, 200 yards late? From a safety perspective, yes. But, you know, I don't know, we did have one car on its side, others that had pretty hard hits. But, man, I don't know. That's a tough call for them to have to do. You know, they want to try to let it play out anytime they can.

that's for sure. Nevertheless, this was a very unique victory lane. Tyler Reddick wins the race in the Jordan brand car. Michael Jordan is at the race, and then his first trip to Victory Lane since he's owned the team with you. Yeah, such a, again, my emotions went from wanting to get the hell out of there to suddenly being happy and excited.

I still find myself hard because I'm such a tough competitor getting away from the emotion of damn my day just sucked um oddly enough when my cars have won i usually have a i had i had a pretty good day myself usually i'm in the top five or battling for the win as well and so it's not a complete loss but today was like oh my god we finished like last i left there with no points and and then all of a sudden i'm my brain has to shift to oh well i need to be excited now. And so when I, and I, and I was, but I really was once I got to victory lane, right? When you see how exciting all the crew guys were, the team members were, you know, Michael, how excited he was. It's a big deal, man. There's, you can't downplay it in any kind of way. I'm sure

they've got, you know, Michael highlights going all over the damn place on, on social media. certainly Jared you've got the great photo op of us you know kind of embracing there in victory lane and so it was this first time that he got to experience that is he no longer bad luck then he's no longer bad luck that's no longer bad luck that's for sure we had some good fortune today um but yeah i you know we we actually watched on the plane right the like when he was behind the pit box i think the front stretch had a video of it like that was

I don't have we seen the team that excited in quite some time like it's been it's been a minute right since the team has been that jacked up you would have thought it was like to clinch to race in Phoenix for the championship or something like they even I forget who said it like

this felt like a championship celebration yeah it did and even in victory lane like I don't know maybe at the 11 team we're just take for granted that we win pretty often. So I don't know, the 45 team, they were celebrating like crazy. But it's just, it's so different. And so I go in there and I'm like, I'm trying to be respectful.

You know, this is Tyler's spotlight. Let's let him do his thing. And me and Michael will stand in the back, take a few photos. And then I headed off and did some media stuff as the team owner. But it's just a moment you can't take. take back. I mean, it's Beau Redick. I mean, can you imagine?

He has no idea, right? Zero. The goats holding him. He's just like, and he's holding him like the Lion King. Like, it's just awesome. He's going to have that moment forever, forever.

And it's just, I'm so happy for Tyler and Alexa and Bo and their whole family, the whole Reddick family. Clarence, his dad, it's, yeah, it's great. It's great for them and great for that 45 team. They'll certainly celebrate this one for a while. I think they're actually celebrating it right now. They're certainly getting close to starting if they haven't already.

But what is it like for you as someone who, you know, grew up watching Michael Jordan win everything and anything he could possibly win in the NBA, his basketball career? You know, everyone knows about Michael Jordan and what he's won. but then he comes to the racetrack and he celebrates the way he did after winning just one of 38 races. It's just another race. Not to him. He's a competitor.

And I appreciated what he said to Jamie Little there that starting this NASCAR team really it filled the void of competitiveness that he had when he was playing, right? And so the only difference is he doesn't control. He doesn't have control. Now,

we do have controls over how we choose to run the team and personnel that we hire and things like that. But it's, you are a bit helpless when it comes down to a green, white checkered or 30 lapsic or whatever. And I'm sitting there on the sidelines and I'm quarterbacking like, Tyler do this, Tyler do that. You know, like, and you feel helpless. But like when they do it, you just feel so proud because you know you've got a hand in all of it. So, yeah, certainly a big win for 2311. and that whole team

it's great to see Bubba there celebrating with him as well, congratulating him. It's just, there's nothing bad that happens from wins like this. What does MJ bring to the team that maybe another owner can't bring to their team because of his, you know, greatness in being a professional athlete? Oh, man, I can't quantify it, but he's the most popular athlete in the world.

I mean, is there a more popular athlete in the world? LeBron? Living? Oh, my God. I had to say it. I had to. Oh, my God. Jared.

I need a new co-host immediately. Get this guy out of it. I mean, even Bubba said pre-race that MJ said, I forget when this happened, they were some complaining, and MJ said, like, it's self-reflection and you can't, you know, this complaining stuff has to stop. Yes. there was a little of that happening. I think it was end of last year, for sure.

You know, he, it was during the playoffs, and Michael likes to be involved. He certainly is advised in a very educated way through his folks, but he likes to be involved, and he likes to ask questions, and he likes to learn this sport. I mean, even in Victory Lane, he was asking questions about, well, the strategy, should we have done that?

I'm like, yeah, it was going to work out until it didn't, but actually it did work out. So it's hard to say what he brings other than the affiliation of being with the greatest athlete in the world. He's obviously got some business relationships as well that he brings to the table. you know one thing I'll definitely love about him is that you know any ask you know and I try not to ask him to do too much but you know he understands when I do ask him to do something that it's important and he's he can turn it on at the right time with the right people he's always curious when we do have VIP meet and greets he wants to know their names you know who are they with what's their affiliation what's their job.

Like, he, he cares. And so to have someone that really cares about the people that invest in him and his race team, it certainly goes a long way. Yeah, I think Ryan McGee tweet afterwards, he's seen a lot of people coming to the sport and his owners or whatever and, you know, it doesn't work and they quickly get out. And MJ has, he's been the opposite. He's continuing to grow and, you know, wants to be at these races. And he's not just an owner and name only.

Absolutely not. He is not an absentee owner for sure. He cares about this. He is a race fan first. I'm very, very grateful that we struck up the friendship that we did 14 years ago. And what it has grown into has just been amazing. I find myself pinching myself at times that not only is things going well on the track for me in my career, but to be also affiliated and have the partners that we have with Toyota.

do it up and Michael Jordan and all the sponsors that are on 2311. It's just surreal to me because it's, it's, I'd never envisioned my life would have ended up this way. And so, I just, it's hard to put it into words for sure. I saw a tweet at the end of the race and said, this is bullshit. Even when Denny doesn't win, he wins. Yeah, it, um, I actually was in the infield care center and I heard them dragging my car. down the front stretch and the people cheering.

Yeah. Did you hear that or not? Well, I heard people cheering when the wreck happened. And then I saw that you were in. I was like, oh. Well, the infield care center is right there off of turn four. Yeah. And so I heard the, you know, the car just dragging the ground.

And I heard the cheers following the dragging sound. And I'm like, those holes. I mean, seriously. Is it that bad? But, hey, we got the. final life in the end. I got one dear Denny for you this week. Hold on. I have to ven a second. Can we not have puddles on a racetrack? Is it that hard to avoid? It's a little hard to avoid because they weren't there until they were there. So they actually did a really good job cleaning,

you know, drying off the racetrack. But what happens is, you know, the track, you know, it does get water underneath the surface through cracks of the track, right? So when, when the underside of the pavement gets saturated with water, when we drive on it, it's like a squeegee. It has to push that water out somewhere, right? And the nearest path of least resistance is any crack that's in the track. Well, unfortunately for me, I mean, I had just the worst day trying to come on the pit road. Chris put me in a pit box I'd never been in early on the pit road there. And my visual wasn't good.

I just did a horrible job all day long getting on pit road. pit road until the final stop actually did okay um but yeah it i the first one i just ran through a puddle spun out i was more worried about hitting the inside wall so i just bailed and said i'm just going to spin through the grass bounce off of whoever i've got to to not hit the inside wall i didn't want the kind of damage that would in my day so that was uh they had it there and i think you said that like joy went through a damn lake oh really yeah the exit of pit road on the exit it was He must have been really low. No, no.

They were high. They were like four wide is the reason why he ended up. It wasn't a spot that anybody really got close to the rest of the day, but because there were so many people. He went through, but like, I don't know, from just a fan's perspective, it seems like that was kind of dumb that they didn't do something. It is. The only problem is they'd spend all day trying to get that to stop leaking, right? And the way they see it is that it's off the racing surface. So it's kind of up to us to kind of navigate.

around that. So not much they can do to it for sure. You know what's funny, Travis? I don't think it was shown on the broadcast, but one of the final pit stops, Denny came in. I think it was at the end of stage two on their second time through to top off. Joey Lagano was pitted in front of him, and then he just like parked it, just like put in part. You're like, all right, I'll wait until you leave your pit box and then I'll, I'll pit. Yeah, I was just trying to be, he was leading the race are up towards the front. And I always think, I don't know whether it's just me that thinks this,

but the ride-of-way always should go to whoever car is running higher. When you see collisions of on pit road, you know, a car leaving, a car coming, a car going, right? To me, the car coming in needs to heed to the car coming out always, because it's like a yield. They got the right-of-way. Right. You know, and Joey at the time was up towards the front.

and I'm at the back and I'm not in need of doing a quick pit stop. We're just going to come in and top off. So I see him sitting in his pit stall and I'm parked, you know, my pit is right in front of him. So if he drops the, if I pull in to get my fuel and tires,

I have a really large chance of boxing him out to where he has to then back up and then he would lose his track position and I'm, you know, I ain't trying to be no dick. Like maybe I get it, the favor of repaid. down the road, right? Because I think that's the right thing to do is I'm at the back. I just, I literally just go and his pit crews pit in the car and they're filling it up and I'm just parked right behind them. I'm like, y'all go ahead. Go ahead. And then, you know, when he takes

off, the crew members all give me the thumbs up. I'm like, yeah, yeah, we'll get that back down the road. Your decision making is completely rational. It's just very funny to look at it through the lens of, oh, here's the 11 car. He hasn't been able to get on pit road the last two times. So this time now he's just taking his time. And, you know, it was slowly pulling. I think at one point of the day, Chris says, are you doing okay in there? Said, no, things aren't going too well so far today.

Oh, I don't know. This has been a bad couple weeks stretch for finishes. That's for sure. Time to get back on the horse. Where do we go next week? Dover. Dover. Hey, we led our 12th consecutive race.

the record's 17. I wonder if we have any road courses. That's the only thing that might take me. But you might get the pole. I better really concentrate on qualifying. Try to keep that streak alive. Is that a record that you even care about, though? Leading a race?

I may or may not have put the gas down a little heavy early on to lead a lap. I was aware of it, for sure. It is future Hall of Fame induction. Here's Denny Hamlin. 60 races and he won in championship but he did lead 17 races in a row listen i mean it's not they're not bull-shed leading like because we stayed out under a caution like we're legitimately leading every single race so um it was i was just taking advantage when everyone was in fuel

save mode i'm like i just want to go ahead and get this lap lead thing done early so then chris can get off my ass and that's basically how that was going Dear Danny, we've got some questions that we want to ask. Dear Danny, we need answers and we need him fast. We tried to ask Junior, but his answers were lame. And with DBC, it was more of the same. Now we're caught on you because you're our own hope. This ain't the race track, so maybe you won't choke.

I got one dear Danny for you before we wrap this show up. I know drivers can't communicate with each other, but can crew chiefs communicate among themselves on the radio to set up strategies? Yeah, they do. They have different chat groups. I don't know. I don't know if they're in an AIME instant messenger, AOL instant messenger group or something like that. But yeah, they do.

They talk. They also talk with, it depends on your race team, but, you know, like we have a war room back at airspeed. And so we have engineers in that war room that are talking to both crew chiefs and stuff at the time. And then at racetracks like this, certainly, you know, they'll be more than likely a Ford channel for their crew chiefs or Chevy will have their crew chiefs all in a channel. So they'll communicate when they're pitting and things like that.

So they are communicating. They are mostly on racetracks like this. They won't on other race tracks because it's not as imperative that you pit together. Right. Like it is here. Right. Anything else you want to touch on? No.

I want to put this weekend behind me, even though it was a good weekend as a whole. I'll celebrate tomorrow, but Sundays are reserved for sulking for me. All right. Well, appreciate y'all tuning in. Make sure you give us a rate and review and you follow wherever you get your podcast. Make sure you subscribe to Action is Determinal on YouTube. Appreciate everyone tuning in to our YouTube channel. It's growing rapidly, and we're getting lots of views.

So thank you for that. We appreciate it. We'll check in with you after Dover, after we wind over. I'm going to call it now. We're going to win Dover. Okay? You got it? I got it.

Was it Babe Ruth? Yeah. Okay. It's also you after New Hampshire went. I can't believe you remember that. That was before your time, too. It was, but I made a video with. that clip.

That's how you know my whole history. You've got so much old content. All right. Let's create some new ones. This review, close out this show, this review from B. Smith. Action's Determental is one of the best NASCAR podcast out.

Denny produces great insight into the sport, but I wasn't a fan of driver Denny until today. This MFR goes and track walks with Frank the Tank. You know what I did notice today? Just to wrap this up. is I'm pretty sure. I am pretty sure. Now, a lot of people wear the same thing

at our NASCAR race, but I'm pretty sure I saw someone pre-race say, hey, man, appreciate you and what you do in your podcast. And then when I was in driver intros, I saw that same fan on the other side of the fence giving me the finger and booing me.

I'm pretty sure that that's the way this works, right? I mean, certainly they're more vocal on the other side of the fence. Leave us a five-star review and you can flip him off at the track. That's all I ask. All right.

Listen to Travis. You get a free, free boo. If you leave a five-star review. And a five-star review. So we'll see y'all next week. Peace out.