Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Texas Got Me Back

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Denny Hamlin and his co-host Jared Allen react to Denny’s car catching fire and everything else that happened in the NASCAR world at Texas Motor Speedway: 1:40 What prompted Denny to throw up “Horns Down” at driver intros9:00 Corey Heim’s amazing performance on Friday16:30 Kyle Larson wins Xfinity while Justin Allgaier’s day ruined26:20 Ryan Blaney’s bad decision to not restart on the front row30:10 Michael McDowell unable to hold on and get the win32:10 Why Denny will be a backseat driver when he’s only a team owner37:15 Why we saw so many cautions50:45 Code words backfired for the 11 team57:40 Denny’s engine blows up and car catches on fire Dirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Actions Detrimental merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.For more Actions Detrimental content: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental FanDuel Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Then he comes back from blowing an engine being on fire. You can tell he's angry. He doesn't want to talk about anything, but he's got to deal with parenting things first. That is a fact. I come into the bus, and it's one and a half kids are crying. Jordan's pissed off.

I'm like, hey, I'm here. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. I believe that I've been a competitive for 20 years. opinions from tonight's podcast strictly biased you're going to hear from my point of view I'm a fighter no you are not the spoils of victory for Jared Allen he's got better luck the drink and drink to win I know you do two trophies missing from your collection a championship and the most popular driver someone told me that their drinking game is when I say for sure yeah and I've already said hey guys welcome to actions detrimental I'm Denny Hamlin driver of the

75 lap progressive Toyota here at Texas Motor Speedway this past week. What kind of insurance plan does Progressive have for cars catching on fire? Well, I mean, you know you can bundle everything and you can save when you bundle. Flow tells you that each and every time. But I'm not too sure, but I know that if they cover home and auto certainly fires you would think are included in that, right? Yeah, I think so. well it was short and sweet for me this past weekend but i did get an opportunity to uh hang out with travis and watch the race i heard yes Travis Travis took Ron spot on the plane

that's what that's what Ron saying is that you know don't get too comfortable in that seat that's my seat you're taking Travis how did this come about because I'm on I'm I'm gonna text thread with you guys and so like 1130 on Thursday and Friday, no, Friday night. Friday night. I was asleep, by the way. Charlie FaceTime's me and he's like, you come and I'm like, I haven't been invited. I'm not just going to show up.

He's like, well, just texting. I'm like, I'm not texting Denny at 1130. And by the way, they're doing this on a group text that I'm on. So they are texting. I wasn't. And then Austin then chimes in. And so I text Austin on the side. I'm like, hey, like, don't have hard, don't have hard card, don't have this.

like I don't want to be an inconvenience. He's like, no, it'll be fine. Just send a text. And I'm like, all right. Like, he's like, Denny's still awake. And I'm like, okay. I wasn't until the morning. But yeah, so super early flight the next morning, Saturday morning.

Fun to see you on there. However, your results were less than stellar. So I don't know. I've been getting so much heat like I'm the problem here. I don't feel like I am. am well i you could argue you're bad influence no no no uh yeah yeah all right so let's denny did horns down at driver intros yeah and in texas got me back okay but what did i tell you would you tell me i said if i said when you win yeah but i don't know if i'm going to get that

chance. I was, yeah, I didn't want you to do it at driver interest. So what inspired that? Well, Charlie and I did tell him to do horns down. Okay. There's the whole Ohio State stuff. Yes, yes. Like, like I'm a, you know, alumni there or something. Okay, so you came out. So you didn't do that because of the booze you were getting. You're like, here's how I'd send it back to you. I did say, I did say to them, I'm going to play off the crowd. You know, like after the race. If I win and the crowd is really booing hard, then. I'm going to do it just to get get them right yeah um but you'd be surprised actually when I went from horns up the horns down actually the crowd shifted there for a minute like there was a few cheers that that weren't there before so I think that we're not necessarily right there in Texas territory as far as you know Austin Texas right um yeah I uh that didn't last long for me eventually the karma caught up pretty quickly.

But yeah, it was Travis and these guys, they're all me about Screw Texas, this, that, and the other. However, their fans, let me say something about UT. Their fans were the nicest fans in defeat that we had ever come across. They really are nice people. They're nice people. They really are. Like after the game,

You know, I kept saying, man, Travis, these fans, they're very hospitable and very nice. And they were like, great game, guys. Go get them next week. And I was like, and he was just like, fuck them. Screw those guys. I'm like, we won. It's okay. Like, you don't have to be mad at them anymore.

But he just holds grudges like you wouldn't believe. I don't hold a grudge, but I was in the moment. But I don't, you can't blame me for this weekend, though. It wasn't exactly like you left 2024 with a great ending. no maybe it's austin and jared's fault where were they this weekend i mean everyone took tyler the whole team took off yeah the whole team took off i was supposed to carry everybody there like a whole team and the driver you took off too i did my part you watched almost just as much as this race on tv as i did i know you should have lots of insight then um is baby jesus no more

There was a little baby Jesus that a fan gave me. It was just a little tiny baby Jesus, and it was in my pocket from probably a month ago when I got it. And I asked my bus driver, I said, you've washed my suit, right? Because this baby Jesus is in there. Every time I check and I put this suit on, baby Jesus is still hanging out in there.

And he's like, I definitely wash it. He's like, so it just must go for the ride and hang on. So I think I need to keep the baby Jesus as long as he hangs on through washes, right? Like, I'm not going to take him out for the wash dry process. But if he just keeps hanging on, then it's meant to be. He's meant to ride up with us. I'm good with that. Yeah.

Jared, how was your weekend? It was good. It was good. I was at Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival on Friday and Saturday, which was a very enjoyable experience. It was awesome. What is it? It's just like a music, it's an arts music festival

up towards Raleigh in Pittsburgh, outside Chapel Hill. It's like a Woodstock hippie festival. It sounded very granola. It is the definition of granola. All right, well, that's fun. Glad you had a nice off weekend. We had some race in Texas. we had Corey Hymne winning the truck race in dominating fashion up until those cautions at the end

that it was been so easy to criticize the truckers and not being able to run any green flag laps at all and then you watch the cup race and it was the exact same inside 40 laps to go just could not get any running going but just giving Corey Hime tremendous props and I know I'm biased because he's a 2311 development driver but holy cow I mean just better than everybody by a significant amount there's you know he does have teammates that are in the same equipment that he's in and just I don't know it's just the craft that he's showing it's just tremendous making moves setting up people you know, getting your headlight out when you need to, running high when you need to, like every,

like, I'm a bad, I realize this weekend watching the race, I'm a bad owner backseat driver. I told Tyler Redick this on the way home, I said, man, you're going to have your hands full with me after I'm done racing because, like, I was trying to tell Tyler, go here, go there, like, shade left, shade right, and on these restarts. And, you know, I'm usually, I don't know and I don't care because I'm in the moment myself driving. But I do it on Fridays and Saturdays when I have a driver that I have interest in. But Corey just was just doing everything that you would think that you need to do. And, man, just got to give him props for.

He certainly should have won every truck race this year by a lot, but have had some crazy bad luck things happen to him. But it's good to see this would not get yanked away from them there at the last minute. And he had to shove up Ben Rhodes there a little bit in three and four. It looked very similar to kind of how Kyle Arson and Redick was at that point of the race where they were battling for second and third. But it's just a tough part of the racetrack to keep your car in control. And when you got two guys going for it like they were, Ben Rhodes got the crummy end of it.

I don't think Corey Hymn was going to be denied of that win. It's got to be a nice feeling having a guy like that in your development program that's clearly as talented as he seems like he's ready for a cup ride. Yeah. And we're going to see him this weekend in the Cup series. That's what's going to be exciting to see is, you know, the races that he gets to run with 2311 this year, the races that he's got planned for next year, just continuing to get more and more cup seat time to be ready for that call whenever it happens.

What are you looking forward to seeing out of him when he's in a cup car for these first couple times? Like, what do you want to see? Just progression. You know, there's not a finishing spot in which you're, hey, I'll be happy if they finish whatever, because I've learned after I've watched the race this weekend, where you run and where you finish are two wildly different things. you know, to get in a team-specific things. Like, trackhouse is way off.

They are out and left field, but they finished well this weekend. So you can look at the results and say, oh, we had a good weekend. But to really be in there and in the know, you would say, man, we have got so much work to do. And I think you heard Ross Chastain talk about that post race. It's like, our cars are just not close. And so you have to as a driver carry your car sometimes and get good restarts and fight for positions that normally you're not going to fight for. All those things. And next you know you have 15 cars crash and you just keep making your way up towards the front.

And then bam, you got a shot to win at the end. And you look at a P2 finish and you're like, wow, okay, we fought through. We got away with one where we probably. should have finished 22nd to 25th. So there's definitely a difference in how you run and how you finish. So that's why I don't like to go back. Corey Haim, say this finishing position is a goal.

I think is he competitive? You know, he's going to be, he's going to have the fourth best pick crew at 2311, right? We're going to use our development guys. And these are young guys that are really been working hard to get themselves. on a full-time roster. You know, the cars are going to come to the racetrack.

He's going to have the same car as the 23, 45, 35. All of them are going to be the same. So it'll be exciting to see kind of what he can do with it. And certainly what I've seen, I think, in this very first race of 2311 at Nashville, he drove from the very back up to the top 12. I think he was 11th or 12th before that, all that whole nine. overtime thing started happening and then all hellbrook. So, yeah, if he has inside top 15 speed, that'd be a really good day.

So let me ask you this. You're going to Kansas this weekend. He's going to have a very similar car to Bubba and Tyler. 2011's always fast at Kansas. Toyota's always good at Kansas. If Corey doesn't run up front with Tyler and Bubba, assuming that they run up front, what's going to be the one thing? Yeah, that'll be a tall task.

What's the one thing, though, that, like, separates him from doing it? Like, what's the one thing that he's missing not being a full-time Cup series driver? Like, is it the relationship with the crew chief? Yeah, just the understanding of making speed at that, with that car, at that track. And that's one of the things, kind of the uphill climb that Riley Herps has, right? Is that it takes a while to understand. It's one thing to just know, okay. this is how this car makes speed.

Then you have to match it to the racetrack and figure out, how do I make speed with this car at this track? And a lot of that has to go into corner radiuses, where does rubber build up on this track versus others. Like, you know, knowing what the exact right line to run is and how to apply the gas and the brake,

all those things are really, really difficult to know unless you have some experience. and so that's the tough part about qualifying. He's going to be qualifying. He'll be the first car to go out and qualifying. It's going to be horrible. The track will be really bad. That's the shitty part about me blown up

is now I know I'm going to have a horrible qualifying draw and qualify probably high 20s. I mean, there's just nothing I can do about it because of the track conditions. So it's a double whammy, so he's going to have to come from the back. But I have enough face. that I think that myself and him, you know,

will be able to make it up through there. But it's just track time. I don't know how to explain it, but it's one thing to know, listen, this is his third year in trucks. Like he knows when he goes to Kansas this weekend in a truck, he knows exactly how he needs his truck to feel to be fast because he's been there before and been fast.

It's easy to replicate the feeling once you get it. It's really hard to find the feeling if you've never had it, if that makes any sense. So his success in the truck series shows you that with enough time on track, he can figure out the problem. So when he eventually gets into a cup car after so much time, he'll figure it out because he's figured it out before. Yeah.

And it's why we're trying to get him on some racetracks. You know, there's a mix of them, some that he is familiar with and some that he's never seen before. That is going to be a big, big challenge for him. you know you want to throw them into the gauntlet like that to try to get their feet wet in these types of different tracks that way when they you know eventually get the call it's it's you know you're ready you're ready to compete right from from that word go at Daytona hey it's delinhart junior and our new stars stripes and beers collection drops tomorrow

may 6th on the dirty mo merch store we've got your go-to gear for summer with tanks teas and beach towels and more. Check it all out at shop. dirtymo Media.com. Kyle Larson wins the Xfinity race on Saturday after filling in for Conor Zilich, who was out with an injury from that wreck last week at Talladega. Yeah, it was a less than dominating win by Larson,

but he also didn't have track position for, you know, I almost tweeted out that with about 40, 50, 50, go, I was going to say, that guy is trying to do that thing again, which is lap the field. Like, I was watching his times, and he was four-tenths faster than everyone. And it was consistent, consistently. Now, the only person he didn't have that advantage over was just an Al-Gar. And Al-Gyre, when I was watching the race, they just didn't pit him at the right time. You know, they were battling.

I think they were within probably a second of each other, but Algar was in some traffic. Larson broke through some lap traffic, and then Algar was getting held up by that traffic. And they ran him out there for like three or four laps in this traffic. I was looking at the times, and it was like Algar was dropping six-tenths battling with these guys, and it's like, you've got to get him on pit road.

like to try to either jump the Larson or or something because you're just going to lose time. You're probably not going to gain time on Larson entering pit road or rolling pit road. Like you're up against it here. You're in a bad spot. So mitigate your damages by getting them to pit road to not slow in his inlapse. But I thought they just kept them out there a little bit too long. and then at that point they came out I mean it looked like he was

four seconds behind roughly, maybe three and Algar at that point is trying to run the fastest lap times he can to run Larson back down and Chris Wright just didn't hold a steady line you know that's the only way

I can kind of analyze it and I think they did a good job on TV talking about it but you know you as a slower car and if you look at the pace, he was running like four seconds off. It was, it was a lot. Now, I think he might have damage. I'm not really sure. But still, it's, first of all, it was very tough for me to understand, was he meaning minimum speed or not? Because his, I mean, he's running 34 second laps and, and the field was running, you know, 30s. So that's a, that is a really slow pace.

That means essentially you're getting lapped every 10 laps. so that's probably an unsafe pace to be out there, but much less when you're not running one single lane on the racetrack. And so if you look, you know, Al Gar kind of committed to the bottom. He saw that Chris Wright was running somewhat mid-track and like not really on the line, but he wasn't above the dash marks, which would be considered the second line. and he tried to get around him as efficiently as possible without slamming on the brakes.

And he was like, okay, well, he's going to run lower, lower. So I'm going to go up high and Chris Wright just moved up high on the exit and got ran into. Is there anything you can do about this? I mean, if that's minimum speed, is minimum speed just too slow, too low? Yeah, I don't know. Usually it's 10% of the, of like a practice speed or a qualifying speed. and if you just do simple math, if the leaders are running 30 seconds,

10% would be 3 seconds slower. So I'm not really sure that he was making minimum speed during that time. But that's on the officials to monitor that. He almost caused a wreck early in the race too doing this. Like, is there anything way that NASCAR can get involved? Well, I think you heard on his team's radio that you got a hold one line. And so I don't know. I'm not watching Chris Wright every single week or listening to his radio, but certainly I think that the team was telling him, you know, post-mortem that, you know,

he wasn't doing a great job holding his line and it probably caused the accident. Landon Castle had a good quote tweet of this video of this wreck, and I'll just pull out two lines is that if you're the slower car, make the faster car pass you where you want them to pass you. If you are in control of your own car, not your spotter, not the leader, not your crew chief,

you, I think drivers like Chris sometimes have too many people in the ear telling them what to do and they forget that they're the ones in control. Yeah, 100% agree with it. It's 100% accurate. Shout out to Linden Castle,

Parker Clear them in for their Money Lap podcast. It's a great podcast if you want to check it out. But I agree with them. 100%. control of your car and when you're that far off the pace the single most important thing to do is hold one line going back to last week that's why i had such an issue with the merging that the one car was doing at taldega is that you know when you start changing lanes it's just puts everyone in such a position to where you're saying to them i'm going to make you lift you have no choice

to lift or wreck me. And, you know, given that opportunity, again, I think I'm probably going to choose something different and just live with the results. But it's, you can't, you can't swerve back and forth. It doesn't matter with this mile and a half, two mile. You got to, if you're slow and it's because your car is slow or you have damage, try your best young drivers to just hold one line and hold it for an extended period of time. We're not asking for you to hold it for this.

this corner that we're catching you. We predict as drivers you're always trying to predict and that's how you do, how you become efficient at passing lap cars is you're watching the slower cars well in advance. You know, your spotters are watching them. You're watching them to see what line are they running? That way when I approach them, I don't have to make an abrupt move to swerve around them. And then, you know, that's how wrecks happened on the street, right?

Is someone not paying attention? You swerve late. Someone gets ran into it. we try to predict by seeing what you're doing two or three laps before we get there. So, you know, if it's in the main line, in the bottom, that's fine. We will go around, but keep it there. Don't change it based off of where other people are running. So just try to keep that one line going for as long as you possibly can.

The cup race on Saturday. What was your reaction to this from the time you spent? been in the car before blowing up. In the car, I thought it was going to be difficult to pass. It usually is until that track widens out quite a bit. I think the racetrack, you know, is somewhat, it's racier than what it's been in the past. I certainly think it was very one-line dominant when we had all that traction compound kind of right there in that second lane.

The first lane was just really hard to use. It just didn't have quite enough grip compared to the dominant lane. But I thought that right before I got, right before I got out of the race, that it was starting to come around. Like I was really looking forward to see, you know, where this track was going. And at the time, you know, I was running seventh or so. And we were all just running whatever the slowest car in front of us was running for, times. You know, Larson was being held up by somebody. I was being held up by Barry. Barry was

being held up by Larson. It just, you know, we couldn't, no one could move off the bottom. And we all were just running whatever the car in front of us was running. And then, you know, once I got to the back of the pack, and we'll get to how I got there, I at least myself and Blaney had penalties on on that sequence and we were in that 20 some laps or so we were i guess we ran about 30 laps you know we gained he was up 13 spots i was up 12 we were making headway and and the track was starting to widen out to where i was starting to pass guys at a pretty rapid pace um and and felt pretty optimistic about what kind of racing we were going to see it's just very tough because the end of the race never really got a fair shake because of all the cautions.

You know, it just, it just got turned into a show, you know, it was almost like an Xfinity Martinsville race only, you know, I don't think there was deliberate acts like there was an Xfinity. It's just we couldn't get going, couldn't get Green Flagg running. So I thought, you know, the TV did an okay job of kind of explaining what was going on at the time. you know it's different when I'm it I'm certainly a backseat driver but I'm a backseat commentator when it comes to you know watching the race and then talking about what we should be

talking about it's a tough really tough job because you know they they probably got 16 monitors up there they got to kind of look at and try to figure out where the cameras at at the time we have a had a new director at Fox starting this week. I thought everything was fine there. But it was good. I was really, really surprised in the moment Blaney did not take the front row. I couldn't believe that call.

And the ensuing restart is the one that Michael McDowell took the lead. He took the top or he took the bottom? It took bottom behind Larson. And I was like, well, how are you going to pass them? I didn't understand that call at all. And you heard Blaney say after the race to himself, he was like, what a dumb call.

Like, why? You know, of course, the one time I don't take the top, the top takes the lead. But, but dude, inside 15, 20 laps to go, you don't take the front row at a mile and a half. Man, any push can happen. Like, you just don't know. And that's essentially what happened is that the 45 gave the 71,

the push to get the lead. And not only did Blaney not take the front row, he didn't do a good job of pushing Larson on that restart. So then Larson lost the lead and now Blaney lost position. So it's just you heard Blaney being really critical of himself post race and it was warranted. But it's good to see that like he was very aware. Like he knew that had he done that again or thought about it again, he would have chose something different. And that tells you that you got a driver there. that's very high IQ and knowing exactly what he would have done different in that situation.

And certainly I thought it was a defining moment because I did not, I watched the race and while Larson was up front, he did not have the fastest car or I didn't think close to the fastest car, but they just kept their track position. I thought there were a few cars coming to the front. Chris Bisher, his lap times were fast, Tyler Reddick's lap times were fast Actually Joey Lugano as well

And Alex Bowman Those are the four that kind of stood out to me That they always were running faster lap times than their actual race position was So when I talk about you usually run whatever speed You are on the racetrack If you're eighth You're gonna probably run right around the eighth place fastest time

They continue to outpace their position when the race was green. So those guys were coming towards the front. Chris Busher had his issues. And then Blaney, I thought, ever had an open track to challenge the five. The five was going to have his hands full. But, man, I just could not believe he did not take the front row.

What was this thinking? Why would you, to play devil's advocate, why would you take behind Larson there? What was his reasoning would be? Do you not think? The only reason I can think would be that his car probably was unstable over the bumps and or too loose. So if you're loose and unstable over the bumps, the high line is bumpier. So you're going to find yourself in a more precarious position.

And so you're just going to be too timid. You're going to say to yourself, okay, if I start on the outside, how am I going to pass him? because I'm too timid to run enough throttle to pass them. But what can happen, though, is what happened. And that is, you could get a giant push from whoever's behind you. Maybe Larson doesn't get a push, and you're clear of them by the time you get to turn one, and you don't have to worry about the line. So that's, you know, devil's advocate and sure, you know, hindsight's 2020.

But the only thing I can think of is that, you know, his car probably wasn't as stable over the bumps is what he was comfortable with. were you surprised to see Michael McDowell take the lead from that position on two tires I was I was and then you know Travis is in there listening to me I was telling McDowell you know I was trying to tell him get up in turn one and two like the who was it that was about the pass oh the 22 the 22 the 22 was getting the top line going in turns one and two and the 71 stayed committed to running the bottom and I was like I'm telling you that PJ1 or whatever it is that resin takes about three to four laps. After three to four laps, that top line gets going good. I mean, it's way stickier. I don't know why the heat is such a big deal to it, but one, two laps after caution, the top is, it's a little greasy, right?

It's not primed yet. But if you can get two or three laps of cars running up there, that thing starts to heat up and it gets grippy. And the 71 that was clear for quite a few laps, and I just kept watching the 22 edge on them and 1 and 2 kept getting close. I was like, you got to move up. You got to move up. Make the 22 pass you on the bottom.

I just, it was going to be a tough pass. Certainly tougher than what it ended up being. But again, I'm in the bus watching. I mean, Joey ran off the track to pass him down the battery. Well, because his run was so huge that it was inevitable. He was going to get beside him. It's just a matter of was he going to clear him. but I think that McDowell again it's when you if you had to do it all over there's no doubt he would

ran up high he would have gone ahead and probably let the 22 get beneath him versus chasing him down to the track and then you know clearing himself into turn three if you're side by side you still always have a chance you really have a chance but you know if you have such a disparity of speed where the person such as Joey gets that big of a run through one and two two, he's going to clear himself into three. There's just no getting around it. And so your job when you're defending the lead is to mitigate the variance of lap time between yourself and the car that you're defending against. Yeah, watching Denny watched the race, he made a comment earlier that he said to Tyler about being an owner and not a driver at some point.

I fear for those drivers because Denny's going to be on a pit box with the audio talking nonstop, I feel like. He's going to be like Jerry Jones. He's going to be like Richard Childress. Oh, gosh. Why y'all, that's just rude. You said it. No, I said they'll take my button away. They're going to have to.

It's only because I care. And I cared for everyone, right? You know, whoever was leading, I was like, here's what I would do. Here's what I think they need to do to defend. Or if they're going for the lead, here's what they should be doing to go for the lead. But the difference is. is when you can see an aerial view like I do on TV and I'm a driver, you're always going to make the right decision.

In the car, it is so difficult to ask these guys to make the perfect move every time because you can only see what's right out in front of you. And it's hard to see the gap beside you on the left, on the right, to the front, to the back. It's hard to do. That's why we're always much smarter when we get out and kind of look at it in retrospect. So, yeah, it's very difficult. And I realized that, you know, to me, that's why I was so high on what Corey Haim did on Friday. Because he was doing everything that I would have thought you needed to do to win the race.

Even in that precarious position he put himself in with a few laps to go. So that's what was so impressive about it. And, you know, it's, again, it's way easier when you're just sitting up. they're talking about it, about what the right thing to do is not as easy when you're in the car. And by the way, I don't know what's the characteristics of Michael McDowell's car, or Joe Lugano's car. Like, maybe their car doesn't work in that line. Maybe you're not as confident to run over the bumps or run lower or whatever.

So it's just, at that point, I'm just looking at a couple toy cars, trying to position them to the perfect spot to either defend or pass. Right. I was texting Travis once you were out of the car and asking him like, I'm sure you guys are just going to fly home now. You know, it's a two-hour flight home. You could get home before sunset, whatever. But you ultimately stayed.

Were you intrigued? Like, watching this race on TV, watching timing and scoring? Like, why did you stick around? Well, I had a dog in the fight with Reddick and Bubba at the time. They were, I think, running fifth and sixth or fourth and sixth. I thought Bubba's car actually was pretty strong as well. But it just seemed like the restarts. for the 2311 cars just were not good enough.

It didn't seem like they were great in traffic. And so, you know, I just wanted to kind of see, hang around to see, you know, am I needed post race or not? I'm interested in watching the race. It saves me time, truthfully, because if I go home, I'm going to miss the race, so then I've got to go back and rewatch it. And I'd rather not know the result. I'd rather, as a sports fan, I mean, who can go watch?

back and watch a live sporting event on your DVR. My dad. Really? Yeah. It's terrible. Oh, that's horrible. There's no way, right? Traff?

No, no. Yeah. So I'd rather just do it in the moment. I had, you know, Tyler and, you know, his pregnant wife riding with us. I felt bad putting them back on the team playing. So I'm like, I'll just stick it out here. There's not much, you know, what am I going to do? Go home and rewatch this, sit on the couch and watch.

rewatch so I just stuck it out. Is there something Reddit could have done on the restarts or is it just the car set up? Like what was going on? I'm not sure. I mean, me and you were watching and I, you heard me kind of yelling at the TV, you know, get here, get there. And I don't know. I don't know if it was a car capability thing.

I know that they fought restarts a little bit last year. When he was in open track, if you remember, we were running one too. I mean, he legged it out on me freaking six seconds. But then when he got in traffic, he just wasn't quite as good. A lot of that is the next-gen car, and you're always going to be worse in traffic than you are by yourself. But it's tough to say. You know, is it air pressures?

It could be all kinds of different things, and we'll talk about it here later within our team to figure out how, especially at a track like Texas, that if you look at the track history, it is caution after caution after caution, caution. After you get past stage one, it is caution city. So you got to have a car that will fire off on restart. Yeah, the last since, I think, listen to the tear down, the last 10, how many races since 2022, they've all had more than 10 cautions here at Texas. Yeah, my team gives me kind of a

race history recap in my notes and I'm looking at it. And I always just look, how much green, how much yellow is there? And, you know, and when do they typically fall? And Texas is always like green, yellow, yellow, yellow, green, yellow green, yellow, yellow, like, it's just tons of yellows. 14.3 cautions in the next gen era on average? Yeah, that's a lot. I mean, that's an Xfinity. Now, Martin'sville race for you. But that's all caused by turns three and four for the most part? No, it's just, just the way the kind of the track profile is. I mean, it's a very flat one and two. So if you get down close to somebody, you don't give them much room. Contact can be made easily.

Off of turn two is a very flat corner. So typically the characteristics of the car is that you'll lose the front nose. Well, if you have someone right on the outside of you, and we saw this with Carson, Josevar and Priese. Priest is on the outside of Carson Hosavar. Carson's already in a vulnerable part of this racetrack, where his car is starting to lose front grip because the track is flattening out. priest is right there on his outside dumping air on his spoiler

Carson's car just takes off right just flat takes off and it pinches priest into the wall and we could go through every wreck and talk about how the track profile and the aerodynamics of the next gen car causes the wrecks in some sort of way none of these wrecks are intentional it's just you can get in these pockets of air where it's just really really hard to control It's just rare to see the leader spin out.

The guy in third place spin out. Just like all these wrecks coming off the same area of the track. Yeah, the 19 spun in the same spot that 21 did, the same spot that the 8 did. All those cars spun because they ran over this bump and turns three and four. And what happens, and it's a lot of the fixes that I wish we would do with the cars that we're having to run our cars on. on the stops, on solid shock rods, essentially in the back of the car, to get the air going underneath the car

to create the downforce, because we now have no overbody and all underbody. So we have to run these things like a motorboat where the front's up, the back's low, and what happens is what happens when it hits a bump, it goes boom like this, and it spikes the load in the shocks, spins the car out.

So in the higher you go in three and four, the worst that bump is, the deeper that swell is. And so it's probably why Blaney didn't want to run on the eyeline, on that restart. It's how I spun out on the outside on the restart to win the race last year. Same thing. Hit the bump, spun out. So it's just a balance of how do you want to run your car? How aggressive do you want to be?

Because if the fastest car you can build, you would build it lock solid, but you're not going to be able to go over any bumps. You can't be versatile. You're not going to be good on restarts, all those things. So it's just a tough balance that these teams have and why we need to put more overbody in the car, less underbody. Blaney made some comments about that post race saying something like the better you are in one and two, the worse you are in three and four.

That's because of that key difference, right? I guess what you just said makes you better in one and two, but then worse over the bump in three or four. That's right. Yeah, and it's a track profile thing where that was what Marcus Smith and the teams decided they wanted to do with this track, which it does challenge you. It is a very challenging track. And so the banking is more in three and four than it is in one and two. So to have a car that is optimized in one style of banking versus another is extremely difficult.

You're not going to get it perfect in both. You usually try to pick and choose where you think you'll make passes that weekend. in and set your car up for that. Does that make Texas a bad track, in your opinion? No, it didn't make it a bad track. I think, you know, if it was, man, one car length wider, you'd really have a great racetrack. But I think it's, you know, it's coming into its own.

I know it's not going to be great on the gluck pole. You know, it's probably got a, you know, a bit of history in fans' minds of not, being a great racetrack, but I don't know. I thought it was, it raced okay. I didn't have many issues with it. I think the track did widen out. The PJ1 is slowly starting to wear off of that racetrack or the resin, whatever they put on it. So it's coming into its own. 52-48. Yeah, I was going to say, okay is exactly the results of this Jeff Gluckpole. Yeah, it's on a slide. The Gluckpole is on a slide over the last four.

to five weeks and fan sentiment is low. I think that's for various reasons. I think that, in my opinion, you know, when you had, you know, like Elton go on last week, talk about Super Speedway Racing and say, I don't understand what do we have to fix? Look at the stats that we've got for this week. We had 67 lead changes and whatever.

and whatever else, I think you lose some credibility with the fans. And I think the fans have a low morale right now due to their lack of faith in the competition leadership. I don't know how else to say it. And I think that it's a tough position they're in, right? But I don't think, I think that they should probably just cancel the whole,

you know, coming on the radio and then I know why they're doing it. I know why NASCAR comes on every Tuesday morning and says, well, here's what, here's, let me tell you why we did this or tell you why we did that. I appreciate that transparency from them. But if you, when you go in there and you kind of brush off what every driver said and has said for quite some time with the Super Speedway package, go back three years worth of podcast. I've said we've got a super speedway problem

and we kept ignoring it. I just think that NASCAR created its own stats to make itself look good. You know, when they created a green flag passes stat that didn't even include the start finish line, it was just an invisible, however many noses go ahead of each other,

at any invisible point on the track and we're going to count that as a pass. Like, I'm sorry, you're just making something up to look better. But the problem in my mind is that our race fans are smarter than that. I believe, truthfully, my bottom of my heart, most of our race fans,

and Michael Walter said this to me this weekend. We're golfing, and he's like, I don't understand what everyone's so mad about. Look at the cars are two by two, and the casual fan doesn't know that they can't pass. I'm like, the amount of casual fans watching us each and every week is 10%.

I mean, our fans are core, man. They know what they're seeing. They're smarter than you think they are. And certainly they will listen to when the drivers say, what do you want me to do? I can't pass. I can't let my skills show through because I got a car that runs 20 miles an hour slower

by itself versus being in a pack. So I just have to get in line and just ride there. And I'm going to finish wherever my line finishes on that day. That doesn't build superstars. And I think that if you're the sanction of body, if you discredit what your drivers are saying and what core fans are saying, I think you lose some credibility with them.

And I think that that's why fan sentiment overall is low on the virtual poll. Now, to counter that, you look at the stands of Texas. We have the biggest crowd we've had in 15 years, they said. And when you looked up at the crowd, it looked much better than what we've had. So that's a great job by Texas Munter Speedway, Marcus Smith, and his whole team to do the job they got to do to promote the race in that market. They did a great job there.

The sanctioned embody, though, just needs to do better at listening to drivers and core fans because they're smarter than you think. That's just the easiest way I can say it. that when you hear us saying, man, we just need more horsepower, just, just need something. And then you got an engine builder saying, we can go to 750 tomorrow. Nothing changes. It's fine. Why aren't we doing it then? You know, if it's a political reason, then say the political reason, but they don't really come out and defend that. It's, well, we got a new manufacturer

coming. We've been saying that for 10 years. the fans are losing faith in what you're saying. And so don't put things out there and give them hope, just crush them and not give it to them. Like, I just think that they're not doing a good job of balancing all of this. The fan sentiment and the driver sentiment. And when you have people within the industry saying, I don't understand the big deal of what we build engines.

We can go extra hundred tomorrow. It's not going to change much as far as pricing or durability. What would an additional 80 horsepower potentially do to this car? It will make it harder to drive. It will burn the tires off a little more. That's essentially it. So you'll have to use more brake at tracks, and you'll have to use less throttle.

And anytime you can have more break and less throttle, you're going to have more passing because what it does is create opportunities for the car that is second to drive in a little deeper than the car. front or maybe you know driving deeper use more break so it's just the variance and speed between corner and straightaway is what you need for passing and that's what horsepower creates and i guess it would give the fans a little bit of what they want right like yeah i mean they're they're salivating

for something something to be a needle mover um on the competition side and i just i would have been more of a fan of elton sawyer coming out coming out and saying you know let me think of if I were NASCAR PR, I would say, all right, go in there and you tell them, we hear you, we hear our drivers. They're saying they're not able to make moves like they want to. We're going to look into that. As a counter to that, we did have some great passing statistics this weekend that shows on our metrics that things are, you know, things are not as bad as they seem, but we trust our drivers and we hear our fans that, you know,

They want their drivers to be able to pull out a line and make a pass, and we're going to try to put a little bit of work into that to fix it. And then just be done with it. Then just leave it at that. You don't need to expand on anything else, being in specifics, but you've got to let people know that they're heard, not just dismissing it. And the NASCAR fan, I think, is actually probably more well-informed than any of the other major sports.

Like, you have the casual football fans, and even the diehard, don't understand the sport nearly as much as the race fans because they grew up with it. they go to short track races during the week. Absolutely. They work on cars. Like they're well informed. You're not going to fool them. It's why they put us on streaming and all these other networks because they know that they're going to follow us.

These are our core fans and there's millions of them. They will follow us. But these core fans have been around like you say for such a long time. They saw what it used to be. They know what Super Speedway used to be. And now what it is. you're not tricking them. We're not tricking our fans.

They're too smart for, they know what they see. Don't tell them, don't gaslight them and say that that's not real. Yeah. And you can't test the trust of your core fans, right? You can't test it. No, no matter what the racing looks like, they'll stick around because they may not, after all. What happened early in this race on Pit Road, you went from 7th, like you said, back to the tail end?

Cowboys. Cowboys. Cowboys was the call. It was a simple miscommunication. It was a, it compounded on our end. So I, I knew that we were, let's just say, potentially 10 laps short. When we started the stage, we were going to be 10 short of making it all the way. And so I'm looking at it and, you know, I knew the pace was slower than what, you know, I knew I was out of the gas more than what we were in in practice. um we had a caution and so all those things i'm thinking out maybe we can make it on fuel or i'm not sure i think you know it's just track position that i'm reason i'm running slow is just because josh barry is in front of me he's running slow and he's running slow because kyle larses running slow like it was just a according and so we had issues i don't know i just had a bad i'd love to hear it back on our actual live radio when i go the shop i'll listen to this but I was hearing multiple people key up at the same time,

and they were keying up. We had the audio on in the bus, and you could hear two people talking at the same time. Okay. Well, what happens is it all scrambles when it gets to me. So in turns three and four, I'm waiting on the call. What are we doing?

And we have codes. And at the time, both them are trying to tell me. Your spotter and your cruise. Yeah, they're both trying to tell me, and nobody's telling me, because they're both telling me at the same time. So it scrambles the radio.

So I get on the radio and I was like, one person, just tell me what the call is. And they say, Cowboys. I look up my codes. I says, okay, and I look back down. And I stay out. And he was like, we got a pit. I look back up.

And I'm like, we can't have one of our code words be one of the code words of another code. What do you mean? I don't know. You have two plays called Cowboys? Travis, how do I explain this? It's very easy. No, it is easy if I just want to tell everybody what our codes are.

Oh. So it's a category of things. Right. But the Cowboys was a category, another category. The word could be used in both of them. What is that? Ah, so Cowboys isn't actually the play. Packers, Giants, Jets are all.

a play. Yes. And Wild West gunfighters and Cowboys is also a play. There you go. Got it. You know what I mean? It's why you know we just get so cute at times

but why have code words early in the race? Yeah I'm not sure but I mean everyone's listening to everyone and so what happens is Travis is you're trying to figure out if you're at the front of the pack you're everyone scanning each other and it's trying to come up with some sort of summary of if i pit here how many are going to pit with me now i think it was a very easy call i i well it wasn't so easy because i thought that maybe we're going to stay out um but i thought

that everyone had to pit for fuel so there was no real need to just say we're going to pit and then, you know, say how many tires or just fuel only, once I get into the stall, that way it's too late. The people that are around you making decisions on what they're going to choose for a strategy, it's too late. By the time you're in your pit stall doing it, it's, you know, all I need to know is, am I leaving when the right side jack drops, or am I doing fuel, you know, if I'm doing fuel only, I'm going to position myself slightly different in the box. If we're doing four, I want to position myself differently so I can get out to allow the person in front of me to get in.

There's a lot of reasons why I need to know what the call is. But essentially what it was is one of the calls was actually one of the categories of a different call. And that was just a blunder. They talked about this on the broadcast and calls. Is this even, like Travis just said, are calls even needed? Like, isn't a team going to do what it's going to do,

especially at this point of the race no matter what? It's easy to say yes, but the answer is no. Darlington is a prime example. Remember at the beginning of the race, their caution came out at lap four? And we were on the fence of, should we pit or should we not? The only reason we pitted is because we heard the 2, 2311 cars behind us were pitting also.

So we said, well, they're going to come. So surely others are going to come beyond that. And so we're going to be right back where we're... And there were no code words in that situation. Because that's how you knew, right? I'm not sure. Well, there's a chat there between, you know, they're trying to talk to each other about what they're doing. I don't know they're trying to decipher that, but we were just trying to figure out,

am I going to restart 25th? I'm going to restart 12th with new tires. Because if I restart 12th, I'm going to say pitting is the right move. If we're going to restart 25th, I'm going to say, no, don't do that. That's going to be the wrong call. So, again, if you know how many cars are going to pit with you, then I think the calls are much, much easier to make. And so you do need code words and other teams don't want other teams to know exactly

what they're going to do. Right. But isn't it like after like one pit stop, you're probably pretty easy to understand the code words of a team? Like these teams don't make like these elaborate code words. It seems like it's pretty easy to decipher. They're more elaborate than I thought. I didn't know that not to give away any of the, the plays here, but I didn't know that that's how

they were created, you know? Right. And they get mixed up every week. You know what I mean? It doesn't, it's not, you know, whatever. It changes every week. And so it just so happens that one of the specific items that was called was a, it was a category of a different call. Yeah. And that's, that, that's where, got mixed up for me because I'm in turn four in a panic. I don't know what the call is. I look up and see that what word that they just called. And I'm like, okay, that's what I'm doing. So that's how that got mixed up.

But that's why we're always trying to out trick ourselves and sometimes you out trick yourself like we did. And so it turns out it didn't matter anyway. The engine didn't make it to end to stage one. Did you have any sign of this? You said you heard a pop, right? But you weren't sure if it was your car. No, I just knew that it changed tones. one lap before and then it started dying like it was running out of fuel um but no i don't nothing

usually when they light themselves up like that it's it just happens when did you know it was a third race on that engine too which is i don't know i guess it maybe it's a durability thing when did you know you were on fire like that not till i stopped truthfully um yeah i i i didn't feel anything until i stopped. A lot of it is because the wind was pushing it back behind the car. But the smoke got bad really quick. Like the when I came to a stop, that's when the smoke started getting me pretty good. Do you go into like a panic when that happens? Like what's what happens inside your your head once you the car is on fire and you got to get out? Um, I haven't been in that spot a ton. But yeah, a little bit. You just don't want to get burned. I mean, you know, you're you can, you can

feel the heat coming from wherever it's coming from but it's the smoke is the one thing that like i don't want to get in my lungs and stuff like that and they're you got the safety vehicle people they're spraying it with with all the substance and whatnot so um it's just that but you know i was able to get out you know fine that was a surreal moment for me because i was in the bus and uh your mom is on the couch taylor's up there and then mollie and jordan in the back and you could see the concerned and you see Taylor then going to you know yell at Jordan dad's on fire and so that was a little surreal moment meanwhile Travis is live tweeting drinking course light it's over I can tell you this if we didn't accomplish one thing this weekend it was that Travis will never have kids

he went through the gauntlet with me and my family this weekend just the and complaining and the yelling and I was like, dude, this is why I, this is what I go through every weekend, every weekend. He looks at me on, he was on Saturday and just like every weekend. You know how bad it was? I mean, I can imagine. I took my laptop into the toilet. No, serious. I was like, I need, I need some peace and quiet.

I got work to do. And so I grab, I grabbed this thing. I fold it up. I just go right into the toilet. Then he comes back from blowing an engine being on fire. You can tell he's angry. He doesn't want to talk about anything, but he's got to deal with parenting things first.

That is a fact. I come into the bus and it's one and a half kids are crying. Jordan's pissed off and like, hey, I'm here. And they're like, she did this. She did that. I just drama out the ass. and I'm just like, it just pisses me off more. And it's like, do you all not realize I just blew up?

I mean, they're out there racing. I'm here. I get it. They do not care. They don't care. And they're not old enough to care right now. But man, the drama. It's like they think they can get away with so much when I'm not around.

Like, and that drives me crazy. Hmm. We did find out you're smarter than a sixth grader. I don't know. I went on that show. Are you smarter than a. fifth grader and I failed miserably. I can't find that footage anywhere.

Really? I've looked for it, yeah. Yeah, I didn't do that great. But those cards were pretty cool, right? Yeah. Got them at Buckees. Yeah. Beech you.

On a technicality. On a technicality and you know it. What are some of the questions? The question that I missed that Denny got right is to stop cyber bowling. One way is to block them. One way is to block them on social media. That's not stopping it. He's like, well, that doesn't really stop it.

I'm like, it's a true false, Travis. And that's not stopping it. You got to understand they're dumbing this down to a sixth grader. So yes, a one way. They want the sixth grader to know how they can stop from being picked on. And that's by removing. Fight back. The game's not that for you.

He lost horribly. But that part was fun, at least. I was in a good mood. I was worried how the flight was going to be. It's fine. I think because you had the race to get over a little bit. A little bit, but not only that, but like just in my age, I just control what I can control. I mean, I'm not going to get all been out of shape over an engine failure.

There's not something myself or the team could have done different. It just, you know, it was my time. Other people, Ryan Blaney's had multiple engine failures. How do you think he feels? I mean, look, Lugano, we could go disqualified. Right. You know, this is just, that's, this is the sport we choose. And so things happen that are out of your control and you've got to just move on from it.

Before we wrap this up, we want to give a few minutes to Joey, who was the race winner of this? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, was this, this 37th win? Is that correct? Yeah. I believe 37th win, breaking his tie with his old teammate, Brad Kislowski. Joey is how old? Not that old.

Travis will look it up while I'm talking about it. But you got to get props to them. They started. 34. He'll be 35 in two weeks. So the reason Joey started in the back is because the same reason I'll start in the back this week. He had a bad draw because he got last place last week, right? So he had a bad draw and all these tracks are really, really bad, especially the mile and a halfs when he go to qualify.

the tracks are really, really bad until you can get it to about halfway into the qualifying session then the track will start cleaning up and getting better. So he started in the back methodically just made his way towards the front and I got to watch it firsthand

while people want to poo-poo on social media of Joey backed into this one and I would say heads up I don't know that he had a car that was that different than Kyle Larson straight up. Maybe he would argue faster. Kyle couldn't pull away from anyone when he was in the race lead. I thought he was making the most out of what he had for car speed.

But Joey made passes. He passed a couple cars each run. He had good restarts. And he got to the top five on speed. It was no accident whatsoever. And so I think he capitalized. He made the move to win the race. There were the few laps to go.

He's the one that set up Michael McDowell, chose the line he did, made a great move on him off of turn two and cleared him into three. It was just some good old driving. I think it's because it's Joey. So when he wins, he's one of those people that people are going to find.

Of course. Like if it was a buyer, and I don't think anybody would say, oh, you backed into it. Yeah, I think that what, people are identifying is that, you know, are you leading laps and winning races? Like, he's not dominating anything, but he is winning. So he's, he's optimizing his days is good or better than anyone. But today, well, yesterday I thought that it was as legit as any of the

wins that I've seen him having his career. He did it methodically. It's a track that's really hard to pass and he drove to the front. It wasn't strategy. He drove to the front. Yeah. And then did a good job on restarts. And it seemed like late in this race, whoever maximized their restarts the most was going to be the winner. Yeah. So how old is he? 34. 34. About to be 35. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's a guy that easily could have not easily. Nothing's easy. But he could get 60, 65 wins in his career. He's a guy that's going to find himself inside the top 10 winners list. Now, he started really, really early,

but on the winning pace that he's on, you're going to see someone there that's going to challenge inside that top 10 for race wins all time. You better hop to it then. I get it. I got to build a buffer because some of these young guys have got a lot more room to grow. Right. I got a review here from Griffin Boyd.

Hendrick fanboy for years, but after listening to the podcast and Denny's impeccable insights into today's racing, I ended up rooting for the 11th, and it is way more fun rooting for the bad guy. Well, sorry you didn't get to root for very long last weekend or yesterday. I'm wondering, you know, what people's reaction was, you know, even if you didn't like me, do you not like me in the race at all? Like, is it, make it a little more boring because you don't have that person? person to root against? No, if I'm a fan and I hate a driver, I want to see them out every time.

Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, that's how I'd operate. Like, I want the absolutely worst to happen to my enemies. That's a good point. And then me finishing, like, dead last was probably like true vindication for some. But they love that. Jeff Gluckpole here. Where is the comment that I had just saw?

I don't know. Something like, oh, right here. Voted yes. The kangaroo. and Denny blowing up for the best parts. Really? You know, I actually, I voted yes on the Gluck poll. I don't want to skew the poll.

You've got to let it kind of be what it is. But, I mean, he gets tens of thousands of people that vote on it. So it is true. So we can't brush it off people, you know, whatever that poll is, it's a real poll. There's not, you're not good spirits on. I'm sure you voting yes is going to make all the fans vote yes too. saying like even as it was for me, right? I'm at least

biased and say, yeah, I thought it was a good race. I mean, I was compelled from watching it. I didn't know who was going to win until the very end. I saw multiple lane racetrack where cars that were good, and I listed it early

in the show, four or five cars that were in the pack, not really being talked about, that were fast. They could make moves. And so I think that it had all the things that it really needed. Do I wish we had more power, more tire fall off? Yes, of course, but I'm dealing with the cards that we got. Make sure to leave a five-star review on Apple or if you listen on Spotify or watch on YouTube, go comment on the episode, Travis.

We'll take a look at those comments and we'll pull some from YouTube as well in the future. And if you haven't already, head over to shopdurdymo Media.com to check out all the actions detrimental merch that you can pick up. Next week, we're at Kansas. The race is at 3 p.m. on FS1. Yeah, well, appreciate you all tuning in, and we'll see you next weekend after Kansas.