Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - That Wasn't A Hack Move

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Denny Hamlin and Jared talk about NASCAR growing the sport so fans root for teams just as much as they do for drivers. Carson Hocevar and Sam Mayer get big victories in Miami-Homestead. What happened with Kyle Larson on pit road? The key moment for Christopher Bell to put him in position to win. Denny explains racing Ryan Blaney tough. Was Denny's move on Blaney a "hack" move? Why did his car break? Martin Truex Jr has bad luck also. Is Martinsville a must-win race? Plus, Denny and Jared are working on their Halloween costumes.DraftKings State-Specific Problem Gambling Information:In Massachusetts, call [phone] or visit gamblinghelplinema.org, In New York, call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369). In Tennessee and Kansas, Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). In West Virginia, Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.1800gambler.net. All games regulated by the West Virginia Lottery. Please play responsibly. In partnership with Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. In Connecticut, Help is available for problem gambling call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Licensee partner Golden Nugget Lake Charles (LA). 21+, age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. See DKNG.co/autoracing for eligibility, terms and responsible gaming resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I don't understand. Why are you racing Blaney so hard? What are you talking about? I'm trying to make it to the final four. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey guys, welcome to Actions Detrimental here on location in Charleston, South Carolina. For the 11th annual Pro Am Jam, that's my charity golf event that's been going on for 11 years now. I'm Denny Hamlin, my co-host, Mr. Jared Allen, Purple Vest, 560.

Right. Hey, I'm, do you only have one of those? I do. Okay. Everyone has one of them and if you lose it, there's a hefty fine you will pay to replace it. NASCAR makes you pay if you lose it for extra $2 vest? Yeah, well, it's $250 vest. Oh my gosh. According to the fine print.

Wow. Some good tax collecting right there. Yeah. We're on location here in Charleston for Denny and Mark's ProM-Jam. Yeah, it's citing one of the benefactors is my foundation, the Denny Hamlin Foundation. What it's about is one of the biggest benefactors is cystic fibrosis research. My cousin has that. I didn't quite understand as a kid kind of why my cousin was taking meds all the time

and what all he was doing, and he's had actually a double lung transplant. been successful and he's my age. So, you know, back then, you know, kind of life expectancy for someone with cystic fibrosis was late teens, early 20s, and now with the help of a lot of research and some of these dollars, it's, we're getting closer and closer to a cure. So 11 years running for this event, it's been great, have a lot of my buddies that I go off with come down and help support it. So thank you guys for that and a lot of great sponsors out here today.

So having a lot of fun. Yeah, you got a concert after this and then a bunch of golf tomorrow. Yeah. Anyone noteworthy playing tonight? I'm curious about that. There's a long set list. So it's interesting, the concert here, obviously Mark was part of Hootie and the Blowfish with Darius. So every few years or so, Darius comes to makes an appearance and sings a little bit for us.

Last year, we had Nellie sing a little bit for us. But there's been, I mean, there's got to be at least nine or ten different acts that will come on and sing a couple of their hits, like whoever it might be. So these are a great group. I know we had a couple guys from InSync actually a year or two ago. Might have been last year. A couple guys from InSync. Yeah, I mean, you know, it wasn't Justin, but hey, I mean, these guys are great.

So, yeah, so, I mean, to talk about the race this weekend, didn't want to leave you guys without an episode for sure, but got anything, nothing really, not much happened off track. Yeah, we had some additional comments from Jeff Gordon midweek discussing, you know, the teams versus drivers role in promoting the sport. And to paraphrase him, he had said that, you know, teams should do a better job of promoting themselves. because fans associate with the driver. So when a top performing driver, Dale Jr. leaves the sport or no longer drives, do the fans go with him? Does NASCAR then lose those fans because they're not attached to Hendrick Motorsports as much as they may be Dale Jr. I mean, I would, we'd like to think that it's possible, but it's likely not. I mean, I understand the premise of it for sure that, you know, how do you keep, like when a Kevin Harvick retires at the end of the year, right?

I mean, that's a good amount of fans that are Kevin Harvick fans. Are they going to stay, are they going to just jump ship right to Josh Berry because they're SHR fans or four fans? Or do they just go away, right? So that's what problem that I guess they're talking about. So did Joey say it first and then Jeff kind of spoke on it? They were together on a panel. Okay.

Oh, from the racers forum. Yeah. Yeah. So the racers forum. It was a great event put on by the RTA. Jonathan Marshall did a great job. You know, setting that up. They have some great panel members from that.

So when that comes back around next year, make sure you guys tune in for that. But, yeah, it was a good talking point for sure to think about. I think the challenge with that is the reason people root for teams is because they represent a city, right? I mean, you know, if you live in Charlotte, But people, we live in Charlotte, we're going to root for the home team. We all, we all of our race teams are within a 30, 14 mile radius.

Yeah. So there is no home team as far as in racing. I know Justin Marks talked a little bit about trying to get his team to be the Nashville team. But I don't know. I mean, that's going to be, that's going to be, that'd be a very expensive campaign to try to make that work. I just don't know if you're going to have enough people resonate with that. Well, I will add to this. And maybe this isn't something that you think about.

But I feel like the newer teams in the sport, the 2311s, the RFKs, the track house, they have or they've done a better job of building a brand around their specific team entering the sport. Like, I feel like there's fans out there of 2311 racing, where if Bubbo wins or Tyler wins, they'll be happy that 2311 won. Do you think they're building, do you think it's the, the, brand that we're creating or an identity. It's a little bit of both. They kind of go hand in hand.

Yeah, I guess so. Like, I feel like people, if you're rooting for, if you're a Brad Kozlowski fan, if Chris Busher has a good day, those Brad fans are probably rooting for Chris Busher to... As like their alternate. Yes, right. Yeah.

No, I mean, I think that there's merit to it. It's just getting the fans to shift their allegiance from whatever the star may be, whether it be like a Chase Elliott and say, well, I'm a Hendrick Motorsports fan first, Chase Elliott fan, second. That's going to be, it'll be really hard, right? I do think that there are legitimate, you know, Hendrick Motorsports fans that are fans of Hendrick Motorsports. And whoever gets in those cars, they are, you know, because this is a team that's been around a long time, it's built up equity in the sports. Certainly, I think that there is a group of fans that certainly are Hendrick Motorsports

fans that then latch on to an Alex Bowman or whoever it might be. But really, the big, big stars, or they're the big stars because they kick ass on the racetrack or they've got a legacy name that their father wants race. So there's a lot of different factors in it for sure. It certainly would be an uphill climb that just change everyone. mind into shifting from the stars of the sport to the teams, but I understand the premise of it. Yeah, I mean, it kind of comes from F1, right? People root for Red Bull or people root for Mercedes or McLaren, whoever it may be.

Overall, the talking point is how do we get more fans in the sport and keep fans from leaving the sport? Yeah, well, I mean, that's a great point, too, when you think about F1, when you buy a Red Bull shirt like it, that could be either driver, right? Yeah. Where, again, just bring up Hinderk because it's easy because they've got these four drivers. It's got very different sponsors, right? So it's like there is no common theme with the cars.

They all look different. And another thing, maybe I'm not in left field here, but I do feel like the one F1 race I was at, I had no idea if Max or Checo was driving by it because I couldn't tell, I couldn't see the car number. I don't know where the car number was. So there's less identifiers on F1 cars versus... Max will be the one going by... Yeah, yeah, yeah. First.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But besides that. Yeah, count to 30, 40, and then you'll see the other one go by. Right. No, but it's... I mean, it's cool. I definitely wish I could have made that racers forum. I heard there were some great dialogue.

And thanks to NASCAR Hall of Fame for hosting that. A little bit on this weekend. Let's go over the... second and third tier series races all three series were at was at homestead this weekend you had Carson Hosevar win the truck race man what a difference 12 months makes with him he's just you're seeing he's doing and saying all a lot of the right things right now and it's not just words he's backing it up on the racetrack with some good driving and and certainly the way he's matured with his race craft has gotten quite a bit better.

And, you know, I don't know necessarily the funding of that Nice Motorsports team. Certainly it was an underfunded team for a while. I don't know if it still is an underfunded team or whether it's got just the same resources as everyone else. But he's taking them to victory lane quite often. Yeah, it's interesting you look back to a year ago. his interviews after finishing second in so many races and now I mean he's the premier driver in the truck series is he four wins this year yeah I mean and you look at the you know if you look at the championship four

you mean how are you going to say he's not one of the favorites for sure so I think uh you know it's it was a great race just kind of how the strategies were playing out the different pit you know kind of the pit strategy it's very similar to the cup race and since a little bit of kind of what We were doing versus other teams, but that was a very purest race where if you're into strategy and watching one vehicle catch others and make up positions and will they get there on time by the end of the race? Like it was a very compelling race as far as that's concerned. So Homestead, that's just, it's got all kinds of different racing for all kinds of different

series. How much as a driver does confidence go in? to this, right? Carson wins a race and then, you know, he wins more races. And we're going to talk about the Xfinity series. Sam Mayer, kind of in a similar bro, he didn't have the on-track drama that Carson Hussford had last year. But he's a guy who didn't win until this year, and then he wins a race later in the season, and then he wins more. And now he's a guy you look at going into Phoenix where it's like, okay, he might be able to pull this championship off. I look at these guys very similarly.

I mean, it's like you could talk about one and you would think we were talking about the other. I mean, I think that at times they were kind of both doing some young, foolish things, which most young drivers and rookies do at times, but they both hit the mature button and the fast forward button. Like they're making their craft so much better, managing. races better. You know, Sam Mayer's got tremendous speed. Carson's got tremendous speed. They've got everything that you're wanting right there mixed in a two.

They both can run up front on row courses or ovals, and that's, you know, with that being such a big part of the Cup Series schedule now, you've got to be good at all tracks. You can't just write off five, six races of the season. You're going to get left behind if you're doing that. Is it one of those things where once you win a race, it's like a. Oh, okay. That's how you do it. Now that's what I have to do going forward. Yeah, I mean, I think...

You found the key. You found the secret sauce. Yes. I mean, I think that that's why you see a lot of drivers win multiple times at the same racetrack. There's a feel. So once they know, oh, so this is what a race winning car or truck feels like. Then they're going to search that feel out at other racetracks. It didn't have to be the same track. It can be the same type of track. probably like a Sam Mayor at Roadcourse he won three of them right

he's found a feel he's got a rhythm going at those types of tracks and now that he's won on an oval he could likely win at more ovals because he knows what a race winning car should feel like now so I think that that probably goes a long way

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DKNG.com slash auto racing for eligibility, terms, and responsible gaming resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. Cup series. Sunday's race. Yeah. I thought, man, one of the best cup races that we've seen there, I mean, just it seemed like the cup race had about everything you could want in a cup race.

I mean, you saw at the first couple stages, Larson wins the first stage. Then, you know, here comes Blaney coming in the second stage, and Larson fades. Here comes to Byron. We in the 11 card did a couple different strategies. Each stage, I kind of see how it would play out. But it really had everything.

There was tight battles. No one really walked away with much. There was, I mean, everywhere I look, You know, and at times when we pitted late and I had to go back through traffic again, I was always coming up on clumps of cars. Like it wasn't one here, next one's two seconds up, passed that one, another two seconds. They were all just like in clumps. And so it was really compelling and there was a lot of battles going on,

even if you weren't looking necessarily at the front. So Homestead put on a great race. It seems like the next gen really raced. races well at there. The next gen in general is just a big winner when it comes to tracks that's got multiple lanes and Homestead is just one of those tracks where a driver really can make a difference. He can manipulate his car to make it do something different than what it actually is doing. He can trend the car in one direction or another throughout a run. There's just things that you feel like, hey, I'm in control and all of us drivers think that

you put us head to head, we're all going to beat each other. Like, everyone's got the confidence that they can make the difference. So, but you add that with some tire wear, and we saw all kinds of different strategies, some great racing. So I think it was a huge win for Homestead and by the looks of Gluck's pole. It's going to be pretty high. What was Jeff Spoldian? When I clicked on it, it was 89%, so I don't know where it ended up. That's pretty high.

Does that strategy staying out, you know, I feel like that's the bread and butter of the 11 team sometimes? Well, there's a lot of reasons to it. I think some of the reason is that in particular, I typically am good on long run. So my lap time does not fall off a cliff. So, you know, a little NASCAR 101 here, I guess. but it's so what makes the lap times slower as a run goes on is a couple things one is tire heat and the other is tire wear so and there's other really small factors but you know as the track rivers up so under caution you'll see especially at concrete tracks the track is really almost like a bright white and as we start running martinsville you'll see it this weekend as we start running it's going to get black Really, really dark. So that slows down the cars as well throughout a run and they don't stick typically as good on rubber on rubber. So we start a run, we got fresh tires. They're cool.

The tires are cool and they got all the rubber on them, all the tread on them. And then as we start to run, the temperature goes up in the tire, it gets over peak temperature and then we start losing grip. And then the tire starts wearing, we lose even more grip. And thus the lap time just keep getting a little bit slower each lap. And Homestead's one of those tracks where it just continually, the lap time's just two-tenths a lap, two-tenths a lap, one-tenth, one-tenth, and then just keeps going into,

if you stayed out there eventually, you'd run out of tread and your car, you'd be running 40-second laps. So what typically my strong set is, is that late in runs, I can make that trend of lap time, to plateau. So instead of it keep falling off and keep getting a tent slower

and it just goes into oblivion and you really start dropping lap time, that's when people usually pit. Well, you know, late in runs at high wear racetracks, I typically can get to wear in a rhythm of feeling the car, knowing what grip is capable of, and not wearing it anymore.

I mean, it's going to wear some. But I'm able to level off the lap times to where others typically fall off and keep getting slower. I typically don't fall off as much. So my lap times stay the same. So what Chris does and the team does is they keep me out there. Won't you go longer, right? And that way when you pit, I will have a tire advantage over others. Right.

And then what that allows me to do is that in a world where next gen is very hard to pass in, he gives me extra grip to then go past the cars, right? If I'm on same tire strategy as everyone else, passing is going to be very difficult. If I have a grip advantage because I pit later, I'm then going to make those passes dramatically easier. And what we did was very simple, and really we just took a run that was 82 laps.

We cut it right in half and did 41, 41, right? where the other teams were trying to short pit, which means that maybe they were right behind somebody, and they said, listen, if I pit one lap sooner than them, I'm going to come out in front of them. And with only one lap tire advantage, they will not repass me. The track position will mean too much. So what's happened in the Cup Series is these teams keep short-pitting each other more and more.

So they got to the point where they pitted just too early for our comfort. And we said, well, we're just going to stay out here until we think it's the right time to pit. But does it make you nervous as a driver going from, let's say you're running 10th? You're going to go back to 17th. Yes. You're going to get back to 10th. Tons of risk. And probably plus five spots better if it stays green.

Yeah. I mean, he's, Chris still relies on me to make up those spots. I mean, when he says, okay, we came in seventh. All right, we've come out, we're 13th or 14th. Yeah. He knows probably about where I should end up, but there's so many factors. You've got lap cars and how long am I going to spin behind cars that I'm not being able to pass as quick? So it's a moving target.

It's not always the same. Every track is a little different, but yes, we know that you do expose yourself by staying out there. Now, the positive is, at that track, if a caution comes before I pit, I'm then in the catbird seat. I go from seventh to leading the race because everyone's going to repit for tires. If a caution comes out right after you pit, I'm going to lose all my track position. How much data does Chris have from the last however many years that says, okay, it is more than likely that there's not going to be a caution. Like, there's been a 60-lap run in this stage, in this race for the last five years. How much data is he looking at to analyze that probability?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure of all the tools that he's got to look at for sure. But, I mean, absolutely trends is one of the things, right? Every crew chief will look at trends of, but, man, it's one at bat. You know, you just never know what can happen in one instance. You never know when someone's going to get in the fence and blow a tire or something. That's hard to really predict. So we it's hard to make a strategy hoping for a caution. You make a strategy predicting that if this goes green, here's what we think is the best strategy.

Yeah. But you're making that decision based off of history and data, right? That like more than likely this will go green because it has gone green more than not in the past or no. Yes. Yes. That is a factor for sure. Kyle Larson hits water barrier. That is the next talking point on our sheet here,

which we're using our phones for this week. Yeah, Kyle had a eventful end of stage two and beginning of stage three. Yeah, I mean, you know, Kyle was definitely strong. I don't know that he was as strong as he was last race here, but he's still probably out front, certainly he was the best car because he could run the wall obviously a little better than than everyone else.

But he still was fast. He still, you know, he got around us midway through a run and that's when he started chasing Blaney back down and kind of got stuck right behind him. And Blaney was running the wall just good enough to like keep Kyle at bay. And he was also fast enough up there where Kyle wasn't going to get around him on the bottom. So Kyle, you could definitely see that he thought that I need

to make up positions, you know, I need to make up gap right here. So he sees the 12 pitting. They pit. Same lap, same everything. And I'm just far enough behind this, but that I see them peel off. So I'm probably

a few, probably three seconds, four seconds behind at this point. And I've banged the wall a couple good times that cost me a couple seconds per lap and I'm just trying to figure this thing out right I'm trying to learn on the fly and get better at it and you know I watch them go down there next to you know all I saw is just the sand just and and immediately I'm thinking oh I hope no one hit that head on like you know at first I was like oh is everyone all right like I didn't know what you ever hit those

caused it I no but now you're going to make me knock on wood um I haven't. Not that I recall anyway. I mean, he kept going, so it didn't look like it was crazy. And even his car didn't look terrible. I'm just curious of the impact versus him. Yeah, I'm not sure. Those things weigh a bunch, though. Usually there's numbers on them that tells how much they weigh. But so when I looked at it in the incident and reviewed it, I'm thinking my thoughts were that Blaney has the lead. and Blaney's doing what he needs to do to keep sleep. And that's not make a mistake. He's trying to be, I'm not even going to say conservative. I think he was being modestly conservative, but not. He was at pit road speed. He was going to be fine.

He was not going to speed on pit road. Cannot speed on pit road anyway. He was doing what he had to do to come out the leader out of that cycle, right? And Kyle had the opposite approach. Okay, I need to go get more here. So he broke, he let off the break, he got to the apron, and then he kind of went again, whether that's releasing the break or gassing it up again.

He lunged to try to close that gap. Now, if the, let's just pretend the barriers weren't there, and let's pretend Blaney wasn't there, Kyle was absolutely going to be speeding. I don't see any way around that. You know, I know Kyle mentioned in his interview that I didn't think I was running a crazy speed, but when he looked at the replay, he was like, yeah, it looks like I just was way overshot it. What I saw is that the speed was way above speed limit.

And so he would have had a, it would have been tough to get that car stopped before Pitland. lane speed and even where he hit the commitment line and he was he was hauling the mail there i'm curious in a perfect situation blaney enters pit road average he's just textbook enters pit road how much could you actually gain on pit road entry in a perfect world a second that's that's kind of yeah yeah he i mean like would that have been enough for for kyle it would have it would have then put it in his pit crew's hands to beat the 12 heads up. Yeah. If he could have got to his bumper on pit road entry, been on Blaney's bumper, so close the gap from however far he was back, that lap, to being on his bumper, if his pit crew then is one-tenth faster, and Kyle does a one-tenth,

two-tenth better job executing rolling pit road, he's coming out in front of the 12th. And that's what he's hoping for. I'm just trying to a picture in my head. Like, how are you doing that? Like, Blaney, Blaney's peeling off, right? And he's hitting his break, I'm guessing, at the right times. Yeah, he's decelerating. He's downshifting, and he's trying to get to where he believes.

He's trying to maximize all the speed he can, but yet look at his dash and try to figure out, where am I at on my speed? So how does Kyle make up time? Like, does he just hit the brakes harder later? Yeah, so yes, he carries more speed before he turns on the apron. And then when he gets on the apron, he can either gas it up more, knowing that he's just going to break harder at the line, or he just doesn't carry as much break and just comes in there pot.

And then when he gets the line, he jams breaks hard. So there's several different ways you can do it. You can drive in, you can be deeper, right? You can go through, stay on the racetrack longer, then peel off later. There's several different ways you can do it. But yeah, his, I think Kyle thought that this is the race for the win. Whoever comes out with the lead here on this green flag cycle likely will win,

which I agree with that mindset if that was his mindset. Yeah, well, that's what he said in his interview at the Care Center after. Needless to say, if you're listening to this and you didn't watch the race yesterday, kind of laid out that Blaney was leading, Kyle was second, you were in third, so this is a good situation for you, takes Kyle out of the race, set you up on this following restart, side by side with Blaney,

which you clear him, take the lead. There's another caution that comes out. Yep. Yeah, so what that did is it actually, since that wreck happened in the middle of that green flag cycle, it put some cars a lap down that then needed to take a wave around. This is where, I believe, Trex and a handful of others.

This was the defining moment for the 20, car and why he won. He went from being in the teens and really the back half of the teens for the most part. He gained, I'm going to estimate eight positions or so right off the bat. As soon as that caution came out because now, because since he stayed on the racetrack and didn't wasn't, hadn't already pit, he gained all the positions of the people that did pit. So this is, all the other guys, right? So that put him, I believe, 10th, or maybe it was 6th. I'm not really sure, right?

It moved him to the front. It moved them up to the front. You know, that was the moment where he was not getting there the other way. He had tried all race and he was on the struggle bus. But the moment he got that caution, he got enough, he was far enough forward to where the clean air woke his car up. And he was 10 times better at the end of that race and what he was, the entire race.

Now, a lot of things were a factor. The conditions were changing as well. He, you know, they made their car better. There's a lot of factors in it, but that was the defining moment for a lot of people's race is that caution coming out. You clear Blaney on this restart. There's then a quick caution.

Now, following restart, you're talking with, your crew chief gave her on the radio, should you take the outside, take the inside here? And now this is kind of your defining moment in the race. I agree. I agree. I mean, I guess. I mean, we were to broke whatever we were to broke anyway. So it would have been more crushing probably if I was leading

and this thing wiped out. But yeah, I mean, I initially thought, thought I'm going to take the outside on the restart, just simply because it was an older tie. You take the inside on the restart. I chose the inside. Yeah. Gabehart kind of convinced me that, listen, three of the first, three of the first four

restarts, the inside had won. Right. Are you just smokeblaney on the inside on the previous? I know. I get it, but it was the tires were fresh. There's just a lot of factors in why the inside particular work. Whenever you have older tires, it seems like the outside line is maybe a little better because there is a slight amount of wheel spin. And if you can, anytime that there's a track where there's wheel spin on restarts, you typically want to have the outside lane because you can control.

And it just seems like the outside has historically been a little better. But neither to say I took the inside. I didn't get clear of Blaney. and we went through one and two really tight. He was down the racetrack. I was on the bottom of the racetrack. He's trying to hold me down and keep me from clearing. So we're doing nothing but just stalling each other out.

All, you know, through the corner, down the straightaway. We're just keep adding drag to our cars. He's inching head. I'm inching ahead. And what that's doing is just dumping air on both of our spoilers and we're going absolutely nowhere, which makes it look like. Christopher Bell gets a huge runoff return too.

That is because he's clear. He's not having anyone dumping error on him because he's not side by side. And it literally looks like he hits nitrous. And by then, I'm looking at the run the 20s got and I'm thinking I can't block it. Like there's, he's coming at too fast of a pace. My best bet here is to go into turn three through the middle. You know, my goal was to hit the middle of the run. racetrack because I got one on the inside, one on the outside, and I'm going to drive in as deep

as I possibly think I can make the corner without crashing, and that's what I do. And I drive in at least three lengths deeper, probably more than that than what I had all day long. Well, Blaney has that same mindset. He's thinking the same thing. I'm on the outside. I'm going to drive in way deeper and me and him are so close to each other we're thinking well we're not lifting to the other person does and surely surely whoever goes the deepest is going to end up on the best end of this who then gets to battle with Christopher Bell side by side off of turn four well we both barrel it off in there and next thing you know he's right there on the right side and i i'm sitting here thinking well surely as deep as i drove in i'm going to have all this track to work with i don't because he

drives in deep and we're we're door to door and no people there was no contact there was no contact uh blaney will admit that as well um no contact or anything like that but we were really close to each other and um just we just drug each other down like again everything that happened through turns one and two and the backstretch of us running so close side by side it then here comes the four. He gets up beside us. Now we're three wide again. And at that point, we're just slowing each other down and, you know, I'm up the racetrack. I'm in Blaney's Lane in turn three and four. And it's, I'm not leaving him very much room. Definitely left him, you know, a car width and a quarter, but that's, he surely expected me to have more, he's expected to have more racetrack up there.

I again tried to hit the middle but didn't because I drove in so deep I washed up the track he's on the outside of me that's making me even tighter and then next you know we're just grinding on each other side by side and just can't get clear of each other

Was it a hack move? No it was not that's two people racing by the way for the final four of a championship battle so it's just interesting depending on who's involved like, I don't understand.

Why are you raising Blaney so hard? What are you talking about? I'm trying to make it to the final four. Like, I don't quite get it, but it's... I am genuinely... I am genuinely curious, though. Like, when you come off two on the initial restart, is there a thought in your head like,

man, if neither of us don't clear each other, we're just fucking each other here? And both of us are going to end up fifth and six. Whereas, is there ever a thought in your mind where it's like, okay, I'll concede this and take my second, and then, I don't know, maybe I'll pass them down the road. Absolutely. On mile and a half, you have to have that mindset.

You have to know that we can sit here and ring run side by side for laps. But the leader is just going to keep going by-bye, and we're going to just keep figuring out who can get the advantage. Because eventually one of us, what we're trying to do is one of us to get at least a half a car length ahead to say, okay, it's my spot. It's my spot. You concede, and let's get in line and try to go. That's why I tried to do in one and two the lap after that, right?

Is that I go in there, and I'm like, all right, I'm going to go deep again. Now, at that point, he's down on the door. He's making sure he's keeping me pinned down. And at that point, I'm like, I'm hitting the gas, and I'm going to establish that this is my position. So I gas up, and I start going up the track. And as I gas up, he gases up. And so he's saying, oh, no, you're not. I'm still going to fight for this spot.

So at that point, I let off and leave him plenty of room on the outside. And we race side by side again, down the backstretch. So it was a long battle. If there was no one else involved, it would have been a hell of a race for the lead. But it was only a race for the lead for half a lap and not the two laps that we were going at it. But eventually, you know, Blaney's car, he really was struggling on the show. short run and we were all kind of pouncing on him at that time because you know I thought he had probably the second best long run car maybe 1.5 to larsen those two i thought had the best long run

car so the restarts is really where you could take advantage of them and the previous restart before that i went from fourth to third to second to then challenging him for the lead before that long run so I knew that the short run was his Achilles heel, which is why I'm trying to race him so hard in that moment is because I know I need to get out front. It's only 30-some laps to go. Did you get a bad restart initially? I got a great restart.

I didn't spin him. Did he get a good restart? He got a good restart, and he got a good push from the 20. That was a tough one too because I'm like, I look and they told me on the radio that the 20 is now connected with the 12. And man, when you can connect. Also, I think Gabe Hart also said before you chose your lane that the 20 would likely choose the outside second row. Right.

That didn't play a factor in like I want my teammate behind me versus. He just, no, because he just told me that the previous three restarts, the bottom one. So that kind of, I don't know. We can second guess or whatever, but it doesn't matter because our car broke, right? But it, you know, I know it's not the story you want to hear. No. But, yeah. Is Coke Zero Sugar the best Coke ever?

I know that's a bold question, but it's got that irresistible taste to back it up. Well, one thing's for sure. When you've got an irresistible match like Zero Sugar and Zero Calories, something sensational is bound to happen. It's like when me and my co-host Jared team up to make a podcast. It's too bad you can't taste with your ears because Coke Zero Sugar tastes so amazing. it's hard to put it into words. But hey, that's my job, at least on Mondays.

You have to taste it for yourself. Coke zero sugar, the best Coke ever? Go ahead. You're living in a world of what-ifs, but none of it mattered because eventually my car was going to go dead straight into turn one. Well, Twitter says that if you didn't race Blaney as hard and make so much contact,

then your car wouldn't have broke and you wouldn't have ended in the law. Well, Twitter's a bunch of idiots. It's never raced a car before, so they don't know. All right. You, I mean, yeah. Yeah, this race ends in the wall for you. I don't really know how else to put it. Yeah, and I mean, it ended badly for us, certainly.

So Blaney eventually, let me finish the story, Blaney eventually gets clear of us. So he says, all right, it's my spot. I say, all right, it's your spot. And then we repass him one lap later on our own because we were just better in the short run. And then I start, you know, the next corner, I go in there and say,

all right, here I come. I'm coming 24, which he's. He had shown that he wasn't as strong at the end of the race. See, this is why, not to go back to this, but this is why I'm thinking on the initial restart, if y'all are just going to have a pissing match over first and second, just let him go, get in line, and you'll get him eventually, right?

You're thinking logically, and I get it, but there's no person or competitor on the planet that would be, say, letting him go on the restart is the right thing they do. I'm on the front row. I'm controlling the restart. Yeah. There's no way I would concede the lead.

I understand. Right. You're speaking in hindsight because of the result. Right. You can't change like your mindset or do what's right because of your emotional about the result that happened. You have to just think logically about it and say it just didn't work out because of X, Y, and Z circumstances. But, but no, I mean, think about this.

Blaney at the time is 17 points back in the points to enter the day. He's one of the last cars I want to win the race. For sure. Right? I mean, I want me, Martin, the 24 and the 5. Because we have the most points, right? I want one of us five to win the race. I don't want someone below the cut line winning.

That's not, that makes our points of situation worse. So if anything, I'm going to battle the bottom guys harder than I'm going to battle the guys that are above the cut line. That's just, makes sense. Just listen to you say that I knew he wasn't as good as us on the short run, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you never know. I mean, he wasn't two runs ago, but I didn't know,

how am I supposed to know that his car was, was it going to be better? Was it going to be worse? don't know. Maybe they made adjustments. We don't know. Maybe my car's not going to be as good. We don't know. So I have to, if I'm leading the race, I am absolutely trying to control the restart and I'm going to fight tooth and nail to get in front of the car that I know I am better than or have been better than on the previous restart. Because I don't want to spend, I can't afford to spend that time re-battling him and then have to go pick off others. Like I need to just get it done here.

and then figure out the rest. Well, your car breaks anyway. I've been telling me that. Do you know what caused it, why it breaks, why it broke, just circumstances? What's the... We don't know yet. There's a couple options that we're looking at. One being the power steering just went out.

That's one option for sure. and the other could be a suspension part that broke. We don't know which one. It was abrupt, obviously. You know, the times that I did hit the wall earlier in the race, I don't know that it was crazy hard or out of the – it wasn't egregious. Certainly something that shouldn't have broke a suspension part.

I mean, if it didn't break a toe link, it shouldn't break anything else. and after I'd hit the wall, we hadn't observed any data that showed that the wheel, for me, the steering was all aligned and my car was still fast after, so there was nothing out of the blue. So something clearly was a fracture. What did Gaypart say to you in that clip we see on social?

I think NBC posted it, where you were kind of sitting on the wall afterwards and he leans over you. I mean, in that time, he's just being a big brother. I mean, he's, you know, he knows how hard I'm fighting. He knows every year how hard, you know, how much effort I put into it to try to give us a chance at a championship. And, you know, we've overcome a lot together and, you know, just really proud of the effort that we put forth on that day. We were not very good on Saturday.

We made it better for qualifying. We made it twice as better for the race. And we were contenders. And just like we had been for the other playoff races, really short of a little bit at Vegas, even though we led some there. The Charlotte Roval was the only place we just weren't that, you know, didn't lead or really were that strong.

So, and even then, I could argue if we didn't pit, we would be top five there. So we're doing all the, the right things, but it just seems like year after year we just, I've just had some crazy things happen. I can recall Martinsville a year that, man, we're just really, really strong. We had a short in the dash somewhere. Car just kept cutting off out of nowhere. I know that it stalled under caution many times because the motor would cut out, and we'd drive back to the front. I mean, back to the lead, not just the front, to the lead.

And then finally it shorted out and ended our day. I had a roof hatch fall off. Taledega. I mean, I've seen it all. I got Hail Melon last year. Happy anniversary. Yeah, I saw that. You know, I'm going to just keep trying.

I'm not going to let anything get me down on it. I mean, I feel like I'm putting my best effort forward every single week. I feel as good about our chances every single week as I've ever been. I do. I feel like every single week we can win. Not many teams can say that. And we show up. Now, things don't always work our way. And results have shown that it's surely not been in our favor as much as it's been against us. But we're going to keep spinning that wheel of luck and hopefully it comes our way sometime. And was this a luck thing or was it a mechanical that something that we controlled? Or maybe is it something I could have controlled? We don't know.

But certainly, yeah, I've seen it all. And it's hard to not get emotional about it because I'm putting, you know, this is my life's work. This is what I push every year to try to do and accomplished but man just can't seem to get the right breaks at the right time or just not have not have bad things happen at the most inopportune time you got to like a maybe a silver line in here but the the storybook for the way this season could end is is written pretty well the 11 car wins the last two races yeah i agree i'm just saying the opportunities the book is Do you think we're capable? I think you're capable, but I think it's obviously an uphill battle.

Oh, I agree with you. I think winning one race is an uphill battle, but I certainly believe that we can win this weekend. I believe we can win next weekend after that. But there's a lot of factors in it. We talk about them every single week, but I certainly know that we're going to, my best track we've been we've been behind the eight ball before and we usually uh we show up in

these situations and we put our best effort forward so i certainly uh feel like there's there's heavy motivation coming this week can we get like a headline quote or something you're you're trying to take an off the track off the record statement and putting it on the record I'm not going to confirm or deny. I don't need to give any more bulletin board material. We know what we're capable of. We're going to go do it. You're not the only one who had the worst possible thing happened to you at the worst possible time,

but Martin Trix Jr. also blew up on Sunday. And it's now in the exact same situation that you're in. I see that. Yeah, I couldn't quite figure it out because as I was sitting in my pit stall, shutting my car off, letting the wind in it down, I see the 19 going on the pit road. And I'm thinking, are they topping off for fuel? Like, I didn't know what was going on.

And, yeah, they blew up. That was unfortunate. Don't know what caused that. I know there was a lot of shifting going on all day. Was there an over-rev or did something just break? Don't know, so it's hard for me to say. But certainly that's... Unfortunately for them, they're in a position like us where they need to go out there and put their best effort on the racetrack.

And, again, it's confident as I am in us. I'm that confident in them as well. They perform really well at Martinsville, especially over the last five years. It's probably going to be hard to find anyone that's been as consistent or as good as the 19. Another year, Joe Gibbs Racing puts a car in the championship four. I think I saw a graphic this afternoon since this. format was introduced or the you know the final four format um joe gives racing is howdy car in the championship for yeah i mean i think that you know it's two years in a row that christopher bell's

been wins while he's been below the cut line different circumstances for both um you know the roval that that wind kind of came out of the blue um well that was around before and then Martinsville had some circumstances where he was able to get that win. And then this week, same thing, he just kind of, he showed up at the right time and won the race. And so you've got to give tons of credit to Adam and Christopher for staying in it because this is a race, certainly that they could have let get out of hand early. I noticed pretty early in the day that they weren't very strong. they didn't run a green flag lap in the top five until lap 221

and won the race I mean that's that's hard to do now to do that you're going to need things to fall your way but it only takes one caution as that defining moment of like uh oh we just passed eight cars for free that that can turn your race from one end to the other and for some people it turned it the other way right But it was, he got the opportunity and then he sees the opportunity. So you got to give him credit as a driver for then getting up on the wheel and saying

and not taking the, hey, we're going to get out of here in a good points position. We've turned our day around. We're still in it for Martinsville. He's taken the day and he took it and went to, okay, now I'm going to go win. Like he took it and he passed for the lead, right? Which is something that had been hard and we didn't see a whole lot of all day. credit to them for making their car tremendously better as the day went on and seizing that opportunity. They've done it now two years in a row and are at least going to be

the one car represented by Joe Gids Racing at Phoenix. Looking at these playoff standings, we've got Kyle Larson locked in. You've got Christopher Bell now locked in. William Byron is 30 above the cut line. Ryan Blaney is 10 above the cut line. Tyler Reddick is 10 below the cutline. you and Truex are both 17 bullet cut line and then Busher is in a must-win situation. He's 43 back. Yeah, that was a bad race for Busher. They just did not run well, which is interesting. The 6 did run well.

Six have been up front for the last couple weeks that the 17 has not been. So not sure what's going on there. But yeah, Bushers is going to need to win. Certainly that's going to be a tall task. I don't even recall a Martinsville race that he's. He's been kind of in the picture, but I don't, you just never know, right? I mean, they did win Richmond, though, so there's hope. I think that there's probably, that's probably going to be the rallying cry for the team,

is that, you know, short tracks has been pretty good to us. So they'll have a chance for sure. Me and Truex, all right, so me, true. Do you think you're in a must-win situation? No. No. I'm not, but I guarantee you I will be on kill right from the get-go and treat it as a must-win. No, the Truex-Hamlin Reddick, do they must win? No. Will they need to win? Likely.

So you probably have to treat it that way. Yeah, I think Reddick's in a different situation than you and Truex, but... Yeah, if Reddick... I think about this. I mean, you got to think about, well, who, Who's he going against, right? It's not going to be Byron. Byron just needs to keep his car on track all day. He's fine. Blaney needs to run up front. If he doesn't run up front, he opens up the door for everyone.

I mean, everyone. So, you know, me, Truex, Reddick, if we're running up front, and Blaney runs 6th and 6th, in the first two stages, starts getting tight. You start getting a little tight and start thinking about the result. So we'll just see how it goes. We just plan on qualifying on the pole, leaning every lap and calling it a day. Yeah, sounds doable.

Yeah, totally. Last thing on here is we got a review from Krista S. and she says, thanks for giving a somewhat newer female fan, fan of three years, that is. The inside info from a driver-owner's perspective, I have learned a great deal from your show, which makes my NASCAR experience,

even more enjoyable, big 20 fan. Oh, well, good weekend for her, I guess. For her, yeah. And enjoy hearing news about the TRD team. So, oh, look at that. She's also a fan of Toyota. I actually had not read this review. We had it on our phones,

but we didn't scroll down to the very end. If Travis had a mic, this is where I'd be asking him, did he plant this question be on purpose? Yeah, Travis, are you, is you also known as Krista? No. Yeah, so this is great, great weekend for you. Chris, appreciate the review. Glad we're able to kind of educate you a little bit

on what's been going on in the NASCAR world. Your driver is going to be racing for a championship this weekend. And yeah, she's a TRD fan as well. So it's great. Be sure to rate, review, follow wherever you get your podcast. Also, be sure to subscribe to Dirty Mo Media on YouTube. So you don't miss anything. We put out shorter clips during the week.

And then, as always, on Friday, the full video version of this podcast is available. Anything else do you want to add before we close this out? What are you going to be for Halloween? Have you thought about it? A little bit. Okay. Do you want it to be a surprise? I do.

I do. I do. I know what you're going to be, but is it going to be a surprise as well? Are you talking about the duo thing? Yeah, yeah. That's one of them, but I have another one. Oh, you have multiple? I have another one in store.

I don't know what that is. So I guess that's a surprise otherwise you would just send it. I want to go ahead and get those photo ops out early because I don't know what kind of mood I'm going to be in. I mean, I plan on, you know, only being sad for these next, was it, five days, and then I'm going to be happy again. But Halloween falls right there right after. So if you're wanting to shoot any content, let's go ahead and get it done. Yeah, we'll schedule a photo shoot on Thursday or Friday to be safe.

All right. Well, I hope you're in a, I hope it's a good mood next week. Oh, we will be. We will be. Nothing's worse than a Phoenix trip that you're not in a good mood. it was kind of like that last year. Yeah, I mean, it's up to us to do the job. Let's go get it done.

We will see y'all next week after Martinsville and talk about our championship race coming up. See all next week. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.