Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - The Fundamental Problem Is The Car

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Denny Hamlin is back after his quest for three wins in a row came up short. Hamlin finished second as Kyle Larson dominated the race at Bristol 1:40 What’s wrong with Denny’s jump shot6:50 Chandler Smith gets better of Kyle Larson in Truck Series8:55 Kyle Larson puts on a master class in the Xfinity race10:45 Why Denny was unable to pass Larson17:05 Tire falloff was nowhere to be found on Sunday23:45 Impact of tire wear on racing34:30 What’s going on with Shane Van Gisbergen in his rookie season39:20 When should drivers start to point race43:08 The key moment that propelled Larson to victory55:40 Tribute to those the NASCAR community lost this past week1:00:00 Does Denny carry a similar burden that Rory McIlroy was carrying 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 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.

Casual road trip with some climbing involved, some hiking, some exploring, a lot of tent camping. That's cool. That sounds awful. For guys like us, yes, that sounds awful. 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 a victory for Jared Allen. He's got better luck than Rick and Drake 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 it. Hey guys, welcome to actions detrimental post-Bristel Motor Speedway, heading into an off weekend coming up Easter Sunday next week. Travis, welcome back. Thank you. Yeah. How was your time in Augusta? It's fun, but it's long days, but it's hard to complain when you're there. So what did you have to do while you were there?

So I work on the Masters Official Podcast. So we're doing interviews with celebrities, past champions, reaction after the rounds. And then I also help out Marty Smith with his ESP and stuff. So we were before, you know, Tuesday we did some walk and talks with some golfers on the out on the course, get their thoughts on certain holes and stuff like that. Speaking of Marty Smith, I did an interview with him this past weekend on Marty and McGee. And he seemed to bring up my jumper that he said was broke. Where might he get that information, Travis?

I don't know. I mean, Charlie was there at Augustus, so maybe he ran into, I don't know. I don't know who his sources are, so I can't speak on that. I don't know. Surely the top guy on the something big boys, Smoke boys. Smoke boys. Is not talking shit on his teammates jumper?

I wouldn't think so either. And Charlie, Charlie plays both sides of the fence here. We know that. Is the information inaccurate? I'm in a slump right now. I'm slumping for sure. So I was the source, but I've been talking. told by Charlie that you at least hit the backboard.

So progress. Whoa. Whoa. That is rude. That's what your number one pick said. No. Actually, I made a very, very important three inside two minutes to go in a game that ended up going into triple overtime, I believe. Quote, he finally hit a three last night, probably one for six.

After the showing last week, no airballs, though. We're getting closer. That's what he texted. to do. Yeah. So I think you need to have a little talk with your start player maybe. We'll have a chat. But that was a big win for guys, though.

It was. It was, we were going against Nate Connolly's team, NIL, which is the worst team name in history. But anyway, that was the hoop group recap. Actually, spot.tv actually had a, had a, they did our game. And it was quite entertaining. We had Riley Herps on the call with Tom Norwood, wildly entertaining, listening to those two commentate during our basketball game. So it was pretty fun to watch that.

Check out the Hoop Group, Instagram, if you want to find it. Maybe you can watch it and then tell me how broke my game really is. And just understand you have to lower your expectations because I'm a person that has gone through like nine I think that's nine nine surgeries between knees and shoulders so I you know

I can only move is so good and it's not if you have time to go in there and you know get shots up like Charlie and others are doing every week no can't do that well anyway well we had some racing this weekend

you're very pop cultured out today I don't know if you recognize that you've got your master's hat you've got a t-shirt that says let the music talk California. I don't know if it's from Coachella or you thought about Coachella, but... I mean, it's Coachella, trust me, Coachella's been filling up my search bar on Instagram. I can tell you that.

Take from that whatever you will. Actually, I got this from Fred Siegel in Vegas. I liked it. It was cool. Hey, this is Dale Jr. and for the latest actions detrimental gear, go to shop.dirtymohmedia.com. We've got plenty of options for you. We're adding new stuff all the time.

That's shop.dardomomedia.com. So Bristol, we had, let's just start with the truck race because we can just, you know, we got plenty to talk about in cup and not necessarily on track. Chandler Smith wins the truck race on Friday night, holding off Kyle Larson, keeping him from the triple. And, you know, I was rooting for Kyle, you know, the whole time.

And I've always gotten on him. And he mentioned to me before the driver intros of the cup race, because we were getting on him for not lapping the field in Xfinity. At Homestead, we were just like, come on, man. like, you know, show, show the indictment on the, on the Xfinity field, like, just lap every single one of them. And, and he said, well, I actually tried, I tried to this time at Bristol, he said, but I, you know, the way the cautious fall, what the stages, the stages are so short, he's like, I got as far as I could. And so, if you were wondering why Kyle was going after it so hard at the Xfinity race,

you know, nearly wrecking, it's, it's because his friends were goading him in. to trying to lap the field. But his post race comments about, you know, keeping me from the three in a row and, you know, we don't like to see that and you fans don't either. Now I'm like, piss on your triple, your sweep. Like, I'm glad Chandler Smith beat you in the truck race. I'm happy he said that, though.

Yeah, it's all good. I do too. We need more of that stuff. Yes. Yeah, fuel this rivalry. Absolutely. So Chandler Smith takes the win in the truck series. Man, he's been quietly really good this year.

You know, I don't know his stats. I haven't looked him up, but I just feel like he's been very, very solid. I know that, you know, I see stats online in the Twitter atmosphere, and, you know, it always shows like the average running position, and he's always way, way up there in the trucks. And, you know, not quite as high. high as what Corey Hime is, but he's really performing well, getting his, got his first win in the season there for Bob Jenkins, and that's awesome. So held off Kyle on a, was it a green white checker?

Or just a few laps to go, they had a late caution. So fantastic run by them. Congratulations to Chandler. What's a win like in Truck Series for someone that Chandler that's, you know, looking for a ride all the time and kind of just what can that's do for them? I don't know. I mean, it can build confidence in yourself. It builds confidence in those watching in your talents. Certainly when you can go up, you know, against a cup guy head to head and get the better end of it, it, you know, it's going to look good on people's feeling about you and your talent level.

So I think Chandler's a very good driver. and really arguably was the best Xfinity driver that they had last year for probably most of the season. So, yeah, it's good to him that he kind of landed on his feet there, got something in the truck series, and now is able to pay that off. Yeah, and it's competitive, right? Yeah. That's the key that he landed on his feet in a competitive vehicle no matter of the series. Yeah.

Yeah, and he can have fun and build up his resume. and hopefully get the call in Xfinity one day. The problem with Xfinity is it's just 90% pay drivers. So it's going to be really, really tough to break through, especially in a top-notch ride. It's just, I don't know, it's going to be really, really hard with kind of the model of the Xfinity series. Perhaps that all changes in the future.

We'll see. Well, the Xfinity series had Kyle Larson in it as well. And that was just pure domination. There was nobody remotely close. I just wonder why nobody was closer to them than what they were. Like when I say it wasn't close, you know, the cup race wasn't that close. But it was, you know, the field is more competitive. You know, we could stay within a second.

or so of them for, you know, the last half of the race. But there was no one within a couple tenths of him every single lap in the Xfinity race. And there was guys driving the same equipment that he had. Now, some of them are younger, Carson Koppel, actually, I thought if you had to ask me, who did I think that would win outside of Kyle Larson? I would have thought Carson, and he showed up this weekend really well. He's a short track guy. He's really, really, really, really talented. So I don't hold it against him that Kyle, you know, whipped up on him in the same ride. But, like, I thought Justin would be a little bit closer to, to Kyle than what that he was.

But, man, it just, it was just, it was entertaining watching just seeing how much faster he was than everyone else. How many cars could he lap? You know, how far could he go? And it didn't take but about 40, 50 laps. and he was already, you know, 10 seconds up on the fourth place car. It just was, it was brutal. Yeah, Carson did say that he thought if he got around Al-Gaiar a little sooner, that he may have been able to give Kyle a run for a second.

Yeah, I thought that he just kind of watching, I didn't really study lap times that much during Saturday's race, but I just thought the eyeball test told me that the one was the next best challenger to Kyle. but it's just good luck, you know, in that instance. Well, Kyle carried over his dominance into Sunday's race. I mean, I feel like it was fairly obvious from early on in this race that if they didn't make any mistakes on Pit Road and they executed well, it was going to be really difficult to get around him.

Yeah, no question about it. You know, it was just one of those races that played out that way to where it went green. So it allowed, you know, them to come. kind of whenever we did have cautions, there was buffers between them and second place and third place. And so they always, you know, had that little extra buffer every time they did come into pit road. Um, but they executed perfectly and Kyle executed perfectly. And what I thought his strength was, was getting through traffic. Um, you know, I, when I got to him, um, towards the second half of the race, probably about 200 to go, I'm thinking, you know, I think, you know, I think,

that I'm better than he is at this moment. But once we got into traffic, he could make moves that I couldn't. I was more one lane dominant than what he was. And I think that was the advantage that he had was just being able to navigate the traffic a little bit better than I was and was able to put cars between us there at the end of the race. Can you explain how you go about navigating traffic when you're in second and you're trying to track down the leader? You may see like a bunch of cars and head him are you trying to go the opposite route through this traffic you've got to try to gain an advantage on him somehow yeah you just hope that they get pinned behind some cars and he did that held him up for for a little bit of time which allowed me to to catch up but it yeah you're just trying to i'm just

trying to optimize lap time the best that i can um and obviously you're going to catch lap cars that are in your lane so where's your next option to run good lap time is it through the middle is it the bottom. But, you know, is someone maybe two car lengths up in that secondary lane? So now you need to go to the third lane that is wide open. So all things equal, you know, I'm thinking about, I usually give myself option A, B, or C. When I approach a corner, it's, you know, option A is the fast, you know, clean track, clean track to clean track. Option A is the fastest. Then it's option B, finish option C. And so when I go into a corner,

I'm thinking about, and I'm looking at the traffic ahead of me, figuring out, you know, where I'm going to run and how I'm going to approach the corner and what option am I going to take based off of the traffic in front of me. Now, but you don't know where the lap cars are going to go

until they enter the corner? Yeah, you get an indication of it. You know, there's a split second on turn down into the corner. So as you're going down the straightaway, right when you start to turn, so they're in front of you. So you've got about three tenths of a second

to make a decision based off of where they go. Do they turn down? Do they stay up? Like you're just kind of watching them and then you've got to make your move one way or the other. You've got to turn down quickly or you got to keep your lane up high to get out of the dirty air.

So it's, your reaction has to be really, really quick to not get stuck running the same lane behind them. So you really can't, you know, you're not looking a corner ahead necessarily when you're attacking these lapses? I'm looking, so I am looking, I'm looking a straightaway ahead when, say, I'm in open racetrack or, you know, I've got just one car in front of me. I'm always looking at what is the car in front of him, where is the car in front of him, where is the car in front of him, Where are they running? Where do they want to run? And then that way when I approach them, I see their tendencies. I know where they've been running for the last five, ten laps, right?

So I know when I get there, maybe I don't have to predict because I've already done enough studying of where they've been running to know that I need to take option C when I catch them. Did you think at any point in this race while you were running second that you had an opportunity to actually get around, Kyle? there was just a few laps where I was you know I got there like you know within a car length or so but there was always it was I kind of got in a crappy spot at the end of the race where cars that had pitted later got in between me and him and so then they were holding me up

but they couldn't get around him you know what I mean so they passed me when they came off pit road but then their tires leveled off and then they were just a roadblock in front of me at that point. Just as fast as you. Just as fast as I was and it was like, oh, you know, and I don't know how many laps they were down. Now looking at the finishing order after the race, I was like, really?

I mean, you're going to sit between me and the leader when you're three laps down. But I get what they're trying to do. They're thinking if I can go past the five because I've got fresher tires, which meant nothing. then I'll be two down and then I'll stay out when the caution comes out

now I'll be one down so it's a two lap swing for them if they can get around the five and a caution comes out I guess that's probably a good segue into talking about this race as a whole with tire wear because auto racing analytics had posted

their median lap times for the last quarter of the race and all these cars I'm sure you've seen this tweet are practically at least in the top six here or just on top of each other on lap times. Blaney was running just as fast as Kyle was, but five positions back. All you need to do is look at the Fox ticker. They actually put the lap times up a few times throughout the race.

And if you looked at it, it would show it late in the run that the leader was running 16 flats and 32nd place was running 16 ones. You're not going to pass. You will not pass when the field runs the same speed. speed. So again, I've said this week after week. I don't know what we expect. This is the car we built. This is what ownership of NASCAR wanted. They wanted to build a sports car and we're going to race this sports car on all these different tracks and it doesn't, it just doesn't race well. I don't, you know, and it's not only, I mean, I think that there are fixes that we can do to it.

but I'm not in charge. And so, you know, I don't, I'm part of NASCAR meetings. There's nothing on the horizon. There's been no discussion to, you know, fixing things that really need to be addressed on it. One in particular, it's just the platform in which we run it on, where the back is squashed down to the ground, the front's a foot in the air. of course it's bad in traffic you get a front end that's not on the ground

it's in the air because we have to feed the underbody of the car as soon as we get behind somebody that thing just lifts right on up and you got no front down for us it plows so you got to get the attitude of the car correct whether it's putting a bigger we got to get more overbody less underbody because that's what the Xfinity car has and this is my theory. I'm no aerodynamicist.

Let me just preface this, and there's many team engineers and smart people that listen to this podcast that I'm sure will correct me. But I've done this long enough to understand the advantages of the Xfinity car is that the second place guy can manipulate the leader. In cup cars, you cannot.

So when we catch someone that we are slightly faster than. We have no tools to slow them down. In Xfinity, you just drive up right to their bumper and it takes their rear downforce away. They get wiggle, waggle, up the racetrack, they go. Then you got passing. In the cup car, you can, you just run right in the back of someone and it does not disrupt their car whatsoever. It's because all the downforce is made from underneath, not over top. So I believe that we need to have more overbody get these cars pitched up in the back like we're supposed to run them and that way hopefully the second place car can when they get close to the rear of the first place car it gets them loose and it takes grip away from them instead of taking

grip away from you because that is the crux of the problem that we have on short tracks amongst many other issues such as low horsepower, big wide tires, tires that don't fall off. Those are all major problems. I get it. But the platform in which we have to run these cars to make them fast is horrible in traffic. Absolutely horrible in traffic. Now, is any of that realistic to change? It's that, what I'm saying wouldn't cost a lot of money in parts and pieces.

Now, would it cost the team's money and coming up with new Aero Maps and all this other stuff? Absolutely, yes, it would. But the parts and pieces wouldn't cost that much, right? It's taking underbody downforce away from the car, having overbody downforce instead. That way the back car can manipulate the front car, not the other way around. Right now, that's why you see defense. I mean, defense is a part of a stat that we keep. now. Like, that's because all you have to do is just, you know, weave and bob your car through

the corners. You don't even try to run a fast lap time now when you're in front of someone faster than you. You just look up in your mirror and just drive wherever they're at. And, and it just makes her car so slow. So again, is that like a realistic potential change that could be made. Yeah, so, I mean, there's many aspects, right? It's one thing to have a spec car, but it's even spec in the sense of how they are telling us to set it up, right? We have parameters that we can't, we got these shock lengths, we can't go past here, can't

go past there, and the reason we have these shock links is because we don't want to destroy the underbody because that's an expensive part that the teams can't afford to throw away every week. It's just too expensive. the car is really really expensive we've said this for years and one of the most expensive parts about it is the underbody itself so we have these shock lengths that are that are mandated to keep us from dragging the bottom of the car off well so then what happens is that we say okay well this is the best way to run the car nose up tail down to feed this underbody that's where we're going to get all of our downforce since the overwork body doesn't make any um and it's just a it locks everyone into the same setups we're all just trying to run the back as low as we can and it's just we're running the same cars now with the same setups and the drivers that are all morphing themselves into the same drivers i mean there's there's elite ones

now don't get me wrong there are still a handful of elite that are just been better than everyone else. They've got the drivers, they got the pick crews, they got the best crew chiefs, the strategies, whatever it is. They've got the best of that and that they will continue to win from here and on, right? The days of next gen and us in 2022, wasn't it? 22, when this came out and there was like 17 different winners, those days are done. 16 different winners. Days are done. That will not happen short of us just throwing gimmicks in the middle of the races to mix things up.

If you run a pure race, like we ran this weekend, this is a pure race, Darlington was a pure race, Martinsville was a pure race where you didn't have these wild gimmick cautions, you know, where it mixes the field up and you're just, you're going to have the best guy. winning. That's just the way it is. That's why they're the best. And they're with the teams that have the most information. But you're one of those guys, so wouldn't you want

this to just stay the same? It benefits you? No. No. Because I care about the long-term health of the sport. I want our fans to be entertained. I want them to see

someone that gets a speeding penalty. Kyle Larson gets a speeding penalty in stage two. He wouldn't win that race. But back in the old days, you could. You could, what made drivers seem great is their ability to,

wow, are they going to come, can they come from the back of the pack and come back and win this race? Now those days are dumb. It's not even a storyline anymore. It's like, well, we won't be seeing them for the rest of the day. Sorry about your luck.

So I want to see greatness displayed. And we saw it displayed yesterday, but in a different kind of way, right? You saw that he was able to stay up front, not really have a challenger, nobody really had anything for him. You want to see him have to go through the field at some point. And the only way to do that is now we go back to the tire, create a tire where when you put them all, one that matters. This tire at Bristol, let's just preface this,

anything over 60 degrees or so, it is the hardest tire, I think we could have ran, I bet you we could have ran the full race on one set of tires. If there were, if theoretically we had only one set, we could have done it.

That's crazy. That is crazy. I know the box that they're in, right? And now that we've kind of identified, okay, this is kind of a temperature thing. Now can we take this Bristol tire and certainly the left side tire?

Please get a softer left side tire on this car because we've got to wear some of the left sides. Right now it's just it's all on the right and we're not even getting anything on the right. These things are just bricks that just keep running the same lap time over and over and over.

The weather part is wild, right? Because Saturday you had tons of tire fall off. You couldn't more than 30 laps in practice. You know, the tires are just disintegrating, which seems like, oh, we've got a pretty good tire here because if it's a few degrees warmer on Sunday, then we might actually have a good race.

But then it turns out to be 15 degrees warmer, and it's a horrible race. Like that little thing, if the sun comes up today, we're either going to have a good race or we're going to have a bad race. I feel like you can't... Well, I think it's... Okay, it's fundamentally...

It starts with the car. Okay, it starts with the car, that yes it shouldn't should we rest this all on good year to fix us no but we've really put a lot in their hands to or NASCAR and the drivers have to please help us fix this we're not going to they won't change the car they won't give us any horsepower so good year please help us fix this and they have on other short tracks but this one it really really really needs work when we go back in the summer, you know, we race in August, correct? Mm-hmm.

We know we know it's going to be hot. Let's just go there with a softer tire. Let's make, you know, or a different tire than what we have. Otherwise, you will not see anything different when we go back. It's, if you change nothing, it's going to be the exact same. It just feels like if you keep relying on the tire as the sole thing to fix this, there's just too many variables in the weather it appears. that can make that reliable.

And I think Clint Boyer made a great point is that the engine used to wear out the tires back in the day, but we went down this road. Again, this was a directive from NASCAR control that we want to reduce horsepower. We want to tighten the field. We want it to look like you can pass, not necessarily pass.

We just wanted to look good on the TV screen. And that direction has put us in this box now where we all are the same and no one can pass a soul. And so it's up to them if they want to fix it or not to do something or not. But from the fan sentiment that I'm seeing, it's not good. And so I worry about that. And so while I benefit because I believe I'm one of the group that every week has a really good chance of winning, I'd rather see the long-term sport do better

and us not continue down this road of making parity our biggest accomplishment because it's not... Parity is not good for racing. And you're also not necessarily seen parity, right? If the same group of drivers continues to win, it may seem like parity

because everyone's the same speed, but if the same five drivers are going to continue to win this year, it's not necessarily parity. Yeah, I mean, I don't... I don't know. I don't know what's good in the big picture of that because I think that the sport does need superstars and superstars are the ones that win.

You know, if you have 16 different winners, tell me which one's the superstar. Like, I think every sport needs its, you know, few guys that are the guy, right? They're just better than everyone else. And we have some of those, and you need to let them show that. But it's very, very difficult.

if you don't start up front and have good, you know, good pit stops, things like that. There's, there's, it's, it's just a race of execution now. Um, and that's what's difficult about it is, is that you could put the best driver and, you know, name whatever driver you think is the best in the field. If you put them 20th halfway through the race, they're not going to win. And that is, that is not good, right? There's 250 laps. You can't come from, 20th? And the answer is it's no, you can't. I don't know.

It's just a bad, bad path that is unfortunately set in place I don't know, probably 10 years ago. We were going to NASCAR test and they just kept cutting horsepower. Hey, we're going to tighten it up. We want to, you know, we don't want,

we don't want the field spread out. We want someone dominating. We want someone right there on your bumper. They might not be able to pass, but it looks like they can, and that's what's going to keep our people tuned in. I think that our fans are too wise for that now. We've seen five different winners so far this season, William Byron, you, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, and Josh Berry. Do you think that that trend continues after this break, or are we going to start to see some other drivers, Ryan Blaney, Joey Lagano, other guys get into the mix? Well, I think if it's conventional races, you're going to see the same.

things you're not going to see surprise winners um now when we go to talega absolutely when we go to a road course by the way you guys better prepare yourselves on you know we had this whole harrison burton discussion last year on on a car being 30 something in points and winning and being part of the playoffs when Shane van gisberg and wins a road course this year and has run almost last in all the other races like just prepare yourselves for that's coming and so Um, it's, I don't know. I think yes, you'll see a few in there that, you know, are probably, you would consider underdogs or surprise winners, but it's, but it's going to be because something the wacky happens, you know, nine overtime finishes or someone runs it, you know, people run out

of fuel, someone makes it. Like, that's the only way. If it's going to run natural, you're, you will not see any surprise winners. SVG is 34th right now with 98 points. I think Harrison was 32nd. 98 points is what he has. I think Kyle got 60 yesterday. Wow. It's been a struggle for sure, more than I thought it was going to be for him.

What do you think that reason is? It's hard. You know, running in the Cup series is hard. The competition's hard. He's learning, trying to learn something, a new technique, a new craft. I mean, that's really, really hard to do. I don't know. It's just, it's tough to ask someone to just come over here and just change their,

the way, you know, what they're driving and all that stuff. And he's, you know, this is not what he grew up doing. And so you're just kind of throwing them in there. You know, I think they're, you know, throwing them in there, just hoping he wins an road course race, puts him in the playoffs, moves their charter ranking up. I think it's, I think that's, I think that's the. the play. When Harrison Burton won Daytona and made it into the playoffs, there were just mixed feelings

about that whole situation, right? The car that was less than 30th in points all year made the playoffs off of a single win. If SVG is to win a road course this year, would you feel the same way? Or would you feel like a little differently about it? Because he's put in there to win road courses. Yeah, right. I mean, I think that Super Speedways are, you know, as we've said, it's been kind of a crap shoot, especially in this generation car. But, you know, it's, you're definitely, you're still deserving, right? You still won and it's hard to do. Road course racing is more part of our schedule now. So I don't, I don't think I'd have a issue with it. I think the fans, you know, more than likely win and if it happens and Shane is in the 30s and points

they'll probably have something to say about it but it's it's that's that's that's what he was built to do is come over here and win some road course races and and and then be somewhat competitive as he could and on the ovals right and so it's you got to go through 31 or 32 races of pain to get to the you know five or six that you really got a shot at it and so um I thought that there's you know there was races though early on in the year where it was like, man, he was doing really, really well. I thought the Atlanta race, I ran behind him, he was doing good.

He did good during the clash. You know, maybe it's a team thing. I think, you know, is trackhouse off? It appears so. So, you know, I don't know how much of it is car or driver, but it's, you know, you got to have low expectations when you, in his rookie season to have him, you know, go out there and finish in the top 20 every week. not a realistic goal, but they know that they're going to go to a handful of tracks where

they're going to be the favorite and going to be tough to beat. Back to Bristol yesterday, Travis asked me here before we started, was your strategy to short pit Kyle to try to get around him? I'm not sure. I'm not sure I haven't had those discussions yet, but we had just reeled him in within six or seven tenths when we pitted. I'm not really sure. More than likely, if he was still on the track and we pitted, then, yeah, we're trying to overtake him.

But there wasn't enough lap time to be gained. It's not like Darlington when you pit, you gain three seconds from your previous lap time. You know, the slow lap times at, you know, were 1590s, 16-0s, and the fast lap times were 15-5s. So you were going to have to pit, you know, three or four laps ahead of them to overtake that. Yeah, I found Steve LaTartt talked about it after the race about Ryan Blaney's strategy and that they stayed out really long to put the entire field, including Kyle, a lap down. But because there was no lap time difference, really, he could just stay out and wait for a caution and stay out on fuel. Yeah, Steve LaTart does a really, really good job of kind of breaking the strategy down.

I know him and Todd Gordon do it quite a bit. and they do a really good job because what they're explaining is that since there's no lap time falloff, you want to run this thing just as long as you possibly can because it opens up two avenues for you. And this is what Blaney was looking to do, is that A, you can get a caution, right? If you stay out, especially on a track like Bristol, where it puts everyone a lap down that pits, if a caution comes out, you're able to pit for free. Right. Now, everyone's going to wave around and be back on your bumper, but they're going to be back on your

bumper with worse tires. You're going to have fresh tires and the only way they can wave around is to stay out. So all those laps that we're running that we're running and he's, you know, staying out, he gets that advantage on tires and track position. The other side of that is that even if he does hit super late, yeah, he goes back to eighth or ninth, maybe at the worst. Now he's got, if a caution comes out later after he pits, he has a significant 30, 40 lap tire advantage and gets to restart with that advantage because more than likely we weren't going to pit. Tires don't fall off that much. So he would at least had fresher tires and only lost one or two positions because of he was going long. So it really was the right decision, especially

for where he was at the race at that time. Yeah, the only possible way that he was going to jump from fifth or fourth, whatever he was running. Yeah, he was fifth. I looked at it post race to kind of see where did he net out on it because I knew we talk about it. And he netted that he was that same. He finished, he started the cycle fifth, finished it fifth. And he just, he opened up a big window of opportunity for him to get lucky.

It just didn't hit. Yeah, fascinating strategy considering, you know, you think about, you can't do that at a Darlington, right? At some point. Yeah, lose so much time. Yeah, you never make it back. Not enough flaps to make it back. Right.

But at Bristol, where laps aren't falling off, that makes it possible. Yeah. With, if we don't hit 16 winners this year, at what point do you think drivers start focusing on points racing at the bottom of the bubble? You know, usually it happens with about five races to go. It seems like in the regular season, you'll have the bubble drivers that, You know, when cautions come out, they'll start staying out to try to get any kind of stage points that they can. I think that that would probably be about the same.

But you got some, you know, kind of near the bubble that, you know, you got your almond dingers and Kyle Busch, priests, you know, Stenhouse is somewhat around. I think that they're probably always going to hedge their strategy to getting all the points they can because winning will be difficult. What do you make of Ty Gibbs past two weeks? I feel like he's kind of found something and started a race like what I think people expected from him. Yeah, they've gotten better, no doubt about it, and was in the top five pretty much the entire race this past week. So I think a lot of it was qualifying really helps, right? You never had to go to the back.

We've documented for the last 20 minutes how hard it was to pass. And so it seems like it just, it felt like, you know, qualifying was the key to all this, right? Is can you stay up front? You know, do you have anything wacky happen? It seems like where that team has struggled is when they have adversity, they compound it and they, they had made it worse.

When they don't have adversity, this is kind of where they run, or it's where they're capable of running. And so they really didn't have anything crazy go on, no ill time cautions, and this is where they can run on speed on any given week. Yeah, but also regarding yesterday's race, credit to tie,

because it looked like he started hot, right? It started sixth, I think, drove up beside you for second, third, whatever it may be, but then fell back to 15th. Right. Because you stuck on the outside. But again, was able to rebound throughout the day to get back up to the top. Yeah, early in the race, we were all running. You could see it a little bit on TV, but if you're, if not an avid, you probably wouldn't have noticed.

You know, we were running about a second off to start that race because everyone was just very, like, taking it easy to figure out, are the tire? are going to wear or not. And I think around, it was about around lap 30 where I noticed that, you know, I don't think the tires are going to wear, but I don't want to be the first to try it. And really, Larson was the first one to say, screw it, I'll try it. And then that's when he took control. And I think he even mentioned that that was the moment he thought that gave him control of the race was making that decision and say, you know what, screw it.

I don't think, I see, he said, I saw the track starting to be. blacken up on the exits and that was my you know at that point i'm thinking the tires aren't going to fall off so let's just go for it and he went and then i followed him about i don't know probably seven or eight laps later i'm like okay i'm gonna go but i'm gonna go like 70 percent you know i don't i don't i still don't i want him to blow one first you know what i mean i'm not i don't want to go all out with him and next thing no my i'm the one that you know it looks like an idiot who who wore out as tires. But yeah, once we got to lap 60,

I knew that that was the furthest that we had ever run on a tire. If the tires were going to wear, we've never ran more than 60 laps on this set in cooler conditions without them going, you know, losing air. And once we got past that 60 lap mark, it was like, yep, same old Bristol. Hammer down.

We're going 100% every lap. And from that point on, everyone was all out. So does that mean that that risk in Kyle's early read of the track is what won in this race? Well, it played a factor for sure. I think had I made that decision and made him be fast enough to go around me, I think he even said, you know, if Danny was out front, I don't know, like, what I've gotten around them. You know, I could get around some lap cars, but that's getting around lap cars and getting around a car in the top five is big, big difference. but I just, I didn't have the balls to do it.

I just did not want to be the first one to push the gas down and go for it and hope that the tires would stay up. But he did, he saw, you know, that's knowledge, him seeing the racetrack, understanding it, and being comfortable with taking that risk. Yeah. I mean, I still don't think this was a great Bristol race, but that makes me feel a little bit better about it. You meant it wasn't great?

It was awful. It was bad. And just to button that up, you know, fans are giving me shit because of my interview saying, don't throw mud on it just because someone dominates. You've got to realize fans, all I see is what's in my, I am in a cocoon for those 500 laps. All I know is my experience. Now, when I went back and watched the race, I hear you. I get what you're saying.

I hear you. I know it wasn't good. and I feel your pain. I do. We're trying to do our best on this show to get someone in NASCAR to listen to us to make some of these changes. And I wish they would call me and say,

what would you do? Because there's about six things that I think we could do to truly, truly make it better and it have no adverse side effects to it. but you know this is part of a bigger business plan for them that we were not prefaced to and we just don't know those six changes financially is would any of those put a burden on the teams because i feel like that's always like the cop out it well it yes and no um do the teams deserve to have the financial burden from the mistakes that NASCAR made on the car No, we don't deserve it, but I think at some point, we all got to come together and say, how can we all pitch in to make this better?

NASCAR included. So I don't think it all should fall on the teams. That's not fair. But I don't know what else you do. I don't know what you do. We got to get the product better because I don't think we can sustain what we saw on Sunday and very much like Dale Jr. has said in the past,

it could take its toll on short tracks. Like, next to you know, to fix it, they'll just say, all right, we just won't go to short tracks as much. Like, that's been their answer. You know, when road course racing, back when road course racing was seemed like some of the base racing, he just said, all right, we'll do that more. Speedways, super speedways, those are good? Okay, we'll do that more.

And so what's happened, they'll just keep cutting. it out and they'll keep adding more speedways and add more other stuff that's not the answer the answer is fix stop you know stop you know deflecting from the actual problem and fix the problem is it possible to check all the boxes and have great racing at short tracks super speedways mile and a halfs road courses yes a single car absolutely now the car might look different you know um but yes they they have an opportunity and I said this in my very first year of doing this podcast. I asked when I was the very very first team owner meeting that I was ever in. I just bought a charter and I was part of a team owner. I said, Mr. Probst, are you sure that we have this car ready to race at all

types of different racetracks. We've got a blank canvas here that we have an opportunity to build a car that can be great at all tracks. Are we sure we've got it right? Yes. It's said, okay, I believe you. I have no reason not to. You know, and they just, they didn't do enough testing.

The car wasn't ready. You know, we had to delay it one year. We had the COVID thing. It just didn't, this, it was not thought of. out enough. What's the most race cars they had on a track when testing the next gen? Not that many. We didn't actually have multiple cars on the racetrack testing this car until two months

before the very first race. And at that moment is when we all realized, holy shit, you cannot pass. It was really, really bad. Now, we did some things. I mean, we were going to run 500 horsepower. Can you believe that? That was the original plan. is to run 500 horsepower in this thing.

But it was so horrible that we got them talked into 670. You know, and the reason that I, you know, to circle back to why I think the platform is screwed up is because when we did lower the nose in that test, it made traffic better. But what we found is when you ran out front, the thing was just uncontrollable loose, which is because it was not feeding the rear down force, you know, because the front end was punching it off. But it was significantly better in traffic. So we can fix this car.

The teams can fix this car. They just got to get with the drivers, get in a room, and figure out what do you fight? Why can't you pass? And then say, okay, let's come up with some remedies of how we can change this. NASCAR tries to, to do its best to listen to the drivers.

And we, and when they, when we talk about like the tires, the direction that we've gone in tires has come from the drivers. NASCAR and Goodyear have listened to the drivers over the last few years saying, we've got to soften these tires up. We've got to have fall off. Unfortunately, this was the worst of all scenarios. We're on the shortest of short tracks with a tire that did not in 150 laps fell off four-tenths. you're just not going to have passing.

There's no way you'll have passing if that's the case. Not when the field is that tight. So it just proves that yes, the tire has a big role in it, but the fundamental problem is the car. The tire can band-aid it a little bit. I had this random thought yesterday watching the Masters in your bus. I thought it was so fascinating when you compare NASCAR to other stick-in-ball sports. It's like golf is never talking about, oh, the clubs suck.

They know the clubs that the players are hitting the ball with, like suck. We got to fix those. Like NASCAR is so unique and that they got this thing that the athletes could be great. But if this thing doesn't work, you know, the athletes aren't separating themselves from the pack based on their individual ability and mistakes that they make. Yeah, it's almost like saying that we have a, So we have a field of drivers that run track, but your stride can only be a certain length. Like, you know what I mean? Here's the 12 football plays that you can run in a game.

Yeah, there you go. There you go. Something like that where it's restricting free, not free trade, but it's, it's, it's restricting the talent that the teams and the drivers have, right? It's, you know, the teams are in a box. They can't even work on the thing hardly. You know, you can't develop it. You can't this or that. And so it's just just a spec car, right?

And, you know, it's, we've got a lot of smart people and they're like, sure, I'd love to be able to massage this thing and work on it and whatnot. But it's against the rules. And so, you know, and it's against the rules for a reason. We have to understand the reason it's against the rules is we're trying to cut cost. NASCAR wants us to cut costs. So this is a way for us to cut costs is cut by cutting out people that develop widgets and gadgets for this car. Yeah. Yeah, it just seems like right now, you know, at least the last couple weeks, the pit crew has been the talk of the town,

which is interesting because it's like the one part of the sport where the human element really, really, really matters. because they're all, you know, if Joelle makes a mistake on Pit Road, like it's a human thing, not necessarily, oh, well, the car sucks, so it doesn't matter what Denny or Kyle does necessarily. Yeah, it's a great point. Anything else from Bristol? No, you know, it's been a good run for the 11 team. March, April or whatever, April certainly has, but last month or so has been really good on a good run. No complaints, really.

You know, it's, I wish we could have got three in a row, but that was our best effort. You know, we, you know, sometimes you just, you do run into a really great driver with a really great team and, and you're just second best on that day. And that was what we had. Any plans for the off week? Yeah, got to go on a little vacation with the family. You are. Yeah. Oh, where are you going?

Pomerto Bluff. Is that makes it? Yeah. Is that a place? South Carolina? Yep. Makes sense. They have golf there at Toronto?

Is that why you know it? I'm pretty sure they have. I mean, South Carolina is golf courses. There's a golf. It sounds like golf. It is, but it's, I'm not going golfing. Got it. I'm going to go with my parents, sister, take the kids and whatnot.

You know, I need, they need, they need some Denny time. You know, so they, they do. They, you know, I've worked so freaking hard. I do feel bad. I come home. It's usually time I come home on weeknights, you know, from working. It's, you know, we're within an hour or two of their bedtime. I just haven't got to see the kids as much as I'd like to.

And so need to spend some more time with them. So I'm going to do that this week. I saw Jordan post a video of Molly having fun with the pit crew look like before the race. Did you see that? Oh, with Brandon. Yeah, Molly loves Brandon, our car chief. Um, he always plays with her and whatnot. So yeah, they, they, they, there's a few crew guys that they love, uh, Keith. Uh, but yeah, they, it's, it, they love seeing the crew, the crew guys, for

sure. I'm going to use your, uh, survival pack that you. Are you? That you gifted me. Yeah. And do what with it? We're going out to Utah on a little climbing, backpacking trip. Um, so yeah, stay alive is, is what I'll do with it. Survive. No, we'll be just, yeah, we'll be just, fine. So what is, I mean, what's the goal? Is there a goal to this? Like, hey, we want to go from A to B. Yeah, we're fine.

And the goal is to get to be. Is it an accomplishment to get to be? Or is it just a, is it a casual? Okay. Yeah, it's a casual road trip with some, with some climbing involved, some hiking, some exploring, a lot of tent camping. That's cool. That sounds awful.

For guys like us, yes, that sounds awful. Draft. before we before we finish this show off we lost three integral members of the NASCAR community last week John Edwards

Al Pierce and Shigi Hittori just curious if you had any any personal experiences or stories with each of those guys I know when it comes to Al Pierce Jeff Gluck had called you out on the tear down that it was nice to hear your sentiment about yeah Al

Al was who I was closest to you know it's interesting when you hear stories and people share their stories about, you know, these three guys. And I wasn't close really to any of them. Al was probably the closest that I was simply because he's a Virginia guy. And, you know, we would always talk local short track Virginia racing together. And, you know, when I hear stories about John and him kind of always calling people by their last name, I got to thinking about. I was like, he did always call me Hamlin, you know, instead of Denny, right?

He called people by their last names. And so, man, it's just, that was shocking for sure. And Shiggy, obviously, was a big part of, you know, the truck series and a racer himself back in the day. So, you know, just tragic loss for those two. And Al, obviously, being a Vietnam veteran, someone that, you know, I think, did they, say he attended 40 something Daytona 500s? I think I heard how I think it was more than that I think it was like 50 something it's just incredible absolutely incredible and um such a professional and and I think my last interview with him

um wasn't that long ago but it just was amazing how tuned in he was to be someone in the sport for that long understand the past and also understand what it is. now is incredible and you know we we definitely owe a debt of gratitude to for him and all his service both for our country and and our support it's just it's a shame we lost them you know these are these were this is a tough week for the NASCAR community but our thoughts were with all their families I liked a Kyle was asked I think in the Bristol media center on Friday maybe or Saturday what one of his memories of John was,

and he had said that his trip to Dubai in 21 or 22, I think. And that was cool because I was fortunate enough to go on that trip with Kyle. Kyle invited me to that trip, and we had gone to the World Fair, and no one loved the World Fair more than John Edwards. He was, like, thrilled about the World Fair. And don't get me wrong, the World Fair was cool. But John was like all about it,

and this week, the World Fair started in Japan today. Really? And he was always saying, oh, we should go. go to the World Fair and on the Easter off week. Huh. Well, our thoughts are with them. I know that John certainly would be proud after the whoop and the cow put on them this weekend. That was a great one for John.

I got a review here from Talladega 17. I'm going to be honest, you were my least favorite driver for years, and I didn't want you to win. But I found this podcast and was like, well, I might as well give it a shot. And it turned out my opinion about you completely. turned around. I think I'm butchering the reading of this review. But you get the point. You are now one of my favorite drivers. I actually enjoy watching you win and hoping you can win the championship. Well, appreciate that Talladega 17. Hopefully we'll be seeing you. Taledega's our next race, right? Yeah, after the off week. Yeah, that'll mix things up for sure after the off week. But

appreciate that review and we'll see you in two weeks. Before we finish though, We were watching the Masters yesterday on the bus, Travis, and Jordan goes, Denny, this is going to be you and you finally win the championship. So I was thinking about that, Denny, because all week he was talking about being asked about it and that. And what's it like dealing with that question yourself? And did you watch him? When does it make you kind of happy to see him not have to answer that question? I don't know. It's difficult to win big events.

And in that championship is essentially it's a big event, right? That, you know, you got to get invited to. You get invited through performance. It's very similar to the Final Four, you know, that we have in Phoenix. But then there's all kind of variables. The difference in golf is that you're in control of your destiny. and in racing, a lot of things are out of your control. And so all you can do is feel like you did the best job that you could on that day

to get the best result. And other than like 2010 in my battle with Jimmy there, all the rest of the times that I've had a chance to win a championship, there's not anything I could have done different. You know, the cars just didn't align on that particular day. But certainly, you got to think for Rory, it's like there's a huge simple sense of accomplishment there because, you know, he controlled his destiny. He closed it out.

It was looking like he wasn't going to close it out. Oh, my gosh. But, man, it's got to be a huge weight because it's all people identify him with. 14 years. Right? Are you going to win it? Right. That's all they were identifying him with.

Not all of his other accomplishments. It's you're one short of this. Forget the, I don't know how many PGA tour wins he has. You know, it's a lot. Majors, he's got a lot. But it's, they weren't identifying him by his accomplishments. They were identifying him by his failures. And so for him, it's got to.

be just a great feeling to get that weight off of him. And now, I mean, who knows? I think he'll be one of the favorites to win the Masters for the next, I don't know, five, ten years. I mean, the U.S. opens at Quail. He's won their four times. He, right. Who knows? Right. I mean, he could go on a massive run just simply because, you know, that the pressure is off. And he even said that, you know, he was nervous, which is understandable to be nervous. It's okay to be nervous. you know nerves get to you in those big situations but now that he's got a free role because he's accomplished it all already now he can just tack on more and more and more wins yeah good for rory yep um reminder if you want your action detrimental merch head to shop dirty moat media

dot com and subscribe on youtube and wherever you're your podcast see you guys two weeks