Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - This One's On Me

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

Denny Hamlin and his cohost Jared Allen return from the NASCAR Cup Series race weekend at Richmond Raceway to discuss their all-time escape room rankings, who they're taking in the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship, why Hendrick Motorsports (sort of) won their appeal, why his crew chief and he had a strong disagreement, what he would have done differently racing against J.J. Yeley, and how he is prepping for his penalty appeal taking place next week. Plus, he answers questions in #DearDenny about utilizing simulation work and pit road speeding penalties. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. I'm prepared. I've got a case. We'll talk about that case on Monday. But I'm looking forward to it. I really am. I'm looking forward to getting in a room with those guys and having a discussion. Hey guys.

Welcome to Actions Determinal. I'm Denny Hamlin, driver the number 11, Toyota for Joe Goods Racing, and co-owner of 2311 for Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick. My co-host is Jared. Allen, the purple vest guy, if you've been listening to this show for the past couple weeks, and Denny's social media guy who more or less follows Danny around every weekend between February and November. Yeah.

Jared, I have a beef with you. You cheated on me. Oh. You cheated on us. Just admit you cheated on us. Well, I mean, but was also a pro-sport client. I get it, but we never got an invitation. Jared, many weekends.

we like to go to escape rooms and Jared scouts them out and it's that are we not part of your team we even have a group text the NASCAR road band

Bubba texted Nico and I in a group text in the afternoon and said hey we got escape room lined up you guys want to go

and just like yeah sure we'll be your we'll be your plus two so it was yeah it was Bubba, Amanda Blaney, and his girlfriend. Me and Nico, Nico is Bubba's purple vest guy, and then Bubba's friend Mike, who I don't know his last name, but not Michael Jordan. Yeah, so, you know, usually it's kind of me, you know, Austin, Ty, Larson, Nico, Jared,

who go to these escape rooms. You said nothing matches the Vegas. Nothing will ever beat the Vegas room. I didn't. No, I didn't. You cheated on us. I forget why. You had that tournament, that blackjack tournament.

Oh, that's right. Dude, I won so much money during that. Like, I'm glad it was worth it to miss it. But that escape room was good. That was a saw themed escape room. And I don't think there's any escape room out there that's going to match. at least the the coolness of an escape room, right?

Because they have like saw characters in the escape room and they have live actors. It was really good. So how does it compare to the one that was in California? If I'm power ranking our escape room experiences so far. The Saw one is first. The California one is second. Okay.

And this one we did this past weekend is third. But I really think it just, you know, the Saw one was designed to be like this, you know, magnificent escape room, right? The California one was its own building in a sense, and then this one we did last weekend was in a mall. So like the walls are just dividers. Okay, gotcha.

Well, tonight, big national championship game for the men's basketball. We have San Diego State, which is Joe's album order. Is that? Oh, really? Yeah, it is. Yeah, I think that was actually his first coaching job. I did not know that

yeah interesting versus Yukon Rod's team Rod from Rod Moskowitz from Pro Support Management my agent he is a nuts Yukon fan

so boy Yukon been blowing everyone out so far I'm gonna go with San Diego State just because like I don't know what the spread is but probably eight and a half

nine something like that I just think that it typically you get a little tighter during those championship games. I would know. Yeah, Rod, the Yukon fan also is like San Diego State will probably beat us.

I don't know anything about San Diego State or Yukon, but he said they just have way more length than Yukon, way more height. Really? Okay. Yeah, it's, I think, I thought Yukon had the, they have, you know, a couple guys that are beast down low and their shooting has been absolutely crazy.

It's, you did. didn't really hear a whole lot about Yukon during the season, but they got eight losses, and I was wondering, like, who beat them eight times? It's interesting. They, they've got a really great team fun to watch. They kind of remind me of the Golden State Warriors, to be honest, be the only a little bit more inside game when Golden State was in their heyday a few years ago. Have you watched much of the tournament this year? Like, has it been a good tournament? I've, oh my gosh. Yes, there was a buzzer-beater in the final four for San Diego State and FAU.

It's funny because on my group text for my buddies, they were, so Greg Fernelli, he had to go get his daughter or something. He was like, there's a minute left. I'm putting it on pause. Don't tell me who won in the group text. And right away, like 30 seconds later. Now the game, I guess, had lost power.

I had to step out as well. And I just texted the group. No need to watch it. San Diego State just hit a buzzer beater to win. that was five minutes before the end of the game. And it happened. So it was funny that it worked out their way. It's been pretty good.

I haven't watched. I mean, for the last few years, I've not filled out a bracket. I've just been too busy. I don't have a fantasy football team. I know I'm totally breaking a brocode when it comes to this stuff. But it is what it is. I'm too busy for it, but I love watching it for sure. That's good.

Yeah. I'm in the same way. Once we get into race season, I feel like I just don't pay much attention to any other sports besides the big events. Yeah. Well, speaking of big events, the last thing we got to talk about for racing is the Masters this week. Love the Masters. Man, it's going to be exciting the build up over the like, how do the Live players play, right? I mean, this kind of the argument in Live is basically a new golf series that broke away that,

we're paying a bunch of guys a lot of money to build this league up to challenge the PGA in that series. But they have been allowed now to compete in the major events for the PGA. So some of the best players in the world, Cam Smith, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Kebzka and his heyday, he's probably dropped off a little, although I thought he won this weekend. I'm pretty sure he won. Man, they're going to be contenders to win. and if a live player wins the Masters, all hell will break loose on that. I mean, the odds are a live player will win, right?

No, there's more PGA players than live players in the Masters. Okay. So PGA's got a strong advantage on that. But they're going to compete. They're definitely going to compete. So I can't wait to watch the Masters. It's something that we used to be able to do as a, it used to be an off week for us to,

be able to watch, but we're going to go dirt racing and then, you know, get pounded with dirt in our face during Easter. So that's fantastic. We'll get to that later. Yeah. But, no, you know, it was a big weekend. I'd tell you who it was a big weekend for Hendrick Motorsports. That's for sure.

They won the race with Kyle Larson. They won their appeal. Certainly, it was a very unprecedented appeal where you had the committee. agree that they broke the rules, but yet took away the points penalty, which that's really the only thing that matters. So surely NASCAR is livid about this. I think they showed their lividness by sending both the Bowman and Byron's cars to the R&D center after the race, and I would suspect that will go on for a little while because they

do not, you know, they obviously, NASCAR, you know, I said this in my media Friday that NASCAR was very clear to us as the teams that do not screw around with this car. You've asked us to do these single source parts, so don't mess with them. And if you do, the fine, and the points will be so heavy that it's going to deter you from doing it. I wonder if the panel, were privyed to that information though because you know that whole you know those words that that steve o'donnell spoke to us as the teams when they all set us down and said here's the new points penalties uh for these these next gen cars you know he was very adamant and says i'm telling you this is it's like this and it's so harsh because you know you shouldn't be messing with them and

it messes up our whole business model as teams and for you know frankly it made me mad as a the owner of 2311 because like I don't want to have to go hire three design engineers to figure out how to screw with factory parts right it made you mad that you know they they got off on the on the point oh the hendrick yeah because you know it was supposed to be a big penalty because they broke a big rule right yeah i mean it's the biggest single biggest rule on um the only other thing you could do really is have counterfeit parts uh that's maybe even bigger but But I saw Jordan Bianchi's article where all these, you know, he was so smart. Given everyone say, hey, it'll be totally anonymous.

Tell me what you think about this. And he asked nine crew chiefs, three competition directors. And, I mean, you can read a couple of their, just give me a couple of their quotes. The first one, and I like this one the most, how can you be half pregnant, said a crew chief. If Hendrigg truly did something, then why did they get their points back? And if they didn't do anything, then why fine and suspend them? Makes no sense. I don't understand it.

And then another crew chief, I'm disappointed. The one thing NASCAR has made clear is we're not supposed to mess with vendor parts, period. They've been as clear as day. If you do that, you're going to get hammered. So then explain to me how they get their points back. The one thing that really, really, really matters in the big picture, I don't get it all. Yeah. I mean.

And then another one. It's stupid itself. the sentiment i can tell you i live i i know the team part of it the owners part of it the teams are mad about this there's no question nascar's mad about it and the teams are mad about there's only one team that's happy about the result that's for sure um because it does this breaks what this whole car's business model was um built around um but again you know if the panelists did not understand if they use past precedent for penalties of money and points, then you can't use those precedents because this is a new rule, a new age with the cars. So I'm wondering, you know, if that was an

argument or not by Hendrick. But, but man, yeah, to say that, yes, we agree that they broke the rules, but we're going to give them this back, it's just a weird spot. And you can bet your ass that NASCAR is going to revamp that rulebook ASAP to say, you know, probably here it is. It's all points, no money. And, you know, to try to make it crystal clear that you can't go back on on that. So, you know, my question with this is, is that now that this is over, why can't we be transparent? These are supposed to be factory off-the-shelf parts that are untouched. So, you know, like when we got a DQ last year of Pocono

and we took the nose out, we put it behind our hauler for everyone to see TV to come do a story about it, why can't we be transparent? What is there to hide? There's no information or proprietary information that we should hide from the media or public, right? Like, Hendrick, if you're innocent, okay, show us.

Yeah. how this was right. And NASCAR, if it was wrong, show us how it was wrong. Like this would be a, we're missing facts and it's causing so much speculation in the media world and in the public that, you know, you really need to be transparent to show these people what, what it all is going on. And certainly if you want to deter it from happening, and I said it last week, then call these people out. show the people what what rule was broken we used to have parts all around the back of the hall or NASCAR hauler that they would confiscate that were they they deemed illegal before tech I mean there would be it'd be like a yard sale back there back in the days when we used to

build everything our own but yeah these are factory parts that you should be able to buy off the shelf so why not just set it out there and show us show us what it is because the speculation for for two and a half weeks or whatever it is was just crazy um but i guess it's still possible that after this colleague appeal we could get that um no chance no no way do you think there's even like if hendrick if you know the penalty and everything was overturned for hendrick why are like i feel like naskar should just cancel this colleague appeal because certainly they can't the ruling can't be any different now right if they're if the they've broken the same rule, right, or are accused of breaking the same rule. We can't have on Wednesday or

Thursday whenever this comes out that, oh, Colleague's penalty stands, but Hendricks' penalty was changed. Jared, you're being way too rational. Like, I mean, I'm assuming the panelists will be different. Right. That's what I'm saying. This is going to be, it's a whole new case. Right? Right. Absolutely. Unless colleague just goes and gets Hendricks people. say hey here's now now the now the the party part would be right is that they uphold colleagues right and you know from what i understand they did absolutely nothing uh they just received this that maybe was accidentally sent to them um but yeah i don't know i mean it's a no win situation for anyone this colleague appeal for sure because i think there is they are the most

innocent party of anyone but I don't know maybe some panelists will see it differently you just don't know but I you know I see people really upset with the process you have to have this though right I mean the way NASCAR set this up where they live the penalties and the fines and then they have an independent panel judge on that I think that's the right thing to do I really do I think you have to have an independent party and certainly over the last 18 months we've seen that the the panel has ruled against NASCAR more than they've agreed with NASCAR with an exception one exception there's been one penalty that has been increased in the last 18 months that was Denny Hamlin's penalty from a loose wheel

somehow a loose wheel cut and dry was increased for my 11 car last year people forget about that so I don't know. Before, I'm curious. So first question, do you have, with the parts coming from different manufacturers, do you have a surplus of these parts at your race shop? A surplus, no. Nothing is surplus. Okay. So then hypothetically, of course, you receive a part that doesn't fit on your car and you don't have a surplus of parts.

How do you go about that? Jared, this was not a fit issue. Let's just call it. This was not a fit issue. I understand that it was probably the defense, but it was not a fit issue, right? But to answer your question fairly, you probably go to NASCAR and say,

I think you already answered my question. Yeah, you probably go to NASCAR and say, hey, this isn't fitting properly. We need to make adjustments. And what they will probably do is say, okay, Make adjustments and then NASCAR will say send us pictures or we'll send somebody by the shop to approve whether this is the correct way and we approve that you're not changing the fit to be a performance advantage. I think that's typically how it would work because I know early on when we had fit issues when the next gen car just started, they would request the teams if you have to cut something, hammer something to fit like send us pictures.

So we can give you the thumbs up before you put a wrap on it. And now given the track record of the appeals panel over the last 12 months, 18 months, is it worth it for teams to find these loopholes and then break the rules in a sense, knowing that they have a good case to go to court that they could win? like is the potential gain outweigh the potential penalty? Yes, if NASCAR doesn't beat you to the punch. I think they are going to change the rules sooner than later, as they should. But not until next year, right?

I don't know. I mean, they update rules weekly, to be honest with you. I mean, I don't know about these big ones, but they do change rules in the rulebook weekly to, you know, when something comes up unforeseen that they didn't see coming. like they'll put rules in to kind of make sure that, you know, they keep this thing organized. So I think yes is the short answer to your question that, yes, this opens it up to the teams to have a case to do it. But would you really take that chance that maybe your three panelists don't have the same

opinion? And then do you want to spend 100 grand per car, you know, risking the cheating? I don't think so. I think that NASCAR, trust me, they are not happy about this at all. There's nobody happy about this for sure other than Hendricks. So they had a great week. Congratulations to them. They made a case.

They won the case. So it all worked out. But, you know, we, you know, well, they had a great weekend, obviously, with, with William Byron and Kyle Larson. We didn't have such a great week. You know, when we were starting this podcast, I was, you know, kind of waking myself up and slap myself in the face.

It's like, oh, this is just one of those weeks where, like, I don't want to do this today. Dale Jr. told you what? He's like, hey, man, you're just going to have weeks where you don't want to do it. And I'm like, yep, well, this is my first one. I don't know what episode we're on, but. I don't have a whole lot of motivation. A lot of that stems around my race,

and it stems around having the fastest car in Richmond again and not winning, and not only not winning, but finishing 20th. Just so agitated. I'm agitated. even, you know, I was super agitated after the race, you know, honestly, you know, me and my crew chief had some disagreements and stuff about some things. And, you know, I think that's healthy, by the way. I think that it's good to, every now and again, you know, to challenge each other to do better. And, you know, I actually like it when he challenges me as a driver to be better with my skill set, my technique.

that's what makes me better, right? He opens my eyes to, you know, and I think that really he revamped my career in 2019 with challenging me in different ways to be a better race car driver. And, you know, certainly things didn't pan out for us on the 11 car. We came back from the first pit road penalty. And it was crazy I knew during the race, before the race, I was like, you know, if I have a very good car, which I'll know probably in 10 to 15 laps of the race. All I need to do is chip away.

A couple spots here and there and no mistakes, and we're going to win the race. I just feel that confident in my skill set at that racetrack and the techniques I use. I get a speeding penalty right off the bat, first pit stop that came from. So the pit road has bends to it. So the first, I think, four sections of pit road is curved.

So NASCAR does their pit road speed based on the very inside of that curve. So you actually can run well above pit road speed if you're running up where you're supposed to by the wall. Because it takes you longer to get from segment to segment? Yes. It takes you longer so your speed is higher, right? And they're pretty conservative with, you know, how they, um, They do the pace car speed anyway. So we have it down to a pretty good science of how much extra we can speed in certain sections.

But down at the end of pit road where it curves again, right around pit box, 10 or so, Michael McDowell was my mark on the pit exit to, I can then speed up. Well, Joey Legato, he left his pit stall and he gassed it up real quick, trying to get, you know, beat me off pit road. and I gassed up real quick to get back even with them, and it was before my Michael McDowell mark where I can start to speed again. And so I knew that I was busted before.

But my team made a great call again to go long. I think we pitted seven laps later. And, you know, but we went through the field. We started that run 14th, and I got probably half of those, back on on the restart i i got three or four positions there and then it's just started going through the field and i knew like my car was so freaking strong um but we won the stage um and then you know we we got control the race at that point like at that point it's it's so frustrating because it's

our race to lose because once you put the fastest car out front which i was very certain we had the fastest car. Us in the 19, I thought were heading shoulders over the rest of the field. And neither one of us win. It's so goddamn frustrating. But we just both lost it on pit road in a different kind of manner. Like we had a, you know, I came in first on the Green Fly pickstop, had a 22 second stop, which is like the less than one percentile of pit stop times in our whole series. luckily for me though what would have been a bigger detriment was that that right front tire changer

not go back and re-tighten that right front tire and then I have a flat tire or the wheel comes off then I have suspension or I think it's a two lap penalty now at least he recognized that wheel's not tight and although it took a long time for them

to go back rejack it up and retighten it and it was 22 seconds you know hey I lost 12 seconds that run you know that that stop and I went from leading the race to 11th. But yeah, it's just tough because all you have to do is execute once you get out there. And I thought that it was going to be smooth sailing from there. I never pushed my car one bit.

And we just were fast. My team's just got a great setup for that racetrack and, you know, pair that with, you know, how many laps I've got there, how many, you know, my technique there, like, we were going to be tough to beat. but, you know, before that, you know, obviously you have to address the JJ incident. It's very, very obvious people that I had no intention to wreck JJ Yaley. Why would I wreck J.J. Yaleigh for 30th place? I was dead last in the back of the pack trying to make my way through. A caution didn't help us.

I don't even think we pitted because we didn't have tires anyway, so it's not like I needed a caution. But I got pinched off. So I got to the outside of JJ off of turn four. You could see that a little bit on the in-car camera. And I had somebody, I think the 38 or, I don't know, 21, somebody on the outside of me. And he pinched me up into them. And so I checked up real quick.

And I was like, damn it, JJ. And so what I was trying to do was trying to get right behind him and then go in the corner and show my left front and kind of just get him wedged off the bottom so I can just take the bottom on him because I couldn't complete the pass on the outside. But really, I went back and I couldn't realize because it happened so quick, like, what the f*** happened?

Like, how did I misjudged this that badly? And I looked at the data and I saw that, you know, JJ checked up about 100 feet early and got on the break quite a bit sooner. But it's still my, it's still my responsibility. Let's not, we're not, don't get it twisted. blaming JJ for any of this whatsoever. He's just out there trying to get a good finish for his team and they've been making that 15 car quite a bit better. So I definitely am not one of those guys that tries to hurt one of the lower teams. I do my best to help lower teams all the time.

But I just made a mistake and I tried to drive in there right there on his bumper and then start to cut low, but I never even got to the cut low part because when I drove in there and I was up his ass anyway. As soon as he checked up, I just ran right in the back of him. And I mean, I slammed on the brakes as hard as I could. But it's just one of those deals that I fucked up. You know, it certainly wasn't delivered. I hate it for JJ. We were teammates together, JGR, early in my career. He's a great dude. And I, you know, I like everyone on that Rickwear team. So we were pitted right next to him. And, you know, I knew, JJ was going to be super pissed because when you're in his position, right? You're just,

you're just trying to, you know, make laps, make your program better, get a good finish that day and all of a sudden you just get jacked from behind. He never even had a chance to catch the car because I went into him with such a rate of speed. But, you know, yeah, I looked and I didn't drive in any differently than I had every other lap, but I just, I was too close to him. And when he hit the brakes and I was still in the gas, it was game over for. him. So, apologize to them. I'll, uh, I'll reach out to JJ and figure out and or the team and figure out if I can do anything to help them, uh, recover from this. So that's, that's my bad. I did think it was interesting. Uh, on one of the camera angles on that, that long pit stop that you had, you said JJ

was put in front of you. His team was either, they were either, obviously they're disappointed, right, that their car gets wrecked. Um, and you're leading the race and you're pitting. They were either happy that you guys had a bad pit stop or they were like the away fans behind a basketball team right they got that guy shooting a free throw and they're trying to cause all this commotion to alter the result of of the pit stop well you know what one thing i do got to give props to is j jay because i i saw um quotes from uh his uh crew chief that right after the wreck they uh they said to j jay all right, let's get this car fixed and then go out there and get them. And JJ responded, why don't you all just concentrate on getting the car fixed?

Like, you know, I appreciate that from him. And, you know, again, what motivation do I have to wreck someone running 30th when I'm 31st? It didn't benefit me whatsoever. It just screwed their day up. So again, everyone makes mistakes. I say it every week. and I'm going to be the first to always admit when I feel like I totally had a blunder

and that was a dramatic blunder. It's just a huge miscalculation. Speaking of Truex and how good he was all day, was it a miscalculation on their part to more or less run out of tires at the end of that race, strategy-wise? Well, the way the race played out, so what I noticed is that at Richmond,

NASCAR's pretty scarce with their tire. allotment, which sometimes it makes for pretty good strategy when you have to manage your tires. I think Xfinity Series at times gets very interesting because some people will pit, some will not, because they want to save tires for the end. Maybe there's a shootout, maybe not. But there was some more, there was more cautions at the end of the race, and even at the beginning, I guess, from the JJ rec, that people, some people decide to take tires, some did not. And typically that race goes green, the last stage, which that's the argument for my crew chief, you know, when I kind of challenge him on strategy, he was like, you know, look at the last

X races here, right? They all go green. That was his argument. Yeah, and mine was like, let's make a call to win the race. The call is, you know, I'm running ninth right at the end of the race. He was trying to get me a good or better finish by, you know, giving me a strategy. I could run fifth or six with. And, you know, again, I'm in the heat of the moment and I'm really upset about the day. And I'm like, give me a call to win the race. You know, if you're running me long, run me all the way long. Or if you're going to run me short, run me way short. At the time, I was five seconds behind the leader. So that's about two and a half laps or three laps I needed to pit before the leaders. And I would have been the leader. And then if I got two or three lap older tires,

than the leader, good luck passing me. I'll be honest with you. Like, I just think that I would have had a really good shot, but the caution came out, and either one of those strategies, Josh Berry had that strategy of staying out. Either one of them will work, but, you know, when you think about it,

you've got to think about it from the team standpoint. They can't guess for a unknown caution, right? So they're going to make the solid play to get the solid finish. Me at home, I want to win. I you know 20th 6 doesn't matter to me like the speeding penalty at the end I had I'm running 13th guys like I'm trying to get to 11th so should I where I should have finished is like 11th 12th something like that with you know but I finished 20th because I'm pushing on pit road to try to get back some of these spots that that we lost throughout the day and so you know the second penalty it wasn't meaningless it was me it it cost me probably you know eight nine spots on my finishing position, which they all matter. Like all these points matter, but I'm just, I'm just hot under the collar because, you know, I'm trying to get to a win total. And if you're going to do it, you're going to have to execute perfectly all these races from here to the end of my

career, whenever that is. And I just feel like, damn it, we've had so many races where if we just can control the race on pit road, we will win them. And we just, things haven't worked out. But it's tough because JGRR, I thought, had the dominant cars, the Toyota, I thought were dominant cars, especially in the long run.

And to not have any of them winning, you know, it forces us to kind of look at us and figure out how we can get better for sure. Yeah, I put you off on a tangent there. But the Truex stuff with the tires, you were mentioning. Yeah, so he had to pit, and if you didn't notice, he had to pit at the end and put on scuff tires.

So he was on six lap tires at the end. And everyone around him was on brand new tires. So he must have pitted sometime throughout the day, maybe on the early pit and didn't have tires left. So, yeah, it's a tough thing for Truex. It's right before the race during the driver intro as I asked, Truex says, we're going to get back to our winning ways today? He's like, damn, I hope so, man.

It's been miserable. So, man, I know he's frustrated. He's as frustrated as I am right now for sure, and we're about to go into our JGR meeting and hash it all out here in a couple hours. But, yeah, it's just, you know, we mess up and the Hendrick guys execute. The five car was nothing special by any means,

but he had a full, you know, executed a great day. He had one incident on pit road. I saw with the 99. Probably cost him a second, maybe two. but so many of these races are won by teams just not up. And it's something that certainly I got to clean up on my end. I got plenty to look in the mirror at to get better at. And I want to get back to winning because these finishes are unacceptable,

especially the way we're running. I know a media member asked me this weekend, hey, you got the second best average running position of anyone in the field. You're 11th in points. Can you explain that? First I said, yeah, green white checkers. I've lost so many freaking spots into green white chickers,

but this race was just an absolute disaster from an execution standpoint, especially on my end. Yeah, Truex's last win was actually at Richmond, 50 races ago, September 11th, 2021. One thing Kyle said after winning the race, and it's funny because I've watched him do this before a few sprint car races,

traveling with him, is he went back and was watching, watching old videos of himself in 2021 to see what he was doing, how he was talking, what his mindset was, and mention that with this next-gen car, it's difficult to keep your confidence up or get your confidence up in the first place. Do you feel that way? Sometimes, sometimes, sure. I mean, you always have self-doubt, but, I mean, I don't think anyone would ever think,

oh, Kyle Larson would never self-doubt himself, right? He knows he can go to a world outlaws race or a high-limit race and kick everyone's ass any day of the week. and you're always going to put him at one of the top of the list as far as naturally talented race car drivers. But sometimes when you're in a slump, you know, on a finishing position, I don't think Kyle's been in a slump necessarily on how he's been running. I just think he's been in a slump finishing.

Same as us, right? It just takes one win. I thought this was going to be the one for us. We're like, all right, let's kickstart our season off for real now. Like we're about to go into, you know, the Martinsville's, the tracks that we're super good at. Richmond's, it's time to start kicking ass. This is where we start kicking in the gear every year. And that's what makes me frustrated about it.

But for Kyle, huge momentum boosts now for him. Josh Barry, great to see him get a good run with great strategy. Michael McDowell got a great finish as well using the same strategy, just going long. And honestly, it's easy to play that strategy when you're not running well. And a lot of times you see teams that you can kind of rank them, and there are official rankings of crew chiefs that improve their driver's position or drivers that finish way better than they're running.

A lot of them, they have nothing to lose. They know they're not going to win. They're not even going to run top 10 or 15 unless they throw a Hail Mary. And sometimes the Hail Mary gets caught. And at the end, when the caution came, they caught their receivers. Josh Berry and Michael McDowell did. Bowman. Another solid run. He's not running as good as his teammates, but he is just plucking along

and leading the points by just being there every week. Consistency. Consistency, and he's executing not making a mistake. So Bowmish finished eighth, it says, scoring his six top ten finish in seven races. Yeah, he's just kind of top tening the field to death. Now, you won't be able to get away with that in the playoffs for certain, but, you know, If you win a regular season championship, that's 15 bonus points. That'll give you a little cushion.

So they're really doing a great job for sure. Austin syndrome, you know, kind of getting... Before you move down to the loser sheet, another person who's not on this winner's list, but if you want to give them their flowers, Ty also had his third straight top 10 this weekend. Yep. After three episodes ago, I think you had talked about,

hey, just focus on being your best, right? the the the um like i say you know do as i say do as i say not as i do for sure yeah tie uh i don't know i think i've passed him about 20 times in the last two weeks but he continues to beat me in results every week so maybe i need to kind of look at that and figure out what i need to do but he was solid um wasn't great but he was solid um and i think you know given his inexperience he's just going to take this and continue to get better and better and now we're starting to see him real off three straight tens in a row. That's really good for that team and his confidence because I think Ty is one of those confidence drivers that he can get. He's very similar to Bubba. People

don't want to realize he's very similar to Baba and his emotions where he can get super high and get super low. That's kind of what I was alluding to with what you said to him a few weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. He had a tough, you know, he had a tough day after practice at Phoenix. But he's he's rebounding. He's rebounding really, really well, so I'm happy for him. Good kid. All right. Go back to your losers. Yeah, I mean, y'all put on a sheet here, just winners and losers. You know, I had listed the Larson, Barry, McDowell Bowman. Losers besides myself, which is the obvious one. Austin Cindrick, man, just for whatever reason, he's not running that well. finished 28th. I know that it looked like he was struggling.

You know, it's not on the list, but the first thing it came to my mind was Tyler Reddick. You know, he, after a win last week, you know, I think we just got to figure out with Tyler how to keep him under the tire. He gets the most out of his race car, but sometimes it really, on tracks like these, it can really be a detriment to your long run speed.

and he's had a really tough track record at this at Richmond anyway but yeah we got to work with that 45 team the 23 team of course Michael's in town sitting on the box and you know there's no extra pressure that that Jordan's sitting on your pit box but we we we we we we fumbled the ball there on pit road and especially during a green flag pit stop you can not make a mistake because especially a penalty mistake because you'll go laps down. And so they rebounded, but they were going to run in the top 10. Again, Bubba needed that for his confidence, and then instead he finishes bad and probably is as piss off as I am right now. Blaney says he had a pair of pit road miscues, damage Blaney's chances Sunday. He finished 26th.

Another track where Blaney usually is super fast at the first half and then not so great at the second half. Again, I kind of put him in that same category with Tyler Redick that they can get so much speed out of their cars that it's sometimes a detriment at these types of racetracks, like that style. So you really got to be able to adapt. And Almondinger was not good.

Chandler Smith, he was back there with, when I went to the back of the pack, they were always one of the first couple cars that I passed. And so I was like, man, a call it guys were struggling all day for sure. But that does remind me because we didn't go over the truck in Xfinity race. Shout out to Chandler Smith for getting his very first Xfinity win. He is doing phenomenal, phenomenal in the Xfinity series. Just in my mind, way out doing the expectations.

I thought he was very, very good in Kyle's trucks last year. But you always wonder, like, is that the truck? Is it, you know, because Kyle's trucks historically have just been really, really good, fast compared to the field. But now he's going there. And Colleg's got, I actually consider a very close race between JGR, Colleg. You know, JGR's maybe better overall at all types of tracks. But I don't, yeah, maybe I could argue that because Allmendinger smoked, everywhere was way faster than the field at, Dakota but shout out to

Chandler Smith for getting his very first exfinity win that kid is very very good he's going to be in the Cup series full time and a few years you can book you can bookmark that for sure because he's got the talent to do it he's a great driver and

awesome to see and the next one was the truck race at Texas great to see Carson Jose far get his very first win super exciting I was very pointed for Nicholas Sanchez. Sanchez, again, is one of those drivers where you're thinking,

well, he's winning in ARCA, but what does that mean, right? I mean, Arka is just, you know, struggles at times. There's only just a couple really good cars, but he was winning in them. And now it comes to a truck series, and that dude is lighten fast. Now, he is in, like I talked about the KBM truck, the switch from Toyota to Chevy, but it appears that they kept their speed over the year at KBM by switching manufacturers. You know, their truck. They're trucks do look very, very strong, very fast. But Nick Sanchez did a absolutely great job all day long. He led the entire race.

But you could just tell at the end of it, he was getting a little bit tight. Like he wasn't entering the corner quite as hard as I saw him enter when he was looser in the middle of the race, beginning of the race. And it kept allowing Zane Smith to inch on him, inch on him, inch on him, inch on him. and you know it just you could tell how that race is unfolding is like Zane's eventually going to get position on him if he doesn't just race looser right you know drive his truck further on the edge but he's trying not to make a mistake

the last thing you want to do is a leader is like you know drive in too deep right and give the wind to second place because you've missed your line so you do that's why you see in these races all series the leader if second is within shouting distance, they do tighten up a little bit because you don't want to just give the, you want to make the second place earn it. So you just back off a little bit to stay under the tire. And you saw Sanchez do it just a little too much that allowed Zane to, and Zane's such a great driver himself. Speaking of way, I'm sitting here talking about this. There's so many great young drivers coming out. Like, I thought this was like a problem a few years ago, but I think,

I think we've got some awesome talent that is waiting in the wings to, move up. Now to find seats for him. That's the hard part. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But I mean, hey, there's probably a bunch of them, you know, going to be available at Stuart Haas, you know, with Harvick leaving.

We don't know Eric's future. We don't know a lot of guys future. So I think that there will be rides available. It's just a matter will the teams take these guys, you know, the inexperienced, be patient with them to make it. but I do, you know, I just want to give the other, you know, the truck series and the Xenity series, their due time on this show as well because we had two first time winners in their respective series. And so congratulations to them.

All the future is bright for them. And we saw some great racing. Dear Danning, we've got some questions that we want to ask. Dare Danning. We need answers and we need them fast. We tried to ask junior, but his answer. We're lame And with DBC

It was more of the same Now we're caught on you Because you're our own hope This ain't the rage tracks So maybe you won't choke Moving on to Dear Denny Last week you mentioned being in the Sim Quite a bit

How much time do you spend in the Sim each week And what are you looking to learn When you're in the Sim? I think this question is good for this week Because we're headed into Bristol Dirt And how much can you learn In a Sim on a dirt track? Yeah. I don't know. I say almost nothing, but the team will value it. I went to our

2311 victory lunch last week. Monster hosted a victory lunch for us. And so I saw this, you know, we have a little area where we have the static simulator. And of course, the 2311 engineers were like, hey, since you're here, would you mind running a few laps? Bristol dirt and I'm like oh my gosh god I'm like no I'm not running it and finally they gave me the old puppy dog eyes and I'm like okay fine I'll run a few laps and so I I ran in it and was like okay I got a good rhythm here I don't know how much this really applies but they're like hey it was useful for us so so thanks but um I won't run the sim this week uh I typically only run the sim this week uh I typically only run the simulators on road courses um clearly I need to run more simulator time

road courses. But I think just, I'm not saying it's not valuable, but, you know, the experience I have on some of these racetracks, I feel like, you know, Richmond, right? What am I? I spent a ton of time actually post-Richman last year, making sure we had the tire right on our simulator. And, you know, it, because if you do that, then all of a sudden, the work that the team puts in through with their simulation driver or with the engineers, they can get your setup pretty

dialed in before you even hit the racetrack and it was apparent that you know all the jgr cars were very strong um so that that's kind of what i do is if they need more information or they feel like a tire is not matching a track well i'll spend some time in the simulator um but i mostly do it on road courses but you have some guys uh you know i know tyler retic runs the simulator bubble runs simulator weekly um you know i i i just i don't as much because i i i feel like at times my time could be used more valuable in a different area sometimes it could be just studying data I feel like I gain as much looking at data as I do actually running so but yeah it's I would say it's different for every driver so every team has a simulation driver obviously no no no

only the really only the top tier teams to be honest with you probably have a full-time simulator driver. Okay. So those guys are in the sim running to help the teams figure out a baseline setup, right? When Bubba, correct me if I'm wrong at any point in this, when Bubba or Tyler are running, they're running to get a better feel for the track? Yeah. And that set up. Yeah. So they're getting reps to be able to, when we only have 20 minutes of practice, the team wants the driver ready to go. Yep. Like you know what line was fast in the simulator. Do it in real life. I know that Tyler Reddick gave a lot of credit to Toyota Simulator for helping him getting getting fast and then you know our employment of our Coke series driver Keegan Leahy at 2311

he you know again I watched it firsthand but you know he he made Tyler faster there's no question about it so I think that you know simulator is is in CFD all the computers is kind of where our series is headed, being that there's less and less track time. Do you, Denny, have any new routines or try new methods now that you may not have when you were younger to try and maximize recovery or make an effort to elongate your career? Perhaps the DH11 method.

The DH11? The TB12 method. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're not the same, Jared. Stop trying to compare, please. Yes, I do. Listen, I'm so active, and I was actually talking to my crew chief about this that I believe that like when I got out of the car at Cota and I was want like I was money. Like I don't run cool shirts unless it's super hot outside.

I never. The only, the last time I feel like I fell out of the seat, but I didn't fall out of the seat because we ran well and we finished well was at Road America. I kind of did a semi faint after that event. I didn't have those before I ran cool shirts and it was boiling hot during that race. I believe what I do outside of racing helped my stamina in the race car. I got out of the car at Cota and everybody in front of me was laying down on the ground up against the door of their car. And you could see they were freaking gassed. And I went to Victory Lane.

I saw Tyler Redick and I was like, he's like, do you have a protein shake or something? like I don't feel well and he was just he's gassed right and and I joked around last week and on this podcast and says well maybe I'm just not driving hard enough but that's that's clearly not it people it's I think it's the the cardio I have during basketball really keeps me good as far as you know my stamina in the race car um as an example Jackson Gibbs who is a pick crew member who is a phenomenal athlete. He's a tire changer for Christopher Bell. We had him come play basketball.

He was a fill-in sub in my basketball league. And the dude pulled himself out of the game multiple times because he's like, I'm dead. I've got nothing. I'm weak in the knees. I don't feel well. And he's low 20s playing in a 40 to 50 old man league. And like we're all playing full minutes. And like finally with three minutes to go,

he's like I can't go any further like I'm out he's sweating he was done and it's like I'm wondering how much that plays a factor in my stamina in these races where I don't get tired because I just you know one my heart rate is typically lower than the field but two um I think that what I do outside the the race car helps my stamina in the race car and then afterwards like I try to you know I I bought a cold plunge put it out on the on the back porch here and I try to get in it, you know, post race, I'll come home and get in it. You don't want to get in it 15, 20 minutes after you're super hot, but I am not one of those Joe Rogan guys that can get in a cold plunge at 40 degrees in the morning. Like, those are the real heroes. Like, there's

no way. My body has to be semi-hot for me to get in there and withstand it. But I'll get in the cold plunge for probably six to eight minutes at 40 to 45 degrees and and it really helps helps me recover i mean i've got a bum shoulder i've got to get this thing fixed sooner than later i can't sleep on it can't lay on it wakes me up in the middle of night um it's the same surgery i had on my left shoulder that i need to get done it's a hereditary problem where my bone has grown into my rotator cuff uh so yeah when you get older you better be on it with your your physical regimen routine because it is tough now that you you you mention it, I've subbed for just about every basketball team in that hoop group league for all

the same reason. I have no basketball skill. I can't score. They just want a 27-year-old guy. We need a body. Yeah, to run around and not get tired. I've never sub for your team. For good reason. You stink. Or I'm trying to give you credit. You don't need a sub. Yeah. Yeah, we have six people in our basketball league. So we rotate people in and out. But typically, if I have a man out on my basketball team, we'll just play five. I expect all my guys to be able to run the entirety of the game, which is 44 minutes. Now, last one here, it's funny that this past weekend, your race was marred by pit road penalties. A lot of people mentioned when we put out your actions detrimental bracket last week. If you haven't seen that, go check out the Dirty Moe YouTube channel.

It's on my page as well. It's on your page as well. At Denny Hamlin. At Denny Hamlin, yes. Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. I'm on TikTok. You are. Hmm. Okay. They asked why was pit road penalties not seated one through eight?

And now that you mentioned the differences in the pit roads in Richmond, right? How you can run around the top, gain more speed. Is there a track where you have accumulated the most pit road penalties? For a reason like that, that you can push it here or there. I'm going to have to say Richmond's probably one of the top of the list for sure. Because of that? No. I don't know why.

I mean, I certainly have cost myself victories at Richmond by speeding on pit road. Okay. People in the media have to understand as well. Not all pit road penalties are created equal. That's what I'm getting at. Many pit road penalties that I have throughout a year. And by the way,

I've not been at the top of the list for the last few years. So that stereotype is wrong. You know, maybe total team penalties. I think last year we had 20 something, right? But, you know, speeding was just a very small bit of it. A lot of times I will speed after, say, I have damage and we're fixing something on pit road.

I'll speed during there just to find limits of lights and stuff. Truthfully, there's not much to be gained nowadays from speeding on pit road. And never, you know, I can't remember the last time I sped on pit road by just being aggressive. I'm trying to push my lights. It's never usually that instance. It's always when, A, I'm trying to learn something. There's a curve in the pit road, and so I'm trying to find where my limit is. Or B, I'm accelerating.

Most of my speaking penalties have been accelerating out of the pit box. And when I shift the second gear, oh, I'm too far past my lights. Like, I overrebs first gear too far. So when I shifted, I've been over that way. So, but again, pit road penalties, especially speeding under green, that is a game over. You're screwed. I said many times, too, you cannot come from the back to the front now if you make a mistake. My second penalty was, I was done anyway.

It was, you know, 15 laps to go and I'm running 13th or something like that. So, again, I'm trying to get to 11th and made a mistake and ended up finishing 20. 20th, but we recovered from the first one. And we were fast, but it's just, you know, sometimes, sometimes risk reward, it's not worth it. I know throughout my career, I've made countless speeding penalties that have cost me races. And, you know, Chris Gabehart, my crew chief has really helped on the risk reward. And I think over the last few years, I've certainly done a better job at it.

So the stereotype is not accurate. That's what you're here to say. Just look at real world stats. Now, there's some that are super exceptional. Kevin Harvick never has a speeding penalty. He's really good at it. Joey Lagano, I think, has very few speeding penalties. I could be wrong, but you rarely see him go to the back.

They're just, they're really good at it. They've got a great craft. We're headed to Bristol Dirt this weekend. Beginning to the show, you didn't sound too excited about that. No, listen, I am. I'm not excited about us racing on Easter. I think that that's... So it's an Easter thing, not a dirt thing.

Yeah, I think it's wrong. But, you know, we have to realize the reason that we're doing it on Sunday night is because the ratings will be better than Saturday night. What's most logical is we race Saturday night and get these team guys, let them go home to their families on Easter. But, you know, we're an important TV negotiating window. So we're going to do whatever it takes to be in the prime TV spot. And I think it probably might be on Big Fox as well.

When it all shakes down at the end of the year, does that bump you get from racing on Sunday versus Saturday really matter? I guess every viewer matters. Yeah, I'm assuming it probably all matters, right? I mean, you probably take, you know, when NASCAR presents to TV that are an interest to bidder, they're going to take the whole lump sum, right? And they're going to average it all out. So if you can get 500,000 more or a million more,

because you race on Sunday night, even though it's Easter, over Saturday night, it bumps their average up slightly, and numbers equal numbers. And the more numbers you have, the more money you're probably going to get. So I know that's an important part of our schedule. It is just very, very tough for the teams because we've gone from two off weekends a year to one. and yeah it's it's really tough on these teams i wish we could come up with some some sort of

alternative to to uh racing on easter this is the third year now of the dirt race is that right it is yep uh had a great shot to win the first one uh ran third i was second to joey lagano on a green white checkered uh that race raced like an asphalt race like the track got so rubbered up that it was really like an asphalt race um i enjoy it I really do. Last year was kind of a disaster. We had overheating problems. I think I eventually blew up because we had some issues with our screening of our cooling.

But I do. I look forward to it. I think last year's race was super exciting with Chase Briscoe and Tyler Redick. Kyle Busch, luckily got that win. Or else he would have been out of the playoffs last year. But man, it's... That track, once it gets slicked off and they kind of just let it go and they're done watering it, that track slicks off where it is multiple grooves and it's super fun to watch.

And it certainly is different. Now, would I like to see it at a normal, you know, purpose built dirt race? Yeah. You know, most notably because Bristol is just, that's a great racetrack, right? and to cover that track up with dirt, I think it worked the first year. I know that NASCAR really boast on. We had the most engagement,

the most excitement around the Bristol dirt race, the first year we did it. But now we're in year three, right? And like eventually everything gets kind of, okay, well, we've seen that before. So, you know, I don't know. We'll see if they, we see if they do it in 20, 24, but 50-50, maybe. Any insight into who's going to be?

good this weekend? Nope. No idea. I would listen to the boys at Dirty Mo Doe, but I feel like I'm as educated as they are on it, but it's going to be super hard to pick. The winner or the guys, I mean, Reddick, I don't know that has a ton of dirt experience, but he's been up front at most of these dirt races. Chase Brisco, obviously, we'll be. We'll be. We'll be. We'll be. We'll be a contender. You would think Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, but, you know, they really haven't been part of the story at the end of these races that much. A lot of it's because once these tracks get slickened off, it races a lot like an asphalt track. So I did listen to Dirty Modo last week, and man, they were all in on Denny Hamlin last week in Richmond, and I think the professor

might have said that I was going to win. Well, he was right until he was wrong. So, Sorry for all the betters out there that, you know, I let down. Trust me, I cost myself more than probably you lost on a ticket on me. That's for sure. Well, I guess first thing is first this weekend, his fingers crossed for the weather because I keep looking at that. I know. There's rain in the forecast.

We were giving you shton the bus about it. You're like, hey, you see it's supposed to rain next Sunday. I'm like, Jared, it's more than seven days out. Like, even the meteorologist would tell you, like, three to four days out, you can pretty much book it whatever they say is going to happen is going to happen but seven days no i agree come on but if i look at the forecast and it shows rain like if it shows a rain cloud on the forecast Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday those aren't just going to change to sun right they may not rain all those days but it's not going to complete flip-flop you're right and i look to get rain at something

and i looked at the window and easter weekend here in charlotte i was so looking forward to it it's supposed to be cold and rainy damn it supposed to be nice all week except for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. So now we usually kind of have somewhat of the same weather as Bristol only. We're a little bit warmer. So, hey, this week, it's a big week for me, appeal week. We'll talk about it. My appeal is on Thursday. So will we know Thursday? Yeah, we'll know Thursday, you know, probably around the same time. I think Hendricks got released at 5 o'clock on their appeal day. Now, I don't even know actually the time that my appeal is.

Hopefully it's early because I got a father-daughter dance that I cannot miss. I probably need to coordinate that to make sure it doesn't run in. It shouldn't run into that because that's not until 6 o'clock. But yeah, I'm prepared. I've got a case. We'll talk about that case. Monday but I'm looking forward to it I really am I you know I I'm looking forward to getting in a room with those guys and having a discussion for sure there you go

tune in on Monday that's the best cliffhanger you can leave on this episode yeah listen you know me I'm not gonna I won't have many filters for sure but you know probably in this instance I probably have should have a little more but again I'm gonna shoot you straight I'm gonna be honest this week's on DH I up. Rec JJ on accident. My fault, JJ. You'll hear for me. Like, follow, subscribe at Dirty Motia, across all socials, at Denny Hamlin across our socials. And I'm Jared D. Allen. We'll see you next week. See you guys. A new episode of Next Level with Andrew Curlin is out now. Be sure to hit follow whenever you listen to podcast and never miss another next level conversation.

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