Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Victory Slips Away at Miami: Inside Reddick's Unbelievable PASS

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Denny Hamlin and his co-host Jared Allen are back after a disappointing ending to the race at Homestead-Miami on Sunday.Before getting into the race, Denny talks about fishing with his two daughters. And, Tony Stewart’s comments on the business of racing and owning a team.Denny breaks down what happened on the final laps as he saw Ryan Blaney make the pass for the lead (19:00). Blaney wasn’t able to hold on to the lead as Tyler Reddick made a move that still has people amazed and wondering how he pulled it off (24:45). Plus, was the strategy by the 45 team a gusty call or the only option they had?Was Kyle Larson’s move late in the race a smart move (33:40)?NASCAR is now headed to Martinsville for the final race of the Round of 8 (46:00). With a new tire this weekend, expectations are unknown, but one thing is clear for Denny: He wants to win.Plus, is it ok for adults to wear Halloween costumes?For more head to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimental Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We've always had something keep us from winning there. And we just, me and Chris just want to win at Martinsville. Like, fuck all the final four and all that. That's great. But like, we just want to win there. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey guys, welcome to action's detrimental. Ow!

That hurt Charlie! This is not going to be a rose color glasses show. Pleading with NASCAR, who I guarantee you is listening to this. It was warm and then it was cold. But I kind of liked it. The 11 D.H. We're all in. We're going all the way

that's promising. Hey guys, welcome to Action's detrimental post homestead. I'm Denny Hamond, drive the number 11 Mavis tires and brakes to it this past weekend. And the co-host, I am

Jared Red Vest number 311. All right. We had three winners this weekend. Grant N-Finger in the truck series, he won, I believe back-to-back events, right? He's already in the Final Four and solidified that spot with another win.

So that team's on a roll. Looking forward to Phoenix. You got Austin Hill winning in the Accinity race. That was a really impressive win, given how the track looked. I mean, he was able to make the bottom work it look like as good or better than anybody. and super impressive win coming to the front, driving to the front from his starting position.

And, you know, I was able to kind of, I was fishing at the time. But I was watching the races and kind of watching through the corners and looked like he had a really strong car, especially in the long runs. And then we had Tyler Reddick, get the win in the Cup series and punch his ticket to the final four. Do you catch any fish? Your kids look like they enjoyed this weekend more than anyone else. Yeah, I caught none. zero um i don't know uh it austin helped them out quite a bit uh he he got us all uh equipped up jordan went to the store and got us everything we needed and uh mollie was more interested in

playing with the bait than anything else so i wasn't sure if she caught that fish or what she was no that was the live bait she just you know eventually i mean i was surprised how long she was patient with standing there holding the pole just waiting on the bobber to move. I mean, she did it for a long time, but then finally I look over there

because I moved away a little bit, try to find a different fishing hole and I look over there and she's got the live bait between her legs and she's digging in there with her hands catching the fish. I think yesterday during the race they went and released the live

bait back into the pond. Really? the live bait new life and she would come running back in the bunch she said guess how many we're still alive i don't know three 10 she was so excited that the live bait was well how many were sleeping because i convinced her the ones floating at the top we're sleeping wow what a nice dad well she told taylor because taylor was like oh molly look you killed the fish and she's like they're not dead taylor they're sleeping so um Yeah, so I don't know how many were floating at the top, but we certainly, she liked playing with the live ones. Yeah, so Molly's playing with the bait.

Meanwhile, Taylor is making homemade coconuts, desperately trying to break open these coconuts. It just shows how starkly different my children are. You got one, you know, adamant, you know, wants to stick to the fishing, and the other one's grabbing coconuts and trying to bang it up against a wall and break. Making TikToks about it. Gosh. Oh, my gosh. Where is this world going? So anything before we kind of get into the races that we got?

Tony Stewart sat down with Kevin Harvick last week and weighed in. His perspective on NASCAR answered a bunch of questions about Storahas leaving the sport, answered a couple things about the audience. about the ongoing lawsuit between 2311 and front of racing. What did you make of his comments? Yeah, I mean, first it was good to see him sit down with Kevin. I know that Kevin was quite pointed with some comments. I don't know if he was directly talking about Gene or talking about Tony,

but just kind of how absent they had been at Stuart Haas Racing. And Kevin was quite critical. of those guys. And so to see them sit down was good. And I know they're, you know, they've been close friends off the racetrack for quite some time and, you know, ran each other's race cars and whatnot. But, yeah, I mean, I think that this is something that,

you know, is kind of the head of the snake that, you know, we at 2311 front row are talking about, right, is that things are not, you know, going well and need to be changed. And Tony just really kind of talked about, how difficult it is in the sport nowadays, and certainly it's not like it used to be. Some of those comments to give context were about sponsorship, where, you know, there were so many Fortune 500 companies

that were, you know, they couldn't find a car to get on. There were just so many opportunities. And back then, and we're talking 10, 15 years ago, you know, this is before the other sports started putting patches on their uniforms and helmets and things like that. So if you have some sponsorship media dollars that you want to spend within your company, there's so many different avenues that you can use it for now. And, you know, Facebook ads weren't a thing and Instagram, you know,

so it's just, you know, there's a lot of different things that you can use to target your audience. But NASCAR is a, you know, really strong core fan base that, you know, really supports the sponsors that participate in it. So there's still lots of great value there. But what Tony's saying is that, you know, if you don't have a manufacturer deal, which, you know, they ended up losing based off of performance, and then you start to lose sponsors, then it's just, it's, it's going downhill. You're not going to be able to sustain. And it's why that it's very difficult to, and he brings this up, you know, I don't have a Penske truck rental. I don't have Hendrick Automotive to be able to sponsor my cars. Like, you know, we look at some of the top organizations, right? And you think about the big three, right? And that's Hendrick Penske and Gibbs.

And Gibbs is an anomaly. They're kind of a family business. This is all they do. They work really hard at getting sponsorship and servicing those sponsors. And they've done a really good job for quite a long time. But even that landscape is changing from what it used to be. You've seen many sponsors on my race cars when you used to see one. right? And so it's just very, very difficult in this landscape and why it's so critical

for the race teams to be able to financially make it without tens of millions of dollars in sponsorship. But that is just becoming harder and harder, and especially when we compete against each other for that sponsorship, and we have to compete against the sanctioned and body against that sponsorship. So, you know, NASCAR will be the first one to call up a potential NASCAR sponsor. They did sponsor us. And so that just makes it really, really hard to sustain the sport, which is why we've seen so many owners come and go. How much can you relate to Tony's perspective on this, considering, you know, that team has been around for a few years, right? And they had a handful of sponsors that are now leaving the sport or leaving the team.

And they're not a team that has Hendrick Cars or, you know, Penske, whatever, right? So you're 2311, you're a team who's going after sponsors in the same fashion that Stuart Haas is, except you're new and you're getting new sponsors in the sport where they've been in the sport, and now they're losing. Yeah, it's what makes it so difficult to sustain. And I think that the only people that have the staying power in our sport for forever and ever is Penske and Hendrit. And it's why they probably win the bulk of the races. I mean, Gibbs, you can definitely throw in there as well.

But it's just, how are you going to, you know, They're the only ones that can sustain their sponsorship because of the B2B that they leverage to get that sponsorship. So no one else really has that ability to do that. And so it makes everyone else so fragile, which makes it then hard to invest, which then makes it hard to perform. So it's just a snowball that happens in this business that makes it extremely difficult. But yeah, Tony obviously has been looking. at things from the outside and he's like you know this is a good time for me to check out and I think that you know he he's been vocal over the last few you know few years and as an owner and even more so as

a driver back in the day about change you know he he was me before me you know it's just fans embraced it a little bit differently but we're we definitely definitely need a change we just saw another truck team. They're saying they're done, they're shutting down. It's certainly a problem when you look at Chandler Smith and what he's saying post-racing, like, I can't even get a ride. Everyone's saying, how much money am I going to bring? Man, that's a tough, that's a bad place for our sport to be, and it continues to head down this road more and more and more. And it's because the teams cannot sustain with the money that they get from the sanctioned body. It's not enough. It's just not a good place and it's really even tougher in the lower series. So if you look at the bulk of

the fields in our starter series, it's most of the teams there are financed by the drivers or the relationships that the drivers have. It's tough. The one exception, you kind of look at junior motorsports. Now, they have some pay there, some paid drivers, but they also have, you know, they'll reinvest that money back into giving some opportunities to some young drivers. And that's what you like to see. And you wish there was more of. But unfortunately, you know, the bulk of that series is self-financed. Quickly, can you explain B2B for our newer fans?

Yeah, B2B is basically, you know, a Hendrick Motorsports will say to Napa auto parts, hey, I'm going to buy all my used parts from you, you know, or, substances or whatever it might be. I mean, they have a huge... For the car business. For the car business. So all these dealerships that he has, he's going to buy exclusively from Napa,

which is probably tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars for them in exchange for, hey, just sponsor my race car here for 15, 20 minutes. I don't know what the number is. So being able to leverage that is huge. Pinsky with Shell Pinsky. oil. Well, they have a lot of trucks going down the road. And when they say, we're going to exclusively buy our fuel and oil and things like that, lubricants from you, that's a big number to a shell. And so they say, okay, we're willing to sponsor your race team if you do that. So

it's just a, that's something that just those guys have a strategic advantage over. And you see it, most of their brands on their cars are, you know, when you look at Hendrick and Penske, automotive related because that's the business that they're in. Can you create those B2B relationships within sponsors in your race team? So like, for example, let's use 2311. You know, these two companies aren't necessarily a good example of this. But like, okay, you know, we have Jordan brand and we have Monster. Okay, now we're going to make sure that everyone who is a part of Jordan Brand is exclusively going to drink Monster.

Right? So now like you've bridged these two companies and they brought them together. Yeah, I mean, or maybe maybe at JGR, right? So you had M&Ms and you have FedEx. Well, M&Ms, we're going to use FedEx to ship all of our product. Yeah, I mean, I think that B2B is a huge thing, especially Joe Gibbs Racing has been on the forefront of that, knowing that that's kind of been the future

and how you're going to be able to get to the dollars that you need to. It's, you know, they've switched over, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. and not tens, hundreds of millions of dollars in shipping from other sponsors that say, okay, let's get you guys in a room together, figure out how y'all can work together. And, you know, yeah, it's resulted in lots of money in FedEx shipping. Let's move on to the race yesterday. Where would you like to start with this? I mean, I don't know.

I mean, just talking about the race in general, I thought the race was fantastic. obviously the racing is as good as it gets at that racetrack. I think most people on the internet have all agreed that, man, this place is fantastic for being able to do slide jobs, race side by side. It's got a great mix of everything. It just seems like geometrically, it's just right to where if you run the high line, you're going to give up time on entry, but you're going to make big time on exit, and then you come together on the exit of the corner and drag race it out.

So it was just perfectly mapped out when they put this racetrack on the schedule. And very unfortunate we're not going to see it even in the playoffs next year. I think it's going to be in the spring or something like that. March. Wow. So, yeah, this is, it's, you know, it's tough because, you know, NASCAR makes the decisions based off of, you know, the information they have. And certainly if you look at the crowd from Saturday, it was not much to be desired,

but I felt like the atmosphere on Sunday was really good. So, you know, they just, they put it where they thought was best. But who knows if that's right or not, but certainly it, from a pure standpoint, you know, that is NASCAR Racing 101. Yeah, hopefully the county or whoever is supposed to be putting together a bid to potentially bring this race back as the championship? Payne Ascar to come back to the championship race.

One thing that was noteworthy about this, though, is that for the most part of the day, every playoff car besides Joey Lagano was running. Was Joey in the race? Not much. If you told me that he wasn't, I'd believe you. Yeah. Not much.

Yeah, not a lot. He made it on fuel, though, the week before. He didn't put himself in the championship four. Now we've got, by the way, we got our season winner, leading winner, Kyle Larson, below the cut line. What a wonderful system we have. I mean, you say that, but it created just one hell of a race and a finish, right? Like all these top seven cars, besides Joey,

we're running one through seven for the majority of the day. And even Alex Bowman, right, who, is a playoff car if he's, you know, under, under weight or above weight, I guess, is in the top 10 as well. So, like, all your guys are running 1 through 7 creating these storylines. And there wasn't any negative storylines

from the race yesterday. No, no, I didn't think so either. I thought it was all super positive, but it just shows what I'm basically saying about the Kyle thing is how vulnerable, even the most dominant car throughout the regular season is. and you know you just have a bad race and it's bam you know you're you're below the cut and you're

you know you're going to need to do some work to make it in the to have a chance at a championship so yeah it's just uh i don't know it's it's certainly it's not the way dale won them for sure but it's uh it's certainly different and it was a big deal for the 45 team to punch their ticket obviously they were down in points where we were and now they're going to have an opportunity to win a championship. Does this system, obviously yesterday after the race, you were very disappointed with the outcome. Is this system in the way the champion has decided

does that play into that? It's like, you know, I had to win the race. If I don't win the race, then I'm going to be disappointed. Yeah, I mean, it's just certainly like when, Joey won, it really just turned the points upside down, right? Because he was the lowest in points because of the regular season, how he performed through the first 26 races was the lowest of all the playoff cars that were remaining. And so when he makes it on fuel mileage and wins, then it just flips all the points upside

down and then it just creates this big gap to where, oh, now you're putting everyone kind in this must-win situation. think that no matter what you're going to have, you know, Tyler Redick is still staying out on two-lap tires no matter what the point system is. He's still trying to win and, and we all are racing as hard as we can to win just because the wins mean a lot to us personally, right? And, you know, if you can get the benefit of making it to the next round or things like that, that's just an added bonus, right? I'm after wins. And my disappointment was from not winning the race and the whole championship thing that is just a sidebar and a side effect of not winning but i've

seen you not win races before yeah but i'm not after leading with two to go like you know i'm in control the race like you got to finish it at that point um and you know i spending you know a little bit of today just kind of looking through what i need to look through and i haven't yet of like what What could I have done different? You know, the one corner I see that I let the 12 get beside me, not let, but he did, is he just cut the bottom of one and two better than I could. And I ended up sliding up the racetrack, trying to keep my momentum. And that between the distance and him being able, he was extremely good on the bottom all day long,

so you've got to give them credit. That was the key moment, is coming off and not clearing him off the turn two was just that was it for us. Is that the additional perspective you gain now that you're 16 hours removed from this race versus right out of the car? Yeah, I try to think and I did

watch back the last restart and everything in the last eight laps to kind of see, you know, where did I give up time here and position? And again, I didn't go through it on SMT quite yet, but I'm just looking at it on TV and it's like

yeah, I just I just didn't run the bottom as good as what the 12 could. He just was better than me running the bottom. When he got to the bottom and he hit the gas, the thing kept going, left. And it's like I just couldn't hold it down there. And if I did, I was going to have to slow up too much. And then I'd risk letting him get beside me in the middle of the corner. And so, I don't know.

There's surely something that I could have done different. certainly being a good defender is not not I'm not super high on that list so need to get better there so I don't know it's just you're you're full of what is today when you say you couldn't run the bottom as well as the 12 is that are you referring to you know driver skill blaney's just better at that line than me the car at the time blaney can make more grip down there that I can like what place plays into it. Yeah, a lot of it plays into you. You try to run the fastest line that you can for what you have for a race car. And, you know, I had not been able to really get down there, especially in turn one and two, all the way on the bottom as much as with the 12 and even 45 had done on previous restarts. If I tried to go down there, it just would be so tight. I just would plow off the corner and then it would, I'd lose a lot of momentum. So I tried to keep my car wound. up as much as I could, which is, you know, keeping my middle speed up high, keeping, you know, low break and just keep the men speed rolling as quick as I can. But what that puts you at risk

on the short run is then getting slid by someone who comes in low. And so I was really vulnerable throughout the day on restarts by cars that were making time on the bottom. And I just was not able to make it. I tried it in three and four quite a few times, and when I did, I come off the corner, wheel cut to the left and just, you know, checking up on exit, and then you get sworn by three cars pretty quickly. Were you shocked then that you had the restart you had, considering you were talking about the short run or were? Yeah, I mean, a lot of that was the circumstances and what really helped me get beside the 45 is that I got a good restart on him. I wanted to make sure, because I knew he was on old tires,

to not hit him as he was trying to accelerate because I knew that if I did that, it would likely cause him to spin the tires, and then that would jack our whole lineup. So I wanted to let him get rolling and then push into him, and it allowed us to really get a great restart. And at that point, I'm attached to the 45 really well,

and the key moment to let me get to the outside and the bottom lane not clear us is that the 12 and the 9 were dicing. And when they were dicing, it slowed their momentum up enough to let me run that extra distance around the outside and clear all of them. Now, you said that the short run is kind of where you were weak at. At what point do you go from a short run, like how many laps does a short run then die off in the long run car can go? Yeah, it typically was about 10 to 12 laps for me where I felt like my car started, you know, turning like it needed to. but generally speaking I felt, you know, okay with it, but just not quite what it needed.

And certainly I think that, you know, the long run, we've always been really, really good there. And that's been a combination of car and the techniques that I do. But the short run, I don't know that I've ever been super great there as a driver in the short run. So I think all those factors played into it. And, you know, we're obviously very fortunate to get to the lead there restarting fourth. But, man, just sucks to not finish it. Can you do anything to the car when you come down pit road on that last caution to adjust it to make it good for the final two laps? You can, but to make a big enough adjustment, you have to take, it would take pit stop time.

But then I'd lose spots on pit road and then it doesn't matter anyway. So that's just the tough predicament that you're in. Yeah. So it's really just this is the bed you made. do the best with what you got. Yeah, and I felt like for the first three, three laps or so, my car was working pretty good. And then, you know, just the last few,

it just didn't stop turning on me. And that's, you know, the really bad turns one and two that I had, and the 12 just capitalized. Can we talk about how Tyler Reddick was able to pull this off? It's still pretty incredible. You know, to be at the tire deficit that he was, and, you know, a lot of it, you know, these tires do wear, but most of it is heat.

So I think where he really got a good advantage was that he only ran like one and a half laps. So his tires didn't get really hot. And so when he, when he cooled him back off, even though he had a lap and a half of rubber gone from them, they weren't crazy hot compared to the rest of the cars that are now coming in and pitting. So I think that he said, you know, I talked to him afterwards and he says that after the first couple corners and other people's, it seemed like other people's tires started getting to the same temperature as his, he's like, I didn't feel like I was at a disadvantage at all. And so I think that the move for him was making the same move that the same move that

The 12 made on me the previous lap in one and two. The 12 ran the line, and that's how he got beside me, coming on two to go. Well, with one to go, I'm right behind the 12. We go into one. The 12 wants to hedge to lower to keep me from going in there and sliding him, or at least getting to his bumper. So at that point, I know the 12 is going to go low.

So I try to make all the speed I can on the top. not very well. I get to the center. I try to crank the wheel and it's just not working. But then the 45s hooks the line. And when he hooks the line, he did exactly what the 12 did the lap before and made huge ground and huge speed. Cleared me and actually gained on the 12. And so I think at that point, I think he was as amazed as any of us that the 12 gave him the very top line. And he just shipped it in there and it stuck. does it look like when Reddick enters three and you're behind him that he takes off and you hit the brakes why yeah so at that point um i'm running third right i see them fan out so i see that 12's going to be

one lane off i know the 45's going to the top at that point i'm starting to enter the corner now that homestead is a track where you can't just you don't have a lot of grip in the racetrack it is low low grip So I slow down my entry because I'm like, these guys are going to get together and I need to be able to turn left to avoid it. So I slowed down to keep an ability for me to maneuver when these two get together because I was very surprised they didn't come off the corner side by side door banging. But the 45 just had so much speed. He ripped the door numbers off the 12.

So could the 12 have just slid up and took away that line last minute? but he was racing unfair, right? He didn't, the 45 didn't do anything to, you know, garnish getting shoved in the fence. But, I mean, hey, we're all going for the win, and you never know what can happen. And I think the 12 race them as absolute fair as he could. And certainly, it's almost, the 45 got there so quickly, it would have been too late to try to shut that off. So I think the 12 was just content on, let me. try to run the best speed I can in the lane that I've chosen.

Last lap times, you were 3411, Blaney 33906, Reddick 33.379. Yeah, I mean, a 33.3.3 on essentially 10 lap tires is amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, I don't know what else you can say about it. It's just that's really, really fast. You know, I know on some racetracks, having a cycle on your tires actually helps them last longer. I experienced that during Richmond. This was probably back in 16, 17.

It was, you know, now we, caution comes out, we pit. But it was towards the end of the race, and we had like a lap on them. Then we ran two laps, another caution. And it was like, oh, can't pit now. But then we had a long run. And I remember my car held on way longer. than what it had before, because when you get a cycle on it, it does harden the tires just slightly,

which allows them to keep the rubber on it longer. It doesn't melt off quite as quick. And maybe that's a difference, right? Is that he had that quick cycle on his tires. And on lap eight, when me and the 12 or in the bed on lap time, he's still digging. For as long as I was around you post-race yesterday, I feel like you were in driver mode.

At what point did you switch to owner mode and talk to Tyler? I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm still very, very bummed and dejected. And certainly it's the balance that I have. You know, I'm still locked in, you know, here for the next seven days to make sure that I put my best efforts forward to go win Martinsville. If we don't make it, then certainly I'll be a fan, owner fan. for the last race in Phoenix. But yeah, I mean, I'm just, you know, I'm only going to be a driver

for a certain amount of time longer, right? So these opportunities are really, really hard to come by. And, yeah, I'm just more disappointed that I didn't get it done. If you can put your owner hat on for a second, you talked about a five-year plan, year four year racing for a championship. What's that mean?

That means we've accomplished it. The goal has always been. be a championship contending organization within five years and i believe we have a contender on our hands what do you make of uh billy scott's call to uh stay out yeah so i asked them about that call and to answer your question jerry because i didn't is that uh they had a uh party for redick at 2311 uh late last night if you were driving by 77 you probably saw the building flashing lights like a checkered flag and uh you know nearly every employee that i've said that that works in that building was there um at midnight last night so i just stopped in and said hello and congratulations to to

everyone um then i headed home i know i had to wake up early today so um yeah i was uh talked to them there i thought the the call was an interesting call uh it certainly worked out well and and asking about the mentality of the call, it seemed like they felt as though if they played the same strategy I did, which is let's go a little bit long here and then try to make a charge at the end. They thought the best that they were going to finish was about fourth. So at that point, they said, let's just run this thing out until we go a lap down. You know, basically when we pit, would that put us a lap down or not? And they did, and the caution fell right as they were exiting pit road after a lap.

Why do they feel fourth was the best they could get to, considering you were a position back. Yeah, but I was right on him, and so I pitted. So I chose to pit. So at that point, if he pits the next lap, he knows he's going to be behind me. So now he's got to pass me and all those other cars. And so the road to the front was going to be really difficult. And so I thought that they were just going to go along like we were, and then we were both going to try to make a charge through the field.

But they played the strategy that they thought was the best strategy to win the race, and they were right. Tyler's got to feel real good pulling that off in front of MJ. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's certainly big, you know, he comes a lot of these playoff races. This is in his backyard. He probably drove there from where he lives. Yeah, it's a big moment for our team and Tyler and everything. It's just, you know, it's certainly very gratifying for myself to be able to help deliver that for Michael.

Kyle Larson has now below the cutline, as we talked about in the last two races he's finished 11th and 13th. he had an opportunity to win this race went three wide with Ryan Blaney and Austin Dillon and ultimately spun out, which caused the last caution. Watching the replay of that, what do you make of that as a driver? Yeah, I don't hate the move. I mean, he was going for it. I mean, look at the adversity that he had went through earlier in the race, right? I was behind him when he blew the tire and got into the wall. And, you know, at that point, you're thinking, well, they're probably going to be dragging off some of this diffuser and,

probably are not going to be very competitive from this point on. But they found a way to make adjustments to the car, and Kyle was super fast at the end. And he ran down the 12 and looked like he was poised to make a move on him, and he saw an opportunity there to get to the outside of him. Unfortunately, there was a lap car right there. And so he just got in a bad aerodynamic spot where he was in a loose spot because of where he was on the 12.

and then he just didn't have enough on the right side of his car because of the three. So it was a tight hole that he tried to fit into and it didn't work. Is that a realistic line that he was going to run there if he is able to clear this three? Like he's going to be a whole car off the wall, right? Yeah. So, I mean, I think that, let me look out for you. I think, yeah, he's hoping that he can, get the 12 down just enough to leave himself a lane.

And as soon as they clear that, he's thinking that the three is immediately going to check up into three. Now the five's going to have the preferred lane, which is on the wall through three and four. So I totally get why he made that move. It was a huge opportunity for him. And certainly, when you think about it, I mean, had they not had to fix the flap on the back of his car,

you know, he only lost one position through this. And so it all kind of, you know, still gave him an opportunity, but when they had to push the flap back up on the rear diffuser, when he spin out and turn sideways, there's a little flap on the back that NASCAR makes you have to push back up. They finished their pit stop. Then they had to have somebody go around the back of the car and push that up. Actually, God, did a nice tuck-and-roll move.

And, you know, he lost a handful of spots, but, you know, certainly could have been worse. He also had the one with the busher, right? Busher spun out right in front of his pit stop, and so he had to wait on one of the stops. Yeah. So he had two that weren't really his fault, slow pit stops. Yeah.

Yeah, it's, I tell you, we certainly didn't think, especially with the bonus points that the five had from the regular season, that he be in danger. You know, it's not like he's had a, 30th place finish this round, right? It's just you've had the couple bottom guys win that were below and all of a sudden it keeps moving that cut line higher and higher. And now, you know, even Bell, Bell's in a pretty good spy. Needs to have a decent day at Martinsville. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, the five is going to have to race 24, you know,

pretty hard in, in Martinsville. And that's going to be, that's going to be a close one. Travis put down here on our note sheet that Martin Tricks Jr. is the only, or I guess is the only driver, Travis, to point their way in from being below the cut line at Martinsville, or that's just the most amount of points anyone has ever been able to point their way in. Let me confirm if it's the only, but he's the largest deficit. He's overcome at three. At three.

And Kyle Larson is minus seven. I was minus a lot. and headed towards the final four and then a hail melon got me. That's true. Yeah. Won both stages. I mean, I don't know how many I was out two years ago, but it was a lot. And we dominated the race.

Going to finish well, we had a bad pit stop. On the last stop, that was it. Tricks is the only one. Even with the bad pit stop, we drove back up to the top five-ish and then Ross, yeah. read the wall on us. That's crazy. That's kind of what this replay of Reddick passing Blaney reminded me of. Like, here comes this guy on the outside.

Like, where did he come from? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, as deep as he drove into the corner, it stuck. You know, for whatever reason, it stuck. And, you know, again, I just, I think that there's something to the cycles or air pressures or something that, you know, allowed him to continue to gain pace or run that fast late in that run when I say late in the run, eight laps in, versus where myself and the 12 just kept losing lap time with each lap. So I'm not really sure, but a hell of a move, hell of a drive,

hell of a call. I mean, it took balls. They were, they were potentially going to finish in the teens, you know, had that caution not fell. So is it a gutsy call, though, if you're, you are saying that we have to win? No, I think that it was a very smart call. If that is your strategy, we have to win, there is no if-ans or buts about it. And from what I understand, they say, listen, Martinsville is not our forte. So it's not like we're going to go there and make up 25 points. So we need to win here. And so they said, listen, we've got this entire amount of time from when the leaders started pitting to when we pit that if a caution falls, bam, we're in the cap receipt. Or you had this small window of we pit and then the caution comes out. You know,

had he run another lap, I don't know if, you know, he would have had enough grip. He may have lost too much on that first lap. Or if it came out, he had to unlap himself too. So if he doesn't unlap himself in that time. Yeah, he can do that pretty quickly because he's going to have at least probably at that point of the race a two second advantage per lap compared to what the leaders are running. So that that was calculated. on where he would come out, you know, post that pit stop. But yeah, it's a ballsy move because the most likely scenario is you end up in the teens, but there is a chance that you catch a caution at the right time, and it cycles you right to the front.

Don't forget, too, that's how Christopher Bell won last year. He was not good at all and caught a caution when Larson hit the barrels. That changed the entire race for them because they were able to then cycle to the front because they had, I believe they had just had pitted. And so that's, this, this, this thing comes down to

cautions that happen in either this second or this second. This one's bad for you and this one's good for you. So is it really a good call at that point? It's just like, this is the only call we can make. We have to throw a Hail Mary here. We have to score a touchdown. I mean, it's both.

I think it's, it's the call that they felt they needed to make. to be the leader at some point. But it's the only call, right? Huh? It's the only call. Yeah, I don't know what else they could have done. Well, that's why he's saying it's not ballsy.

If your only calls this to win, then is it really a balzy call? It's like saying I threw a Hail Mary at the end of the game and, well, you were at the 20-yard line, or you had to throw it. Yeah, I mean, I see your point. You know, the worst, they thought they were going to finish,

had it just gone ahead and gone, green was somewhere in the low teams. They thought that they would finish somewhere in there. They thought that there was, I remember talking to the last, they thought there was like a six, seven point, six or seven spot difference in going for it versus where they were going to finish naturally, which they thought fourth. Right. It's really all that, not all that much. No. But when it works, you're brilliant. When it works, it looks like you planned it that way. what do you make of your guys's strategy was that plan going in that you guys are going to kind of go along or is that something on the fly with where you were at i think that uh that was kind of a the only choice that we had um just simply because um we had lost our track position um we we won stage two i think we came out of that stop and then you know i I can't remember what happened, but not good on the short run.

I fall back to fifth or sixth or something like that. And so the only way I was going to go and pass those cars is I needed a larger tire advantage. So typically Chris likes to send me long and say, you're going to be fast in the long run. And then I'm going to ask you to go pass all these cars when you go back out on the racetrack. And so it's a really, really tough task for sure. We weren't going to get there, I don't believe, but it certainly improved our position from where we were.

So it was kind of our way of still staying in the game to give ourselves a shot because the caution came out, right? I came out second, which then gave me a shot on the restart. You got to third though, right? So you don't think that you would be able to pass Larson and Blaney? I just thought they were too far ahead with two few laps left. Was there about 10 to go when that caution came? 12. Yeah, there was double digits.

I think I was five seconds back. So I would have needed, I would have needed a lot of time. They would have been tough. Now, had they been racing like they were about to start racing, I would have closed in in a hurry had they got side by side. But it was going to be close, but I thought it was going to be difficult without them you know really racing each other hard i needed them to stay side by side for a couple of hours yeah i think ultimately the call worked out the best it possibly could because travis texted me with

what 25 to go Travis and you were like oh we need a caution i was like well not yet what you want to get to third and then if there's no hope for you to get to blaney or larsen then a caution comes out and yep which is the way it worked out right because even on the radio chris just tell me that it's not over. They still are going to race each other hard, so keep pushing, right? Yeah. But we knew that the hopes were starting to dwindle down because of the laps were starting to run out. Does it help when you start seeing those guys in your windshield and on the same front stretch?

Yeah, because when I, I mean, it's so demoralizing when you come back out after you go long on a pit that, you know, the leaders, like they were right there in front of me. when I say right there in front of me like a couple seconds and then now I can't even see them and you can see a long way at Homestead straightaways are long I can't see them but then after 10 laps I start to see them and then after 20 laps like okay now they're

you know I'm starting to make a corner and I'm starting to see them on the straightaway over there so it certainly is demoralizing for a little while and then you know when you have a fast car and you can pass people, it certainly makes it fun to be able to knife through there. The one advantage you had on the first time when you did this is you came out and you had clean air. Yes. And you were able to get going

fast. Yeah, that was really helpful. No doubt about it. A lot of that depends on where you come out. If you come out behind a pack of cars, it's going to be difficult to not use your stuff up trying to get around them and then you lose your tire advantage quicker. So yeah, a lot of it depends on where you come out. Looking ahead to Martinsville next week, I don't know. What do we expect to see? What do you expect to see here? I wish I knew because I would try to prepare for it.

But, you know, we've got a new tire there that's going to be the softest left side tire that I think NASCAR has ever made or good year's ever made. The right side is, I think, like, the prime tire softness. hopefully we get some tire wear. I mean, that's what we hope is that we have tires that wear out and then you start to see some comers and goers and lots of passing. That's what we hope. And then setup will matter more, driver's going to matter more, all those things.

But I don't think anyone knows kind of what we're getting ourselves into until we get there. So if we don't know what we're getting ourselves into until we get there, how does a team prepare for this race? Well, the team has data on the tires and they try to make their best guesses for what they'll need out of the car for that new tire. And sometimes you'll guess right. Sometimes you'll guess wrong. Didn't we hope for a soft tire at Bristol and it didn't happen? So what's your confidence level that you're going to get that? Well, we know for certain that this tire is softer.

You know, you can stick a what they call a derometer in the tire itself, and it tells you how gummy, you know, how soft the tire it is. So that should promote more tire wear. Now, the difficult part about it is that a tire that, you know, does shed rubber, it sheds it onto the racetrack. And so then it fills in all the pores of the racetrack and then tire wear will not be as big of an issue. after halfway or the race or so. So, you know, it's going to be a balance to see how this all works out, but I'm excited that we actually made a big, big jump and changed trying to fix some of these short tracks. So if it does wear like it's supposed to, what drivers are going to be good and which ones will not be good?

Like, how is that going to affect? You always talked about momentum being the thing at the short tracks, right? And then in order of passing is that's best winning. Yeah, you need center of the corner speed for momentum. Yeah, that's how you get the runs off the corner to make passes and the dive bombs into the corner. But you also got to get in the corner. You can't be slow on entry. You got to get off the corner.

You got to make sure you're saving the rear tires, things like that. So it's all kind of, it's just when you have a tire that wears out, I can't tell you how much the driver. plays a role in that tire wear. Now, the car certainly has its place, you know, but I believe it's like 40% car, 60% driver when it comes to tire management. So does that mean there's a higher chance that we could see a Denny Hamlin from the mid-2000s

or 2010s at Martinsville? Man, that'd be nice. I'd be nice for sure. I know how to get around there. You know, I just, just yeah, we're going to go to work this weekend and try to build the fastest car we can build, and I'm going to do everything I can. I know this is our last shot.

Travis brought up an awful stat before this podcast. Travis, do you want to say it now? I don't know. Red Rock's Ron would not be happy. You might lose your item on the menu. I wasn't going to say it. I told you I didn't put it on the note. Denny, do you know how many days it's been since you've won at Martinsville?

Oh, my gosh. Hold on. Let's see. 2,500. On November 3rd, it'll be 3,507 days. Do you all realize how many races we've dominated? And it's always the fall race. We dominate the fall races.

We led a bazillion laps. Seven stage wins at Martinsville since then. And like I said, we had a bad pit stop in 2021, leading the race, come out eighth with not many laps to go. It's just we've always had something. keep us from winning there. And me and Chris just want to win at Martinsville. Like, fuck all the final four and all that.

That's great. But like, we just want to win there. That's such a great racetrack and a track that I take a lot of pride in. And, man, want to win it bad. Well, then there should be, there should be no issues. If you're always competitive there, you've got to be competitive first before you can win, right? So if you go there and be competitive, then anything's on the table. That's right.

Yeah. And I like the idea. that we are throwing a new tire in here. So it's not going to be just a cut and paste of, well, who was good in the spring, right? I think you're going to see variables where you're going to see some teams hit this and you're going to see some teams really miss it by a lot.

And so you just hope you're on the good end of that. Are there any of these drivers teams remaining in the playoffs who are statistically better at hitting it on these when there's new variables at play than another team? Teams with resources. Okay, so all of them? The bigger teams always, you know, they've got more engineers that can pick through with a fine comb. So the playoff drivers.

Yeah. So, yeah, if you're looking for like an upset winner, I mean, maybe, I guess. But I think your best aid are still in the playoffs. Yeah, I have a feeling that one of the six who are looking to get a win this weekend, one of those six will be the ones who get the win. Anything else we want to add to this? No, no, I don't think so. We know the task at hand.

What's on the calendar this week? I tell you, I don't know. I'd like to try to relax a little bit. I got sick at the end of the last week. My kids got sick early in the week, and then I got it at the end of last week. I felt really terrible this weekend until Sunday. uh so i don't know i just uh look forward to a week of trying to relax trying to uh you know

do the things i need to do to win this race and that's put a lot of work in and figure out how i'm going to get it done do you have a Halloween costume picked out yet um i hope i don't have to dress up i'm dressing up for kids i just adults dressing up on Halloween i just i just don't know i don't get it. I'm just bah humbug. Will you do any extra sim work or looking at film or anything because of the importance of needing to win this race or you try to keep it the same as always? I put in the same amount of work just about every week. You know, again, I there's no way I could live with myself if I didn't come to the racetrack prepared. And so, and I had that mentality every single week.

If it's a regular season race, if it's the second race of the season, I'm, you know, I'm locked in. I feel like I'm ready to go racing when the Green Flag Falls. Now, you know, certainly this week, there's more variables. So can you look at past history as? much maybe not but certainly I'm going to skim through those pages just to you know refresh in my mind you know what I need you know what what have my past comments been what has been tracked trends things like that what I need to look for you know how are my

restarts and in previous races there there's there's tons of things that certainly you can do as a driver to hone your craft and yeah you'll just put in a little bit more time this weekend. That's it. You're just making sure that you're hitting all the details that you possibly can. We've got a review here from All In King Carly, 563. And they say, I absolutely love listening to this podcast every Monday. I really love that he takes time to explain all these different terms and aspects

to help dumb it down for us non-racers. Championship or not, Denny is the goat. Jared and Denny are the greatest podcasting pairing. It's like Batman and Robin. which one's Batman I think me I agree I agree I saw

quite a few 11 hats this weekend that they're like look I got Jared you signed 311 underneath your under your signature do you know he did that I didn't but have you worked on your signature to make sure it's a good one for him me no it's just how I sign everything oh Jared you haven't refined it a little bit to make it look good

not really are you supposed to yes My mom has a soccer ball. I need to find out where that's at. I need to put it in my office. I have this soccer ball that I used to practice my autograph on when I was 10. Yeah, probably 10, maybe a little before that, 8 to 10. And all the white areas of the soccer ball was a different Denny Hamlin signature.

And I was always refining how it was going to look. I know a person at the PJ Tour, when guys would come on, he'd say, walk and sign this golf ball and they're like why it doesn't matter he's like because that's how you're going to be signing for your fan so make sure it's good yeah i that's one of my pet peeves with some of these younger drivers is they put no effort in to their signature whatsoever and so you know these kids once your autograph like they just see some scribbly and it's like what is that right you know like make it legible so they can say that's blanks autograph right you know you want it to be recognizable to where they know who it is versus just a bunch of loops and swirls.

Did someone tell you that at some point? Why is yours the way it yours is? My mom's always really been pushing me to make it legible. When I used to try to rush it, this is probably 10, 15 years ago. I was starting to get a little bit sloppy with it and she was like, hey, they can't read it. Like make it so you can read it. And I'm like, okay, mom, I'll I'll make sure I do that. So it's very, very hard at the track, right? Some people want you to sign the shirt on their back. Like, that's really hard for me to give you, you know, a grade 10 signature in those circumstances or when I'm walking or things like that.

But I try if I'm at an autograph session to give you a legit autograph as good as I can. Who has the worst? And NASCAR? There's a few in contention. Yeah, there's some bad ones out there, Travis. but I think we should save that for another episode of like the five best and the five worst. Awesome. There are some bad ones out there.

Just no effort. Don't care. No pride. That's just as a young driver, you're not having any pride. So is your autograph the same as the way you would sign the back of a check or something? Or do you have a different legal? No, it's same. Sometimes I have, well, if it's legal, I have to do James.

So that's a total difference. signature. Very, like, even the way I do Hamlin is entirely different. Denny Hamlin is, looks one way. James Hamlin is, looks like a different person signing it. Huh. Yeah, you got me just the way you would go from a Y to an H versus an S to H. That's the problem is, yeah.

On my Y, I can, I can bring that bottom swoop right up into my age. Right. But the James, it's like, how do I start my age? You're going the wrong way. I don't know what to do with my hands. Yeah. Last thing before we sign off, reminding people to go vote

because the most popular driver ballot is just released. So you go vote for Denny for most popular driver if you'd like. Two trophies missing from your collection. The championship and the most popular driver. We're not getting one this year. Probably not.

Probably not. Do you think there'll be an upset and most popular driver in the next three to five years? I think so. I think so too. Who is most likely, though?

The five. Oh. You think so? Mm-hmm. I feel like I would have agreed with you a few years ago, but I feel like the support maybe has waned off a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, I think when you win a lot, it's going to go both ways, right? You're going to have bandwagon fans, jump on, you're going to have haters jump on as well where they're like, ah, it just wins too much. So that could happen too. I think he probably gets a lot of, you know,

the grassroots fans because he does that racing. All right. Well, we will see you guys post-Martinsville.