Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Watkins Glen: The Most Carnage Yet & That Dog Has To Go

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Connor Zilisch made his debut in the Xfinity Series a memorable one by winning at Watkins Glen. Denny Hamlin and co-host Jared Allen break down Connor's race and why he is a sure-fire thing in the Cup Series.On the flipside, Denny’s race didn’t go so well on Sunday. On the first lap he was involved in a wreck and his day was almost over. Luckily the “A Team” crushed it and got him back out racing.With bad luck once again, Denny's crew chief might be starting to believe Lulu the dog is the reason for the lack of results lately.Lap 1 wasn’t the only wreck Denny was involved in. Later in the race he was in another wreck, this time with Brad Keselowski and Kyle Larson. Denny explains what happened and why this wreck wasn’t on him.While the Playoffs haven’t been kind to Denny, Bristol is the next race and the 11 team will be on the offense the entire time. Plus, they discuss how many points he needs to advance.Ryan Blaney was involved in the lap 1 wreck and wasn’t happy with NASCAR. But, Denny explains why what happened was the right call.Everyone was expecting lots of tire falloff on Sunday but that’s not exactly what happened. The question is, why?Chris Buescher and SVG had an amazing battle to win. Denny pulls up the SMT data to find out what the difference was.NASCAR is headed back to Bristol. Will we see lots of tire wear like the last race at Bristol, or will the race be different? For more Actions Detrimental content: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionsDetrimentalFanDuel Disclaimer: 21+ and present in North Carolina. Opt in req. Wager requirements apply. Bonuses awarded as nonwithdrawable bonus bets or profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including bonus expiration. See terms and conditions at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The way Denny's been racing the last couple of weeks, we need to keep this stuff. Keep this stuff close. The way Denny's been racing. It has nothing to do with any of these crashes. The way these races have turned out for us? Yeah. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey guys, welcome to action's detrimental.

Ow! That hurt Charlie! This is not going to be a rose-colored 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 Determinal. I'm Denny Hamlet Drive with the number 11 FedEx. Camry this past weekend at Watkins Glen. My co-host, Mr. Jared Allen. Red vest number 311 this past weekend at Watkins Glen. How's going?

Oh, it's going good. I'm excited to be here. I'm so excited to be here. Truly excited. Where do we start? You want to go to some Xfinity? Sure, let's talk about Connor Zillich winning in his Xfinity debut. Yeah, that was super impressive.

You know, we kind of saw the arc of race. I just, I saw some social media buzz. during and after the Arca race and it was like, wow, you know, won that stage by, or that, you know, the first X amount of laps by 15 seconds or something. And it was like, yeah, but there's like three cars that are capable of winning maybe, maybe three. And so you couldn't just, you just, you can't take anything really from Arca just because of the the haves and half-nots when it comes to equipment there and and drivers and things like that.

And then so when you, you know, you've got that Xfinity race coming up, it's like, all right, well, the true test will be, you know, there'll be some good drivers in that Xfinity race and you're going to get kind of a gauge of where he's at. And man, he was just lightning fast. I think he was the fastest car on the racetrack, 90% of the laps that he was on the racetrack. So that includes practice. That includes the race. I'm in the bus watching and I see the lap times.

And even when he's out front and you know when you're out front, you're not running 100%. You're just kind of maintaining a gap at that point. I mean, he's still gaping three to four tenths a lap over whoever the second place car is. And it really didn't matter who the second place car was. So it's ultimately really, really impressive what he did on Saturday. Saturday. And, you know, even late in that race when he had some adversity, you know, blowing driving through the bus stop. I have no idea with Ty Gibbs and Sam Mayer.

It was Sam Mayer, right? Yeah, Sam Mayer was in second. And Zillich were doing. Like, never, ever can you blow through the bus stop? Well, Zillich probably saw the first two guys and was like, I'm just following them. I'd never been here, right? Yeah, he's got the, he's got the most excuse, I guess you could say, for, for doing it. But. no idea what they were doing with that just lost the focus there and you know with those three went to the back i was looking there in the mid 20s and it's like man this is it's over i mean they're they're inside the last fuel window yes they're going to have a little fresher tires but it's just not going to mean that much and i mean he drove to the top five i think in about 10 laps um it was something

just ridiculous. It wasn't even close. And so I haven't seen a butt whipping like that in Xfinity in quite some time. I can't remember the last time it was someone was that much more dominant over the cars around them. You've seen cars lead 100 laps of 100 laps, but never be that much faster over second place. So that is super interesting to me. and obviously he speaks to how good of a talent he is. Yeah, what's more impressive, the fact that he was the class of the field in the Xfinney race

or that he was able to save fuel and reach the finish line? Well, I think someone like him being as fast as he is has the most room to save fuel, right? If you're that much faster than the field, you will be able to run quite a bit less gas. you know, talking about throttle down versus others and still run the same lap time. So I actually think it makes it easier for someone like him to save fuel over the field because he's got such a gap of speed. Typically when he starts saving fuel, your first avenue of doing that is just when you go into the corner, you're letting off a little bit sooner, right?

And you're delaying throttle a little bit more. And then suddenly you're starting to run a certain percentage down the straightaway. he didn't have to he didn't have to change you know he could change more and still get more lap time out of it because of how he was approaching the corners itself so I think actually his speed allowed him to

save more than others and certainly when you were watching on TV knowing that all he was battling at that point was his fuel tank I thought they would have backed him off more he maintained about a four to six second gap over second place at that time. I think it was Sheldon Creed. And yeah, you're watching the throttle.

And again, I'm not watching on SMT, but I'm watching on TV. And it's like, hey, he's running. Yes, he is backing off early, but I wonder why he's not running parked throttle down straightaway, things like that. But he got enough. I mean, he still did burnouts and all that other stuff. So it was amazing to see. Did you think that that was possible?

I remember I walked out of the. bus with what 30 laps to go and I asked you I was like is it possible to save two laps of fuel and you're like I don't know it can be done but then there were also cautions there were you know yeah well the caution came with like six to go right so so that saved six full green flag laps from being run I don't know how many actual green flag laps they ran in totality from that point now you had caution laps usually at a track like that, you know, you're probably getting two and a half, maybe even three to one, because of the elevation changes, you can really coast at Watkins Glen a lot. So let's just say you're getting three to one.

They still ran, I mean, they did have a red flag, but they probably ran four laps of maybe five of caution. Let's just say that's two green flag laps, and then, you know, a half a green flag flag. lap here and a full lap there and two more on top of that. So it was a it worked out to where I think he probably wasn't going to make the next one. I think the whole field probably wouldn't have other than those that had pitted later. But wow, it was super impressive to see, you know, yes, the fuel mileage and you like to see it pay off the right guy on the right day, right? And certainly I thought the Xfinity race paid off the right guy. And certainly in those fuel mileage races, you know, you have a chance for things that just go haywire, the whole field start running out,

and then, you know, you got chaos, almost like we had it, you know, Nashville. So now here's my question, is that obviously he's very good on road courses and Xfinney series. He was very good in the truck at Cota a few months ago. Is he a surefire success in the Cup series, or is there's just still there? Is he still to be tested at more points in his career? I'd say it's probably surefire just because he's got enough experience on ovals, right? He still did quite a bit of overracing as well. And certainly if you look at the results in the competitive series that he's run,

he's still, you know, he's not as fast over the field when we go to ovals, but he's still competitive competing against veterans that have been doing it quite some time. So will he go win 12 races next year in Xfinity? No, I don't think so. But, I mean, could he win four or five? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a very feasible goal

considering, you know, the car he's in and what he's going to be capable of. Is racing similar in driver development and talent development similar to other sports. You know, like sometimes we see great college football players. And then it gets to the NFL and it's like, well, he didn't work out. You had all this hype in college and they get to NFL and now they're playing it's so hard to say because, I mean, we've had many Xfinity champions win eight races, right?

And the next thing you know they get to cup and it's like, wow, they're struggling to run 23rd. That's just part of it because that step is such a big one. But I just, I was looking at. lap times versus cup drivers in similar equipment in Xfinity and it was not close now if if you want to compare like well how does it stack up versus SVG right is SVG sure fire going to have success in cup I would say no it's just simply because the results on Oval still quite isn't there yet and it's because he doesn't have the experience in it if you gave him three more years of experience he's going to make light years of gains and it'll look like he's never he's been running on ovals his whole life

um but i think connor's got a leg up on if you had to ask me to pick one of the two connor just because i think he's more versed in the ovals than what SVG is but i think you know when you look at you know what their capability is on road courses i i consider them now, this is just my opinion right now, maybe SVG a little bit, let's just pretend this is, hey, this is an outlier, this is possible. You know, even SVG while winning his very first cup race still didn't just win every other cup race he was in, right? So I think, let's see what the next time does, but right now I would give Connor the leg up just because of the oval experience he's got on SVG. I would also say, like Jerry, do you talk about a call?

player to NFL. The difference is we kind of know where Connor's probably going to be driving in Cup series, whereas like college football, you can get drafted to a bad team where we kind of know Connor most likely is going to be at track house. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's, that certainly is a, I mean, we wouldn't be talking about this if he wasn't in a good car, right? I think if he was in an average Xfinity car, he probably would have above average results, but it wouldn't have been a tail kicking. So, yeah, certainly, as long as you stay in equipment that is capable of winning, you're going to look really, really good,

especially when you stack on the talent level on top of that. Yeah, I mean, how old do you need to be to get in a cup car? It's 18, I think. Which is why this was, he just turned 18, just why he could finally raise Xfinity, right? Oh, so it's the same for both. It's the same age for both. I believe so. Well, all I know is that a trackhouse seemingly has four drivers.

Again? And three seats. So a lot of pressure on those guys. Nothing wrong in competition. That's a beauty of it is you're investing in young drivers and you've got your veterans there that are going to hold down the fort until it's time for the young guy to move up. and at that point you try to find them what's the best what's the best three drivers and you put them in there and you let them run you think there's any chance that red bull comes back to the sport with SVG and now i don't think so i think this is more of a

i saw where you know you had like a helmet deal or something like that very similar to um i i don't think so but you never know um certainly you know they're they're trying to build some relationships there with the group, but I see it as more of a personal service thing. Let's talk about the cup race. Connor Zillich had a great weekend. Yours was kind of the opposite from the start. What happened there on lap one? It looked like the seven.

Corey just hit the rumble strips a little bit wrong, and it shot them into the door of the eight, spun out the eight, stack up and sued, and then priest ran in the back of me. I was going to go around the outside of them and then priests hit me so hard it knocked me sideways and into the wall. On lap one there, are you like just, let's get through this cleanly?

Yeah. You know that it's people why I wonder why I laid back in Atlanta, right? It's because of this stuff. And then it's so frustrating, certainly from my standpoint, this is three out of the last four events that I've crashed out and had nothing to do with it.

And it was somebody else is doing. but, you know, what can you do? This is racing, right? This is a, it's part of it. But certainly it's discouraging to not get a chance to race. I mean, you know, we worked really hard overnight to try to make some changes to the car that I thought we're all going to be positive. Didn't even get to try that out. Like had I had maybe a lap or two, you know, I wanted to see, is this going to be better or is it not?

And now we're going to be guessing for next year. So, yeah, just not ideal, lap one, and just nobody's willing to give in on that first lap just because you know how hard it is to pass. When all this happened, did your mind go right to worst-case scenario? Like, man, we're going to have to win at Bristol now. Surely. Yeah, I mean, absolutely, as I'm pulling out of the dust,

I'm thinking, well, I don't know why I'm surprised. and now I just got to go win Bristol. So I, you know, you never know what can happen, certainly during the course of a race, but, you know, I was thinking throughout that weekend, let's get the best capable finish that I can on the day, and I'll still give myself a really good chance to go in there and performing well at Bristol and getting in.

When I got crashed, and certainly I, you know, I didn't see the 12 car, but I knew my car was junk at that point. You know, I'm thinking I'm going to finish, you know, in the mid-30s or high-30s again, and we're going to get one point, and then we're going to have to go win. But that's not what happened. No, I mean, luckily, you know, these guys are all a bunch of idiots. And that's a joke. And can't hold their car straight on these late race restarts.

And so NASCAR is making a brand of just being a late race three start type of racing. And when we have it, it's just tearing up a bunch of shit. And it's obviously this is the one time that I was able to capitalize on that and finish 23rd. Yeah, but somehow also your car was able to stay in one piece. I'm not surprised that they could fix it and drive it after the first wreck. But the second wreck, I mean, that thing looked like it was destroyed after that. I have hit a lot of walls lately. I mean, it's amazing.

And certainly, yes, I think I was very lucky to not hit another wheel on the second one. The way that it backed in while hard, it then spun around and hit the front end square. And so, yes, very, very fortunate that, you know, the entire FedEx pick crew team, mechanics, road team, kept that thing going. They just did an amazing, amazing job of getting that car rolling in a straight direction. I think that's an underrated thing

is we always talk about the pit crews with the stops. You know, that's what they're counted on for. But, you know, yesterday with just fixing the car, those things kind of go unnoticed, I feel like. Yeah, and that's largely the responsibility of the A team, as we call them in our... In NASCAR racing. And your A team is usually the guys

that do not go over the wall. They're the ones that are. are preparing your car during the week on the setup plate, they're underneath mechanics and interior cockpit mechanics, things like that. They will go to work on it. They'll hop over it. So the pit crew will get the tires changed to make sure you got four tires with air in it. Then they'll hop over the wall.

And then the second group of mechanics will come over who, those are the ones that are wrenching on your car during the week. They're the ones that are wrenching on your car during practice. So they're the ones that are always roaming around until race day. And then they go behind the wall and then you see the pit crew on Sunday. The fact that this was Watkins Glen a road course, did that help give the team enough time to fix these? Like if this was on an oval,

I imagine that you probably would have been multiple laps down. Yeah, it sounded like there was significant enough damage on the left rear where, I mean, I heard the grinder get out. Anytime you hear the grinder, not good. I mean, it, so I guess the toe link was probably bent so bad that it had that thing pinched or something. They had to, you know, grind it in half and then take it apart. But they were just very prepared. And this is, these are the moments that really matter. And, you know, actually, it's funny that FedEx is on the car because we, we've done a bunch of things about

being prepared during, during natural disasters and what can, you know, really, you know, ruin your business and whatnot. And, you know, we come into this situation and it just showed how prepared our team was for this type of situation. And it, and it kept us in the game. Yeah, I guess they had all the necessary equipment at the pit box. Like, none of it was at the hall of it. Like, the way Denny's been racing the last couple of weeks, we need to keep this stuff, keep this stuff close. The way Denny's been racing, it has nothing to do with any of these crashes. The way these races have turned out for us. Yeah. You've heard us. talk a lot about Fandul. America's number one sports book, well, we have something a little

different for you and time is running out on this deal. Now through September 22nd, all Fandul customers can bet $5 and get a three-week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Then with a YouTube TV base plan, you'll be able to watch every regular season Sunday afternoon out-of-market game. All you need is a Google account and a current form of payment and you can cancel anytime. Just visit fanduil.com slash denny to download an America's number one sportsbook. 21 older and present in North Carolina, full price of NFL's Sunday ticket will be automatically

charged seasonally after free trial, no refunds, terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. Gambling problem, call 8777185543 or visit more than a game.nc.gov. Does you still have a dog? Yes or no? Okay. The amount of tweets I received. yesterday. Man, we'll get into that, but Lulu's catching strays from everyone. Yeah, and now it's leaked over into the team. The team is now taking this dog seriously. I thought you were going to

get a serious butt chewing. So did I. You want to tell people what happened after the race? I mean, my life flashed in front of my eyes for a moment. Because I'm sitting there, so you, driver's pull on pit road after a race and you get out of the car and you're walking around looking at it and I'm taking photos, whatever, taking video. And then Gay Part walks up and he's stand there for a second and he looks over at me and he's like, come over here. We got to talk. I'm like, oh, he doesn't sound funny. Like he doesn't sound humorous. You didn't listen the first time and said, Jared, get over here. Yeah. Because I was like, wait, what? Me? Like, what's he with me and he pulls me over and he says you you too i'm pointing at you get over here and i was like

oh boy i have no idea what he's going to say but it doesn't sound good and he had there was no reason for it to sound good right like you guys just finished poorly you know everything that went on in the race obviously i did not think it would be anywhere near of what it ended up being and he says you got to take that dog someone's got to take that dog either you take it austin takes it he he definitely wants to explore removing the dog off the premises for one week and see what happens. But he, Chris Gabehart, an avid listener of actions detrimental is, he doesn't believe in luck a whole lot. He believes in being prepared and things like that.

And I agree with him. But holy cow, the results are not good with Lulu so far. I don't know what to do. Just auction her off on social media or something. Yeah, she's up for adoption. And what did you say, by the way, you got to take the dog for a week? I said, how about we give it to Ron?

You did. And I'm thinking, I'm like, take this dog to Ron's house. Yeah, I don't know if that's a good idea. I'm not really sure. Can we give it to another driver that maybe isn't aware of this bad luck. Chase doesn't listen to the podcast. So he has no idea.

Which Chase? Elliot. Oh, I think he does. Well, he said in the past he doesn't. Also, I don't think Ross does. So maybe give it to Ross. I think he does too. Anyway, if Chris is listening, yes.

I thought I was getting a royal ass chewing. Instead, I respect the hell out of that guy. Well, did you do something wrong? Like, why were you working? I don't know. I was just, I don't know, maybe too many jokes on Denny's social. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was, that was that. You know, there was more than the first incident. My car was destroyed after the first. I had front-in damage and, um, and rear toe link damage. They fixed the toe link. I said my car was driving kind of funky. They, they got out the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, the, uh,

If you saw like during one of the other pit stops, you know, they had these plates. They put up against the tires. We're getting technical this week. But, you know, what they're trying to do is check the alignment of the tires to see are they all pointed kind of in the direction that they're supposed to be pointed. And so they then fixed the front end of the car. And at that point, I was like, okay, all right, this is much better. Still not good, right? There's still some things out of line.

Cameras are off, things like that. but it was at least competitive enough I felt like to run at the back of the pack like keep up with the pack maybe pass one or two cars um and then just you know hope for attrition at the end um and then we got in another wreck and that one that was the icing on the cake um i will have to I got to defend myself a little bit with Lartart and others and Burton because I says, you know, I stayed three wide there. If you go back and look in turn one, I was actually side by side with the 21. So the 21 got clear to me. And so I didn't choose to go up there because I was side by side with the six and the five. I was up there. I was up there. I was up

because I was letting the 21 go into the corner. Like you should, you don't want to run side by side into the S's. Well, then the six and the five, jam it in there on me late. And then, well, yeah, I'm three wide top, but I can't hit the brakes enough to let both of them go. I mean, at this point, as a driver, when you're three wide,

I know this isn't an official rule, but the, like, the code is whoever's ahead, usually kind of has the right-away. and if you're the last car of three wide, let's just say you're in the middle or you're on the bottom, and you're the one who has got your nose the least ahead, you should be the first to back out.

And I know that that's not going to happen, especially in this situation. It's hard to pass. Everyone's fighting for everything. But that was the furthest ahead of all the cars. I didn't even see them. So I'm thinking at the most, you know, leave a little bit of room here.

someone's going to back out and they didn't of course and so tj majors came up to me after the race says well the you know i you know just so you know the five washed us up into you and i said oh okay all right no problem because i kind of gave brad a little bit of a hard time when he was coming to lap us um one of the time one of the laps or whatever uh i just didn't get out of his way uh as much as i got out of others way because i was you know i was ticked off about it, right? Like, I didn't even see him. He was barely there, and it spun us out.

But then I watched the replay, and I was like, the five did not slide up at all. The five is hugging this line. He's on the bottom. Yeah. He's on the bottom. And so I just thought that at that point, and I said to T.J. That if you're barely in there three wide, like, it's on you to lift, I was ahead of you at the time. So it was unrealistic for, like TV said, for me to just back off.

And I was already backing off letting the 21 go. And then the 5 and 6 jammed in there. So I can't just hit the brakes and let all them go in that moment. But can't you just take a wider line through that turn? Like I'm thinking about this is you're the car who has significant damage. You're the one who desperately needs to get to the finish of this race. Yeah. Why even put yourself into a position? where this could happen.

Because these guys are clearly faster than you. Not that much. Not that much. They were behind me for four or five laps in a row. But because of a penalty on pit road, they went to the rear. Yeah, but everyone was, Jared, everyone's running the same speed for the most part. Despite the damage on the car.

Yeah, within, yes, because when I went back out after they actually fixed the front end and the back end, Chris was saying, that's within a half a second of the leader. And this is when I was on the other side of the track as them. So I've got open racetrack. He's got open track. I was within half a second. If you're a half a second faster than someone, they're not going to really pass you.

And so the six at the time, the five, they were in the back. We're all fighting for position. Yes, they were faster than me. My car had damage. But again, they could have passed me a lap later also. But I think they were battling side by side. and when I checked up, it kind of just put us three wide.

And so you have a valid point. Why didn't I lift? It's because of the marbles that were up on the racetrack. I had to stay in somewhat clean racetrack to keep from hitting the marbles, then just slapping the fence as hard as I could. You know, the track was so slick outside those two grooves, which is what we saw with the Byron and Ligano incident. there was just nowhere to go.

I had to get in the racable groove. I just didn't expect to, you know, for everyone to stay in the gas. Yeah, I guess it was a good thing. It was as violent as it was that you got a legitimate caution out of this and was able to get back to pit road. Otherwise, I assume you're probably limping it around on a green fly glap. And again, your race turns out very differently if that's the case. Yeah, certainly.

I mean, we didn't want to damage. the car more by any means but but I mean the caution came out because I pounded the fence yeah yeah pretty hard um and so yeah it gave us an opportunity to then come in and work on it again so it was just a demolition derby for us all things considered on the 11 teams day I'd say it was you didn't win but it was a win all things considered to be yeah six going to Bristol yeah no doubt about it I mean, it's certainly very, very doable. And I think that, you know, somewhere in this, in the fifth to 12th, someone's going to have a real bad day. It always does.

There's always attrition in that Bristol night race. And so I don't think really anyone's safe except for the Bowman-Cindric Bell. I mean, look at the top five. Lugano Bell-Cindric Bow. Bowman Suarez. Oh my gosh. Like, I didn't think any of those guys

were in the top 15 in points. Bell, Bell was, but Bowman, I'm not sure. He was, he was right around there, right around 10.

Yeah, I thought he was, he was 10th or so. Yeah, you're right. So Bell, Bell was like, what, go ahead. After Indy,

Lugano was 15th. I just pulled up a recent one. Cendrick was 19th Swares was 17th This is after Indy That's how volatile these playoffs Are And especially with

You know With you only got three races to get in or out You could end up flipping this whole thing To where everyone that was up top Goes out And then you've got All the guys over the longer stretch Of 25, 26 races

were in the teens and 20s battling for a championship. Yeah, I think... It's crazy. What you just said is that somebody between five and 12 will have a bad day at Bristol. I think that's why Blaney was so disappointed

after not being able to continue this race after the lap one incident because he probably knows like, hey, just because we're plus 29 here, we're not completely in the clear. Despite going to Bristol a track, I'm sure Blaney's just fine at. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the Blaney, Larson,

you know, Byron, Elliot, I mean, all those, Reddick, all those on performance, yeah, you're going to say, yeah, they're fine. It just, nobody's not having incidences right now. And so I love the fact that we get to go there on the offense. I'm going to be on offense the entire time. It's so funny, though, that you look at these drivers and you look at what they said, you know, post-race, obviously Blaney said what he said. Byron got in a wreck late with Kozlowski.

He was unhappy with the day as a whole. Obviously, he finished in the mid-30s. And then you, on the other hand, you know, you have the day that you have and you're leaving thinking, like, man, like, I'm excited to go to Bristol. And these other guys are, I'm feeling that they're like, man, I'm nervous about Bristol. It really changed for us, right? We went from thinking we were going to have to win to, oh, we just got to be ourselves. Right. and do what we normally do at Bristol.

So that's why I think the mood switched so quickly between probably 15 laps to go in the Watkins Glen race to the finish is all that happened in between that. I probably gained 13, 14 points. I went from being like minus 20 to minus six. Like minus six ain't nothing. Most of the race, you were floating around like that, 5 minus 15 range.

Yeah. And at that point, like you're going to need to really run well and then have multiple with issues, which it's just less likely. Now we can just go there

and run well and get in. So what do you need, take out the wind part at Bristol, what can advance you? What do I think will advance us? We can start with a good qualifying day. Yeah.

I mean, qualifying will be important certainly. But I think I don't know. Just run top five all stages, finish top five in the race, get a 47 point day or so.

That'll be plenty. Before we move on. But I'm not. I plan on going there and winning. So Milo's going and Lulu's not? Maybe can that help? Maybe Travis, that's what needs to happen. Maybe has Lulu been to a race since?

You picked her up in St. Louis? No. Maybe just need to cleanse her. Like bring her to a track and just like... What first race to take your dog to then Bristol. Chris would be awful mad if you saw that dog and things can go well. Yeah.

We need to discuss this offline. It's the shame because she's growing up really nicely. She's behaving, starting to behave really well, potty training's getting down really nicely. Milo's done a good job of raising her. Well, Milo had a great, what do you call it? He was trained well. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He went through the gauntlet.

Absolutely. What do you make of Blaney's complaint about how NASCAR handled his car or the decision? I mean, they went by the rules. I'm not saying he's wrong and NASCAR's right. I'm just saying they went by the rules. is the rules fair in that instance? I'm not sure. I mean, what they're trying to avoid, right,

is that we were spending as race teams lots of money on crash carts, repair carts, and all the, you know, we would have to take these things to the track and it would have essentially a full body and components of all of the car and have to bring it to the racetrack. and then, you know, I know they brought up that, you know, it's kind of unsafe. That's whatever. This was a cost-cutting measure is to not force us to go have to repair the car and then

send it back out on the racetrack. It could cause a caution from debris or whatever it might be. So it was one of the cost-cutting things that got brought on years ago. By the rule, it's the right thing. I mean, should we knee-jerk reaction? Just change it just because there's an uproar? absolutely not. This is a unique situation

and I don't think they would have got it fixed anyway. It seemed like this was a steering issue and so for them to fix this thing it would have taken quite some. It would have been more than the repair clock because he was in the incident. There was contact.

So it didn't matter and that matters. That part matters. Had he had something go wrong and yes they could have fixed it in two minutes and he'd been back in the race, then there's more of a legit argument. But the damage he did incur was race ending. Rules or rules.

As far as I know. Rules and rules. So rules are rules. And don't keep changing rules because, you know, because, you know, people react to it. It's just, it's sometimes on the, you're on the good end or the bad end. And certainly, I've been on the bad end more than enough. What happened with the tires?

Why didn't we see as much wear as what we thought going into this race? Once you put 36 cars out on the racetrack and all of them have the same tires, it just fills in the pores of the racetrack and then it stops wearing. You know, it just seems like whatever there is in practice, the wares just get 30% better or whatever it might be, 50% better. Certainly they went longer, they lasted longer on race day than what they did during practice. and I'm sure they lasted longer than what they did during the test. So it just shows that Nass or Goodyear can get even more aggressive.

I really liked the tire at least did drop off some. It did have some fall off. So whatever, it is possible. We thought for the longest time, Goodyear always used to tell us, it's the surface of the track. If the surface of the track isn't a certain type, it's not going to wear. We clearly know now they are. capable of building a tire that does create wear.

And so this is definitely a win for us to try this. And it certainly shows how much more aggressive they can possibly get and hopefully take this to other racetracks. So does that mean that when you do these tire tests and you have wear in a test, then the tire should wear out, yeah, adjusted to wear even more, considering that you're going to have rubber on the track? Yeah, yeah. So if it lasts, you know, I think at the test, it was lasting like 15, 20 laps.

I think it was lasting 20 laps before it really started to wear out. And then in practice, no one really wore one out. But so I'd say at practice, it lasted about 20 laps as well. In the race, that number probably was up to 30, right? And so, yeah, you need to find, make one that wears out in 12 laps or 15 laps. And if you do that, then certainly you're going to have enough drop off. in the race to really create those coverings and goers. But the problem was that everyone kind of pitted around the same time.

And so it just, they all fell off at the same rate for most everyone. There was some passing. But certainly it's, you got to get them to the point where people start to see cords. And then you're going to see the Bristol effect. Well, Gleck tweeted, I don't know what happened to tire falloff thing. The race leaders, Chessie and SVG last pitted on lap 17. it's now at 52 and cars with fresher tires can't pass them. Yeah, clean air matters a lot.

I mean, this car is a challenge. Did the rumble strips also get filled in? I think I heard them say like Ty Gives or somebody to talk about how that wasn't as rough because of rubber laying down? I'm not really sure about that. It certainly got cleaned off more. So the dust and the marbles and whatnot got blown off. Certainly after the Ligano. kind of got out of shape there got into the six the sixth then hit the 24 after that they blew the

racetrack quite a bit and and i think it just cleaned the racetrack cleaned off quite a quite a bit and then so i just think generally speaking you know it was just a track position matters this car has been a challenge to pass in it always will be unless there's some sort of reconfig and as an owner i don't want that. They just, they didn't necessarily get, get it right when they designed it. And so, you know, we're trying to fill in the gaps through tires and things like that. So we're making gains on it. It's just, certainly it's better than what we had last year where we were all running the same lap time over and over and over for endless laps. So this is an improvement on that. On the way to the airport, you were watching the race finish on your phone and you were like, this was our finish?

this is how the race ended it seemed like you were pretty impressed with chris busher's last lap yeah certainly i i'm as equally impressed with his last lap as i was befuddled of SVGs i thought you give us SVG the lead on the last lap he's just not going to make a mistake and he you know he's disciplined enough that he's not going to make a mistake but this this was caused by two things um One thing that's not talked about enough is that the run that Busher got through the S's to get close enough to threaten SVG. So if you look coming off of, off a one, SVG actually has a decent lead there. And then I think he just got offline slightly through the S's.

And I looked and at the top of the S's, the 17 got a really good run. run on SVG. And at that point, I mean, is SVG just kind of looking at his mirror managing the gap or did he make a mistake there as well? But I think that was the key moment that allowed him to think about how he's got to get through that bus stop quickly to gap the 17. The 17 was not within striking distance until he got to the bus stop. And at that point, SVG made a mistake and he got too close.

the barrier on the right. I think he made slight contact with it. It got him slightly offline. And at that point, he missed his apex and got off into the shit over the second half of the bus stop. The 17 hit his marks

and got a good runoff and it was all over after that. So I think that what's not being talked about enough is how did the 17 close enough through the S's to then threaten the SVG into making that mistake in the bus stop.

So this all occurred before even entering the bus stop? Yes. Yes. Yes. Between turn one and the bus stop, the 17 closed enough to make SVG think. And it made them, you know, make a mistake there, in my opinion. Does the 17, I'm just watching this replay over and over again. And it starts when they're coming through that long shoot so you can't, I can't see

turn one and turn two and up through the S's. But when Boucher gets to the bus stop, is he kind of like borderline Hail marrying through here and knowing that he's got to get to his back bumper by the end of this? So I'm looking at the same replay you are. What it shows there is he's got like a one and a half car length gap

to the 17. You're looking at the one that Travis put in, right? Yeah, yeah. It happened before this. This was, there were two turns that led up to this to allow the 17 to get that close. He was not that close coming off of turn one. So again, there was something that happened in the S's.

I'm sure I could look at it in SMT to see where it was, but I think SVG made either another slight mistake there or the 17 executed a flawless S's to get within that striking distance. Right, but if SVG doesn't make any mistakes through the bus stop, I imagine he wins this race. Absolutely. Oh, yes. Yes.

So it's this mistake when he enters the bus stop. But also I'm curious of when Boucher exits the bus stop here, there's a little wiggle in his car when he exits. Is that just because he's trying to take the best possible line and it's stuck? Yeah. When you look at his end car from Boucher's standpoint, he had a fast enough run where he was like thinking about just going around the outside. And I think at that point he's like,

No, I can't go to the outside SVG. He's going to wash me up into the marbles. It's going to be over. I've got to force myself down low at all cost. And that's, you know, he just had barely enough momentum to switch directions there to get to the inside of him. But to answer Jared's question, it has to be a helmet, right? Because what does Buster have to lose? To your point, did any of you always saying, like, second place can go harder because they know what they have to do.

So Buster probably was doing everything on the verge of. don't take me wrong on this Busher won it but SVG lost this race more than Bush or won it there was a combination there's a combination of two you cannot

you cannot stay close enough to SVG without absolutely doing a phenomenal job and the 17 did that and he closed in the S's for whatever reason either he did a great job or SVG did not do a good job

and then SVG made a mistake and that's what cost him the victory Now, I know nothing about... Which is rare. So, so rare. I mean, I can't think of a person, you know, put someone in the lead on a road course, last lap. You're going to pick SVG 100 out of 100 times, but you're human, right? There's, it's high stakes and, you know, people make mistakes.

So I know nothing about driving Watkins Glen, obviously, but watching this longer replay that Travis sent me. The only difference it seems like to my eye in these two guys drive is that SVG goes way wide through the rumble strips out of turn one and Busher keeps it much tighter to the actual racing surface. Is that the difference in the time he was able to make up entering the bus stop? If you give me like 30 seconds, I'll give you the real answer because I'll just look it up and you'll be able to see more of a visual but I don't know exactly I just know watching it back on TV I was like oh this is what happened it was it was the S's it was not the bus stop it was the S's that got him back in oh crap I I can win this so we're not live so

if you don't take that 30 seconds you can upon further review I have looked at SMT I switched my answer. When I said that SVG lost it more than what Busher won it, I'll say to you that it's 50-50. It is because the 17 executed a flawless S's. I mean, he beat SVG up the hill at the top of the S's. Let's see. He was...

look at this. He was 1,700s of lap time off of SVG entering turn 2. Entering the bus stop, he was a tenth ahead. He gained two and a half tenths through the S's to give him a chance to get to SVG there. Can you see in that SMT data how that differs from the average lap that either of these drivers have run? um like was that not really because it was a green white checkered so not i don't have i don't

that would take more time than i'm willing to do right now but i i thought maybe that that SVG got offline or something in the s is he didn't he hit his marks there it's just the 17 did better he had more grip or whatever more throttle definitely at the top of the S's and that's what I mean he just he closed a huge amount right before they got to the bus stop

so wild man wild wild wild wild wild finish great finish certainly great for TV certainly awesome for Chris and his whole team yeah it was it was cool to seeing such a great call by Lee Diffey again

again I just want to try to nominate him to do things 38 races a year. Can we somehow figure out that? We had a great finish, but Martin Trex Jr. was very critical of some driving at the end, the back of the field. What'd you make of Martin talking about how people are just driving into people? I mean, I think that Martin's had this gripe for quite some time. It's different now than what it used to be. There's certainly, you know, not a whole lot of respect amongst the drivers, especially in these green, white checkered situations. We see it over and over year after year and it just keeps getting a little

worse each year. But yeah, there's just no regard anymore. If there's a, if there's a quarter of a car width wide, someone's going to jam it in there in turn one and just if you spin, that's not their problem. And so there's just not enough accountability, I guess, for that. You know, If you think that someone calls direct, then, you know, you need to self-police this thing and make sure that they know that this was for that incident or this, you know, whatever it might be. But certainly it seems as though it's not going well at the end of these races when it comes to green white checkers. It's just, yeah, guys are running over each other for one spot here and there. so there's not much you're going to do to change it and i you know martin just saying i'm done i'm out of here um it's just quintessential martin true x on the flip side at the end of stage one you were trying

you're racing for the lucky dog you said in your car radio thanks kb your racing is accomplished did he do you a solid or did you beat him straight up to get that um i think he had damage like i did but I also think he did me a solid. He had damaged. There was tinfoil all over the back of his car. Yeah, I know. I just, I could see behind me like he would get runs in certain places. Now, again, I think his car was damaged enough where he didn't feel confident, jamming it in there and getting side by side with me without taking risk because my car was still okay under braking.

But still, I could see that, you know, he was being patient. and so certainly appreciative from my standpoint because I thought he cut me a break. We're running out of what other drivers owe you want because we're using a lot up right now, Denny. We had BJ last week, Kyle this week. Taking all the handouts I can get. Bristol, I'll take all the handouts I can get. I'll put it down on a card and write to your Christmas card saying thank you. All handouts are welcome.

Headed to Bristol next week. What do you expect? Are we going to see a similar race that we saw in the spring? Hmm. I don't know. Truth is, I don't know. Now, let's just pretend this was the spring. Conditions are the same. Tires are exactly the same. I think the teams would make things better automatically. I don't know how long they lasted. Was it like 50 laps or something like that in the spring? Let's just say it was 50.

I think we just went back and made adjustments to our cars. we would all get 65, 70 laps out of the tires. So I don't know that we're going to see the extreme of Bristol like we had in the spring, but we could see somewhat of a version of it. Or would we all be shocked if we just showed up there and there was no tire wear whatsoever? I don't think we'd be shocked. No, I wouldn't be shocked. So because this tire is the same tire that we ran here last fall,

that there was no tire wear issues so your guess is as good as mine are you going to know in practice though are you going to we should we should yeah the difference is exfinity is running with us this time expinity was not there last time and again the more rubber that gets put down on the track the less wear becomes an issue so i just believe in my heart of hearts that not having Exfinity on the racetrack before us last in the spring

had an effect on the tire wear on Sunday. And with them being on the track this time, if there's no rain, I just think tireware will not be as big of the issue. There's not going to be tireware this weekend. The way you make it sound,

I'm going to lean towards it. There's not going to be any. I think there'll be some, but not like the spring. I just don't think so. We don't want to say, want it like the spring right no a little less than that yeah yeah we want it just a little less than that absolutely you want to be able to run as hard as you want i thought we i thought when we after that

episode we said don't change anything and we wanted that no because you wanted because we knew an overreaction was coming like listen to the dale junior download and all them it was like oh no now you know that was a cool race but no way good year is going to be okay with that um because we know the next step is just oh let's just put a harder tire on it because because that's usually what the knee-jerk reaction is. We didn't want that. And it sounds like hopefully they didn't, but there are the ones in charge of the mixture of those tires,

and you just never know how much they change it. And who pissed in it? Yeah. Hopefully that guy didn't get fired. I know. And he's still around. Or whoever it was. Whoever was responsible for that.

Denny, do we have an updated Pickleball power rankings? We do. I don't know. I mean, since you dumped your partner, Lance, you definitely got better. I didn't play great last week. I put you at a B plus. I honestly think. I put you to B and then you got moved to B plus. I think I'm still out of B.

I was. Oh, you're fighting for the lower ring. I think I was inconsistent. It's because you want a better partner. You want one of those A partners. I mean, listen, if you want to give me like Steve or Jeff, I'm perfectly fine. Like, I'm good with that. But no, I think I'm right in there.

I'm very inconsistent. and so at times I'm a B plus, at times I'm, you know, drop off. Yeah. I mean, would you consider mean you the same then? I would say you're, yes, but you're more consistent. That's what I would say I'm inconsistent, if anything. That's what I want to know here, Travis. In your opinion, are you a better pickleball player than Denny?

Doubles pickleball is a sham. I've been on that train for a long time. what do you mean it's a sham how's this a shame one v1 it's the only way to to play these tennis pickleball games but it got to where i was like skunking you in one one one on one sure we're not talking about that we're talking about you versus travis i would play travis one-on-one let's settle it next time okay all right but one v1 if you now i'm not going to tell you the because you'll you'll you'll you'll shave points you'll uh yeah you'll lose on purpose i'll say if you beat me, then you go B plus.

If you lose your B. Oh, I'm not going to, I don't care about the ranking. I want to win. I'm not going to throw a... You're already over here, politics. I'm not going to throw a match against you for a make-believe ranking. All right. Sounds good.

But, Jared, it's not a scam. It's a what? It's not a scam. I just enjoy singles way more. I fall asleep playing doubles. I'm trying to, I tried to make it to where we're grouping, like, fair teammates because the captain of this league, he has just a random generator and it would be like two A players versus two B, it just wasn't. I don't believe that that app is, I think one of the best players created

this app because it was always the same, like the best people getting paired together. Yeah. Travis, you host another Dirty Moe podcast that like seemingly ranks drivers on like all things. Why don't you just plug these pickleball players into that thing? And, spit out. I think the rankings are pretty accurate. As long as we pair the top with the bottom, you can't have two tops play against two bottoms. If you have two A plus, then you're just...

I had A plus rankings, A's, B plus, and Bs. Right? Yeah, A plus A, B plus B. I have one other racing related questions before we end this podcast. I got an email from Jenny Lee Dadul. And it says, please dumb it down. I'm a new fan. Please explain the playoff process to new fans.

Point stages, wreck. So I want to know in like 120 seconds, can you explain this playoff process since we're entering a cutoff race to new fans? This is an intro to NASCAR 101. Jeez, Louise. And 120 seconds? Well, I don't know.

I just know you that if I give you the floor, we'll be sitting here for 20 more minutes talking about the playoff process. that's fair it's not a lie i've got a timer okay now i'm going to look at it myself to make sure i try to okay 120 second um 36 drivers start the season um this is a win in in your end format so if you win a race through the regular season you get in the playoffs you will automatically be one of the top 16 drivers uh if you do not win uh you need to be one of the um drivers who makes it in on regular season points,

and you can accumulate those points by either your finishing position throughout a race or certain stages of the race. So there's always three stages to the race. Not always, there's one race that has more. But you get 10 points for winning a stage, and then you get 9 for second, 8 for 3rd, on down to 1 point for 10th.

So you get these points that you, accumulate during the race and they all go to a season total for the first 26 races and if you don't win the race don't win a race and automatically lock yourself into the playoffs at that point then you this is going to be extremely hard to do in two minutes um you need to be one of the top drivers in regular season points to make it in the playoffs once you start the playoffs it's 10 races and then you have a three race season. So after three races of the playoffs, they knock out the bottom four. You run three more races, knock out the bottom four. Run three races, knock out the bottom four. And then the bottom four compete for a championship. Whoever is the top finisher of those four,

then they are the champion. I have 20 seconds to spare, but I know I'm missing lots of details, such as your points that you accumulate in the regular season. If you win, you automatically advance to the next round. You automatically move to the next round. Points that you accumulate through stages and race wins are bonus points that also carry into the playoffs that also carry into each round. It's way too freaking complicated. And that is my summary and my timer.

What was that sound you have for your timer? I don't know. Like a meditation? No, I got a chance. it because it abruptly wakes me up too much. Like when I say I take an afternoon nap, which is very rare, it's too, like, it's all in your face way too early. Like I like alarms that come in soft and hard.

I can't tell you the last time I set an alarm. What? I wake up without an alarm in the morning. That's a guy that doesn't have a real job. It's a guy that wakes up at 637. Man. If you go to bed at the same time every night. and wake up it more or less same time every night you don't need an alarm you will wake up i get it yeah

i've i've gotten more sleep now according to my whooped and i've been getting um i've gotten myself up to you know i'm averaging seven and a half hours a night certainly i think it's such an important part of recovery like my body i felt you know pretty pretty worn yesterday um a little beat up and i knew that like if I just got at least eight hours sleep, I would wake up with my body not aching as much and feeling better. And it does. It's just, it's crazy how the human body works with recovery.

Like overnight while you're sleeping, it's just repairing itself. Yep. So Jenny Lee, Dadul, if that's your name, because now that I'm reading this email, I bet you she's more confused now than when she started.

If you're more confused, feel free to reply and follow up and ask more questions. So the bottom line is that it's too freaking complicated and you can't explain it in two minutes. Apparently. I mean, have you gone to our driver's meeting and looked at just the normal race procedures video? Like if you actually paid attention to it, if you're a casual fan, you have there'd be no chance. You have no chance. Right.

But I feel once you understand it. It's a sport. It's definitely have to. Yeah. Once you understand it, yes, it's easy. but there is lots of rules and lots of procedures and things like that. And it has to be. It's just that's racing is, motor racing is a sport that has to have procedures and things like that.

But it makes it really, really hard for a casual to come in and know everything that's going on. A lot of sports have that, though. I mean, what is a catch in football? Well, college or NFL. Two feet and bounce. No, but I'm saying like there's a lot of rules that are just a catch to me is you can see it. The guy's got his hands on the ball. But there's how many times do we see?

And they say, I understand. If there's a review, right, that they've got a rule analyst and they've got knowledgeable people in the booth that are saying, okay,

here's the rule. They must complete it by having total control inbound. So they explain in that moment. But we still see after review a call and the rules official on the booths. Like, I don't agree. So I think every sport is very,

can be difficult to understand. I agree. What drives me crazy the most about this sport and the playoffs and the points is the live ticker that we're going to see this weekend at Bristol during stage one and stage two because the ticker is assuming that the driver is finishing the stage. If the ticker's in stage one, it's assuming that the driver is finishing the stage in that position, the same position in stage two and finishing the race in that position. Is it? I've always wondered that. Yes. So the ticker, unless I'm completely wrong and feel free to blow up my mention something wrong.

but I don't think the ticker is realistic and accurate. Someone from NBC hit me up on this text me. Is that true? If so, it would be, it certainly is knowledgeable for me because we're going to see it through Xfinity and truck playoffs and things like that. And I wonder if Fox's is the same. I'll Sla-Tard on Dirty Modell.

Okay. Is, is, so you're saying on lap 10, what they're showing is assuming that's the straight finishing position and they're going to give you stage one point, and stage two points of where you are. That is what I am under the assumption of. Yes.

That's how I saw too. I could be wrong. Because I kept having, Ian Austin were going back and forth in the bus. But Jared, what's a, is there, what's a better solution?

Well, there isn't one. I just want you to understand people watching it that this live ticker is not super accurate until we get to stage three. Where points through stage one and stage two have been accumulated

it and now it's just based on finishing position. Okay. Yeah, I wish it during stage one, it only is just those points and not projected win. So like if you're in second place, Denny, it's shown you for, you know, nine points added and not. I mean, the only thing that you could do is just not assume stage points and say, if they were to finish, this is what this is what it would be. and then after every stage, just add it to the totals of the players, right?

Yeah. They could do that. But, yeah, I don't know. There's just not a good way to do it, I don't think. No, no. I think the way they have it, it's fine. Just be aware that, like, when you're watching this race, if you're a Denny fan,

these points are going to look weird until we get to the final stage and stage one and stage two points have been accumulated. Basically, if you're up front at the beginning, it's showing the best case scenario. Yes. yeah because we were watching it in the bus during stage two Austin and I was like well it's showing you being like minus five

and he's like oh that's great I was like well it's not really realistic because like Truex is down here and he's going to end up here at the start of stage three he's probably going to finish here then he's probably minus 16 and one thing we we didn't talk about and you mentioned it before we started rolling was that you know look at all the non-playoff drivers but that just tells you those who sold out for the points, I mean, you just can't make it back up there. It's so, so hard. So the reason the results showed such an unorthodox top 10

was basically those are all the cars that flipped the stages. And everyone that didn't was then just trying to battle for, let's just try to get to the low teams, right? That's a win in our group of cars that decided to pit or decided to stay out and get those stage points. So that's the way road course racing is, unfortunately. Really, there's not really a way to fix it, short of going back to no stage cautions,

but that is not good for TV, not good for anything. You mentioned earlier that you're going to go on the aggressive now. How refreshing is that? Because obviously Atlanta, we know the strategy there, Walkins Glen, we know. Like, are you, like, just ready to get to Saturday right now, or where are you at? Yeah, like, for me, I feel as though, like, okay,

now we're going to a track where I call it a let-off oval, right? We're going to a track where teams and drivers really, really matter. And it's not that it doesn't matter at Watkins Glen in Atlanta, but Atlanta, it is really kind of a crapshoot of where you end up and do you get caught up in the wrecks? And certainly Watkins Glen,

I had nothing to do with what happened other than qualifying badly. But the wrecks can happen anywhere. I mean, William Byron had nothing to do with getting nearly turned over in the fence, but he did. So it just seems like if I could, you know, I always said if I can get through this round, then the playoffs really start. You know, yes, you still have the Roval. You still have Taledega. But, you know, you also got Kansas in that round.

So it's like, at least, we knew Jeff Glock went on a rant about this schedule a year. year ago when it came out. He was like, you know, they're wanting top seeds to fall out. They think that that is a good thing to have top seeds fall out because it creates drama. What it doesn't do is it certainly, I don't know if it rewards being elite throughout the season as much as it should. But it's just, this is the format, right? And, you know, they've dumbed it down. They've done it to these three race seasons and then put tracks in there where it has been very volatile as far as whether you control your own destiny or not but bristol is one where typically you control your own destiny kansas now talega no roval in between you know it's like wakins glen a little bit

but then after that we start to get to tracks where you're going to see the cream rise to the top and while the standings might look like it looks right now with the top five if they get to the round of eight, you're not going to see the same cars up front. It's just, it's, it's, it's just, you've seen a bigger enough sample size to know who's capable of running fast on a typical oval racetrack. Yeah, there's just less variables. That's less variables. There you go. There's less variables at those tracks. Yeah. Well, we're going to one of those tracks this weekend. I got a review here from Riley 6th Vera and they say, Denny, I think I'm the problem. I The first race I watched was Darlington and I became a big fan soon after.

I was in person at Sonoma and had just gotten your die cast before you blew up. Twice I started watching your in-car and you got wrecked around three laps later. Next time I'll turn off the race. Send my apologies to Lulu. Well, appreciate it. It's not your fault. It was great to see during my Q&A so much 11 gear at the NASCAR experience. I appreciate all my fans showing out.

It was a great turnout for you guys this past weekend. I definitely took notice around the race car before the race. Lots of people with Dennygear surrounding the car. Appreciate y'all. It does not go unnoticed. Try to sign stuff for you when I can when I have the opportunity to. But yeah, we're going to hopefully get out of this slump here starting this weekend. Move on to the next round.

win Kansas, move on to the round of eight, and then start this run all over again. Yeah, I was disappointed to hear that you don't have any stage appearances at Bristol, because I always look forward to those stage appearances and the signs that they have in the crowd. And I guess you don't have any, you don't have a stage appearance this weekend. Yeah, no... It's one of those hostile environments, isn't it? Fun hostile.

They got to put chicken wire up. I mean, how hostile is that somebody's throwing a cucumber on the track? like if that's your definition of hostile then you've got it pretty good all right well hopefully let's be in a better mood next monday how about that let's just say let's just get through this round uh get through this adversity give our fans something to cheer for all the all in nation we'll see you next week