Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - We Need A Dub Bad

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Denny Hamlin chats about ice baths and watching his daughter Taylor perform in a play last week and how proud he was. Changes to the engine, tire falloff, NASCAR fines and Corey Lajoie talking about wrecking someone and not getting fined (12:50). Call to grab fuel backfires for the 11 car (40:03). Was Ross Chastain to blame for a wreck (52:50). Bubba Wallace tried to make one too many blocks (55:28). And, #DearDenny that includes an idea that could help out NASCAR's regular season (1:07:00) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Let's just say, if NASCAR could do this, we don't need credit, but just hear me out. I have a fix. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Welcome to Actions Detrimental on Denny Hamlin, driver of the number 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing and co-owner of 2311 for Bobba Wallace and Tyler Reddick. And one of the 75 greatest drivers in NASCAR history. Apparently. Yeah. Well, who's my co-host? Do you? Yeah, I'm Jared Allen waiting for NASCAR Purple Vest 75.

Yeah, I have to wait a few more. Yeah, that'd be cool. It would be cool. I actually heard you guys talking about the Purple Vest needs a merch. You need to have a black shirt with a purple vest embroidered, you know, screen printed on there. So, you know, you have your own Jared Allen purple vest merch. That's the grand merch idea for actions that's tremendous. Hey, hey, we're starting to hear your name, yelled a little bit more every week. So it was funny.

I went to the dirt track on Saturday night. And because, so go back a little bit. We were walking down pit road on Saturday, and we were talking about this again. It's like people are yelling at your name, blah, blah, blah. And you heard someone yell it out on Saturday at the track. And then I went to the dirt track on Saturday night and talking to Larson's crew guys. They're like, hey, you know, we love the podcast. We're listening to the show.

we yelled your name out on pit road today thinking that we could make you a hundred bucks i'm like no it's the opposite you're costing me a hundred bucks yeah i got to pay you for that by the way but you know you had your name yelled enough this week where you might have to we might have to call it even um last week was pretty busy week off the racetrack um i actually saw dale junior did uh that uh uh cold plunge uh tank for the first time I didn't see how long he stayed in. Do you know how long he stayed in? I think he and Amy did the three minutes.

Oh, they did? I think. Or they did the cryo for three minutes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, the cryo is much easier than the coal plunge for sure. Have you done both? How long?

Ten seconds. Ten seconds. Oh, wow. The ice bath was ten seconds? Oh, shoot. Yeah. So I have a cold plunge. I've learned in my older age that it certainly helps with inflammation.

And so anytime I do something pretty active, whether it be golf or basketball or anything that I feel like is pretty strenuous, I'll get in there afterwards to kind of kill all the inflammation. It's certainly between that and the dopamine that you get from it, it's pretty legit. How long do you stay in it from? It just depends. Like I have mine set at like 46 degrees, between 46 and 48 degrees.

Anything under 56 is considered cold plunge and you start and you get benefits. I can do it for, I mean, as long as I need to, honestly. It's just 30 seconds of pain for me, and then I kind of go numb. So breathing is such a big part of doing that. And I see that, you know, the whole world's doing it now, right? It's just, it's definitely the end thing now. But certainly, I'll be honest, I found very good benefits with doing it. The only thing is I'm not one of those guys like Rogan who can do it first thing in the morning.

Like, that, dude. It's, it's, I have, my body has to be hot for me to get in there. Much easier to do it after I'm hot than, then when I, you know, first thing in the morning, no way. Do you still get in though the first time? You're like, sorry, I've got a cold people. Yeah, it's, it's, realistically, it's 20, no, it's 30 to 40 seconds of, of, you know, it's tough. It's tough. Just breathe, breathe, breathe, and then finally I start to feel myself relaxing and letting go.

So after that, I mean, I can go as long as I need to, but I usually try to do five to six minutes. So we had that. And then if you saw on my Instagram at Denny Hamlin, Taylor was Dorothy in the school play. And oh my gosh, I, I'm a closet emotional guy. I don't publicly get emotional, but I do. I'm an emotional guy. I watch an emotional movie. I cry on the inside, and I really cover it up on the outside. But, man, I was so proud of her for her performance and the work that she put in.

And, you know, listen, I knew that she was doing her voice lessons every week. and acting lessons every week. And, you know, I knew that she had her practice for the play two, three times a week. And she's been doing this for a few months. I had no idea how talented she is. I mean, I just such a proud dad after watching her perform. And Jared, you were there as well. It's just like, man, it's like the perfect thing for her because she's so common.

confident, right? She loves the spotlight. When the bright lights are on, that's where she's in her comfort zone. And so I just, I just couldn't get over how good she did. And now I'm like, you know, okay, so what's the next step? How do I get this girl an agent? Like, you know, who do I need to contact? You know, I just feel like this is something that she loves too, right? I mean, sports, she's whatever about sports, but the singing, acting, dancing, all that stuff. She loves it. And it fits her, fits her perfect. So I was a proud dad.

You know, her mom really helped, you know, with the whole putting on the play as well. And so shout out to her for helping with that. They had a great production. The school did great. Man, it was a proud moment. I just didn't know I just didn't know what I was going to watch, right? You're nervous.

You see her practice at home, right? But you have no idea what. I do. Yeah. I hear, right, practicing and whatnot. But you just, you don't know until the production starts. But she did such a great job and, you know, such a big role for her. I mean, she's gotten a few really big roles, you know, and you have to audition for him.

She was Charlie and the chocolate factory. Then she was Ms. Hanigan. and Annie. So she's gotten some really big roles. And really, she's young for her, the age group in which she's acting with the other people that she's acting with, the other kids. So she's doing well, especially for her age. Yeah. I don't know if it was the role for this one, but I've seen a handful of her plays in the past two years, and you mentioned those other roles she had. It just seemed like this one was bigger and she owned it even more than the previous ones. Yeah, no doubt. And I think as she gets older and older, she's going to continue to get better and better, right?

But also the competition is going to get better and better. So, better, it's like any other, you're going to be a professional in any sport or any profession. You've got to start early. It's unfortunate for me. She's grown out of the Taylor TV. She's retired. Yeah. He's forgotten me in the past.

She don't want to be a YouTube star now? Now she knows. You're using me for content. So we had that. And then obviously I got the call on Thursday from Jim France. And I told some of the media members this past weekend, I was like, I remember heading. I forget where I was going. But I was in my car, got to, you know, notified Jim France is calling. I'm like, here we go again. What are they mad about now? Like, you know, something I said or whatever. And, uh, and, uh, It was just a huge honor to get that call to be part of the NASCAR 75. And of course, I got asked, well, did you ever think about whether you be on it or not? Of course, right? Every driver.

There's not a driver in the field. It's not like, hmm, I wonder if my credentials are good enough to get in there. And I knew mine was, but still, until you get the call, like, that's when it makes it real. So I was super honored to get that call. and very appreciative, you know, and he said, you know, this is, this came from media members, your peers, things like that, who all vote on this. So it's a big honor. And again, it's, for my standpoint, there's only one next, big one next, right? And that's the Hall of Fame. So this is the closest thing you can get to that before you get to the Hall of Fame. So I think, you know, it's, it's cool that,

you know, my mom said to me, she says, you know, would you ever, imagined, you know, when you were racing at Southside or Langley, that, you know, your life would have taken a turn like this, right? We were on the cusp of not racing anymore. We were to our final race and you got a lucky break and got seen at the right time and your career just took off down this path that, you know, look at where you're at now compared to where you started, and not just, I think the lucky stars every day that I'm able to compete, but then to have the accomplishments in NASCAR that I've had, it's just definitely humbling for sure.

Isn't that also something that I know you've talked about where it's like when you retire, you want other drivers you race against to think, man, I'd race against that guy every week. Yeah, yeah, certainly. I think that, you know, NASCAR always kind of gets the drivers together and ask, you know, who's the best at this or who's the best at that? Who, you know, who, and they don't list it by winners, right?

They just know who's my toughest competition. And it could be past drivers, current drivers, whatever. And you just want to be in the forefront of their mind of like someone that they have to beat. And, and I always said this, I said this 15 years ago, if I was just the guy who was at Southside Speedway and I went out on the race, track to run practice laps. If my competition grabbed their stopwatch to, hey, what's he running? Like, that's, that was enough for me. I was fine being a Friday night superstar at my local short track, being the guy that

people think, oh, man, he's going to be tough to beat tonight, you know, to get my competition's attention that, you know, if they're going to win, they're going to have to come through me. Well, you had that this weekend. NASCAR asked all these drivers before the season started, in relation to Tal-Divis. who is the best super speedway racer or who are you looking at at super speedways and half the field said denny hamlin just if i'm behind denny hamlin i'm just attached to him and going where he's going that's good hey that's good to know i appreciate that justin and i will keep that in mind next

speedway race and i'll i'll latch on to him as well but yeah it's it's it is different speedway racing's different than it used to be for sure um you know we we actually did see a little three-wide racing this week. It was something that we haven't seen on the speedways in a while. I think there's a few factors that played into that. But yeah, I think it is. Whenever you can, and they said it at Martinsville as well, and that really kind of was like, oh man, I have really track racing. Yeah, it really made me feel good about myself when they said that. But it's just as a driver, you want to feel like your skill set can shine through, right? And, And, you know, when we talk about competition and passing, what do we need to do that,

this and that and the other to make competition better, you know, that's what I want to see is, right, is the guy, you want to be able to look on TV and say, that guy is better than the rest of them, right? Not just which car has better track position. That's what we're all shooting for, is that if everyone runs the same speed, you don't know who's good, you don't know who's good, who's bad, and whatever, right? you want the stars to shine through for sure. Yeah. Well, we'll get into that later because we may or may not have a dear Danny question related

to what you were just talking about. Okay. But real quick, before we get into our Talladega recap, some midweek housekeeping from last weekend, you say we need a Thursday show to kind of go over. Like, it feels so long ago that this stuff happened. Don't say that. Mike Davis is going to be like, all right, so you said you're going to do a Thursday show. Yeah, what time?

Yeah. Right. But it is. It's difficult. I've said that Monday, we do this either Sunday night or Monday morning. And then news comes out Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It's like, oh, man, we need to recap that before it goes away, right? And so I don't know.

We'll think about that. But, you know, I wouldn't mind throwing in a few Tuesday shows for sure. Or I'm sorry, Thursday shows. Yeah, some emergency. Some more emergency pods. First thing up here is NASCAR on engine changes. This was a big topic last week after Martinsville and discussing how we could add more horsepower back to the sport. and Ellen Sawyer had told Sirius XM Radio, more or less, I'm paraphrasing here, that it just, it takes more time.

There's a bit of longer runway is what he said needed to get everyone on the same page to do that in the most efficient and economical manner. Well, yes, that's true. We said it last week that we knew it's not going to be an easy change, right? My three things, we either need to change the tire, the shifting, or the engines. aerodynamics is not the be-all-end-all when it comes to competition. Solware Doug Yates actually said, though, that 750 horsepower would be pretty easy to do. That's really just a tapered spacer change, which is basically the engine. The internal parts are probably about the same as what they are right now in the 670 package

or whatever we're running. You're just changing essentially the restrictor plate that goes. goes into the engine. So I think that that would be a good change. I mean, that would be almost 100 horsepower more that we could, he says that we could change pretty quickly. Again, we don't have that many short tracks. So let's, you know, we're not going to be fixing a whole lot of racetracks if we,

if we do do that. But it certainly would be a step in the right direction for sure. And the good news is, too, is, you know, the drivers did have a competition meeting this weekend at Talladega. NASCAR brought together the drivers, a good year, some NASCAR executives and competition, and says, you know, here's what we're looking at to try to improve the racing, you know, short tracks, mid-tracks, whatever it might be. And I thought they had some really good ideas. And so I'm positive, you know, I feel pretty positive leaving that meeting that, you know, it's on their radar. They want to make some changes.

How quickly we can implement them? I don't know. But then, you know, my most optimistic part of that, and me and Dale Jr. are certainly on the same page as this, is that tires, tires, tires. That's going to be a big one, right? We've got to get back to more falloff.

And Goodyear, you know, came to us and says, listen, we understand that the tires play a big role here. The first year next gen, we were trying to be a little bit more common with our tires. like this is just the short track tire here's the speedway tire here's the intermediate tire um that made it easier for us and we and we got very conservative with our mixtures of compounds um to make the tire softer or harder they were they they went more towards the hard side just to be safe right they don't want a bunch of blown tires first year next gen yeah there were already enough issues of

things breaking stuff they didn't want to be part of that discussion right um totally understandable but now they said, hey, we feel more comfortable now that we've got some races under our belt and now a season that we can be a little bit more aggressive with our tire compounds and make them a little bit more individualized like they used to be. We used to have probably, gosh, seven or eight, probably different compounds because the same tire that you need for Phoenix is not really the same tire that you need for Richmond, even though they're pretty close in length, size, all that, you know, the surface. itself is very different so it wears the tire out differently so i think they're they are a big part of our competition and our big part of the lap time variation in which we're uh trying to get to and to hear them say you know we're we're on it we know we have some options that we think we need to explore we're going to do some tire testing and find something a little bit more aggressive um and we told them too that they need to leave a tire test like nervous.

Like because what happens is you tire, we end up tire testing on a racetrack that is green, which green means there's not much rubber on it. So it wears the tire out super quick. And when your tire test in those conditions, Goodyear at times will panic and say, well, we can't, we don't want to wear tires out and then blow out.

So we have to go to a more conservative compound. That's a little bit harder, doesn't wear out as much, won't fall off as much. They need to leave these tire tests going, it might make it. It might not. Because by the time we get around to the actual race weekend, that track gets so rubbered in that the tireware goes nearly away fully. So they're on it. That was a very good meeting. I was very confident that between NASCAR, Goodyear and the drivers, we're all on the same page of how we're going to

get this all fixed for the better. Yeah. So if you're at a tire test and you leave there on the edge based on those track conditions, when you get to a race, you got to scale it back probably 30% or so because you're going to have more rubber on the track. It's not going to wear nearly as much as it did during the test. Yeah, absolutely. And we said too that you want, you almost want to have the fear of wearing out a tire. Like I remember we were talking about Martinsville. You used to be able to run about 15, 20 laps in practice before your left rear would go bald. Like it would be down to the cords, nothing left. But by the time the race happened, it was, you could run 100 laps on left side tires. It just, the track changes that much. And so doing some tire test right after a race

weekend, I think would be beneficial because the track is rubbered in. Hopefully you have no rain overnight on Sunday. I think from a team standpoint, maybe you just make it random and say, you hey two Toyotas, two fords, two Chevys, randomly pick them. Hey, you got drawn. Do you want to stay here overnight and test tomorrow for six hours, right? That way we don't spend a bunch of money as race teams putting data on the cars and all that other stuff. It certainly, we could work it out as race teams to not be super costly to us to help NASCAR out with this initiative. Another topic last week, middle of the week.

Austin Dillon, the three team penalized 60 points, five playoff points, 75 grand, and crew chief Keith Rodden was suspended two races, one of which was served this last weekend at Talladega. Citing sections of the rule book, overall assembled vehicle rules in which the underwing assembly mounting and underwing stay assembly hardware, all of this is, sounds very foreign to me, but to you, I'm sure it makes sense. Yeah, I mean, I don't know a whole lot of facts about it. But it sounds like from I listened to Andy Petrie on Race Hub last week right after the penalties got assessed. And it sounds like maybe some things were not, some bolts maybe weren't tightened as much as they should have been.

So what happens is, and, you know, I actually encourage people to follow Bozzi. I'm not sure his last name on Twitter. Tata. Yeah, I'm not really sure. But he's a great guy who illustrates when speaking foreign like that, he can translate it for you, Jared, to make it a little bit more simpler and show you what they're talking about. So make sure you give him a follow. Jared's going to find his name here shortly.

Yeah, it's at Bozy, B-O-Z-I-T-T-A-T-R-E-V-E-C. I'm pretty sure that's how you pronounce it from my soccer history. T-A-R-E-V-I-C. Yeah. So, yeah, I would say that it had to do with the underwing. It had to do with the assembly of the underwing. So more than likely, they didn't tighten things as much as they should. So something kind of, it will go over inspection and the car will sit there and they will scan it.

Oh, it's legal. But then once air gets underneath of it and starts pushing it up, if bolts are loose or maybe you didn't tighten something up as much, or maybe you overtighten something and it flex. Like it could move when the air gets under there and to an illegal position. But then once you slow back down to no speed, it goes back to. You know, we used to do that with the outer body. We had steel outer bodies all the time. We would, you would see the left side door, the right side door flexing huge.

Like we would make them so thin and flimsy that when the car is sitting there through inspection, the right side looks perfectly straight. And as soon as you get a little bit of air on the right side, the whole right side caved in and made for an aerodynamic advantage on the racetrack. So those are games we played on the outer body for years. But it looks like maybe they might have been playing it a little bit on the underbody. So does that add down force? How does that?

Yeah. Yeah, you certainly are going to do it to gain an advantage for downforce. Now, at Martinsville, is a juice worth the squeeze air? Probably not. But, you know, I listen to people. people say, well, it's not an advantage at this track. Well, trust me, they're doing this track. They were doing it last week and the week before. And, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's something that, you know, isn't just happening during that week. It, you know, it just got caught

that week. But, but yeah, you do it to, to gain an air dynamic advantage. Yeah, you're trying to keep teams from trying to do that stuff, right? Yeah, attempting that. And then last one, uh, colleague won their appeal and a complete overturn of the penalty. Yeah. You know, I talked to Chris Rice right after their penalty. We had a couple phone calls. And, you know, Matt Colleg is someone I really admire and respect quite a bit with that whole organization and everyone there. That's good for them. I mean, it's good for them, certainly. Now, is it the right thing? Yes and no, right? Because I think that Hendrick got off. I don't think anyone's going to debate that they got off on their penalty but since they got off you need to let call it off as well

right this was NASCAR inserting themselves in there and saying that was wrong I'm sorry we're going to have to make another wrong to try to make this right right which I respect that I think

you know by the letter of the law they both should have been penalized to whatever the full extent of the penalty was but once the precedent was set from the Hendrick penalty, I think it was the right thing for NASCAR to talk to Bill Mullis and say, you know, let's give him his points back and keep it consistent with the Hendrick. Now, I wish they did that with mine. I wish NASCAR executives would have got involved in mine. You know, but, you know, it's tough. It's a tough position for them to be in. I mean,

we're seeing it week in, week out now. I think Kyle Bush was even mentioned in the court, Lejoy. Maybe someone else tries to do the same thing you did and they give it back. I needed a lot of answers for that whole Corey LaJoy thing because it sounds like he cut and paste my comments. And on his own podcast, NASCAR owns the podcast. Let's preface it, put the little fine print in there, but he got no penalty. The explanation I got from NASCAR on that, because of course I'm going to ask questions.

And then Kyle Bush is texting me. He's like, what the fuck? Like, he said the same thing. Like, literally the same thing. Even said that he was trying to get a caution out of it. Like, it was pretty blatant. And I got a very long-winded political answer. But, you know, I left there at least saying, I hear you.

I don't believe you, but I hear you. is that they said that Corey's words and his actions did not match. I said, I think they matched perfectly. I thought in my case, my words and my actions didn't match. And I even had information and proof that it didn't match. Listen, I think if NASCAR could do it all over with, they wouldn't have f***ed with me. And what I did or said,

but it's water under the bridge at this moment. I said, listen, this is what you opened yourself up to by setting this precedent. You're going to have people questioning every single week. Well, how's this different? How's that different? Right. You just want NASCAR to be consistent. And that's all I ask is that, all right, well, if I am the precedent that you set,

then you must enforce that each and every week because that's what you wanted, right? That's the decision you made, the box yourself, you put yourself in. So we'll just see if they start getting more consistent or not. But I thought that Corey got away with one there for sure. Yeah, that's my question. Do you think that this is a first step into maybe... Which, by the way, let me just stop. That sucks.

I think what Corey said was fine. I got no issues in what Corey said. He's given people who were listening an insider's perspective of like what his mindset was in that moment. I don't... I mean, that's good for our sport. but it's not what NASCAR won it as a precedent, right? And so I think I got nothing against Corey. He just got away with one for sure.

But I wish that we could speak more freely like that. And maybe they're saying from now on, you know, you can say whatever you want, right? That's what I'm wondering. Is now that Corey said this and they didn't do anything, now, again, it was on a NASCAR run show. But is this the new precedent? Did they realize with your penalties like, hey, we fucked up, we can't do anything about this now. It is what it is. But, all right, going forward, we'll let you all say what you want.

I guess we won't know until three, four more cases down the road. But I don't know. I did ask the question again, and I really did not get an answer. How do you self-police as you state in your opening statement you want us to do? You want us to self-police. How do you do that without manipulative? the race. It is impossible. Still I haven't got an answer for that one, but we'll see. Let it go. We're going to let it go. But it's just interesting. It is news though, right? I mean,

media outlets were talking about it and Kyle Bush made statements in the media about he doesn't understand how different it was because it wasn't different. But nor here nor there. Moving on. Last week, you had a little exchange with Mike Ford on Twitter about a passes pertaining to Martinsville. Yeah. So, I mean, last week at Martinsville, obviously, after the race, the competition was a big, you know, lack of passing or how hard it was to pass was a big topic. And so, you know, I think NASCAR then came out and there was a couple people that worked at NASCAR,

Mike Ford being one of them who's kind of the helps with the stats and collects all that data and stuff. Mike Ford, who's a great, great guy with NASCAR. Yeah, I had both a public and a private exchange with him on this whole thing because they kind of refuted, they were refuting in my mind. They were refuting what we were saying as drivers that the passing is more difficult. You can't pass anyone by saying, yeah, but wait, look at the data here. It's got more, you know, 2,000 passes where last fall was like 600. and and I'm like, wait a minute, let's dig into that a little bit more because my eye, you know,

I'm on the racetrack. I can tell you that there wasn't 2,000 passes on the racetrack. So I'm like, I get to figuring out, well, how do we get to that, right? And, you know, so NASCAR has a stat that they've been keeping since 2004 on green flag passes. Well, okay, so let's explain it for those who didn't see the Twitter exchange, is that, NASCAR considers a green flag pass when a transponder from one car passes another transponder from another car somewhere on the racetrack. So each race track has scoring loops and some of them can have up to 10, maybe on road course

they have 12, 15 scoring loops. So let's just use Martinsville for example. they probably have at least 7 to 10 scoring loops. Let's just say conservatively. And this is when the transponders update. Yeah, so there's a line in the track. They basically have an underground line that keeps scoring of the car. And there's a box.

There's a transponder box that's kind of a locator of where your car is around the racetrack. So that way when they throw a caution, they know who is in front of who. That's how they set the line up somewhat. not. So as you're battling side by side on restarts, like you go through turn one and you're side by side with someone. Let's just say the front two cars. If this guy is a car is ahead entering one, okay, he's ahead. Now off a turn two, the outside guy knows the head. Boom, he crossed the scoring loop. They said pass. Goes into turn three, the guy on the bottom charges in. Bam, another pass.

So you can be credited for like five or six passes in one lap when all you're doing is running side by side. It's just a matter of which car is nosing ahead. So that's where data can really get skewed quite a bit and get kind of fluffed up pretty high. And then I got to realize, wait a minute, when green flag pit stops happen and let's just say I'm leading the race. And I, under the green flag sequence, I'm one of the first cars.

pit. I go from first to 30th under the green flag pit stop sequence. 29 cars just got credited with a pass. I was sitting on pit road. They never went, they never passed me. But their transponder moved ahead of mine. So there's 29 passes that got credited in that race that did not actually happen. It was not an overtake at all. then when they start pitting and i moved back from 30th and recycled to the lead i now get credited with 29 passes that did not happen so that's where you can see this number can get really skewed and really fluffed up really big really quickly um so you know i i dug into it a little bit and i saw that was it tyler i think tyler from our team says um you know you you have the most green flag

passes per nascar stats and data this year and i'm like well that's actually ironic considering i'm the one complaining about all this i mean i'm not the only one by any means but i've got like a large lead over second place of green flag passes but i'm like trying to figure out what's real and what isn't and so i looked at the martinsville stats which is that's the martinsville stats which is what prompted this my exchange with Mike Ford. And I look back and it said, I passed 46 cars while running in the top 15. That's called a quality pass by NASCAR.

In the top 15. Yep. Under green flag conditions while in the top 15, that's not just a green flag pass. That is called a quality pass. And so I was like 46. How did that happen? I started 11th and I just methodically worked.

my way up and I ended up leading the race. So couldn't have that many. So we as the team started digging in the day and I'm like, I pass 14 cars all day. Not just in the top 15. All day, I moved up 14 positions. So two thirds of that data is not real in the sense of, I didn't pass anyone.

So what they showed is 46 passes was really 14. I really passed 14 cars all day for position on the racetrack. So and again, it's also counting every time I lap somebody. You know, it counts so much, which is why

it was such a head scratcher for me to say 2,000 passes. There was not 2,000 passes at Marjordshire. There wasn't, right? It's just the way they formulate. Now, the argument could be made. Well, they've been doing this since 2004, right? That's what I'm thinking right now.

Okay, but Jared, there's more green flag pit stops now than there used to be. So knowing that hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of these passes just happened during one green flag cycle, if you have multiple, like speedway racing now, we didn't used to have as many Super Speedway Green Flag pit stops is what we do now. Now, we've always had them at Super Speedways, but now it is just a normal part of our racing. I can't even tell you how many of these passes get fluffed up through those numbers. So my fix for it, and I think that it could easily be done, let's just go back in stats. And if we want to create real numbers to really analyze our racing, is you could do it one of many ways.

But my way of fixing it was just say, hey, Mike, let's take the passing, the scoring loops out. because, you know, a pass gets made when on the scoring monitor, my car went from sixth place to fifth place. That's a pass. And he's like, well, what about in turn two? Like, you know, or how about he brought up the Ricky Craven thing at the Ricky Craven and Kurt Bush. He's like, well, that wasn't a completed pass, but that was a side-by-side battle. I'm like, yes, it was because it was at the start finish line. a position changed at the start finish line, and it was the end of the race, so therefore it changed.

And he's like, well, then why would people buy tickets in turn two to, you know, if they're not going to see any, you know, quote unquote passing? And I'm like, Mike, is there really stands in turn to anymore? And so that was a little. But also, funny exchange. Fans aren't buying tickets because of passing. No, no. They want to see an action part of the corner, right? So to get back on track, let's fix it by going back in the data.

Since we have it, only count passes that happen to the start finish line. Stop fluffing it with all, you know, two cars that are just side by side for a lap that technically it might read as five passes that, you know, that's one overtake when someone finally clears. So start finish line, count your passes then, and then anything that happens when a car is on pit road should not be counted. So it has to be on the racetrack where actual passes get made. Should we count when you're lapping cars? I don't know. You know, that's debatable. If you really want to make it good to really analyze racing,

take it from two laps after a restart versus restarts, you know, double-file restarts, especially with these next-gen cars. We just kind of go back and forth for a few laps until we figure it out. We get single file. that's when the passing becomes so difficult. I would love to see what is the difference in passes for the first two laps of a restart versus after that because what we see on TV is at Martinsville after two laps,

that's only like one minute of racing. So what about the rest, you know, 45 minutes of that green flag run, right? We don't see much action. That's what we're complaining about is that how can we make that action better, make it to where your superstars that go to the back that are really good at that racetrack can make his way to the front and the race fan be like, man, that dude is good. He is better than everyone else. That's what makes that guy special.

So that's just my advice on how to fix it. I'm sure someone on Twitter probably could, well, they don't probably have the data that NASCAR has on this, but I'd love for Mike to send me an email and say, all right, if we redid the data this way, here's what the numbers would show at Martinsville and just create a new data point. Maybe they just keep it locked away for a year or so we can really create some sort of comps.

But doing it in a more fair way so we can use it as a real tool to analyze our racing would be way more beneficial than kind of the fluff numbers that we have now. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's all that difficult, right? Especially with those three different points you talked about using, You have a bucket with just passes at the start, finish on it. Then you have a bucket that includes the lap traffic passes. And you have a bucket that includes the first, however many laps of a restart. And you have three different numbers, but each one is a little more specific, but they're all.

Yeah, and maybe you consider a quality pass, any pass for position. And just say green flag passes are all passes. So whenever I lap a lap car, that will count in my green flag, you know, stats. Passes. You went around a car. Right, right, right. And again, we only want to do this to make it right, right? And again, if we didn't have real data to back up that, hey, I only really pass 14 cards at Martin'sville.

That's a fact versus the 46 that they said I passed. That's where it was like, man, we didn't miss about a little bit. Like, that's a 300% increase over reality. Talladega. Good weekend? Not for us. Oh, I'm so frustrated. Gray hot.

I mean, we got a chance to win races time and time again, and daggone it, we just can't figure out the end for some reason. Yeah, we were good. I mean, our team is good. We put ourselves up front. The team did a great job of strategy, keeping me up front, especially from stage two on. Yeah, stage two on. But, you know, it was another kind of Taldega race where with a couple laps to go, I'm coming in and getting fuel again.

So I don't know really what the right answer is. I think in retrospect, if we had to do it all over again, we probably would have stayed out. But it can go either way, right? If the caution happens, you know, so it happened in turn one and two on the final lap, if it happens in the trial will or in three and four coming to one to go, there's another caution. Everyone runs out except for probably the eight guys that pit on the previous caution and then me, Harvick, and someone else who pitted.

I don't know. I guess I see it as like if I'm going to run out, so there's the rest of the field. So, you know, what does it matter? I just think that we were erring on the side of the odds of there was going to be another caution. And if there was another caution, we certainly was going to run out of, gas. But there wasn't. There was only that one and, you know, we ended up finishing in the teens. Yeah, whether it's accurate or not, I feel like lately there hasn't been that many overtime restarts. You get one and then drivers wait until the last lap and then there's a big move and

there's a wreck on the last lap and then the field finishes under caution. That's just kind of been my impression of the last handful of super speedway races, which is what I thought was going to happen on Sunday, and it ultimately did. Yeah, I don't know exactly what the stats are, but you're probably about right. The reason is, is that it takes these cars about a lap to get up to speed anyway. So a lot of the wrecks, well, hold on, that isn't true, because there was a caution, and then there was an immediate caution again. So that, I think, was our second attempt at a green, white checkered. No, no, I think it was. Yeah, because we wrecked in the middle of turns one and two, because I restarted 11th or 12th, and then we went into turn one, some guys bounced off of each other.

This was the Larson Prec incident. Yep, they bounced off of each other. I moved up to 8th or 9th, and then I, I pitted out of that position. That was with like 8 to go, I believe. I don't know. I remember. I think so. I remember being on. It wasn't because I pit, I know I pitted right after that incident. I just gained three or four spots in the first corner and then bam we pitted so Travis we need some explanation yeah what lap was the accident on it was a green white checker it was like the second one yeah so there was two it was two green white checkers I pitted after the first one and he even mentioned on the radio that like if we have multiple if we for one green white checker we're good two we don't think I don't think so um so I just I just

I live with a decision and, you know, it could have been the right one, had a caution falling at a different time, but yeah, it didn't. And, you know, we got a crummy finish. But, yeah, I, you know, I still feel really confident about getting hot. We're getting hot on performance. We're really running up front and doing a good job. I got to finish a little better for sure. But the race I thought was, you know, pretty good. It was still. still the two by two for the most part. There was a third lane that did form a little bit during the race. You know, you could stall that third lane pretty easily.

You could just kind of pull up in front of them. And all it took was one guy to peel out of that top lane and go to the middle, and the third lane would just go away. But we saw that with Bubba was leading that third line, and he rode that third line to the front. And then he bailed on the third line to move down. Yeah, and the third line disappeared. Yeah, it just went away.

It's so dependent on how many cars you have. have up there. And it's just a numbers game, right? And it's, if you see three wide racing, it's more than likely you're seeing it because there's a row of 12, 12, 12, inside, middle, and outside. It's an equal amount of cars in each. You're never going to see a third lane if there's four cars up there, 15 in the middle, 15 on the bottom. So a lot of that is the reason, the reason for that is these cars have so much drag that you can't afford to put it in clean air. Like the difference in the speed of your car in the draft versus being around other cars is dramatic. And I really feel like there's some adjustments there that we could make pretty easily to make it,

make Super Speedway racing a little bit better. But I thought that this was a good race. I did. I thought that, you know, while there was not a lot of movement, once we got to two by two, it was just kind of if a yo-yo effect, which is kind of what we've seen over the last three or four super speedways now. It stinks because, like, I get runs and I'm like, man, normally in the old days, I would just pull out here.

I'd go three wide, go middle, or go top, clear this person, then pull back in line. But it's just you can't do it because your car will slow down so much as soon as you pull out of the line. But it's different. You still saw some of the same characters up front, though, you know. So you can't really say it's an entirely luck game. But certainly from what Super Speedway racing was, let's call it two years ago, I would say luck has percentage has increased about 15 to 20 percent higher than what it was. And the luck is taken over from skill.

So, you know, there's an execution factor. There's a skill factor and there's a luck factor. Luck has taken over 15% of the skill factor. Well, I like Joey's skill move middle of the second stage. Yeah. When he was... I didn't like it. Trying not to go a lap down and kind of slowed the field down a little bit.

Yeah. Went to the middle and was able to just get in line. Yeah, as a competitor, I'm like shaking my head, you know, saying what? the but it's I mean it worked out for him because and I watched the the in car and I was following I was probably second or third in line on the top when he chose to run middle now again let's let's give you know full transparency I think they even said on the radio before the pack got to him Joey we want you to run middle here um or he said he was going to run middle so he warned the field he was going to run middle now again we don't hear all that audio yeah but

you know, it's, nor here nor there. But I saw him as the field's approaching, he gave a little juke of the wheel. Like, he just made us check up just enough to make us think, oh, is he going high or low? Like, he, if you watch, he juked right entering turn three and made the top line just think for a second where he was going to go,

and it slowed us up enough where he blended in. So a very skill move, kind of a bullshit move, because you could wreck the field doing that. Normally you need to pick higher or low. That's the right thing to do, but you will go to the end of the pack. So I think that it was a mix of kind of a bullshit move, but also kind of a good skill move because it worked well.

Can you break down getting onto Pit Road at Talladega? Because we saw two drivers not get onto Pit Road cleanly, one of which brought out one of the very few cautions early on, Tyler Redick and Chase Briscoe. Yeah, it's different. Daytona and Taldega is actually very different. There's more room from the entrance of Pitt Road to off the turn four at Talladega than it is Daytona. Daytona, you need to start soon as you get to the straightway. You've got to be checking up. You're rolling out of the gas and you're hitting the break pretty hard. Taladega,

you can go on to the straightaway, take a beat, then go ahead and break. I watched Tyler Redix and he wasn't in position to be petting. He was on the second lane. He had to cut across somebody's nose, which means he had to keep his car accelerated longer than he should have to clear whoever is on the bottom, then pull down. So I actually, he made a bad choice there trying to, you know, cut across and pit with the Toyota. He should have been in position knowing that we were going to pit, you know, three, four laps in advance. He needed to get down so he didn't put himself in that tough position. And it slowed down our whole group because we're all waiting on him to finish wrecking on pit road,

which I think same thing happened with the Ford's and Briscoe as well. He goes in there, blows the entrance, and everybody else is just like trying not to hit him. So we're waiting to figure out, all right, is this guy going to sit in the middle of pit road? Is he going to come back in and hit us or not? If you're in that situation, you know you're going to have a difficult time

getting slowed down to pit road, which is the better of the two, I don't know, what's the saying? there, bad situation. Like, would you rather try to get stopped, spin out, tag the wall, slow down the group that you're with knowing that there's just a bunch of Toyotos, or would you rather just blow the entry speed, take the pass-through penalty on the next time through, and get your lap back later on in the race?

Very, very good question. We're always going to try to get stopped. I think we're okay with spinning out because most times there isn't contact, and I think the net gain would be to spin out versus blowing pit road and then just coming back next time around. I think, yeah. I think certainly spinning out is the better of the two. And if you look, that was a turning point of the race. That's why Hendrick Motorsports and the Chevys won stage one.

And all the Hendrik cars were at front. The Ford's got slowed down by Brisco. the Toyota's got slowed down by Redick and that's why you saw the net the Chevys up front at the end of that pit cycle. Yeah, that's what I'm wondering is if you just blow the entry speed and pit normally.

Yeah. And you come out and take your penalty the next time through, you would probably be with another group of cars. No, you wouldn't. You'd lose 10 seconds at least, 12 seconds of desal time. You've got to re-accelerate.

You're going to lose the pack for sure. So yeah. And a lot of what I noticed too is this Talladega race, I don't know how we can plan the cautions maybe a little differently. I don't think we can, or the stages, I mean, because the whole race we're saving fuel. Like, that really hurts the product, is that, you know, most of the field,

knowing if you're going to have a green flag pit stop, the field for the most part is saving fuel, except for the first two cars of each line. everyone else is running 70, 80% throttle the whole time because the less fuel you're burning during the green flag run, the less fuel you will have to take when you come into pit under green and the further forward you will cycle because your pit stop is shorter. So I don't know what we can do to fix that,

but I think that it should be on our radar for sure to somehow figure out we're just putting such an emphasis on these little things that it's like while we're racing we're not giving 100% and it's like eh crummy right like you want to be able to just dice it up at all all moments

that's going to put on the best show for sure but everyone in the field is saving fuel to make sure that when they come in for the green flag stopped they're not taking much fuel what did you think of I guess this was this was the first caution at the end of the race. Ross Chastain going three wide cutting to the bottom,

or I guess the middle there, going through turn one. You know, it just depends on which view you look at it from. I think when I watched it on TV, I'm like, well, he didn't do anything wrong there. Like, he got an opening, and he, you know, he shot middle, and there was room, but then the 42 came back down. If you look at the end card, it's like, ooh, that was a, there was no room there for him to fit.

I think I leaned more towards, it definitely wasn't Ross's fault because the 42, he was attached to the 42 in pushing, and the 42 got up the track. And so he made a move to take the space in the middle to be the lead car. I would venture to say that definitely not Ross's fault because it was kind of just a racing deal, right?

You don't blame Noah. You don't blame Ross. It just was a, he was trying to squeeze in there and, and the 42 was trying to get back down and it was just too late. Yeah. Ross trying to get to the front, 42 trying to keep his position at the front. Yeah. But, you know, one of those things. It just happens.

And then that obviously led to this major Kyle Larson, Ryan Priest's contact. Do you have, I mean, knowing that, I mean, you know what your cars look like. Yeah. Like, how does that, if you've seen the picture online of the right side of Larson, you know, Carson's car afterwards and how mangled up it is. That was crazy. I saw it on the plane ride home. You were showing me.

I was like, oh my God, that is crazy, like how that thing is all destroyed. But the good news is, talk to Kyle Larson. He's like, I feel okay. That's a good thing, right? So that's why I'm wondering, did the car do what it was supposed to do in that situation? Probably, yeah, I think so. Now, if it was on the left side, I don't know, is there more structure over there or whatnot? Yeah.

Maybe. But I think that, you know, NASCAR's definitely taking the five car back to R&D to look at it to see what, what failed, what worked. And they'll make adjustments. But I thought that, you know, given the severity of the impact, man, who, that was a big one for sure. And I saw the in-car of Ryan Priest. It was like, oh, my gosh, he knocked his helmet on the steering wheel pretty heavy. I mean, the visor came up. Yeah. But, you know, I don't know the G of the hit, but both drivers, you know, seem like they're okay after it, which is a good thing. And then the final caution with Bubba Wallace leading the race.

I mean, I feel like this is one that you could talk hours about because you are Mr. There doesn't always need to be a block. I know it. I know it. It's tough, yeah. And especially, and trust me, I guarantee you if Boba Wallace had to do that.

do this all over again after watching the replay he would have not made the second block or third block whatever it was i i i've said this so many times on speedways and i wish you know we could go back in time but he needed to just it my thing is this when they were in the middle of one or two they were just erring turn one there's two miles of racing left i mean passes at that racetrack for the win happen 200 yards before the start finish line, especially with these cars, they get such huge runs that like there's so much racing left between turns one and two and the start finish. If someone gets beside you for the lead, you still got a 50-50 shout of winning. And the way the inside line was lined up, he was about, if he says, Blaney, okay, you got

position on me. And he's side by side with Blaney. top line behind Blaney was all screwed up. Like it was, that was disorganized. The bottom lane, since it was on the yellow line, was more formed. He was going to get a push from the eight, more than likely clear Blaney by the time they got to turn two, and then they race it out. That's why I think I'm a big proponent of just at the end of these races, man, you don't have to, you do not have to block.

There's only one block that has to be made, and that's right at the start, finish line. like after that live to race another corner because anything is possible you're not someone getting to the outside of you is not a do or die moment for winning the race like there's just so many other things that play into who gets to start finish line first on the last lap that you still give yourself a chance to compete for the win right and so i you know i don't know the audio communication. I'd like, I definitely like to hear that. I mean, right after this, I'm going to go 2311 to the competition debrief, but I'd like to know kind of what Freddie was saying, was he saying block high, block low, or is he saying where the 12 cars at? Like, that's, that's good

communication that I would like to hear because sometimes what happens is the spotters. Now, I'm not saying this would happen in this scenario, but sometimes you hear spotters say, go high, go low. Like, they're telling the driver, where to go. Yeah. And sometimes that's not the best way. It's best to just tell the drivers where the runs are coming from and you make the decision where to go, right? But, yeah, that was a bummer.

Gosh, dang it. I hate it for Bobba because they got a great run to get the lead coming, you know, when they took the white there, they were in a fabulous position to win the race. And they just made too many blocks. You know, Blaney had nowhere to go. He's trying to keep his run going. I agree with everything Blaney said. you know, listen, I can't hit the brakes on the last corner.

Like you as the leader makes the decision. How many blocks do you want to make? Because after the first one, it's, you're opening yourself up to major carnage after that. And that's what happened. It's just Bubba made too many late blocks where he should have just stuck to one line, let the bottom line know that, okay, I'm here. Come push me. The bottom line was boxed in, would have been boxed in by the,

the 12 anyway. So get the push, clear the 12 back, and then fend off the eight at the start finish line and whatever run he starts to produce. My question for you is at what point in your career did that switch flip for you where you're thinking, okay, I don't need to make this block because surely you didn't enter the sport in 2005 or whatever year it was thinking, oh, I just let this run go because that's, I feel like that's a very veteran mindset. Well, it changed probably, I'm going to get the timeline wrong, but probably six or seven years ago when NASCAR put big-ass spoilers on our super speedway cars. So from 2006 to, again, I'm going to get it wrong, 2012, the cars had a lot less drag,

less drag and less horsepower, which is why you saw a big bubble effect, which I think we need to start to get back to because these cars, are so planned to the racetrack, we're running into each other so hard that wrecks are inevitable. And I'm not saying wrecks are a bad thing, but it makes it less of a skill game. You saw Dale Jr. Tony Stewart back in the day,

they were so good at working the lines and really manipulating the competitions around them's air to make their car go forward. Now we're just, whoever can hit the car in front of them, the hardest to move that line forward is what you find is successful. and that's, I don't know, it's not as much of a skill game because of that. So you asked when the mindset changed for me.

It was about six, seven years ago when NASCAR, A, we had repaves of Daytona, Talladega, which I know Taledga got repaved much earlier than that. And the spoilers got huge. So the runs became a lot bigger on these super speedways. So what I realized is that back in the early, days when the cars had less drag, when you had a run, you had to take it, you know, because it would take a lap to build that momentum back up. Now, you know, from the 2020 Day 20-500 that we won, or maybe it was the 19 one, it was 2020. You know, on the last lap, I let the sixth

car go. I didn't try to block them because he had such a big run, but I knew if I could reattach to Blaney, in the middle of turns three and four, I still had time to make another move before the start finish line, that's only like three quarters of a mile left to go in the race. So these cars can get runs really quickly. So you're not as panicked to take every run that you've got. You can be a little bit more patient with it because you can create another run really quickly.

So I think that's when the mindset changed for me. Yeah, I ask that because it seems like it's one of those things where if you're leading the race, it's instinctual. This guy's trying to pass me. I need to stay in front of him. I need to block him, right? But then it seems like there's a moment in everyone's career that they can now reference back to it.

I feel like now going forward, Bubba will not necessarily race the same way because Kyle Bush said coming out of four yesterday at Talladega, he didn't want to wreck. He knew those guys were coming. He let him roll by him. And it ultimately paid off because they wrecked and he won the race, right? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, results are showing that Bubba is one of the most elite

super speedway racers that we got in our sport right now he finds he's up front every single time and and again the end wasn't great and the results are going to show one thing this week but you know i thought he he did a phenomenal job and and i i kind of wish you know the way we had our toyola line lined up we had the most inexperienced guy leading it in tie so it kind of hurt us a little bit because you know we were all on the radio trying to coach tie like run lower here side draft here like we're trying to coach him in the middle of the race how to lead the top line and what i love about tie is like we're walking to the airplane he's asking me 20 questions like so what could i done different here what do you think this that and the other and like that's why tie is going to be

great is at the age he is 20 years old i mean he's i didn't start racing until i was 20 six in the cup series. So he's got such a jumpstart on me, but that kid is like a, you know, a book of knowledge that he just keeps growing week in, week out. But it was the least favorable thing for the Toyota line to have Ty leading it. I actually wish that in retrospect, we would have just said, okay, hey, Ty, pull over to, you know, to the right, let Bubba lead our line. I'll let you in to be the second guy and then I'll just keep pushing Ty into Bubba to keep our line moving forward because I think Bubba is really good at leading lines. But, you know, that's all in retrospect. That's after sleeping on it, thinking about it, things like that. But yeah, it was

it was cool to see kind of him kind of growing up and certainly curious about how he could have done a little bit better. But it was fun. You know, race kind of worked out where I thought that Toyota's really had a great shot to win, but it didn't work out. Yeah. And the result of all that carnage at the end was Kyle Bush. Kyle Busch wins his 60-second race, which is amazing. I just always, I don't know why in my mind. I'm like, man, I really want to just keep pace with Kyle.

I mean, he's got a longer runway in his career than what I do. Wow. Weed whackers? What is that? Lawmowers? Someone doing some yard work to your house. But yeah, he just continues to fill up the stat column. And, you know, I think it's kind of been of a lackluster year for Kyle.

But, like, he's got two wins. You know, he hasn't really performed, like, he hasn't been up front that much other than California. But he finds a way to win, which is a testament to Kyle Bush and his skill set. And I think he even mentioned at the end of the race, like, yeah, we got lucky. on this one, right? Yeah. That's what I love about Kyle. He is a realist. And, you know, but lucky or not, he's, he's at

many races, he's gotten unlucky as well. So, he's just continuing to cement his legacy. And he's a guy that, you know, if he can get back to his old form and, you know, get some more speed back in his cars, he could,

you know, he could be a guy that we talk about at the end of career with 80 plus wins. So, which is definitely going to put him on the Mount Rushmore of drivers. Yeah, I was wondering this on the way home. It occurred to me. Still kind of getting used to seeing Kyle Busch in the eight car and have a different scheme each week is that when you're running at whatever track doesn't necessarily have

to be Talladega yesterday and you look in your rearview mirror, does it take you a second to realize like, oh, that's Kyle Bush. So I like the MNM's going. I like the fact that I was running FedEx this weekend because people recognize that, right? and I think that my competition sees, oh, it's a purple and white car, I'm getting in front of it, or I'm following it.

That's part of the identity that I really think that we need, I wish we could get back to is just like, you know who's in what car every week, like it's not, you know, the colors are changing, the schemes are changing, and all that stuff.

I like my speedway races to be FedEx because I like the competition quickly being a reference that that's a car you need to get in front of to go forward. Dear Denny, we've got some questions that we want to ask. Dear Denny. We need answers and we need them fast.

We tried to ask Junior, but his answers were lame. And with DBC, it was more of the same. Now we're caught on you because you're our only hope. This ain't the raged track, so maybe you won't choke. Dear Denny this week. This one, I purposely did not bring up during that. Taledega talk because I knew we were going to ask it here is what is the atmosphere like when MJ is at the race versus when he's not. I guess this could be specific to your 2311 team.

Yeah. You know, be honest with you, I didn't even know he was there until, you know, we're under caution. I'm always kind of check out the big screen because I like to see what happened in the wrecks. You know, who calls what? How did it start? Who's involved? And I look and I saw MJ on the box. I'm like, Oh, that's cool. Well, we're screwed because he's bad luck. No, but it's cool. He, you know, it's great because it just shows that he's not just an investor in the sport. He's still an active race fan of it, a supporter of our team.

You know, it's big, you know, right? It's anytime that the race fans walk by the 23 box and you see the greatest of all time or maybe the most iconic superstar in all of the world right there at an NASCAR race, it feels good, I'm sure. So, you know, he loves this. And, you know, when we watched the air movie, I just, I couldn't help but think that, like, wow, they run the family business now, just like they did before he even made it. Like, I just thought that that whole interaction.

action of his agent, his mom, all that. I'm like, this all seems very, very familiar, which I encourage everyone who hasn't seen the air movie, go see it. It was awesome and entertaining to say the least. So, yeah, I mean, he is a great dude, and obviously, I can't thank him enough for helping me put this whole deal together. And he's just, it's a perfect partnership, right? Because you have him and his team who specializes, and the business side of things. And then me on the competition side, you know, making the big decisions on personnel

and how we spend our resources and things like that. So he lets me control most of the aspects of the race team. And then when it comes to the business side and the money, I let those guys do their thing and make sure that, you know, that cohesion and it works. And we all have a successful business. And the results are shown that we're on the right track, right? We're competing for race wins week in, week out,

and got four wins in less than three years. So really awesome to see what our team's doing. Do you have any ideas on how to fix the TV ratings? I do. I do. Are you ready for this? Because let's just say, if NASCAR could do this, we don't need credit, but just hear me out. I have a fix.

about to you got out of pen and it looks like you're about to draw a time i don't know why i don't know why like people can watch what i'm writing here i i do i have a fix and this is something i've been thinking about for years and i actually brought it up to nascar uh probably a year and a half ago oh really but i do i think during the summer months we should be kicking ass in the ratings we should be we're just competing against uh baseball for the most part maybe some big pGA events um when they come up. I got a fix. Five week, five week fix where we are going to have more storylines than ever. The drivers are going to get amped up. This is it. This is going to be a game changer. And the investment NASCAR will need to put in this to make it happen. They will get a 10-fold return on that investment.

You ready? Okay. Yep. Go for it. We are going to have a bracket challenge. we're going to wait till 10 weeks into the year so let's just say right now this is week 10 tall digga you have 10 weeks to get yourself in the top 32 in points okay so leading into that you could have the storyline of let's say just a few weeks before this start week 8 week 7 now tv's talking about who's going to get in the top 32 to get in this bracket challenge right so then that's a storyline then for the next five weeks And maybe you do it every other week, but I think you need to do it every week.

Five weeks in a row where you have a head-to-head competition and you're seated based off of where you are in points at week 10. So the number one seat is whoever's first in points. They will be going up against the 32nd play sky in points this week. So on, so forth. Second will play... 31. We'll go against 31.

Third will go against 30. And so you have these... 16 matchups for this week coming up at Dover. And certainly what that also does is creates now you have some betting lines. You'll probably have Vegas make odds on who the tournament winner will be. They'll probably have odds on the matchups this week. So there'll be 16 key matchups that will go on this week in Dover. Whoever wins between the two moves on to the next week.

and that moves you on to the round of 16. Then you're going to have head-to-heads once again, 16, down to 8, down to 4, down to 2. I can tell you, as the drivers are concerned, we would be wildly competitive for this. The reason is, there's a big prize at the end. But not only that, but our egos. You want, like, this is an end-season tournament. I really think that we could, this would create so many storylines and you would have no idea how much the teams would change their strategies in the middle of the race to beat whoever they're up against that given week to move on to the next round. So many opportunities for storylines here.

So this bracket challenge would take five weeks to will it down from 32 down to the final. pairing. And what I think is that you could do it many ways, but I think that there should be a monetary win of $3 million for the winner. I know that seems like a lot, but the return on investment, trust me, would be tenfold for NASCAR from the publicity they would get. How much they, I mean, content that would be created on two drivers head to head this week. Who's going to win? Right. Just whoever finished is better. Even Fox or NBC could have a ticker on the right side. Just put it on the far right or something of, okay, the five cars going against the seven car this week.

Here's where, you know, the five and the seven. Here's where they're running right underneath. So you always can see where these head-to-head mashups are during the race. And you can see, oh, we got a head-to-head matchup. And they're running seventh and eighth. I guarantee you those drivers are going to move each other out of the way to move on to the next round because they know they're racing against one car that week. Now, you're still collecting points just like you normally would be for the regular season and all that,

but this just creates a in-season prize or tournament that really ramps up storylines, I think, in the middle of the year. Maybe you do this when NBC starts to take over, right? Because I think that they don't have as many big events as what Fox does. I don't know when you put it into the year, right? I don't know what the right story is. You don't want to mess up the race of the playoffs. I think once you get in within five races of the playoffs, that needs to be the storyline of who gets in.

But this could be a really good thing in the middle of the year that really could create a lot of fan interests. I know on radio would be talking about it. TV would be talking about it. We had an upset this week. You know, Michael McDow upsets Denny Hamlin. You know, maybe because it was at a road course, right? like, hey, I'm the underdog this week because, you know, results show that he's a better,

if I, but I can get past this week, then man, I've got a better road to the finals. Trust me, Vegas could create lines for this. I'm really adamant about this. This could be a game changer for us that would come with very small investment. But I just think that, you know, and maybe the winner gets five playoff points, you know, towards the playoffs. I don't know. I think you certainly have to add a monon. monetary element to this and it needs to be significant.

It can't just be, you know, 100 grand. But I love this idea. I really think that NASCAR should explore or think about it. I think it's fantastic. Maybe it's because I came up with it. But we'd love to see us, you know, do something like that. Yeah, I think just a major monetary prize at the end would be enough. I say that because I think since they started with stage racing, which I think overall has been

good for the sport, fans are very wary of gimmicks, right? These additional gimmicks racing on dirt, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I haven't seen any backlash against the Dash for Cash in the Xfinney series. It seems like everyone is on board with that. It's this great little additional nugget that these four drivers get to race for. Whoever finishes the best at X race wins 100 grand. It's great. So that's why I do think that this idea has, has some legs.

And if it has just a monetary prize at the end of the table or at the end of the bracket, that these smaller teams who have just as much of a chance of winning this as any other team, because anything can happen. Anything can happen. Road course, Super Speedway, the Corey of the Joy's of the World can win this. And a $3 million prize is big money for a team. If Denny Hamlin was against JJ Yale this weekend, I would have lost. I'm out of the tournament.

Yep. JJ's moving on. I'm not. So like there's big chance for upsets here. And it's only five weeks and like just anything can happen, especially when it's just you versus another driver. And I think the teams would call races differently to beat a whoever you're matched up against that week. So that's what I want a little more opinion on is that when they enter into stage racing,

right, stage racing changed the way teams would race. at the end of these stages. Do we want to, or at least at road courses or something, you know, do we want to stay out and click this one additional playoff point? Or do we want to set ourselves up to win the race? Do you think this would enhance that racing, right? The more storylines you have, but it's all a strategy in the race. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Like what would be more important? Advancing in this bracket or winning the race if it came down to one of the two? Or do you think they go hand in hand, hypothetically? I think sometimes you're going to play to your competition. It's like match playing golf, right? I mean, when your competition duck hooks it out of bounds to the left, what are you going to do?

You're going to grab an iron, hit it straight down the fairway, and make sure you make par. You know you don't have to go for birdie. So while it does go hand-in-hand, you are racing for multiple things. You're going to race for a great finish, try to win the race, get yourself five bonus points for the playoffs, get regular season points, all that. there could be a point though in the race where it puts you as a team and a driver to a decision

do I go for this or I go for that right and I think that that's what I'm wondering which one do you think has more importance if it's set up the way in a perfect world set up the way you want it to be set up my pride would want me to win the bracket the tournament that's what I would want to win for sure so that's kind of what like I don't think you want the bracket to overshad. I would be willing to give up. I don't know. Let's just say hypothetically.

I'm willing to give up 10 spots in the race because of my strategy call just to beat who I was up against head to head. Yes. Mm-hmm. Moving on. So do you think that that potentially overshadowing the regular season points in guys trying to accumulate playoff points? down the road overshadows the grand prize at the end of the season, which is a championship. Well,

then you just gave me the perfect reason why we should do it. You're saying it has a chance to overshadow what we're doing week in, week out. Do you want that? Yes. There's multiple storylines. You still got the race winner and all that. But now TV is talking about, I mean, going to updating you throughout the race of where these head-to-head matchups stand.

Where is this guy running? Where's this guy running? Ooh, this one's going to be close at the end. And as a driver, you know who you're matched up against and you are going to race that guy a little bit harder. So I don't, if it overshadows whatever went on that week, that's a good thing. That means we're talking about something that's new and fresh,

and it's not gimmicky. You're not changing formats of the race. You're not changing a great concrete bristol into dirt. Like you're not, this isn't. a novelty. This is just an enhancement to the racing that you've already got. Yeah. I'm not, I'm just playing devil's advocate for this. I'm trying to liken it

to the dash for cash. Like maybe what we saw. I mean, we used to have it with the Noble 5 back in the day. You used to pay a million bucks to a bunch of races throughout the year. So this is, this is just a kind of a formula of that. But I just think our world, the Noble 5 was different because, hey, if you finish in the top 5 of this race, you're now eligible for the next race

and then if you win the race, you win a million bucks. That's one thing. When you have head-to-head, that's where competition really will start to rear its head. Yeah. Rivalries, things like that.

I think the most interesting. Imagine me and Ross, head-to-head for the championship for the tournament? It might not be good for you. You might win that $3 million, but then lose 25 points the next week. Yeah, that's a good point.

Or $50,000. Yeah. I don't know. I think it's interesting that if that's the $3 million is your magic number, your price pool. It's got to be significant. You could see the, you could see the, I mean, if it works out, right, you could see them the all-star race increasing, I feel like. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, again, I've always said, you know, and I don't want to understate what a million dollars is, but a million dollars in 1990 when they started this is a lot different than million dollars right now in, in 2023. So I think the all-star race, uh, this year will be special just because it's a new venue. SMI's investing in it and bringing back an old track, which is awesome. I think the racetrack itself is great. But yeah, I just, this is my fix for midseason.

I'm looking forward to reading the comments on this one. All right, good. We'll take the goods and the bad. Hey, if you have some suggestions on how we could tweak it. Yeah, and we'll add it into the show next weekend. Yep, yep. I'm sure this will be part of our highlight reel for on Dirty Mo Media. So put some comments down below on how you would tweak this or whether you think it's a good idea or not.

Or if you think it's dumb, you can say that too. Yeah, sure. Previewing Dover this week. This is a track that used to hate. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, Chris Gavehart came into the fold and now. Yeah, it's our sweet spot. Certainly.

He's got something figured out to where, you know, my car has just been. driving great there over the last three years, honestly. And I'm just knocking on wood that it does it again this week. But I just, I want to run well, I want to finish well, I want to win a race. You know, it's been long enough that we haven't won a race now that, you know, I feel optimistic going there, that's for sure, that we're going to be super strong this weekend. I think all the Toyota's will be strong. It, it, the Dover's been a track word. Toyota's have been, you know, Truex and Kyle Bush really were kind of the staple at that place even before we figured it out with the 11 car. And we used a lot of their information. And I use a

lot of their information as drivers to critique how I drove that track. Yeah. And we put it all together and we've come up with a formula that seems to be super good for us. Well, Dover this weekend, anything else you want to say before we close this out? No, looking forward to it. Um, It's a racetrack that is really fun. You know, I think that Dover itself, the whole racetrack's an interesting place, right? It's like in the middle of strip mall. But they have added some money to that in the last couple years, right? Like the casino's been redone.

Casinos, yeah, pretty cool. I might play a little cards there Saturday night, not sure, but let's just probably say yes on that. But my mom loves there. because anywhere that there's a casino my mom loves, she's a penny slot full. So, you know, she always, I always give her a few hundred bucks to go play the penny slots for a night. And she's, she's been pretty good there.

So it's a great racetrack, I think, to watch a race too, because you can see everything at Dover. Like, no matter where you sit, like you can see the whole racetrack. So, yeah, looking forward to this weekend. Let's get a dub, man. We need a dub bad. It's cool because, sorry, we're going back on this.

They call it the mom. monster mile and I think before you go there it's just kind of like this name right oh what does that mean but then when you go there for the first time it does kind of feel menacing like it feels big yep it fast tough yep it's a it's a fast one mile racetrack with high banking um believe it or not like the setup correlation there is more towards like a mile and a half than it is a short track even though it's a mile so um I think that you definitely can kind of draw to some conclusions to like who will be good there based off of like mile and a half stuff. But yeah, it is because someone bobbles at that racetrack.

We've seen huge crashes there on the backstretch because it all funnels down to the bottom of the racetrack. So it's a track where you need to stay up front because you get to about eighth place or so. Man, it is, it is tough to navigate restarts there. Make sure to follow Dirty Mo Media across all socials at Dirty Mo Media, Twitter, Instagram. Facebook, YouTube. And then you can follow Denny at Denny Hamlin and me at Jared D. Allen. And make sure you like, share, follow all the things you do on Spotify and iTunes with this podcast.

Give it a five-star rating and give us a good review. Yeah, I appreciate that, y'all. We're gaining some momentum. And we went from, we went hot Martinsville. We cooled back off Talladega. let's just say we're lukewarm lukewarm right now we're going to get back to being hot

after dover so again the goal is to get white hot yeah the goal is to get white hot through this six week span that I promised my fans that get hot on so you've cooled off we're lukewarm time to get hot check out dirty mo media

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