Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Who Caused The Caution?

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Denny Hamlin and Jared talk about playing capture the flag with gel blaster guns and some friendly wagers that were made while staying out in Arizona. Plus, Vegas has been good to Denny off the track (11:20). Chase Elliott will miss some time, but his championship hopes aren't out the window (15:20). A pit strategy helped Denny late in the race but an overtime restart didn't go his way as he watched the Hendrick cars finish: 1st, 2nd and 3rd (32:00). #DearDenny this week includes questions on stage racing and Michael Jordan (42:30). Lastly, Denny tells his winning lottery story (55:30) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirtymoe Media. You want to start? You want me to start? By the way, ooh, spicy. Salty. I'm not making believe that, like, oh, we're best friends now. You're really good with these tangents. Who is Jared Allen?

Not the football player, obviously. In the Twitter video, you flip him off, right? I was just pointing to the cars below me. Poor guys over there having to write down every single time that I threw out the bomb. My mom is not going to be happy hearing all these beeps. Let's just buy cars for the whole family. Let's just have a fleet. Hey, welcome to Actions Detrimental.

I'm Denny Hamlin. I drive the number 11 car for Jacob's Racing and owner of 2311 racing for Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick. My co-host, Jared Allen. You'll see him on Pit Road every now and then. Follow me around with a camera. We're in Vegas. We were actually playing on being in Scottsdale

after the Vegas race. We're going to fly back there, but we just decided to stay one more night in Vegas. My luck's been Primo So, I'm going to give the casino a chance To get it back I was going to say, yeah, I was going to say your luck's been really good

Up until this afternoon with the race But we'll obviously get into that Wait, wah-w-w-ha Yeah We're fresh from Vegas Motor Speedway We race completed about two and a half hours ago So I'm still a little sour.

I'm a lot sour, to be honest with it. Bad mood. Everything you guys are doing right now is agitating the shit out of me. But that's just part of it. You know, it's what happens when you go from third to 11th at the end of the race. Who wrecked, by the way? Does anyone know? At dawn the last lap?

No, who wrecked? Who caused the caution with two to go? Almerola. Almerola. Yeah. What was he doing? I was standing at, I was at Truex's pit box walking to yours when it happened. And on the big screen, he was just slow on the backstretched.

So I don't know the specific details. I was like, oh, that's perfect. That's exactly what I think everyone wanted. Except for you. Speak for themselves. No, I mean, it gave me a shot. I mean, I guess you could say, you know, we came off pit road through it. But we'll get into that.

I just, let's go back. Let's start with the fun stuff about what's been going on this past week since you've been out in Scottsdale hanging out. You got that Airbnb. Some people have seen on social media, we've got jail blasters from Target, spent a bunch of money on those just to shoot each other in the yard, which is obviously really fun. Yeah, if you check out my Instagram, we've been renting a house in Scottsdale. and we've had a ball. So, you know, we found a house with a pickleball court, obviously. It's got a little chipping grade.

I'm working on my chipping for golf. I need to get better. I'm getting a club fitting. Shout out to my friend Tyler Moore, Taylor-made guy. It's going to hook me up with a fitting. But, yeah, we're excited because we found some gel-blastered guns. How did this come about? So a friend of mine on the golf guys tour, Eric, he,

I remember him sending me a picture of these Joe Blaster guns. He's like, if you want to have a ball, go get these things. They are so much fun. And we're looking around the backyard and it's like, man, there's a lot of room here to do some fun activity. So, you know, we eventually run out of things to do and we can only play so much pickleball and stuff. So it's like, you know, hey, let's get these guns. And so we got four initially and they were just absolutely a blast. and then Larson's like, get me a couple.

Ricky says, get me one. And so I think we have a total of six or seven of them. Plus we have these kind of handgun blasters as well that's got a little bite to them. But yeah, check out my Instagram because we had a game of capture of the flag. Where essentially what we try to do is, you know, have every man for himself, however, there'd be an all-time defender. And the defender is essentially the winner from the previous. game, they get to hide the flag and then defend the flag.

And we are not allowed to shoot at them. Right. And so if you capture the flag, then you will be the all-time defender in the next game. So you just get to unload on people and basically there's no repercussions. You're just trying to protect it. Right. The winner of the game essentially whoever one has the biggest balls after they figure out where the flag is to just run after it. Right?

Because once you know where the flag is and you start going after it, you're just going to get lit up by everyone. Yeah, and the free chance to take shots. Right, and the idea of it too is that you've got the defender, so that's one person shooting at you. Then when the other person sees that you're getting close to the flag who's going for it,

they're going to team up on you as well. So it's kind of a tag team of multiple people going after whoever's getting closest to the flag. So these things people will sting. I mean, yes. There's been some, I don't know, did we post your back because it was, you did and then I did as well. Yikes.

Jared, it looked like you got it with some BB gun. They sting for about 20 seconds. It's enough to make you react. It's exactly right. Like it doesn't hurt, but it, I mean, it's a pinch. It's a legit pinch. and when you have these guns have semi-automatic mode basically

and it's just you hold the trigger down and these things are just unloading. So they are a lot of fun. We did that before we headed out here to Vegas. Those that you saw Austin Payton eat basically I don't know, maybe an ounce or so of wasabi.

Ping-pong ball size? Yeah, half a ping pong. Half a ping pong ball size of wasabi. You know, I think I gave him 500 bucks for it. That was way too easy. Very anti-comactic. Yeah, we, like, I want, I'm all for paying my friends to take one for the team. Like, you know, I'm going to reward you with some cash,

but I'm going to really make you do things that I want to see you have pain. You, for instance, when we first hired you, we got you to do the, the hot nut challenge I didn't make any money from that yeah you were just trying to so what happened was not to go on with my tangent I did the wasabi I did that first

that was miserable I that was bad experience and then Ricky brought up the hot nut so it was like because it didn't come from you I was like oh well yeah sure I was an experience and you did it really well

I couldn't do those things for sure I mean we've Austin, I've had him do some crazy things. Back in the day, we would bet a lot of things, and he would get down. A lot of it was stemmed from golf bets. And so when I get him down to a certain number, I'm not going to make him pay. I'm just going to make him pay by doing things that I enjoy watching him do, which is, hey, I want you to swim from my house to that island, way over there,

which is about a mile away, and then you've got to turn around, swim back. in middle of Sunday on Lake Norman and there are boats going everywhere. He has a life fest, but I made him swim all the way out there. It took him three and a half hours or so. I went to sleep waiting on him. But he came back and he brought back like a little branch.

He broke off a piece and put it in his life fest to like show that he proved that he had made it to. Now, was that from a tree in my backyard? I'm really not sure. But I did see him out in the middle. middle of the open water, boats flying by him, and I was legitimately concerned for his well-being for about 10 seconds before I was over it. Then I was over it.

So, yeah, so we did that, but we have a new challenge coming on Monday. So for $1,500, I believe Austin has agreed to the following, is that, He's going to stand on in front of the wall. There's a concrete wall and allow all of us who have a gun. So six semi-automatic gel-blastered guns from 15 feet get to, and he is shirtless and pantless. But he's got box, whatever he wears under his pants is what he's got. And he has a choice in my mind.

He can either cover his face or he can cover his nuts. Or one of each. One hand. One hand on each. He's in the background now, and he's like, I'm not, I didn't agree to that part of it. No, he did. But I know. That's what we're arguing.

It's 10 seconds standing facing the wall. He stands at the wall. And so what he doesn't realize, he does get safety goggles. We're not going to hit him in the eye. Is that the six of us are going to get together and two of us say, all right, you go for the neck. You go for the nipples. and then someone go for the inner thighs, right? Like, I mean, this is going to hurt,

but he's willing to do it. I would check in on our social platforms for the results of that, but I guarantee you it's not going to be good. So he gets 10 seconds back to us, and then he has to turn around and get five seconds of frontal with these guns. So I can't wait.

And the good news is I went on such a run in the casino here. I've already paid it. Like, you know, when you have chips in your hand, it's like fake money. It's not even real. It doesn't matter with the denomination of what it says on it. Like I just throw them these chips. I'm like, here you go, here you go. And so the debt is paid.

He has to go through with this. Yeah. And if you're listening to this podcast, we're recording this. The race just happened on Sunday night here in Vegas, but it'll come out on Monday morning. so if you're listening to this Monday morning you'll want to go follow Denny on social if you don't already

on Instagram at Denny Hamlin because at some point in this week there will be more gel blasters content and it'll be must watch must watch no question and then Kyle and Ricky and all are going to get in on it we definitely want to get more creative with the games

but I think that that's we got a good start Monday is a day we're all looking forward to as you said your luck's been pretty good. You were in a 21 blackjack tournament yesterday? Yeah, so basically

the casino invited me to this tournament. I didn't have to pay anything to enter it. It's, you know, for some of the regular customers. And I guess I qualified for that. And so I, yeah, I got in this blackjack

tournament and made it to the final table. It was $250,000 to win. There was a couple guys that came up me and asked do we want to split the pot so agree that there were six people in the final table and basically how this blackjack tournament works and it was my very first one I've never played in one before so I was ultra nervous very very nervous even though I had no skin in the game so they all come and want to cut a deal to where everyone gets 30 grand and then the winner gets a hundred grand so since I made

to the final table I was thinking I was like you know I don't have anything in this I'd rather just roll dice and if I win it then you know that's a great story right but you know the way it works is you get 15 hands the sixth of us got 15 hands and whoever had the most chips at the end of 15 hands won but it's crazy because we were like betting you're looking at everyone's stack and you and you have to bet accordingly to catch up to the big stack so everyone went all in a bunch and if it was like real legitimate money like that we would have hammered the casino. I was the low stack. We started with 20,000 in chips. Again, that's just a number.

So the money you're playing with in chips is irrelevant. It's irrelevant. They could be $100, but we would be betting $2. So it just doesn't matter. So they just give you $20,000 in chips. And I was the lowest stack going to the final hand, the 15th hand, and I had $48,000 chips. So like I had over doubled my money, but the way you have, you have, you to really go at it in this tournament was crazy but I ended up not winning so I was a I made to the final table though that was that was one of my proud of accomplishments that was fun and then you know just went on and took those chips and and went to the blackjack table for real and and did well and then we went to the roulette table I

love playing roulette because the way I play it just so happens on the board the numbers I've had in racing are all connected to each other so numbers I've had throughout my life right and so I play a box of numbers it's 11, 7, 20, 17, and 32 that's a box of numbers those five numbers I play whenever I'm playing roulette and so what happens is is I love seeing the ball bounce right when the ball bounces I know whether it's in my quadrant of numbers or not so like my number numbers aren't spread out all over the wheel, right? They're all right there in a box, so I'm like,

spin backwards or spin forwards. So you know if it's going to be in the- I know if I'm going to be close, right? As soon as the ball starts bouncing. That's right. And we agreed, me and my friend Josh, we agreed to play, you know, go over there and take some of our winnings from Blackjack

and play roulette, and we hit three rolls in a row. Then we lost one and cashed out. So we hit big and that. So that just added to the total. Again, nothing is official. Our winnings is still unofficial until we actually leave the hotel. So maybe we'll get an update next week for you. So this has been good.

Yeah, and then we had a race today, apparently. We did. A fairly uneventful race for the most part. Oh, we have to talk about Chase Elliott, right? That's a big story in leading into this race weekend as well, right? NASCAR's most popular driver, Chase Elliott is out for multiple weeks with a leg injury. I guess he fractured his tibia. So, you know, of course this sparks the debate over drivers and what they should be allowed to do

and what they should not be allowed to do. and you know i i just i sent a tweet out basically saying that you know most of the i would think that most people do things physically because it helps them mentally and i i know that that's the case for myself i play golf and basketball and pickleball and other sports because mentally i cannot be consumed with racing but for so much i have to unwind from that and that is my way to still be competitive, but yet get racing off the plate for a little while. I'm so busy with running the race team and working on the competition side of that and the business side of that. I've got my 11 team that I'm focused on for at least three to four days a week.

You know, it's just I have to get away from it. I just can't, you know, focus. And some people love racing seven days a week. I'm never going to be that person. I found in 2010 when I basically choked the 2010 championship away because I was too focused on, you know, hey, make sure I do everything perfect and right instead of just enjoying it and having fun. Basically, I learned in 2011, like, I just went away that offseason and I went to Phoenix for the entire offseason. I was like, man, this is so much better to not consume myself with so much racing. And I just, from that point on, I figured out that I came up with a kind of a schedule and can compartmentalize my life to say this section is for racing, this section is for family,

and this section is for having fun. And that's kind of what makes me tick. When you are participating as extracurricular activities, could you do quite a bit? basketball. I'd say it's probably the, I don't know, I want to say most dangerous, but no, it is, right? From an injury standpoint, I've blown two ACLs. 2010, I blew my left ACL, 2014, I blew my right. I had shoulder surgery two years ago on my left. I need to get my right done. I should have done it this offseason, but I didn't want to be in a sling for weeks, but it's nagging me enough now where I need to get it worked on. So this off-season, so essentially two knees, both shoulders, like, you know.

Now, some of this is hereditary. The shoulder thing is hereditary. I can thank my parents for that. Basically, whatever bone is up here at the top of my shoulder is growing into my rotator cuff, which is they just got to basically cut off the edge of that bone right there and relieve the pain. But the knees came from basketball. But, you know, I did race right after.

But does when you're doing those things, does the threat of injury ever creep in to the back here? No question. Yeah. Before you tip off in hoop group every week. I manage my risk. No question. I try to stay three point line to three point line. But my competitive spirit will not allow me to back it off but so much.

And again, I can't sit here and speculate with Chase Elliott, but it. If the guy is very comfortable on his edges on a snowboard, he's not going to go down the bunny slopes. Right, right? And we don't know the details of how he got injured. We don't. We just have to assume, though, that the competitor of us are just going to do what we normally do

and what we're comfortable with. But accidents do happen, right? I mean, sometimes you plant your foot in a wrong spot, and sometimes you hit a mogul that is unplanned, right? Or you just catch an edge. Like, there's just so much. many different ways it can happen. And the people on social media just saying, oh, well, you can get hurt walking down

the sidewalk. That is the stupidest. Can we just stop with that? That is that there's more risk in extreme sports. So stop saying, well, you can also get hurt walking down the sidewalk. Sure you can. But it's a point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero chance.

Yes. I think the point is a higher higher percentage. Right. I think the point, though, in that is that, like, for Chase, right, he could have been run into by somebody else. Someone else could have been not paying attention, right, and runs into him. So it's like one of those things where you can have no control over what happens, right? You could be driving a car to wherever, you get into an accident, it's the other person's fault, and you get injured that way. So there's all these things, right?

There's tons of ways to get injured, right? And we all know that. and this isn't picking on Chase Elliott because every single person, every driver has their own thing that they do that is a risk to them racing this weekend. Now, do I manage my risk a little more in the off season? You know, do more things?

Yeah, probably. Probably so. But again, I know that, I know the risk I'm taking I have very good insurance to, I've been through this before, very good insurance to make sure that if I do miss, that everything is still taking care of. I saw Brad Kislauski posted, Brad Kislauski posted that, you know, hey, he just doesn't, don't get paid.

I was going to text Brad. I was like, surely you have some, like, good liability insurance to cover all that. But, yeah, Most likely, you know, myself and Chase have the same management team. At Pro Sport, they do a phenomenal job with financial planning and all that stuff. So I know he's going to be good on that side, not that was really a concern anyway. But I think that, you know, we have to let these drivers do what they need to do to be mentally in this game. Because it is tough.

You know, you travel it. we all travel this circus every single weekend and it's tough the grind is hard and it now it used to be harder yet like we used to have to go for four days a week right but it's still a grind especially for these team guys man it's uh it's unfortunate for him it really is um i think that uh NASCAR i don't think they've ever not granted a waiver um i love watching bob Apocryus. He's, you know, he's my favorite NASCAR follow as far as me is concerned, but he's just trying to answer all these questions from people. Yeah, but what if, you know, on this waiver, it's like, just stop. Like, he's going to get a waiver, right? And NASCAR did

a way with the top 30 end points rule. So, I mean, he's probably going to come back here. And in case you missed the race this weekend, the team he drives for is pretty damn fast. Yes. I like his chances to win when he comes back. And the new playoff format, he wins a race, right? He just makes the playoffs, and then he's got just to go to chances anybody else. He could be dead last in the points, and when he comes

back, he can vault himself all the way of the front. Now, a good point I heard brought up, Clear Bree brought it up, it was that or someone that, hey, he is going to be missing out on playoff points. And I was like, oh,

That's a good point. Very good point. You didn't think about that initially? I didn't. That one kind of just went right over my head. That's kind of what I'm getting at, though, is where, as long as he's in the playoffs, right? He wins a race in the first round and he's on to the next. He wins a race in that round.

So there's a path for him to get to the final four without having many playoffs. Oh, yeah, by winning. And I think he's very capable of doing that. Right? So beyond that, let's just assume. let's just throw out he's out a month. Let's just say a month, and I have no basis for that whatsoever. He's still got many, many months to win a lot of stages and a lot of races.

Let's not kid ourselves that he's not going to be in some giant hole that he has to work himself out of. I think he's certainly he is a contender weekend, week out for stage wins and race wins. So I don't foresee that being the issue. I think that we just kind of blow up issues because, At times, we just search for storylines. Also, if Chase wins the championship this year would not be the first time that a driver was out for an extended period and won the championship.

Kyle Busch did it. Yeah, Kyle did it in 15, I think it was. Yeah, it can happen. I can tell you, when I blew my ACL out and I had to race just a few days later, I mean, it was not fun. The pain was not fun. I remember, you know, getting my knee drained, seeing the fluid getting sucked out of my knee, you know,

just 30 minutes before I go in and race. Like, it was so painful. And for us, you know, our drug testing policy, you can't take any painkillers or anything like that. So, yeah, you just got to toughen it out. And I mean, with his injury, I've never experienced that, but I'm assuming that if you've been in surgery, it took a three-hour surgery, then this was a major injury. that probably is going to have a lot of a pain associated with it.

Outside of the pain and your individual's pain tolerance, how much does it affect your driving ability? I believe it affects it less than you think. I remember being so hyper-focused that I screwed up, blew my knee out. I cannot be the reason that my team struggles. They always say beware of the injured player in any sport, right? racing for certain when I've either had adversity or pain or physical pain, I lock in.

Absolutely lock in because I just, I want to make sure that I'm given that team 100%. I guarantee you when Chase comes back, you're going to see a very highly motivated driver. Now, what's the saying one man's something happens? Chase goes out. I'm trying to say the opportunity for Josh Barry here is a good one. misfortune is another man's fortune right yeah that's not it but it's it's something like that we get the point josh barry drove the number nine for hendrick motorsports yeah he got the call this weekend uh great opportunity for josh i'm a huge fan of his he's he you know he's got the same really background he came

up the same way i did which is asphalt late models in the mid-atlantic area i mean he was so dominant on the short tracks it's it's crazy i mean he won an infinity race at martinsville early in his career and he's won several Xfinity races now. I think that he's going to be a full-time cup guy in the near future. I don't near is relative term, but I think that he's got the talent to put himself on that list of 36 drivers every Sunday. You know, he had a little bit of a struggle in the race. Obviously his teammates ran 1, 2, 3, but man, it's such a hard task.

He's never driven a next-gen car before, and having to go out there with no sim time, no nothing. Like, it's very, very difficult. I thought in practice, I was like, wow, he's actually pretty solid. You know, again, he was a couple, you know, three, four-tenths off, but he was, his lifetimes were consistent. And I was like, man, he's getting the hang of this. I think that he's going to do okay. But, yeah, it's, you know, I would love to see him get more opportunities in that nine car. These cars are so different from Xfinity or late models, whatever you've been in the past.

But yeah, I'm a big Josh Berry fan. I know that Dale really, you know, invested in him early in his career before they got some full-time sponsorship for him. It does take sponsorship to, you know, you can't just pick out the drivers that you want and put them in a car. You've got to have the sponsorship to go with it the way the model is. So Josh was kind of teetering on. whether he was going to be in Xfinity full time or not a few years ago. And I know that Kelly and Dale Jr. did a good job, getting him funded and getting that car on the track.

So I think he definitely could be one of the Xfinity favorites this year. And some of them we're going to have to look out for. Speaking of Xfinity, what a great race that was. Chandler Smith drove a great race. I mean, dominated most of it, and he just got loose at the end. I mean, you saw Austin Hill, who was Justin Algeyer, running him down. And, wow, that was a great finish that race. What I'm noticing is that the more that the rules don't get touched in a given series,

the better the racing is. Like the truck and Xfinity cars, bodies have been basically the same. The cars have been the same for years and years. And that product is so good. They slide around like you would not believe. It seems like week after week you're applauding the Xfinity race for how good it is.

And even the truck race that I've done. And you have lap time variability. I watch lap times here. I always watch the Xfinity race to kind of get a scope on what lines are fast and whatnot. They had a tire fall off that was twice as much as ours, two times. So I think ours over a course of a 40 lap run was like a second, something like that. There's like two seconds or more.

So, yeah, they have lap time variability, which in my mind creates passing. You know, when you have a car that is able to overtake another, that's a good thing. And I think that, you know, you have some inexperience there that mixes it up as well, that racing always puts on a great show. Truck race, Kyle kind of walked away with that. You know, people were talking sweep, but that kind of ended on Saturday. But, yeah, it was a good weekend for Chandler,

you know, still running third or whatever he finished. That was a good run for him. So shout out to him and that team for a great run so early in his Xfinity career. Yeah. Speaking of passing, we didn't see much of it. today in the cup race. I know. I know. I was worried a little bit about that because you know, you saw the kind of same two cars pull away from the pack and just kind of was in no man's

land for a while. And I couldn't see whether they were mixing each other, mixing up with each other or not. But yeah, it's tough because, you know, like I talked about, the lap time fall off, you know, we're so gripped up and we have no power that there's just not a lot of tire wear. And even back in the day when we would test, you know, I remember going to Michigan, and when we had 900 horsepower, and they put us on like an 800 horsepower spacer, tapered spacer, it was like, oh my gosh, don't do this. This is like the racing, it was so much tougher to pass. But we've crept that down.

We actually had some of our best racing, if you could argue that, when we had a 550 package a couple years ago. But it was a big old spoiler. There was more drafting. that came with that. This car has a lot of drag, but it's not through the spoiler, so you don't get that giant run down the straightaway. Unless you're one of the hindered cars.

Oh, my goodness gracious. I had a tough time trying to hold those guys off when I got the lead. I look up at the start-finish line. I'm just like, which way are they coming from the left or from the right? I just can't hold them off down the straightaway. But they were fast. Man, HMS was just. smoking fast.

Chevys in general were really fast, but Toyota's had a great run as well. We were kind of the next in line. We were the third, four, you know, probably the fourth, fifth, sixth, fifth, sixth, best cars after that. What were you thinking there? When you came down, what was it?

It was in stage two, I believe, or maybe it was in the final stage. You took two tires. Everyone else took four. We had to. I just got pinned behind. But it worked, is what I'm getting. No, it did because I thought it was the absolute right call.

I knew that my car was good, but I was just stuck in eighth place because if that's where I cycled out after the Greenfly pit stop. And it was so frustrating. I'm yelling at Chris and like, oh, gosh, you know, I keep, I come out of the pits further back than what I started, right? And, you know, again, we go a little longer, but I just don't have the enough grip to make up for that difference. and it's just I got pinned back there and it was so frustrating and then I thought it was the absolute right call,

no question when he called for two tires there and it was. But you're the only team that did it. I was surprised. Very surprised by that for sure. But our car was good in the long run. I was actually able to hang right with Larson the entire run and was starting to edge back to him when Chris pulled me in early there but we didn't have a great Greenfly pit stop

and then I came out a couple seconds behind. them and then my car just my balance just went sideways and I wasn't good but I was going to finish third right behind William and then that dreaded two lap to go caution came what do you make of the 19 call to stay out there I mean it didn't work out from the finishing perspective right we don't know what would happen on pit road I know that yeah they were trying to make a call to win. I think they were, listen, if I had to get in their heads, they're probably counting on more cars to stay out. I know that teams have won there before by staying out, but he had 40-some laps on his tires, and as soon as one gets by you, it's chaos after that. I mean, good luck

trying to hold off anyone else, and I think he got split by the 48 and the five at the end. So finished seventh. I mean, certainly by the numbers, he would say it's not the right call, but trust me if three more cars stay out probably ends up being the right call so and then you're saying on your restart you just lost the balance because you go from fourth well to i lost the balance because the the one is pushing me down the front straightway which that's good i start pushing i'm pushing the 24 well at at some point we we have to make a turn and ross just had me so kind of jacked up there that like I turned the wheel and I was going dead straight I was wide open I was wide open but I went up the racetrack to try to get position on the 24 and then next to you know we're both up the

racetrack and losing spots so so what you're saying is this is a Ross thing again it's not I'm not blaming him for sure I'm just saying what happened on the restart is that I was jacked up entering turn one I mean I was wide open going as fast as my race car would go I'm under I'm on the floorboard peddling as fast as I can go. Right. But I can't go anywhere because I'm pushing the 24 and then, you know, it just jacked us up and I think we both lost a ton of spots and I ended up outside the top 10 somehow.

So frustrating. Yeah. But, you know, you know, the right car won. That's the good news, right? You know, the fastest two cars finished one, two. You know, one thing I did notice from the race too is that, man, the Ford's was a struggle bus for them. They qualified well, Joey qualified well.

I mean, he's really good at qualifying. They got something figured out, certainly, that they're fast and qualifying. But we saw their times, Joey and Ryan. Ryan was a little better than Joey in practice, but Joey's times were way off, which was a surprise to me when he got the poll. But, man, they threw the green flag, and it was. They went straight to the back. And so, again, I brought this up in previous episodes.

This really falls right in line with who has the strongest aerodynamic body, which is Chevrolet. And then I feel like on a downforce perspective, we're kind of, you know, a little bit behind them. And then I thought Ford made a jump. I mentioned they would be really strong in Daytona qualifying because their car has less drag this year, you know, relative to us. but on the downforce side it's me you know it's it's it's not great so i think you're just going to keep seeing this because we can't as race teams we can't make up for there's only a few factors that that really determine the speed of your race car the driver

this is the speed of your race car there's other factors such as pick crew track position things like that but you've got the driver you got your the body on the car car, which is whatever your manufacturer is, and then you got the engine. Those are the three major components that makes our cars different from whoever it might be. And so looking at the results from the wind tunnel test and the manufacturers, Chevy was the best. And so there's nothing we can do as race teams to make up for that. I can't, we can't design a new part. We can't, you know, again, we'll make air.

aerodynamic gains throughout the year. But it's going to be really hard. I mean, to make up the difference that just flat out one manufacturer has over another. Because everyone's parts are the same, you cannot. The parts and pieces are the same. It's the driver, the crew chief, the setup

they put under it, to make the driver comfortable and go run speed, that's the driver X factor for sure. But, you know, the body, in the engine is two major, major components that we just are not able to change. And from our perspective, like Joe Gibbs Racing was so good in the early 2000s and even, you know, just a few years ago, developing parts and pieces to, you know, overcome any deficits

they might have. And we would argue at times that, you know, their chassis department carried that company for a very long time. And then the Arrow Department carried it for a very long time. And then as things just become more and more common, obviously the spotlight gets put on us drivers and it gets put on the manufacturers. So I think that we certainly feel better about where we were from this year to last year. But I noticed that like we need, especially I needed today the Hendrik cars to miss their balance. That's how I could keep up with Kyle. When his car was straight, he was starting to pull away. The minute I saw him starting to twitch, miss the bottom, I'm like, well, I'm still running the bottom,

and I'm still running a ton of gas, and I can keep up with him now, but he's out of control. So we need things and stars to align, to, you know, especially on daylight today, to run with those guys. But next week, I mean, Phoenix is a different type of racetrack. I think the setup is going to be one of the biggest factors, so I think everyone is, right back in the game. I don't think that there's any big arrow gains or, I'm sorry, advantages at that speed of track. So since we're running a shorter track, the speeds are down, the aerodynamics are not as prevalent as they are, say, at Las Vegas. So I think you'll see kind of a more parity mix in the game. But when you go to these fast tracks, good luck

catching those Chevys. I was going to ask, it sounds, I think I know the answer, but of those three things you mentioned, the body, the manufacturer, the driver, it still sounds like the driver is third on the list of importance. No. I think it's super high. I think the driver is the most important. Let me be biased here because I think it's the biggest X factor in your performance. However, Kevin Harvick stated very clearly that you can't, you know, ride a slow horse to a,

to a checkered flag or whatever, right? Right. So that's what I'm saying. You're only going to go as fast as the horse you're right. So it sounds like the horse is most important. Again, yes, but no. The driver gives the information to the team on what they need to work on to get faster. To get better.

Now, sometimes drivers can't handle cars, you know, a setup that is fast. Now, sometimes you detune the car to make it to where the driver is comfortable. So basically, if I like my car to be tight, which is very stable in the back and less stable in the front, I'm going to be taking speed out of my car. That car's capability of lap time is less than one that is freer, which is looser, which is a car that the back end wants to come around, right? So the freer you can drive the car, the faster that car is capable of going. But sometimes the lap time variability, when you miss lines because you aren't, you are out of control,

isn't worth the gain and speed that you give your car by having it freer. But some people get the ultimate most out of a free car, the Tyler Reddicks, the Kyle Larson's. Those guys can run their cars freer. than most and be very, very fast consistently. Dare, Danny. We've got some questions that we want to ask. Dare, Danny. We need answers and we need him 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 race track, so maybe you won't choke. Dare, Dan. Got some more questions for you on the Dear Denny channel. Start with number one here. How do you feel about stage racing?

Is it good for the sport or does it need to go? Yeah, I mean, people, the stage racing has to stay. Absolutely has to stay. It was put in place because our TV partners didn't have it. They didn't know when a caution was going to come so they could start airing commercials. We have to air the commercials, which, why you see, they try to front load them as much as they can to give us the most green flag racing at the end of the races as possible.

But I remember when we talked about, you know, stages and whatnot, it's an absolute must. It also, if you didn't have stages, the 24 car would have led every LAP of that race on Sunday. I mean, because what is there to break it up? You have to, I mean, unless there's a wreck or he has a bad. pit stop he's going to dominate but at least there was an opportunity because of a stage for people to change strategy we changed strategy right we went with it wasn't a stage but it was right after stage so we had just a few laps on our tires so we decided to take four you know two tires we see it a lot of tracks you'll probably

see it at Phoenix where if a caution comes right before a stage happens you're going to see the field flip-flop there's gonna be a handful of people that are going for stage points and you're gonna have a small group of about five people that believe they can win the race. And they will pit to then when the caution comes out for the stage, those 10 cars that stayed out to get stage points will then pit. They put themselves back up front. They're going to stay out.

The other five will stay out and get back to the front. So it creates passing opportunities. It doesn't always happen. We saw Bristol last year, the one that Brad and Chris Buster, you know, led so many laps. They just, they stayed out a bunch and no one could pass them, right? You know, they were just very mediocre and like all of a sudden put them in the front of the pack and holy shit, hey, they're fast.

Got the best cars on the racetrack. It's funny how that works, but that's just the way it is. And stage racing gives us an opportunity to, you know, A, it's good for our TV partners. They know when cautions are coming. They can plan those commercials. And B, we do strategize around the stages. So I think it's an absolute must. We see it speedways.

It's a game changer. People are racing now instead of running up against the wall for 180 of 200 laps. So stage racing is a good thing. Now we won't see stage racing at road courses this year. So that's the one difference. Yeah, there isn't. I'm torn on that. I'm really not sure whether that's good call, right call.

But let's just see how it goes. I know that teams used to really strategize on fuel mileage before we had stages, and then it made it kind of cut and dry what your strategy was. But just beware people that if there are no stage breaks at a road course, this thing could get spread way out. When I say way out, I mean way out. And so just temporary expectations on getting those crazy restarts. Yeah, careful what you wish for, potentially.

Second one, this one is, when will we see Michael Jordan behind the wheel of a cup car? Never again. He did it once, but it was the simulator at TRD. That content has not been released, nor will it probably ever be released

because good luck trying to get them to approve it. But he wanted to feel what we feel. And so Toyota set it up, and our team set it up for him to get in the Toyota simulator. This was a couple years ago. I don't think it was last year's. Maybe. I think it was pretty recent, I think. Yeah.

Anyway, so I'm thinking, well, I said, what kind of track do you want to be on? He's like, I don't want Daytona. I just hold it wide open. That's too easy. Like, you know, give me something. You know, what's the next step? I'm like, all right, well, let's go to Charlotte. I probably could have picked, like, Las Vegas or something.

Michigan probably should have done that, but he didn't last long. I mean, he did okay. He had a problem holding the car down on the bottom of the track, and then, you know, it was probably 15 minutes, and he says, I'm done. A, he was sweating profusely. It was very hot. I mean, they had to modify. You would not believe how they had to modify it.

Like the back seat is out of the simulator, so to fit his legs in the pedals. he put the helmet on and he's just like, man, just my eyes, I got so dizzy, like I just started feeling queasy so he had to quit. Has he ever done a ride-along at any of these tracks? Probably not. I don't think so. Do you think that's something he would do? Like if you were to take him around a track at speed?

He wouldn't trust me. No? He wouldn't trust me to do it, no. Because he knows I've tried to scare him. That's, you know, if I get into a two-seater race car and you are the passenger, no, the only fun and enjoyment I have is to see you, shit your pants. I mean, what are you going to do, though? Oh, I'm going to run right up against the wall.

And if I hit it, eh, it's fine. Right. That's what I'm saying. It's like, if I'm him, right, I feel like I'm Michael Jordan, right? This guy's not going to do something to jeopardize me. He might have a little fun with me. but if you were to crash the car and for whatever reason Michael got hurt, I mean, forget it. It's over for you.

I get it. Listen, I haven't crashed a two-seater car, but I've, I mean, I try to run right up against the wall to, like, give the people the feeling of like, this is how close we can run and not hit it, right? I mean, that's part of the skill set of what we bring to the table. Have you watched any of the new Drive to Survive season yet? started it just started it's cool I mean apparently the Red Bull team's gonna just win every race unless something crazy happens I actually saw some really good post test the I guess I had a preseason test like right last week and it showed that like the DRS which is the drag reduction system of the cars like Red Bull

it reduced 20% of their drag where everyone else the next highest total was like 17%. So their cars are so fast compared to the competition. And I know you asked me, you're like, well, why? You know, what makes their cars so much faster? I'm like, if I knew, then I'd call up all those other teams and tell them. But, you know, I think everyone in the garage is wondering what makes their cars so fast. But, you know, they develop a lot of stuff. Their aerodynamics and, you know, new power plants and all that stuff constantly. It's a different world. I think the fascinating thing about F1 and what we've seen in recent years is that you don't know how long this Red Bull domination is going to go on for and it's I don't know if it's convenient or just a

coincidence that in racing that championship number like the magic number seems to be seven is that when you get the seven it's just really difficult to win the eighth like we may never see Lewis Hamilton win an eighth title that's a great point and I I'm going to probably have to say no, he never does. Just because I think the gap between Mercedes and Red Bull right now just seems like it's a big one. And I just, you're not going to get that figured out in a year. I don't think. I don't think. So I think that Lewis, I mean, yeah, it's a great point about the seven. What is it about? It has to be something about there's just that window of a racing career. Now, the football with Tom Brady, he extended his career for a very long time.

But the eighth is just hard. You know, I don't know what it is. I mean, trust me, don't ask me, because I can't say that. I can't get one. But, I mean, it's just, I think that's just really a period where you're dominant, your team's dominant, and then eventually one of the two fall off, either your team or your skill set. and so, you know, and Lewis is, you would say that it's maybe barely a little of him and mostly the car, right?

I mean, he's just going against a car that is clearly faster than his. So, yeah, it's interesting that seven seems to be the magic number of the greatest, when people talk about the greatest of all time in any given sport, it's whoever it is, at the top of the list, it seems like they got seven championships. Unless you're basketball and the greatest has six championships in case you're all count. Yeah, I was going through the numbers. It was only a few with seven.

It seemed like six was more of that magic number. Before we wrap up here, I feel like we have to mention it because we brought it up on the episode last week is that we're in Vegas and your friend Ron with his scooter. Yeah, yeah. I got to be really sensitive because, you know, At times, Ron doesn't want me to talk about a bunch, but everyone in Charlotte knows Red Rocks Ron. He's got Red Rocks Cafe in Burkdale,

and he's got a location in South Charlotte and in Charlotte. I met Ron many, many, many moons ago, really when I first came to Charlotte. He was just the business owner and restaurant owner that would glad hand all the, quote, quote, celebrities that came in. you know he who's out over there oh oh i'll go introduce myself so i from that point i just started being friends with ron and he was just he's just an addictive person that to want to be around because

he's so fun and and you know i i just enjoy his presence so he has a scooter uh he's i think he's got some nerve issues uh that he's working on uh with his leg but um if you if you checked out the instagram story actually you did a fantastic edit on that. Put in reverse, Terry. Terry, so you need to find the video of the, evidently a guy named Terry that was lighten fireworks, but he's in a wheelchair, and he couldn't get it to go in reverse. So he was lighting the fireworks, and then he was supposed to get the hell out of Dodge, right?

Yeah. But his scooter, it malfunctioned, and he couldn't get it to move. And the fireworks are going off and right beside the guy in the wheelchair. And you just hear people in the back stand, but in reverse, Terry, get out of there. So Ron in this scooter is just awesome because he was doing donuts in the middle of our foyer here

in the room that we're in. He's my gambling buddy when it comes to, you know, if we want to bet a football game, basketball game. We talk about who we're having picks, who did we like, and then, of course, when we go to the tables here in Vegas. So, yeah, him and Charlie are going to be with me for the full week. So there'll be more Ron and Charlie and interesting content here for the next week

on our social channels. So tune in. Yeah, if social was good last week, it should be even better. For sure. Looking forward to it. Before we close out, make sure you follow Dirty. Mo Media on all socials at Dirty Mo Media. Like,

subscribe, follow this podcast, and then follow you. You're at Denny Hamlin and I'm at Jared D. Allen. Yeah. And so we actually got that in seamlessly for once. For the first time. For the first time. It took five episodes. But where

are we going to next? Phoenix. What happened in Phoenix last time I was there? Yeah, you won the lottery. That's a very general statement. because that's how you should say it though. You should, like, you're going to downplay it right now, but you should just tell people, I won the lottery.

I think you have to actually win the jackpot to say you won the lottery. Did you buy a lottery ticket? I did. Did you win? I did. You won the lottery. So for those y'all who do not know, and by the way, if you stuck around past the like and all that stuff,

you're going to hear a great story. Post-credit scene. This is why you have to stick around to the end. So last November, I was on the way back from the racetrack. My SUV had very little gas, and I was texting the people that I was staying with, and I said, hey, I'm going to be late to dinner. I got to go get gas. And they told me, hey, go get a lottery ticket.

This is when the power ball was $2.2 billion. Would a B? And I'm like, all right. So I get gas and I'm like, I go in there and there's a kiosk for the powerball. And there is a line. There had to be 30 people. And this was just a normal old circle K. And so I go in there and I wait in line at the kiosk to buy the ticket.

Well, here I go. I'm at my turn. It's my turn to do it. And I was going to go get $300 in tickets. That's just what I had on me and that's what I was going to get. So I'm pressing this kiosk and I'm really can tell the people behind me are not really happy. I don't know how to operate this thing. And so finally I give up because I don't know like which one to do and there's special plays and stuff.

So I'm like, screw this. I'm just going to go to the front at the guy at the cash register and get my ticket. So I walk up to him and I said, hey, I'd like to get 300 and Powerball tickets. He's like, 300. He's like, oh my gosh, I've never had anyone buy that much. I said, really? You're in Scottsdale? That didn't make much sense.

But anyway, so he gives me the tickets, and I have them, and I fold it up in my pocket. I go home, and we, well, I'm sorry, then we go to dinner. They drew the Powerball. I come home. I'm brushing my teeth, and the Powerball tickets are sitting there face up. and the very first ticket that that that nice gentleman printed hit five of the six numbers on Powerball. I was only missing one number. And so I did.

I hit it for a little portion. Unfortunately for me, I can't really say unfortunate because I'm very, very fortunate. And I looked it up. The odds of me hitting all the numbers but one was one in one million. and unfortunately the guy at the gas station was new because I kind of asked him, you know, why is this the most of you seen? He says, well, I'm new here. He was supposed to ask me to power play it.

I guess that if you hit the powerball number, which I did, the powerball that hit that night was 20. I had it. Then whatever your winnings are, it triples. Well, I didn't power play it because I've never played the lottery before. I've never played the powerball, but the very first ticket that got printed, bam. I hit five to six numbers. And so I don't know. I kind of felt a little bad.

I'm walking in the Arizona Lottery Office, and there's a lot of older people there, and I'm sitting there and I'm holding my hat really low because I don't want to be seen because everyone there's kind of cashing a $20-40 ticket here and there, some scratch-offs. Like, they're buying more tickets, scratching them off, and then, you know, going to get more tickets. And here I am, they're like, this guy, Denny? What are you doing here? I'm like, well, I hit the Powerball. I hit the Powerball ticket. He's like, how made you hit? I said, well, all but one number. he's like, I've been doing this my whole life.

I've never, ever gotten that. I'm like, I know, I'm just, I just got lucky. And then I took a picture with him, and there was somebody else wondering what I was doing there. And so I just kind of felt bad that I was cashing out this big ticket when likely there were these people that were lifers in there that had never hit it. Yeah, I'll say it was a very exhilarating 20 minutes that night you came back to the house. You're like, I won the lottery, and it's like, okay, you probably didn't.

There's no way you won the lottery. And then we're sitting there, Googling it, how much money do you get for five numbers and the power ball? Is it this much? Or is it a percentage of the pot, you know, is it 50 grand? But now this pot's $2.2 billion. Is it that that times something else? We couldn't figure it out. We were beside ourselves for a while, for sure.

So, needless to say, I love Fiener. and it just brings back good memories to me from hitting the powerball last time I was there. This weekend, you know, Phoenix coming up, I mean, I'd love to give you an argument of why somebody who was bad this weekend is going to go out there and kick ass next weekend, but I just don't, you know, I just don't know what we're going to come up with or the field's going to come up with from one week to the next. So I would say, you know, look for Chevys to be strong. And, you know, obviously I think the Fords have got some really good qualifying stuff worked out. And hopefully, you know, we just take a step to be a little better.

I definitely think Phoenix last year didn't matter if I was going to make the Final Four. I was going to run 8th. Like, that was it. That was all we were capable of doing. But, yeah, I'm optimistic. And we have, oh, the short track package. We have a new short track package coming this week. I do think that I just need to delete everything that I just said about Phoenix basically

because that is going to be a game changer. This is going to be a simulation race. There's going to be drivers in the sim. There's going to be engineers working on setups nonstop because this is going to be a big, big change to what you see on Sunday, the product. It's roughly, I think NASCAR said, like 40% less downforce than what we've had in the past. I know that Christopher Bell and the guys that ran the test there, Ligano and whatnot, talked about how much more on your own edge with the down force out. So I am so looking forward to it.

It's going to be exciting for sure. So I think that you better pay attention to the practice times because I think that I think. that we could see some of the biggest spreads from first to last and we've seen in a while because until these teams kind of get a notebook under them and figure out, you know, what it's going to take to get our cars stable with all that downforce gone, you could find a team that really hits on something that no one's all coming. Well, that'll be interesting then. I guess a good marker for championship race down the road. Yeah, I mean, it will be for sure. So looking forward to it. Everyone tune in

next week, next Monday for the next episode of Action is Detrimental and we'll debrief what we saw in Phoenix from what's likely going to be a crazy weekend. So make sure you tune in and we'll see you next week. See you guys. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook,

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