Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Why Is Anyone Surprised?

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Joey Logano’s dominant win at North Wilkesboro shouldn’t have surprised anyone… at least according to Denny Hamlin. On this episode of Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin, Denny explains why the No. 22 team had the car to beat, what separated Logano from the rest of the field, and why his performance was a sign of things to come at a track like North Wilkesboro Speedway. He also breaks down his own battle with Logano, the moment he thought the No. 22 might be vulnerable, and the late-race strategy call that nearly changed the outcome. The NASCAR Cup Series returned to North Wilkesboro for its first points-paying race in 30 years, and the crew dives into everything from the racing throughout the field to Carson Hocevar’s battle with Denny, pit road chaos involving Alex Bowman, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson, and Connor Zilisch, and whether North Wilkesboro delivered the type of racing fans want to see. Plus, Denny reacts to the latest Playoff picture, the battle around the cutline, NASCAR’s upcoming Daytona changes, the new practice format, and shares stories from his trip to the fishing expo. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As part of the press release of the new chase, the regular season is gone, and the playoffs is gone. So there is no regular season champion. That's the silliest thing. That's incredible. It's perfect. If the one time you win the regular season. It's perfect. It's like a good trophy, too.

No doubt. I've touched it before as an owner. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. I believe that I've. been a competitive for 20 years. Opinions from tonight's podcast,

strictly biased. You're going to hear from my point of view. I'm a fighter. No, you are not. The spoils of victory for Jared Allen. He's got better luck

to drink and drink to win. I know, you do. Two trophies missing from your collection, the championship and the most popular driver. Someone told me that their drinking game

is when I say for sure. Yeah, and I've already said it. Hey, guys. to actions detrimental after Northworks Roll Speedway, race number 21 of the regular season, even though it's not the regular season anymore. We don't know what it's called. Yeah, just a fantastic weekend all around. The weather didn't really delay us, but maybe 10, 15 minutes on Sunday, which is great. Crowd was enthusiastic. I didn't see a

a whole lot of people stuck in parking lots. That part was good. I heard there were a lot of Denny Bros. T-shirts out there this weekend. There were. There were. Definitely. I saw them on some kids. There were a group of chicks that I saw that had their shirts on.

So, yeah, it was pretty good. I always loved the reaction when you see these people, like, maybe see, like, their backs. And since you know, they're all wearing your t-shirts. and then like you pass by them on the golf cart or something and they catch like a glimpse and it's like there he is that's her guy yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that group they were they were very it's like a delayed reaction very enthusiastic absolutely yeah um i think actually they had the um was it the king's wine yeah the minions the minions t-shirts yeah those were popular um man uh We can just get this out of the way quickly.

The trucks, Chandler Smith, just absolutely just demolished them. That was the largest victory in a truck series short track race in history. I think that's right. Wow. Yeah. In history, yeah. Which kind of makes sense. I mean, truck races usually aren't super long.

The runs, I mean, they usually spend about 30% of the race under cost. so you don't usually get like really long runs but they had one to finish the race and Chandler just I mean he it actually reminded me a lot of Lugano on Sunday where they started you know not in the first couple rows but you know like every time they cut to him he was passing someone and Ligano started a little bit behind me and passed me pretty easily And then I just watched him like, weaved to the next car pass him. Weaved to the next car pass. And I'm like, wow.

So he was, they were both in a league of their own, I believe. So Chandler Smith, great job by them. I was, you know, part of the connection was that it appears now that now the lawsuit's kicking in for front row in their truck program. Yeah. I mean, you look. And then the Todd father. They're going to get a million dollars next weekend? It's all coming together.

I can't wait to see what happens in the chase. Yep. Yeah. So that was pretty much a wrap on that. It was pretty straightforward. Any other notable things from the truck race? I thought SVG's run was notable, but I mean, his cup race was more notable, right? Like two top fives, right?

Both races. Yeah. I just think the Chandler Smith's domination. that truck race in a field that was awfully stacked. Absolutely. A lot of good drivers in that field. Yeah. And yeah, you would say that maybe it was like the, I mean, he won the race last year.

So I wonder what that, wonder what it is about that. Like, he didn't win a ton of races last year, but he did when somebody won this race, and there were some circumstances with Corey Hime and Lane Riggs last year. but it seems like whenever you win here or you run well here, it's like mark it down. Like they're going to run well the next time. So Ligano, while it was surprising, it wasn't surprising from a statistical standpoint

because he's led like 75% of laps or more at that racetrack. So not sure why we were all surprised, but need to say we were. Yeah, I don't know if, I mean, I wasn't all that surprised. They expected those cars to be good, right? And then once they get out to clean air, it just didn't look like anyone besides you had much for them.

Yeah, it seemed like the race kind of went in different stages, as it does. You know, stage one, there was, you know, Ty Gibbs looked good, but, you know, he was out front. Who knows? But it still looked like he battled back and finished somewhere pretty good. I think in the side of the top five. Tie fourth. Yeah. When he got the lucky dog,

do we know how many cars were on the lead lap? Like, where do you restart? I don't know that. Yeah, I didn't think you would. What's that what's mean? Well, I mean, I don't think that you, you know, it was hard to keep track of who was a lap down and who is two laps down. Do we, okay, do we happen to know how many cars were on the lead lap after that pit road spin?

Like how many people got trapped a lot down at that point? There was 12 teens. There was 12 people that were. Okay. That's basically where I was going with it. So at that point. And, you know, I definitely see a lot of social media stuff about, man, that race really ruined X or ruined Y. I mean, there was cars multiple, multiple laps down that even after that went laps down again.

So, I mean, I'm telling me, I've been part of some short track races and I thought the 22 was just exceptional. It didn't seem like he was super line dependent. Like he would go in the corner sometimes and hit the bottomish. Sometimes it would be in the middle. Sometimes he'd wash up to the middle. And it just seemed like they had, you know, really, really good over. overall grip in the car and Joey was able to be really aggressive, um,

especially on restarts with it. So, and usually every, every car has a weakness. It usually. I mean, sometimes, again,

these things happen where it, you get that, remember we talked about that 100% car? Um, it definitely seemed like he was as close to that as what was possible. And I, And by the way, I think I was pretty accurate on our percentage. What was, did you ever tell some percent?

Yes. 465? I didn't see that. You asked what percentage I had those new listeners. I think the races broke up into two parts, right? It's you got to show up with 50 percent. You don't have to show up. To have the most dominant car you've ever had,

it's a 50 percent car when you're unload. That's all the work that you put in during the week. Did you get your baseline set up? Correct. The other 50% comes from what adjustments do you make from practice overnight for the race on Sunday? Yeah, I told you all that I thought that I had like a 45% car. And by the way, you can win with 90% cars. You just need a little bit of help.

You can win with 85% cars, but you'd really need a few guys to take each other out of the race through penalties and stuff. So I told you guys on the Denny Brose chat, you're like, how's the car? Give us a percentage. I said, I thought I had a 45% car on the unload, and I thought that, you know, we were probably 48 with our changes overnight. So not bad, 93%, which, yeah, we could win with it, but we needed a little bit of help. And the little bit of help would have been Joy LaGano not being in the field. Speaking of the Denny Bros. Chat, you need to just let us be enthusiastic.

If we're getting pumped up, like, let us go. You're trying to, like, you know, slow our role. Like, let us just. Right. And I think Travis, now looking back on it, there was reason to be the way that you felt. Definitely went there with a shot. You guys were like. We said, let's go.

We didn't say, like, we got the party planned. Okay. Yeah, so peek behind the curtain here. I tell these guys that, you know, we're at around 93%. And I feel like we're about 93%. They're like, hell yeah, yeah, let's go. And I'm like, fellas, we haven't won anything. And you guys were like, we know we're just, you know,

we're sitting, we're up in our seat now. What's that whole, that meme from Roaring Kitty where he, you know, goes forward with his feet. We're firmly planted. We were ready. Okay. But you got to remember, too, our baseline, from last year was not good.

It was not good. Right. So that was a man. If it was a 28% car on unload, that would have been generous. I mean, truthfully, it was not good.

And then the overnight didn't, didn't really help anything. But that was all-star race. Like, did anything play into that? Like, let's try something because it's an all-star race? No.

Oh, okay. No. No. No. No. So, yeah, listen, you know, you saw, you know, me go over to Joey and congratulate him. It just, I thought it was very impressive. And so wanted to give him his due on that.

And obviously, win obviously means a lot to him right now in his points position battling to get into the chase, which he now has, you know, firmly put his feet down on the ground. I mean, what, 71 points he got? shows he's plus 49. Yeah. He got, yeah, he got 71 from the race, but 49 to the good. With some short, you know,

with some short tracks on the horizon, I think he's got to be feeling pretty good. Now, as a driver, I can tell you that, knowing that you're only 49 to whatever, maybe it's the point lead, maybe it's the cut line, you never feel safe at, you know,

that 30, 40, because it's like, oh, it just takes one D&F and I'm zero. You know what I mean? It doesn't take much. Now, like we talked about, the Jones Priests, Kazlowski, it's not like these guys are putting up 40, 50 point A's. So I think he's got at least, you know, kind of a race and a half buffer there, which and going to some strong tracks. And we heard them talk about.

And I heard Paul Wolf's interview, I think it was last week. or maybe it was going yeah i was going into atlanta where he was like you know joey really has had this part of the schedule circled is you know this is where we got to make our hay and that's a good start so back to that to your battle with joey there at what point in that run did you think that he could have been the most vulnerable at what point were you like oh i think i got a chance here if you ever felt like that i thought for the first 10 laps when he came out of out and I was right there on his bumper, I thought that he looked more vulnerable. And at that point, I'm thinking, man, maybe with the track being, you know, staying rubbered in because it was a green

flag stop. Maybe his car doesn't react as good. Maybe it's not as good because usually what happens under cautions is we clean the racetrack up through driving really slow. The rubber on the tires picks up the rubber on the track. And I was like, maybe that's why he was so strong. He just was really strong in the clean track. And so I could hang with him, you know, just enough to keep him honest. But it was a fine line for me to feel like I just thought that if I pushed any harder, I just was going to have absolutely nothing left once we did get into heavy traffic.

So I just was there, you know, and he would just, edged me by like six inches a lap, you know? And so I thought that if we were going to win that one, it was probably going to be like we were going to steal it. It was going to have to be because he got caught in traffic or something. We just were second best. What about immediately after short-pitting him by one lap? I saw him on the apron pulling out of pit lane. And I thought he actually had a bigger lead than he did, but you actually have to run so slow around. the apron at that racetrack to keep it off the racetrack, that it was closer into turn three than what I was thinking.

But I love the call from Gail on that, just trying to get me out in front of them. It certainly could change the complexion. When you're racing with a car close and equal speed, and he put them behind me, then, yeah, I can certainly make his car not handle quite as good by driving defensively. So, but yeah, we tried.

Just not quite good enough. Do you need like one more lap? Yeah, if he would have stayed out one more lap, we would have jumped ahead of him. Yeah. So was it a late call? I don't know where you were on. It was late.

It was off turn to. Yeah, there was a lot of urgency in Chris's voice when he came over the radio. So do you know that that's coming? Are you prepared for when they do make the call? Like, what do you, what do you have to go through in the car to get into, you know, pit road entry. Yeah, so what I'm quickly doing is adjusting

and break bias, one to get on pit lane, one to then get to the pit box. I'm checking my surroundings that I don't think that got done at some point of this racetrack or this race, but I'm looking to see, can I get down? And at the time, he called me, I was getting ready to exit turn two.

Somebody was leaving pit lane, and I knew I was going to be able to, you know, I always want to pull down and get myself clear before I let off. The last, the worst thing you can do is let off as you're pulling down because then on-come traffic, you know, is coming at a high rate of speed and they can clip you. So is, is Gail calling it at that where you are on the track

because Joey's not going to be able to react quick enough to also get to pit road in the same lap? Yep. Yep, that's what he's trying to do. And then hopefully he stays out next to the lap, but they know better that, hey, if you come, we got to come the next lap. Yeah. To defend our position.

Yep. Yeah, exactly right. Speaking of pit calls, what did you, how did you feel about that pit call in the opening stage to stay out? The only driver's stay out. I mean, Chris Gale. My team typically loves to put on tires, but, you know, we talked pre-race and I don't know, I probably talked them into it. Pre-race about we said a few things I'm not going to get into, but I, uh, I, uh, it. We wanted to stay aggressive.

We wanted to stay aggressive with our track position. I mean, it was a net gain for us, right? I think we were six or something like. Seventh and you finished fourth. Yeah. And it was a battle. I mean, I was doing everything I could to hold all the track position. I'm sure Carson Heresvar was frustrated getting stuck behind me.

But, you know, I just wanted to make sure I run my line, you know, I knew it was going to be tough. any other time of the race, you know, I certainly would have let him go, but I had to hold that track position, you know, because I knew the end of the stage was coming. If it was an infinite run where we don't know where the caution was coming, you know, certainly would have just let him go. But we raced hard, but there was one time, he really tries to slide guys a ton, like he'll go in there and just overdrive and then use his right rear to kind of just move you up. and, you know, so I know that tendency, so I plan for it and drive accordingly. So I just made sure I drove in really deep to not let him ever clear.

And then there was one time he slipped up, got it on the side, and I gave him the old finger out the winter. No, no, no, don't do that. And then from there on out, he didn't make contact again. It seemed like he was also at the beginning of restarts or whatever going so hard. And it's like, you're fighting for this one spot, but you're going to ruin your, your tires and then you're going to lose those spots more at the end. Well, I mean, if you look at kind of he's getting the most, you know, out of his car, certainly on the short run.

He's, he's really good at restarts. I think the numbers would support that. You know, some of that is the aggressiveness. Some of it is that's what he's built into his car is to be, you know, be able to charge corners really, really hard. Now, that comes at a price, absolutely, in the long run. But, you know, there's a balancer that can be had, but that's, you know, that's where Carson allows himself to keep his track position is by being good on these restarts. If he gains two or three spots, it usually will take 80 laps for him to re-give those spots back away.

So it's actually a, you know, a strategy that I think that, you know, they're employing. You seem to be whenever Gil had asked for thoughts on the car very kind of like indecisive yesterday. I could be wrong on that, but it just felt like you were like, when he's asking what you need, you're kind of like, I don't know. Yeah, so a lot of it is because I haven't really been successful at that racetrack. So if you take me to Kansas, if you take me at Martinsville, whatever it might be, I've got so much experience there that I know what a really dominant car feels like. I've never really had that at that racetrack.

So when I'm off by just a little bit, I'm, you know, I don't know, what do you see? You know, I don't want to, the last thing I want to do is send them down the wrong direction. And so I'd rather give a no comment over a, well, let me guess. And they overreact to make a big change. And next, you know, you're going backwards because you've told them the wrong thing. The best moment in the Denny Bros. chat yesterday came from that, staying out in stage one, call because, you know, all of us in that chat have a very modest knowledge of racing. So we see you staying out as the only car, it's like, uh-oh, this might not be good.

But then our, what would he call him? The eternal optimist? Our eternal optimist, we're good. There's going to be a huge crash here behind them. Yeah, you go for a crash. What can we ask publicly, why does Austin keep saying chestnut checkers? Because if you're playing the long game. game.

He must have said it three or four times yesterday. Because that's like the restarts where like SVG and Carson are going hard and it's like, you know, save the tires for the end. Like I know what he's saying. Well, he's usually listening to this live. Austin,

there's not always a grand plan behind everything. Like if I fall back to 10th on a restart, that's, that's just a shi-start. That's not just not checkers. You know what I mean? I love it because he's like, oh, yeah, we're just saving our stuff. You watch us.

We're going to blow through this field. He said, quote, I'm listening. Fuck. All right. Yeah. Chestnut checkers. Also, he's not the fixer. He might be losing that name.

He's asking Scotty for help. Yeah. So are we having issues? Do we need to ask for the public's help here? I don't know what the... So we're looking. looking for a camper, but we don't want a nice camper or we want to. We want to. We want that works, but. Right. The bare minimum. The bare minimum for the Dennybro's

campsite at Richmond. Right. Yeah. I mean, because you guys were talking about, hey, let's, let's go through the, you know, the bus service. And I'm like, I ain't getting all the nice bus. I didn't say that. Yeah. Tram, maybe we asked, maybe we text John, see if John can just Park Denny's coach out in the campground. What do you think? I mean, I'm down as long as we have some sort of... You're not down. You want your coach as far away.

You want to go to the campground. I do. Enjoy it. Get your entertainment and then leave when... Absolutely. I'm like a grandparent, right? Oh, the grandkids children, they're great because when we're done with them, we just pay back to their parents.

Yeah, so we're looking for modest accommodations. Everything we're finding is just actually too nice. I don't know how many bedrooms we need, you know, or beds. Yeah, we need to do a headcount. Probably six. Probably six. I'm still bringing a tent. I'm still on that train.

Yeah. If it rains, you're going to stay in there. If it rains, that's going to suck. Jerry, do you need an air mattress? It's not going to rain. We're not, there's, it's not going to rain.

Okay. Hmm. All right, back to this race. Speaking of Pit Road, what do you make of Alex Bowman and Tyler Redick? Not clear?

Um, I mean, I didn't hear the audio. Is there audio that's linked with video to, that's the only way you can really come to do an assumption like kind of whose fault it is?

Is it a spot? Is it a spot? I thought Boma and Sprotter took blame for it, but I can't remember. Yeah, I just, I always still check my surroundings no matter what, what, but yeah, I don't know. It's, at that track, it can happen quickly because there's not much, there's not a ton of room between Pitt commitment and then when you get off the corner. But it was, that was just kind of a, I mean, certainly a late and bold move that, it actually worked out okay for those guys. Well,

I think Chase L. Even made fun of it like somehow they're better off than the people that just being, yeah, causing the caution, as long as you don't go like multiple laps down, like causing the caution in the middle of the pit cycle is actually advantageous. Yeah, because it messed up a lot of people's days.

It, yeah, yeah, sure. And then there was a pit road with Connerzill, and Kyle Larson. Let me think on that. I watched it.

Usually my rule of thumb on that would be the car that is in the furthest, that is in front, has the right-of-way. Like when it's a, we're merging at the same time, I always feel like that the merge needs, the yield needs to be to whoever's coming in late. You're coming in late because you're in the back. that is not as important as whoever is running further up front. So I guess I'd kind of put it on Connor or the spotter or something. I'm not really sure.

The crew chiefs kind of. Just put it on the 88. Yeah. It's just, I'm wondering, usually, and they, and if you notice, if you listen to my radio, they gave me a warning every time that, hey, where our position is, this many cars on lead lap, there's likely to be cars coming into their stall as you're leaving so just be aware. So they gave me that huds up after every stop.

I mean, Bozzi posted a video of Bubba's N-Car audio and video with them talking through coming in as the 22 was going to be coming out. And then they did the math and they're like, he'll probably be leaving right as you're coming in. Like to just see the choreograph and the work that goes into it was pretty fascinating to hear. It is. There's a lot that goes into it. And, yeah.

And so that was just. the perfect scenario where Conner's two pit boxes up. You know, he usually starts, he usually starts going into his pit box. The five has just dropped the jack. I don't know. I think that it was a close call. It was a close call, but I would lean 80, 20 to the 88 bunch. The five, the only reason you would give any, any, any, any, any fault at all to the five, which I'm really not is that if he happened to just drop the jack and get hit the first few feet where he pulls out because you can wait a beat like when a guy is coming with momentum you can just wait a beat and then go out because asking this guy to go from pit road speed at 35 miles an hour to stop

to then let you launch and leave that that might be a little bit much to ask for but I would have I would have to see it again, but I really don't care to. I'm also just curious at this track being pitted that far back on pit road in that corner. Is that more chaotic than another area of pit road or not necessarily? Well, the further back you are on pit road, the more opportunity that there will be, if you're running up front, the more opportunity it will be that somebody is going to be coming around you because there's more stalls there. So it's usually better to pit further down pit road. If it's a racetrack, let me think.

Dover is another one that is very, very known for this amount of cars on the lead lap. Indy this weekend. There's going to be, somebody's going to crush in a bumper at Indy. It's very narrow. So it's just one of those tracks where if you're at the beginning, early in the pack, and you pit way back towards turn four, you're going to have major traffic issues when you're leaving your pit stall.

So at what point in the pit road draft, do you start getting... They all take an account. They take it into account. No, but at what point in... Because you pick your box based on where you qualify. What number in qualifying,

like where is the... Okay, we qualified 11th. we're starting to lose a selection of a good pit box at that number. It depends on the track. So usually- Indeed this weekend. I don't know. I'd have to look at the pit roadmap.

But good stalls are essentially ones with openings, either an opening in or an open and out. Some of them have 12, which means there's six openings. And so get two an opening and open it out for each open stall. Right. So some of them have four openings. Some of them have six.

So it just kind of depends on the track. But usually if you put yourself inside the top 10, you're going to have an opening in qualifying. I'm just glad that this week, Lugano didn't pick right around you. Well, because he usually does. Consider it a term of endearing. No, I get it, but this week it would have sucked.

I think that they would have thought this week, let's not pit around anyone that we think is good because we think we're going to be good. True. That's the strategy there. Hey, everybody. It's Dellenhart Jr., and there is no better way to support Denny Hamlin than wearing actions detrimental gear at the racetrack.

You can also flip him the bird or head on over to shop.dirtymodemedia.com to see what we have. I guess let's go back to Joey winning this. He had mentioned that whoever was out front on that last run was probably going to win the race. How important was the clean air here? because I feel like we did see quite a few movers. Yeah, you could make passes, but it wasn't easy, nor should it be, but it's just, these cars got a lot of grip, right? And they have a lot of grip for a long amount of time.

And I thought that the tire change that they put on the car, it's better. I mean, it's better. Could it be more? Yeah, we still need just a little bit more. it falls off, but it falls off so slow. It's like a hundredth per lap. It's just not much. And, but yeah, I think that it would have been difficult.

I certainly could have dirtied his air up and made him, you know, fight a little bit harder. But I think that I stayed close enough to him where I could see that he had a little bit more sense of urgency around lap cars than what he had. earlier in the race. And there were softer bumpers this weekend? Yeah, they took the foam out from the front bumpers. So essentially what you see, the nose

on the car, there used to be so the hard structure, you have the hard structure behind the nose. And then you had foam that would then butt up against the actual the composite nose. Well,

they took the foam out. So now there's a big empty gap there. And, you know, the thought is to try to soften the licks from, from, from the bumper tag that happens on restarts. So were you, and on super speedways. Were you more wary of that when. Oh, yeah.

Moving, trying to just. Well, there was one restart that I think Joey was waiting on me to hit him for him to go. And it's like, I, buddy, I don't, I don't want to run. like I don't want to run into you and actually he he was going pretty slow and I got into him harder definitely harder than I wanted to um so it'd be interesting to see if anything moved during that process because I don't it's it's not an exact science of you know I don't think anyone knows yet like what mile per hour speed are you going to punch these nose in and have issues yeah so

are you just then when you're trying to move through the field you're just opting to not make contact and, you know, move a guy up out of the groove? Well, you can do that. Like, because, you know, to move someone out of the groove, you know, that contact is usually pretty subtle. It's the, like, the bumper tag that really can get, um, get this bumper kind of moving further than you would like for it to. Right.

What do we make of North Forksboro points race 450 laps? I mean, it's long. I mean, not by time. I get it. It was only two hours, 50 minutes, but is there something that, you know, I just don't know if there's something that you saw in the last 50 you weren't going to see if it was 400 or that.

I mean, not really in this race, right? I mean, but I don't know. Yeah, it was long from that perspective. It was hot from a humidity standpoint. Temperature-wise, I didn't think it was too bad. but I mean, I was definitely soaked after the race. I was wet all around. So, but humidity bothers me more than temperature.

It's only humidity because it just makes you sweat a little bit more. Yeah, the only thing I was thinking at the 400 lap mark and then obviously at the end of the race was at either point, were the tires about to fall off where we were going to see maybe you battle Joey more. Not really. That never really happened. Where you were at 400 was where you were at 450.

That's right. It just never, you know, it would have split up the run, make, you know, if it was only 400, it just, you would have split the run up to where it would have been less, you'd had to go on less on tires, you know, 25 laps, obviously, less per run, which would have been even more, you know, less fall off, which you don't want. So, yeah, I don't know. I thought it was fine. return for a points race?

Do I think that it does? Should we? I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'm for a race at North Worksboro. How about that? That's where I'll stand on it. I'm for a race at North Worksboro. From inside the car, where would you, how would you grade this race?

It's interesting because it's a racy track. do you know, but it reminds me a lot of like Bristol in the sense of when they change Bristol from its one groove track and then they they reconcreated it, put variable banking, they ground it, and next thing you know, we were racing all around Bristol

from the bottom to the top. And it was from a, I can tell you from a competitor standpoint, we were like, this is freaking awesome. Every lane runs the same speed. So if you're faster, you just go to a different lane. And the fans hated it. That's why they ended up grinding the very top of the racetrack

because they wanted to get us off the top. Well, unfortunately, grinding it all did was create a smoother surface, which then made the top the most dominant part of the racetrack at Bristol. So I feel like it's sort of like this where the drivers probably like it because you got some options. But do the fans like it because it allows us? us to get away from each other and not running into each other. Does that make any sense? Like there's a little bit less contact just simply because you've got so much more room to move

around. But if you narrowed up that racetrack, passing would be extremely difficult. Extremely. Right. Yeah. I feel like you guys being spread out and being able to run different lines made it a little more engaging. Yeah. Then maybe what it would have been. And if you, you know, wherever your favorite driver was, if you were watching from the grandstands, more than likely he was in a battle at all times with someone, right? That the track is just small enough to be where there's action all the time. You just got to go find it. Yeah.

But if you're watching on TV, there's a good chance you're not even seeing your driver. Really? Like, once those cars, you know, Reddit goes to ups down or whatever, Larson, like, if I'm a Larson Redick fan, like, you're like, all right, well, let's race over. If there's something else to do, like, I just don't know if you're a fan watching on TV. I could be wrong, but I don't know if. But how does that differ?

Not everyone can be in contention, though. Yeah, how does that differ from any other race? If Larson goes two laps down at Indy, he's... But I don't think you have as... There was at 1.6 people on the lead lap. Yeah. You don't typically have that. The last time that happened was,

Bristol in 2020. Blowouts happen. Blowouts happen. You know, it's just, it's just, I watched your hornet's game one time, and they were down like 47 and a half time. I knew, you know, I didn't,

I didn't, I watched the second half, but it was only to see could my live bet a plus 52 win. That's 71% on the good rate. pull right now. Yes. That's probably fair. That's probably fair. And actually for a short track, I don't think that's horrible. I thought it was going to be in the mid to high 60.

I thought it was going to be 68. I thought it was going to be 68. So we'll see where it nets out. Todd Gillland advances in the bracket challenge to the final. The Godfather. The Godfather. And breaking news. Breaking news we have to announce.

We can announce. You can announce it. After he wins his million this week, right? Mm-hmm. No. This weekend. Yes. No, it's the off weekend.

But we can pull back the curtain. We're going to be pre-taping with him on Monday. Okay. So he can come in and celebrate. Okay. We're going to have the godfather Todd Gillen and Connor Zilich fill in. Action is detrimental on your week off. So you will have an action is detrimental on the week off.

There will be plenty of content out there, and I would tune in for those two because I'm sure it will be very entertaining. First ever. Jared, are you in this? Yeah. What should we talk about? Okay. Dirty mode, can we please get a third microphone? We are.

No, we're going to have a third mic. I'll have a fourth mic over here. Jared will be in the middle like normal. Yeah. What should you talk about? I don't know. I just think you just, it's an off week. Let it rip.

Have a few cocktails on the table? Well, Connor can't drink, so. Oh, that's right. We can get them some mock tales. Yeah. I think fans can submit questions. Yeah, submit questions for those guys. Where do they submit questions?

Tweet them at me. Denny's DMs. Jared, you can get there. Just send them wherever, however. What if they don't know what you're... Do you think that we have listeners that don't, or do, that know your... Or don't know your... They probably do because they have me muted.

It's at Travis Rockold. At Travis Rockold. Okay. I thought it was T. Rockold. That, whoa. T. Rockhold's the Instagram. There's a Twitter account out here. Travis Rockold's face.

Oh, that was, yeah, that was created after the Cotton Bowl, I think. Oh, his sad face. Wow, they have you on Mount Rushmore. That's incredible. But yeah, it'll be fun. First ever guest host.

First ever. Yeah. That's exciting. I'll be, I'll be listening in. I will be. But yeah, he'll be going up against Blaney.

Todd, his last two races at Brickyard, six and six. I wish Todd nothing but the best. We're rooting for Todd. Is anybody outside of, we're on the Todd train on this one. Is anybody outside of Penske and Blaney fans?

rooting for him. Like America's rooting for Todd. You would think so. Everyone loves a good underdog. Yeah. And he will, he's certainly going to be the underdog. So,

man, those are some solid indie stats he's got. So it could be interesting. So, how do we feel about by the way I'm officially off the Ross Chastain that that train is I know I know I just I keep thinking

that there's enough there but there's just there's just not enough there not enough time not enough car just not going to make it McDowell no just I don't know

I just don't that's been one of the about under 20th and points yeah under performing teams that I've been disappointed with this year. Just not, they've been okay, but it just seems like they should be better than where they're at. So McDowell, I'm going to say no.

Kazowski is how far back? Your writing is horrible. It's 58? No. Yeah, 58 back. The other problem is you're trying to... Again, Cendric Lagano. Yeah, that's the thing is you're trying to get past Lagano-centric.

SVG and Bubba are your bottom four, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And SVG has had another good point there. Kizowski, no. Does anybody move up? Or do we have our field? With the tracks that are left, I'm going to say the field is the field.

And that's just off of performance. That if someone goes and blows a motor, wrecks, like that changes everything but and that will happen uh but yeah i just think these guys are separating themselves syndric it's just syndric sindrick sindring and and these guys can't catch them you know he's he's he's putting himself in the teens most weeks and that's that's that's good enough he's like the golf it just gets pars just par par par par par yeah yeah he he's getting what his cars giving him, no doubt. Notable, Ty Dillon 16th. He must have stayed out. He must have been on the lead lap when that caution came out. And then parlayed it into a, you know, good finish.

Yeah, well, yeah, Cody Ware was part of that as well. Where'd he end up finishing? Cody. I know he went lapsed. Lapsed down. But, you know, that was a reset point for the whole field as we talked about. just if you didn't get caught by that caution, it, it, you improved your day from likely where it was going to be. 29th for Cody. Oh,

he fell hard. Um, what about at the top of the standings? What about it? Tyler Reddick. They just can't catch a break. Been a bad run. I mean,

it's, and a lot of it is true bad luck. You know, it really is. It's, you know, there's no way you can plan. that could happen as easily to me.

Someone just dart across racetrack. But I will say, I don't think they were very good anyway. Yeah, they were losing spots. Performance-wise, they still were not where you would think that they should be. So I still think that they had a, you know, they weren't going to finish where they finish, which is horrible. But they, you know, they easily probably lost, you know, I don't know, 20 spots worse than what they probably were going to finish. So, what are we, 68 above them?

Yeah. 84 Blaney. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't mind going to Daytona with that. That'd be a fun Daytona. Just ride the back and just freaking do whatever you want. You'd be listening to the trophy before the race started. Is there even a trophy? Yes, there's a trophy.

I don't think there is. I don't think there is. What do you mean there's no trophy? I've photographed the trophy the last three years. But they changed it. What? Yeah, they don't want me to be a champion. They don't want it.

What do you mean they got rid of the regular season trophy? I am pretty sure, Jared, as part of the press release of the new chase, the regular season is gone and the playoffs is gone. So there is no regular season champion. That's the silliest thing. that's that's incredible it's it's perfect if the one time you win the record it's perfect oh man well it's like a good trophy too no doubt i've touched it before as an owner well is it dry well hold i got to do some we got to do some quick research on this

yeah they this they no that denied um i don't know 68 it's still you know if we could just keep our this momentum going we don't have bad luck then i think it'll be hard for for the field to get there but i you know you just never know what wreck you can get caught up in and so as a driver i'd tell you that we do not we don't think anything is comfortable until it's out of reach with one to go Jared, here's Kelly Crandall tweeted this. As we get down to the end of the regular season, a reminder for those like me who are struggling to break from the vernacular of using regular season champion that is simply the top chase seed with the reset.

Top chase seed. Jared, that's what my title will be. There's no trophy, though. That's what it sounds like because there's no regular season championship. Right. You get like a certificate. This is just perfect. It's absolutely perfect.

This was the one thing that 2311 had to give in the lawsuit was you have to give up the regular season championship. Well, there you have it. Anyway, it's still to be decided. Speaking of Daytona, changes coming. There's some changes coming to the new Super Speedway Daytona Taldaiga racing. It's not really, you know, be careful. This is not a fix for fuel mileage. Fuel mileage will be a thing at Indy, by the way.

This is more to how can we address the fact that Atlanta seems to put on a great show. The fans love Atlanta, but they hate it when we're three and four wide at Daytona and Talldega, and nobody can go anywhere. This is to hopefully change that. So it's taking downforce off of the car. It's taking drag away from the car. Hallelujah. The drag is what's been killing this next-gen car at Super Speedways. And what it hopes to do is allow someone to, if you remember a couple years ago,

Cowboys shot to make a move to the lead. He went three wide to the top at Talladega. I think he went straight to the back. Like it was like you pull out a line and it's just an instant, you're hitting the parachute at the start, at the finish line of a dragster. It slows your car down that much. and the idea behind this change is that once a car pulls out of line, it doesn't, the car doesn't slow at the same rate of speed that it did before.

So hopefully what it'll allow you to do is get up there, get a run, and perhaps because now we have less downforce, maybe there's a gap in front of that car. You can get back in line. So do I think it's going to be like an oh my gosh, huge fix? I do not. I definitely believe that this is a, in the right direction.

NASCAR only has so many levers that they can pull in the interim. And, you know, what you really got to applaud from NASCAR, Steve O'Donnell. His leadership is that he's not spending a lot of time making sure the science is all correct before we go try it. He's a, try it. Like, we're going to find out in the field. And I believe, honestly, that's the best way. to run a company is to, you know, don't wait around for perfection because that's not

happening. Get it out in the field, then get that information, make adjustments the next time. And so, you know, hopefully maybe this is a step that they're like, we need to go further in this direction to get some feedback from the drivers to hear what they have to say. But I like it. From all the numbers that I've seen, we're going to be running a little bit faster in qualifying by ourselves, a couple miles an hour, which is good. But to me, it's the fact that it should allow you to be more aggressive in getting your track position back. You shouldn't be locked into a row you can't get out of. And hopefully that puts on better racing for the fans. It should be more exciting for a longer period of time. I'll be interested to see if

drivers are more willing to pull out knowing that I can go and then also other drivers known oh there's a good chance we can go all pull out then too and go with it and that's right but you're also not going to know until they drop the green flag right right right who's going to be the first car that tries it ricky stahouse rickie sthenhouse um i yeah we we won't know we we don't have any practice schedule for there which is it's okay i mean these are not levels that we haven't seen before it's not like the cars are going to just you know, starts spinning out when we get turn one. They're still going to have lots of grip.

They're still going to have lots of drag. It's just, again, a very small change to see, just see what happens. Even if you did have practice, you're not really going to get your results, right? Because no one's going to practice the way you're going to have race. Exactly right. Yeah, you're not going to get enough cars willing to go in a pack and put their car at risk before the actual race. So, yeah, you will not.

It sounds good that, oh, they really need to practice. but I can tell you, 2311, I would say do not get in a pack. And Joe Gibbs Racing would say, do not get in a pack. We feel confident that, you know, this is not going to be something that's going to be undriveable. Yeah, you could check travels and stuff like that. But, you know, practice would be definitely overrated and more for TV, which, you know, I'm okay with if they decide to do that. Speaking of changes, more practice time coming. starting at New Hampshire. All groups will just be in one big single 50 minute, 50 minute group,

all cars on track. Yeah. So this is designed to be a little bit more of a level playing field for everyone to be on the same track during practice. I think some of the gripes is that depending on which race track you're at, a certain group would be faster or slower than the other. and so the conditions wouldn't always be the same. And I know they bounced around a few ideas of do we do all cars 25 minutes break 25 minutes or do we do just 50 minutes straight? And I thought the best decision was 50 minutes straight because when you get into a 25 break 25, everyone's going to be out there at one time and it's going to be a complete

for the most part to try to get. a good read on your car because it's going to be so packed at all times and everyone's going to be on different tires just this is going to be better to where the track's going to get you know there'll be some cars on pit lane making adjustments other cars out there doing long run so this was the you know the fairest way to do practice and give everyone now an extra set of tires as well so I would like you know the only tweak is that I'd like to see them say you know what it's a It's your option to use that second set. If you want to use them, go ahead.

But you have the option to carry that extra set of tires into the race. That way, you don't want to run two sets. You don't have to run two sets. So maybe some qualifying runs get done at the end of practices now. Just never know. Who does this benefit the most? Well, it depends on the track. I told you, some tracks you want to be in the first group.

Not a whole lot of them. But then, you know, the track is the most rubbered up typically and like it is in race conditions by the second group. So probably helps the guys in the back that are typically in group one more often than not. But does this allow a JGR and HMS to now have more data and get their engineers going to more work? So it's like, yeah, the younger drivers in the back

are getting more lap time, but now you're letting the engineers that have the bigger teams get more information. Yeah. So under this current 25-minute group practice, you guys are, you're heading out immediately. You're using almost all 25 minutes on the track. In a 50-minute session, are you spending more time on the track

or are you spending just about the same amount of time on the track? I would estimate about the same. I really would. I don't think it's going to be dramatically different than what we had. maybe a few more laps, but, you know, again, these engines, they only want a certain amount of laps on. Like, you just can't go out there and run 50 minutes straight. It's just, it'd be a little bit too much.

So it really just levels the field a little bit from this group. Yep. Group activity we currently got. What else we got? How was your fishing thing? The fishing expo. Expo. It was fun.

Went down to I cast in Orlando. Had a lot of fun. with that. There was also a teenager dance competition, so dance moms everywhere. Like, I didn't see a husband or a father in sight.

I mean, giant expo. And it was like, I mean, just everyone, it looked just like dance moms. My kids watched dance moms, and it looked just like it. You know, everyone practicing their routine outside the, you know, whatever

ballroom they're in. And so that was entertaining but you had to walk through it to get to iCast so there's a bunch of fishing people walking through the the dancing expo thing so did you buy anything

did that what bag? No it was it was vendors only so it's more B2B you know here's our new product and the rep from Bass Pro shops you know whatever so it's more

everyone showcasing their product than anything else. But it was awesome for me. I mean, I'm walking. All right, we have to walk down to every aisle. We have to map it. Make sure we turn down here. Oh, we didn't walk down this aisle.

So we, I mean, I made sure that I kept Austin and Charlie very, very on track. Oh, speaking of Austin, uh, hotel. Can he, he drove us to the wrong hotel. I, you know, the guy hasn't traveled to a racetrack all year. Yeah. He was in mid-season form, which is driving us to the wrong hotel in the middle of Orlando International where it was dead stop traffic. And I'm like, why are we in the arrivals lane, Austin? Why are we in the hotel?

It's right up here. I'm like, I don't think so. We're about to go in the arrivals and departures. What are we doing? And yeah, he entered the wrong height. You're fine. Damn. I tell you, he, it's, it's like he never left. No, that's all I got from this weekend.

So did you, did you buy, is that backpack a new item? No, it was more just for. What's the point of going if you can't buy anything? Well, it's stuff that may be on shelves, right? Yeah, it's like these are the new releases. So then you go to their websites and then you buy it. Oh, okay. Yeah.

It's a showcase. It's a showcase. Gotcha. All right. Well, Indy next. Man, this is, we know this is what I want bad. Gosh, it's such a hard one to win, though. Fricking, with all the strategy and flipping stages and got to qualify well.

We're qualifying right in the middle of the day, 1.30 to 2.30. We're probably going to be towards the back of the pack. No night race, though. No. Oh. You know what, that's, to me, that's, that. is why that is my argument for shorter. If it's Sunday night, I mean, I'm leaving the racetrack, right?

And it is 1115, 1130, and I'm like seeing all these people in the parking lot leaving. And we staged our car out in like normal parking lot. I'm like, do these people not have to work tomorrow? Like, holy moly. That's my argument for shorter is that if you're going to run Sunday night, let's get this thing done at a reasonable hour. But that's fair. Yeah.

But overall, I thought the experience is good. It seemed like the fans had a great time. They were wildly enthusiastic. Very happy to have us back. Racetrack. Racetrack was great. The track was great. Lighting's great.

It definitely makes you feel like you're back in 1980. It doesn't feel. feel like anything's different, you know, other than some pain on the walls. So they did a great job redoing it. So real quick, back to, back to Indy. You obviously had a very fast car there last year. Should the expectation be? Which one? The one I crashed in qualifying or the race car? Both were good, but the one you crashed in qualifying. The one I crashed in qualifying was an absolute rocket. And I was, I was so in the green. to the good to get the pole and it wasn't even close and i just was like so full of myself

i'm thinking oh i'm just going to hammer through this corner and yeah it just god i wish i could have that one back because then we had to start in the back and then took the backup car and finished third or second second or third yeah so should i think third should Travis's expectations this weekend be similar my expectations are to win if we're not turning right. I expect to win. Yeah, we, we're optimistic. Yeah. I think that we should be strong. I think we should be strong, no doubt. But I mean, again, this is not a race track where you, if you go back to 10th inside the last fuel window, it's over. I want to warn the Denny Bros. on the chat of that. If there's no more pit stops and we're 10, we're playing checkers.

That's perfect. Do you hear that, Austin? That's perfect. We're done here. Review. Review from Rino's Race Room 66. Denny may maybe should. Danny should be a competition director for NASCAR in the future, please.

We just talked about this. That's not a responsibility I'd like to have because the fans are, they are tough on NASCAR rules. and regulations and Colpurn. He had some shit to say about the next gen car. No, I'm out on that. But thank you for the nice

combination. Yes. Okay, now we can end it. All right, see you. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.