Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Why Is Everyone Upset About Denny Bumping Larson?

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Charlotte had plenty of drama, and Denny Hamlin has a lot to say about it. He breaks down what went wrong late in the race, why track position was so important, and how changing track conditions affected his car. He also shares his thoughts on competition cautions and stage lengths, including what NASCAR could do to improve the racing.The crew dives into Kyle Larson’s championship advantage and how top teams distribute their best chassis. They also discuss Brad Keselowski’s future, the Bowman and Bubba Wallace crash, the Stenhouse-McDowell incident, and Denny’s contact with Larson on a restart.Plus, Denny recaps the O’Reilly and Truck Series races, previews Phoenix, and lets AI set the betting line for his men’s league basketball championship. With the playoffs winding down, one thing is clear: Denny needs a win.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If SVG is calling your road course, it's over. It's over. It's done. Yeah, you would think so. 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 than Rick and Drake. I know, you do. Two trophies missing from your collection. A 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, welcome to Actions Detramental after race 31 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the Oval, not the Roval.

Maybe we would have got in practice and qualifying if we would have been on the Roval. I mean, it would have been a wet practice in qualifying. It's crazy. how much how unlucky, I guess the schedule is, you know, when it comes to that part of it. It's four of six so far, been set by the metric. How much do you think what we see on Sunday has been affected by what we're not getting on Saturday? It's a factor for sure. You know, I thought that, I mean, we certainly, it just there's dominoes that happen to fall right and it just so happens

Charlotte is one of the most important I would put Charlotte actually as the most important pit pick selection racetrack that we go to simply because if you look at the size of the pit boxes and then the amount of openings and how many cars stay on the lead lap it is just it wreaks havoc remember that was it two years ago i mean just lightning fast and i would go back to about 10th every pit stop because it busher came around me so one came around busher so one came around them and it just was a non-stop log jam and so you know for to have a mile and a half track and it's really the smy tracks it's Atlanta i got a list of them somewhere it's Atlanta it's Atlanta Charlotte,

gosh, it's not off my head, but I remember seeing one or two of the SMI tracks that are the like these, I think when they said, all right, let's make pit boxes. They only need to be 28 foot wide or 28 foot long. You know, the average is like well over 30.

And so it just causes it massive logjam. And so, yeah, we have, I mean, like there's dead. designated pit boxes for like NBC. There's other openings. I mean, there's still 43 actual pit boxes. Yeah, I mean, you had an opening in.

Right. But if someone comes in and just stops because they want to get out, you're done. It doesn't really matter. Now, we definitely did not get me as far back in the pit box is what we needed to the on the first stop for sure. Yeah, I do remember Gail mentioned. something along the lines of, hey, stop a little shorter on this one. But, I mean, I guess you're just coming down and parking wherever the sign is.

Yeah, you want to just barely touch a sign. That's kind of where the pickaroo's planning on you stopping. Yeah. Yeah. And then 88 comes in and you get log jammed in there. I mean, I guess there was a penalty as well. So I guess it kind of is a watch at the end of that. And I saw the tire chucked over to the left.

And I saw it bounce hard right next to the fueler. And I'm like, you know, it's. Yeah, penalty, definitely. Can you see the log jam coming? Like, once Connor pulls in, can you see, who I'm going to have a difficult time getting out of here? Or is it not until you hit the gas? No, you kind of know right away.

You kind of know what the turning radius is of your car. And, hey, if I drop the jack and spin the rears, I can get it to kick out so I can get around. But I knew that one was trouble from the beginning. What do we got to do to get rid of these competition cautions? Like, what does NASCAR, what's their reasoning for them? I don't know. It used to be for tire wear, but we were at a point with our tires.

Everyone knows kind of when your tires are starting to wear out, and you've got to just pit. But I agree. There shouldn't be a competition caution to save the race teams from their issues. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you on that one. Especially yesterday. It felt like the race was starting to try to be good. there in that first stage. We didn't need a stop. You're about to hit green flag pit stops.

Yeah, cars are starting to come and go. And that's truthfully what the stages are kind of doing also is that it's allowing us to not have to run more than about 40 laps on a set of tires on any given stage, especially mile and a halfs. When we talked about in Kansas a few weeks ago and Vegas, how, man, the tire is so good there. But as soon as it starts to fall, off, boom, it's halfway through a stage, go pit. You know, and so if, if it, if they were moved slightly or, or whatever for the crowd that hates stages, if you just, you know, kept on going and rewarded the points, then, then, yeah, it definitely would play a factor in more comers than goers, but I do believe that,

that the restarts are important to NASCAR and the TV. What is your overall reaction of the race yesterday? What are your major thoughts, big thoughts? Hmm. It definitely seemed difficult to pass if it was within 35 laps of a run. Like whoever could get out there could really go and stretch it. But there was plenty of passing within the pack itself. I mean, I watched many guys come and go.

based off of kind of where their balance was. It's just the leader, it's just got a tremendous advantage. And it always will have an advantage in this car. And, you know, when Seabell was out front, boom, checked out. Just, man, that's the best car by a mile. And then Briscoe gets out there and it's like, well, that's the best car by a mile. So it's just, you know, and when Larson was even out front, it was like, oh, he looks great. But in traffic, just things are different.

And so, yeah, I'm not really sure how you're going to get rid of that advantage that the front car has. I know NASCAR is actively working on trying to get the pitch back in the cars. You know, there's rules that have to get changed to make that happen. There's also unintended consequences that they're trying to think through. But, you know, getting the platform more back to where the O'Reilly's car is, where jamming air behind somebody is something that happens that they're trying. They're working on that behind the scenes. Travis asked me what I thought of the race yesterday,

and I think just overall it was one of those races I wish was longer. Hmm. Why is that? It just felt like things were starting to happen at the end of the stages. I don't know. That's, I know, we just went over five minutes ago. It's just, that's just the way the stages is stopping the coming and going of cars. It just, everyone's, everyone's going to be fine with their tires if they can, if they know they only

got to go 40 on these mile and a halfs. It's, it's universal and it's all mile and a halfs. Once you have to, like, I'm just thinking out loud. And it doesn't make sense from a number's perspective, right? but if like the stages were 100, 167, it doesn't make sense. But now do you pit in that final stage, 67 laps on set of tires? Yikes. Do you pit? Do you not?

Now you've moved the stages from 40, from 80 laps to, well, take out the cautions. Now you're actually, it's really 74 laps that the cautions are. So now that's, you know, 37 laps per set. Like, no one's going to have tire issues. No one's going to have tire wear issues. Like, we're not taking advantage of the great tire that Big Goodyear has provided to us because the stages are stopping that from happening and allowing us to pit right in the middle of them. Do you think that, I mean, this is all hypothetical, but if stages were just removed, you know,

a lot of these races, you see them get strung out and then they just have very long. Or maybe I'm just thinking out loud here. Maybe it's 60, 120, 267 as your stage. So the third stage is longer. You don't want the third stage the shortest stage, right? Right. So, yeah, make it that fringe amount. Now, I don't know how far we go on fuel,

but we definitely, we have more fuel than we have tires. And it just seems like, yes, that the field is about to really get scrambled and then boom caution every time. Yeah. What if the first stage was just coincided with the competition caution? Well, the competition caution is at lap 35.

I'll move it back 10 laps and just call it there. I don't know. That's the same as it being an 80 lap first stage and you're going to spit right in the middle of it. You got to get above the 40 laps on tires. That's when I'm telling you out there, the drivers we have an absolute handful. It's, you know, I got to lap what,

when did I start tanking? About 10 to go. Like that was 53 laps on tires. Yeah, that's lap 43. And you weren't the only driver that said we were hanging on. I looked at the lap times when I got back in the bus and I'm like, I mean, I thought I was absolutely just all over the place. And I was running 32 teens and 20s.

The 12 was catching us. and the 21 others. Larson said he was holding on for Deer Life. Oh, it was, and I looked at the time and scored after the race, and I'm like, damn, look at all those cars running mid-32s. Like, it was, yeah, the 19, does he make it another two laps?

I don't know. It may seem like he wasn't sure he can make it another lap. Yeah, it was, it was. I mean, he may not have made it another 200 yards. And then fuel was an issue too, apparently. you didn't hear it and all sudden the 20 teams talking about fuel issues so like you know we could have had some drama if you just had a few more laps i think that's as a fan you're comparing it to

the 600 which isn't fair and so you're just like man it just i needed just something else yeah i mean that i think that the race is plenty it's long enough um i thought that you got everything that you needed it's just again if you kind of look at the stages and bump them one way, you need to extend them or shorten them to make it one fuel run or two full fuel runs per stage. I think you increase the racing and the overtaking that happens at the end of them. Yeah, what happened in your race? The first half, you seemed quite good. You went from the back to the front in pretty much no time and then just kind of then stalled out the second half of the race. the sun is a crazy thing.

I just, we were really good when it was, when we had a little bit of sun and the track was a little bit warmer. And those are the small details that matter, but that's when I thought we were the strongest, is when everyone was sliding around after 25 laps on tires.

And if you look at the pace, if you look kind of, we're Boise always lists the, He has his graphic where he's listing the top 10 in pace per stage. If you look, the track, you know, because it got later, it just kept getting faster. And when it got faster, it just did not suit our race car. And so if we had a bright sunny day and plenty of track temp, maybe our car runs that well the whole race. But, I mean, I felt when we took off, I mean, right from the first restart, I was like,

like I got four right away and it was like okay and then really all the restarts we were pretty strong but I just I lost my mid run speed I lost my late run speed versus the field once it got to about five o'clock somewhere in that range time was but now going into this weekend aren't you isn't you and your team looking at the forecast being like I'm not sure we're going to get all that much sunlight this weekend. Well, I'm not saying we set up for that. I'm just saying that's when we were best. But that, you know, and, you know, if you looked at it, it was quite clear for a while. And then all of a sudden, you know, you heard him say that there's another storm building. It'll be here in a couple of hours. And the cloud cover comes over. Storm starts building. Temperature starts dropping. and it just takes five degrees of track temp to really change how your car starts to drive.

And it also levels out the cooler of the temps, the more the field is going to just shrink together. Yeah. So how does that work? How are you just coincidentally really good when the sun is out, but then all of a sudden not so good when it's cloudy and that you didn't necessarily prepare for that? like you're saying you didn't you didn't look set the car up to necessarily be good in the sun no i'm i i didn't say that i'm just saying we when we decide how we're going to set our car up okay it's a it's a day race you look at all the factors but but it's just that's when we were best i'm just saying that we abs now the field could have got better um which they tend to do during the course of the race but before everyone started hitting pit road

and then right after the first stage that was when my car was best versus the competition and it just seemed like as the pace picked up when the pace picks up Jared it's it's adding grip to the track so then it mask it mask what what handling characteristics your car has

so maybe you were really tight when it was sunny well you're still tight when it's cloudy but the track has enough grip to make up for it. So your car doesn't slide as much when it cools off than what it does when it's when the track temp is up 10 degrees. And all it takes is it the sun, it doesn't even have to be out, but just be, you know, the radiant of the sun just be slightly more visible. And that track temp goes up really, really quickly. And what it does is it makes everyone's car slide whatever

direction they have, loose or tight, way more. And then it just get masked. And then it just get masked. with temperature. That answers my question. Is there a change that you can make in race to deal with this change in the weather to make the car better? Is this kind of one of those ones where you're kind of what you have is what you get? Well, this is one that, I mean, they kept asking what I needed and I truthfully couldn't tell them a lot. I knew what my car had. I knew that if we could put it on jack stands, I would have been more detailed with exactly all right, I need it. This at this place. This at this place. This at this place. But I do understand the

tools that they have to work on the car and I know that nothing's really going to hit what I need it to hit. So at that point, I'm not wanting them to just take me off the reservation. You know what I mean? So I don't know. I just, I really thought my balance was very, very good for 20 laps, 25 laps, and then it just seemed like whoever was in front of me that was out front, just would start to stretch it. And I got to dig in to where that's at. But I know what my car was doing, but I also, I need to see more. I need to see more.

And I just couldn't answer in the moment exactly what it was. And I'd just, I'd rather not guess. I'd rather just tell the team, I need some speed. I need some track position. What I really need is some track position. because I just thought that the 19 was somewhat pedestrian until he got out front. And then all of a sudden it's like,

oh, it's the fastest car on the track by a mile. You know, I watched them for the first two stages, and it was like, it just didn't look great. We passed them multiple times, but, you know, those guys knocked out 7-8-0, 8-1, 8-0, like eventually that's just going to keep knocking you up towards the front, boom, you get control on a restart, game over. I mean, you almost got there.

What was that restart? You ran the bell for a few laps, last one. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you almost had that track position. Really close, right? And I thought it was crucial to stay in second or try to get to second because Briscoe has had a history of tanking at the end of runs. But, you know, when the 12th.

when he cleared me, which I didn't love, I also was like, you know what, this is actually a good thing, because now the 20 is going to have shit air because he's going to be all up on that 19's ass for the run. He's going to wear his stuff out, and he's going to worry the 19 into tanking at the end. I'm going to go by both of them. And not even close. Just we weren't, we just, we didn't have it. We did not have the speed that it took at the end of that race to roam with them. So your teammate wins. Two in a row. Two in a row takes another good chunk out of these point standings.

I know we're skipping ahead here to the points, but what does that look like there to you? It looks like I'm minus 49. It looks like Bell's minus 51 and Brisco's minus 65. That's what it looks like on paper. Are these JGR cars still in it? Yeah, of course. Of course.

I mean, we see massive swings. Briscoe's made up quite a bit. Again, I think everyone's got this cover now. If Larson's going to continue to do what he's doing, then he's going to be really, really tough to beat, even if you do win. Now, I would say a win really kind of changes things amongst those top four right now.

But, I mean, now you're starting to get into some, Blaney Legano racetracks. Ultimately, I think they would agree as well. Even if they won, you're still, Larson going out and getting top two, top three stage points, every stage in the race is going to be, it'll be very difficult. Do you think that Larson is benefiting from one of his teammates and the chase and the other two are kind of out of it? The Terradin was talking about how JGR has all four in and three of them are legitimately competing for.

versus Larson out there on his own. 100%. Absolutely. Here's the reason why, and I don't think it's any, it's a secret to the public. It's not a secret to the race teams. You have a certain amount of really good chassis. Your really good chassis are the ones

that essentially have more travel than others. So what travel is, it makes, my car here, makes the ability for your car to sit lower in the back. It's got some good characteristics to it. Some of your wreck chassis have even been, you know, decent ones. But every, you know, Hendrick Motorsports, all these teams know which chassis and parts and components are good.

And when you have one contender, all the parts and pieces and the chassis will be stacked. to that one contender. So more than likely, if the nine car, say, had really good chassis, well, that will become the five. If the five car had a good chassis, one good chassis in their fleet, that will become the five. If the 48 had a good one, that will become the five. So, yes, it definitely helps to have one because the teams just don't have that many elite parts in their arsenal.

There's just not let you know. And we're talking very, very small amounts. But you stack them all up and it does make a little bit of a difference. So is that the competition director who's making that call? They're looking through their inventory and this is the best chassis. We're giving that to the five car this week. Cliff, this is your chassis? Is that how that works?

Yeah. Yep. And are these, these are parts that are reused from previous races or just coming in to the shop new? No, they're reused. Yeah.

Yeah. But they catalog all of them. And again, it makes it, where's the next Hendrik car? 12th. Oh, yeah. So they're, yeah, all hands on deck on the five. Absolutely.

I mean, if it, that's how it's being done. Now, do all the teams in a race shop? understand that? Like does, like, everyone's kind of on board with that? Sure, sure, sure. I mean, you'd be a bad team player if you're Rudy Fugel

and they say, all right, well, your A plus chassis is going to go to the five. Like, you'd be a horrible teammate to say no. I don't even think you have the cloud to say no. You don't have a vote in this one. Yeah, it's just, that comes from way up. But that's, that's, you know, it's not something new or anything like that.

It's, um, that's how this thing goes. I mean, yeah, we talked, we, we've talked about that on this show here in years past with the,

with the, with the previous, um, points championship point style, right? Well, if, if the Hendrug only has one car in the championship for,

of course they're going to get the, mm-hmm, because they're, they're the only ones racing for the championship. It just seems maybe a little different this year that it's points and that everyone is kind of, but yeah, but it's starting to weed itself out, right? Like,

okay, for instance, let's pick on Cindrick. Cindrick has two teammates that are fringe, kind of still in it. Cindric is, he's just too far back, and he's not going to go. It looks like Cinder's got the best parts of them all recently. I know, I hear you,

but I'm saying right now, I'm sure Pinsky is saying, okay, the two is going to get the worst of the three. When I say the worst, guys, I, trust me on this. This is, we're talking really small, but it, you stack all these little small things up and it does mean something. Yes, there, you would think that we already saw Penske right now is starting to load their, their, the bullets in the gun. We already saw Penske take Cendrick's pick crew. If you don't think they're taking the chassis too. And they gave him a contract extension. He, he, he, he, he well earned by the way. Absolutely.

well-earned. And I think you're going to see at Talladega where Larson can really benefit from his teammates. Yeah, I mean, who knows of all the games that could be possibly played at Talladega with that stuff, but it is what it is. It's like this all the time at the end. We had a major caution in this race. Bubba, Bowman, and Byron. Looks like Bowman's car just snapped on him and collected Bubba, but I think Bubba got the worst of this impact-wise. I mean, talk about out of the blue, right? I mean, my team told me that something broke on the 48. He said, I think he said it looked like he blew right front.

When you watch it, it was like, whoa. I mean, he got major loose. And, you know, in Alex's defense, that part of the racetrack, we call it the washboard effect. So there's bumps. and it's really high frequency bumps and they're spaced out to where it's like it's perfectly a washboard and a washboard you know back when I was born and we used to wash our clothes

on the washboard back in 1806 but they're evenly spaced out so what happens is the tires skip over this thing and you never you don't really have a whole lot of contact with the actual racetrack because it's skipping over it and that's just for whatever reason three quarters of the way around turns one and two on the bottom you always hit that washboard and as a driver you just prepare for it um you don't want to be turning the wheel you don't want to be

throttling up too hard over it um it's just something you have to go over and it's no bigger than maybe two of these rugs right here long but it is it's something he hit and it was uh it looked like just lost it i i read a few reporters that you know had mentioned how the wreck you know the impact with bowman causes you know bubba to you know the back of the car to take the impact right the first time but then he backs it into the inside wall where the car has already been impacted what happens in that case where may baba for for for bubba where the crush panels or whatever's supposed to crush at the back of the car has already been crushed and now you have a second impact where that has already been yeah yeah and that you know the the car crushing

is what it allows us to take more of a hit because it's reducing the impact. It's the same thing as what safer barriers do for us. It's a crush-in. That's not an abrupt hit to us directly. But yeah, anytime you have a secondary hit on a already crushed part of the car, you're going to feel it more.

And didn't Bubba mentioned in his interview that something about the brakes, like he had no breaks or something like that. I thought he said something like that. That's why he went back down the track. Yeah. Yeah. Just glad to see him get out because there for a minute where the radio,

there wasn't anything on the radio, and then they were going to stretch her out or the ambulance out. Wow. Yeah, it seemed like in his interview he felt okay. So thank goodness on that. Yeah. And I'll tell you another thing, too. cause and effect, but almost like Bubba kept Bowman from hitting that thing massively hard.

Oh, yeah. I mean, similar to the Bell and Elliott wreck at Michigan, right? Right. Exactly right. Or that car just snaps and, mm-hmm. We also had another wreck. I didn't see, I didn't see how this started. the tie Gibbs,

the, um, on the restart. All right. So the, the 54 incident comes on a, on a restart here. He's behind the 45 in front of the 22.

It looks like that the 45 just gets out of line. Yeah. It looks weird like the 45 got tight or something, but he was just getting up to speed. Now, that is a thing at Charlotte. Mid corner.

cars do get tight. It's not a track that's just easily holding wide open through turns one and two. And maybe the 45 at that point, whether he's trying to shade right to go to the outside or he's just getting tight, trying to hold the throttle down, either way ends up right in the lap of the 54.

54 hits the wall. And at that point, you got to think he hit it hard enough to probably bend a toe link. and then because they're calling from you know I'm miles back but they're saying 54 has an issue up high and then finally he ended up spinning out off turn four did you go around him before he collected the six i was it was right around the same time right around the same time so um that wasn't until later in the corner and again it the track gets tight on these restarts the first lap is always three wide much 10 rows deep. And if someone has an issue, there's a lot of adjusting that has to be done by

all the drivers. And sometimes there's just nowhere to go. Yeah. Another incident we had in this one, this one comes after the checkered flag, a little Stenhouse and Michael McDowell action. Yeah, I would say, I don't know, I'm telling me, back there in the dog pound, it is not, it's not friendly. It's not a friendly dog pound. These dogs, got rabies back back. You gotta think there's what

four races left there's some of these drivers are just over it done absolutely 100% yeah I mean NASCAR's not gonna

NASCAR's just not gonna love these guys beaten and banging after the checkered I think the rubbing on each other is probably fine but like

when McDow like kept trying to spin him out no not kept trying he I eventually did yeah I they'll probably draw an issue with that

it's on the cool down lap they're like no one's out like I feel like the way NASCAR is going they're just going to be like call them into the holler next week at least they should and like hey knock it off we don't like finding them is the wrong thing to do right now

it looked cordial post race can we just like institute a new rule where the driver that gets spun or gets the worst end of it on the cool down lap has to like press charges for Yeah, they're trying for it. Like, come on.

If they both talk it off and... So you're saying if Ricky... Ricky would have to elect to press charges. Correct. I got you. Yeah, if Ricky's cool with it, NASCAR, you're like, you know what? We're good. Yeah.

I know, but there's lots of red tape when it comes to NASCAR. Lots of attorneys, lots of insurers that have issues. you know, I don't know. I'm just saying by precedent they don't like guys wrecking each other after the checker. I know they don't like that. I see you have on here restart stage two bumping Larson. I don't know why everyone's making a to do about that. Even Larson was like I gave in a window. No, I tried to push Larson all the way. I did push Larson all the way down the front stretch. I had an opportunity to go high or low to split them in it. You know, I chose to push. And then, when we got to the corner, you know, again, this is a track where it's not easy to hold it

wide open. You usually actually don't. Is he trying to shade up to either block me from going high or whatever? But I'll ever restart. That's what he said. Oh, he did? Yeah. I shot through the middle just like I did through all the other restarts. I just held my lane straight. And when he went up, I'm like, sweet, he's going to give me the middle. And then when he came back down, I, yeah, I made contact with them, but I mean, we're definitely not at the point of the season where I'm looking to cut him a breaker here and there. I don't have time for that. Yeah, yeah. He said in his post race that he was trying to block your run, he thought you were going to go high.

Okay. Well, that's good. Yeah, I mean, I think we're on the same page because I, certainly not malicious about it, but I certainly wasn't going to lift when the opportunity came that I could be now inside of them. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's a deal for you guys in the bracket's. make it, but I'm okay with fans being mad one way or the other. Like, that's what being a fan is. Sure. Like, Larson fans are mad at you. Great. Like, don't we want fans to be passionate about stuff? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm all good. Um, some other guys that had had a good day at, uh, at the Oval. SVG. Good day for SvG, bad day for the roval. He's been, he's been, well,

did you see what he said about the road? That's why I said, bad day for the roval. Yeah. If SVG is calling road course. He's like, it's a road course. It's over. It's over. It's done. Yeah, you would think so. SVG, tracks that have a fast, high lane on a mile and a half, that's where he succeeds.

Charlotte is one of them, and even in the 600, he ripped around the fence when nobody else was willing to, and it was not till the end of the race did you see the entire field up at the fence, but he was there all day and making lots of time. So SVG,

is he's learning oval racing, that's for sure. He's figured this thing out. It'll be interesting because he's got one more year with trackouts and then he's a free agent. And Bianchi on the Terry down was talking about how teams are going to be interested in him. And so be curious to see what he does next year and if he's starting to keep some pressing people.

Yeah. Yeah, next year is going to be exciting for another reason here because you're going to get a guy who looks like a playoff driver that's going to be moving into a full-time round. and that's Coreyheim. Yeah, he was straight. He got to the top 10 really quickly. They were pretty good.

Finished 11th. Dude, block me down the back front straightway. I gave him the old hand out the window down the front. He was like, bro, come on. You know what I'm racing for here? So, but yeah, he's really good. And again, I can assure you of this. I said Corey Day.

I met Corey. Yeah. Is that the 67 and they know they have our fourth best chassis. They have our, they have our show cars that they're racing with. And they won, by the way, with two show cars. So they, he finds a way to make speed, man. I don't know. And yeah, they're certainly going to be tough. When you talk about all the moving pieces too, it's like, you know, I saw more comments from Brad. We have up here the. Kelly Crandall headline says Brad Kuzlowski wants to keep driving for another handful of years, but it's not a mandate in his next, it's not a mandate in his next deal. So that tells us all,

like the things are going to trickle out like that, right? Where if I'm a reporter, the minute he says, yeah, it's not a mandate that I have to race five years. I would immediately have followed up with. But that's what our case said the split was about. So were you not flexible to them, but you are to someone else? Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's, it's contradicting what Chip Bowers said. And that was, he sold us on, Brad wanted race another five years. That's not part of what we envisioned. That's what he said. Is this Brad's way of trying to put it out there for reporters to take, hey, what he's saying is not accurate? Well, I read this as now.

Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that there's more layers to the onion than I think that we know. And, you know, Brad has been very pointed in saying that you'll find out in a month or so. So, like, what's going on? Do we get a tell all book or something? Like, I'm excited. We do tell a podcast, Brad.

Come on. right um that'd be another good one yeah he'd be good i mean he tweeted to your comments yeah um i would say there there's there's certainly more to it and i think he's leaving enough easter eggs that i i have my own theory of where he's going but i think it would be inappropriate for me to say i think it's down to two teams because he keeps saying i can win in tier one equipment And there are a couple tier one equipment teams that are not running well. There are. Chevy.

There are. You're agreeing or are you're asking the question. I don't think I'm not convinced that it's a tier one. Do you know who all the tier one Chevy teams are? I think so. Okay. I think there's only one. That part might be true.

but but tier one means you get the general i believe gm information the the you get all the i don't even know what you're getting but but they call them tier one there are a handful of chivalet teams in the cup series you're saying yes come on these these should be easy for you yeah track house and there's three yes oh not r c r c r c r you They are. They've been a tier one team for decades, bud. I'm just telling you, if he's going to toss out Easter eggs, I'm... Tier one.

Hear my point. I'm saying he's throwing out Easter eggs. I'm going to pick them up and I'm going to open them. I believe he keeps saying I can win in a tier one organization. He's not going to Hendrick. he's not going to Penske, he's not going to Gibbs, what does that leave? 2311. Here to announce it, here we go. Would you like to say no to that one right now before that everyone runs with the book?

I can confidently tell you no and look in your eye and tell you no. But I believe it's down, I believe that he's, there could be some cards that get shuffled. people move early to other places I believe there could be something that could be had and Brad ends up at a tier one team I guess that's what that's what we're going to do here on Monday we're going to speculate until it comes out as fact

we're going to just sit here and speculate if you were to make the line Brad is in a cup car what would the Vegas line be yes or no cup right next year minus plus what are we talking about odds in a cup car I think there has to be some I think there has to be some other parts that need to get moved

so I'm going to set the line at plus 140 I would have said the line was far plus 250 a week ago okay I'm moving it to plus sharp money is on Brad is

there's some pieces being moved around to make room interesting and that is totally me just making assumptions. I do not have an idea and no one has told me but that is what I feel. I think it's pretty likely he ends up in a cup ride. And a tier one cup ride? Whatever tier one means, yeah. I don't think he ends up in a cup ride that's going to seriously contend for race wins. I think if he wants to be in victory lane multiple

times a year, it's probably going to have to be on Friday or Saturday. Okay. All right. That covers that. Exfinity race? Anything else from this cup race? O'Reilly.

O'Reilly. A right. I know, dude. It's like the season is almost over. I'm going to put a thing about your head. How many years did you call it the Bush series of a nationwide series back in the bed? It hasn't been the Bush series in a long time. I'll tell you what my grandpa still calls it the Bush series.

The O'Reilly's race was fantastic. It was great because you had three cars that looked like they were all the best car, but at different points of the run. Jesse Love looked like he had a rocket ship in the short run. It looked like Justin Algeyer was really fast in the middle portion of the run, and then Corey Day was fast late. And so it was really entertaining to kind of watch that and see all the air manipulation, how close it would run behind each other and get the front car loose.

And man, just that whole platform around that racetrack, it's really fun to watch. And a big win for Corey Day? Two in a row for Corey Day. Really impressive. You saw him he had to cope from the back of the pack to the front. his drive to the you know again when this guy's not hitting things or running into people i mean he looks really really strong and for someone just coming into racing four wheels on pavement um wildly impressive and that that chase is now bunched up right i mean smokes yeah it's creed is only two back

creed's up to oh sorry creed's up to love it's only two back day seven back algar 15 team back. Cople had a bad day. Cople had a bad day. They had a mechanical truck arm. Yeah. Something going on there. That'd be interesting to dig into.

But overall, yeah, it seems like that championship is wide open. Friday night, Lane Riggs put in Victory Lane. He's now 17 back in the Truck Series championship. Yeah. And again, it's going to be come down to who wins more. him or Caden over these last, what, four weeks? Do they have four also? We're all together from here on now.

Is that correct? I think so. Yeah, they just finished race 21 of 25. It's that in Talladega. Do one of them get caught up in a Taldega wreck? That's ultimately going to decide, in my mind, the Truck Series championship. And, you know, with them,

they are clearly the two fastest trucks every single week. Chandler gets thrown in there sometimes. But, yeah, it's going to come down to which one wins, which one finishes second. And I think whichever one of them wins twice in these last four is going to win it all. Yeah, I mean, a win for Riggs, you know, if Honeycutt finished a second in each stage and finish the second in the race, like that only puts them in the lead by a few points. We got Phoenix coming up. Yep. Practice and qualifying 430 Eastern.

It can't rain out there, can't it? I don't think so. It has, but I don't think so. At least now if by the metric, we wouldn't be in a bad spot. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think we'll be somewhere in the top five, obviously. But, yeah, I think, listen, we're going to get qualifying in. We're going to see kind of where the five stacks up.

and, you know, Phoenix has not been crazy strong for them, right? Even their championship years, they've not been, when they've won the championship there, they've just not been very strong, but they've found a way, right? And so what, does that continue? Or are they so hot that it just doesn't matter and they're going to go out there and dominate this race? Who knows? That would be the most surprise.

him dominating would be the most surprising outcome of any scenario we can throw out for this weekend. I suspect the Penske cars are going to be on kill. You have to be confident, right? I'm pretty confident, but we weren't super strong there in the spring. We were good, just not great. Just got to dig into what we've got to do to be a little bit faster. 20 car was very strong so that's going to be

certainly a contender and someone that's always up front at that racetrack. But in the fall though, you qualified first, dominated the race. So like you're going off the fall race. Yeah, well we changed the horsepower package

over the off season. So it did change straightaway speeds, corner speeds, all that did change over the, over from year to year. And then so you just you got to we got to get that feel back in the race car and so that's what the the task will be this week is to give me that fall balance back yeah for what it's worth you already kind of touched on it but um i believe larsson had mentioned in a recent interview that

of all the races remaining phoenix was the one that he was least confident about yeah besides taldega which is the wild card i'm guessing sure but they also have have run pretty well there yep Yeah, even at Martinsville, the five has been strong enough, like they've been in the top three to four. Their finishing has been great there over the years. So, yeah, again, we're going to need a little bit of help, so we'll see how it goes. You do have a chance to get a championship, though, this week.

We do. Hoop Group is tonight, championship game, Monday night. Usually, see, I feel like they're sabotaging it against me, putting it one, like 24 hours after I have to race. I mean, I've been white hot out there. I think they saw what you did last Thursday and we're like, we got to find a way to play Monday. Well, I'm hydrating up.

Ready to go. Charlie's told me that, be ready, hydrate, boy, he's been on us on the group chat for days now. Charlie should be in the gym working on his free throws because last time he's playing a championship game and didn't go so well for him at the free throw line. Yep. Early line has it at outlaws minus four and a half.

that's what AI has put the line at. You know, it's been, it's been, it's, it's absolutely crazy what AI is doing. I've just entered all the stats from all the, the last couple seasons, all the player stats, the matchups, previous records, all that. It spits out the line and that's what it thinks for tonight. So we'll see. Are you going to be in attendance? I'm going to try to make it.

I, ref's going to have a quick whistle for technicals. Are you going to let people play these days? You can't bear hug, apparently. No. are they, they, it was coming. This is two weeks in a row that we've had headlocks and bear hugs out on the court. You can tell it's playoff basketball time. I just, as long as I get my 12, then I think we're going to win.

If I don't, then Charlie and others are going to have a hefty load that they need to, this, we need Charlie show up, this championship game, got to show up this one. You know what I mean? I agree. It's got to carry the team. On the racing side. Phoenix this weekend, practicing qualifying 4.30 Eastern on True TV, and then race Sunday, 3 p.m. Eastern on USA.

All right. Well, let's go get a win. Need a win. Gotta have it. Like air. Must have it to survive. Seriously. All right. See you guys. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.