Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Denny Hamlin is back after winning in Kansas on Sunday for the 4th time. Denny played putt-putt against Rory McIlroy and visited The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (3:04). Legacy Motor Club moving to Toyota next year (13:46). The Denny Hamlin Bracket Challenge begun on Sunday and after one round there are zero perfect brackets (17:10). A banner day for NASCAR and green flag passing (23:56). How Denny got a flat tire in his rental car (38:00). What happened between Denny and Kyle Larson on the final lap (40:15). Ross Chastain punched Noah Gragson (52:42). And, #DearDenny (1:09:03). Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are we fueling fights over here? The Denny Hamlin Brackett Challenge fueled quite possibly the best social media altercation of the NASCAR season. Fantastic. The following is a production of Dirtymoe Media. What's up, guys? Welcome to Actions Detrimental. I'm Denny Hamlin, driver the number 11 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing. My co-host, Jared Allen.

Jared D. Allen, if you're looking them up on social. Hey, Jared. winner chicken dinner It's about to say you didn't include your intro there Denny Hamlin winner of yesterday's race at Kansas Winner? Yes I love it

49th of my career 400th for 50th with an asterisk Oh man there's so many asterisks let's just not even I really feel like I have 70 but No awesome awesome weekend Great bounceback weekend we are officially white hot called that four weeks ago it's officially on now yeah Gabe Hart said yesterday is I think we're we're a a bright orange I was like huh Denny says white he's like well well you all make the

headlines yeah um yeah bounce back week for us I mean when I say bounce back we finished top five last week but uh it was a tough day on pit road for us that's that's no secret uh I was probably pretty hard on my guys publicly uh I don't during the race, I don't get on them too much. You know, I just say things like, let's try to keep our track position. I don't say, you f*** morons or anything like that. Because I've got a great young group that is really meshing, and it just takes time and takes reps to get where you need to be.

But, man, awesome day for them. They were super consistent all day, kept me in the battle, and got us an opportunity to race for a win. So, fantastic day at Kansas. we just saw some unbelievable racing there. We'll dig into that here shortly, but a little groggy this morning. I'm tired.

So usually my adrenaline pumps so much the night after races that I don't get to sleep to about two or three in the morning, but last night I went sleepy by. So I just put the phone to the bedside and said, I need to get some rest. I knew we were going to come in early this morning and get it done. So, man, so by the way, if you are listening, you're not seeing. We have our first guest here, and that is the Kansas trophy. So my daughter on FaceTime says,

Daddy, you won in my home state. I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, I'm Dorothy. I'm like, oh, that's right. So, yeah, shout out to Dorothy, winning in her home state. No place like home. No place like home. And for me, four wins there. Shoot, it feels like home. That's for sure. You know, we had a busy week, you know, let's rewind a little bit. We had a busy week. I visited a few places. I went from, where were we? All right, so it went from Dover, Dover to Charlotte.

Then the next day went from Charlotte to, where did I go first? D.C. D.C. to Charlotte. Then Charlotte to Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh, then Pittsburgh back to Charlotte, and then turned around and went from Charlotte to Kansas. So it was a super busy week of traveling for me, but I got to do some very cool things. Early in the week, I actually did in Charlotte since the PGA was in town, had an event with Rory, Maca Rory with FedEx.

That was really good. I actually got to talk to Jay Monahan from the PGA tour, who, you know, they increased their purses like 100 and some percent in the all season. a lot of that probably because from live and on the competition there and you've given that the the uh the players their fair share interesting um you know i i i don't know that he knows who i am or knew who i was but it immediately was like so how's the nashkar and negotiations going on i'm like oh boy you're digging right in there i'm like you know it's it's eh right now did you ask not that's not great did you ask him like do you know who not not to be no no hey do you know

you're talking to? No. Of course not. I'm the last to if I'm going somewhere and I need dinner reservations or I need to get in or whatever. I rely on my friends to name drop. There's no way I can name drop myself. That's just terrible. Not as like, oh, I'm, I'm Denny Hamlin, blah, blah, a good race car driver, right? But as I'm Denny Hamlin, I kind of have a role in this negotiations. He knew. Okay. Yeah. He knew. Yeah, he knew that I was on the ownership side and, you know, who knows how he knows, you know, about me. But he's, but he asked, he was like, you know, well, he's like, where are y'all at? How's things going?

You know, we realized at the PGA tour that the players are the most important part of our product. And that's why we got to a, I was like, oh, could you call someone up and let them know that? So he's like, y'all, y'all will be fine. He says, you'll get it figured out because everyone's going to realize eventually that the, that the stars are what makes this. Yeah. Yeah, I just started. watching the full swing very late on this but on two episodes in it's like oh this is kind of interesting the stars make the sport yeah yeah no doubt so uh but that was fun we went to the puttery down in

charlotte and did some put putt uh it was kind of like happy gilmore put put putt where you know you had to bounce off of all kinds of walls and stuff but rory mackerel was there i um so did a little put put putt with him it was a four-hole challenge i lost by one stroke on the last hole tied them each hole each of the other holes but you know me and rory we actually are both members at michael's course down in um in florida so i'd seen them and met them before uh at the during in the clubhouse so um but that was fun uh and then we went to arlington uh with coca cola and marcus smith from s m i as previous winners of the coke 600 um actually the department of defense considers the coke 600 like their marquee military event.

So that's a huge honor to be able to go up there and hang the wreath during the changing of the guard for the tomb of the unknown soldiers. So that really was special to get it, kind of walk around, see the history of that was, I mean, people told me before you, you know, the ones that knew that I was going said, man, you don't even know what you're about to see.

And I remember, I remember just going through the cemetery, driving through and seeing all the tombs just thinking, wow, this is like, it's just mind-boggling how many are there. And it's, I think they said, 400,000. That was your first time ever visiting? Yeah, it's 400,000 tombs there of military members. And he says that on the rate that we're going, they'll run out of space in 2040, but they're looking at land to the south that connects that. could take them to like 2060 and beyond. So we hope not.

We hope they don't have to use those, that land. But thank you to Marcus Smith and Coca-Cola for having me for that. That was really special for sure. And then we got to do a little Q&A with some FedEx folks up in Pittsburgh. Wait, you're missing something. You also had a tour of the Pentagon, so can we confirm aliens since you got to go in there? Hmm. Can we confirm aliens?

We can confirm extraterrestrial life. That's for sure. You saw that section. The coolest part was kind of looking at Space Force. I guess this is a new, I don't know who brought that along. A lot of the pictures from Space Force and like, you know, they show the documents was basically of Trump signing it back. I don't know if he got it going or signed it back in order to be a part of the military. But, yeah, that was, you know, walking through the halls of the Pentagon, getting the tour of that was very cool, kind of seeing where the plane came into there was just crazy eerie.

And, yeah, it was, to me, it was just, it's still kind of, you know, where Dulles Airport is, like, the planes take off and they are still right next to the, like, they are right next to the Pentagon. And I'm just like, how would y'all have time if someone just hung a left to not. to intercept that like do you really have time and you know they're like oh there's there's things on standby ready to go so um they've that was just amazing that you know all of our military runs through this building right here so uh got to see some cool things for sure um other stuff what else do we have in the uh and the off off week well during the week of last week yes uh your fedex visit you're talking about that yep you and coach went up to Yeah, oh yeah. So we went up there, did some, did a Q&A and did kind of a speaking engagement on leadership.

You know, basic. So FedEx is kind of working in a, you know, in a way to make one FedEx versus these different, different entities of FedEx, Express, whatever. So they're going to consolidate over the next year into one FedEx. And so just talking about how that works and how leadership works, how to get the best out of your employees. and me and Joe went up there and did a Q&A on that. We talked about, I talked about my race team. I talked about Joe and how his leadership works and, you know, what motivates us. So that's really cool to be able to do that because, you know, when FedEx trusts you to talk to their employees and get them all rallied behind an idea, we really can correlate a lot into racing and what we do into, you know,

what they're doing with their company. So that was awesome. and then we had Legacy. If you noticed, if you caught the podcast early enough last week, I ended my kind of my synopsis on Legacy saying, I'm sure they're going to make some big moves soon. Obviously, I knew that they were going to Toyota. I looked at that, and I thought that, you know,

this is a part of the plan that Toyota has set out for the last couple of years to get more race cars on the racetrack. If you look at the driver lineup, these are former Toyota drivers, Eric Jones and Noah Glaxen, who were very good drivers, and hopefully this turns the corner for them. I think that Mori Gallagher and that team there are committed to building that program up and making it better and felt like the switching to Toyota was going to help them get there. How does this impact the other Toyota drivers having two more guys to work with? Well, it certainly is going to help on the super speedways, right?

So the more car count you can have, the more guys you can pit with, the better off you're going to be. There's other things here and there. Now, they will be independent, right? So they won't be part of the JGR-211 alliance. So there'll be a learning curve there. You know, I don't know that you're going to see huge results right away. I mean, you might. I don't know.

But it could definitely take time, especially if they're doing things independent. Now, is there, obviously, having two other drivers to work with, I'm guessing that there's nothing but good things about that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, especially two quality drivers like that for sure. But now are there downsides that? Because now Toyota is adding two more cars to the fleet. Are there resources that either JGR or 2311 could or will lose from this alliance? I don't think so because I think it's just a scaling thing. So, you know, TRD or Toyota, Racing development has a host of employees, right? They're working on engines. So they have to build engines or they have to develop engines for, it could be two cars or 10 cars or 20 cars. It doesn't matter. The heads and the brains that they need to make that work,

it's just all scaling, right? And so they're able to spread it out. It doesn't spread them thin because it's still work they would have to do no matter how many cars they had on the track. Working on software, simulation, things like that. Again, it's a scaling thing where it really doesn't matter how many cars you have on the track. I'm sure that Toyota will have to add some employees here and there to help the logistics, being the kind of in between guys, being that they're independent,

they're probably going to have to have some representatives within the building of legacy to help out. But I think that it's overall a good thing, and we're welcoming them to the team. Just as a driver, how much changes when you switch from one manufacturer to next? You know, the last time I did it was 2008 when we switched from Chevrolet to Toyota. And inside that race car, you cannot tell a difference. I mean, you can't see the hood. You can't see anything. So it drives the same.

Yeah. It's especially nowadays. Like nowadays, it is really the same. So the only thing you'll feel in the car is likely, you know, you know, engine differences and things like that. Did you get a chance to look at RCR? I heard from Jeff Gluck's podcast to tarry down last night that they had some sort of set up inside the three-hauler

that they could show media what exactly, what rules they broke and how they broke them. Do you have any... Yeah, I wonder, I wonder, did any podcast bring that up about showing parts that were illegal at any point? Maybe that happened a few weeks ago? I don't know. but certainly NASCAR is listening, and that was a good change.

Very good change that, you know, they put that out there. It looks so simple. I mean, really, they just took a turnbuckle and they made it one solid piece. So, you know, what happens is that when we go into, after we qualify and you're allowed to make race day adjustments after qualifying. So they take the tires and off, right, and then they've got mechanics that go into the wheel well, and make adjustments to the car, right? Well, one of the adjustments you're not really supposed to mess with, which is why it's a turnbuckle with lock nuts on either side,

is that you don't want the splitter or the rear diffuser to move after they've already scanned it. What would happen is that the mechanics would go in there, and they would just grab that turn buckle and start turning it with their hands, likely. So now, if you went in, if you, if, If those three pieces were independent, the lock nut, the turnbuckle, and then another lock nut, you would have to have two wrenches.

Well, that becomes very obvious to a tech official that is watching that a mechanic's going under the wheel well with two wrenches. They know at that point, well, they're messing with something they shouldn't be because they're supposed to be just adjusting, you know, whatever, the shocks here. So they made that all one piece so someone could just reach in there and turn it with their hand to adjust. just the splitter or the rear diffuser up or down. So how did that help the three car? You had speculated before that potential additional down. Well, at Martinsville, it's not going to help hardly nothing. I mean, and again, I don't know to scale how much it's an advantage.

More than likely, the faster the racetrack, the more of an advantage it is. But it's probably nothing at Martinsville. But people have to understand that when someone gets caught, with something like let's just say the louvers at at phoenix right from hendrick or whatever this isn't the first time likely that they had them in they probably were in for weeks and weeks it's just now finally caught up so who knows how long that they've had you know the louvers on the car who knows how long they had the turnbuckle welded together or whatever it was right so it's just when you get caught it that's when you get the penalty it doesn't mean you started that

week. Just a matter of dodge and R&D. It's just, again, matter putting these Lego pieces, you know, together right is what makes a fast car and what doesn't. Bracket update. Bracket. Oh, we had such a great time with this. Honestly, this would be our leading topic, I think, if you didn't win and you weren't on this podcast and if Ross didn't punch Noah in the face, this would be our leading headline, a leading story. Well, if I wasn't on this podcast, you wouldn't have a job. So let's just say that. that the bracket was a huge success. Thank you from everyone from Dirty Moe who helped put this together. You know, this was, this was exciting for sure. This was the first week. So we had 48,

44,000 brackets submitted. Again, just promoted through Dirty Moe social and my social. That, that it was amazing. Thank you for everyone who participated in it, making it come to life. Unfortunately, none of you will be getting the grand prize because nobody hit all 16 picks in the first round. So that was exciting to be able to do it. The drivers, those out there, just so you know how important it is, the drivers are well aware. During the driver intro stage, I had Justin Haley coming up to me saying, really, you got to go against me in the first round. I'm like, I didn't make the rules. I mean, I guess I did make the rules, but no.

So to inform the people on how hard this is to do, you will consider that if anyone knows about who's going to win and who's not, it'd probably be me, right? I'm on the inside. However, I only got 11 picks right out of the 16. So let's go into, let me just tell you what I got. wrong okay i had uh cow bush over amarola got that wrong uh i had true x this is going to be a big one i bet the true x one i don't know i mean he's going against chase elli the most popular driver

so you would think if you're following dirty moe maybe probably a lot of people would pick chase elliott but true x out uh i got that wrong i had Cendrick over Stenhouse got that wrong. Gibbs over Barry got that wrong and Bell over Dylan got that wrong. So it's hard, folks. It's hard. This sport is unpredictable, just like we saw last week if you had a bracket. Six upsets happened.

Four happened this week. It's surprising because you said last night that the percentage chance of having a perfect bracket was 2%. Right? Yeah, I saw where the Action Network actually did the math on it. They just said, okay, let's do some math here. Hypothetically, if in the first round, it's two to three times, you know, I'm two to three times more likely to beat Haley than whatever, right? You know, there are some close matchups in here, but there's also some that are by the numbers, not close. They equaled it in one to a one in 45 chance.

so which i think is pretty high one and forty five's tough think about you and forty people in a room so one says all right you like that's but to pick all these correct one and 45 chance all i needed was 45 emails no dummy no you had to fill out millions of brackets like are you serious i'm kidding i'm kidding okay oh thank god oh my gosh uh no so unfortunately nobody so all of our brackets in a pool basically were one in 45 so all the you know so so it was um needless to say uh i didn't do it how did you do uh let's go you can talk about what you had well mine's similar to yours i had i also had true x over elliot which i'd like to if we have the data i'd like to see um what percentage of people pick that

because based on if you waited to fill out your bracket until Sunday morning after practice on Saturday, that seemed like a gimmie. Seemed like it. That's why you race the race. Elliot came alive. I had I lost on the Christopher Bell, Austin Dylan matchup. I picked Christopher Bell. You and everybody else.

Yep. I lost on the Ty Gibbs, Josh Berry matchup. That was a 50-50 for sure. Let's see. What else here? Iron over the Joy, that was good. Lugano, yep, I had Lugano of McDowell. That was close for a little bit.

I think with 60 to go, they were both 12th and 13th or something. And I lost on the Kyle Busch, Eric Amarola. But that's it. So three, and they were all the upsets. Yeah. So the only thing is, right, is none of those upsets happen because of on, they race straight up and the upset beat the favorite, right? It happened because of attrition, like Rex, right?

The 20, the 54, and the 8, they were all in wrecks. That's what caused them to lose likely their matchup. If I'm looking, there's a monster matchup this weekend at Darlington. Monster. Do you see it down there at the bottom? Yep. Hamlin versus Larson. That's a bad draw for both of us.

I mean, that's just a bad draw for both of us. So I don't know. I think the winner of that one's got a chance to go to the finals. I think the most overlooked part of this bracket is in the top left corner. I'm not saying that this bracket fueled this altercation, but I'm not saying it didn't either. Noah Braggson versus Ross Chastain. Okay. So let me tell you, when I was talking about, before.

the race the drivers knew who they were matched up against um no no it says um who who do i got and i said uh chastain he's like oh well so you knew it was in his mind you knew it was in his mind and so are we fueling fights over here the denny hamlin bracket challenge fueled quite possibly the best social media uh altercation of the nasscar season Fantastic. That's what we wanted. More content, more storylines. You got it. Got it. All right. So we'll get into that. Okay. So do you want to just kind of run through the race a little bit? Stage one, state shoe. It's all like, it's exciting. Yeah, I mean, it was an exciting race, obviously. You know, this was a, this was a banner day from Mike Ford at NASCAR.

The statistician, I think they announced with 90 laps to go. There was a mostly, changes in the, did he say the history of 1.5 mile track? Oh, I don't know. Yes. Oh, Travis is saying yes. And it has to be 400 miles. Okay, and 400 miles. So Mike Ford, waving the checkered. He's waving the checker today. And I tell you what, I tip my hat. And Denny Hamlin's waving the white flag on Twitter. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Now, listen, how they compile the data is. questionable at best. However, however, it passed the eye test. Now, did it pass the eye test of the mostly changes ever in history at a mile 1.5? That's pushing it, okay? Because there was a lot of side by side and just FYI, because there was a lot of restarts and guys were side by side.

It's just literally how many passes was a two-car battle in the course of one lap, right? So more unlikely if two cards were side by side for the lead, they probably changed positions via the loop data five times in one lap. They said it was at the start finish. Oh, they're changing their mind now on how they're going to keep the data. Travis, you're going to need a mic. We're making changes for the better. That's what we wanted.

That's what we want here is making changes for the better. But listen, let's not, let's not on them. Great race. No question about. it this was the perfect match of tire racetrack and car i mean just it's kansas speedway is just it's a w it is a w when it comes to competition because you the preferred lane is right up against the wall but you can make passes by sliding guys on entry so you can run lower and make up time sometimes, but for the most part, the fastest lane is the furthest distance around the track.

So if you can get your car working on the bottom, that's where you're going to be good. So between that, the tire fall off was 1.5 seconds. W for good year. It is possible. They can build a very good tire. They did this weekend. So very happy with that. Yeah, just I thought generally speaking,

I think I sit on the radio five laps in on the radio. I'm like, boy, it looks fun up there in the lead. Like I started eighth. I think I got to fifth pretty quickly. But they were dicing two and three wide for the front spot, you know, right on lap three. So it was just like, man, this is awesome. I cannot wait to get up there. And I knew right away that I had a car that was capable of winning.

It usually takes me three or four laps in a race and I know what I've got. So, yeah, Kansas is consistently a great racetrack. It sucks that the championship. held in November and Kansas I think in November is probably miserable. Yeah. That is not in contention. Well, you heard the track promoter or the track president saying, you know, hey, it's at least 94 instead of 49. So I think they had some rough weather there in the years past. But man, it was a great day. Great crowd considering you've got two races there. It's always a struggle because from the audience standpoint, right, usually are like, well, do you want to go to this

one or that one. So great crowd for the first race there. The next one's in the playoffs. You said before the race in your media availability that Kansas has a lot of momentum racing. Can you explain more what that means? Yeah. So I grew up in late models like they were on the cars tour and they didn't they don't have a whole lot of power. So how I've kind of formed my technique of driving is I'm very momentum based. So I like to run very high minimum speed. Um, you know, which sometimes hurts my exit speed, but I'd just like to make a lot of corner speed. And because you had to do with that in late models to really make passes.

Rad to roll through the center super quick. But Kansas, being that we have lower horsepower and a lot of drag on the cars, just generally the bodies have a lot of drag, which makes it slower down the straits. You want to, you race it as a momentum-type racetrack. So you don't want to break your momentum or else you'll get swallowed up by cars pretty quickly, which is why we're running the high line, by the way, is that it keeps our minimum speeds high

and it keeps our straightaway speeds high because we're starting from a higher speed. So I think it just fits into my style generally because it is a momentum-type racetrack. But and more so how you keep, is that why, I want to get into like how you generate that momentum and keep up that momentum. Obviously you just said running the high line helps,

but is that why when you see two cars battling side by, side down the backstretch and then the guy behind them can just overtake both them because they're each losing momentum and that guy. Yeah, when you're running, when two cars run side by side generally, they're dumping air on each other's spoiler and it slows both of them up dramatically.

That's why you see on the straightaway, especially restarts if two cars run side by side in the corner, the third car back is going to get a huge run down the straightaway and sometimes they take it and go three wide or they'll push whoever is in line. So that's why is that it's momentum based where

if you hit a bad corner, it literally will take you a whole lap to make up that momentum that you lost in that one corner, which is why when I was battling Larson at the end, I had two instances where I got beside them within five laps to go. And it took me a whole lap and a half to regain the distance I lost to him by not completing the pass. How much does that factor in with Rex like we saw with Christopher Bell and Chastain on the backstretch. Yeah, I mean, that was so it that's a factor, right? I watched the N-car from Christopher Bell and Ross kind of had to check up because he was getting tight off the corner. And when he did, I couldn't see if Chastain was all the way up against the wall or not, but it looked like C-Bell either misjudged the rate of speed he was catching Chastain or

Chastain bounced off the wall and came down. I couldn't tell. It's hard for me to distinguish to but that was a momentum move because Ross lost all of his momentum off the turn two there. Christopher Bell ran the high line to keep his momentum so it could run fast down the straightaway and it they met right on on corner exit. So how do you judge when and how to make a pass? Because you said you can make a pass at Kansas by diving to the bottom right and sliding up in front of that guy. But you know you will lose your momentum. But I'm just by making the past you'll lose your momentum. Yes, so the drivers are willing to sacrifice the next straightaway and even the next corner to then get to the preferred lane.

So what we do is, let's just pretend the cars are a conveyor belt up at the top. I'm going to dive low, clear myself, and then go if I need to hit the brakes or whatever, I'll do it knowing that I'm going to run really slow down the next straightaway. But now I've taken the preferred lane away. So even if he crosses me over and takes me low, We're going in the next corner. Now I have the preferred lane. So what he's probably going to do is slide me.

And we're just going to keep going back and forth because we're losing momentum, racing each other like that. However, we're all just battling to get in the preferred lane. But what are the intricacies of planning that pass? Because now if you dive to the bottom and you don't make the pass. Yeah. I go straight backwards,

which that's where I make a lot of mistakes on restarts. I try. Like, I always want to run lower. because I feel like, okay, I'm on new tires. Let's take the shorter distance. And maybe I can get myself clear and get back up in the line. The problem is the cars are bunched up so tight that if I don't get clear,

then I get passed by two or three guys down the straightaway. And then I just beat my head against the wheel knowing that I screwed up. So we're doing to start with all the specifics in this race. We've got on our notes sheet here. We've got notes on Kyle Busch. We've got notes on Ty Gibbs. Yep. We've got notes on Martin Tricks Jr.

Yeah, I mean, early in the first stage, it looked like me and Trux were kind of going to run away with this. I think we had like a 10-second lead over third place. We were heading shoulders over the field. There's no question. We were so evenly matched. He was a little better on the front side. I was better on the backside of a run.

And so we kind of flipped back and forth quite a bit. Then all the cautions started coming in the second stage. towards the end of it, which we have a limited amount of tires that we have allotted to us. And, you know, it actually was a detriment to Larson. He didn't need any caution at the end, by the way, because he was out of tires. Since he has spun early, he had to use an extra set. So second stage, they start bunching us up, right? You know, we had a caution that naturally happened.

Then we had a restart where everyone's fighting for a position because they, They knew that this thing is about to be a conveyor belt up top and it's going to be very hard to pass. So everyone's trying to make as many ground and many spots as they can on restarts, which is why you saw the wrecks that you did, guys pushing ultra hard. So the Christopher Bell one, you saw where they collided off a turn two. See Bell got the bad end and hit the wall there, took him out. Same with Kyle Busch. He was up high.

I remember I was four wide. was three wide till larsen stuck it four wide uh third lane from the bottom on me and cow bush was behind that likely what happened and i looked at the replay is that so the six started backing out of this four wide he was up top um and looked like Kyle bush had a big run coming but what happens is when those cars get three and four wide like that the outside car the next car in line on the outside gets all of its air shut off because we're running, I mean literally fender to fender, it cuts all the air off of the car. And so either it will go way tight or way loose. And it looked like Kyle started losing air on his car because we

were jammed four wide connected to each other. And he tried to make a move to then go below the six and got spun. So it's just, it's very crazy how the air works out. I'm trying to picture this, this is my head. Because there's four cars, you've got a row of cars in front. and Kyle's just stuck up in the top there. Yes. He just loses all. So there was a car at the wall, which was the six. Then beside him, you had the five.

So the six is basically rubbing the wall. He's leaving room for the three that are below him, which was the five was next to him, then the 11 was next to him, then the 54 was below me. So we all were nearly, I mean, we were touching it rubbed the right side good ear off of my tires. So all of our cars were touching fenders. So that means Kyle Bush, who was right behind us, had no air going to his car whatsoever.

It literally takes your car and just lifts it up and it will spin it out or it will take off and go straight. So likely that played somewhat a role in what happened there. Yeah, quite surprising that this was a single car accident and no one else was caught up in that. Yep. Ty Gibbs Yeah I made a little I don't know

Made a little rookie mistake I guess It was going It looked like he was going to get away with He spun didn't hit Much of anything You know he was going to be fine After he hit the inside wall

And turn two He got loose under the 19 Again that was a very vulnerable Part of the track Where your car would get Sideways off of turn 2 And I think he was going to be fine

but he just was trying to save a lap and not go a lap down and went too fast and blew his whole right side off. I mean, there was debris all over the racetrack. So when you have a flat, sometimes you got to just take your medicine and go slow to not destroy your car. And I think he was trying to go a little too fast to try to stay on the lead lap and ended his day. What's that limit when you're driving around half the track? Nobody knows because you don't know how intact the tire is. So if it's a full, blow it out? Is it running on an interliner? Well, I guess they don't have inner liners now with these tires. But it's just a matter of how screwed up is it. But you can hear it. You can feel

it in the wheel, the car banging around, the tires. Now, the key to me is that I don't mind running fast if the right front is locked up because it's not going to destroy the tire. But if the tire is still rolling and it's flat, it will come apart. Because what caused the tire to go flat is a flat spot. So the flat spot means that they slid across the track and you see it, the tire went, boom, it blew out. Right. And so that means it's created a hole in the tire at some point. And so if the car, if the tire is rotating when you start to accelerate, well, it's going to disconnect because there's a hole in it. So it's not going to stay round anymore. So then, it's going to start flipping and start knocking fenders off, hoods off, and things like that.

So you just have to be aware when you flat spot, you've got to run slower because the tire is going to come apart because it's separated by that hole in the tire. For us non-race car drivers, can you compare that to your everyday rental car flat that you had this weekend? I did. I left the airport and I didn't know Justin Marks was behind me. I knew it was somebody in the NASCAR industry because I kept taking every turn I did from the airport to the racetrack,

but I had no indication, but I got to, you know, the access road just barely turning into Kansas, and I just heard a loud, boom, and next thing you know, too,

too, do, do, do, do, my right rear is just, like, destroyed on this, on this rental car, and I'm just like,

damn. So then Justin pulls up behind me, and I, listen, I milked that thing all the way to the motorhome lot, and, I came in there on three tires because I didn't have a flat spot.

That's why, you know, it just went flat. So if your car just goes flat, you can run faster. But if you flat spot that causes it to blow, you've got to slow down during the caution. So, yeah, so Justin was like, dude, I saw that thing going down a long time ago. He says, I just watched your right rear just get lower and lower and lower. And I'm like, damn. I was like, I wish you had told me. But it was out of the blue from my standpoint.

I just, so the weekend started off bad for me blowing a right rear right off the bat. Yeah, you'd think that would have been a bad omen for sure. All right, I think we can get into the good stuff now and how this race. Well, hold on. We didn't get to how it finished. That's what I'm talking about with the good stuff. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Yeah. So, um, you running down Larson. Yeah. With 30 to go. Yeah, it started, you know, honestly, I was kind of angry with myself because the only kind of bad. stop we had on pit road. When I say bad, we lost five or six spots is that sometime during stage two,

I came in as the leader, and I just, I slid through my stop sign a little bit too much, and I was too far left. Guys had to pump an extra shot on the jack, and it just slowed down the pit stop because I was not in the spot. I was supposed to be in my box. So I lost that track position, and it took all but the last lap to get it all back. So, That's when the Hendrick cars were starting to make their way back up to the front. And so at the end, I'm battling William and Kyle, and I'm like, gosh, I knew this is kind of how it was going to play out. And so I got around William with about 25 to go-ish, and I just knew that the five car tends to, it tends to trend loose as runs goes. He typically runs his cars a little bit freer.

So I knew my advantage was I needed the race to go green. I knew that I was superior on the long run. I'm typically that way anyway, but I knew that our car throughout the day had really started to be good after 2025 laps. Well, as a driver, I can see Kyle starting to struggle. Like, even though he's at the time I was looking and I rewatched the last 25, even when I was about 1.2 seconds behind them, 1.3, I could see him struggling in that.

You could just see the back of his car just barely twitching. And I'm like, oh, boy, that ain't going to get better. It's going to just get worse as the race goes on. And so my car trended that way as well, but I wasn't as free as he was. So at that point, I'm like, this is going to be a slow grind. And it was. I gained just barely a little bit each lap. And then I got it to about six tenths.

And then he had one corner where he slipped up a little bit, got loose, got into the turn two wall. And it put me right on his bumper at that point. I think it was two-tenths or three-tempts behind. And I still kind of maintain that for a few laps. And I'm watching his car and I'm starting to size up. Where is he weak? How am I going to create a run where I can get beside him? Because that's going to be the difficult part.

and the advantage for me though was that since my car was superior to his at the end he wasn't able to arrow block as much as he could on new tires so i then can move around the racetrack because he's when you're loose you're tied to whatever lane can keep you in control of your car and for him it was right up against the wall that's where he had to be to to you know use the air to help tighten his car up so he's manipulating his car handling by changing lanes and finding, all right, this is where I'm running the fastest given my car's potential. Well, I had a little bit more maneuverability, so I can move around and avoid traffic a little better than what he could. So fast forward to about six or seven laps

to go. I get right to his bumper, and then I start, you know, inside five to go. I get a run on them in the middle of three and four. I could run a little bit, I could run mid-track where he had to high so I knew that he wasn't going to be able to run down there and arrow block me. So I got a good run, got beside him, and I'm like, just barely squeezed. And I'm going down the front straightaway, and there's JJ ALE, and I think Todd Gillen, that we're about to laugh. And I'm just praying, because they had just run the high line, the corner before. And all of a sudden, you know, the 15 pulls down and runs now the load line and turns one and two. And as, as the least, as the leaders you just hope that they're consistent right in that you know whatever run your line we'll

get around you let us decide how we're going to get around you you can run your line whatever it is just be consistent with it but the 15 pulled down and it shut my air off on the bottom because i was on the bottom of kyle in turns one and two so then bam kyle reclares me and i'm like like i know it's going to take another lap and a half to formulate a run so the next run didn't come to about three to go. I got position again on them. I think that was in turns one and two, but I couldn't, he cleared me again. And I'm thinking, well, now I just got to think about when I'm going to make my last run at him. So two to go, entering turn three, I ran a super high line on entry. So all I'm thinking is I got to get the best run I can. So the most vulnerable

Kyle was, was in turns one and two. That's where he was the most free. He had to run the highest line was in turns one and two. So I come coming to the white. So in turn three, I'm like, I've got to get a big run off of four to get close enough to him to pack air on him in turn one and two. Well, I run really high up in three and then get a monster run. So then I pull the car down low. I see his car twitching all through three and four. So he is on the edge. And so I get a big run and I'm going down the front straight away. We take the white and I'm like, okay, I'm close enough now that I'm going to drive this thing in there and make him get loose. So all I need to do is shade a little bit left towards his left rear. And as he goes up towards the wall, it's just going to make him looser and looser. And my hope was is that I was going to free him

up enough where he would kind of nudge into the wall a little bit. Well, he had to slow down so much probably because he was getting loose that allowed me to get fully side by side with him. Well, during that, I'm still right up against his left side. So he's getting a little loose, a little loose. And finally, we come off turn two. And I have to lift a little bit because I didn't want to run into him. Like the previous two times that I got beside them, I didn't make any contact with him because that's how I wanted to race and pass them.

But in the final lap, when they throw the white, I'm like, I have to do whatever I have to do to stop his momentum from clearing me. So he's right up against the wall. I'm right up against his door. And I see that he's sliding up. I'm sliding up. I got to lift a little bit, but I'm like, if I lift more, it's going to, he's going to clear me. And this is going to be probably it. So I looked at the straight on replay. And Kyle, I didn't realize it was up against the wall. He was hitting the wall before we made contact. And so as I'm saying, all right, I'm, I'm, I'm not lifting. I have to stay right here on his door and left rear. He comes off the wall and turn two. And what that happened is when he did, like, of course, I didn't give enough room

for him to come back down the racetrack when he pulled his car off the wall. So I just, I mean, breathe. Gave him a little dragon breath on the left rear and it just barely nicked him and it sent his car to the right. So that's why you didn't see it really go much to the left is because there wasn't a hit like a legit hit or a hook there he went back right because it just it makes your car so it takes all the rear grip off of it when a car is right there on your left rear and just you know i talked to kyle and he's like dude it was just bare you just barely nicked me and and it sent my car but um we were both good and so i i go in there and i he hits the wall and immediately i pull down the racetrack i'm like oh shit if i calls that i got to get the hell out of here which i thought

it was really funny to hear Kurt Busch saying run did he run? Side note, Kurt Busch is hilarious. He was great. He's such a homer for 2311. I thought actually the chemistry between him and Boyer was super good. Yeah. And they did a great job at the end calling that race. But yeah, once he got into the fence and I just run as low as I could through three

and four to try to make sure he couldn't come back down the racetrack. But I talked to Kyle and he was like, you know, dude, that's hard. racing. That was a great battle. He's like, I thought you were going to probably get me anyway in the middle of three and four because I was so weak over there. But, you know, certainly I didn't mean to touch him, but I was, well, I'll take that back. I meant to touch him, but I was trying to slow his momentum and do almost what the same thing that he did to Kyle Bush at Chicago land during that whole slide job era. So he went up and he forced Kyle into the fence to try to slow his momentum so he couldn't clear. Well, I was trying to do the same thing that Kyle.

is like get him up there to make it so where he couldn't clear me off a turn two but i mean it was just you see the straight on shot it's just i mean he comes down the track after hitting the wall and my left my right front fender just i mean slides on his left rear just barely enough to get them loose what does that feel like as a driver both you and and kyle i don't feel i felt nothing i couldn't even tell what the beginning was i did i even make contact or not it was so light um but from Kyle's standpoint, he said he was out of control the entire time off the turn two. A lot of that was because I was so close and up against his door as he's rubbing the wall. So he was sideways anyway.

And then when I just, when I brushed him there, it just sent him, set his car right over the edge. So you're just like this with the steering wheel. It's just so difficult in racing for the average person to get a grasp of what that feels like, right? You know what it's like to throw football, throw a baseball? well I'm in this cocoon right I can't really see much over my right side headrest but I know that I need to do everything I can to keep my right front as close to his door as possible off a turn two to create his car slowing down so the closer you can get in a side draft the more effective it is so I'm trying to slow him down with momentum by getting into his left side door and just getting as close as I can and he is trying to avoid that by staying as far right as he can, which means getting up close to the wall. So it's just a balance there. And to me, it was super close to what him and Kyle Bush had at Chicago Land years ago.

Only the differences, the cars were different. These cars are a lot less stable in the back. That was during the 550 era NASCAR package. So it was a fun battle. Of course it was from my standpoint. I won. He finished second. but I was just glad to see him be able to finish and finish second versus it actually taking him out.

So again, it was, I talked to him, we're all good. He was good. He enjoyed the battle. And certainly, I know that he'd been frustrated over the last X amount of races being, you know, taken out by others, you know, other's doings. And it was great. You know, certainly if I'm him, I'm frustrated, you know, because of like. Are you frustrated with yourself or how the... You know, I don't know, right?

I don't know, because he clearly knew that I was the faster car. He didn't even know, you know, he thought maybe I was probably going to get him in turns three and four anyway, but he would, of course, like to see how that played out. I can't really speak for him, but certainly if I'm in his position, I'm like, dang it. Like, you didn't give me a chance to battle through three and four, but certainly I wasn't trying to hook him down straight away, which I didn't hook them. It's just the circumstances of brushing them in that spot of the track caused it to happen. Right.

But in his position with 25 to go, he knows that you're coming, right? Is the way to defend that, just optimize your lap time? The way to defend it is you've got to be faster. Yeah, you've got to be faster and you've got to make sure I never get there. I mean, that's kind of the job, right, is that, you know, you know at the end of these races, we've seen these races and how they end has changed a lot over the years. and we talk about that on this podcast a lot, that if someone has an opportunity,

they're going to take it on the last lap. And I certainly knew that when we're getting out of shape and turns one and two there, I'm not lifting. It's the last lap. Now, I'm not going to deliberately just run into them there, but I'm not going to give him any benefits to the doubt when he's side by side, nor would he do it to me. So I just feel like you're going to take every opportunity.

Certainly in my spot I am. And when we're battling side by side, side there. I've got to keep the throttle wide open. And when he gets sideways, if we, if we make contact, we make contact and we did. So benefit it out. That's, I guess that's something that Ross Chastain did not give Noah Glaxen or vice versa. Yeah, maybe vice versa for sure. I, uh, I heard the crowd, well, first of all, I heard the crowd booing, which, you know, uh, they're making noise. I don't mind that. I just, said they asked me in the media center well what do you what do you take from that i'm like yeah i take from

that that kyle arson is more popular than i am and they wanted to see him win over me so um i don't mind it at all i think that uh as long as they're making noise of some sort i don't mind any reaction yeah i saw there were a couple people that replied to your story on instagram the dear denny section asking like how do you handle booze and i i mean i'm thinking you probably want booze If you have to choose between nothing and a lot of booze, I would take a lot of booze. Oh, yeah. I think the average driver would rather be the Kyle Bush. I think you just want any noise.

Any noise is good because that means you have a effect on someone, right? And so I consider an endearment. Evidently, they said Max Verstappen got tons of booze at Miami F1. That guy's pretty good. So that seems pretty good. But yeah, so I didn't, so I didn't get to see the incident with Noah and Chastain, but I did notice that the booze went to cheers real quick. And I'm just like, oh, maybe I changed their mind.

But then I saw a scuffle. I just saw a scuffle. I didn't see anything but a scuffle that they were showing on the big screen as I'm kind of pulling away there. And then, yeah, so then they, during the. media session, Bob Prokkerus asked, did you see it? I said, no. And I knew that Bob was on it with his video. He's like, oh, I got it. So afterwards you saw on my social media, we reposted. And I think NASCAR on Fox and NBC showed my reaction of doing the old side eye to the reaction to it. I thought that, wow, it was interesting for sure.

All right, let's break it down, break down the fight itself. Well, let's break down the reason. Right. Let's just, we're going to argue here on actions detrimental that is because of the bracket. The bracket is really what fueled these guys fire. And that's what caused this incident. Noah wanted to be the first 32 seed to upset a one. First ever.

In the history. In the history. Of the Denny Hamlin bracket. That's right. He had an opportunity to make history. And Ross didn't cut him any slack. So that's the story and narrative we're going to go with here on this show. But it looked like very similar to Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson from last year,

where Kyle Larson kind of ran right up on the door of Bubba Wallace, and it causes car to go right and into the fence. Again, you could say that happened on the last lap as well. Sounds like that happens. Yeah, it is. It is. It's the way these cars work when you're running side by side. I don't think it was anything intentional for sure on chastain's part it's just they're racing and like he said

I left a lane not not a lane in a quarter not a lane in a half he left a lane so I think that is kind of what happens and when you're on the outside it's kind of you've got to predict that that's going to happen and you need to start kind of letting up sooner and so no it didn't he just held his line and got into the wall and then voices displeasure by during chastain down the straightaway, which we also saw Kyle Bush during chastain earlier in the race. I think he had some choice words for him as well. I think, again, I don't know, I haven't seen anything that's been super deliberate on chastain's part in either one of these incidents or even last week, but I just think it's, well, hold on, last week. That was more egregious, but then the week before that,

sorry sorry we keep bringing this up but the week before that like with noah at the super super spooeyway it was like yeah you know what do you do wrong there i don't really see anything so i forgot that that played a role in this alter yeah and it clearly played a role in noah's mind because he brought it up in his post-ray synergy right that hey he didn't give me the benefit of the doubt or work with me at at uh tall digga so i you know you had noah go up to him and i don't know and and i guess you guys brought up to me that Chase Elliott got to put a little birdie in, and his ear,

and Noah's ear, right? Yeah, I think that was in Noah's interview. I didn't hear it in Noah's interview, but maybe he did say it. Maybe there's a longer version? There has, there's more to the story.

I did hear that. But evidently, Chase Elliott says, you, hey, you ought to go, you know, someone needs to do something. I don't know if Chase was speaking in general terms or,

did he give him the old nudge nudge whisper in his ear right before hey you ought to go over there and confront him you know yeah so anyway it fueled noah somehow some way to go and approach them which i respect like get mad props to Noah to like hey i'm going to be a man and at least go confront them because others myself included haven't confronted chastain when they felt wrong by him, right? We just get off in the media and spout off about him and say how big of a dick he is and like, you know, but Noah's like, well, no, I'm going to go over there. I'm going to do what these other drivers have not. Well, I think Chastain was willing to talk and Chastain's been very levelheaded in these conversations. Again, I've had multiple with him after the race, but he's been very

level headed. He'll talk to you and talk it through. Now, maybe Noah didn't get the responsibility. that he was looking for in that moment, which that appeared, what was the first part of it, is that I can't read lips, so I can't assume what Noah, what Chastain was saying to him, but it seemed like no,

or Chastain was just like being very matter of fact about what happened. Yeah. And it just pissed Noah off more. And Noah went to, so Noah grabbed him with his left hand. This is where I start to break it down and, and figure out,

How did this happen? First of all, how is the NASCAR security right there at the right time? How did they know this is where it was going? So on the replay, they don't step into the picture until Noah puts his hands on. Yeah, but the first car that pitted on pit road is fucking 25 pit boxes away from the last car that's on pit road. So there's a wide range of places that those NASCAR officials, or the security, could be. How were they in that exact place at that exact time? Aren't they always where drivers are getting interviewed?

Or maybe they're just like, we're going to go wherever Chastain's at. Maybe. I didn't think that this, I didn't see this happen during the race. So for NASCAR to know, like, oh, there might be a fight between Noah Gregson and it's just very random. It is random, which is why I'm like, how did they know somebody in their ear was like you need to be uh deputy eight we need to be by 13 by the number one car we have the nine car approaching wanting a confrontation yeah i think that's what happened because you do see in in one of

the nascar videos ross is getting interviewed um and no is just standing over here oh like this okay so they had time he's like why is this guy standing here yeah listen you'll be surprised with the secret service and those guys they yeah they got that bud in their ear for a reason right They're constantly communicating. They're pretty smart to sense and smell out confrontation. But they were there for that one. All right. So let's break it down.

So then Noah grabs Chastain's shirt and bunches them up and, you know, starts pushing Chastain back. And at that time, Chastain made a just a total pro move. And grab, so he has both of his hands free. he then grabs Noah's right wrist with his left hand. Wrist control. Wrist control is such a, oh my gosh, such an important part of a fight. He then, so he crosses, he's backing up, he grabs chest, he grabs Noah's right wrist. So immediately he knows that Noah's probably stronger.

He's going to lead with the right. So I'm going to know when he starts to bow up with the right, because I've got control of his wrist and I'm holding it down. So he knows that Noah really can't force a punch on him unless he's going to go jab. So he's got control of his wrists and all of a sudden, Chastain backs up as far as he's willing to and he's telling Noah, stop. And he told him twice. Stop.

Stop. And he didn't stop. And so Chastain then while holding the right wrist comes with the right hand with a solid. I mean, you could hear it right to the jaw, right? Connects as good as you could possibly connect, and it was quick. He's got some quick twitch moves, quick twitch muscles in his body, and he left Noah, you know, defenseless in the moment. However, Noah was about to come with a counter,

and you saw him, he had gotten broken free of, of, Chastain holding his wrist with the right, and he was about to come in. That's when gold shirt comes in there, breaks it up. So it's like, oh, man, we just was about to see a counter, and it got broken up. So it sucks that that happened. I wish it just kind of would have...

Let it go hockey style. Let it go, right? You let them go until it gets to the floor, and then you come up. But Noah got his counter intercepted by security. So, Chastain once again gets a huge W. Yeah. With, you know, got him on the track, got him off the track and nothing happened.

But my favorite part is once security comes in and pulls and is breaking it up, Chastain is like, I don't want no trouble. I don't want no trouble. Oh, it's so good. I mean, it's like Chastain have thought about this moment for a while and it's like, oh, he's had to. you would think right because even we're saying the last week podcast well someone's got you either got to do this or you got to do that to make it stop and even Noah reference like

it's as if these guys are listening because Noah was like I had to go do something nobody else was I'll say this about Noah the guy can take a fucking punch though I appreciate the guy's jaw like hemrick connected you know himrick did the old pull back miss bam hit him with the right i mean noah's taking a few punches here and i i just hope it doesn't make noa hesitant that's why i'm wondering have we have we seen the last of noah started no hell no because noah can take a punch he's over two in i get it but i don't think it'll stop him i think he's one of those guys it's just he's going to keep coming back and he's going to make sure he gets the first punch next time so um uh wildly

entertaining for sure. NASCAR wins on this one. Huge banner day. Banner day for NASCAR. They had a great race on the racetrack. They had a great fight in the pit area. Everyone, you know, the Mike Ford and the statistics group, they're waving the checkered flag. Look, you know, how great our race was. Huge W for the series. Do you think this ends at all for drivers wanting to get back at Ross Chastain, though? off the racetrack. I think maybe it makes it more hesitant for sure. I think it shows... What driver in the field,

now that they've seen this, is going to go press Ross Chastain outside the car? I mean, I think there's a list of them that ain't afraid to take a hit. I mean, I wouldn't be afraid to take a hit if I, as long as I can get my hit in. You know what I mean? So, you know, I wouldn't be...

Which is not guaranteed. No, it's not guaranteed. But, I mean, you've got to be willing to take a punch. No one enters a... fight thinking well i'm going to go untouched and i'm just going to wail on this guy like you know when you start a fight or you are a part of it you're going to have to take one you know here and there is your jaw it's just going to be strong enough to take one no his jaw's clearly good enough so um i think you know it does make it make you a little more hesitant if you don't feel like uh you know

you're going to have a fighting chance i know that kyle larsen said after the him and baba he's just like, you know, people were like, why didn't you stand up for yourself when Bubba was pushing? He was like, dude, because I was getting my, because I would get my ass whip. That's why I didn't fight back. Because, you know, what am I going to do here? I'm 140 pounds, like, versus a guy that's probably 185. Like, I'm going to lose. But, you know, you at least got a, you know, Chastain.

He was, he was willing to try and he connected well. Yeah, there is a cherry on top to all this. Like, obviously, great race. Good for you and that you won. We had the fight on on pit road. But Chastain throws his right hook, knocks no in the face, and then five minutes later comes to victory lane to congratulate you. You know, hats off to him.

He's finding a warm place of my heart, Chastain is. He really is. So I just feel like, yeah, I mean, since Phoenix, which is what's supposed to happen is you get into. it you talk it out um you're very rational which we were we said listen we're going to judge each other from this point forward and there were specific moments in that race where chastain either could have continued to run side by side with me or let me go and he let me go multiple times and i told him when he came up so you know to let people know he said he just said to me he was like awesome drive man i never

thought you were going to get back to him congrats I said to him, hey, I recognize what you did early in the race. You'll get that back. And so that's the kind of the respect that you want to have between drivers is that, you know, I wanted him to know that, hey, I recognized you cut me a couple breaks this race. So it's, I want you know it is in my piggy bank that, you know, when the rolls are reversed and you're faster, I probably need to let him go a couple times as well. So that's how I think it's supposed to be done.

and, you know, thank you for him for coming up. He was, that was mainly of him. Yeah, I think we've reached a point in this relationship where he could come on here and now laugh about all the bulls shit that you guys. Hey, you never know. I mean, as you know, Ross is not shy about it doesn't matter what happened last week. He's willing to be the bulldog the next week as well. So, yeah, it's starting to warm up to him for sure.

Yeah, his tweet was good too. Oh, I love it. I told you on the plane, I saw his. tweet. It was just like he said, uneventful day in Kansas, looking forward to next week. And I'm just like,

he's trolling us, right? He's definitely trolling us. So that was awesome by either him. It was probably a social team for sure. He gained a lot of fans yesterday. Yeah. Well, looking forward to next week. We got Darlington.

Another track that we've got multiple wins at. Can't wait for it. I really feel like, I mean, are we going to do Dear Denny or no? Dear Denny, we've got some questions that we want to ask. Dear Danes. We tried to ask Junior, but his answers were lame. And with DBC, it was more of the same. Now we're caught on you because you're our own hope.

This ain't the race track, so maybe you won't choke. Dear Denny. Dear Denny, when preparing for tracks, do engineering teams focus more on certain tracks than others? For example, does Toyota put more emphasis into Kansas since they're clearly the best manufacturer yesterday? No is the short answer, but it's not the entire correct answer. It's not Toyota, just Toyota, right? They give us data, tire data, things like that. We get it from the wheel force car that we get during testing.

But then I would say that it's definitely individualized in teams. So as the 11 car, we will put a little bit more emphasis. So during like, let's say Talladego a few weeks ago, it's not like we don't care about Talladega. We just know that handling will not play as big of a factor in our performance, right? A lot of that has to come down to car speed. And what does the driver do on the racetrack? That's going to dictate your performance.

So instead of us spending four or five days in simulation or, and the Sim working on Taledega, we allot that time to other racetracks that are coming up that we deem important to us in the schedule that it's, hey, it's a legit shot we can win here. How can we spend a few extra hours on setups or the driver do a good job in simulation to be good at that particular track that you're good at?

So the answer is we spend the same amount of time. We don't spend extra time. It's just we allot time from other. racetracks where we don't deem setups as important. Darlington coming up this week, do you have any favorite throwbacks of other drivers that you've seen so far that have been announced? Yes, I like the Bill Elliott, Chase Elliott throwback.

If you look at the paint schemes from cars in the past, the more simple they are, the more, the better they are from my standpoint. Like, his was just a red car with white lettering back in the day. but I just love the throwback. You know, they got the number right. You know, the number is the same. The number is what really does it, right? The number does, but then having a sponsor that is willing to change the font of their logo

to match whatever the throwback sponsor was, that's really important to having a good throwback. But I just like that generally that nine car is going to look like his dad's car. That, to me, is very cool. Anything else? Yeah, just Darlington this week We're looking forward to it This track we won at multiple times It's been typically a strong Toyota track

We saw a great battle last year With Lugano and Byron Which resulted in a pass with two laps to go So I'm really excited about this This whole stretch of the schedule Which is why I said four weeks ago We were going to get white hot I knew that this is going to be a good part

Of the season for us And it starts getting hotter people made a big deal about Tony Stewart back in the day in the summer months oh this is where Tony's going to get hot this is Tony Stewart time I feel like for whatever reason when the hotter the racetrack the better off that I am and my driving style fits these tracks so that's why I'm really looking forward to this stretch of Darlington Charlotte Gateway super pumped for it we've got some great matchups in the brownie So this week at Darlington, we're going to have Chastain versus Swaret.

So I can't tell you who I'm picking. Why don't you tell me who you're picking this week? Let's just pretend you had a clear bracket, right? And this is what you have. So tell me what you think. So I am pretending. Chastain versus Suarez. I like Chastain.

All right. Kazowski versus Almerola. I had, I had Kozlowski advancing through last round. So, even O'Hill Bush over Brad, so I like Brad. Okay. Blaney versus Wallace. This is, I think by the numbers, it's not been a super strong track for Blaney. I don't know the numbers on Wallace.

Yeah, this was a tough one. I saw that. Not a strong track for Blaney. But when you look at it, this is a five seed versus a 21. seat. So this would be a big upset if Wallace beats him. Yeah, I could see Bubba running around the top 10 here. This is a tough one. I'd probably say Blaney, I guess. Okay. 13 seed Lugano versus 29 seed, not a fair 29 seed. Chase Elliott. I had Joey. This is a tough. I mean, this is where you're going to have Again, I was telling you yesterday

that they showed on the broadcast that Joey this season has been really good, really bad. He's finished. The stat was something like in five races, he's finished in the top 10, and then in six races he's finished outside the top 20. And those have come top 10, outside top 20, top 10, outside top 20.

So what do you finish yesterday? In the top 10. I don't know that he ran there that much. But there are two guys in my mind that finish better than their car potential was or their potential was that day. Like, they beat their average finish on that day more times and not. Joey Legano, Austin Dillon.

For some reason, I mean, it's a little easier if you're Austin Dillon because, you know, he runs a little bit further back, so he's, you know, kind of hangs around. He's always one of the guys that, like, almost gets slapped before the stage cautions come out. But then, by the end of the day, they get his car better, and he finds a way to finish really well. So I think that him and Ligano, Ligano constantly beats his running position. They, through strategy or whatever, they find a way in the end of the day. So, all right, so you have who? I had Ligano.

You have Ligano. Okay. Three seed Harvick versus 14 Stenhouse. Harvick. 11 seed Byron versus six-seed Reddick. I think I have Reddick here. This is another, this is another tough matchup. Well, I'm asking you if you had to choose all.

I know, I'm thinking back to my bracket that I filled out. I think I have Redick here. And I'm going to go to Redick. Okay. You like Redick. Okay. Hamlin versus Larson. The toughest matchup in this round.

If your pit crew comes to play, I'm going to go with you. Okay. And then the 15 seed, Barry versus 31, Dillon. Austin Dillon. man I really need to get past Larson somehow this round. Didn't you have... I think my road gets a lot easier. Didn't you have a couple years ago at Darlington

like an average finish at one point of like 2.5? Xfinity. Oh, Xfinity. I had a chance to have the best average finish for any driver in any series at any track in Xfinity. My average finish was going to be 1.7. however we had an encumbered

that's when they took my win away they allowed me to do media in the media center and then as I'm walking out with the trophy and getting on the golf cart someone bust out the door saying I'm really really sorry I'm really sorry but we're going to need that trophy back

and I'm like what? Why? You're like yeah you didn't pass tech I'm like motherfucker damn it! I think that was the birth of the tech gods tweet. Oh, I know. God.

Like, I don't know. I think it was like my seventh win or something in Darlington, Xfinity. Yeah. But no more. Yeah, my average finish now is like, and, you know, it's gone up because the last few races I've had some incidences. But, uh, so all right.

That's what you got. Um, good luck to all those. Uh, that we have a 150 person tie at the top. 122 have all picks right. one. So they've got a really good jump start, but this is the dog days of the bracket. Round two at Darlington. We have some coin flip matchups. We'll see. We'll see what happens, but excited for it. And anything else? Make sure you follow us on social media. Plug it. Me at Denny Hamlin. He is at Jared Allen and. De Allen. Jared D. Allen. I'm sorry.

There's a more famous Jared Allen out there. Oh, Jared had, you saw all my social guys, right? y'all watched jared getting interviewed by darrell mott on the uh the little trackside Q and a uh people in the in the crowd cheer they were going to Jared Jared Jared i had him on their feet yeah you could tell Jared's just like uh you know he's so shy but he's he comes up there and then he trash talks he's going to beat me in pickleball one-on-one let's just acknowledge we will we are going to have a one-on-one pickleball it's this week and when I beat your ass, you're going to have to post that I'm better than you.

That's why it's not going to happen because there's no way that you would film yourself losing in pickleball and then share it publicly. No, you're right, I won't. But you will when I beat. Oh, I'd be good with that. If you beat me fair and square, I'm good with that. All right, fair enough.

We'll give you the results this week. Make sure you tune in. Oh, make sure you follow and rate and all that stuff. to our podcast. Thank you for everyone who continues to support us every week. Fantastic.

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