Door Bumper Clear - 109 - Don’t Kick the Nuggets

Episode Date: July 30, 2018

The gang reunites after Pocono to cover Bubba Wallace’s scary crash, 13 cars failing qualifying inspection, seeing the All-Star Race package more in 2019, road course spotting and the great chicken wing debate. Want more DBC? Check out and subscribe to the new DBC YouTube channel! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Spotted the 22 cup car in the 25 truck this week and laughing next to me. Brett Griffin, Spotter, Clint Boyer. You're red. Elliot Sadler, Maya Snyder. Last week, Harrison Burton. I got red because of something Casey said. What did you say, Casey? She embarrassed me.

Well, that's hard to do, so. I know. She made me embarrassed. Wow. Everybody was in here clapping. Yeah, these can't. And Jason said something about the clapping. Jason said something about he wants the clap.

Oh, just so we know, this is a great way to kick off the show. Jason's a high school kickball champ. Correct. All-Star, something. All-Star. All-Star. Yeah. All the high school sports.

Things we didn't know. So TG and I learned last week that all the four drivers went to a thing. I don't know if we can say exactly what thing it was. A thing. But it was all the four drivers at one thing, and they had a big kickball game. And apparently, some drivers are a lot better at kicking balls. than other drivers. You think they should have invited that one guy.

They got in a fight a few years ago. Which guy? And kicked the guy. Who? Which guy? Brian Scott? No. Brian Scott's the guy that got kicked.

Nelson P.K.? Yeah. Oh, I forgot about that. He kicked the nuggets. Like, he, man, I'm going to tell you what, there's a lot of man codes when you fight. But the number one man code is you do not kick the nuggets. And he did. I'd love to know what these other man codes are.

That Nelson P.K. Did you see the video that? No, I don't remember. They were a road course somewhere. Yeah, they were. How does that? How do you even get to the position? And this is a true story.

So his dad was an F1 driver. And his dad, they had video of his dad like 30 years prior doing the same kick to the same spot. And I mean, guys watching this are just like, oh, no, he didn't. You can't do that, but he did. He did it. Yeah. I'm glad T.J. remember that.

Yeah, kickball. Literally. Oh, man. Okay, so anyway. So what did you do this weekend? Anything fun? No, ran third in the truck race, which was a good run. That was fun.

Yeah. And then obviously had to start in the back along with that whole bunch of us, and we went down on turn one and had a gentleman stop almost in front of us and nowhere to really go, so we bumped him and put a nice hole on our nose. Who was it? One of those slower cars? Yes. Yeah.

So, I just, that's part of being back there. That thing, that's the type of stuff that can happen. You're trying to get all you can get because you want to be a certain distance from the leader if you can to pit and not lose a lap at a certain time. So you got to get all you can get. Pocono too. Once you single out there, it's hard to pass. So, a little bit of bad luck there. Great weather.

Yeah, Pocono had awesome weather. Except for the Arca Race. Yeah, the Arca Race got shortened, but I didn't have anything to do with that. Did you do the Arca Race? No. Man, so it was literally lightning outside the tunnel. And you were like, can we hurry up and get this in or out or something? I feel like you're in a prime spot too for letting strikes.

But it's hard to, you know, it's hard to spot those races because you're anticipating that it's going to rain, anticipating they're going to delay it. So it's really hard to stay in the frame of mind of, I mean, I hate to say it's hard to stay focused, but you're distracted by lightning strikes and by rain that you see behind you and by what your crew chief is saying he's seeing on the radar. So it's hard to keep up with all that as spotters. You know, I'm not saying the drivers are struggling. You can see it coming too. You can normally see the rain coming in. You can also tell the fog the one time. You can see that coming too.

And it was like, does this the end of the world coming? Yeah, it rolls in. It's crazy. Anyway. TJ's in a hurry, so we probably need to start this show. He's got to go home and babysit again. I got a babysit. All right, we'll cut our BS short.

Well, first of all, we got started late because Adele Jr. Again. Here he goes. So we can blame him. Yeah. Blame Jr. He's kind of a big deal, though. Yeah.

I think he's kind of important. I've seen him more in the past two weeks and I've seen him in the past few years. I tell everybody that, too, and he, like, you know, Loudoun, he had an hour break. He come and hang out with us for an hour. You know, I've seen him walk up to other spotters and be like, hey, you know, hey, Andy Use and how you doing? I haven't seen you in a long time. How you doing, man? Yeah.

It's like, dang. He just told me something about you. He said that he gave you. Yeah, he said I gave TJ a nugget on some, on some rumors, on some silly season stuff. They probably talked about today then. He said. He just said that you gave him. No, no, no.

He told me. Yes. He told you, but he told me that you wouldn't tell him your rumor back that you told him you'd tell him later. So why don't you play that game? Just to mess with him. Tell him now. Yeah. Please share.

Yeah. Okay. No. Anyway. Did the rumor that he tell you have something to do with this shop? No. No. Because there's something going on here too, I think.

What the heck? Why are we so out of it? Brett's going to be in the car next year. Sorry, guys. It's coming. Rumer season is getting ready to really pick up. Yeah. So remember we break the news here, so bring your rumors.

We got to make sure we know what we're talking about, though. Yes. That's always good. That's the key. Yes. So next week, you'll know. Maybe. We'll see how the dominoes fall here.

Well, there's some news coming out of this shop in the next couple days, I think. Oh, wow. That's that soon then. I think TJ's going to really be happy about it. Oh. I can't tell you what it is. If you tell me what yours is, I'll tell you what mine is. That sounds like it.

You go first. Yeah. You go first. All right, let's go. Okay, spot on, spot off. Bubba Wallace suffers a hard crash in turn one and walks away. Brett. I can honestly say I didn't see this wreck until after it happened.

I did, however, see the replays. And I look back at Postdale Earnhardt crash in Daytona in 2001 and say it's those advancements that kept Bubba alive. That crash is a crash that absolutely could have killed him. You know, I mean, he's hitting the wall potentially at 190. plus miles an hour. He hit it a very flush side angle, which can easily do a lot of bad things to your spinal cord, to your neck,

and to your head, obviously. There's a rumor, a rule of thumb in NASCAR that if your hand can reach it in the car, when you hit and you pull all those Gs and your body flexes, your head can hit it. So obviously NASCAR, the seat, the Hans Delis, the safer barrier. I saw that he actually cracked the concrete wall

on the other side of the safer barrier. So spot on for every single moving part and piece of this Because we could have lost Bubba Wallace yesterday Yeah, I don't I saw it I saw the I didn't see him turn down there But I saw him in the grass coming up Because we were coming down the front stretch

We were about halfway down so I looked up there and I'm like Oh, am I seeing this And it was scary looking And I told Joey I said, you know Check up I was almost telling him to stop So we could get safety vehicles out there You know how they're always NASCAR wants you to

be, you know, slow your cars down so they can roll a safety equipment. I almost had Joey stop, but we were a little too close to it. We had to go buy it. But yeah, you know, it was really good to see him drop the window net and get out of that car and walk away, which says a lot. Did they say, like, what, was it breaks? Yeah, it's breaks. Yeah. And, you know, it's so hard to make yourself.

Like, I was always wondering why people, when you lose brakes there, just stay against the wall. I think he had already turned down in. I certainly understand what you're saying. I was earlier than that. But it looked like on the replay, man, that he had started turning down the corner and breaking in this when he realized I'm in trouble. Yeah. Because your instinct would be to get away from the wall.

But the further you get away from the wall, the harder you're going to end up actually hitting the wall. If you can hang a right and let the wall scrub off your speed, the impact is going to be a lot less violent. But you're talking about a guy in his low 20s, pretty inexperienced in a cup car, running 200 miles an hour and a split second decision. And it's the opposite of what you would normally do. It's the opposite.

When you, when you, you don't aim for a wall normally. You're not like, oh, guys, something's going to have. happen. I'm going to hit the wall. You know, it's the opposite of what you want to do. He was still going straight. He turned so low and so early into the corner that it was like, he almost hit stuff on the inside. He was trying to scrub off speed that way. Yeah. So, you know, and it's the opposite. I don't blame because I honestly, I don't think I've ever seen anybody just turn for the wall and try to hit it. You always try to avoid any contact you can. So.

And just a scary, scary moment. Yeah, for sure. For all of us, because we're used to I mean, I hate to say we've become immune to the dangers of the sport because we certainly have it. I mean, we saw Kyle break his legs, Denny break his back, Brad break his leg at a road course test. So, I mean, we know that these guys can still get hurt. But for that 30 seconds where he wasn't putting that net down, you're getting nauseated, you're gasping for air. When he went to go get out of the car and he slowed down, I mean, it was scary. Yeah. Yeah.

It was good to see him get out, though. Yeah. Freddie Craft, his spotter is supposed to be on our show next week as a guest. I know he's a good friend of y'all's. Oh, perfect. I wish he was coming on today, though, because obviously next week, we can ask him about it. We can pause and, like, restart them. But while it's hot, man, it would have been cool to have him on today.

But I walked down to Freddie, and I was like, man, is he all right? He's like, Freddie's texting somebody, which I don't know if that's, you know, Amanda, Bubba's girlfriend or his mom or his dad or whoever. But Freddie was shaking while he was texting him. I mean, that's a scary feeling. And look, we all care about our drivers, but there are a few of us that have a really special relationship with our guy. Freddie's one of those guys. He's been spotting for Bubba. his entire career in stock cars.

So I know that scared a shit out of Freddie. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. 13 cars failed post-qualifying inspection and started Sunday's race at the rear. Spot on, spot off, TJ. I mean, I'm not really, I don't like starting in the rear because we were one of the cars. But this is the moment they started the other deal, people were barely making it through tech before qualifying. And then everybody kind of learned the tricks of the trade and got everyone starts making it through now.

We don't really have any issues before qualifying now. Everyone pretty much makes it through. I think with the two-day shows, it's still kind of new. And if they're teching after instead of before, you know, we're still learning, you're still trying to get all you can get and still qualify and make tech afterwards. And I think it's a product of that. I think it'll get better and better as we do more of them. I don't, this next weekend might not be as the road course stuff.

But I think it's just a, you know, everyone's got to learn. What can we do to do? What can we get away with? What can we do here? What can we do there? And stuff like that. 13 cars fell post-race tech, and we send them all to the rear. We did not let them keep their starting positions.

Spot off. If this had been post-race and the poll sitter or the race winner had won the race and fell tech, he still would be the race winner on paper. So it's kind of like which one are we going to do here? Are we going to let you get the pole, fell tech, go to the rear? If you're going to win the race, fail, tech, keep the win. Like, I see some, I see some a lot. I mean, give the guy a penalty, let him keep the pole.

If we're going to do it that way, right? Because it's the same thing. The post-race tech fail, to me, is a lot more important than the post-race, the post-qualifying tech fail. There's a lot of words in here we're trying to manage. But I would just say, let's figure out a way to make it all make sense. Because to me, it doesn't make sense for the poll sitter to be sent to the rear for failing tech. But the race winner keep the win for failing tech.

I definitely think that, you know, if you don't clear tech, then you don't start where you do. There's so much advantage to your starting position now. If you're in the top, it's a huge difference from fifth to 30th. I can tell you that. The majority of these guys failed because of their body going through tech. So what happened was we did our first practice. Then they tech the cars before second practice. After second practice, we went straight into qualifying.

After qualifying, they checked them again before the race was going to start the next day. So like T.J. said, a really weird schedule for us. We're not used to this. But from whatever they did between the first and second practice to pass and then to qualify and to fail, obviously there's a lot of guys with some body stuff that I guess NASCAR didn't like. Kyle Bush ties Tony Stewart at 49 cup wins on Sunday

and then ties Ron Hornaday with 51 truck wins on Saturday. Good job, Kyle next. We know how he feels about that one. TJ Wells Kyle. Man, here was the most interesting stat that I saw this weekend is that Kyle is 33 years old and has tied Ron Hornaday. It's 36. And Ron Hornaday's first truck race ever was at 36 years old. So I think it's really cool.

Ron Hornaday is a Hall of Famer, you know, so we know that Kyle Bush is a future Hall of Famer with the amount of wins that he's had across all three series. I don't know how you could spot off this. I had no idea that he was already approaching a Tony Stewart, you know, level of accomplishment. because I didn't either. I thought, and I think Tony is the best race car driver to ever live across all platforms of racing. You know, so for Kyle to be able to tie him in stock cars and in a cup car is a pretty damn big accomplishment. Yeah, I didn't know he was that close to Tony. You know, and the whole Hornady thing is kind of weird.

That shows you how the truck series originally started. When it started, it was nothing but guys that were that age, really, you know, mid-30s and up. It was like a, it was a place to go when, you know, they were out of the Cup series or, you know. It was kind of like our senior tour. Yeah, it was. But it was awesome, too. Yeah. Because those guys would rough each other up and it's kind of swung another direction.

Now it's the opposite. Now that's where you go in the beginning. You know, now that's where all the young guys go. That's where you run your first racing, like, like, you know, that's where you go in your first legal for NASCAR. You run that. So, you know, I don't, it's kind of hard for me to compete. pair of the two when one started so late. You know, one started so late,

it'll be interesting for me to see if Kyle can continue to win in the truck series, you know, like Hornaday did from that point on. He didn't like half the starts too. Yeah. I respect Kyle Busch a lot. I think his talent is crazy good. And he's cool dude on and off the track. I'm big fan of what NASCAR's done with the rules though to keep him out of that series

as much as they have because it's important for those kids that are trying to develop their brand and win races to be. able to do so and let's face it man it's really hard to do it when that guy's out there he wins a third of the freaking races that he's in you know nothing you know Kyle's obviously he's obviously a great race car driver I mean super talented we all know that yeah but the truck series now isn't I think it's it's almost easier for him to go in there now than it was for Hornaday to win them back in the day when you were lining up back in the day it was track champions all stuff and their equipment was a lot more equal than what what he is running with now he runs in there and can run a lot of life

a Pocono, a second faster than the next guy. I mean, they were 14 seconds for in the third place, his two trucks. Yeah. I mean, that's... With two cup drivers on them. With two cup drivers in them. I mean, it's almost like stat padding. Yeah.

You know, and... His cherry picking for sure. When Hornet and them, I remember Hornaday and Sodder and him going and Sprague and all them guys were door-to-door at places, I mean, roughing each other up and all this stuff for wins back then. And he, you know, and, you know, I believe Kyle is the type of guy that can go get an indie car, Formula One car, and be very successful still. Yeah, but it's just, yeah, it's just a different error and it doesn't, him winning in a truck

series doesn't do a lot for me personally. All right, Ross Chastain finishes P4 at Iowa and holds the final Xfinity series playoff spots, spot on, spot off, Brett. That's great for that team, you know, I mean, here's a, here's a guy that obviously can drive race cars. I think T.J. has alluded before that he feels like this guy deserves a shot in a little bit better equipment for him to hold that final playoff spot over some names that quite honestly we feel like should probably be in the playoffs is is also a big accomplishment but there's a lot of racing left

at a lot of challenging tracks wakins glen indianapolis you know the the exfinity playoff starts at richmond so between now and richmond there's a lot that can happen i hope these guys realize the opportunity ahead of them and are putting all hands on deck for ross chastain and this entire team because it would be a huge accomplishment to see those guys be one of 12 in the exfinity playoff Yeah, and that, you know, Ross has been doing this. Ross has been doing this before. He started doing this stuff in Bobby Daughter's trucks. He was taking a 20-25th place truck and running 12th with it.

You know, then he got in Bradstuff and started doing, he was doing fairly well. He had, you know, two or three poles out of four races, was running, was running second, third, fourth to like Eric Jones, which we know what kind of equipment he was in them. And it was doing really well. And then you just got out money for the ride, which is how it goes. sometimes, but he's been doing really well for quite a while. Lee Spencer reports the All-Star Restrictor Plate package could be used in 14 races next season. Spot on, spot off, TJ.

Oh, man. T.J said he wanted to run it some. Yeah, you said it. I don't, my number was five or six times. Not 14, but there's a lot more than five. You know, if that's, if this is what it's going to take to, to, to, like, to, like, I don't believe we need to run it at Ottawa or California. California is a great racetrack already.

There's places that I look at that I do think could use it. There's a lot of these tracks on this list that you have here that I do think could use it. But California is not one. Some of these places, though, I mean, if it's going to make it fun and exciting. You mentioned pretty much all of these tracks when we last talked about it. Except for Fontana. I'm fine running it at Texas. We don't move around a lot.

there already. There's, what else you got? Kansas, I don't think we need to run it at. Kansas makes, has multiple grooves, moves around. Chicago, we don't need to run it at. Michigan isn't that great of a race now, in my opinion, it's not that great of a race. Charlotte, we were all on our feet during the open. I mean, we're all on our toes watching into that race.

I'm not saying I want to do that all race long, but Kentucky could probably use some help, and Indy could obviously, we just need to run IRP. I have a solution for Kentucky. but I won't bring it up because it might involve the United States Air Force. I think this package is still in its development stages. Obviously, we talked about it first here on DBC that it was coming to the All-Star race. T.J. and I started hearing three weeks ago that it was going to be as many as 17 races that they were going to run this package. You know, Lee has brought out the fact that it could be 13 or 14 races.

Looking at the ones that are proposed, the only one I really buy into is Michigan, the rest of these, I think, you know, we've relied on too many other things like PJ1 and sealers to try to make the racing better. I think we've got to get back to tireware, horsepower, but we're going the opposite way. So I guess we'll see what happens. I think you're going to see, and I said this to start with with this package, you're going to see a lot of these older guys really rethink their contracts because they don't want a plate race every single weekend in pack race. And the reason is because their fate of the race isn't in their hands. If one guy makes a mistake, it can take out the entire field. It's expensive to teams.

But if it's exciting for fans and we can go out here and get some momentum with this, I'm all for it. So I hate to say I'm spot on and spot off, but I'm certainly spot off at some of these tracks that are proposed to do it. Indy, come on now. That's not a, you can't run too wide there. I don't care what you're driving. So you're trying to create some kind of jogging on straightaways. I'm not even sure this package is even going to do that at Indy, though. It's two.

The corners are flat. They're going to be tight behind each on their corners. I don't even think it's going to run slower. It's just going to be, I don't think it's going to do a lot there. I'm just the biggest challenge I have is, as a, is a, fan and as somebody who's watched a lot of things be said through the media, through our fan base, through NASCAR. We're talking about shortening races.

If we're slowing the cars down, which is what this does by 30 miles an hour, we went from running 200 to Charlotte to 170. Well, now we're talking about longer races. So are you going to change the race lengths? And possibly more cautions. Oh, hands down more caution. So, I mean, again, I think you're talking about a three and a half hour race becoming a four and a half, five hour race.

And I hope that there's some consideration of that. Let's take a break. TJ, one main financials back. They're running their 2018, one main speedway sweepstakes. Say that fast three times. No, I can't do it. The winners will be flown in North Carolina for the Roval race, Charlotte weekend. The Robles are going to be crazy, man.

We tested there two weeks ago. T.J. and I were blown away at how fast the cars go, and if you run off the track, you're hitting something, man. But you're not going to believe what all you're going to get. If I were going to come to Charlotte, I would definitely want to meet Dale Jr. and Elliott Sadler. We're going to give you that opportunity. There are some other things, too. Yeah, there's a VIP treatment package during the cup race as well.

Yeah, a lot of swag. I got some new swag today. Mike Davis gave me a Dirty Mo shirt. I see that. Did you get one? Finally. Can you take my shirt, Casey, and make it to wear those little things look like tassels in the back? You know how girls do that?

Hey, guess what? Guess what? You know what the best part is? There's a ride-along with me. No. I'm just kidding. Actually, it's Dale Jr. You get to ride with Dale Jr.

And if I'm a race fan, I want to ride with Dale Jr. But you've watched him. race a lot. You may not want to ride with it. So go enter. Go enter one main financial OMF.com backslash Speedway Sweeps. Complete the online forum. Entries will be accepted through August 24th. No purchase necessary to enter the win. Avoid where prohibited. Subject to official rules at one main racing.com backslash official dash rules. You must be 21 another.

This is your Exalta Race Center update. I'm Matthew Dillner. You can easily rename Pocono NASCAR weekend to The Kyle Busch show. In Truck Series action on Saturday, Kyle Busch's number 51 drove to a dominant win. It was Bush's 51st truck win, tying him with Ron Hordaday for the most in series history. Sunday was a different story. A few different cup drivers saw their time on top, but when the date was done, it was Kyle Busch again in Victory Lane, notching his sixth Cup series win of the season. The Xfinity series had a thriller at Iowa Speedway on Saturday.

Christopher Bell and Justin Alleyer got physical coming to the white flag, and Bell ended up coming out on top, scoring his third victory in a row. The Junior Motorsports Late Model program ran North Carolina's historic Hickory Motor Speedway Saturday night, and it was J.R.M. driver Sam Mayer, who took the checkered flag. The Wisconsin driver led all 40 laps of the first feature to notch his first win with the team. Jagger Jones was JARM's top finisher in the second feature coming home fifth. Next up for the late models is the popular cars tour Throwback 276 at Hickory on August 4th. The Exfinity and Cup series head to the Finger Lakes region of New York this week to do battle at Watkins Glen International.

This has been your Exalta Race Center update. Exalta is the official paint partner of NASCAR, developing, manufacturing, and supplying coatings to all types of vehicles and industrial applications. For more on Exaltta, please visit exaltas.com. And we are back. TJ had to head out and go babysit. Shocker. Just us, two.

Or three, sorry. He had to babysit his own baby. Here's the funny thing about this, though. His father-in-law is there. His mom is there, but he had to leave the show early to go put Stella down for a nap because she will only go to sleep for him. Oh, my bejesus. I mean, honestly, if I was a little kid, I'd,

I'm so good up, too. I'd only want my parents, and I would make sure. Oh, if you're sleepy, guess what you do? You go to sleep. If you're hungry, guess what you do? You eat. I was complicated. This is what is wrong with kids today. Parents are overbearing on them. They need to let them find their own way, and they're starting at six months old. But you have to give them attention. The grandmother and grandfather are at the house. I'm pretty sure that's enough attention. Whatever. You can just bring the baby here next time. Be better off. Honestly, we can set up a crib in the series. Yeah. And be set.

As long as they don't spit up, I don't do well on a baby spit up. Or if they poop up their back when they're teething. Is she teething up? You have kids. What did you do? Not well. Clearly. Not well at all.

That spit up thing is disgusting. It smells horrible. Ugh. You just wait. You patting them on their back, waiting on to burp, and then they projectile vomit all over you. And you're like, ugh. Well, what just happened. This will be a little while, so don't worry.

We were at a fish camp, and Jovey was about. one and a half. And I was like, Claudia, oh my gosh, they have spilled honey mustard all down her back. She looks at me and she goes, we're at a fish camp. They don't have honey mustard. And I was like, oh, no, you're going to have to help me take her to the bathroom. And I was like, no, that ain't helping. That's horrible.

Oh, my gosh. You're poor wife. So I walked through the fish camp with Jovey held three feet off. And she's going, you're making this really obvious. And I'm like, yeah, it is obvious. I don't want this honey mustard all over me. Jeez. Well, I understand.

I mean, Stella needs attention. She can admit, I'm not even going on there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly what you're wrong. We are going to head into Fast Lane with just. I'll tell you what we're going to do. Oh, no. We're going to head in the Fast Lane.

And Jason is going to get his chance to be a co-host. He's going from producer to co-host on the fly. We're going to get his perspective on some of this. Oh, this would be great. Don't let Wussitis take over. All right. State your opinion. Hey, what's it?

I've got some opinions. It's a terrible disease to have. Disease. Disease. So I have to ding myself and, ding, Brett, and talk. All right, I'm not even going to explain how this works. First one, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman, and William Byron all scored their best career finishes Sunday at Pocono. Who wins first among these three drivers?

Jason. Wow. All right. I think Byron wins first. I was really big on him when he was in the Xfinity series, how well he did, how well he did in the truck series. He's done pretty well this year. He's improved. He was a leading laps. I think some strategy, something will get him to the front-heal win a race. Could be a short track. Could be something soon. I'm not sure he makes the playoffs, but I think he wins before Suarez and Bowman. I think you're crazy. I'm a huge William Byron fan. I think his work ethic matches that of Jimmy Johnson in terms of how he approaches the race each week.

But Suarez and Bowman have way more speed than Byron. I honestly think Swares wins the race yesterday, if not for Kyle Busch, you know. And so I think Suarez wins before these other two. And going into the season, I would have had Bowman winning before these two guys. So it's crazy how the mark kind of moves throughout the year. You can't count them out, though. He did really well yesterday. I'm not counting out Alex Bowman.

And I know you're kind of tied to him with y'all's big love triangle. that y'all have going on over there at the boat household. But if you want to defend Alex, that's fine. I'm not saying Alex. No, I think Daniel has a great shot too. I'm not saying Alex is about anything. I mean, he's our past champion. No, no, no.

You got to own the Love Triangle thing. Oh, gosh. Do I get my final 30 seconds now? Yes, go for it. Okay. Bowman, I think he's strong, but I don't know if he's got the greatest tracks coming up. Maybe Phoenix coming in the fall,

but I feel like at that point, there'll be some playoff guys really going for it then, so I'm not sure if he'll have the chance. but he might be in the playoffs still. We'll see. Jason, you did really well with that. I know. You have a future in the sport.

Thank you. You're better at things other than just that dinger. I know. That's my specialty. He can't even get that right sometimes. Like, it's like 45 seconds. I'm like, Jason. I will say this, though.

These are his questions. So if he doesn't know how to respond to his own questions. True. Well, I never knew I'd had to answer him myself. Well, all right. It's your moment to shine. Talladega announced a $50 million renovation for the tracks infield and fan experience last week.

Which track would you like to see make similar upgrades next? Oh gosh, I could name a few. Well, here's the thing for me. It's every single track and it's one upgrade. And we've said this multiple times. It's better cell phone service or Wi-Fi. I don't care if you spend a bazillion dollars, which quite honestly they are.

Yesterday at the racetrack, my phone didn't work. And it is so annoying for parents, for fans, for media, for competitors, for anybody that has anything to do. And I think that you can spend all the money you want, but the very first priority, which they told me it's a priority, but not the first one, is cell phone usage at the racetrack, period. I don't have a specific track I want to see you make upgrades,

but I want the whole race experience, like the Charlotte Knights, they have an awesome experience to go to the game. It's not just the game. You have a bunch of restaurants, a bunch of beer places to get stuff around the stadium and you enjoy, you talk, and you hang out kind of thing, not just watch the event.

So I think any racetrack that wants to do something like that make it more of an experience versus just sit in the stands and watch the race for three hours would be cool. Yeah. Indianapolis is a track that the only thing nice is there is the pagoda and the media center, everything else. And it doesn't have that Fenway Stadium feel like, you know, what we have in Boston. It doesn't even have the feel that Darlington have has where you know you're kind of at a throwback track. It really feels like you're at a facility that needs a facelift.

So outside the Wi-Fi, go to Indy and fix that place up. I will say to make up for it, they are doing a lot. Like with the race weekend, I think they have like Florida, Georgia line. Yeah, big concerts. So they're making a good weekend of it. I'll say, though, as I'm learning from the marketing side, as they're making these renovations, they're charging more for sponsors and they're making it more complicated. Like there's a track.

I can't remember what track I went to. I mean, they were wouldn't let hot pass people. get into a certain area because they wanted to charge to get to like it wasn't even open yet it was just so dumb but like they're making it more complicated and trying to make more money off of it so I'm curious to see once these renovations are done what the fee is to get to these specific areas to make up for it because it's it's a bit of a show right now I'll tell you shisho I have to beat Casey we can say we can say we can say shisho we can't say show but we can say shisho I just talk apparently. Okay.

No, I'm telling you, we can say shisho. Oh, Shisho. That's legal. The other one isn't. Right. So anytime you want to say that, just say shisho. Shisho. There we go.

You're going to have to bleep a lot of that. I know. I'm not to be confused with Shusho. Shisho. Shisho. Okay. Watkins Glenn has had six consecutive different winners. Ambrose, Kyle Busch, Almendinger, Lugano, Hamlin, and Truex.

Will Sunday's race produce a seventh different winner? Jason? No, I think Turex wins again, or Kyle, actually, or Kyle Bush, because those guys have always been really strong at Watkins Glen. Trucks won last year. Kyle's won there a lot. They're always really successful there. I don't think they're stopping the big three right now, and I think Turex will win again. I think Harviker, I think Harviker Clint are going to be really tough to beat, and obviously I'm on the Stuart Highest racing bandwagon, but I know how good those two guys are at road courses, and I know some of the challenges we faced at Sonoma. you overcome those, you get ready for the next one. Yes, Kyle is going to be fast. Truex is going to be fast.

I feel like there's the big three and then there's us just kind of teetering on it and we just got to execute, pay a little bit attention to detail a little bit better. But I don't know, man. I think it's great to see a new winner, so we'll see. It'd be cool to see someone random come out of nowhere and win Sunday, interrupt the big three, get a win, get in the playoffs. And totally screw up the playoffs. Yeah.

Well, teams have to gamble, and that's the hard thing right now, as you look at the Alex Bowman, you look at Ricky Stenhouse, they can't afford to gamble because if they gamble and they lose, they lose the ability to transfer in via the point standings. However, a team that's outside of that top 18, somebody likes Juarez. He's not in that top 17-ish where the windows are really tight. He can afford to really gamble here to, A, make up a lot of points, or B to try to win the race.

And if he does, he kicks out a guy. like Bowman and puts pressure on a guy to sit in 11th and points like Amarola. You know, like this is a wild card race for us. And I think anything can and may happen depending upon how the fuel strategy plays out. It's a fast road course. It's nothing like Sonoma. It should be interesting. Off the Wall topic.

Oh, this reminds me of your tweet. I've had a lot of comments, by the way. Sunday was National Chicken Wing Day and Twitter debated whether flat or drum chicken wings are better. Which do you prefer? Early in life, I was a drumette guy. And I would order my wings and I would say, drumette only. And they would be like, that's an extra dollar.

Well, I hope to hell I have a dollar that I can afford to get what I just told you. I told you I wanted all drums. You give me all drums and I want a bunch of ranch dressing. What is a drumette guy? But later, it's like the little bitty chicken leg things, but it's not a chicken leg. It's a chicken drum. A drumette is what it's called. The flapper is.

the two-bone piece of the wing, okay? But I eventually learned how to eat flapper story, you pop the two bones apart, and it almost makes it like a little lollipop. How do you learn this? Like, how? Casey, I almost eat chicken wings every day. True story.

I absolutely love chicken wings. I cook them all the time. I make them all the time. I order them all the time. I had chicken wings every day last week. And so early in life, I was a drummat guy. now it's a tie. Do you like chicken wings?

I do like chicken wings. Bone in or bone out? Well, as your tweet said, there's no such thing. There's no such thing as a boneless chicken wing. Could you imagine what a boneless chicken would look like flying around? Here's my other favorite thing is when you go to eat wings and people say, I don't want to eat the drums. I don't eat dark meat.

The dark meat is the chicken leg. The chicken wing is all white. The drum and the flapper are both white. white meat. People are, it's amazing. You could probably write like an article on. I could. Chicken wings. Chicken wings. My, my favorite way to cook them at home is I got a smoker and I'll smoke them for an hour on 2.25 and then I'll pull them off the smoker and throw them on the gas grill and crispy them up. That way you're not, I mean, I love fried chicken wings. Don't get me wrong, but you're not, you're saving 30, 40 calories a wing if you grill them. He can bring some in for us

next to me. I'll just just come to the house. Taste test? Why don't we ever get invited on your vacations, by the way? Which vacations? You just went on one last week to Florida. I didn't go on vacation. I went down there for a meeting. You had kids there.

You were a kid's there. My kids were in Nax Head. They were on vacation. Well. We went to Miami. That's basically a vacation. DBC vacation would be great. Yeah.

Let's do it. What was yours? I like the flat wings better, not a drum person. Why? I don't know. I just think they taste better. The drums sometimes have too much. meat on them and I just don't like a ton of that.

Too much meat. How is that possible? I don't know. So when I was in college, chicken wings were super duper cheap because nobody wanted to eat the chicken wing. And then wings become this huge fad. They start wrapping it around football. Like, nothing has been branded better in my life from a food perspective than chicken wings. Because when I was in college, it was 10 cent wing night because nobody wanted wings.

You know, and now it's $1.25 cent a wing, you know. So it's crazy to. Yeah, because you'll order $10 chicken wings. you six and you're like, wow. That's what they do. We get wings all the time. Do you like dry rub or do you like wet wings? Wet wings. Yeah.

Like Asian Zing or like hot buffalo or barber? Asian. Yeah. That's my style. That's your... Style. That's getting your feels. Getting my feels.

Yes. All right. Ask CBC. First one. Jason, you did good on that. Yeah. Thank you. I'll be back next week when TJ has the baby city gun.

You make sure. sure that you take this to your professor. I don't know if you even, when do you start school back? Three weeks. What classes are you taking this? Taking PR strategy, principles of journalism kind of thing, a film class, and then another writing class. Okay, well, I don't think that segment's going to help you with any of those. But you can really woo your professor and be like, look, look at what I'm doing.

He wrote this, so that's a good one. Yeah. All that writing. Technically, you're learning more, and I'm being very serious when I tell you this. Yeah. Technically, you're learning more doing this podcast and you're going to learn throughout anything you do in college. I agree. I don't remember anything I learned in college.

Here's where college really screws you up. They don't tell you anything you actually need to know about life. Like, hey, here's what you should be doing with your finances. Here's how you should work to pay off your student loan. This should be your debt-to-income ratio. It's like you go to college for four years and you come out and you spend all this money and you think you're smart and then you start a job and you're like, I didn't learn one damn thing that's going to help me. I learned how to pay for my friends because I'm a sorority.

I wish I learned how to pay my taxes because I really needed to figure that part out. I learned nothing. Like, I can't remember anything. That's my point, that they don't do a good job of actually transitioning you into the real world. And you get to your job and it's like, yeah, okay, great. Here's how you're going to do this. And you're like, oh, okay. Hey, that's why I started working here as a sophomore.

Got three years of experience and then I'll be good. Yeah, solid. Done. Good. All right. Roe Boykin asks, when the driver is leaving their pit stall, is it the spotters' responsibility to let them know if they were close to another car on pit road. It is not the driver.

I'm sorry, it is not the spotter's responsibility. We actually count them into their pit box, and then the crew chief who is watching the pit stop right there on top of them, knows when the car is going to exit. He's watching to his right to see what cars are coming down pit road, and he tells the driver, clear all the way, clear one lane or clear two lanes. When they say clear one lane, it means you keep it extremely tight against the other cars that are sitting in their pit box.

So when you see something happen where a driver pulls out, it either means, A, he shouldn't have pulled out. And sometimes a crew chief has to say, hang on a second. That's really hard to do because your mind is set up to say,

go, go, go, go, go. One lane, two lanes or three lanes, but that's kind of, that particular piece of information is not on the spotter. And he's probably so focused on the actual pit stop too. Yeah.

So interesting. Do you have anything to add there? Yes, I had Eric Amarola on my fantasy team this week and then he got into it with Harvick, and it ruined my win in the series. Yeah, I mean, there's another team that is extremely fast, capable of winning races. We saw Chicago. They won two stages.

We saw Richmond, how he drove from the back to the front to win stage one. But they have to execute at the end of these races. He could have won Loudon. He was winning the race when there was a late race caution came out. They didn't execute on pit road. They didn't execute on the restart. Like these teams are, I'm telling you, man, Stuart, Haas is as fast as anybody in the garage, us and JGR and obviously the 78, but when you get in

those situations, it comes all the way down to execution, paying attention to details. One small mistake in your out. Tommy Davis submitted with all the success that Ford has found this year, do you think they will have the same issues as Chevy with their new nose next year? Tommy, I don't know, man. I mean, there's a lot of speculation that we're all going to composite bodies. That changes it a little bit. you know, and I think we don't know exactly how that changes it because it makes it to where the body-hanging department doesn't have the freedom that they have now when they're building these cars.

So it's a lot of unknowns. I mean, Chevy thought their nose was going to be better and we're just now seeing it, you know, several months into the season, past halfway to where they're actually making progress from Hendrick's standpoint, from Childress standpoint. You know, Larson's obviously been up there contending, but I see McMurray up there closer to the front now. So that's an unknown that we won't know until we get there. I don't think we expect it to be as good as we are this year, to be quite honest with you. But what a great surprise. E. Brill WX. Interesting.

How does it get determined which spotter spots which section of the track when it comes to road courses? And does the section vary driver to driver? So the primary spotter is required to stand in a certain area and check in with NASCAR. Beyond that, it's really up to the spotter and the driver and the car. crew chief as to where the other spotters go. Looking specifically at Watkins Glen, you need at least three spotters. Ideally, you have four. And even with four spotters, the carousel, which is the turn after the bus stop, is a

completely blind corner from our perspective. We don't have anywhere we can put a spotter to see there. So we would have a spotter on the front stretch. We would have a spotter in the S's. We would have a spotter at the bus stop. And then if we have that fourth person available to us, we put them in turn 10. And that looks back up that straightaway coming out of the carousel where Hornish had such a horrific wreck.

And if you're, if you don't have a spotter there and they're coming out of the carousel blind, they can drive right into that accident. So you want to have a spotter there to say, there's a crash. The track is blocked or there's a, there's a crash. Go left, go right. That's all you really need to know at a road course. And Elliot taught me this early in my career. Tell me if the track's blocked or tell me where I can go to not hit something.

And that's just way it is. How do you go pick your spotters, your other spotters for the races? For me, man, it's guys that I've used in the past. You know, if in the S is, it's not a real big passing zone, so it's not a place that you play the inside, outside game. It's exactly what we talked about. There's a wreck. Go left up here. So you're not looking for someone who is used to spotting races the way that TJ and I do.

But for honestly, man, it's taking guys that have listened to a lot of races. Somebody like a bus driver. I'll use Clint's bus driver this weekend in the S's. I'll use Elliott's bus driver will this weekend at the bus stop. And it's a chance for those guys just to come contribute. And you'll have to coach them up a little bit because they hadn't done. done it in a year, you know, but it's crew guys, you know, they're race fans. I mean, there have been guys back in the day that literally went and grabbed fans that were drinking

beer out of the stands and go, hey man, I need you to help me today. But it's not that way anymore. He's so cool if it still was. I know. Casey could spot. Oh, my gosh, there's a car in the road. Oh, oh, I think I would get my rights in my left. Guys. You're like, oh, sorry, wrong way. I struggle with that. Guys, guys, I think we're not okay. You need to give me a little bit more credit because I pushed the car the other day. You did? I had to push Chad's midget out. Nice.

I'll never do it again. I'm not one of those girlfriends. Oh my gosh, there's such a big crash over here. Watch out. I think that's a crash. Buckle up for safety. Okay, well, I guess I will never be spotting. No.

Anything you want to rant about. I actually saw something in ARCA this week that I think NASCAR needs to take two. I got excited. And I got excited because, you know, here's ARCA. They're the big race for today. They're on Friday at Pocono. And they had a guy come over the PA system.

And he said, all drivers report to the stage. People got excited. They started clapping. They started cheering. Like, we have all this PA nonsense going on and they're giving away this award and that award. And I've noticed it in rain delays before, but it's never really popped in my mind for whatever reason to do it like short tracks do it, which is announced to the drivers.

Come to the stage. It's time to get going. So after our rain delays, you know, they'll say that. All drivers report to your cars and fans start clapping because they know it's almost time to race. I want to see us. I want to see our PA guys, you know, 32 minutes before the race is getting ready to start. We know that even if they're already at driver intro, say it anyway.

All drivers report to the stage. Like I felt like that was a really good precursor for the event. So all you track promoters that are listening, you know, you chip wiles, you carry tharps, all you guys that sometimes I hurt your feelings, sometimes I make you feel good. Right now, I'm telling you, all drivers report to the stage made me excited. If it made me excited, I know damn good well it made the fans excited. I like it. That's a really good idea. So T.J. is not here. He told me his pick, though.

So if he told you his pick, he's got to go first because he lost again. All right. As T.J. I'm picking. Did you see his... He was like 39, 38, 48, 40. Not doing, you had a bad stretch. He's in trouble. Yeah.

He really is. Who won last year? I've won every year. Yeah. Brett has yet to lose. Yeah. So I'm up by three and I might easily win this weekend or I may easily lose because we still have to race.

I mean, that's the fun part about competing, right? But I let Jason tell us who T.J. is picking Michael McDowell. And I thought he was going to pick McDowell. I mean, his only other play outside of McDowell was Chris Busher, who is a decent road course guy and teammates to AJ Almondinger. So you got to think he'd have a chance to maybe be pretty good. But he doesn't have anybody else to pick from. Like he can't pick William Byron because Byron's never been here in a cup car.

William's a great race car driver. He's a guy that I'd pick at Bristol or somewhere, but you can't pick him at Watkins Glenn. So TJ's, he's backed in the corner on this deal. He really only has Sores left. And I've got a few more guys that I think are going to win races. But I'm going to go with obviously the guy that I didn't pick earlier in the year, which is Amundinger.

You got to give him a shot to go out. And if he doesn't self-destruct, he will finish top 10. But he's been the self-destruct king, the last several road course races, especially at Sonoma. So I just hope that he keeps his wits about him and doesn't try too hard. That's the thing. When you're that talented at a particular thing in your life, you kind of don't have to go 100% to still be good. So if he can go at 90, 92% until the end and just not tear his transmission out, not screw his rear and gear up, not, you know, knock the fenders off the car, racing somebody being dumb, he has a chance to do something good, and he needs it.

You should make sure he's listening. Tell him. Well, if I spotted for him, that's what I would text him, or that's what I would tell him. You know, I don't have a lot of conversations with Elliot and Clint because they're veterans. And I occasionally give him my two cents, and they don't usually listen. But a guy like Mayett, you know, I called him last week and said, hey, Pocono, this is what I think is going to be extremely important for us this weekend. Because Mike's new to, you know, the NASCAR touring series. Obviously, he's a very experienced and successful race car driver,

but when you go to these places, it's easy to kind of not know exactly what everybody's thinking. And that's the other thing. They've got so many voices in their heads telling them what they need to do and not do. But AJ just needs to run at 90%. He doesn't need to try to be a hero because sometimes you end up being a zero. Do we do anything for the playoffs, like a cool, different game? We should figure out something creative, switch it up a little bit. What do you want to do?

They'll reset all the drivers. for the playoffs, those that they have everyone to pick from, but we could work for some of that. What? I don't know. We'll think about it. You can't present a problem without a solution. They don't tell you that in college either.

I have a tendency of thinking what's in my head, like saying it. So that was just something that came up. I love what people I work with come to me and go, oh, I got a problem. Okay, what's a solution? Well, I don't know. Well, why the hell did you bring me a problem? No, it was just an idea. Like, if anybody has an idea, feel free to tweet it.

Maybe we'll use it. Tweet it. Tweet it. Done. Walkins Glenn. You're going? No, I'm not going. I think I stay on El Mira.

We used to stay in Ithaca, and I love that town. College town. We stayed El Mira. We used to stay at a house there. Ithaca has Cornell and Ithaca. Those are both like really smart schools that I couldn't have got into. But El Mira is kind of cool town. It's so nice.

The lake's really pretty. There's that place you can hike. I love Watkins, Glenn. The town, the little bit town right by the lake, you know. And it's so awesome, but it's so not convenient. because we don't stay anywhere near there. There's nowhere you can stay. No.

I almost died in Walkinsklin. Why? I got hit by a Mack truck. What? We were driving and the Mack truck ran us. Yeah. What? I don't like that area very much.

Dang. It was so scary. Were you okay? I was okay. But my head hurt the rest of the weekend. I had to go to the InfoCare Center. Wow. That's crazy.

He was really nice, thankfully. But like, it's such a small town and they're all one-lane roads. And you could not, I mean, the whole back of the car was destroyed. I will say this, and I'm changing the subject because I don't like talking about wrecks. But the state parking Watkins Glen is gorgeous. So nice. I have my favorite picture from like any track that I've ever been destroyed.

I feel like I'm in a different country. You go in like this cave with these waterfalls. Yeah. And it's probably about a mile and a half walk. It's not crazy steep. No. You know, I mean, obviously you can't go in there if you're disabled. But if you're 50 and out of shape, you'll be fine.

You know, go at your own pace. It is so pretty in there. You get distracted because it's so nice. Like you don't realize you're working. Yeah. Oh, love it. Very secluded. Yeah, very pretty.

The fans on the infield at Watkins Glen are amazing. They sell as many camping spots as probably anywhere we go. Very, very, very well-kept secret about how much fun that infield is. They party all weekend. They're probably already there. I'm now partying. And I think that's what our sport has going for over other sports is we have three to four days of parties, you know, at our events. Football games are awesome.

You tell game for four hours, you go to the game, four hours you go home. Our fans come out for all weekend. Yeah, it is really cool. And they're so nice in walking. It's the best family time. I mean, it's why I love the sport. I was four years old, went to my first race and loved, obviously not the racing at four years old, but loved the ability to get out there and throw the football and play with other kids

and camp out and roast marshmallows. And I feel like families don't always take the time now to do that with their children. And I'm telling you, rent a camper. Yeah. buy a tent, take your ass to a racetrack. It's great family fun. The tracks do an awesome job of making it an experience. For like everyone, Pocono did like a concert.

It's a whole weekend. And here's the thing about our fans. They're the most trustworthy people ever. If you had a cooler a beer and it had 27 beers in it, you could leave it for two days and come back and it's going to have 27 beers. You could have your car with a million dollars in a briefcase sitting right there in the seat. And for some reason, nobody would open the door. door and take that suitcase. Like our fans at the racetrack, you think about hundreds of thousands of people

that are at a racetrack every single weekend that we go to. You don't really ever see fights. You don't ever see arrests. You don't ever see rage. You don't ever see thefts. Like our fans are good people. And they are supporting their driver. Like the shirts, the shorts, the shoes. Yep, everything. Sox. Some people aren't wearing shirts, but they have them tattooed on their stomach. So they shave numbers in the head. Yeah, it's pretty cool. That's who I need to help me spot at Watkins Glen, one of those guys. Well, if you're one of those guys, you reach out.

Yeah, holl at me. It's been real. Thanks for listening. Thank you, One Main and Exalta, as always. My phone says, I think so I said, hey, Siri. No, I said, thanks for listening. I hate Siri. Get her off there.

All right. See y'all. You've been listening to Door Bumper Clear, brought to you by One Main. For updates on Elliott Sadler and the number one junior motorsports team, Go to OneMainRacing.com. Check out Dirtymoe media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo!