Door Bumper Clear - 114 - Tales from the Bachelorette Party!

Episode Date: September 11, 2018

Freddie Kraft joins Brett, Casey and Matthew Dillner after Indy to hear about Casey’s bachelorette party and discuss the four-wide Xfinity Series stage finish, a possible return to Nashville and Rockingham, Round of 16 elimination predictions and more. 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.

Hey, what's up, DBC fans? If you haven't heard about Anchor, it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let us explain. Well, first of all, Freddie, the best part is it's free. There's nothing better than using a free awesome service. To make the process simple and easy, there's creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Anchor helps people find your show by distributing the podcast for you so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and many more platforms. Also, you can make money from your podcast with no. minimum listenership. I like money. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place. We love using Anchor.

It's a great platform that lets us hear from the fans in reaction theater with Anchors leave a message feature. So when you create your account with Anchor, you can also utilize their feature and make your own podcast. TJ will be your first guest. So download the free Anchor

app or go to anchor.fm. To get started. That's A-N-C-H-O-R.fm. to get started. I'm T.J. Major's, this is Brent Griffin. Get ready. Be ready.

Be ready. Be ready. Give me what you got here. New leader. I'll watch out for this guy. White flag. Reck and high. Hello.

Hello. Clear. Bring home. Free. Coming to the line. Door. Butterer. Clear.

Hey, guys. Brett Griffin, Spotter for a Clint Boyer, Elliot Sadler. Myatt Snyder got Triple Duty fresh off of her bachelorette party in the house. I'm still alive, guys. barely. Made it. I made it.

I should have taken yesterday off work. She's got all her limbs. I do. I was actually expecting her to come in here looking bloated. I expected her to look like you if you had won that brickyard for. I was close. I considered bringing mimoses in. We got a super sub in the house, Freddie Craft.

Yeah, baby. What's going on, Spotter? I hate to bring this up, Freddie. But every time that we've asked you in advance to come on this show, Bubba has lost his brakes. Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure he's going to put a stop to me doing this show. Freddie, you want to do door bummer clear? Sure, man.

What time? 9 o'clock. Wow. And Bubba Wallace is in it. So, and on top of that, the two times we lost the breaks, the third time I was on here was erected Bristol on the first lap. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. So basically if Bubba knew this, he would tell you you are not.

Yeah. So anytime you ask me, at least I know I'm having an early day on something. Hey, it's been fun having you all, man. Yeah, it's been awesome. Even though it's coming to an end. You've done great. T.J. can't make his own show ever. Okay.

I just like to point out that he texted us saying that he just finished making the kids breakfast. Why doesn't he ever make us breakfast? Why don't he just come to this show? And you've brought us breakfast. I have. That was a very considerable thing. Yes, exactly. So, Bachelorette party.

Give me the highlights. Oh, man. Well, from what I remember, there's a lot of drinking. Yes. A lot. I think Thursday night I realized that. I went a little bit too strong there at the start. You taped up.

Needed the caution lap. Do you lose a motor? Thursday morning or Friday morning, I struggled. And then I thought that. You didn't answer the question. Did anybody lose a motor? Did you blow a motor? Did anybody blow a motor during this trip?

I don't know. No, what do you mean you don't know? Somebody either puked or they didn't. So did anybody not? I buy them once or twice or whatever. Yeah. There's no mind of you either peeped or you didn't peep. You aren't trying if you didn't.

I'm telling you, Thursday night, I really struggled. And then I woke up, like, so we stayed in, like, a new really, really cool house. It had seven bedrooms. I saw that. Who's, was that just like an Airbnb? Airbnb, yeah. And, like, whoever this person is, you must be best friends with Joanna and Chip because the place looked like it was on Fixer Upper, which is my dream.

It had, like, a basement. I don't want to talk about your house. Okay, okay, but then I'll get into the rest. I want to get into the fun party. So, but the thing I didn't really. didn't realize about the house is it's really old too so you could hear when there's like a bird chirping outside your window and a car driving by and so by 5 a.m. I'm wide awake. I just went to sleep and then like I don't I didn't realize birds come out at five in the morning. What the heck when the sun comes up.

Yes. It's even before the sun comes up. I know. So that part was annoying. I didn't get any sleep and then I woke up in the morning and I was given a mimosa for. from a mimosso bar that Natalie and my sister made, which was clutch. And then I realized we were going to a winery. So I maybe had like an hour time frame where I didn't drink. It was pretty great. So highlights were the winery? Oh, the winery was the best part for sure.

Yeah. But the cool, like, honestly, you are so right. Every bar you want to is like a different band. We went to, you and you time when I texted you. We went to Blake Shelton's place first, and they were closed for an event, which was rude. Went to Jason and Aldine's place right after. And this was right when we landed, so maybe like 2 o'clock. And so you texted me, you're like, why are you out so early?

And I was like, I was craving a mimosa. I don't really know what to tell you. That was not a good idea. Yeah. But everywhere you went, there was like some sort of music. The artist, what was his name, Chris? Chris, yeah, sure. Yeah, that you recommended.

He was amazing at that. Legends bar. Oh, Legends bar's good. We couldn't even walk in, though. He has a huge crowd. So this Chris guy is actually playing Talladega. He's coming to Talladega play on Saturday night. Well, if you guys are going to Talladega, I mean, you're obviously like.

We're going to be there. Believe it or no. We're going to go, I think. Everybody listening to. Well, the only reason that I'm going to go is because this guy's coming that sings this song. Buy me a boat. Buy me a truck to pull it.

I love that song. We went to Nashville. Really? I've never heard it. How long were you there? Three days? Two, three days. And I heard that song from Brett 7,000 times in three days.

He never stopped singing. So my two favorite songs are Red Atkins. That ain't my truck. Yep. That ain't my truck in her drive. I love that song. And then my next favorite song to hear is, but you can buy me a boat. Like I love that song too.

Wait, is that the same person? No, no. I was going to say, they're both named Chris. Yeah. No, they're not. No, they're not. He just said, Red Akis. Are you still drunk from your Bachelet party?

It's over. Old Dillner needs to take a breathalyzer here. I'm just going to stop talking about. So overall, one to ten, you rate Nashville a... Oh my gosh, 11. I just needed to not drink as much. It's fun. But it was awesome.

It was really cool. Like, I walked in the house, and Natalie and my sister decorated the place, like, crazy. I saw the pictures. Favorite bar you went to? I don't remember the name. That's good. Favorite restaurant? Barcelona, which is a top of this place.

I don't know where it was. We just do remember. Probably in the gulch, I'd imagine. I think it might have been in the gulch. Yeah. And then we went to a, yeah, it's really cool. I don't know of the gulch. I usually just drank and listened to country music when I went to Nashville.

Well. The gulch? Right on point there. That was a gulch. And there's a rooftop bar called L.A. Jackson, which was really, really cool, the best grill cheese. Yeah. When you're drunk, it was great.

The drinking word during this show is drunk. Casey said it 97 times already. Well, like I said, I expected you to be bloated, red-eyed. I mean, if we had done the show yesterday, then maybe, but you guys just had to race or something. Yeah, I'm still retaining fluid from the, from two weeks ago. No, you guys had your own time for like a bachelor party. I mean, I didn't go to Indy. No, oh, you didn't go to Indy.

Not early. I was going to say, man, because Indy, it's like you had like 25 days of rain. How'd that go for you, Freddie? I wish I didn't go to Indy either. No, why in the group I said, remember when I, I posted the, I text you as a picture of the Mamosa Tower with only champagne. When you're like, oh, I'm going to move to South Carolina. Don't you race or something?

Like, how do you get these opportunities? Yeah, how'd you get to go to the, you went to see your cocks? So this is what played out. We knew it was going to rain in Indy. Yeah. For sure, right? So Claudia had a surgery on Friday. So I made plans to fly up early Saturday morning.

So I'm going to miss the Xfinity practice for Friday. I had it covered with a guy who usually does Elliot's other racing. is when I can't do it. So we're on the plane Saturday morning. We're waiting to take off at 10 o'clock. We're going to leave. So I get a text that says, we're not leaving until the racetrack decides

if they're going to close everything. We think between 11 and 12, they're going to announce that all activities are suspended for today. We're not flying all of y'all up there for no reason. We'll leave in the morning at 6. So about 11 o'clock, I get word, hey, we're done. We're not doing anything today. So the game clocks are kicking off at 3.30.

So I just leave the airport. Hall-Ast of Columbia, get a ticket, go in, watch three-quarters of football. We were getting blown out at that point, and then turn around and come back here. So Saturday was fun. Freddie, however, he knew that it was going to rain all day on Saturday. And there's an old saying, it's really between three of us, me, Freddie, and our buddy, Billy-O, Billy-O spots for Ty Dillon, that if there's a 100% chance to rain the next day, you'd go out and have a good time.

There's 100% of something else. There was 100% chance to rain on Saturday. And Freddie, I put it in my 100% effort. Taped up, sticker, tires, loaded off the trailer. To no avail. It didn't work. Because normally the plan is if you get yourself highly intoxicated, then you'll be miserable all day. But at least you'll race.

Remember New Hampshire, you and I sacrifice for the entire Cup series by going out the night before. That's what you have to do. And you get the race. It did not work this time. Thank God. Because I was not feeling very well. most of Saturday. But we powered through watching college football.

See, my only rule is I got to have eight hours sleep. And Freddie doesn't have to have eight hours sleep. Freddy can go on four. You ain't running an 800 laparice stick, trickle. I have to have eight hours sleep no matter what happens. So Freddie will tell you, I back up everything. I'm like, okay, I got to get up at seven. I'm going to bed at 11.

I'm going to get up at nine. I'm going to bed by one. Like, no matter what time I have to get up, I back it up eight hours. And Freddie, I'll tell you, I'm Houdini. Like, my eight-hour window is coming. I'm out. You hear Brett say, hey, where is the bathroom? You tell him, and then you never see him again.

So he pulled a Houdini. Yeah, a dip. We called a dip. A dip? Yeah, he dipped. He's gone. He's gone. I blame him.

Indy's super duper, duper fun, and it rained. And here's the problem that we have. In my 20 years of being in this sport, there's only been a couple times that I didn't want to leave to go to the racetrack. And this week is probably the first time ever that I have. hands down, don't want to leave together the racetrack because this hurricane's coming. And it's hard as a dad, you know, and as someone who has a family, to leave everyone behind, not knowing if they're going, my sister lives with me, she's a paraplegic, right, in a wheelchair.

To leave everybody behind, not knowing what may happen here. Now, clearly, I don't think we're going to have tons of tornadoes, but I think trees are going to fall, power's going to go out. it's hard to be the guy of the house and have to leave knowing the unknowns. And I mean, there's about 4,000 of us that are going to do this. And look, I realize that men and women leave their families, you know, to go overseas and fight and protect our freedom. They have a plan when they do that.

I don't have a plan. So what has your team said anything about like? Yeah, we're going early. Yeah. Really? And here's the thing. Like, you know, we're supposed to leave Thursday evening. That's when we typically leave.

They told us to be ready to go as our. early as Wednesday night. And then when I watch this forecast, it looks like this hurricane is going to hit the coast and then just sit on us. It's going to stall. So what I also don't know is when I'm going to get to come back home. And I'm not fussing because, look, I want to go to Vegas. I want to race. I want to start this playoff.

I really think we'll have a couple chances to win. And that part of it I'm excited about. But it's really hard, you know, as part of my job to say, if there were ever a time that it would be up to me to postpone a race, I would pick this. When I realize we can't. TV, Las Vegas, the racetrack, fans of bought tickets. It's already in place. But it's a good point. I mean, a lot of people don't realize that...

It's hard for me to leave on the Wednesday. You have to make precautions or take precautions now for your family when you're not there. Even inland. Even inland where we are. Right now, I mean, right now, they're talking about, like, closing schools early. If we get 17 inches of rain, trees are going to fall. Oh, yeah. Power lines are going to fall.

Coming from Florida, I mean, even we were pretty far inland and I was out of school for two and a half weeks one time for a hurricane. You have to get fuel early because there were fights to get. get in the, like to get gas. I mean, it is bad. We're already prepared at our house. You know, I got two, two littles. So it's like I usually wouldn't prepare because, man, I'm just go in a damn cabinet and just eat a bunch of crackers or whatever for a few days and make it happen. But when you got kids and Brett, your situation is, is even more complex. Yeah. You really have to prepare. And it sounds like a doomsday thing like, you know,

where you're like, you know, kind of psycho or whatever, but it isn't. It's being smart for your family. And you don't know. It could completely go a different path. They have no idea, but better safe and Sorry either. Did you tell the people that don't have kids the ratios they need to stock up on this week? Oh, yeah. You know, for every. You don't have kids. Yeah.

It's got a different ball game. So I have kids. So last night when I landed, this is no lie. I went to Food Line by my house. And I bought five cases of water. And I bought bread, right? I bought the essentials. Yes.

Had I been single, I would have went to the liquor store and bought Tito's vodka. And I would have went and got Mcliffe Ultra. But I'm not. I mean, that's where, like, I'm worried about a tree falling on my house. I'm worried about my family not have power. So anyway, I just, Florence is coming. It's going to affect everybody in North Carolina.

And our jobs are requiring 4,000 of us to leave our families and just hope that everything's going to be okay. Well, I'm here. So if there's anything I can do to help, please let me now. I'll send you to cut some trees down. Sure. All right. Chainsaw would be bigger than you are. Do they have the kid ones?

How much do you weigh? Oh, boy. First you call her old. Now you're asking her way. And he's like, I wouldn't have expected you to come and bloated this morning. Well, that's reassuring. Dude, I don't have any shame in my game. No, man.

So let me get an opportunity. Let me guess. Yeah. Guess. 101 pounds. No. Well, how much? Freddie, you guess.

I'm not guessing. Oh, don't be a poor. Stay out of this one, brother. How much? Like 106 to 108. Damn. I was going to say, how much is a flock back way? I was going to say 107.

Soken weather. It depends what. what I did the weekend before. All right, let's go. Okay, spot on, spot off. Denny Hamlin calls late crash involving Landing Castle and Jeffrey Earnhardt, meaningless.

And I quote, he says, what I needed was not having meaningless guys in the back wreck. Hamlin said, I don't know what they're doing, crashing with a couple laps to go, multiple laps down, meaningless. Freddie.

Freddie, what do you got, man? I mean, I'm spot on for part of this because I completely agree about one car in particular, the 96 car. This is two weeks in a row now. The very end of the race, I understand he's out there trying to race a race. But I talked to Landon Castle on the plane last night, who's the guy he wrecked with. And I said, wow, what the heck happened there? And he said, man, I don't know. He said, I was like just out there riding around.

I was going to let him go. And he said he just bombed it in the corner, sideways over. corrected and stuff me in a fence. It's like, where are you going? What was there? I don't even know. There was inside of five to go or six, something like that. So I'm inside of that, but like, he kind of went on further in that quote and kind of complained about, you know, how the cautions at the end ruined his strategy. And it just sounds like sour grapes to me. Like, it's part of the deal. Like, because you run different strategies for a reason. You run your race. So, you know, Brad Keselowski wasn't, like, if he dominated the whole race and this happened at the

and he lost it, okay, I'm okay. But if it's not for pitch strategy, you win that race. Right. You know what I mean? You're dominating the race. Yeah. He happens to come a couple laps before you. Now he, you know, his strategy works out.

Okay, great. Well, Brad's knows the only shot he's got to win the race is I'm going to stay out. I'm going to have the freshest tires at the end. Hope I get a caution. And he did. And he did. So, you know, like, could not have been any luck here. Yeah.

He's probably a seventh place car all day. Yeah, exactly. And like, it's just the way the game is played. You know what I mean? And you can't route strategy. was what's going to win you the race. Right, right. I'm 100% spot on.

You know, Denny is saying something that had a big effect on my race. You know, we're catching Denny Hamlin. There is less than 10 laps to go. The same guy who calls Kyle Larson the win at Darlington calls Denny Hamlin and Clint Boyer the win there. One of the two of us was going to win the race, had it stayed green, and had a guy that wasn't multiple lapsed down to rush. I mean, the wreck.

The fact that it's Jeffrey Earnhardt, you know, somebody needs to get to this kid and go, hey dude, you know, you're not in great equipment and you don't look even, you look even worse wrecking this late in the race. Like the optics of what he's doing aren't going to open more doors for him. You have to take the Landon Castle approach, which is race smart, get the best finish you can get, don't tear up your car owner's equipment, because I promise you, this team can't afford to tear up race cars. And they've torn it up back-to-back weeks. And you don't want to be, I saw a lot of people on Twitter, you know, really wearing Denny out. Hey, Denny just lost the Brickyard 400

because what he thought was a meaningless driver wreck. Now, people are going to defend the driver. Well, he's racing for 28, just like you're racing for the win. I respect that. I get that. But the reality is the outcome of the race was greatly affected by you being a dumbass. Yeah. And that hurt my chance to win a Brickard 400, so I'm on Denny's side.

I don't know which one of us was going to win it. I think he had the advantage because he had the lead, but we also had three lap pressure tires. And I would rather see the race play. out than to see a caution change it. But anyway, it is what it is. You see that picture at the end of the deal. There's all 16 drivers. 15 of them are smiling because they're in the playoff.

And then he's sitting on like this. What his lip poked out? You know what I thought about yesterday was how would you like to have been True X? Yeah. He wrecked on what, like lap 15. He can't sit there. All day long waiting. Because at least he could have went to his airplane if he had somebody riding with him and

be sitting there drinking some beer. Yeah. Yeah. Probably had a few while he was there. I hope. Xfinity indie Arrow Package produces four wide finish

for stage one win. If you guys are spot off on this, that's ridiculous because that was a cool race last, yesterday. Indy lights? Well, here's the thing, Casey. You can't spot off

the fact that they're four wide to finish this stage. It was phenomenal. It was exciting. But it only happened because it was within a few laps of a restart. What we saw with this package

and what we're going to see with this package next year, if we take this in the Cup series to the same track is For three or four laps, it's extremely exciting. It's amazing. And then it goes to just what Indy does, single file race and you can't pass. Could you get runs?

Could Tyler Reddick get close to Algar at the end? Yeah. But for the last seven or eight laps, I don't know that we saw a single car pass anybody in the top ten. So as much as we ran rave about how great this package is, the only way for the end of this race to be really exciting for the people watching on TV who really grasp what's happening is when Truex hit the wall. Freddie and I were watching this. on Elliott's bus because Elliot had wrecked. No fault of hours for a change. But the 11 smokes the wall out of two.

Debris flying everywhere. They had an opportunity to throw the caution there and they didn't. They let it play out, which I don't care what they do either way, right? But the only way this package is super exciting is if we have a three or four lap restart. After that, it looks cool because we see some of the accordion stuff, but it's not any different than what Andy typically is. That's my opinion. Yeah, I agree.

Obviously, spot on for, it produces a finish like that if you happen to get a green, white checker. I still think you're way better off taking these cars and taking them to IRP. You'll see 10 times the racing. They'll be passing. They'll probably produce three wide finishes because they run all over the racetrack. You know, I just, like Brett said, you could see it. You know, like this package, we raced their asses off for 10 laps. And then the first two guys started to creep away because the guy's in third and fourth got side by side.

So, like, just like the All-Star race or the open, it was 10 lap stages. The racing was great. And we took it to wherever, and it was awful. You know, Pocono, I think it was. It just got strung out. Kyle whooped our ass all day long. Yeah. So, I mean, it's just, it produces closer racing.

And it's probably, I would say the Xfinity race was a better race than the cup race. You know, I mean, because their guys are closer and racing each other. But it's still not any passing, really. Like, you know, you're kind of spotting it like a plate race, except for the guy like, All right, he's got to run. Come in, coming, all right, you stalled out. You know, it is like, don't worry about it. You're good.

So I'm still in favor of let's get them off of that big track, especially at Sminity. Get them over to IRP if you want to see some real racing. And you know what? That's not a science experiment. I mean, all we've got to do is go back a few years and compare the race in there and compare the racing now. Yeah.

Spot on, spot off. Michael Waltrip says spec parts would help lower costs for cup teams and keep teams in business. Freddie. Spot on. I don't like me. I don't think it's a secret that we're spending too much money. I don't think these teams are struggling to find sponsors.

I think they're struggling to find sponsors that are willing to pay what they need to compete. So anything that's going to help cost savings and help come team stay in business, I mean, we got our championship team from last year going out of business because they can't afford to keep their alliance up or whatever, you know, the stories are. So I'm spot off for anything that's going to save some money. Yeah, I mean, I go back. to what I've always said on here, which is you can't tell teams how to spend their money. They're going to spend as much money as it takes to compete when you look at Stuart Haas, when you look at Gibbs, when you look at Penske, when you look at Hendrick, when you look at these

big players, they're going to spend however much money it takes. So does spec parts lower the cost? I don't know. Does two-day shows lower the cost? Yeah. You know, are there engine things that we're doing to lower the cost? Yeah. But for some damn reason, we still need $25 million per cup car to run fast.

So are we lowering the cost enough to really matter? And Freddie just made one of the best points. Anybody's made all year in any form of a broadcast. We don't have a problem attracting sponsors. We have a problem attracting sponsors that are going to be able to spend enough money to get us to that number that I just gave you. $20 plus million is a lot of freaking money. As long as we don't, spotter salaries are pretty solid.

They don't need to keep the spotter salaries. They don't need to change them at all. Hey, let me ask you this. because you brought up the word spec engine. A lot of fans don't understand about that. We don't need to get into the science of it. But you, sitting right there, have a lot of experience with spec engine type racing because of the NASCAR wheel and modified tour.

Has it hurt or helped in that? And, you know, do you see a parallel? So there's a lot of people that don't like it in the modified realm. Are people going to like them in Cup if it happened? I think it's hard to say they started this spec engine deal with the modifies. And you were paying probably 50, to $60,000 for a built engine at the time. Yep. Spec engine came out.

It's going to be great. It's going to be $25,000 to $30,000, saving you all this money. But it didn't last very well. And now they're creeping up closer to that $40,000, $50,000 number again. And the guys are, you know, finding ways to put stuff on that, make them better. So obviously, with anything, any rule you put in place, somebody's going to find a way to make it better. You know, like somebody can find a way to tune on it. and if that's going to cost another $10,000, hey, so be it.

You know, that's what I, I need them five extra horsepower over everybody else. Because when the spec engine came out and they changed the rules and modified, the first guy to have it was Justin Bonsignor, and he waxed everybody's ass for a whole season, just like he's doing this year, in fact. And he won three or four races when he really wasn't in that position but the year before. So then everybody got it, and now it's kind of, you know, everybody's the same speed again. They're filled back in. But, you know, like the first guys that went to, it had advantage.

So then everybody started going to it. And then everybody started pushing the boundaries. And now they got the price up another, you know, $15,000, $20,000. So, you know, I would imagine if we went to those spec parts, that's the same route that this would go. But, you know, you got to do something. What's driven our cost up isn't really parts in my mind. It's, it's, it's, and I'm not fussing about this because I, I'm not saying stop doing it. But engineering and R&D is crazy expensive.

which is more expensive now because of the elimination of testing. So, I mean, you look at yesterday's race. We unloaded with zero practice. Saturday, we unloaded with zero practice. I watched Junior Motorsports on Saturday. Freddie and I knew in the first five laps who the best three cars were. It was the junior motorsports cars. And we were going to go out and freaking one of us three was going to win that race.

And one of us three did. And I watched the cup race start with zero practice. Like, we're so damn smart. the engineering is so damn good, we don't even need to practice. So when you wonder where our money's being spent, it's there. And let me tell you what else. It's working. So you can't stop.

If you want to win and if you want to compete, you've got to be investing in that engineering piece. And because that is preparation. All your preparation is engineering based. It didn't used to be. It used to be brain-based and wrench-based. And now it's engineering-based. And that prep is super expensive. That's a good point

It is what it is Smart people make a lot of money Spotters are smart Real smart Smarter than y'all think we are They should listen to you guys someday Just not when it's going to rain I don't know

I will say Brett was pretty smart Tushay At your expense Tushay Oh Spot on spot Spot on, spot off. McMurray out of the one car.

I want to cry. Like all these guys that I came in with that I was close to, they're all getting moved around and retiring. I mean, you know, I came in with Elliot Sadler. We were rookies together in 1999, so I've seen kind of everybody in that class around him. Tony Stewart, Dale Jr., Matt Kenseth, now Casey Kane, Jamie McMurray. Like, the sport is, I watched. the sport changed during the Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace, Sterling Marlin era.

Like, I'm here. I've been here a while. These guys start retiring. But at the same time, I was like, man, I grew up watching Bill Elliott race on TV. I'm okay. I was a kid when he was doing well, right? You know, I was a kid when Dale Earnhardt was winning tons of races. And I hadn't even started in the sport when he won the Daytona 500.

But I'm watching all those guys, and I understand that era changing, the changing of the guard. Well, now the freaking changing of the guard is the guys that I can't. came in with, and it's heartbreaking. So I'm major spot off. There isn't a nicer guy in the garage in Jamie McMurray. Super good guy. We still hang out some, and I'm going to miss those guys.

You know, I'm going to miss seeing them at the racetrack, miss watching them compete. We know they all can drive, but I guess I'm just most spot off because, man, Elliot Sadler retired, you know, like, damn. It just pulls at your heart. You hate to see it. Yeah, I mean, you didn't seem real upset about it. when you chopped him into turn three on that last restart.

I mean, wasn't that him that you cut across his nose? I love you, Jamie. I'll text you later. But, no, spot off, obviously. I don't really know Jamie that well, but he seems like a great guy. I heard a ton of stories from Brett and Tyler. And you got to think about, like, I think you've talked about this on the show. A guy like that retires, there's a lot of people that that affects.

You know, his team members, like, he's got a spotter. A lot of times the driver's tied to the spotter. So what's that spotter going to do now? pilots, you know, like, there's a lot of people that are affected by the fact that he's going to retire now. So it's just, you know, it's a tough deal all the way around and wish him the best. Hopefully he can get in something else maybe. Is he done? Or did he just say he's out of the one? I haven't talked to him about it. I mean, we heard these rumors start a month ago. He and I've talked, but not about this. And here's, I just want to paint a picture for how good

of guys. You know, I'm at, I believe, Michigan a few years ago, and I get to the airport about the same time Jamie does. And we're walking to his plane. And he says, man, how are you getting home? I was like, I'm following my team. And he's like, you want to follow me? I was like, my car's already at this other airport. Like it'd be complicated. Just, you go ahead. He said, man, I wish you could follow me because Bobby Allison, it's just me and him. And it's awesome because he tells all these stories. And so when you have a guy that looks up to generations that were well ahead of him, I mean, we're talking two, three generations before he got in a race car. And he is just, his eyes were as big around as apples saying, man,

Bobby Allison's fine home with me. Like, you sure you don't want to go. And I think, you know, number one, there aren't many drivers going to extend flight opportunities. I mean, Freddie's been doing this. How many years? Five or six. How many guys have asked you if you want to fly home with him? Nope. So I think my point is, like, I grew up in an era where we all got to be buddies

and we've all still kind of looked out for each other. He didn't have to offer me a freaking seat home. But he was more wanting me to go just so I could follow Bobby Allison and hear the Bobby stories because he knows how much I grew up, love, and racing. So Jamie's a good dude. He's a pretty reserved guy in terms of how much he's really willing to put out there in the media and market himself. And I respect that too. He's a private guy.

So I think the point of that is just these are good guys. You know, don't think that they're all, they're race car drivers. They're badasses. They're daredevils. But a lot of them are really good people too. All right. Before we take a break, let's take a moment of silence in remembrance of 9-11 as well as a good friend of the racing community, Caleb Hammond, who we lost. this past weekend.

This is your Exalt to Race Center update. I'm Matthew Dillner. Mother Nature played a significant role at Indianapolis Motor Speedway all weekend, forcing a double-header Monday matinee at the historic track. And the cast of 12 cup drivers for the NASCAR playoffs is now set. One of the roles will be filled by Brad Keselowski, who muscled by Denny Hamlin to win he and his car owner, Roger Penske's first, Burkhard 400.

Before the Cup feature, Justin Allgaier continued his rise to stard in the experience. Series. The Illinois driver battled hard for his fifth W of the season. Tyler Reddick played the top supporting role. His second place performance made it a one-two finish for Junior Motorsports. Team J.R.M. actually took two checkered flags this weekend. Junior Motorsports late model driver Josh Berry used the drama of the high side on the final restart to capture his second Cars Tour trophy of the season. Teammate Sam Mayer finished six in the 150-lap act at North Carolina's Orange County Speedway. The next scene is NASCAR's version of casino with a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, triple header at Nevada's Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This has been your Exalta Race Center update.

Exalta is the official paint partner of NASCAR, developing, manufacturing, and supplying and supplying coatings to all types of vehicles and industrial applications. For more on Exaltta, please visit exalta.c.com. At one main financial, we believe in the importance of community. That means partnering with our neighbors to reach common goals, lending a hand when it matters most, and commitment to our neighborhoods. Community isn't just where you are. It's where you make a difference. One main financial, not just in the neighborhood, but part of your community. Providing personal loan solutions and one-on-one local service. One main financial. Your needs, your goals, your dreams. Offer subject to restrictions and requirements of the licensee. For licensing information,

visit our website or call us. We are back. Brett had to head out for some family matters, but don't worry. guys, we have Dillner and Freddie holding it down still. Team's Long Island. Long Island gang. Strong Island. But you have to make sure you can actually ding yourself. Oh, I've got to ding myself. Not giving you more than 30 seconds here.

Can you say, ding myself? I don't think. Oh, gosh. I think that's legal. Especially in public. I'm married. Need to stop talking. All right.

First topic. And just to remember, remind you guys, I'll give them 30 seconds to complete these topics, share their thoughts. Ready? First one, if there was no cap on the number of cup teams an organization could field, would JGR go to five teams next year? Freddie?

Yeah, I think so. You know, they have obviously a deal with Daniel Suarez in place now with a pretty substantial sponsorship that is going away to bring in Martin Truex. So I think if they'd be more than happy to keep that all in-house, and just run a fifth car with Daniel and that sponsorship deal. So I think I think that would be a no-brainer for them,

if they could keep that sponsorship deal there. But that's going to be interesting to see what happens with that team now. You're not going to need to ding me. I'm not going to need to ding myself because my answer will be sure it's the same as Freddy's. I think as long as the financing would be there, they'd run 10 teams. Because if they ran 10 teams, they'd have data, data, data times 10. It would be amazing. And any organization that has a structure and infrastructure like Joe Gibbs Racing,

if they had the financial backing to support that particular team, they would run additional teams. Yeah, and that's where it was, that's where it came from because Jack Roush was getting ready to corner the market. Like he was just adding teams and dominating the sport. And they said, okay, hold on. He got to, I think he got to five and there was talking, maybe more. And they said, okay, like that's it. We got to put a stop to this because if not this guy's going to end up winning every race. So, you know, obviously like Duna said, if you got the money,

you're going to keep running as many teams as you can. SMI expressed interest in reviving Nashville Fairground Speedway and Rockingham's new owners want to bring racing back. Would you like to see either track back on the Cup schedule? Dillner, this one's for you.

Yes. Obviously, I've got a deep passion for this, you know, my lost Speedway's project. Rockingham, the new owners, it's very promising. I was very skeptical, but it's very promising right now, of the things that I'm hearing out of that deal, especially with them possibly reaching out to NASCAR. They signed a concert festival, the Carolina Rebellion for 20 years.

This is a serious deal. When it comes to Nashville, it's a lot more complicated than that. MLS and the bid to get a major league soccer team is a reality. Marcus Smith, SMI wants in on that. They want in on the MLS team, but they want in on that racetrack too. Okay. And the way they're going to get in on MLS is to get in on that racetrack. So there's a correlation there. So with the MLS team, some people think that will save the racetrack. But there's a little bit of stuff that people don't know and you have to do your research about. There's things going on right now between the people trying to start the MLS thing and a little bit of supposed alleged activity and things going on right now that are maybe behind the fair boards back that we have to watch out for. So it's a very muddy, complicated situation. That's hard for us to really talk about. I'm really deep invested in studying this deal. And I won't even speculate too much. But there's a lot more than meets the eye.

My hope, though, is that SMI gets involved because I know they want to get in the soccer deal. But this racetrack right here is historic. This racetrack right here would be a gold mine for the All-Star race. You were going to say that. It is an amazing place. And it's an amazing city that would be an incredible host to the All-Star Race. And that was way more. I didn't ding myself. I think he's kind of excited. I don't know if you noticed. Just a little bit. I don't know how much you guys know this, but Matt has done a great job for many years now with this Lost Speedways project.

It's Lawspidways.com. Los Speedway. But mainly, it's Facebook, law speedways. And it's incredible. He made calendars like for a couple years ago we have one. But going back to this, like just strictly from a racing side, short tracks. Get me short tracks. Like Nashville Fairgrounds I've never been to.

Rockingham puts on a. incredible race. Like, yeah, probably got to do a little bit of work on the racetrack now because it's probably a little door up. Both facilities need work, and so does Nashville.

But, like, I'm all for any reason to go back to Nashville. Heck, yeah. Period. And then just more short tracks. Give us Rockingham. Give us places, you know,

anywhere with North Wilkesboro would be great. You know, just get us back on short tracks as many as possible. Anything that's not a mile and a half be great. I like it. I knew that was going to be your answer.

I noticed I didn't ding on that subject. Sorry, producer. Jason Schultz when you edit this, but I'm going, dingless. Dingless, I said. Dingless, not dingerless. A.G. Amundinger has nothing to do with this. The round of 16

begins at Las Vegas and goes to Richmond and the Charlotte Roval. Which four drivers will be eliminated after Charlotte? Freddie. Let's see. You got the grid here. I did not do any research on this. But,

I'm going to say, so Charlotte, I think, is going to be a bit of a wild card because I think, honestly, anybody can win with the right track position, the way that race is going to play out. So you don't know. You don't know. That's a wild card race in itself. But if I had to pick four, I'll go Austin Dillon. Okay. Alex Bowman. I'm going to, you know, as surprising is it is, is Texas?

No, Texas is the next round? No, Texas is the next round. I think Jimmy Johnson's out in the first round. I know, because if Texas was in it, I would count him in because it would be a top five car even with the Chevrolet. So that's three. It's going to be hard to pick a fourth one. I got to ding you? Eric Jones pops up.

No dingy. Eric Jones pops up, but he's been fast as hell the last two or three weeks. But wild car races. Yeah. You got to remember, you know, there's some wrecks. So I'll take E.J. has my fourth. Okay. I'm going to go with Denny Hamlin.

as my surprise that's not going to make it. I think the downward spiral has begun, even though they are fast as heck. I'm going to be very bold and say two GAGR cars do not make it. No, I'm not going to do that. I was going to go Eric Jones too. I'm out. That done. I've got to pick a hinder car to not make it.

I'll say it's Alex Bowman, unfortunately. So Hamlin, Bowman, Dylan, and believe it or not, even though he's shown speed, I don't think they've shown enough of that it factor, Eric Emerald. Okay. Interesting. So you think Jimmy's going to redeem himself? I think Jimmy will consistency himself in. He's a very intellectual smart racer, and I think that's what it's going to take. It's going to take finishing that roval and not putting yourself in a hole there,

because we have some races here that can give you a potential of being way down a hole that you don't want to be in. Right. Off the wall topic, the NFL season began over the weekend. Which two teams will make it to the Super Bowl this season? Thank God you weren't going to ask about the anthem. Oh, yeah. I thought that's where it was going. I didn't read the sheet.

Was there a bad national anthem this week? Oh, you're talking about just taking the knee and all that stuff. What? I don't know what you're talking about. Who's he going to be? Are we making Super Bowl predictions? Yes. Oh, Lord.

I think Freddie goes first. Jets and the Giants. Ladies and gentlemen, before me at the laugh shack till Tuesday, it's Freddie Craft. Freddie Craft, hey, might as well pick the damn Cleveland Browns to go to the Super Bowl. Honestly, I want them to go to the Super Bowl after watching Hard Knocks. Yes, I love that team. You have more chances of girl on a third foot than the damn Cleveland Browns going to the Super Bowl, girl. You know what?

I like them. I don't care. I'll pick them at this point. I mean, if we're going to actually just make an honest prediction, why don't we just be the elephant in the room and just say, okay, the New England Patriots. Because, I mean, they do have Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback known to man. I'm not a patriot fan by any regard, but the respect factor is there. He's the man. I know Junior wants to see them skins in it, and Alex Smith, I'm glad to see him have some success

because he deserves it. But, yeah, I'll just go and say the Pats. The Pats are a good pick only for the fact that they get like six buys. You know, everybody else has one buy in a league. The Pats get to play the Jets, the Bills, and the Dolphins. The Bills won't be a pushover this year. So, are you, did you see the Bills game on Sunday? No, because I get home, right?

I get home from a trip on the beach. And it's opening day of the end of, what did you do on the opening day of NFL? What do you think I did? Drank and watch football, right? Even though you had the job, but you guys were raining. What did O.M.D. do on his... What did you do?

Change diapers? I freaking no. Honey-do list came up and we had to build a playground. So seven and a half hours outside. You're still building that playground? Yeah. This was like a month ago. Seven and a half hours.

putting in on this playground, and luckily the rains came thunderous, so I got to watch the last half of my Panthers. I have to ask you a very serious question going back to last week. Is that turtle's head supposed to fall off? Don't be talking about the turtle in public, but yeah, there's a joke behind that. But yeah, I got a little turtle in front of my house and, you know, a little statue, not a real one. And its head comes off and it's funny as hell. It scared me.

I got to be on it. I was like, oh, I just broke it. It's a possessor. Here's Freddie just holding a turtle head. Like, sorry, Dilder. Freddie saved my butt. Let's just put it that way and did a favor for me last week. And I met him up in Darlington.

I was at the beach, so. Thanks, Fred. You know, my pleasure. All right. She's like, what are you talking about? I have no. I was like, we didn't talk about a turtle on the show last week. Pets heads are falling off.

I don't know what you guys are doing in your free time. Ask DVC. I know producer Jason is not here, but he has some good questions. NASCAR Josh wants to know. Who was the biggest surprise not to blink the playoff field? What do you think, Freddie?

Do we have a list here? Hold on. So, you know, a guy like Stenhouse kind of surprised me. You know, he was so dominant last year at the plate races. And obviously didn't get the job done there. And, you know, they, in the beginning of the year, they kind of showed some speed where I thought maybe they could point themselves in and be 16th, like that battle with Bowman there.

I thought he would have the upper hand later we went in the year. But I obviously didn't. Just, you know, missed it by whatever it was. It was a pretty good gap, I think, right? It was like 60, 70 points back. So somebody like that, but I don't think there was really any huge surprises. Jamie McMurray, maybe he's been in for the last few years. So guys like that, but, you know, I don't think there was anybody that really stands out in my mind that is that I'm probably forgetting because,

I haven't got much sleep this week. Ryan Newman. Yeah. Ryan Newman seems to consistency himself in, and that team, you know, RCR organization has found some speed. And I'm kind of surprised that he was not the guy to kind of point his way in and Bowman one.

So I think a product of that is the fact, like we did, Chevy's in general, did not get off to a very good start this year. Yes. And in years past, Hendrick Gannasi have been the class of the Chevy field and then like one tiered down would be the RCR guys.

So I think that small gap in the beginning of year where they have speed now, we didn't have a lot of speed to start the year off and we ran, you know, because 43 cars part of that alliance and we kind of had a slow start to the year. But, you know, now that's coming on, it's a little, you know, too little too late, I think, for this year. LeBron 126 asks.

LeBron James chiming in, big DBC fan. He spelled his own name wrong now. Yeah, I just want to say. I don't really know if I pronounce that, right? That's his burner account. What are your thoughts on having an NFL game and NASCAR race in the same city, the same weekend? Oh, man. It was, I mean, it was pretty crazy.

There's just the amount, I'll tell you one thing that was impressive was the amount of Bengals fans that were there. I guess it's not very far away. No. Thank God for the rain for us. Yeah. So, like, we're sitting at the track, me and Brett, we're hanging out and talking to Ellie. and it's starting, the mist is just will not quit.

It's relentless. It's getting heavier. It's about 2 o'clock or so. And they haven't made a decision. And Brett's like, we need to get the hell out of here before this race, this game ends because it was a 1 o'clock game,

so now it's getting into the third quarter. And he's like, we got to get back down. We all stay downtown. So he's like, we got to get back downtown before this game ends or we're never going to get back into downtown. So we made the decision to kind of pull the plug a little early ourselves.

and ease on back down there. But as soon as we got five minutes from the track, they ended up cancel and everything anyway. But it was great. And surprisingly, it was something that's different from my usual effects, and you know this too, is, you know, tailgate, go hard at the game.

When the game's end, I'm kind of, I'm pretty much done. I'm done for the evening. A lot of people are out all night, you know, and like, that's cool. You know, full-blown, you know, football gear, Bengals, Colts. So, I mean, it was pretty impressive to see the amount of people that were still out all night Sunday after the game was over too.

Yeah, I got to say, I don't know who released their schedule first. So I can't judge. But whoever released the date second didn't have consideration for the other sport, possibly. And I think that sports need to work together looking at each other's schedules, especially if there's major market events in the same market right there that close, need to work together. Just like us, the short track guys,

me and Freddie, we always talk about different series kind of working together. We don't need two late model stock, big races on the same weekend within 250 miles of each other.

Well, we sure as hell don't need an NFL opening day about 10, 15 miles away from a major NASCAR race. And that's just simple. Unless they do it, like how Supercross

NASCAR did it for, what, like two years in Atlanta, where Supercross was at night. Staggered it. Yeah. And NASCAR is during the day. I think NASCAR should have capitalized that more, but I'm not going to get into it. So, yeah, very, very good point.

I agree with you. Very, very good point. I agree with you there. Big time. I think you hit the point right on the head there, Casey. And that might be this, you know, Brett said his point was the best point. He's heard all year. That might be one of the best points of the show right there that NASCAR, when a situation

arises like that, we should possibly think about adjusting and trying to play with it. You know, and that Supercross deal was. was a missed opportunity. But I will give them props because I, you know, realizing the USAC race was at IMS on Wednesday and Thursday, NASCAR did a better job. At least the media, I'll say like Bob. Well, no, no, the media, maybe not NASCAR. Yeah, well, NASCAR posted a little bit.

Like Dale, Dale was, because Carson alleges, eleg traces for Chad. So Dale was there. And I think they posted about that. And there were a few other people, but I will say the media, I mean, I, somebody like who I feel so horrible sometimes when like Chad wins a race or does well, but like you don't really get that. Like it's like the NASCAR home tracks. Nobody really promotes the success of drivers in those series.

And those guys work really hard. And I feel like that's something that they should be working to improve. So I will say I think this weekend, and I'm so glad Chad did really well because I think that like the amount of exposure he received, Brady Bacon received for winning and just USAC as a whole received that they never do. They don't get credit for some of the work that they do. I think that's a great point. And let's also, I'm not, I am a huge fan of NASCAR, obviously, my entire life.

But I give more credit to the people that took their time to attend from the Dale juniors, from the industry people, from the crew people, the drivers, the media people that did obviously cover it because NASCAR reacted to that by posting that, which is a great thing also. But let's give credit where credit is due to the people within our industry that supported that race and for multiple reasons. We all love Brian Closson. A lot of us got to know him from a short track day, some of us, and some of us from when he ran Xfinity series, and he was a great person and one hell of a freaking ferocious racer. But, you know, also give props to Indianapolis

Motor Speedway for doing something very bold right there, putting a permanent facility for a short track, a dirt track within that race. We want to talk about building things onto events that have an overall effect on getting crowds to your races, i.e. the Brickyard 400, possibly, in this case. If we keep on building this, this could become a thing that Indianapolis built and gets more people involved and more people involved in the Brickyard 400. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I couldn't believe the facility. Like, I thought this was going to be like a thrown-up together dirt track. And I'm like, man, they got poured walls. Like, I mean, this is a full deal. Yeah. I wasn't there, but it was crazy. Watching it, the coverage.

NBC Sports had for Friday. I mean, just as somebody that, like, I'll say it again, for Chad, he doesn't really, you don't get that exposure unless you're a NASCAR Supercross because they're such a, it's like a NASCAR home track. Yeah, I mean, the only time of year, it seems like those open wheel guys like your fiance chat boat gets is usually around chili bolt on, it seems. So you're so right. It was, it was really cool to see the entire motorsports industry come together.

Indy car was there. It was awesome. I hope they continue to make it. I think Chad didn't blow it. Oh my gosh. I was like, Chad, thank you so much. He was so close to winning. I know.

I was watching it. Yeah, he was so close. And I think it was just really cool in general. So props. Since Brett and T.J. are both not here. We are going to post their picks for the upcoming race this weekend later this week on Dirty Dirty Mo Media's Twitter. So stay tuned for that one.

We'll see how that goes. And I really, really hope T.J. redeems himself. Yeah. He is, man, a cellar dweller. Got to do something. For a seller dweller, he's sitting there making breakfast, changing diapers, and losing D.C. Hooks.

It changes approach up a little bit. All right. Well, thank you. Like not sucking? Yes, seriously. I mean, that would be a good start. That would be a good place to start. Thank you, Freddie for hop around the show.

Always good. Maybe we'll have, like, all three of them next time. We miss, uh, we, we didn't mention. We miss also Jason Schultz, our producer. Yes. So I had to fill him for him this week. He had to go to class. He couldn't miss out this week, remember?

He's got class. I was going to kick him out. Yeah. So we have just this rotation. Luckily, Casey's our rock and she's become a rock. I actually attend. She's here. You actually attend and super sub.

But hey, we usually do a rant in this part of the show and I know we're not going to. But my man right here wearing the New York garb for his lowly Mets and his whatever giants, it is hockey season coming. So our friendship will stretch a little bit here coming up in my New York Islanders and the New York Rangers. We'll have to come up with a fun bet this year, Freddie. Yeah, we got to like it. And unfortunately, I think we're both going to be fighting for the same position, which is last in the division. We're both going to suck and we're going to suck brilliantly.

Yeah, we'll come up with something pretty good. All right. Well, on that note, thank you guys. Thank you, one main again, for sponsoring the podcast, Exaltus Studio. Always share feedback on Twitter. Love to hear it. And in the words of Brett Griffin. Halla.

Haula. Have a good week, guys. 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 Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.