Door Bumper Clear - 115 - Climax Corner

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

Brett, Casey and Jason are back along with Freddie Kraft, filling in for TJ, to cover Dale Jr.’s performance at Richmond, Ross Chastain’s rise, silly season rumors, Twitter emojis on racecars, Charlotte ROVAL expectations and strange fair food. 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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Ready? Man, that intro You got here. New leader. Watch out for this guy. White flag. Reconna. Hello.

Hello. Clear. Bring on. Free light. Coming to the line. Door. Bumper. Clear.

Woo! Man, that intro sounds new. It's been so long since I heard it. Brett Griffin, Spotter for Clint Boyer, Elliot Sadler, Mait Snyder. We're back in the house coming off a fresh case of strep throat where I thought I might die. I've got our new full-time co-host in the house, Freddie Craft. Freddie, welcome back.

Thanks for having me again. TJ's testing in Kansas and misses yet another show. He misses shows when he feels good. We have our lovely co-host who also was sick last week, which is the real reason we didn't have this show. Clearly. Casey. What is the most important?

I have all of the points. What happens in Nashville? Don't stay in Nashville, apparently. I had a cold, yeah. I did not have strep. I'm so glad I did not because that would suck. The majority of people listening to our show actually work for a living. I work.

I'm not saying that you don't work for a living, but I'm saying they've all been to work at some point sick. And Sunday of the Vegas race, I thought I was going to die. It was 100 degrees. I had 103 fever. My throat every time I swallowed felt like I got hit with a pickax. stabbed in my throat. And I could not wait for that race to end, man.

But we made it through. Freddie, you're on the show and you actually finished a race, man. I can't believe it. You had asked me right before the race started on Saturday if I could come and I said, Oh, God, I got to go home early again. This is going to be terrible. So I made it. One in a row is a streak.

One in a row. We've made it. We've done it now. Well, when TJ asked off next week, we'll see how that goes. When TJ asked off. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we just assume he's off. TJ, can you record Monday at 901?

No, I can't. 930. No, how about Tuesday? And I can't do Tuesdays at all. How about we do Monday at 830? Can't do Monday at 830. It's like, hey, man, when can you fucking record your own show? Watch I can't do it.

And I got a babysit. It's like, okay. Is Joey on the list of tests? Do we still be making sure? I don't know if we confirmed that or no. Who knows where he's got. Hey, I got an idea. Let's have a test in the middle of the playoff and let half the playoff guys go and the other half not go.

That sounds fair. Yeah. Kansas. And there goes your rant. Kansas is an elimination race, I believe, as well, right? I think it's. Yeah. Yeah.

So that sounds awesome. Let's let half the guys that are in the playoff go test at Kansas, see if they can learn more than the other half that aren't there. And maybe they won't have an upper hand when they go back in a month. Can you share? Because not everyone knows this, how you decide who's going to test. This particular test is. what we call an organizational test, which means each team, each organization, rather, can send

one car. I can't help but laugh about that. But so, so basically one or each organization got to send one car. I mean, we saw guys or we see guys like Chris Busher that are there, you know, that aren't in a playoff. And then obviously there's a half dozen playoff guys there. And then there's some other teams that sent guys that are kind of funny. So here's one way they've been able the rules, though, because you say each organization gets to send one car.

Right. Now, you guys, Stuart Hots Racing, have two cars there. Let's be honest. I don't know what you're talking about. Cole Coaster's there. Cole Custer's there. He drives for Rick Ware. Surely Rick Ware, he's got a car prepared to go testing.

You know, you got like Penske's got two cars there. Paul Menard's there in the 21, so that's a... Yeah, but he doesn't drive for Penske. He drives for the Woodbrother. Oh, oh, my best. See, I keep getting that. See, like you guys, you know, Richard Petty Motorsports are on campus at RCR. Yeah.

But you're still Richard Petty Motorsports. Yeah. So you deserve to be able to go test, too. So the Richmond test where Bubba drove the 43 car, if the air quotes at 43 car, that, trying to say that wasn't maybe a, that wouldn't Richard Petty car, maybe you don't think? No. No way. Doesn't count. Does not count.

These rules are bulletproof, Freddie. Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry. I apologize. How do you question them? I have an inquiring mind. He's up to time. It's a great way of putting them.

So, so Casey, you're stressed out. Yeah. You want to tell us what you're stressed out about? I mean, there's just a lot of stuff going on. Stress can make you sick. I can't. Are you stressed about bread socks?

Because they're ridiculous. They're beautiful. I can't. I don't understand. Look at how well they go with my shoes. How do you get your socks to match your legs as well? what I'm going to know. They're the same color white.

This whole thing came together at the last minute. I know that's hard to believe. No, he planned to it last night. Clearly. He laid this stuff out on Tuesday of last week. Well, I walked in my closet, and I saw my white converse, and I was like, wow, I haven't wore these in a while, and it's after Labor Day, and it's about to get where you can't really wear white shoes.

So I'm going to wear these, and then I went to my sock drawer, and I'm like, I'm going to wear these, and then I was like, well, I can't wear a shirt that's not kind of red. Are you going for the. clown look today. That's nice. That's really nice. I pay you nothing but compliments on what you wear and you're going to say I dressed like a clown.

Excuse me. I can recall a few times that we had to edit out where you did not. Well, I can't believe that. Something's happening here. I just like your hat. I mean, if you're going to stick with a hat, that's the one to go with. I like beer. It's a fitting hat.

It works. Dillner gets mad when I wear a white hat. He also, before the show, told us we can't break any news this week on the one exfinity car here at J.R.M. Yeah. So we'll keep that one to ourselves. You're a fun sucker. I know.

He's like, you guys can't break that news. I'm like, I mean, come on. That's what we do. Yeah, I think that. So we know it's going to happen, but we can't say anything.

We've been put under a gag order. So hashtag blame donor. Can I say something? Because I'm only part time here. Can I say? I think I'm part time. Technically. Well, you were.

At this point. Now T.J. is part time. He's working on no time. So basically just tweet at Dillner because we all know, but we can't share. Yeah. So, blame Dillner.

So before we dive into this thing, I just want to say, as a guy who weighs over 200 pounds, I've never been so happy to put on a lightweight jacket in my life as I was at Richmond. We finally have gotten away from this 100 degree summer heat. It was like probably 70 little breezy at night at Richmond. It's good weather now. And it wasn't cold enough for a jacket, but I just wanted to put one on.

Yeah, I went jacketless, but it was nice to not be sweating to death. I also, I saw that you had to wear Clemson colors. Yeah. I love that. Do you think I put that on? I might have been tortuiting him a little bit, but he didn't put that. I'll vouch for the fact that he didn't wear it. I don't wear orange.

Yeah, I'd be a team player. So I called home last week. I'm like, so I left Vegas and flew home all night, sick. Tim Fidawood took care of me on the plane. What a great nurse that guy is. And I land and I go straight to a hotel because I'm like, there's no way I'm making my kids sick of what I got going on. So go to the doctor, call the doctor. keep staying in touch with him because I'm trying to get well.

As y'all well, know, it's not fun to travel and be sick. So I call home and I'm like, hey, the doctor said that I probably should get new toothbrushes. So Claudia's like, okay, I got home. Orange. Threw it straight in the trash. Never checked up. Like, grab the pink one, brush my teeth. Thought, wow, this pink toothbrush is great.

Trashed orange would immediately. Like, who buys me orange? My kids aren't even allowed to wear orange at Halloween. We don't play that. You are, like, is there a reason? We hate Clemson. But orange can stand for all other colors too. No, can't.

No. No. Just Clemson. We hate Clemson. Clearly. Yes. All right. Well, on that note, how was Richmond?

Richmond was not great for me. You know, I expected, Elliot had a really fast practice. Felt like we were going to have a car to contend to win. And we certainly ran top five. for the majority of the night. I think we ended up fifth or sixth. But I thought we were going to be a little bit faster

and have a little better chance to win. With Clint, you know, we were trying some new stuff there and obviously missed it, qualified 25th, forfeited points in the first two stages because of our car not being great and where we qualified. I mean, it's really hard when a race goes green like that to pass 15 cars, 16 cars. It was a struggle.

I mean, I won't lie to you. So we've dug ourselves on a hole a little bit going into this last race. But, you know, the track itself, the tires, I saw guys passing each other making runs. I mean, I saw even guys like Jimmy Johnson, who we've seen struggle drive up through the field a couple times. So I thought I put on a good show. I thought the racing up front was great. You know, you coming and going, Guy, you know, Truex was kind of dominating in their beginning. Got that penalty.

He had to come from the back. I was impressed. He drove up to what third, I think, at the end? Yeah, with a loose wheel. 78 was hauling ass. Uncontrolled tire, rather. Kyle starting last because he ran on the fence and qualifying and coming up and winning the race. Like you said, though, as fast as the 18 was, I don't.

I don't think he got any stage points either because it's just so hard to make up that ground in 100 laps or 200 laps, whatever it was. So, yeah, but I thought the race was great up front. My race was rather boring. I ran like 27th, the whole race. But you finished it. We finished. That's all the matters. Book is scared me to death because we pitted in that second stage about halfway through it.

And we had to unlap ourselves twice. And I was about to have a heart attack. I was like, okay, obviously we're going to unlap ourselves the first time. The second time I'm going, oh, this is going to be so, so. close like everything is going to have to play out perfectly and then I'm like well if it doesn't maybe we'll get the lucky dog but man I'm standing on the roof stressed out I can't imagine being the guy who made the call sitting on the pit box because talk about pressure we did that all night pretty much like to make up ground because to save us from going two laps down on each stage so we

did it for we were like one of the first one to do with the first one made up then other people seen that it worked the first stage yeah try the second stage okay third you know the final stage we come up, we do it, and then damn, Matt Kenseth goes and, I mean, we've tortured the kid to 96 on this show before. He wrecked again, by the way. He didn't wreck again. He got wrecked. Oh, that was Matt wrecked him?

Matt Kenseth wrecked him to get a caution because he was getting a pit road penalty. So the second they said, Matt, you know, commitment line violation, boom, he turns the 96, puts him straight in the fence. That was that caution. And we had just pitted, so we got trapped five laps down. Matt wouldn't do that. Nah, no, I mean, it would look like accident. I seen Jeffrey sat next to be on the plane, and I didn't bring up, I didn't bring

up the time we mentioned him before on this show. But I said, I said, what happened here? I said, you get turned around? He says, man, he just drove straight in my door and turned me in the fence. Jeffrey does, like, UFC stuff. Yeah, he looks like a UFC guy. But he's not very big. No, he's a little guy.

What do you think he weighs? Buck 50? Yeah, 170 times. He might quip my ass, and he might co whip my ass, and he might co-wip your ass, but he can't whip my ass and your ass. He needs that big. Casey, let's go. All right, spot on, spot off.

Dill Jr. leads the most laps when second. stage in the Xfinity race at Richmond, Freddie? Spot on. You know, obviously he did a great job. It was kind of better than I expected. He knew he was going to qualify up front because he was one of the only ones to each of the first two rounds of qualifying. He only ran one lap and was able to transfer. So he had the best tires going in the last round.

Qualified second. Started up front. You know, ran up front all day. Took the lead there. That final stage was leading a bunch. I looked at Doug was standing next to me, Campbell, spots for one of BJ McClaught's car, I was about for 95 on Sunday. I said a bomb's going to have to go off in this place to get a caution here

because he's out front by his straightaway. And sure enough, the damn 15 just goes up and kind of hits the wall a little bit. Not bad, and the yellow's out. I'm like, I can't believe they threw that caution. But obviously, spot off for Junior. Good to see him back. Good to see he hasn't lost that old form. And he did a hell of a job.

Spot off. How do you lead to most laps, win the second stage and not win the race? Come on, man. Like, you got the best car. You're the best driver. No, I'm just kidding. He actually lost the race off pit road, and I think that threw him for a little bit of a loop. And on that restart where he lost it, I think I looked up and he came off after the restarted

and around 5th, and at that point, it's lights out. If you aren't in the top three or four on a restart, you don't have any chance to win at a place like Richmond. But it was awesome to see him back in a car, him doing well, him smiling, fans appreciating it. And I think the coolest part is, you know, he's out there leading. the race and you think he's going to win and you go, well, what are they going to do now? Like, what's going to happen if Dell Jr. wins this race? And I'm not thinking about it from the formality standpoint because obviously he's going to spray beer and celebrate.

Right. But like are people going to be like, he shouldn't have retired. He's got to come back and run some more. Well, I feel like people said that already. Like I said it. I was like, can you come back again? Like, I missed him. And I talked to him a few weeks ago.

And there were a few places where he said he was willing to run next year, you know, places like Darlington. you know, obviously Richmond, Martinsville, some of them that maybe aren't so rough, you know, that bounce your freaking death. But I just was sitting there watching this going, man, if he wins, what happens next? Like, is this the deal where you go, hey, I'm officially not ever racing again in the top three series because I'm leaving here a winner? But it didn't happen.

So unfortunately, the Cinderella story didn't end. I was worried about one guy in the last 50 laps of this race who was Daniel Hemrick. Because I was thinking he was getting ready to ruin his career. Because he's running junior down. Right. He's catching him. He's never won a race before. What are you going to do now?

You need to get the next, you know, you got the roval coming up. You need to get to the next round. Right. Are you going to move junior out of the way to win this race and ruin your entire career? I feel like, anybody that was around him was like, all right, what do I do? And the cool part is, isn't Daniel from Canapolis? Yeah, he's in Canap. The home of Del Earnhardt.

There's a statue, the intimidators, Del Earnhardt way. So I really was sitting there looking at that too, thinking how cool is it that a kid from Canapolis is catching the intimidation. The intimidating son, the intimidator Jr. You know, but it didn't play out. No. So he just has to come back, like, a few more races. Yeah.

Done. It was cool to see him out there. Sign him up. Done. All right, spot on, spot off. Ross Chastings, three race run in the 42 Exfinity car, Brett. I spot off for it being over. I know.

Like, I mean, I look at this guy, and he won the first four stages that he ever competed. You know, he goes out, win stage one of Darlington, win. stage two at Darlington, wrecks himself with Kevin Harvick, which we've already spoke to on this show about he was going to run top three that day. It goes out in the next race, wins stage one, when stage two, wins the race, comes out at Richmond, qualifies decent, runs well, finishes top three, didn't he finish third? Yeah. I mean, how can you, for me, as a fan, you know, if I take my spotter hat off and my manager hat off and my marketing guy had off, As a fan, this guy is the biggest news of the year across all three series.

Who the hell thought Ross Chastain was going to come out and go from Clark Kent to Superman? I mean, literally, he gets out of a car that is a 25th place car every week, gets into a car that can contend that, oh, by the way, Larson hadn't done this all year in this car, Neimancheck hadn't done this all year in this car. Ross Chastain looked the best of anybody all year long in this 42 Xfinity car. Jamie McMurray's run this car some. Nobody has done what this kid has done. So for me to sit here and watch it 100% spot on,

I'm really glad from Elias Sadler and Brett Griffin and the one team standpoint that he's not in this 42 Xfinity car for the rest of the playoff because I think he becomes the immediate favorite if he is. Yeah, spot on for sure. I think I tweet about this the other night. Like watching the truck race at Vegas. Yeah. He drove that 15 truck, premium motorsports.

Who? Yes, exactly. Like, nowhere near the equipment. I even text Tommy Baldwin during the race because he was up there. I mean, he finished seventh or eighth through attrition. But, like, in the middle part of that race, he was running eighth or ninth up in the top ten. And I had text Tommy. I said, man, this kid's driving his ass off.

Like, he's doing a hell of a job. And Tommy's like, that truck is 12 years old. 12. He's like, and that doesn't sound like it's that old to, like, maybe the layman. But that is, like, ancient history in our world. You know what I mean? So he performed that night, goes out the next day, you know, wins the race, wins the Xfinity race, made me look good on the Twitter. But so, like we were talking about this year today.

Like, basically these three races are going to propel him, I think, to the next round. I was just like to ask that. Do you think he has enough now? He jumped from last in the chase, going in the chase to where do you start, fifth or sixth in points, just on the, you know, the stage wins, bonus points. He jumped like five or six guys in the points. Has a good run this week. He gets bonus points. he's probably, I don't know, fourth or fifth in points right now.

And he's just really got to maintain that with Johnny Davis stuff, which, Roval, anything could happen. And in Dover, he can, he's capable of running in top 15 at Dover and that stuff. So, I mean, that's going to get him to the next round. Now after that, he's probably going to take a tumble. But, you know, like Brett said, it's just, it's probably a good thing for everybody in this building that he's not going to be in this car, the rest of the playoffs. So let me ask you this.

Going into next year with all the silly season stuff, what do you think the odds are of him going to another team? I think Del Jr. said it best. I mean, it'll be a real shame if he isn't in a top-notch car. I mean, I'm going to say something that sounds profound, but they've announced McMurray's out of the one. Right. You know, everybody has rumored Kurt Busch to go into the one.

But, you know, Kurt Busch is over 40 years old. Guys accomplished a lot as a race car driver. It can certainly help an organization. But this guy has got his hand up in the air saying, pick me. Not only at Ganassi, but at any other race car. ride that's available. I mean, I don't know how you can, it's a damn travesty if Ross Chastain doesn't get a full-time competitive ride in one of the top three series. And we see this model where we have, you know, NASCAR executives going on the record saying we don't have a sponsorship

problem. Let me tell you something. If this kid can't get a full-time ride, it's because we have a sponsorship problem. Because he certainly warrants the opportunity to go out and go out and compete at a high level. I mean, I'm telling you, for me, as a guy that's not an end of five, set, I'm not an industry person. This is the biggest surprise of the year. He didn't go out and do good at tracks that are easy with no guys there. I mean, he went out at Darlington. They don't get any freaking harder. You know, Richmond, that's a hard racetrack. Vegas. And it's not only... I got no cup guys that can't drive Vegas. I mean, it's not only the 42 car. I mean, he gets the most...

out of that Johnny Davis car when he drives it. He runs it better than it should be. He gets the most at it. I mean, you don't ever see him on Sunday, but he drives the 15 car. Like he's got some sense. A lap or two lap better than anybody else that's ever been in it. And he gets you hard and that's his job. You know, that's why he's in the position he's in.

But, like, he gets the most out of everything he gets into. I don't know Ross Chastain. I know he's a watermelon farmer. I know Pageland South Carolina is a watermelon capital of the world. So I know he's heard of that. He's a really good. like genuine guy. Yep.

He's always been great to work with. So the story that I heard is that, you know, he drives a motor home for a marketing company when he's not, you know, doing other things that he does. And through this marketing company, he met the president of D.C. Solar because he's been driving his bus around some. And I don't know if this is true or not, but he's been driving this bus around some meets his president. And all of a sudden the president's like, hey, man, we've got a couple races for sale at

Ganasi. Why don't we put you in it and give you a shot? Pam. Like, holy cow. How many Ross Chastain's are there in this world? That's what I was supposed to say. If you look at the rest of the sport now, I mean, if any of these other guys that maybe are running 15, 20 and back,

where they get a shot. There's a lot of guys running on Daddy's money that we could move aside and put these guys in the car and see a hell of a lot better show. This is, I'm blown away by what that kid accomplished in three weeks. And you could tell his personality by, where was it Vegas, where, I mean, it wasn't very smart on his part, but he did it because it was somebody that he looked eye to eye with, was letting Ryan Priest back on or giving Ryan Priest a lap back.

Right. And as crew chief got on him, we've seen a couple of tweets of their radio communication. The crew's like, hey, that's no more of that. You know, we're going to end up racing this guy, which Ryan got the lucky dog, the next caution, and was up there racing again. Yeah. But Ross said, hey, man, that's a guy just like me. I'm trying to help him out.

You know what I mean? So it just goes to show you what kind of kitty is also. Yeah. Again, I don't know him, but holy cow. Yeah. Give him a shot. Cool. Newman to Rouch in 2019, as well as other silly Cee.

and rumors heating up. Spot on, spot off, Freddie? Spot on for silly season. It gives us something to talk about for sure. Newman, I don't know. I'm kind of affiliated with the RCR deal over there, and the ship's starting to turn around. So I don't know the timing of jumping. I don't know with the details if he had an option to come back there or if he's just kind of taking the money and running right now. But, you know, spot on for Ryan getting a ride. He's got a place to go. There's going to be some guys that are left holding their hat at the end of the year. So he's got a spot he's got a good landing spot they'll be fast at plate races uh you know i haven't seen much

turn around over there since i was there a couple years ago but you know good for ryan and uh obviously silly season hitting up gives us something to chat about spot off i'm saying spot off on everything today uh you're leaving rcr to go to uh roush so when i when i look at guys who make moves they make moves to better themselves and you better yourself either from a performance standpoint or a financial standpoint i'm not sure either one of those is going to be better i mean i really look at this is a parallel move at best. But there's also some sponsorship rumors around Gander coming back into the sport and playing a role there.

And, you know, if that ends up being on Newman's car, that's a great fit. We know he's a big outdoorsman. I'm just surprised, you know. I mean, we look at Matt and Trevor have been swapping that ride back and forth. You can't really tell who's in it and who's not in it, which we didn't necessarily see coming. So I don't know what Newman's expectations are, but there's a lot of silly season stuff heating up.

I mean, we're hearing that Priests deal with JTG is going to be. official very soon as soon as this week. Who else? What's here? Daniel Suarez has got to go somewhere. Right. That's going to be the 31 or 41, depending on what plays out with those scenarios. We've heard Hemrick's name a lot of places in the Cup series, which I think he's

somewhat deserving of. I mean, you want to see guys win races at the series they're in before they move up, but guess who else didn't do that? Jimmy Johnson. Turns out he's all right. So a lot of silly season stuff still to play out. Who's to the 95? You know, two months ago, man, if they don't hire Jamie McMurray, they're crazy.

But I'm hearing guys like Dibbendetto and I'm sorry if I can't say your name. But that's a lot of consonants and vowels. Close. Yeah, good job there. It's close. Benadetto. Yeah. Matt D.

Yeah. He brito, isn't that what he called? Yeah. It's a burrito. Hearing that name, you know, I think Gibbs and those guys are working hard on Alliance together to fill the lawyer of this. 78, you know, leaving the Toyota camp or being forced out of the Toyota camp, depending on which store you believe. So I think Gibbs is probably going to have a lot of saying who that driver ultimately isn't. And we got to say, I mean, common sense, Freddie, this 95 car,

if it's going to be a Toyota, it's only going to need a driver for a year because Christopher Bell already needs a place to go. I would put him in the 95 car tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I don't know what the hesitation is on Toyota's part to keep him in. I mean, obviously, you want to continue to get better in the Xfinity series. He's going to win. He's going to contend for championships. He's probably between him and Justin right now, I'd call the favorite for the, you know, Exfinity Championship this year. But like, you know, there's other Toyota guys. Like you said, you know, there's a guy, Brett Moffitt that's doing really well in the truck that obviously doesn't have anything lined up next year. He could slide in that 95 for year and see what he has.

But like you said, it's kind of just a rental until Christopher's ready. And if this, if this deal is going to go to Toyota and kind of come under the Gibbs umbrella, I think that's obviously the next landing spot for Christopher. But what about 41? I mean, in-house. over there. You know, no thoughts on that one? Man, I'll be honest with you. You know, I looked at the roster the other day and I said, okay. And I'm not a big hire, recycle guys at this point because, you know, the, it's all

about objectives, right? Like the 95 car for me, if I'm looking at their business model, it is get this established, get it consistent. Let's not push Christopher Bell in a place to fail, right? Let's do all these things that we want to do to this program. get it to where it can consistently run top 15, top 18, and then put him in there, right? Then we can assess how well is Christopher Bell compared to our equipment. You know, when I look at the 41, the 41 isn't a development car.

It's not a car that they're going to put out there just to go out and log laps. Now, it is a playoff car. It's a championship car. You look at Kurt Bush last year, Wednesday, Daytona 500, playoff contender this year. You know, he's won a race, one Bristol, playoff car. like Gene Haas doesn't do what he does to bring a guy in that's not a playoff caliber driver. I think if I were going to go out and get a guy and he weren't, you know, in the full-time Cup series right now, I would probably go get a guy like Brett Moffitt because I think you could

get him fairly inexpensive. I think he can drive the hell of a race car. He does have some cup experience when he drove for MWR. He did some really good things there at tough places like Atlanta. He would be a guy that I would look at. You know, from a pure momentum standpoint, Justin Algeyer. I mean, here's a guy that's won five races in Xfinity this year. I still see him race dumb sometimes, though.

Saw him do it this weekend. Go four wide in the corner and turn three at Richmond where there's not room. You know, be racing for seventh and race the dog shit out of a guy that's caught you from a straightaway back three times. Like, for me, there's still some things that has to click common sense-wise. But you know what, man, maybe he's Robbie Gordon. Maybe he's Ryan Newman. Maybe he hangs his hat on being, I'm really tough to pass all the time, no matter. whether it's for position or not with 50 to go or 100 to go or halfway through the race.

But I would say those two guys outside of the full-time cup drivers catch my eye. I think money plays a big deal nowadays, like more so now than it has in the past. And that's why some of these younger guys are getting opportunities. Like you look at the one car and you got Kurt Busch sitting there who's obviously going to command probably, what do you think, quadruple the payroll that Ross Chastain would command? 100%. Now are you going to get quadruple the performance out of Kurt Busch versus Ross Chastain? Are you going to put him in the car, and is he going to win races versus Ross running 15th?

You know what I mean? Yeah, but we don't know now. Yeah, like, you don't know. Like, I just think money is playing a much bigger issue now for these teams salary-wise on the drivers than it has in the past where now they have to look at that. And I think that's kind of one of the reasons why Ryan Preece has got an opportunity over some of the guys that are there making more money. So, you know, I think like they look at it like, we can put Ryan in there, save money and get the same exact results, if not better than what we're getting right now. So I think money is also playing a part now to where, you know, these guys have to make a decision on that. Yeah.

Tell Jr. said these guys are making too much money anyway. Well, I'm sure he did. Now that he's retired. Hey, I'm retiring. These guys make too much money. See you on. Brilliant. There's been a lot of talk on this one.

Twitter emojis on the car. Spot on. Spot on. How are you going to go spot off for this one? What? He's just trying to be difficult. These big square boxes look awesome on these paint schemes. You know, they're right behind our A post or right under our A post.

Man, whoever designed these did a phenomenal job of making them stick out like a sore thumb. I think you like beer too much. God. No, honestly, you know, the contingency program that NASCAR has in place allows teams to be paid. So if you run that sticker that says you're, you know, F and F. Freddy's poll award, you're going to get, you know, $1,000 when your team wins it. Wow, $1,000. Hey, like that pays for so much around here these days.

So what NASCAR has done to the teams that says, hey, we're going to give you this space back. So this is the team's attempt to go out and value that space. So they put these stupid little five-by-five boxes or whatever they are to figure out what this space is actually worth. so that when they go as an organization or as a RTA or whatever it is they're doing, it gives them an opportunity to monetize it in addition to whatever value they're going to bring from an organizational standpoint. So as ugly as they are on the car, and I agree they're ugly, it could be a really big positive for the team, so I'm spot on.

I think I'm obviously spot off on the way they look. They look so like I think it was juniors now. The last way that I heard that, like they look ridiculous. Some of them, you know, you've got a yellow car, black stripes, white box. Right in front. And I'm like, if all you got to do is, I mean, just leave it up to the teams. Like, yeah, we need you to have this logo here. Right.

However you want to do it. Like, just make, you know, make sure the logo sticks out, whatever you want to do. But just have a little bit of sense about the branding, the way it looks. And then, like, I don't understand. I understand the playoff guys running the logo. Like, their logos are, you know, you're going to draw attention. But the non-playoff guys having to run the Twitter logo. Like, why not just run their logo?

I feel like they could have done more. I don't understand why we just have this giant, like our car has a giant Twitter logo on the side of it. We had the Williams sister the other day and the umpire screaming at each other. And so we're all at a restaurant or we're at a bar after the fact. And we're talking about women's tennis. And we're talking about a tennis player screaming at an umpire. The fact that all that happened created a conversation. And Madonna said it best.

Bad publicity is still publicity. even though this is ugly and even though we don't all necessarily agree that it's the thing to do we're all talking about it and that's what we need to be able to monetize this space so do i think that go went go is the big truck that it's best funny yes do i think hashtag for the cup is funny do i think all these things amar rolling like i see i see all these things And I'm like, what? But it created conversation. Jason's in PR school.

PR is positive conversation. And it's ugly, but it's still conversation. Am I rolling. What? Do you remind Clint, go Clint Go during the race? Yeah, do you say that? Go, Clint, go, go, Charlie the green. Can that be on our new intro?

Oh my gosh. Goodness. It's like, let's let their kids design these things. I mean, it looks like like, you know, the contest used to have like, all right, let's draw up a paint. The little kids draw the paint scheme up. Yeah. All right, there you go. How about it?

Blaney's looks nothing like him. He looks like a dude from Dodgeball. Yeah. What is his hashtag? No idea. Yeah. Oh, well. I guess that's part of the problem, too.

Yeah. Austin Dillon's logo looks awesome on there. His don't look bad on a white car. I mean, it's a white car. At least it looks like, I mean, I don't know, whatever. They could have done a better job. All right. Before we take a break, we lost another incredible member of the racing community.

So I want to take a moment of silence for Greg Hodnet. This is your Exalt the Race Center update. I'm Matthew Dillner. NASCAR had quite the weekend at the newly renovated Richmond Raceway. On Friday night, the Xfinity series got its playoff started in grand fashion. Dale Earnhardt Jr. returned to action and led the most laps, but it was Christopher Bell who took the win and locked himself into the next round of the playoffs. As far as Junior Motorsports, Dale Jr. finished fourth, Elliot Sather 6th, Tyler Reddick 7th, Michael Annette, 14th, and Justin Algeyer, who got caught up in a wreck, came home 32nd. In cup action on Saturday night, Kyle Bush punched his ticket into round two of the playoffs.

The Las Vegas native wrestled the lead from Brad Keselowski and held off Kevin Harvick to take the The Junior Motorsports late model team has one of the biggest races of their season this Saturday. Josh Berry, Sam Mayer, and a huge field of late models will go 300 laps at Martinsville Speedway. Fans can watch the race streamed live on fans' choice. TV. This weekend, the Xfinity and Cup series tackle one of the sports biggest challenges, the debut of the Roval course at North Carolina's Charlotte Motor Speedway. 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 Exalta, please visit ExaltacS.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. All right. We are back. All three of us came back. We're all still here. The record.

I'll give these guys 30 seconds to answer their questions and better get that dinner ready. Why? Ready. I'm not going to have to talk. on this one. The 60 Roush Xfinity car crashed again on Friday night.

Have you guys ever seen a car crash as much as that car has the season? Which car? The 60. The 60 Roush Xfinity car? I honestly think the Virgin Mary could come spot for this car. Jesus Christ could drive it

and it would still find a way to hit the wall. I have never seen a car hit so many things in all of my life. I don't know how many races we've run, but I bet this car has wrecked in over 80% of them. Yeah. It doesn't matter if Briscoe's in it, Majeski's in it, Cendrix in it, Freddie Kraft, Brett Griffin, Jason Schultz, Casey Hames.

It doesn't matter who's driving this car. It wrecks, of all the people out there, I've never seen a car wrecked this. That's why I said to get the digger for this question. I mean, you can't argue with it. Bubba texts me during the race and just said every week. Like this was last week. You know what I mean?

Like it's literally, I think we looked up, I showed you a picture today, and I forgot to send you a Jason to screw that up. But it was like 23 wrecks this year, and we've won what, 26 races or like 23 crashes or like 23 spins, something like that. And it's incredible.

And I got to ask you, we'll get back to you here now. Like how much of this do you think is three young hungry guys driving this race car that are just maybe driving over their heads trying to outdo the other one and just crashing. I don't think it matters.

It really is like John West Townley and Stephen Wallace decided to have a baby and put them in the car and let them drive. And no matter what happens, we know what's going to happen. They're going to crash. They crash every single. I wouldn't fly with these people on an airplane to save my life because I don't like flying and I damn sure don't like crashing. It's not bad enough. They've crashed every week. This week, their teammate wrecked them.

I mean, just out and wrecked them down the back straight away. I don't, this should be the fastest car in the series because every week they got a new car. We all want to build new cars, lightweight cars. They can't build these damn things fast enough. I feel bad for the guys on this team. They have to literally look at each other every Monday morning and just go, we need tequila. Because how can they do this every week? I'm exhausted and I'm just, why?

We all look on the spotter staying going, damn, that fool would unwrecked again. I don't know. I feel bad for them. I feel bad for them. If anybody deserves to have their dinner bought at the end of the year and a round of drinks, it's whoever has buckled into this car all year. NASCAR. God bless.

I think I'd buy the drinks for the crew guys. I don't know the driver's been wrecked them. Can we all donate to the cars? We've got new safety equipment. Let's put it on the 60 this week and see how it works. Let's test it out. All right, heading into the elimination race at Charlotte, Clint Boyer, Jimmy Johnson, Eric Jones, and Denny Hamlin are below the cutoff line. Which four drivers do you think will be eliminated after Sunday? Freddie.

So I'm going to kind of stick with the guys I picked last week, or last time I was on the show, we picked four of a million donor, and kind of switch up a little bit. I'm still going Jimmy Johnson out. I don't think they're going to make up enough ground this week. I don't think Danny has the speed lately or anything like that to make up ground this week. So I think he's out. I think Austin Dillon is going to be out this week, even though he's safe right now. And it'll be a toss-up, I think, between Eric Jones and Alex Bowman. Either one of them could wreck at any point. So between those two, a fourth one.

Well, I thought Jason was going to have a list for us to look through. There should be. For me, too. Well, we know there should be, Jason. Yeah, there is. There's standings right next to DVC picks. Oh, yeah, look at that. Calling him out.

He's got to keep flipping. Jason, you did a phenomenal job once again on this show and this show sheet. Thank you. I'm glad to see that our training is played off. I like a better design than the Derva for the show show show show show. T.J. made it to like make it fun. I'm like, all right, I put the logo on. That's it?

I'll work on it. So Boyer, Johnson, Jones, Hamlin are out. Jones and Hamlin are in must-win situations, period. They're not going to leapfrog enough people. I mean, it's possible to go and potentially make up points, but you're not going to make up enough points to go from 16th to 12th. I don't see that happening unless we have catastrophic wrecks, which, oh, by the way, that may happen.

Austin Dillon, Alex Bowman, Ryan Blaney, Clint Boyer, Jimmy Johnson. Wow. I think Jimmy's in. I think Clint's in. I think Bowman's out. I think Dylan's out. The problem is it's Charlotte and it's a roble, so you have no clue who's going to do well. Yeah.

Yeah, I misspoke. I was talking about Dylan and Boyer, not Dylan and Jones. So yeah, Dylan Jones or Hamlin are out. I'm sorry. Yeah. Hamlin Jones, Dylan, and Bowman are out. It's a lot of names. A lot of names.

Yeah. Which I think I got three out of the four last week. I just missed Denny. I kind of assumed Denny was going to do a little better than that. But I think Dillner did pick Denny to fall out in the first round. So he's the man. Yeah. He also picked Blaine.

He said he cut it out of the show conveniently or maybe you did. Yeah, let's talk non-a-law. Let's talk about that. So he conveniently like. Yeah, he told me to take it out. Yeah, I'm sure he did. He was ready to jump on me because we were picking guys that didn't make it over surprises. And he's like, I said, I don't know.

I can't really think anybody, Menard, whoever I picked, I think Stenhouse. He's like, I got one. It's Ryan Blaney. And I'm like, well, that's a good one. Oh, yeah, I remember right now. He might be in. I'm pretty sure. I'm fairly confident he's made it.

Pretty sure he's there. So, yeah, we'll bounce on him for that. Even though he picked Danny, he did pick Blaney to be out. So whatever. He actually picked the fact that Blaney wasn't even ever in. I'm surprised Blaney wasn't in. And if you're all like, well, hey, I'll give him credit. That would have been a surprise because he was like 60 points.

So if he would have missed it, that would have been really big news. Yeah. The Charlotte Roeville makes its debut this weekend. What are you guys expecting to see in both races, Brett? A shisho. For you fans, turn one is extremely narrow. It's going to be very hairy. on starts and on the restarts.

We're not coming to the green on the road course. We're coming to the green on the oval, which means that you can potentially carry more speed getting into turn one on a restart if you're starting midpack or back further than you would under green because we're going to skip that last chicane because you could, I guess, do it,

but we're not going to. So I think turn one is a big challenge. I think turns three presented a ton of problems. Even Jason's video. Viral. Viral. Jason went viral. Jason Schultz went viral with a video that he shot of.

Who reckoned Bowler? Eric Jones. And that's an off-cambored three, four, and five are kind of weird corners. So I think that the road course creates a lot of challenges, and we still haven't seen them all. Even though they've been out there misogynum, they were misogynum based on us running one car at the time. Not all of us being out there together. Right. Yeah.

The Xfinity race, I think. is going to be a mess. They haven't tested there. They have a day on Thursday where it's an optional test. And I think everybody's going to test. Like, John, I work for Johnny Davis and he's going to go test. So that kind of shows you that everybody's going to test. But that race with them guys not being out there, and they wreck a lot as it is now.

The poor guys in the 60, I mean, they'll probably win this some just because we're talking about it. But, I mean, God, they got no shot there. I hope they do at this way. I mean, 60 and goes up from four chances to wreck. to 16. But, I mean, the cup guys, even the cup guys, though, like, we wrecked, we ran, we tested, we wrecked 30 minutes into the hour into the test.

Like, there's everybody, Truex, like any cup driver that's been over there has wrecked. Like, it's so, we'll see. It's just a different setup, man. It's such a narrow track and there's nowhere to go if you run off. So we'll see, but I think Shisho is on point. Now you say, okay, so we bought partial road course, partial oval. who do you think might be somewhat okay? I think your normal fast cars are going to go fast.

Yeah. You know, in the Cup Series, it's going to be your typical guys that you see run well at Watkins Glen are going to run well there. You know, it's not Sonoma. Sonoma is a very slow, a lot of elevation changes, very technical road course. Watkins Glen is the exact opposite. Very fast, very out of control. Cars hung out every single corner.

You know, you're going around that carousel wide open. You're, you know, carrying a ton of speed in a turn one. Like it's going to be more of that, I think, than it is, you know, a Sonoma-style racetrack. So when you see guys who run well at Watkins Glen, they're going to run well at the level. I think to Freddie's point, the Xfinity series, you know, there's going to be 10 or 12 cars that are really good and everybody else is going to be really, really bad. I think that creates problems when some of these places get so, so narrow. You know, turn one, I look at it from a design standpoint and I'm like, this is a design flaw. There's no way they meant to make this look this way.

and yet it does. So a lot of problem areas, and we again have seen these guys wreck, and they haven't even started racing one another yet. So a lot of unknowns for sure. Like I think there's nowhere to pass. So, I mean, it's going to be a mess. Like, because guys are going to, especially guys that are down there. We just talked about the guys that are playoff cut line.

There's guys that are within four or five points of each other. So, I mean, it's going to be a lot of moving a guy, a lot. And when you move a guy, there's nowhere for him to go all. so it wrecks. He comes back on the track, causes a 47 car pile up. You can be a complete moron coming to the green at this racetrack. If you're sitting there, and here's the thing, we're going to all know where we stand on the playoffs. We have fan visions.

The fan visions tell us as we run exactly where we're scored in this playoff. I knew when I finished the Richmond race, you know, that we had four points out. I was screaming at Clint to wreck Brazziske and get that point because Brad's already won a race. He's already transferred. He's raced in us like a butthole with 10 to go. Do you tell your drivers? Like, would you, like, would you tell them like, hey, this is where you are in the standings? Absolutely.

You're going to have to tell them. And if you're sitting there and you're Alex Bowman and Kevin Hamlin or his crew chief comes over the radio and says, hey, Bowman, coming to the green, your five points out. Good luck. Like, it's, you literally hate to see that happen because you're asking your driver to go out and be a complete idiot. But you're also asking him for all your sponsors and all your hundreds of employees back at Hendrick and all the families. and all the families that are associated with it and all your fans, you're saying, I don't care how you get it done, go get it done.

And at some tracks, you would look at that and go, it's impossible. Here? It's not. Well, we saw it. I was in the middle of this two years ago, or three years ago, Kevin Harvick, Talladega cutoff race, has blown up. He is blowing up.

It's a green-white checker. He's not going to finish the race. And I was right behind him. And the first restart, they said, all right, you know what? We're not going to, you know, it is what it is. We're going to take it. They move out of the way. Let us all go. We read the field wrecks. We got to have another restart. Well, they realize on that wreck, on that, when they read, looking at a fan vision or looking at their, you know, laptop, they're, they are going to be out. They're going to be out by two points if that same scenario plays out. So what they do, now they go back up to where they're supposed to restart.

They restart the race. We go around him. He hangs her right, wrecks me, wrecks a whole field. Now they may, they end up making it into the chase because he just wrecked the whole field and beat all them guys that are wrecked. So, I mean, they're obviously paying attention to it, and guys are going to do what they have to do to transfer to that next round, and it's going to turn into a miss. Regardless of what you think, I mean, Freddie, you were spotting for Trevor Bain then.

And Harvick wrecked Trevor Bain coming to the Green of Talladega. That's on record, right? And it put Harvick into the playoff. Regardless of what you think, the guy strapped into that seat, the guy putting that helmet on, his job is to get him and his team into the next round. And it's a lot of pressure on him,

It's a lot of pressure on his crew chief. And that turn one at Charlotte opens itself up for a complete mess. Heartburn turn. Heartburn turn. Heartburn turn. Heartburn turn. Are you serious? Are you serious?

Are you serious? Are you serious? Oh, my God. Can we get any more country than that? The Tom's heartburn turn. Here we are live. Charlotte Motor Speedway at the Roval. They should have sold one of goodies because there's going to be a goodies.

I thought there was like, I thought it was something else corner. Calamity? Yeah, that's the unofficial No, that was this week, Climax Corner. Climax Corner. I thought we had a Climax Corner. That was Turn 4 Richmond this week.

It was Climax Corner. Is he going to designate one this weekend? What a great place to sit. I mean, you always want to come to Climax Corner. You can get Tums down here and you can get Climax down here. What a great. That's why you come to the racetrack. Right there.

You can get it off. I'm not going to lie. I have to work the race this weekend, and I am making no plans because I feel like this race is going to last five hours long. I want a shirt that says Climax Corner. With on the back, it says, Tom's a heartburn. I figured you say, meet me here. You work with your track. Go ahead, you said.

I got nothing. All right. Off the wall topic. The Iowa State Fair is selling cookie dough spaghetti and meatballs with cookie dough noodles. I'm not going to lie, I need this. A chocolate meatball and a strawberry red sauce as well. Would you eat this and what is your favorite strange fair food? This sounds awful.

I mean, I'm not a big sweets guy. I think I've talked about that. But this is disgusting. But I mean, a lot of fair food is disgusting. We used to Arker racing, we used to go to the DeKoin track and Springfield State Fair. And that was all the same thing. And they got, if you can think of anything, they can do. bread and deep fry, they've got it.

Like, I think I had deep fried butter one time. Like, it was disgusting. Deep fried bacon, like, Oreos, Oreos are good now, Reese's. But, like, this stuff here just sounds terrible. Oh, I think it's great, honestly. And I'm not a big fair guy. I don't trust those rides.

We're talking about the food, not the rice. Oh, I like cream brule. They have cream brule? Does I have anything to do with the question that was just asked? They probably got deep fried cream brule somewhere. I love cream brule. I don't like sweets. cookie, though, is so good.

I like pound cake. I like German chocolate cake. I like cream cherry pie, and I like cream roulet. I was at Eldora this weekend, and I must say they had some great fair food. Steak on a stick. The best fair food ever is at the monster truck pool thing that they do. You know what I'm talking about? That tractor pool thing that they do in Ohio.

Oh, the tractor pull in Ohio is phenomenal foods. All those food vendors, same thing. It's probably the same place. They're both in Ohio. They got cheese curts. Man, I tear some cheese curds now. I ain't big on all this other stuff you mentioned here, though, Jason. I will take it because I love cookie dough.

I'll eat the whole thing of cookie dough. Cookie dough. I thought that was like, give you the worms. They gave you the worms. They'll give you worms. No, they have edible cookie dough. Oh, does that give me worms? I guess I don't have my egg dough.

My friend Morgan talked. me how to do a cookie skillet. So we... I'm coming over. It's so good. I always eat the rest of the cookie, though, because you can't take the whole tube. So that's basically in my wedding diet, just so you know. Perfect.

Is that helping your stress level that you're not telling us about? Being secretive. Ask DVC. We're here for you. We're here for you. What's that lady that helps people? Dr. Ruth? That's a different...

That's a whole... That's a whole thing. That's about stress relief. Dr. Phil? Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil. Climax Corner Relief. Yes.

Dr. Ruth is all about Climax Corner. I'm pretty sure that's Dr. Ruth. No, that's not. We're cool. We're Dr. Phil for you. Thank you. You guys are here. I appreciate it.

Could you imagine if your first name was Phil and your last name was D's? I thought T.J. was off today. Yeah, I know. Because he showed up anyway. One of my best friends' last name's D's. D's. Seriously. I know.

All right. DBC. First question. Dear God. We're back. All right. It's been a few weeks off. Yeah, clearly.

Tom Berlin 58 asks, who will be the next driver to win 50 races, not named Kevin Harvick? Got Hamlin with 31, Kurt with 30, Kislauski of 27, Lugano, and Truex tied for 19.

Thoughts. Man, I thought Lugano was going to be the guy. He got the Penske and set the world on fire, you know, after kind of struggling at Gibbs in a car that won a lot of races with Tony Stewart and the championship of Tony Stewart. And then we saw him fade and got a huge second win when he got to Penske. He went and signed this big seven-year contract and hasn't won as many races since then.

You know, from a pure age standpoint, we know that Kurt Busch is out. We know that Danny Hamlin's getting close to being out. Truex went on a tear in the 78 car. Very unpredictable what he'll do when he's. he gets to Gibbs because the car that he's getting in hasn't won a race in some time, really, since Matt won at Phoenix almost two full years ago. So, you know, it takes a combination. You know, fast cars go fast. I've always said that. But it takes a guy who can call a good race, a guy that can drive a good race, a spotter that can spot a good race. But of these guys,

Lugano is the youngest, and therefore I would say he has the best chance, but he's got to get back hot. Yeah, I'm taking a guy not on the list I'm going Carl Larson I don't think any of these guys get to 50 Just age alone I think when these guys start to retire I think Carl Arson's going to start to dominate The only thing that can prevent him from getting the 50 wins

Is the World Outlaw Series What's he going to leave NASCAR to go run that And especially with this new package coming in That we've been talking about for a couple weeks now Yeah So I would say Kyle Larson is your best bet to get to 50 next Just based on this list here in front of us with the ages of these guys.

I don't think anybody, I mean, that's a lot of races for some. That's 20, 30 races. Maybe Danny can get there if we run short tracks all the time. But I say just on town alone and where the sports going, I think Kyle's going to start picking off five, six a year here pretty soon. And if he stays around long enough, he can get to 50. You know, that new package caught a lot of rumors this weekend at the track. You know, Freddie and I were talking about it.

There was a rumor that we were going to run a partial plate package, you know, the All-Star package. What do they call it, the high-down-down-field? The Air Force package. Basically, the tall, real spoil the package. Well, apparently when they voted on this package, some of the owners stood up and said, we don't want to have to build two cars.

So it now appears that the package is trending toward being everywhere next year. That when we get to Richmond, we'll have a big spoiler. You know, when we get to Martinsville, we'll have a big spoiler. They'll change how much horsepower, you know, they're allowing or not allowing, depending on where we're at.

But based on the way it's trending as of this week, and look, this changes all the time. It's a moving target. But there's a lot more rumors around us running that package everywhere versus just half the downforce tracks. Interesting. Interesting. It is.

Especially with the negative feedback that it's getting right now from the drivers. I think from the owner's standpoint, though, it was a cost thing. You know, the owners are standing up going, hey, you want us to build two cars. And it helps us if we're only building one because then we have more replacements when we have problems. So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out the next few weeks. I personally have stood up and said, man, I want a driver to be a very valid. value, and I think this devalues their talent to some degree.

I still think the best big budget teams are going to still figure out ways to go faster. But it certainly changes the game for us to hear that we may be running this thing everywhere. I wish that they could just come up with, I mean, obviously, financially it's not a good idea. But they need to just do like, all right, you know what, we're going to do this package everywhere next year, this big, you know, big spoiler, big ducks in the front, you know, flow air. All right. So in a perfect world, you go, all right, we're going to run after a year. Then the following year, I want to run, make these things as hard as you. possibly can drive, you know, high horsepower, low downforce, take all the arrow away they can,

and just see which way the racing goes, which is the better race? Because I think if, without, you know, without all this arrow and more motor, make these guys drive these race cars where they got to spend time off throttle. We've talked about this a lot. The more time you spend off throttle, the better the racing is. Like, just make these guys drive the race cars. Make them easier to drive. It's all I'm going to do is chase away our superstars and prevent guys from wanting to come into the sport. When you have racers, being race car drivers and you have racers that are crew chiefs. And by racers, I mean, you know, guys like Rodney Childers that have raced. When they want one thing and then when you have engineers and business people who want another thing,

it's crazy what they come up with because it's two completely different scenarios. That's what we're seeing. So be interesting to see how it plays out. There's still time. Yeah. But as of this week, you know, we're trending more toward a common package everywhere. Yes, they can change the size of the duct. Yes, they can change the size of the plate, but we're certainly hearing that that's what's happening.

We'll see. Mike Bain 34 asks, is it second nature to use different verbiage between two different drivers you're spotting for? I'd imagine Sadler and Boyer like to have different info or in a different way. I mean, it comes down to what they need, right? I don't, my lingo doesn't really change. My verbiage doesn't change. The amount that I talk does change. I mean, Clint's 10 laps into the place at Richmond, saying, hey, you got to tell me where to run.

I need some coaching. I'm like, man, we haven't even really got going here yet. You know, whereas Elliott methodically already knows when he's starting the race, kind of mindset-wise, how he sees the run progressing and what he's going to do in the car. So it just comes down to, and maybe I talk too much now for Elliott because of Clint. Maybe I don't talk enough for Clint because of Elliott because it is hard to kind of balance each guy having their own needs. But at the end of the day, that's what we're up there to do is provide to them what they need. Freddie's spotted for a lot of different guys. I mean, I've spotted for a lot of guys.

Michael Waltrip, Kevin Harvick, Casey Kane, you know, Jeff Burton, you know, Elliot Sadler, Clint Boyer, yada, yada, yada, y'all. It goes on and on and on. And those are across all different series. But you still try to be you and then they tell you, hey, I need more of this, less of that. Yeah, the same. Like you said, you know, I've done a couple guys over the years in Cup now. But I've been with Bubba for 10 years.

So I kind of been progressively listening to other people and trying to get get better at my own craft and kind of folded it in a Bubba. So like I base everything off of what I do with Bubba because he obviously, he likes what I do. So then if I go spot for somebody, for Greg Biffle a couple years ago, I spotted the way I spot for Bubba for him. And he's like, man, that's good job, but just I don't need all the information. I just need to go to the guys down there.

I don't need to know exactly where he's at down there. You know what I mean? So like Brett said, you kind of do it the same. You kind of talk the same. You just maybe change the amount of info you give to each guy. Kyle Bush doesn't want to know that he's clear by one because that means. makes him look in his mirror. Kyle Bush wants to know if they're inside or if he's clear.

You know, I did a plate race for him at Talladega. And so it's just little things that they want. They're in the cockpit. They got their helmet on. They're concentrating. They're trying to go 200 miles an hour, pass cars, navigate wrecks, do all these things. So they have in their mind the music that they want to hear. And that's the channel that they're going to put it on, right?

So you've got to be that music. Now, for the playoffs, I mentioned this earlier. Do they want to know, hey, this guy that's ahead of you in the playoffs? that you need to beat is this far back or this far ahead of the new? Not until now. Okay. These elimination races are where that really comes into play. So, you know, you know who you're racing at all points in time.

For the championship, for your spot in the points, right, for all that stuff, you know in the back of your minds. But now going into an elimination race, mathematically, it becomes to where you have to know every single detail. And you can't get caught up in it from the time you take the green because you have to go out there and excel in stage one, get points. excel in stage two, get points. But at the end of the race, it's going to matter.

People are going to want to know, am I good by eight? Because if you're good by eight points, that means that nine people would have to pass you for you to be out, right? So you're managing that whole thing. But you can't get caught up in that too early because you'll get distracted and you'll get wrecked. Yeah, we had that a couple years ago.

Oh, yeah, two years ago with Bubba in the Exfendi playoffs. We got down the end of the race. We had some damage. We were like right on the borderline. and early in the race I had said something to him about it. He says, man, I don't want to just, I don't care. Don't tell me, I'm just going to keep running. And, you know, when we get towards the end, let me know.

And we had a restart. We had five to go. I said, I need two spots. Just, you got to do what you got to. You get me two spots right here. I mean, three wide to the top. And, you know, but like, he's one instance where he never wants to hear the word points all year long until, like, it's down to the last restart. Here's what we need.

If, you know, if you got, if you need 20 points, just go, hey, man, just give me what you can get here and see what happens, you know. but if it's two points and he needs to know that, or they need to know they need two or five or whatever, you know, if it's something that they can manageably make happen. Interesting. T.J. submitted the question. He may not be here, but he's still here.

Hi, hey, T.J. What's y'all's approach going into the roble being on the outside? Do you kind of just let things settle and then be aggressive in the second half of the race, or do you attack from the beginning? I actually talked to Clint on the way here, and we know that we have to attack from the time we unload. We have got to qualify top 12. That puts us in position to get stage points,

which puts you in position in the next stage to get stage points. You know, what we don't understand, though, here, Casey, is these things are going to flip. We'll see guys pit with two to go, and they'll pit with two to go because it inverts the field after the caution. We can't really play that game early on. If we get an opportunity to go out and get seven, eight, or nine points, we got to take that option because we know that the guys we're racing are going to take that option if they're in position or even if we take that option and it opens a door up for them to take it, they're going to come in and get points. So I would think, I know Clint's mindset is to go

as hard as we can go the whole race. That's my mindset. It's going to come down to strategy as far as what can you do to get the most points possible. Stage one for me is a pretty easy play. Stage two sets you up to finish the race. So to some degree you have to find balance there depending on where you're running. If you're running 10th and you're only going to forfeit one point, by coming with two to go. You can afford to do that in order to maximize your finish on the back end and make those points up there. But if you're running third, you can't give up eight points

in order to set yourself up to finish well at the end, not knowing what may happen. You've got to take the points that are on the table. Yeah, we saw that. I think last year it was Stenhouse, Brian Patty, who I think is one of the best. One of the best. Calling a race and putting his guys in great position transferred at Dover because of that.

Like pitch strategy, he took, I don't remember exactly how it worked out, but he took two tires, whatever it was, and got like seven or eight stage points in that stage. They weren't a third or fourth place car. But got them stage points, ended up finishing, you know, right around the three car, who I think they were racing. But because of those stage points in that round, they transferred by a couple points. So like you said, like we see these road course races all the time, the field splits and stuff. But guys in your position, the 48, you know, guys like that that are right on the cusp

are going to have to do everything they can of getting them top tens. Yeah, it's crazy. anything you guys want to rant about No, I think we've B-D enough. Yeah, yeah. I think we've told the, we've laid down the truth.

Truth is true. Yeah. The truth. So you have a busy week out here in Charlotte? It's not too bad. I have a lot of like programs as we, you know, the playoffs are always crazy

from any sponsor standpoint too, especially, you know, any driver sponsor. I've been on the Miller core side where it's like Brad being in contention for the championship and he went all the way to Miami. It's like you have to plan for a party that may not happen.

Right. And like apparel that may not be distributed. You know what I mean? So I think from a sponsor standpoint, there's a lot that a lot of people are working on too. Yeah. So. There's a lot of if-thens.

And then it used to be extremely hard on these Xfinity teams because you would go to Miami knowing that you had a one and four chance to win and you had a banquet the next day. And nobody had a tuxe. So they've actually changed some of the way they're doing some of those things because it was really expensive to kind of do that on the fly for these Xfinity teams to try to bring back all the guys, you know, because your plan was to travel home after the race. Well, now it's travel home, travel back, bring their wives, get tuxedos, yada, yada, yada, you know, hotels. It gets expensive quickly. And trust me, it's a party you're glad to throw.

Right. But logistically. There's a lot. A lot to play. It's a nightmare. You can almost, I can bet on one guy to win the Xfinity championship right now. I run into Daniel Hemrick the other night, and there was a group going away together to Hawaii at some point in this offseason,

and it falls. They weren't paying attention. Book this trip, and it falls on the Xfinity banquet. So now you can bet your money he's going to win this championship, so he can't go on this trip, and he's going to have to go to the banquet and party on there. So Xfinity announced that the champion gets to go to the Universal Studios.

And so I know, like, I don't know if Justin usually races in the offseason. Doesn't he go out of the country or something? Like there's a... New Zealand or something probably like... Oh, no, that's over... Believe me. That's over Christmas and New Year's. Sorry.

I think he goes somewhere else. But, like, I mean, there's a lot that people are planning for and should be interesting who this champion is. I can't wait. BBC picks. I'm going with Kurt Busch. Who's TJ guys? And TJ's going with Denny Hamlin.

Good luck, Denny. Good luck, TJ. Hope you're having fun in Kansas. Trying to get an upper hand on those of us that aren't in Kansas out there with Dorothy and Toto doing your thing. Kansas is a good place to test. They got all them bars and restaurants. I was about to say, I'm excited to go to Kansas. Not that there's anywhere.

It's good to go to Kansas. Kansas is fun, man. The whole area is fun around the racetrack. I think Brett is a little bitter that he's not there right now. I'm not bitter at all. No. He's not bitter that he's not there. He's bitter that his car's not there.

I do not do well in testing. I don't do well with anything that I get bored at, and there's nothing more boring than testing. You read every page of the internet while you're testing. Here comes your car. We've had some fun testing. Then you just sit there. You just sit there. Eight hours.

Unless you lose your wallet. Then you panic. Then it's not boring. To lose your wallet? Yeah. No, you're losing. No, not technically. I thought I lost it.

Misplaced. Yeah. Misplaced. So what happened was I took my protein. bar and put it in my pocket and I put my wallet in my travel kit. I mixed the two up when I was getting ready that morning at six o'clock because I don't do well getting up that early either. We were about an hour into this test and I said, we might have partaking in some beverages

the night before. And I said, man, I'm kind of notorious for leaving my credit card at certain establishments. You're not kind of notorious. We leave your credit card every weekend somewhere. So I said to Brett the next morning there's like 10 o'clock. I think Clint was on the track. And I said, one good thing about my last night was I've got my wallet,

I've got my credit cards. That's good. And Brett went, checked his pockets, and next thing I knew, I was spotting for Clint. Hold my radio. I don't know where my wallet's at.

Clint's probably like, who is this? I didn't say anything. I got a hell of a protein bar in my left pocket, but I don't have a wallet. All right. Well, Can't wait for Charlotte.

It's good to be home, man. It is good to do. You can't imagine. Like, we leave Vegas, and the only thing leaving Vegas I could think of is I want to race at home. I don't want to go to Richmond. I don't want to go anywhere. So it's really good to be home. Where, uh, it's going to be crazy, man.

Like, if I were a fan and I live within two, three hours of this place, I would buy a 12 pack of beer and come to race. I'm telling you right now, if you want a place to sit, somebody even tweeted us on Twitter the other day about this, like, places to sit, which is, I think turn one you can see most of the racetrack. But that last corner, I don't know. what they're planning on doing with curbing in that corner. But, like, if you've seen the race track, the way it lays out, you got that last chicane coming to the checker flag. And there is a small patch of grass that is between you and pavement.

So if you're running third coming to the checker and you need that win, like, I mean, it wouldn't stop me. But, you know, there was some pretty substantial curbs there, one of the races. But, I mean, I try it. You know, why not? Hell would it. But if that's where you want to sit, I think, coming off that last corner, just because it might get a little exciting coming to the.

checker. I saw they're doing a promotion and I didn't read the whole thing, but college kids can buy tickets for like $25. I've always said these racetracks and these states are really missing it because college kids love a good time. Yep. And if you give them an affordable fun party package, they're coming. I'd send the freaking buses to the Greek village.

Some tracks do that. Talladega, they'd bring like Alabama and some of their school there. They'd bring a bus and they'd party. I'd do a hospitality. I'd bring in some local talent from the college, man. I'd make it a hell of a deal because I think there's a big opportunity for tracks to do some promotions around that. So I know they're not in my brain, but it's nice to see them finally coming up with some ideas. Usually on Charlotte weekend, we always had the fall break during race weekend, but this year since it's a week earlier, it's all kids are in college still.

So, yeah, $25, free parking, Ferris wheel. Is there going to be a Ferris wheel? Turn four. Climax Corner's that now. Thanks y'all for listening. All right. Thank you, one mainzalta. Have a good week, guys.

crowd 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 one mainracing dot com check out dirty mo media on youtube twitter facebook and instagram dirty moe