Door Bumper Clear - 174 - Tyler Reddick: Ripping the Top
Episode Date: May 19, 2020Racing returned on Sunday at Darlington Raceway and Brett Griffin, T.J. Majors, Freddie Kraft, and special guest and standout Cup Series rookie Tyler Reddick are back to cover the first race in over t...wo months. They discuss Reddick’s impressive run, his knack for running the high side, having a rookie Cup crew chief, and what T.J. taught him as his spotter in trucks. Plus, the spotter trio discusses misleading information about their social distancing practices, Jimmie Johnson wrecking while leading, the problematic Blue-Emu banner, Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth’s returns, and more. The guys then divulge information about spotter pee breaks and the speed trap on the way to the race track. 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.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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Welcome to
Door Bumper Clear.
I'm Jason Schultz, and the guys are back from Darlington Raceway.
They'll discuss Spodders' Social Distancing,
Jimmy Johnson wrecking while leading,
and Tyler Reddick joins his show to discuss his great run and ripping the top.
Door bumper clear starts right now.
This is Frank Rittman.
Hey, me too now.
This is Freddie Crack.
Get ready.
Be ready. Be ready.
Watch out for this guy.
White flag.
Recognize.
Hello.
Clear.
Bring home.
Free light.
Coming to the line.
Door.
Bumper.
Clear.
Woo!
Hey, everybody. I'm T.J.
Majors.
Spotter the 22 real cup car this weekend.
And full house today.
Brett Griffin, Spotter for Clint Boyer.
I've never been so happy to hear TJ reference a real race versus a video game race in my life.
We've got a lot to talk about today, man.
finally coming off of an exciting cup race for the first time back in 10 weeks, Freddie.
Yeah, what's up?
Pretty Craft Spotter for Bubble Wallace.
Going to spot for Jeffrey Earnhardt on Tuesday, hopefully.
Man, it's good to be at the racetrack.
Still weird, without no fans there, kind of rolled in,
just walked right up to the grandstands, nobody around.
But it was good to be back.
Hey, Casey.
Hi.
I'm still stuck at home.
Can you tell us your table.
And in secrets?
I think I wanted to pay.
I don't know why.
I can't record in any other room because it's echoey.
I wouldn't pay for that.
What?
That tan.
I don't even pay for a tan.
I just, it's the lighting.
Y'all can see Casey.
We can see Casey on our video chat.
Y'all can't see Casey till Jason drops some little episodes.
But I'm telling you guys, like her tanning secrets, she should publish them.
They would go for a lot of it.
Donald Trump. You guys can make a lot of money off. I think I'm going to buy one of those, like,
the lights that those Instagram stars use to give you like the best lighting. I'll send you a link
on one for one or something because we've got to, I mean, you normally, you normally have very,
very, uh, very good skin, you know. Very, very, very, very olive skin. And, and I was outside
yesterday, so I have great skin, a skin, I have a great skin, I have a great skin tone right now. What, what? I
I even like, so it depends on the day.
If it's really cloudy out, I look like this.
But if it's sunny out, the lighting is a lot better.
So basically, blame it on the sun.
So producer Jason's in the house.
I got to ask both of y'all to start this show all for us by telling us,
was that a good cup race yesterday?
You, Casey, you and Jason.
Yeah.
Y'all watched it.
We worked it.
Yes.
Yes.
I think it was awesome.
I think the effort that NASCAR put forth to make it look like really as much as
normal as possible.
That's not what he asked.
That's not what he asked.
He asked if you thought it was a good race.
I thought it was a good race.
Okay, good.
I mean, the first lap, like, really?
Yeah.
There was a good amount of cautions and entertainment, which I liked.
I wish the end was a little closer and guys were a little racier up front, but overall,
more entertaining Matt thought would be.
TJ, what did you think?
Man, I saw, to me, that was a more,
there was more action in that race than I am used to really see in rec-wise and stuff.
There is the same things that we've talked about before,
about the cars that are just look like slot cars still,
and they're just stuck.
They're running lower than they ever have been able to run at Darlington,
and that's just because they're stuck to the track.
But racing-wise, man, we saw some guys that were off on setups.
We saw some guys make some bold moves and not work out.
We saw, like you said, a seven-time champion leading the race.
You know, this is Jimmy, this is Jimmy's chance to get back into it.
And, yeah, and, you know, he's leading a race, going to run up front.
He's been up front that whole first part of race.
And then just a heat.
I didn't see the mistake, but I know he wrecked passing a car off a turn two.
And I don't know if he just slid up too far or the 17 crowd room or whatever it was happened.
But it's so early in that race, you're leading the race, you know, lift.
You know, lift just a little bit.
We might as well take our gloves off early.
Let me tell you what happened.
Seven time is going to win the stage.
He comes off a turn two and he's running up on Busher.
and Busher is literally running.
Freddie, I'm going to guess 10 miles an hour slower than Jimmy was that looked like on this replay.
And Jimmy flat out ran over him.
And let me tell you something.
Jeff Gordon jumps on this broadcast, puts on his Hendrick hat.
And the first thing he says is, oh, man, Buster checked up.
Jimmy had nowhere to go.
You know, his reaction time, there's no way he could have slowed the car down.
And every single replay they showed, showed Jimmy Johnson not only hit Chris Buster, not Chris Buster into the wall.
Then Jimmy hits him again.
That's when it spun him out.
and for Jeff, who we've all heard for the last two years,
is rumored to go be an executive at Hendrik Motorsports one day.
After hearing some of those comments, Freddie,
it's not if he's going, it's when he's going.
Yeah, I mean, we were watching it both the same time last night after we got back,
and I text you immediately out because I hadn't seen it,
and I asked my crew chief,
but you know, it was weird yesterday was no video boards to watch replays of Rex,
I felt like, you know what I mean?
Like Bubba would always ask me, you know, what happened there,
and I'd be able to look at a replay if I didn't see it.
alive and tell him, you know, this is what happened, it looked like.
And yesterday there was no replay, so I couldn't tell him.
I said, I don't know if he hit somebody.
And Creechie said, yeah, him and the 17 got together.
So I wanted to go back and watch it.
And I was surprised.
I mean, he literally drove the 17.
17 came off the two a little bit lower, trying to protect his spot because he wants
to stay on lead lap on it. It's the last lap of the stage.
And he just literally drives him straight to fence.
And when 17 hits the fence, he knocks back down to the 48 and spends him out.
And they're like, they're doing everything they can.
or Jeff was doing everything.
He could have blamed the 17 when it was completely obvious that it was not the 17's fault.
He was just tried to try to.
And it looked like even the 17, like, tried to move up to give Jimmy room.
And Jimmy just kept chasing him until he finally ran him into the wall.
And then they wrecked Jimmy.
But, man, what a, I mean, you could see the lap of four on the, on the broadcast.
He's looking at his mirror, looking to see where the 24 was because the 24 and 11 were coming.
And I think he just choked.
You know what I mean?
He just tried to over.
drive a little bit and try to get too much off of two there and took himself out of the race,
unfortunately.
But typical Jimmy comes on in his interview and is a complete class act.
You know, he screwed up leading the race.
He screwed up winning the stage.
And he came on TV.
You know, he didn't blame anybody.
He literally just said, I wish I had that to do over again.
But boy, Jeff Gordon had out as Hendrick Pompoms.
Never seen anything like it.
Never seen anything worse than that as far as biased reporting.
It's like TJ was in the booth calling a Pitsky race.
Hey, at least Jimmy didn't blame virtual me.
for that one.
He couldn't.
There was nobody else to blame.
No, absolutely nobody else to blame.
Yeah, I'll tell you what, though.
It was good to see Jimmy running like that, though.
It was good to see Jimmy, you know, up there racing, getting a lead and stuff.
You know, good for Jimmy to be competitive up there and racing for the lead.
To Freddie's point, you know, look, I'm Patty positive today about this race yesterday.
It was freaking awesome.
But as far as our standpoint goes, there were three,
things missing for me. That video board, I definitely missed it because there's things that we can
a lot of times do to keep up with a race to Freddy's point. There are things sometimes that we don't
see that we get to go back and watch on those video boards. Obviously, missed the race fans.
Didn't miss them at all during the race, because once the race starts, you know, we're queued in
on what we have to do as a job. But pre-race, missed them, post-race, missed them. And in my fan
vision, that's something that we use a lot as a tool. It's our little extra computer up there on
the roof. And they're not going to bring those fan visions back until the fans return.
So I had to rely on my crew chief a lot yesterday in terms of, you know, knowing what lap times we needed to be running, what the guys around us were running.
And it's amazing how close, we can guess a lot of times, I'm like, Johnny, that looked a tenth better.
And he's like, yeah, it's a tenth better.
And it's just from our years of experience watching these race cars.
But those are the three things.
Those are my three takeaways.
And if we can, as soon as we can plug those three things back in, man, that's a perfect race yesterday.
So tell us, you guys were obviously only three from the show at the track.
Tell us what it was like, really, from the time you got there to the time you left.
Anything worth noting, anything that, you know, fans might find interesting,
how NASCAR really, the process that they went from start to finish, really,
from the time you got to the track to the time that you left.
TJ and I got there at the same time, I think, and I'm telling you,
the process was 100% efficient.
We didn't waste any time.
We went through one check for security.
And by security, I mean, they took dogs around our vehicles,
which clearly are looking for bombs,
explosive guns, those types of things.
The next check was a NASCAR check
where they checked our credential to make sure
we were on the list, one, and two,
our credential was real. And then the third
check was the health screening where they took
our temperature and asked us to a few
questions. Once you pass those things, you're
allowed to go to your workplace. For us,
three guys, we literally, it was almost
like a Friday morning practice at 8 o'clock
because we rolled through, we got to where we
needed to be, and then we sat in our car for
five and a half hours waiting on this race.
to start. Yeah, I give hats off to NASCAR for making it as seamless as, you know, easy. Even the,
crew guys, from what I heard, I wasn't in there, obviously, but even the crew guys, I guess everything
went really smooth inside as well. Had a couple little issues of cars in tech, but other than that,
you know, I had no issues at all.
So I thought it was great.
And all the work that went into that from NASCAR side,
I thought everything was laid out pretty easy for us.
Directions were simple, easy to follow.
They couldn't have made it any easier for the spotters.
I know I know I would have liked to go in and met with Paul like I normally do and Joey before the race.
But that wasn't an option.
But minus that stuff, it was about as easy and seamless as they could have.
have made it for everybody, I think.
You know, we brought new fans in, do we retain them?
And I think that everything about that race, even going back and watching a broadcast
last night, was perfect.
If we didn't break records for attendance for the last couple years, given the situation
we've been in as a sport with TV declining, then it flattened out last two years.
Like, if we didn't have high ratings, it means TV picked the wrong start time for me,
Freddie.
Like, I thought it was freaking awesome.
Yeah, I mean, the race was great from our standpoint.
You know, like we talked about, there's drama, there's guys up front.
reckon, you know, and we've talked about this before. The only downside to the TV deal for me
is the lack of ability to show the sensation of speed. You know what I mean? These cars don't look,
like these guys are on the edge every lap, running up against the wall, hanging it out there,
driving their asses off. And on TV sometimes just looks like, hey, they're, you know,
they're run 80 miles an hour, just no problem stuck to the racetrack. So I wish, I still, to this
day, I don't have the answer. I don't know what the answer is. Um,
You know, you can't just have a still camera and these guys fly by it because, like, we've talked about it here before.
You go down by the fence and stand there or stand like by turn one.
These guys are hauling ass, and you're like, wow, that's why we say you've got to see these races live.
But, you know, there's no way to do it.
So I don't know what the right answer is.
But I just wish there was a way to show the sensation of speed a little bit more on TV.
TJ and I, TJ come blowing by me, getting into Pagelin, South Carolina.
He was speeding.
And I was like, uh-oh, he's getting ready to get lit up because Pagelin cops are tough.
We stopped at the stoplight.
I was barely, I was not speeding.
You were seven over when you came by me.
We stopped at the stoplight, we roll our windows down.
That's not speeding?
I was like, man, can you believe how fast the cars were going in the center of the corner today, Freddie?
To your point, like, holy cow, they were flying.
Yeah, they, uh, gosh dang, man.
Like the guys, as low as they could run, I mean, you're almost in down there where it looks like you're pitting.
You know, and, man, right when you're like, oh, that's not going to work.
They turn and make the corner on exit.
You know, it's definitely odd.
We're definitely getting lower and lower.
You know, I've been going to Darlington for 16, 17 years now, something like that, 16, 17 years.
And they are, it used to be a battle to who could get up by the wall.
Now it's a battle.
You know, I know there was a, now it's a battle to get low.
Hey, talk about speeding through Pageland, Brett.
What?
who decided that on that 151
pagell highway whatever the hell you want it's got seven different names it's got seven different
names and 37 different speed limits who who like who wrote that plan up so the only way to
get realistically from like ohio michigan ohio that whole area all the way to merdle beach the only
way to get through there back in the day was to come through pageland south carolina and
and to come down that 151 pageland highway old pageland highway right so we have to have
speed traps, Freddie. We got towns that only have
500 people in them, 2,000 people in them. We have
to make our money off the Yankees
that come from the north and want to go visit
our lovely beaches. I mean,
it's like every half. If you've ever made this
trip, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's like every half of
55, 45, 45, 55, 25, 25, 25.
25 and McBee. 25.
25 and McBee.
It's MacBee. It's not McBee. It's MacBee,
it's MacB, I live there my whole life. It's
Mick B if you're a Yankee, and it's up north.
It don't matter. It's Mick B.
Dude, I don't really ever go, like, seven mine hours, kind of my cutoff, but once in a while you'll be going down there.
And not in the 35 zones and all that.
You don't, you do 35 or less in them zones.
But once it gets up around 45, I mean, it's safer.
But, dude, you got to see that first sign because the first signs are a little early.
And if you don't catch them early, you're doing 55 into this 35, like easily.
No problem.
It's over.
It never fails that somebody flies by, and you're like, oh, there you go.
There's an over under of you pass at least four people pulled over on this trip every time.
Like, no matter what you do, there's always at least two or three people that are pulled over in MacB or Pagelin or one of these 35 or 25 mile an hour zones.
Yeah, welcome to South Carolina.
Yeah.
Well, in other news, what do you guys think of the schedule coming out or the next phase of the schedule being released this week?
Any thoughts on the races we have canceled, postponed, what do you guys think?
I mean, I think we kind of expected most of them.
Still kind of local.
I'm assuming, I don't know this for sure.
I don't know if you guys have heard if we're flying to Atlanta or not.
I would assume not, but maybe.
And Homestead, I assume, will be the,
Homestead will be the first one we have to travel to, I would think.
I'm not even 100% sure.
There might be some people that drive the Talladega.
I don't know.
Yeah, I would think so.
I would drive to Talladega.
I mean, I don't.
I'm not driving to Miami.
Definitely not driving to Miami.
That's not happening.
But yeah, I mean, it's good to get back to some short tracks here soon.
So we'll see what happens.
hopefully everything stays the same and we don't have to make any more changes anytime soon.
I think we're going to be given the option.
I honestly think we're going to be given the option on whether or not we fly to Atlanta.
Because I think if we don't fly to Atlanta, we're going to have to overnight in a hotel.
And I'm not sure what's better for the crew guys.
Because if they open that garage at 7.30, 8.30 in the morning, I mean, you're going to leave home at 2 in the morning,
drive 5 hours, work a 12, 14 hour day and turn around and drive 5 hours home.
I don't know how safe that is.
I think you'd have to offer us a hotel stay.
And quite honestly, I don't know what's safer.
Us flying on a private airplane, you know, 25 or 30 of us,
they're already around each other anyway,
or us jumping in a car and overnight in a hotel.
But, I mean, excited about the Cup schedule for sure,
heartbroken about the Xfinity schedule.
When I look at Iowa with no dates,
it goes back to the revenue model.
And there's not enough TV money for those standalone tracks
to be able to make money if there's no fans.
because those tracks make money off fans.
They make money off concessions, parking, merchandise sales.
And when you look at the model that says, if we can't have those things, we can't open our doors,
it's very scary for now and for the future.
And for literally the future of Iowa Speedway, I hope that they can correct that problem
because we talked about last week how important that Midwest market is to a lot of us.
So for Iowa to lose two races and basically be closed for the season,
man, hurts my heart.
Yeah, Iowa needs a cup race, in my opinion.
That's how they fix it.
Iowa needs a cup race.
It is a great race track.
We will go there and have great races.
There will be cars from top to bottom there during a whole run,
which is what we don't have a lot of at short tracks nowadays.
It'll be similar to Bristol, but they'll be spread out even further,
and it's going to be great.
I hope one day we can go there.
I think, unfortunately, I hate to say this.
I think Iowa Speedway will shut down before it gets a cup date.
And we talked about last week the effect on losing Chicago's market in the Midwest.
This is another big market, especially for ag people, you know, all these ag sponsors that we have,
nutrient ag and Brandt and all them.
So, you know, I'd hate to see this happen, but, you know, I think that, you know,
we've heard some rumblings through the grave find that, you know, Iowa might be on his last legs.
and it's such a shame because it's such a great facility and puts on such a great race.
But, you know, like you said, without a cup date, it's going to be hard to keep it alive.
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Spot on, spot off.
He said spot off on the front.
He's spot off that.
That's cool.
Spot on you like it. Spot off. You don't like it. You don't like it. And you say why either way.
It doesn't take much to push my buttons.
But it takes a lot to really piss me off.
and this picture of us on TV, I know now why Donald Trump gets so mad at the media and talks about fake news.
This picture, the screen that was put on television, I saw it last night around lap 205, 215, 215, whatever it was.
It was obviously we were under caution.
I was sitting down.
I was wearing a maroon hat, a white top, and khaki pants.
Joel Edmonds was seven feet to my right.
Brandon Banesh was more than seven feet to my left.
And the way it looked, it looked like Joel was sitting on my lap and I was kissing Brandon's ass.
And neither one of those things were accurate.
When they accused the spotters of not social distancing, they literally lost credibility for me for about 30.
I tell you, the race was over and I got in my car, we're driving home.
We start seeing these tweets for the first time.
And people were saying NASCAR warned us.
The NASCAR official sat right in front of me the entire race.
He never once got up.
He never once warned us.
We were never asked over the radio to spread out.
Now, I can't speak to whether or not they came over a different channel
and had an official go to two guys in particular, like O'Donnell referenced.
But I'm telling you right now, that screenshot is b-h.
And we were social.
The great news for us is Hannah Newhouse was watching the same broadcast.
We were watching.
She was there working for MRI.
And when she saw it, she live tweeted.
what we really look like in the stance.
That,
that's made me mad.
Yeah, I mean,
I was fired up.
I was up tweeting all night to people.
I got so bad.
Elliot asked me this morning,
what the hell,
why was I even doing it?
Because he didn't understand why,
like,
who we were trying to defend ourselves against.
But, you know,
there's,
man,
it's,
and the people that,
you can tell,
it's,
you try not to get down the pit,
rabbit hole of fighting with people
that just want you to fight with them.
and I need to do a better job of it last night.
But then you have a moron like Nick Bromberg, who should know better,
but all he wants is attention.
So now he is going to go on here and tweet about, you know, oh, look at him,
and then go back and pull up the rules and say, here, what we're supposed to do,
and we were obviously disobeying the rules.
And then somebody finally, like, I guess eventually they kept like sharing Hannah's video with him.
And he said, well, that's just not a direct, you know, that's not a direct comparison.
in the Bob's video. Yes, it is. It's right after that. As soon as she saw it, she videoed it.
So, I mean, the picture I originally showed was lap one, because you can tell Bowman and Brad are
on the front row, and it's a picture of us all spread out. So now later in the race, everybody's trying
to say, oh, we must all move together before that shot in turn one. I never moved all day.
I might have, as a run was going on, I might have drifted one step in one direction or the other,
but it wasn't like I was ever anywhere near. There's a picture, in that same picture of Brett
sitting kissing Brandon's ass.
Me and Jason Jarrett are hip-to-hip with Brandon,
and it looks like Herm is sitting on Jason Jared's shoulders
when we were all six feet apart the whole time.
You can look, and just a distortion of that video,
it looks like there's five seats per row when there's over 20.
I mean, if you're not smart enough to figure out the perspective of pictures,
I really can't help you.
And if you agree with anything that moron, Nick Bromberg says,
I really can't help you.
This guy is really just out.
He has the stupidest takes in the sport.
year he said that Drew Herring shouldn't be allowed to race homestead.
Drew Herring is probably half the reason why Toyota is as good as they are because he does all
their SIM testing for them.
So the guy got a shot to drive that 96 car one time and this guy tried to tear him down.
So it just, I mean, whatever, what an idiot.
Well, yeah.
I agree with the TV shot.
That TV stand is way off in turn two.
Up above where the fence line is and the billboards and stuff.
And to me, that's looking at an angle at us.
So you can tell when you go back and watch it on TV, every little notch that you see is a seat.
And you can tell there's tons of notches on there.
It's not even close to representing the distance that we had.
I don't even know why this was an issue.
People can't figure out.
This camera is literally a half mile away from it.
It's zooming way in.
It made the scoring stand sound like it was, you know, like it looked like it was 20 feet long.
When it's really way longer than that.
They made it look like a tiny section of the racetrack there.
When really it's a plenty big enough section.
I took a picture under the pace laps, a panoramic,
and you can clearly see everybody spread out and we don't move during the race.
Anybody who thinks we all just get together during the race, you think I want to be closer
to Brett?
No, I don't want to be closer to Brett.
You don't want to be closer to.
You won't be able to see around them.
So you won't like, you don't move during a race.
And that camera angle is just so deceiving.
It's fake news.
It is.
It's, you know, I hate to agree with Brett a lot, but there is.
that camera angle makes it look completely different.
It's so far away and zoomed in.
It looks like we're across two sections or three sections of grandstands.
When I went back and counted last night, it was seven sections that we spread across,
and there's 20 seats per 20, over 20 seats wide per row.
So, I mean, you know, whatever.
Just if you're not smart enough to figure that out, it's on you.
Yeah, the pitcher that was taken at the green flag is accurate as can be,
because nobody moves from that point.
From 45 minutes before the race,
we are not going to move spots to an hour before the race.
Once we are there, we are in them spots and we stay there.
Yeah, you could tell that just by the video.
Like, I took the, I posted, I tweeted a picture of lap one,
and then the video that Hannah posted, I retweeted,
and we're all in the exact same spot, and that's lap two something.
You know, that's after lap 215 when the Fox video was.
And we're all in the same exact spot.
So I don't know, you know, like what these people are like, oh, you guys moved when NASCAR told you.
Yeah.
So we all got together at lap 21 and then we all scattered right back to the same exact spot we were at a lap point.
Yeah, this isn't the straight on shot at the start finish line at the beginning of the race.
That's the most accurate pitcher that you can have.
And the other one's so far away and zoomed in.
It's so deceiving.
If you actually go back and pause it, look at all the little notches of seats.
It looks like everybody's, it looks like everybody's shoulder to shoulder, but we are not close.
it's just deceiving.
That's all there is.
The only time,
like there's,
there was very minimum times
where you saw somebody
maybe scoot by somebody else
to go to the bathroom
because there's only one bathroom up there
that we all have to use,
so we all have to go in the same direction
to use it.
And maybe, like,
I think Brandon Banesh borrowed something from me.
He borrowed a Sharpie.
So I still, you know,
I reached out, handed him a Sharpie,
so we might have been four feet apart
at that point.
But, I mean, you're still moving.
You know what I mean?
I mean, you're not moving
and standing next to each other.
It's just a, you know, scooting by somebody or handing off something.
But, I mean, I don't know.
I thought we did a great job and then get in the car and to see all that stuff last night.
It really pissed me off.
I went to the bathroom three times up there and I saw a person one time.
You need to take a fluid pill if you went three times and three hours.
What are you talking about?
We went up right before we went up and whatever that caution was, you were going down already.
So I don't know.
That was an insurance pee.
That was just so it didn't have to pee later.
I left 30?
Yeah, lap 90.
It was first break.
So I'll tell you why I go so much.
Number one, I drink a ton of water now.
I've cut every soda and everything out.
I don't drink any soda or anything anymore.
Good job.
And second of all, one time about seven, eight years ago,
we were in Texas.
We were Texas, and Texas is about as far as way we can get from a real bathroom.
And I had to go so bad.
And we ended up going through like three Green Flag pit stops.
And I about, it was the worst experience, almost about as bad as being cold there.
So I don't chance that anymore.
I'm still holding strong.
I've never had to go during a race.
Still keep my streak intact.
Is that normal?
You're a camel.
That's crazy.
Well, I've got to.
The Coke saves 100.
I mean, that's the longest race ever.
Pee before you go.
So Freddie lays on his back, he might be a camel.
Yeah.
There's multiple humps.
If Freddy lays on his back and we started tickling him, that'd be a good video.
What the fuck?
What are you talking about?
Let's go, Casey.
Keep us moving.
Oh, next topic.
Ryan Newman's questionable spin to bring out the final caution on lap 254.
Hey, let me just tell you, Ryan Newman is back.
Ryan Newman is back, and he is driving.
I mean, I was, it's so glad to see Ryan Newman back in that six car.
And right, you could tell he was ready to be back.
He could drive into turn three so deep.
And it was, he was fast, too, I mean.
I don't know if he saw Jesus in his wreck, but I know he saw Jesus every time he wouldn't have turned three.
It was good to see Ryan out there, and he was racing hard, man.
I know Ryan was having a blast, and he couldn't wait to get back out there.
So I was super happy for Ryan to be back on the track.
And I think we all like seeing that six card back out there with him in it.
But the spin part, so I was watching him when he came out of turn four.
And he almost wrecked.
I don't know if you guys saw it.
He got really loose in four and like started spinning down to the inside,
locked him up, straightened it out, did a great job saving it,
got it rolling again, went down to turn one and just, I guess, got really loose on the bottom or something.
and got really loose down there and, you know, spun it out.
And somehow managed to stay a car length in front of the leader as Harvick was slowing down.
Like you couldn't have timed that any better like that.
But yeah, I mean, A for effort.
Well, first of all, Ryan Newman was not the only intentional spin yesterday.
There was three of them.
One of them was a very good one.
It was very hard to tell that he did it on purpose.
It was William Byron because he had a right rear flat.
So that's, that's, you know, you could go either way with that one.
Hopefully, hopefully these guys don't ever come out and admit that they did this
because I think that's like a $50,000 fine.
I think I told him that lesson.
Don't worry.
But, you know, like a guy, and I think Suarez, he was coming to pit road,
45 laps down already and spun out to save himself 40, going from 46 down.
But I think he got a lead lap finished, didn't he?
Oh, probably because we had 37 wave rounds there at one point.
But, yeah, like, I.
obviously I hate this. I hate this stuff. I hate it when Bubba did it last year.
But there's no reason not to do it because NASCAR hasn't done anything to anybody.
Aside from Bubba when he admitted doing it, they find them.
But, you know, there's no repercussion for spinning yourself out.
And if Ryan Newman, I don't know, Red Newman ended up finishing yesterday.
It had to be pretty decent, right?
I don't know if it was, I think he fell off a bit at the end.
Yeah, but I'm saying, I think he was in front of me. I was 21st.
I'm pretty sure he's a top 20.
So he has, he has no shot at the 15th place finish if he doesn't do that.
You know, he's going to lose laps.
He's going to end up multiple laps down and probably end up 25th to 30th.
So, you know, there's no reason to not do it.
You might as well go for it.
And until NASCAR does something about it, you're just going to continue to see it.
I did not see his spin and I did not see the replay of his spin.
The William Byron thing, William had a loose wheel.
And it was causing his fender to rub his tire, which caused his tie.
to go flat and you can see before he spun that he got really, really loose off.
And then the next corner is when he pulled down on the apron and spun the car out.
I think this is us not, the broadcast's not coming out to say that tells us that
we miss PR people being at the track because a PR person is going to leave their pit box.
They're going to go find a pit reporter or Matt Yocum and they're going to tell Yon,
hey, we got a loose wheel.
So yesterday when you heard guys saying, the broadcast team saying they had a loose wheel,
that's now relying solely on Fox News scanner guys.
They got spotters around a racetrack that are listening to these things.
But when you can't have your team tell the broadcast exactly what's going on,
which is one of the PR person's jobs of many, they got a lot of jobs.
But I think that's a fault of that.
But look, man, people have been spending out on purpose as long as I've been watching.
And I started watching at four years old.
There are a lot of races.
I was a huge Del Earnhardt fan.
If Del Earnhardt was about to get lapped, the old 71 car day.
Marcus, it'd make a spin on occasion.
You know, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. admitted to spending it out one time at Bristol on purpose.
To me, spend it out on purpose one time, 100 times.
No crime is different.
If you do it on purpose, it's on purpose.
To Freddy's point, we've seen one person penalized for it in recent years, Bubba Wallace,
and obviously the whole Michael Waltrip thing that went down years ago.
But again, that was, it's just so hard for them to police it.
it was but now with this data
I don't think it is
so like I don't know me
T.J last year there was an incident where Ligano
spun out on purpose you know Freddie and I
called it T.J. can't admit it. He's not going to admit it
I don't blame him I wouldn't admit it either but
they could go back so to William and if you crank it left
and stand on the throttle guess what's going to happen
you're going to spin out so I don't
know we're just trying to get back to pit road to get it
change as quick as we could that's how he did
it could bring out of caution but I
don't know and I'm asking you guys this
honestly, you know, all three of our guys at some point in our careers have spun out on purpose.
How do you police it?
Like you said, there's ways to look at the data now, but you know, you'd have to go back in real
time and rewind and go and go back and check and see, you know, where the wheel was at,
where the throttle was at.
What's the penalty?
If you find somebody doing it, what's the penalty?
I would take a lap away.
I would penalize the guy one lap.
I mean, every time it's happened in NASCAR's history, it changes.
the outcome of the race, no matter what it is.
No matter what happened. I mean, I went from running a top 15th,
to run the 17th because of the Ryan Newman caution, right?
So it cost me five points because then I ended up getting tape on the grill
and all that other b***ed that happened. But like, I don't know how you police it.
And then once you police it, I don't know how you enforce it and what the rule is for
the penalty. Like, that's a lot.
Yeah, I think the best thing you can do, and you see this a lot of short tracks, you know,
if you stop on the racetrack to get a caution or spend out, you know, on purpose, it's a one-lap
penalty and maybe it's a one lap penalty where you're not eligible for a lucky dog or a wave
around to make it hurt even that much more because that's what you're you're saving yourself
losing a lap or two laps you know by slowly coming to the pits and having to go through a pit stop
so you know you're not taking their race away but you're just penalizing them probably what they
would have lost i don't know what you're talking about me neither spot on spot off
brad kislawski's comments about transition from ir racing to real racing
Jason, you have that quote.
So the problem with that is, if you've had success with some of the simulators or the internet events,
you almost build a false sense of confidence.
And that false sense of confidence when you get on the real race track can be a big problem.
So there's a lot of drivers that have been putting a lot of time behind the simulator,
and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
Spot on, spot off.
T.J.
There's two ways to look at it.
I understand what Brad's saying, but I don't think that.
the guys that are putting the time in on the simulators are doing it for exact track time getting used to the, you know, I think there's a lot of guys that are going to have to put simulator time in this week that are going for the exfini race and the truck race that haven't been there.
Not the truck race there anymore, but the exfini race, we got guys that have never been to there before, right?
They're going to, what can they do?
They've got no choice but to get on the simulator right now.
But the guys, what they've been doing in the off season is really,
just to kind of to keep something to keep relevant you know and and they weren't going out there
working on setups they were all driving a fixed setup that they didn't work on so you're not really
going out there working on your car setups you're going out there basically to just kind of drive the
track and have some fun and the tracks you know and setup wise obviously you can't compare um but the tracks
are laser scanned and they're as almost as accurate as you can get bless you
they're as accurate as you can get to a racetrack to get to get laps on so a guy like harrison
and burton that's going to go to darn him for the first time i think i'm not sure i might be wrong
but he's going to go to the darning for the first time you cannot tell me that he's not going to be
better by going and running some laps on on i racing or a sim to get better to get more familiar
on where the wall is where to turn down the things are laser scanned you know how
How do you get more accurate than that?
But to Brad's point, what he's saying, I think, is you can do things in the SIM car that you don't do in real life.
And you can take those things.
And if you try to apply in real life, they're just not going to work.
There are things that do work.
But I think you need to be able to separate it from something, you know, fun and not use it as much of a tool for setup stuff and things like that.
But you can definitely, you can't tell me that.
If we go to a racetrack, me and Freddie and Brett, we go to a racetrack for the first time.
None of us have ever been to this track, never seen it, never heard of it.
We let Freddy go and run some laps on eye racing.
You know, let him practice eye racing for a few days on it and get used to it.
And we show up there and me and Brett have no idea of the layout.
Who's going to be faster?
You know what I mean?
Like who's going to have the advantage?
So it is a tool in a certain aspect, but it's also a,
You know, I think you need to be able to separate it from, you know,
things, tricks that you, obviously Kyle Bush isn't going to be able to take his tricks
and these good guys, what they know in the real car and apply them the eye racing.
They're all going to work the same.
You can't expect that.
I just don't know, do, like, is he talking about somebody in particular?
Because I didn't see anybody doing anything yesterday that I thought, I mean,
obviously the dumbest move of the race was Ricky Stenhouse on the first lap of the race.
And I don't think that had anything to do with eye racing.
I think that was him.
That move will not work on eye racing either.
I think that was him looking at his lineup and seeing Corey the Joy in front of him and thinking,
I got to get around this 32 cars fast as I can when Corey is not in the way by any means.
You know, it's not like Corey is, you know, Corey's not in the best equipment, but he's not
like somebody that's going to just hold you up five rows, you know?
So I don't know what, you know, it just seemed like Ricky just tried to make a bonehead move
on the first lap, but I don't, a guy like John Hunter and Imichek, I think that, I think probably
iraicing probably benefited him.
I mean, he was public enemy number one on eye racing the last couple weeks with, you know,
Junior and Danny and them, and he went out at a hell of a race yesterday. So I don't, I don't really
know who Brad's trying to refer this to, but I mean, I don't, I didn't see anybody do anything
yesterday that looked like something that they would have, you know, learned or tried on irate
and it didn't work here yesterday. Brad's usually a pretty methodical thinker, but this is a
pretty stupid statement. I'm definitely spot off on his comment. I thought guys raised as hard
yesterday as I've ever seen them raced. I thought guys looked as hungry yesterday as I've ever seen
them look and I think it's only going to be better on Wednesday night when we go back racing
because it's a hundred less miles. It's a 300 mile race, not a 400 mile race. So I'm excited,
man. I think Darlington's a great racetrack. And I think if you were entertained on Sunday,
you may even be more entertained when we go back on Wednesday night or Thursday,
depending what this tropical storm does is headed our way.
Brad, I really think he means like what all the tricks that William knows. Like William's ridiculously
fast on ir racing because he knows them tricks like him like you go to that we had a replacements at land a race
william can show up at the last second he's top of the board because he runs you know 20 races a week on
there and he likes it he's good at it but he's not going to be able to take what he does on iracing
to be fast and apply all them you know what i mean like if the car gets loose on there you might not
correct it the same way on i racing he's saying you do things on there that you just can't do in a
real car but i don't i think the times are different now
And I think it's a lot closer than what it used to be back in the day.
You know, back in 2012 or 13-ish, I think it's different now.
I mean, to my knowledge, T.J., to my knowledge, Denny Hamlin is the only guy that's truly in a, quote, simulator,
where there is movement in his butt when he turns his wheel, right?
William explained to us on our show that eye racing is about eye tracking.
So there's no seat of the pants feel to communicate to the crew.
chief, what changes you need to make your race car faster.
So I think anybody with a brain would realize that part of it.
But I mean, to your point, 100%.
Clint goes on there and runs Sonoma and Watkins-Glynn.
And he's not a big eye racing guy during the week.
But before we would go to those racetracks, he would get on there for his breaking points
and for his line of sight, for his peripheral vision, to always know exactly where he's
out on the racetrack, familiarize himself with what his marks are.
I mean, people hear us all the time saying, hit your marks, get in your rhythm.
When we tell a guy to hit his marks, it's not within three feet.
It's within three inches of getting in the corner.
So, man, if you, eye racing definitely gives those guys an advantage of young guys if they've never seen.
I mean, look at Tyler Reddick.
This guy rolls into Darlington as a rookie and puts on a hell of a show.
John Hunter and Imichek, hell of a show.
They obviously did their homework.
And they showed up with zero practice.
It's crazy.
Hey, Brett.
That's a pretty bird.
Do you have a gun on you by any chance?
No, look.
Yeah.
Can you shoot whatever bird is twerping behind you?
I came outside because my kids would be loud.
Now my kids are running around chasing dogs.
They're about to drive me nuts.
This pandemic's killing it.
I'd rather hear the bird.
I'd just shoot the bird in the head and be done with it.
It's driving me crazy.
You can't say that.
Yeah.
Peter.
Do you have a license for that?
You need a license to that?
FEMA listens to us.
You can't say that.
When you have kids, you'll be happy to hear that bird.
FEMA?
FEMA listens to us.
We're going to have Hurricane
relief.
We're going to need it this week.
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So I got a tweet last night that was kicked to me by a guy named Ryan Helley.
And it was Christopher Bell, the new Kyle Arson.
He loves a high lane.
It should be good at Homestead.
What do you guys think?
And I looked at Christopher Bell is about to be passed in Mac,
by the points by Matt Kenseth.
and my pick to be the new Kyle Larson,
because this guy, we've talked about him on the show for a year and a half,
he makes the race is exciting.
He rim rides.
He hits the wall.
He goes down to the next corner, hits it again.
Welcome to Doorbubber Clear, Tyler Reddick.
Yeah, thank you.
And I did a good bit of that yesterday, in fact, actually.
I hit the wall quite a bit.
I saw you once.
You were behind Clint.
You were racing him hard.
And you guys came through down the front stretch.
And I was like, oh, he's already hit the wall in the right rear.
And I literally said to Clint.
I'm like, hey, that's Redick behind you.
new be here. Let's not get caught up racing this guy because you guys had some history earlier
in the year. We can get to that in the minute. I was like, let's just let him go. I was like,
because he's going to screw his day up. Well, you never did, man. You kept it hung out all day.
I mean, I think I actually did a little bit. You know, these, I think my car lost a little bit of
speed, probably about 60, 70 laps to go. I actually hit it pretty good. Amazingly, I didn't cut a tire,
but I noticed right away just the loss and side force and just that side bite that I'd had all day.
So you just can't get away with it like you can in Xfinity car for sure.
Yeah.
So I got to ask you this and then we'll kick it to these other guys.
So Darlington, no practice in a cup car, no qualifying in a cup car.
Obviously you'd had two really solid runs in Xfinity Series car.
How does a guy like you come into this racetrack?
Because we always hear race to racetrack, don't make mistakes.
Like you're an aggressive guy behind the wheel.
But how do you go into Darlington and have as much speed as you had literally right off
the bat. I mean, you ran top 10 all day until you had a problem there at one point. Like,
how do you mentally prepare for something like that? Because I saw guys like Custer taking it
really easy. You're the exact opposite. You're an aggressive guy. I was just excited for this race.
I've, you know, I used to love seeing two Darlington races a year. And when I heard we were going to be
going here twice in a matter of three or four days. I mean, I hopped up and I was ready to go.
We started working on setups. And we already had a, Randall already had a pretty good idea and had a
pretty good setup. We were good in a Xfindi car there last year running off the wall. And I thought
if I could just get back to running up high and carrying the momentum, especially in these cup
cars with less downforce, or more downforce, less horsepower, it would work. And it seemed to
work pretty early on, for sure. So we just worked really, really hard on this setup in the
simulators, whenever they were opened back up and just really getting it dialed in. And even,
even that line, it seemed to find something there through one and two in the simulator. And I was
kind of shocked that it was able to work even in the simulator and that's kind of what sprung
me to jump to it so quick in the race yesterday.
Well, I was going to say, whoever brought that up to you again, Brett, must not have watched
how both the last Xfinity championships were won at Homestead.
You know, supposedly the guy running the wall that's supposed to be really good at it.
The guy that ran the wall and won the races is Tyler.
You know what I mean?
but yeah I saw what you were doing um there was a few guys doing that there last year
Tyler you know that the lane in the one there in the one and off of two
Denny is the first one that sticks out to me that that kind of would use it quite a bit
but yeah man I mean if you could just if you could just take it down you know maybe a
tiny the tiniest bit impressive run from the beginning though man
just a very impressive run for a place like that to be around, you know,
Cup guys coming off Phoenix where you had a solid run going there too.
So people can say they're surprised by, you know, your success so far.
But I'm not personally very surprised by how well you're doing in it.
I think you're very good at running the wall and figuring it out up there.
That's where a lot of people can't go and find speed.
right now so you're taking full advantage of it but phoenix was the opposite man you can't there was
there was no walled run at phoenix and you still uh still managed to pick your way to the top five
there and um and do good so yeah if you could if i was spotting for you i would be telling you
to go ahead and back it down a notch oh yeah um you know i've worked with tyler back when he drove for brad um
you know i think from your very first race right yep sure did the arker arca arca rica of dayton
Poor you. Oh my gosh. She had your hands for.
Tyler, thanks for coming on our show and listening to T.J. Talk the whole time.
Yeah.
TJ, can you kiss his ass this much?
You know, you realize he doesn't drive for Penske, right?
I mean, I know he has a tie to Brad, but you realize he runs at RCR.
You shouldn't be kissing his ass this much.
I don't know.
Well, hey, man, he's doing well.
This is nothing to we, me and Brett have said this before, though.
We said he was going to be good.
And it's not really a surprise.
Can you, like, just, I don't.
It's hard to, can you put into words how are you guys so much better at running the top?
I know Bubba talks about, you know, you can feel a little bit of cushion when you get up there.
And, but you see the dirt guys excel at it.
Can you, you know, best you can put it in words, why you guys are so much better at it?
Oh, no.
You know, normally at Homestead, an Xfinity car, I've noticed it at California.
When you get up right by the fence, you can feel that cushion.
But I don't know.
I don't know if it's necessarily searching for the cushion at Darlington is, you know,
much as trying to get your right sides a little bit of that clean race track or just trying to
open up your eggs a little bit of the corner it seems to help the Darlington I really couldn't feel
the wall that much to be quite honest with you but um I don't know it's it's just a feel and
and too you know as soon as somebody starts to come off the wall a little bit and you see a little
tunnel open up you just can't help the mass the gas wide open and try and fill it I guess that's some
of it too I just like passive people on the top that might be a lot of it honestly you can see
early in the race, guys like Newman and even
Priest and a couple other guys were really making the bottom
of one and two work. I think it was just a matter
of staying below the rubber. And then
eventually you were the one, I think, that went up there first
and got kind of above the rubber and clean racetrack
and maybe away from that bumps they wanted to
and really were able to make that top come in.
Yeah, it's an odd little wrap
there off of two. You think you're going to,
as you're going into two wide open, you're just going to nail
the fence off a turn two. But
it's just the way the banking kind of wraps you
there. It almost has a feeling of landing
into turn one at Charlotte. It just
it just hooks the car around. It just seemed to work. I don't really think there's any secret to it. It's just, you know, just trying to find some clean racetrack and open the exit up.
You're not, you're not afraid to hit the wall, are you? You're not, like, you don't go into a race afraid to hit the wall.
I mean, I was a little afraid to hit the wall yesterday, but unfortunately the first time I hit the dang wall, I was hitting it going into turn three behind Chase Sely it because I couldn't see where the heck I was on the racetrack. I could not get around Chase Silley yesterday. He was hard to pass, but drove it straight in the fence the first time, down a straight away.
In typical fashion, I did that at Homestead too.
Does it piss you off?
Because I saw you catch Chase Elliott,
and the minute you called him,
he moved up to take your line away.
Like when you see guys moving up,
knowing that they're taking away your line,
and you're the only guy out there ripping that top.
Like, does it piss you off a little bit?
No, because if I'm in their spot
and someone's that much faster and different line like that,
I got to try it and figure it out too.
You know, what was frustrating is he did find a little more speed up there,
but we were still better than he was for a good bit,
but either I burned my stuff up or he truly did find more, I don't know.
But it is aggravating at times, but that's part of racing.
I mean, if I just expect the guy to just let me go uncontested,
I mean, that's not really exactly what we're trying to do out here either.
So, yeah, it stinks.
It kind of slowed us down as we were charging back to the front,
but I can't really be upset about him doing that.
I mean, he's got to try and do the best he can for his race.
So eventually, I mean, eventually guys way back up into,
I think fourth or fifth there at the end of the race.
So he did what he had to do to make his event go the way he needed to
and have a good showing for himself.
I thought you gambled, not by by you coming into the series as a rookie.
I thought you gambled coming into the series into an organization
that hadn't had a lot of speed the last few years and bringing a rookie crew chief
because I've seen a lot of guys going back to Greg Biffle.
Like Biffle's this badass and he comes up.
He brings his truck crew chief with him and they get the cup and it takes him
a hot minute to get going. You guys are, you guys are overachieving. You're overachieving.
Your team's overachieving. You're outrunning the three car. You got a lot more speed than the
three car. How did it come about that that was going to be your crew chief? Was that a richer decision?
Mike Dillon, Andy Petrie. How much say did you have in it? Because I honestly thought you guys
were making a mistake. I didn't really have to say much. I mean, we just showed it in our chemistry.
We showed it in how we worked together at the shop, at the racetrack. And I think Randall showed
everybody at the shop just by how hard he worked and his, I guess, his approach to the race
weekends and where he wanted the cars for myself and us as a team. He's a good leader. He does a
really good job. And actually, I mean, in a way, I guess this will be, I think, his first full
year as a crew chief in the cup series. But, you know, he's got some experience with AJ
Almondinger over when he was at the 47. They had some good speed at times in that car. So he knows
what he's doing, you know, and he was over at Canassi as an engineer back when Montaubla
Montoya was driving that car.
And with Jamie McMurray, through those years, he won the Brickyard in Daytona 500.
So he's got experience.
He's been around the guys.
You know, we got paired together.
It was just good for him and good for me.
We just get along great, have similar backgrounds, both love Der Laid models.
So we come from similar backgrounds, and we both get along really well together.
And I think chemistry is a big part of it, too.
I can tell you firsthand that I think, you know, Tyler's already improved our performance as a whole.
You know what I mean?
just in yesterday's race alone
I look back we had a
we honestly had a running joke last year
we'd have shop photos
and it was our four RCR
alliance cars on the same
straightaway where it's Austin Ty
Bubba and Daniel last year
and we'd all be within a half a straightaway of each other
and running you know
18th to 25th something like that all day long
where yesterday we had that same issue
where it was but the three the 43 and the 13
all and Tyler was up there running
7th or 8th and we just all I know we were
focused a lot on Tyler's SMT and trying to
help up with, you know, what he was doing in his car and where he was running the racetrack.
And, you know, we were still a little too free at the end to make a lot of headway.
But we still ran top 20 all race.
We ended up 21st.
Austin made good improvements throughout the race.
He up got up in the 11th position or so towards the end.
And I don't know where he ended up.
But he got better as a race went on.
So I'm assuming they were doing a lot of the same stuff.
So you see already the improvement that's coming with Tyler.
And it's just a matter of getting up there and ripping it, man.
It's impressive.
Yeah, getting that track position and keeping it was.
was the key at Darlington, I feel like.
At one point in that race, I was sitting back
and we mentioned race and Chase Elliott hard.
If I could have just passed him or just had, you know,
that one money stop that he did,
I'm looking at being sixth instead of 10th
and the whole race changes.
And that really brought it to me
is just got to execute all day long.
Got to watch out for wall banners coming off the fence
and not getting them stuck in her nose either.
I want to hear your take on that.
I got two more questions.
One of them is about that.
So the racetrack is coming apart.
The wall banner is coming apart.
It's affecting various drivers day.
And it's affecting it in large ways.
When that happens, what should NASCAR do?
If anything.
Well, you know, if it wouldn't go to the point of affecting our car's balance as much as it does,
I'm all for just staying green.
But, you know, when I saw it on Denny's car, I really just thought Denny had slowed down.
I didn't realize it was it was hurting his car's performance as much as it was.
When I saw it come flying off, I saw just a glimpse of it.
And I'm like, oh, geez, I just, I caught this thing, whatever.
I hope I don't overheat.
I went to turn three and four, and I thought I blew a tire.
Like, I don't know how I didn't knock the wall down.
So, I mean, it knocked an incredible amount of speed out of my car.
It really felt like a blue a tire.
We got off the splitter and it was just dangling on the right front nose.
And we were really, really tight.
It was, it was crazy.
I couldn't, I could never imagine that it would cause that much performance loss.
So knowing what we do now about it, I think the drivers would be adamant to, to make
a statement and, you know, let them know that, hey, this is really affecting our cars.
So they might throw the caution more eagerly now knowing what they do, or they may just
paint them back on for Wednesday.
I joked with the NASCAR drivers group me with, with, you know, Steve O'Donnell and all the
guys.
And they're like, hey, can we go back to painted banners for Wednesday night or painted
sponsor signs?
So hopefully they'll be painted when we get back there on Wednesday.
That's my last question.
We're obviously a spotter podcast.
You have Derek Neeland who left Chip Canassie Racing, left
Kyle Larson.
There were a bunch of spotters on the roof
that literally were questioning.
What is Derek Nealyn doing?
He's leaving Kyle Larson to go work with a rookie.
So you obviously have a veteran spotter.
This one race has been in a lot of races and a lot of series.
He's a former driver himself up in Maine.
How much has he helped you in the Cup Series,
knowing that you've got an experienced guy up there?
I mean, he's been awesome.
I've been lucky to work with some really good spotters.
You know, back when I had this.
After TJ you're talking about?
No, even TJ.
I literally had no idea what I was doing on Super Speedways,
and TJ would just tell me,
all right, you're going to the bottom,
you're going to the top,
you're going to block here,
pull the side draft.
All right,
now you're going to pull off.
I had no idea what I was doing,
but TJ pretty much taught me everything,
you know, taught me all the fundamentals.
He was very bossy at times too,
but that's what I needed.
And whenever I got the Chip Ganassie racing,
Derek was just really good about explaining the lines
and just telling me the little details
that I needed that point.
And whenever we parted ways,
and I went to junior,
motorsports and had, you know, Earl Barbin. I had a lot of fun with Thurl. But, you know, I just,
I just knew that, you know, me and Derek just had a really good connection there. So,
when the opportunity opened up for, you know, Derek was available on the Xfinity side,
when Ross in the 42 car didn't happen on the Xfinity side, I, me and Randall both jumped on
that to try and get him to do that car. And we just had a lot of,
