Door Bumper Clear - 186 - Choosing Your Own Destiny

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

A packed weekend of racing at Michigan International Speedway and Road America left plenty for our spotter trio of Brett Griffin, T.J. Majors and Freddie Kraft to cover. NASCAR implemented the choose rule for restarts across all series. The guys break down how it played out in both Cup Series races, the teams’ strategy behind it and how their drivers handled it. Freddie and T.J. provide insight on lobbying to move the location of the spotters stand after a treacherous Truck Series race. Contact with Alex Bowman forced an unscheduled pit stop for Clint Bowyer on Sunday. Brett discusses why a substitute spotter is to blame. Brad Keselowski took Ryan Blaney out while racing for the lead and the guys react. The Xfinity Series used a no live pit stops format at Road America. Despite being a cost-saving measure, the gang shares why it was an epic failure. Erik Jones said he was blindsided by losing his ride at Joe Gibbs Racing. The guys dive into JGR’s history of firing drivers. It’s off to the Daytona Road Course for the inaugural NASCAR tripleheader. Hear how spotters and drivers are preparing to race on a new course without any practice.   Want more DBC? Check out and subscribe to the new DBC YouTube channel! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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

minimum listenership. I like money. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place. We love using Anchor. It's a great platform that lets us hear from the fans in reaction theater with Anchors leave a message feature. So when you create your account with Anchor, you can also utilize their feature

and make your own podcast. TJ will be your first guest. So download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm. To get started. That's A-N-C-H-O-R.fm to get started. Yo, what's up, Freddie Kraft, and you're listening to Door Bumper Clear, presented by Offerpad.

After a busy weekend of racing in Michigan and Rhode America, we're here to break it all down. We'll discuss Keslowski wiping out his teammate for the lead and the first weekend using the Choose Cone, as well as all the silly season news. Here we go. At TJ Majors. This is Brent Ripman.

Hey, me too now. This is Freddie Craft. Get ready. Be ready. Be ready. Be ready. Give me what you got here. New leader.

Watch out for this guy. White flag. Rec. Hello. Clear. Bring all. Coming to the line. Door, bumper, clear.

Hey, everybody. I am T.J. Majors. It's part of the 22 cup car. I actually did a truck this weekend. 99 truck. Full studio. Congrats. Brett Griffin, Spotter for Clint Boyer.

Straight out of a double header at Michigan. What's up? Freddie Crafts, Spotter for Bubble Wallace in the 43 car. Is he still at? He's moving? He's there as of last night when we got on the airplane. He was still. He was there when you let us buy on Saturday.

On the last corner. Damn it. Last turn, TJ passed me on Saturday. I was so mad. And then, to make it even better, like three or four guys go to the back and they're all in my lane. So I ended up starting like three or four rows in front of Freddie. I said, Dan, we should have hooked Joe. I text Bubba Sunday morning, so we should have hooked Joey off a four because it's going to be worth about eight spots today.

It was out. Yeah, it was going to be good. Y'all also raced extremely hard to start the race yesterday. I looked up around like eight or ten. Me and Freddie? Y'all were dueling, right? Oh, no, that wasn't in the beginning. I chased him down to the apron one time.

Yeah. But I don't think that was in the beginning. It was just. That was like me. Joey was like almost clear and kept coming up, coming up. And I don't know. Oh, that was out of four. Yeah, we left you the lane.

Yeah, no, we had the lane. And then, I don't know, we just chased him down for some reason. It's just that point of the race where you don't really want to, you don't want to give anything. But you're all. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So back from Michigan.

Casey's in the house. How are you, Case? I'm still here and still pregnant, so thanks, guys. Oh, and of course we can't forget our lovely producer, Jason. Thank you, Casey. Thank you for the introduction. We gave TJ a present before the show, but he threw it off the table. Through the way, yeah.

Where'd that come from? What was it? I don't know, some sort of weird graffiti writing on a box or something. What was the gift? I don't know. There wasn't any empty box. It was Chase Elliott box. So you sent him a box?

Or did you send him a box? Or we found a box. Jason went through his closet. Jason went through his closet, basically. I can't afford die cast. Basically, so you will no longer accept Chase Elliott items. I don't think you ever have. Is it just a box or was there something in that?

No, there wasn't a gift. It was a box. It was a box. It wasn't even a gift. It's behind you. I mean, if there was like a die cast something in it, I mean, Stella would have all the size knocked off that thing in this afternoon. noon, so.

I think it'd be going down my driveway. Like Joey did? Oh. Anyways. What's that? Whoa, you can't take a jab and not back it up here. Okay. I'm just saying you guys have had some rough chaffirism.

After I get done telling you how good you look today, then you take a shot of me. It's okay. I know. I tried to hold it in, but I couldn't. No, you didn't. There was no holding that in. That's okay. This is to make up for like all the times.

weren't nice to me. Like today you're being nice. Oh yeah. I was going to say we've been pretty nice today and all of a sudden now you want to ruin it. You're going to spend the rest of your life getting back your breath then. Today but I can probably name a few episodes that were not very nice. I got breaking news on DBC here.

Oh. Quinn Huff and Kyle Larson are tied in points now. He's called him before the we have lit a fire under Quinn Huff. I will say though man the last like he's been better. He's been better like I don't. Hasn't, ever since tried to kill everybody.

Ever since he listened to our show. Yeah. Ever since that, he didn't listen to me the one day when I told him stopped doing that dumb stuff, but that ever since then, I'm pretty sure after NASCAR

had to talk with him. We haven't really, although he did, I'm pretty sure he was the first one Saturday to get the penalty for driving over the box on the restart cone. But yeah,

other than that, that was tough though. I like the guys in the back half of the back, like, you know, third or not even a third, the back quarter of the truck race. Like,

I'm just going to drive over it and see what happens. like, and then they black flag. Or the best, the truck race, they ended up, NASCAR ended up sending an email out on Saturday morning after the truck race because the guys in the back would be like, all, we're going to all pick the top. And then they'd roll through one and two and realize there's like 12 extra trucks

on the top and they just drive to the bottom and pull up. And I'm like, what the hell's going on here? If you pick the top, you stay up there. That's where you stay. You know what? I changed my mind. Let's look better down there. This is another reason why you need to have somebody that can help guide you up top.

Look, you got four on the bottom, five on the bottom. You know, your P-10. Yeah. You know, five go to the bottom. You know, you need to understand that stuff. You know what happens when you count all that stuff out right there to Clint Boyer? You know what his response is? What's that mean?

All right, Clint, you're P20 and then you start counting out. There's three on the bottom. There's four on the bottom. He gets to the choose zone. He picks his line, well, I don't know what all that meant. Okay, it means if you take the bottom, you'll be the fifth on the bottom instead of the 15th on the f*** top. I don't know what that means. Did you not go over this before the race?

It's simple math. But did you not talk to him before the race? I went over it with myself. 100% And what needed to be said. Oh, I don't know what that means. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to pick.

We have like, we had some, we went over quite a bit. I got back to the hotel Saturday after the cup race and I was going to ready to take a shower and my phone ringing. Joey's FaceTime me and he's like, let's go over this restart stuff. I'm like, all right. So I'm sitting there like, FaceTime. I'm and Joey, topless. I was going to say, y'all can't do this over the phone. Like, y'all got to look at each other to talk about.

Well, we were looking at diagrams and pictures and stuff. So, you know, plus I'm just a naturally good-looking guy and he wants to see me. Naked. Clearly. But, yeah, so we want to, it's definitely, I mean, you can definitely, I like picking. Are we talking about this now or later, Jason? Yeah, we're going to talk about it later. So let's not, let's not spoil it.

Kevin Harvig sleeping the double-headed Did you guys expect this one at all? Especially after the first race. It's not surprising. I mean, I'm not surprised. He's been pretty good this year for some reason. Well, and you're running like six mile an hour faster and everybody into the front stretch.

You're going to be pretty good. And it's nothing new. They had the same similar stuff there before. Put Clint up there in that clean air. He was fast too. Kevin's been, they figured out how to, I think they've dialed handling out of their cars a little bit. they're super fast now.

Definitely out of my car. But, you know, it was either straight lines, you know, you're either going for speed or handling, and everyone went for handling there for a little bit. Like, we got out front of Vegas. We dominated Vegas with handling. Now it seems like guys are going the other way. Kevin can't run behind somebody in a corner

within five carlings of the guy. If you watch, if he's within five car lines, he's moving somewhere where he's not getting in a dirty air. But I'll tell you what. All he has to do is maintaining that corner because when you get to the straightaway, when Kevin makes a move, he completes it on the tradeaway.

And that was the most impressive part to me about Kevin is when he made a move. So you're saying when his spotter said clear high, he actually took it. Like, yes. Brett was so mad on Saturday because one of the late restarts, Bubba was up there, I don't know,

we were at like 7th and 8, 6th, something like that. And there was a hole in front of me, and I could tell, like, it was off a 4, right? Yeah. I saw it. He didn't get up in front of me. Yeah.

And he ended up losing a bunch. We passed you then, too. We got a laptop after, actually. We 97 cars drove by us when we didn't get up. I think we passed you through that. Clear High, get up, get up, get up, get up. Outside, mother, f***. Why didn't you get up?

And if Clint Cosmather Wrakes, I can't just get up, I'll wreck. Oh, okay. All right, well. How are you going to wreck? You're moving one lane. Bro, I don't know. Maybe our car, we took the handling out of our cars, I guess. oh my goodness

yeah there's a there's a couple times where I mean I cleared Joey heck I think I cleared in front of Bubba one time yeah I think it was but man if there's a hole you got to you had to you had to the last restart the green white checker last green white checker on Saturday we Bubba like he's like

what do you think we're running I don't know seventh or eighth he's like what do you think I'm like well your choice is going to be you're going to start fifth or like 12th you know whatever it was 10th or 12th you know I said I said hey let's you know honestly we're not supposed to be here. Might as well roll the dice and see if we can get up and we got a good run through the middle and we were we were actually clear of Blaney but it was in a spot where Bubba couldn't get up.

You know what I mean? It's like in the quarter mark of the corner you can't come right up. You can't come up there. So like I'm like you're clear coming back coming back and it's like, you mean it's not like the front stretch. Not like the front stretch where you can come right up. So you have these brainiacs tell you before the race and they show you all these diagrams like T. T.J.'s talking about and tell you what to do. Well, look, I like to play blackjack. I know what the odds are. But at the end of the day, you still don't know what the dealer has. And what I'm saying about that is on these restarts, we still don't know what all these lanes are going to do. Also, Dillon throws one late block. It gets one lane messed up. One guy gets loose.

One guy spins his tires. It changes the whole outcome of what's going to happen. So if you're late in a race and have an opportunity to go from 13th to 5th, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you take it? And like you said, Freddie, there's one hole. You get up. Man, you look like a freaking hero. Yeah, it's five spots. I mean, you know. I mean, you'd have thought Bubba gave birth to triplets, you know, celebrate ninth. I mean, I'm serious. Like the whole. whole world's going crazy because bubble while I's finished ninth. And to be honest, that's what NASCAR wants to see out of this package. They want to see surprises. Do I think the drivers like driving this package? No, because they have to race like buttholes. And there's no throttle

response. It's all about momentum. They're flying through the center to corner. But this is what these fan surveys say they want. Cars running close to one another. That's what they got. And it was a complete parade other than a few guys that could pass. The 18 could pass early. Obviously, it could pass early. But once those comers and goer stop after the random draw that we did or the invert that we did this time, it was kind of what it was. I mean, I didn't think it was as good of a race as a day before, but we didn't have as much drama.

I mean, we've seen it with this package. It's hard to pass. Yeah. And we did that at the beginning of the race yesterday. You know, we, I forget where the invert put us, but I think we were 12th or something like that. And then stole a couple on the start. So now we're running around 8th.

And we weren't very good. But we were good enough to, I think we fell back to like 13th or 14th. but it was, you know, one guy could pass us every three or four laps. You know what I mean? It wasn't, I mean, the old days, if we were bad as we were, we'd have been junk. You know what I mean? We would have been in the back somewhere. So, you know, and yesterday, like you talked about throttle time, like, we weren't very good

into the corner. So we were done, like, at the end of the race. Like, Bubba's like, I can't, off the wall. He's like, I got to get out of it. And he's like, I'm out of it and waiting for the thing to turn, and they're on the hammer just driving by me. You know, it's like. You say he was tight or loose in or loose in?

He was loose in off the wall. Like, you know. wall in turn three is terrible, man, because everyone just dives in there. I think part of the reason why the race might not have been as good on Sunday is because we all used the race Saturday as a practice. We all got better. We made our car better. I can tell you that.

The 10 car wrecked his car, so he'd have a different car. He was so bad. Did you see how bad he was on Saturday? And then the different car on Sunday, a completely different outcome. Yeah. He was super fastening that race. It was tough to hold him off. It's just hard for me to watch.

race when I see second and third place have a clear run on the leader and when they get to the corner they stay in line with them versus trying to pass them because they know if they don't pass them they're going to lose four five six spots and we're not used to seeing that in the cup series maybe that's the way indy car races all the time and indy car fans are migrating over here by the tens of thousands that they got but i don't it's weird man i will say this about the doubleheader weekend and love the shorter races. The racetrack is coming around. We could run different grooves in the gray this time.

You could work the very bottom. You could work a car width off the very bottom. Obviously, we saw some guys up there, two tires in the PJ1, four tires in the PJ1. Take the PJ1 off and guess what? We can run all the way to the wall. Probably. I mean, it's gotten some age on it.

I don't know if we can run away the wall yet, but I've noticed that the PJ1 is really grippy in the beginning of the races now. And it didn't used to be like that. used to have to stay out of it for a while if you got in it. We needed guys like Larson to work it up. You know, once Larson would hit and move it up a little bit at a time and then get it, you know, I don't know. To me, it's just grippy right in the beginning.

Started that truck race. We started like 9th or 10th with Ben Rose. We drove all the way to like. I know I was right behind you. I was following. We drove right on the outside of everybody into PJ1. Yeah. You look at the Michigan highways.

I don't know what your trip was like from the racetrack to the airport, but I needed a mouthpiece in. and that's how rough their roads are. Yeah, I was waiting for kidney stones to hit. It was, uh, I only say a half mile away. I don't know who runs their department of transportation is over their road system, but they should be fired. See,

this is coming from a guy that grew up in South Carolina that doesn't understand what salt does. Do they have even, do they even pave roads in South Carolina? See, this is, uh, what happens. He's hoped for the best. In the northern areas there, when you get a lot of snow. And that's why you ever notice how wide the roads are up there?

Yeah. So they can push all the snow off the side. But, yeah, There's a, so when you go to a parking lot and a restaurant, just look at some of the cars. Look at the bumpers and trucks and stuff. I see the rust. Yeah, so there's nothing good that comes from the salt. But in Michigan, normally, like, if you're driving from Ann Arbor, I don't know where you guys stayed,

but that's like my favorite drive on the circuit because they have all those sunflower fuel. Yeah, there wasn't any sunflowers this time. But do you know what my favorite part of that drive is, the two passing zones that you get to? Yes. This year, you would have chipped your teeth, Casey. You might have had your baby. Yeah, that pretty white teeth. I would have been in the room.

You talk about Kevin Harvick. I was looking at some numbers last night. And at his age, on paper, he's having the best season he's ever had. His average finish this year is 5.9. His win percentage is 27%. Since he got to Stuart Haas in 2014, 32 wins. He's averaging five wins right at five wins a year. At RCR, he obviously did some really good things.

He only averaged 1.7 wins a year. So when you look at a guy that's only getting better in time, holy cow. I mean, he's sitting the world on fire statistically this year. I mean, you knew when they put that matchup of him and Rodney together. You know, they took Rodney away from, was he at MWR to time? W.W.R. on a part-time deal. And they put them together, like, that 55 car that Rodney was on, he had all kind of different. Mark Martin, Vickers, Michael, whoever drove it, it was fast.

And you're like, wow, this guy's hell, you know, he's got a hell of a crew chief. And then you take Kevin, who's obviously a hell of a driver and put him in some of the best stuff at the time, Stewart Hot stuff and put them together, you're like, this is going to be dangerous. People don't know this, but Tony Stewart wanted Rodney Childers, and he was going to go after him. And Kevin was like, absolutely not. That's my guy. Tony Stewart backed off and let Kevin have him. I'll never forget, we were on an airplane. I got a text from Rodney, because obviously we were all over there together. I was spotting for Clint with a five-hour car. And he texted me, and he's like, man, what do you think I should do? And I was like, dude, I know where

going to win the most races. But Kevin Harvick's really hard on crew chiefs. And when he gets done with you, he hangs you up and you're out to dry. I mean, we saw him win with guys, and then the next year, he was firing him. He was tough on crew chiefs. Obviously, match made in heaven. These guys are setting a world on fire. Well, you know, listen.

We blame Tony for this. Yeah. Damn it, Tony. You have ruined all our lives. That's the true backstory to how that happened. Yeah. And then you listen, like, I was listening to Dale's show on the way out to Michigan this week. And they asked them, like, you know, obviously Kevin's kind of,

butted heads with crew chiefs and stuff, you know, what do you, what are you done differently? You know, how do you make that work? And he's like, he's like, people laugh at me. But when Kevin goes off, you know, on a, you know, this, this, this, whatever, he goes, I say, they're 10-4, gotcha. Like, he said, because I listened in the past and guys like Gil or somebody would fight, you know, they'd go back at him and it just, it'd just be a downward spiral from that point on. He says, I just let him rant. Right. And just stay, you know, Rodney's obviously super level-headed. Yeah. And, I mean, that's just like a match made in heaven for those two over there. But talking about short races, I mean, we're talking two hours, cup races yesterday.

Two hours, nine minutes, two hours, nine minutes, two hours, 30 minutes, day before, but we had a red flag. Yeah. I mean, in my mind, that's ideal. I mean, obviously, you're going to have your races, Daytona 500, Coke 600, Southern 500. You know, I don't think you want to change them. But, I mean, a two-hour race, I think is a great time frame. Well, the thing is, Freddie, we see our races say they're going to start at four. They don't start until four-27.

So we burnt 27 minutes of the fans' time before we throw the green. So realistically, by the time you have the pre-race, you have the race, you have the post-race, you're sitting right at three hours, which is what the NFL's lift off of forever. Football games, well, like once it 107 kickoffs or something like that. Yeah, the only thing I didn't like about it was, man, there wasn't much strategy play as far as fuel. Yeah, you'd have to change the stages, I think. Either that or what about, I mean, smaller fuel cell. Smaller fuel cell or something, man.

Change something to make it, because you didn't have to pit in either stage. Like, you can make both stages on fuel. So if you're going to put a smaller fuel cell in it, obviously tires are going to become even more irrelevant at that point. Can we run a softer tire and not the spoiler off while we're doing this? I mean, it all makes sense, man. You know, I mean, we've changed a lot of things. I mean, we just changed something huge right here with six races left in the playoffs.

put a choose on in effect. We're not afraid to make changes around here. We have put out a qualifying method that MIT grads probably still haven't figured out. You'll talk about all of that later. Does anybody know where I start this weekend? But when I say they haven't figured it out, we can figure it out, but it's going to take a minute. It's really complicated for a fan to know, well, hey, I'm a Bubba Wallace fan, I'm a Joy

Ligano fan, I'm a Clint Boyer fan. I know where those guys are starting. It's impossible. It's hard on the fans. So when did they put that out? When are they going to put out where we're starting? I mean, I already know where we're all starting. Oh, you do?

Yeah. Where are we starting? T.J.'s fifth, you're 12th, I'm 19th. I'll take 12th. That's good. Oh, so now you like it. Freddy did all the math in his head. Yeah, I just did it actually right now.

Freddy's a damn genius. Freddy's brothers probably sit home with some algorithm writer. In his underwear to edit on, Freddy's big old couch. Once we get to it and spot on, spot off, I'll tell you exactly how I did it. Oh, yeah, man. Your brother lives with you, right? Yeah. I'm like, what's Megan?

Is she all right with that? Normally wives get a little mad. About what? Trust me, you don't ever see him. He's in two rooms in my house. That's it. Like his bedroom or where he's got his eye racing deal. That's the only, I don't think she's ever seen him in three years now.

I don't know. She might actually, I think we might have just broke news. She might actually know he lives there. Hey, I got some breaking news. After Kip Childers' help, I can now say Matt D. Benedetto. We got to, Jason, we need that sign in here. He sent me the way to pronounce it. Yeah.

He text me exactly how to say it. You know what we need. You know what we need. For Brett's like Man Cave deal, we need one of them road signs, like street signs. It's Matt's last name so he can just look at it a lot. So Kip, Kip, the pace car driver. Thank you. I got it.

Thank God for Kip. I'm not saying I want to fucking up again, but I got it. I just hope we don't make them throw up this week. Also, Kip, thanks for all the work they put in for, they originally had us in the grandstands there, and it was super hard to do our jobs off of Turn 4. You could not clear your guy to the water. Can you imagine spotting them cup race? You didn't go up there.

No, it was. We could not have spotted the cup races from where we were. So it was awful. You had no. I'll show you a video. You were looking through the fence. And so you couldn't even see your car down the front stretch, really. Watch my truck.

I'm behind crafting. Watch where he goes right here. Look how you can't see them. You can't even see the trucks. No. So they had you guys in the grandstands like they've had a lot of places. That's always did the truck rate. Like there's a little.

No wonder y'all have 14 cautions in 10 laps. On the front stretch. Right in front of us. You couldn't see it. Freddie's truck crossed, was it your truck that crossed Fenn's time backwards? And if it would have been 100 feet earlier, I would have got him then too. But yeah, it was super hard.

You couldn't clear your guy. No. So the whole front of my truck got ripped off because of it. The whole front of his truck. Yeah, like the whole thing. The 51 come up on Ben. And the next thing I know, the 51 goes by, and my whole nose piece is hanging off the back of the 51,

and I can see my radiator. The sides are still there, but the center is completely gone. Wow. Well, I was obviously. And then Ben Lossett in the one. So we've talked about it on the show. We have a spotter group me where all the cup spotters are in a chat room. T.J. created this years ago.

I think he and I were two of the first ones in it. So we're going through this group me chat. And all of a sudden, Kevin Hamlin puts a post in our group meet. And it essentially says this is unsafe for our drivers for us to be where we are. We cannot see. We have blind spots. This is not good. And then obviously you guys went to work and got it.

resolved and they put us on the roof. We were working on it before that, but it just couldn't happen that quick, like, for the truck race. We were working on it before the truck race once we got up there, and even during the truck race, like, hey. It sounds like to me, the problem is NASCAR officials on the roof don't want us going to the same bathroom they're going to. I don't think it's not NASCAR. It's not NASCAR, though. If it's that and if it's, they don't, you know, whatever it is. But, hey, man, we can't go to Daytona in four weeks and spot the oval if we're not on the roof.

There's too much on the line for us to be the difference maker at this point. I don't like that. But we have two bathrooms up there basically. You know what I mean? There's two up there. I'm just saying if you say it's not the bathroom, then it's not the bathroom. I think it was supposedly it was just like the governor's office of that state said that there was too many for there. 60 people per bathroom.

So if the spotters are up there, plus all the race control. TV? It was TV. It was more than 60 people obviously. So that's what they told us just go down. Well, there's only one stall. They think 60 of us going to get around it and pee together. I don't think that's all that.

There's a couple stalls there's two urinals. That should count. That should be fun. Get on my shoulders. Oh, all right. Well, we've already talked a ton. But before we head into Spot on, Spot Off, what do you guys think of the announcement where there will be no fans at the Indy 500?

It's crazy. Insane. Yeah, I don't have any idea. I mean, obviously, to me, somebody stepped in and said, hey, this is probably not the best idea. because if there's anybody that I think could do it right, it's the guy that owns that place now. And even being in that facility,

that facility right now is, I mean, unreal. I just don't understand the place, what's its seat, right? 350,000 people. So there's, I mean, you can have, I mean, you have all the room in the world to have 50,000 fans. I mean, I hate to take a shot at NASCAR on this, but we've had probably 50,000 for, the last, you know, how many years when we race there, and it looks empty.

You could, I mean, you could social distance plenty at, you know, whatever it is, 15, 20%. But think about that, though, too, like we talked about, 50,000 people, 50,000 people with a football state, and that thing looks packed. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, compare that to how pop, you know, so. I mean, obviously, you'd have to do work on getting them in, so they're not all over each other getting in and stuff, but.

That place has got a hundred games. Yeah, I mean, you've got a thousand ways to get in that place. I mean, like TJ said, Roger Penske does a lot, you know, and he's probably one of the smartest men in our sport. This is all, you can't, there's no way around this. This is political. We were just in Indianapolis, Freddie. We just went out to eat at St. Elmo's.

Were there other people in there eating? Yes, we were inside. People flying in and out of that airport on commercial airplanes are sitting butt to butt, elbow to elbow. They're packing these airplanes full. This is inside space. So you can't tell me it makes sense to have an outside space that large and nobody can come. This is, clearly this is not Roger's decision.

alone. This is a lot of government leaders involved. And it is a crying shame that they are this stupid. And I would, if I voted in the state of Indianapolis, I would vote completely different solely based on this. Because I'm a motorsports fan. I'm a sports fan. I want to be able to go and enjoy these things. And when you're making the decision, look, I'm a grown-ass man. If I want to go to this particular racetrack and they limit it to 50,000 people, one, I feel safe. Because we've been around a lot of stuff since this pandemic started. You know, we've been around a lot of stuff since things started re-opening. And NASCAR has done. that's exceptionally well.

We went to Texas with fans. No known outbreaks. We went to Bristol with fans. No known outbreaks. You know why? Because we know how to do it. Guess who has every single person's phone number in NASCAR, Roger Penske. He would know how to do this right.

This is a shame for the indie fans. I'm sorry. Yeah. I mean, and you see this all across, you know, my home track Riverhead. I touched on a little bit on Twitter this week if people were watching. But they had fans last week. You know, the first week they came back, not this Saturday, Saturday last week. And they came back, had fans, had protocols.

place, masks everywhere, everybody, you know, there was no limit on capacity, but I mean, they usually fill it about halfway anyway beginning of the year. And somebody, I think it was a New York post or somebody complained about, you know, sent a complaint to the state about it. So they had to come back and now you can't have fans there all of a sudden. You know, I mean, they had no problems last week. Everybody did what they had to do. Everything was rival because somebody complained. You know, now they got, you know, they have to, you know, go to Riverhead Raceway dot TV and you can watch a race every week, but they, you know, luckily enough they could do pay-per-view for it now to hopefully supplement some of the lost income they got. But I mean,

If they can't stay open, it's going to put some of these short tracks out of business. And that's the bloodline of our sport. Like, that's where these guys are coming from. You know, your local short tracks and stuff, that's what's producing the next crop of racers that we're going to have in the Cup series. So, I mean, you can't afford to lose these short tracks one by one because, you know, somebody's complained about, you know, oh, they had 3,000 fans in the grandstands that hold 10,000, you know. So I don't know.

It's just the way of the world right now, I guess. But like you said, it's disheartening to see how political it's turned. It would be interesting to see how political it is in a few months. Well, that's what I'm worried about. Like, I think a very small percentage of people are controlling what the large percentage of people have to do. I mean, when I look at Casey, Casey has stayed in and quarantined herself because she doesn't want to be at risk. She's pregnant. My mom has stayed in.

I haven't seen my mom in months because of this, and she's doing what's best for her. Like, I don't understand why we can't put it in our own hands and us do what we think is best for us and our own safety. And, I mean, look, I still wear a freaking mask everywhere I go, no matter what state I'm in, because supposedly that's the safe thing to do. Safe for me, safe for people I love. So it's what I do, man. But it's, I don't know how we are saying in January that we're already got concessions. I mean, what was it?

The NFL team said. Like the Jets and the Giants already said they're not going to have fans this year. Like, how do you know what's going to happen? You're playing game. I mean, I will give credit to, I believe it was the Packers that said, we're not going have fans for our first two games. And then we're going to see what happens. You know, where we're at then.

You're probably looking at, I don't know, what, October, November, you know, a couple weeks into the season. So, you know, now you're going to, all right, we'll reevaluate them because this changes by the month. You know what I mean? It changes by the week, really. What, you know, what phases of who's in, you know, I just don't understand. My problem with the whole thing is how could it be different?

You know what I mean? How could we be in phase here and New York's in this phase and this one's, we should all, if it's this pandemic and it's a. statewide pandemic, we should all be in the same spot. We can't go to bars. Bars are all closed, whatever. You know, you can't go here. You can't go there.

But it's like the fact that it's different here, different there, different there, I feel like it's never going to end. I feel like it was drug out too long. Not that I want to talk politics much, but we drugged this all out way too long. We needed to have a lockdown the first few weeks. We needed to lock things down, in my opinion, a strict lockdown, not by each governor. But, you know, president coming on there and saying, hey, we're going to lock the U.S. down three weeks get this thing under control so it doesn't go crazy and then we can that we would be controlling a lot smaller outburst at that point I think but I don't know

I just what countries did I'm a spotter for a living perfectly fine now I'm just a spotter so yeah well before we do spot on spot off just want to talk about uh man it's rare that anybody misses a race on the roof and we had a couple guys this week uh Jason Jarrett missed both races this week and unfortunately he lost his grandmother last week so thinking about him this week obviously one of the best guys up there i tweeted something about him a couple weeks ago giving his waters to a gate guard jason's jason's awesome and then uh kevin hamlin i take the day off yesterday to be with his family in washington so just thinking about them guys uh you know hopefully we see them back soon yeah it's not very often guys you don't you don't miss these races without something you know uh pretty serious event so

You notice when they're missing too. I noticed. I noticed. Me, Alex Bowman and Clint Boyer noticed. Did you all hit? Yeah, there was a wreck for the lead. And about three seconds after that wrecked for the lead started, the 88 drove over top of me. He had no idea they were wrecking.

I talked to Alex last night. And I was looking for Hamlin, just to ask what happened. Because clearly I know Kevin is one of a good spotter. I mean, I recommended him for jobs in the past. I can't find him. All of a sudden, some dude I've never seen before comes up to me trying to talk to me. And I'm like, what does this guy want? And I've got a headset on, and I can't see his mouth because we're wearing a mask.

And Freddie knows I can't hear worth of crap. So I finally figure out, I think this guy's talking about the 88. I was like, are you spotting the 88? And he's like, yeah. I said, well, they pay attention. That's how that went. What was his response? I don't know.

I was losing my mind at that point. He wasn't paying attention. That's why I had to pit under green because Martin Truax said our tire was fine. which it looked fine from the outside, but inside there were some damage. Yeah. Tough. Kevin, we love you, dude. Jason, I was texting with both those guys.

So, tough guys, and like Freddy said, two of the nicest on the roof. Well, Hamlet might be debatable about that. Yeah, I mean, I don't know about that. He ribs shot at Herm one time in New Hampshire. Oh, my gosh. Gosh, that was hilarious. Gosh. I'd love to see Herm's face when he did that again.

Hey, here's the thing about it. He hit Herm and Herm wasn't even spotting for the car that Hamlin thought he was spotting for. He hit the wrong guy. You guys can literally talk all day. We hadn't even got to the show yet. You eat all day. I haven't even, I'm still steering at my cereal. All right, before we get started, let's hear more about our presenting sponsor OfferPad.

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Please read the fine print because Freddie and Brett will help you move. Topless. Spot on, spot off. He's spot off. Spot on you like it. Spot off, you don't like it and you say why either way. First topic, spot on, spot off. Brad Kislowski takes out his teammate Ryan Blaney while race.

for the lead. Pick me. TJ. Pick me. Oh, I got you. Don't worry. You know, spot off because you never, you don't want to see teammates wreck each other, especially when you work there.

But, you know, this doesn't phase me at all with them. I think the professionals, they're both running good. There's going to be the teams all get along great and everything. So it's racing, man. They're racing for the lead. It's not like, you know, not like they were beating each of doors off for 15th. Those two guys both want to win right now. They both got a lot of speed.

They know if you get out front. it's going to be hard to pass. So, you know, I've seen, I've talked to Brad. That was a pretty hard hit he took, you know. And Blaney, Blaney's in good spirits as well. I mean, he's been fast, week in and week out now. So, you know, being, having speed fixes a lot of things. And those two guys both have a lot of speed right now.

So, you know, I'm not really, it'll be in the books now and on to the next one. I mean, spot on. I mean, this is. Got two spots out of it. Yeah, I mean, spot on. We got two spots out of it. It wasn't a big deal for me. But, no, I mean, this is what we.

talked about. We want to see these guys at full commit, and Brad is at full commit there trying to get, you know, trying to get around Ryan and gets loose. But, you know, we've talked about it on here before. This is what, I mean, you hate to see these guys wrecking, and you hope nobody gets hurt, but you want to see these guys pushing

the limits to the point where they're on the edge of wrecking. You know, and Brad was really, really good on restarts, you know, yesterday, at both days, really, especially he took the bottom a lot and made it work, and he made it work because he was really aggressive on the restarts. And this was right after a restart, and he's pushing as hard as he can. And obviously, you know, risk versus reward. You know, he got a little

worked out on Saturday. He finished second this time, you know, he got stepped over the limit a little bit and wiped out his teammate, unfortunately. But, you know, like TJ said, the Penske car has been fast lately. Ryan, Ryan's been super fast. We talked about that last week. You know, he's going to have to start showing some results to, you know, if he's right there on the verge of probably being that fourth guy, maybe, obviously we talked about last week, the two, the ninth, 11, and the four. And then you're looking at guys like the 19, 18, maybe sneaks in there if he can get going. But Blaney's had probably the most speed of them guys, but the consistency is just not there. So obviously, yesterday it wasn't his fault.

But at some point, you have to start showing results for the speed. Yeah, four to go now in the playoff and are these guys mad at each other? That's the question. You know, I would imagine that maybe Brad's a little salty because Blaney races so hard sometimes. I would think Blaney's probably a little salty because Brad wrecked him. And to that point, Blaney's had a lot of super fast cars. Brad Keselowski is coming off of a contract extension. I think the spot on for me here, though, is the fans win in this situation, because we've got a hard race for the lead.

We've got a guy trying to run the bottom. He's been dive bombing guys all day long, completing passes. And in this particular instance, the tire and the downforce could not hold up. And we actually saw a driver run out of talent. That's what fans deserve to see to have a true respect for what these guys are. are able to do inside of the cockpit. Brad also took blame for it right away, too. Well, I don't think you had much choice.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it wasn't much choice. But, you know, there's zero chance. This carries out anywhere, in my opinion. No way. I mean, I think if he would have ran in there and, like, chased it up into Ryan, then Ryan's piss because you can lift. But just the way I think snap free on me, I mean, really.

Same thing could have happened to Ryan on the inside of Brad, so, or anybody, really. Yep. Choose rule implemented for all races but super-stubeways and road courses. Since Clint and Brett, since your driver seems to fully understand this program, spot on, spot off for you. Man, I struggle as a sports person to be able to support significant changes in the middle of something. And right now, we're in the middle of a battle. to have probably six guys competing for three spots in the playoffs.

So I'm spot off on a change this significant with six races left before the playoff is aligned. If they had waited and done this for the first race of the playoff, then for me it's the same for everybody for the duration of a series. And I think that's fine. If they had done it for just the short tracks in the playoff, I'd have been fine with it. I'm actually spot on for this in 2021. I'm spot off for the timing of it in 2020.

Yeah, I mean, I'm spot on. I got to admit I was wrong. There's more guys that lined up consecutive cards. Like a lot of times yesterday, you saw the top four, I'll take the top. You know what I mean? Or sometimes the guys split off, and then there was another four.

I was surprised by that. And Michigan, if they're going to start it at a place, Michigan was probably the place to start it, because that is obviously a very top dominant racetrack, and you're not going to see that at a lot of the mile and a half we go to. You know, you're going to see, you know, like I said before, one or two guys pick a certain lane one way or the other. But, you know, eventually, you know, the guys figured out that obviously the top was the preferred lane,

but in the middle of the pack there, if you know, if you weren't up front, in the middle of the pack, you almost wanted to be on the bottom because that top stacked up so bad. If you could get to the middle and find a hole, you could pick off six or seven spots pretty easily. and that's how we got to the front on Saturday was just take the bottom, take the bottom, and pick three off, three, four off, hold your position, get another restart, take the bottom again, pick three or four more off,

and then, you know, at one point with three to go, we're coming up the middle three wide for second place there and just didn't have the momentum, nobody behind us. So the close you got to the front, the bottom was a little less, you know, advantageous, but you can make it work in the middle of the pack there and pick up a lot of spots.

Yeah, I thought it was great. You know, you had to definitely caught, spotters were definitely half to pay more attention to what position you were in and where guys were lining up. A lot of talk with my driver about it leading up to it. What we wanted to do, we think, well, when, you know, how many rows we needed to gain to be able to jump up to the inside or something like that. But like Freddie said, though, there was a, you know, that bottom was pretty good

until you got to the backstress or until you got to turn three. You know, everybody would jam up on the outside, kind of like Martin's Zill on the inside lane. Go to Martinsville on resorts guys jam up on the bottom in three. and the guy on the outside just rolls and gains two, three spots, and then has to pinch a guy to get down. When you shoot down there into three on the bottom at Michigan, you better clear the guy to get up off of four. And if you don't, some guys didn't make it.

We didn't make it one time. We're on the bottom three wide coming out of turn four, and you've got to fight to get up. But we gained like 10 spots one time, though. We literally gained, I think, nine spots, one restart, because we gained a couple three-one two, and then we shot to the bottom of three, and I was able to get them up.

And, you know, you can gain a lot from it. so I'm spot on for it. I like being able to choose my own destiny. You know, we were choosing our own fate at that point. Whether it worked out or not, you never knew if a guy was going to get loose or slip up or something which could still happen. But I liked being in control of what lane we could pick to start from. I think Bubba Wallace and Freddie did a really good job on Saturday of gambling and it paying off.

And I think what you're going to see is guys like, Kyle Busch, guys like Joey Legano, if old Ron Hornaday was still around here, you're going to see guys like that surprise win some of these races because they're going to gamble on the restart lane. They're extremely good at restarts. They're very aggressive at restarts. They're going to make things happen. And all of a sudden, a guy that's been running 7th or 8th all day is going to make a lane

choice at a place like Pocono, at a place like Michigan, and boom, he's going to be up there continuing to win the race when you had really seen or heard of him all day. And I think that's probably for me the exciting part of it that's kind of. coming. But man, you know, the biggest information I got before the race was for my engineer cook, and it was, if we can get three spots, do it. Well, then the very next day, you know, the crew chiefs on the radio, take the top no matter what. And I'm like, no, you don't know what's going to happen. Like, I'm going to give Clinton the information, and I literally said a radio, I don't make millions of dollars to make this decision. I'm going to tell him what I know, and he can decide.

Yeah. And I got, I was lucky in the sense that Bubba has a lot of experience with the choose cone. He ran a summer shootout for years and years and years. And they loved it. And they do it all the time. You know what I mean? He's done it all the time. So basically, it was in his hands. All I would tell him was I would count the cars up top.

We're coming to the line. All right, you're running 20th. I'm going to count the cars on the top. You know, so that means if there's, you know, 10, 12 guys take the top, that means you're 26th on the top or you're going to be whatever, seventh, eighth on the bottom. Multiple plight times two, you know. So and I just, you know, one top, two, top, top, three time. He got to the line and he chose, you know.

And like you said, it was all about the way the hole broke down because the first green-white checker or whatever it was, three or four to go on Saturday. It was Danny, Bubba, and Brad on the bottom. And we shot the middle of Danny in one and two, and we were three-wide for second, didn't have a hole to get up. Brad was behind us, but was able to get up behind us. And he got around us, so he was third on the next restart. So, you know, on top of being the lane choice and gambling on the bottom, you had to play out where you got a hole. If you got a hole, I mean, it was... If Brad stays behind you, you probably shoot down in a three.

You probably cleared Danny on the bottom. Danny was on the inside of you? Yeah. Danny's down on the bottom, three wide. You clear him on the backshot of Brad pushing you. And you probably... You probably get to second or third still and get up there. What we ended up doing was Brad got to the top, and we went... Yeah. We ran side-by-side with Danny, and I think we went back to seventh, you know?

And then we tried to get on the next restart fifth. Like I said, we almost got up to fourth. Middle into three is not the best part. Yeah. But, I mean, like, you had to try it. I mean, especially if somebody like us, like, we're... What else? I mean, if we're shooting the middle for three-wide,

if Brad pushes you. If Brad pushes us, you don't know. And then we get that next caution. Now, Bubba might be on the front row the last restart. And God, I don't know what would have happened then. You got to take what you can get. Yeah. So, I mean, it was, like I said, risk-first reward.

Some teams, you know, I couldn't, I was really surprised at some of the, like, how many times guys took the top? And I'm like, man, you're running 12th, and you just lined up 18th or, you know, 20th. Blaney passed majority of the field on resarts on Saturday. That's how we went from. 20th to the top six. He did it all on two or three different

resorts, and then he got in the top second to start choosing the outside. But he got up there by choosing the bottom and doing what we talked about. It worked out just right for him. That's when Kyle got bumped by or, you know, air bumped by Harvick there. And that checked out, and Blaney had a big run. And he passed more right there. But, I mean, it worked out good

for him. Yeah. It was fun, man. As spotters, I mean, it's like you were spotting a plate race. You get momentum up going through one and two. You figure out which line has the momentum. You go into three. You roll the bottom. me roll the top, whatever. When you come off a four, you better have the top because these motors won't pull a grease string out of a dog's ass.

So if you're going to get up, you've got to have that momentum coming off four, because if you don't have it and you're flat-footed on the bottom, they're just flying by you on that outside. But it, hey, it was different. It was fun. I think long term, it's definitely a good move. No live pit stops used for the first time in the Xfinity Series race at Road America. Spot on, spot off, Freddie.

spot on you know obviously it's a great way for teams to save money at these non-companyan races i don't know i'm not sure how many non-companions were to have so you know it's going to be interesting to see that the biggest if there was a negative to it you know they still struggled to get the lineups right you know you could see where they're coming to green you know they're changing a lineup as they're doubled up already coming to green so you know that would be the only thing and it's it's just i mean it's not easy by any means the way you know obviously for those who don't know the way it works is you can't lose spots on pit road unless you pit multiple times and a guy.

So if the lineup is if you stay out, obviously, you're in front. The next group of guys is guys that pit one time. The third group of guys is guys that pits twice and then lap down and whatever. There's the problem with what this whole thing is. Spot off because this is the big leagues. And these teams have saved enough money this year. Bring your guns. Bring your big guns.

That's what makes NASCAR so great. You know, we're already going to a one-luck tire in two years. Now we're going to no pit stops at all. like, what are we doing? No, this is horrible. We need freaking live pit stops. It's what makes us special. Stop worrying about these teams saving money. That's their problem. Your problem is to put on the best show for the fans. And one that's not confusing. We were late in the race and Teddy, and I, Teddy and I were texting about they couldn't get the lineup right to go back green. And guess what? Guess how long a pay slap is around there? It's four miles. It takes 12 minutes.

10 minutes. You shouldn't ask a fan to waste 10 minutes of their life because you're you can't get a lineup right because of this format you put in for pit stops. Yeah, the only, it took me, it took me a little bit to see how it was going to work. And I still think, I think no pit stops is good for the truck series to start with.

Not, not, and when I say no pit stops, I don't mean, I mean a halfway break. The way they used to do it. I mean a halfway break, yeah. 10 minute, 10 minute break or something, change anything you want on the truck. You know what I mean? Like, suffer suspension, stuff like that.

tires make adjustments whatever but man it was cool like the only thing i liked about it was you still had to have some strategy in it because you couldn't take tires and fuel in the same stop so it still took me a little while to figure that out but it was way harder to follow the race that way as a fan watching it on tv it was way harder to follow the race because i didn't know what guys were doing at that point in time um and you know that that was that was pretty tough the only uh yeah I don't know. It was definitely a challenge for, and it's, you know, I'm saying spot on because I don't think there's a choice.

I think they're going to do this. You know what I mean? And the spot on part is they're trying to save these guys money, whatever. But as a fan, it's super confusing. For me watching it and knowing the rules, it's super confusing because here you go, now you come to pit road. If it's under yellow, you have to be off pit road in 80 seconds or else you forfeit your position. Yeah.

You couldn't change positions on pit road. So if Austin Sinjar comes in leading and AJ second and whoever's third, Chase Briscoe's third, no matter how long the pit stops take, as long as they get off in 80 seconds, they're in that same order, no matter how they leave. And they don't commit a penalty, sliding through their box. Yeah, no penalties, whatever. But on the green flag stop, they had to be on pit road, yellow line to yellow line for a minute. So mandatory. Like you can't, no matter how fast your stop is, you have to either sit in your box or roll slow down pit road.

So I think I forget who it was, maybe Jeremy Clements. got a penalty because he was on pit road less than a minute. So, you know, we talked about making it simpler for fans understand, and obviously this goes against all that because they don't know, you know, who the hell knows. And how do these teams know? You know, I mean, now you're trying to, you know, you're talking about the Xfinity series. Like a Cup Series race, most majority of teams, I can understand that because they've got, you know, the engineers, they can figure out exactly how long they're on pit road and how long the pit stop has to be.

But, I mean, you're talking exfinding teams. I mean, you're probably literally seeing a guy send on the pit box with a stopwatch, going, okay, we're at the line now, and all right, roll slow down there. Here you go. Now you're at the line, go. You just spent three minutes explaining how dumb this is. So congratulations. But here's the other thing. We talk about people in this sport. You talk about developing crews and drivers at Riverhead, and we talk about developing fans at that level. How are we going to develop pit crews if we do away with these freaking lower series having pit stops? I mean, have you not seen some of these facilities they train at? These pit crew guys want to make it to the big league. and their way to make it is through truck Xfinity, backup guy at the Cup Series level,

and then boom, you get your Cup start. The money is three and four times once they get to be a starter at the Cup level. They don't make any money pitting these cars on Saturday on Saturdays. I'm telling you, it's $4,500 a day for those guys to go out there and risk their lives and risk their bodies, and they're not doing it for that Saturday.

They're doing it for a chance to be at the Cup level. So when I look at it from the people's side, Epic Fail. I look at it for the fans. Epic fail. Look at it for the teams. Epic fail. Look at the teams checkbook. Hey, there's 10 teams out there that I promise you they would have wanted live pit stops.

Oh, yeah. And I don't think, I mean, by no means would I ever agree to this for all races. I mean, like TJ said, I think the truck series probably, and I, you know, I hate to take some money away from everybody. You know, obviously you want to see your buddies. We got plenty of friends on pick crew side of things. But, you know, I think that truck series needs the scale up back a little bit. but, you know, I think non-companions I can live with the whatever three or four races a year they do this,

but yeah, by no means should this ever be considered for all that Xfinity races. Truck races, no pit crews, more short tracks. 100%. Oh, I was watching a race the other day from like Nashville Fairgrounds, and I'm like, this is exactly what the truck race series should get back to, you know, short tracks, run a handful of mile and a half,

run maybe Daytona in February, and just get to these short tracks and let a guy, I mean, surely if you go run five flag speedway, Bubba Pollard is going to find a way to get in a truck ride and run the truck race. And these super late model guys, you know, you go up north and you're going to get an old Bush North guy maybe to run a truck race or something. The problem is that most time he's going to get in like a B, most time a C or a B truck. But that guy, there's good short track drivers that will take that truck.

And because they don't get destroyed on Pitt Road and lose 10 spots, they're going to have a shot. You know, you're going to have some short track guys that are going to be able to make some progress. I remember back in the day, the trucks ran Flemington, and John Blewett put a truck together just to run Flemington, just because he knew I'm badass in Flemington, and I can go out there and I compete with these guys. That's what the truck series needs to get back to is these local guys, where they don't have to, they don't need the big arrow package,

and they don't need the best body in the world and the best motor in the world. They can get a truck that's competitive and go out there and compete and turn some heads and maybe get themselves an opportunity to do something else. And I think the truck series needs to hit a lot of that stuff back, and the Xenery Series could use a little bit of that back in there, but I don't know Why can't When they throw the caution

In a road course like that The pace car gets the leader You come around one time Pit Road is going to open one time One time And once the pace car goes by pit road He runs a third of a lap Depending on where the accident is

What they're cleaning up Just stop the paste car Until the cleanups ready So you can go green the next lap Run them at 20 miles an hour Run them slow Just something where you can go green The next lap

Surely these like a place Like Road America I'm not really familiar with the layout but there's got to be a way we can cut like a couple miles off of these pace laps. There's got to be some kind of cut through where you go, all right, listen, and everybody knows it. So you've got time. Like, hey, we're going to cut off.

We're going to cut straight from turn three to turn eight or whatever. I don't like that because then you're clicking off laps that aren't really laps. I look at it. And I know what you're saying. We got to minimize time. But to T.J's point, make it to where we take the time. Dude, there's from the time you throw. It only lasts as long as the cleanup.

Right. From the time you throw to yellow. No, no, 100% no. Like, you could get those guys one to go almost coming out of the next to last corner and they still double. Dude, it's a freaking mile to climb that hill to get to start finish after you come out of the last corner. Like, we're capable of doing this a lot faster than what they did it. Yeah. I think Cup Series has gotten way good at it.

They know if it's going to be an extent. They just throw the red quick now a lot of times. Hi, we're Offerpad. The new way homes are sold. Go to Offerpad.com. Tell us about your home, and we'll send you a great purchase offer. Or, if that's not your style, we can also list your home with tons of free OfferPad services. Free handyman fixes, house cleaning, yard work, and more to get your home show ready.

We can even advance renovation cost to maximize your home's value. Whatever way you want to sell, you're sold with OfferPad. Sell your way today at Offerpad.com. Starting lineup to be determined by a formula, which is 50% percent. finishing position, 35% points position, and 15% fastest lap. Spot on, spot off. T.J. For Freddie's math, because Freddie right now is where we're starting. Here you go. You are you guys ready? You guys? It's a piece of cake. It's a very simple formula. Freddie does it in his head, guys. It's your finishing position times 0.5. Yeah, we saw this. Your fastest lap times 0.15.

Your points position times 0.35. Yeah. Then you just add them together your lowest total wins. And then the formula is the easy way to cut through that is you follow Bob Pockers on Twitter, and he tells you where you're starting on Sunday night. He's the only one that knows how to do it. Well, no, it's not you know how to do it. It's you don't just do it for one car and know where one car is starting. You have to do it for every car to know where every car is starting because it comes down to the point total. Yeah.

Right? So if I'm NASCAR, when I put out the tech deal, you know, all cars have cleared tech. We now know it's official where everyone finished. It should immediately come out from them where everyone is starting. Yeah, I mean, there's no reason why the lineup, I mean, Bob Hawkers had it figured out last night. And I've seen fans that had to figure it out last night. I'm sure if I turned John loose on it, my brother, he could have had to figure it out five minutes after the check of flag.

So there's no reason why we shouldn't know today from NASCAR. You know what I mean? I understand maybe you don't want to take away from the race yesterday, but this morning, sometimes the starting lineup should be out. But, I mean, it is what it is. My question is, like, obviously, I don't know. You're not going to be, you can't really manipulate this. But, like, how much emphasis are you going to put on your fastest lap of the race now,

knowing that it affects your, I mean, if you're, if you're not running well at the end of the race, are you going to throw an extra set of tires on to try to pop off a fast lap? Are you going to go to the back at Daytona next week and try to pull to the pack? You realize we don't pick up speed with our tires nowadays, right? Some places. But, you know, like, are you going to go now? Are you going to go to the tail at the day?

If you run in the back at Daytona, you're going to pop off a hell of a lap at the oval. But that's going to happen anyway. Oh, yeah, I know. But I'm just saying, like, are you going to be looking, I mean, you can see the fastest laps live in your race now. Are you going to be looking going, hey, we're 28th right now on Fastest's lap. We've got to try to bump ourselves up there a little bit and help ourselves. I know about you, Freddie.

We try to run our fastest lap every lap. Yeah, I don't know. But, yeah, I mean, you can manipulate it at places like Daytona. You know what I mean? I mean, but still, even if a guy, okay, let's just use Quinn Huff, you know, he's tail. Let's pick some of miles. He's tail-in lead lap at Daytona. Is it really going to benefit him to lay back and get a big run?

I'm not saying Quinn Huff. I'm just saying, you know. It had to be, but even if somebody's having a- guys are going to do this. Like, you know what I mean? Jerry's going to tell me at some point, hey, you know, let's, you know, let's try to get a pool to the pack here. We're, we're pretty down on the, on the fastest lap or something. You know what I mean? It's going to be hard because you're going, you're going to go into Daytona with, you're going to go into Daytona Oval with going with intentions to win that race.

Yeah, but I mean, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? I mean, like, I wanted to win in Daytona 500. I wrote around a back at all, right? Yeah, but I mean, it's going to be, you still got a finish good as well. You know what I mean, but I don't. But he don't have to finish good in the first two stages. No. No, but I don't, I mean, yeah, if you, it's just going to be tough. Is that, I mean, I'm not saying that you're going to do it every week, but I'm just saying it's something else that these teams are going to look at now.

The guys, they're going to be able to pop off a fast lap are probably going to be the one. It's going to be, to me, it's only going to affect the C group back there that, you know, like that group that's, damn, can I be at least the B group? No, you're not in that group. Oh, okay. It's just a guy, but really, though, that those guys are going to be, you know, I don't even know how many of them guys finish on the lead lap or same lap as each other, you know, like 66 guys like that.

Yeah. I'm just happy for it. This is across all series, right? Is it lineups or just Cup Series? Do we know? Producer Jason, do you know? I think it's all. I think it's all series.

This will help me with AJ a lot. Jesus. AJ's got to start 40th every time we race. Yeah, it'll help him. That's fair, though. Yeah, oh, God. I mean, that's much more fair. I think, I mean, I never would have figured that for me out myself, but I think it's good

they're averaging in a lot of things, you know, that could, that matter. make you want to go fast. They make you want to finish good. And, you know. Let me ask you this about this qualifying deal this year, obviously. What are we doing next year with the clash? We don't have any poll winners. I mean, is this going to be playoff cars?

They can let everybody do it. There's going to be 10 Eric Amarola's out there. The four guys that won the polls in the beginning of the year, are going to have a four-car race. They're going to leave it to Brett to decide. Eric Amarola hates this formula. He absolutely hates this formula. He absolutely hates this formula.

He and Michael Lynette can't stand this form. I mean, I can't complain. We were pretty good. We were pretty lucky with the draws, too, so. But not Almarola lucky. I don't think he started worse than fifth ever. He drew the average number he drew. I think it was probably Bob, or Bob maybe shared somebody's.

Almarola, I mean, they chose the 12 numbers at a time, or 13, whatever it was. 12. So each bucket had 12 numbers in it for whatever, you know, for each 12. Alamorola's average draw at his bucket was three. Jeez, man. Was this live on TV anywhere? No. The first week or two it was. It wasn't live online anywhere.

No. So this was random in a closet somewhere. Well, there's an official spin. With a light off. Bingo wheel. And a camera phone light on. This is also, I saw a stat last week that in 20 races, he has more top five or top tens now than he's had in 36 races his whole's career.

But the starting position has helped this a ton. A, they're fast. And B, when you start up front, it makes it a lot. a hell of a lot easier. But this is going to take those guys that have started up front, and they're still going to score well in the system unless they wreck. Yeah. I mean, just got to maintain.

Once you get behind, it's hard to make it back up. Michael Lynette, how many times did he get the pole? Three weeks in a row. It was like three straight. Yeah, the odds, according to our social guy, who's pretty genius, the odds are 1,1728. Well, he should have bought a lot of it. a powerball ticket.

I'm going to go. I'm actually see if Eric wants to go to the casino at some point when it opens back up with me. Go to Vegas in October. Play 10 in the little it. All right. Spot on, spot off. Eric Jones says he was blindsided by Joe Gibbs Racing announcing he won't return in

2021. Spot on, spot off, Brett. This guy's got a, this guy's got, if he blindsided by this. Yeah. I mean, this guy has, I read this week, he has Alan Miller as his attorney, and Alan has represented some pretty high-profile guys. I don't know if he still does stuff with Clint Boyer, but he did for a while, Jimmy Johnson, some bigger names. And we all knew that last year, Christopher Bell signed a three-year contract.

His contract was first year you are going to be at LFR and the 95 car. The second year, you're going to be in the 95 or the 20. And the third year is he's guaranteed to be in the 20. So if I knew that, how did Eric Jones not know that? You know, there was a lot of speculation last year, last summer, that Eric was going to get let go, and it was going to be for Bell. Well, then when Bell went and signed the deal that he put together with Toyota to give him a year's experience before he got in the 20, you know, obviously that's when Eric got a one-year extension.

So when you only have a one-year deal, that means at the end of that year, you may get fired. Well, when I look at Gibbs as a whole, they fired a little. lot of drivers guys like i mean if you look at joe gibbs racing i remember tony stewart leaving on his own accord to go start his own team i remember del jarrott leaving to go to robert yates racing uh to get in that 28 car joey i remember uh now i'm telling you they get left on their own i remember carl edwards picking up his bat and ball and going home he quit right for whatever reason maybe he got fired hell i don't know but he left on his own accord we were told but you look at bobby la bony you look at matt kenseth you look at joy legano you look at daniel

sweres. We could keep going. What I'm trying to say here is Joe Gibbs Racing will fire you. They will replace you. Yeah. I mean, you look at obviously, like you said, you can't be blindsided here. If you're blindsided, you're putting way too much faith in what people are telling you. You're blindsided. Because... I hasn't been closed.

I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly right. I mean, you're looking at last year, you can't, you cannot drive this JGR stuff and find yourself on the playoff cut line every year. I mean, you look at last year, he's the other three guys are first, third, and fourth and points, and he's 14th before he goes and pops off that win at Darlington to lock in the playoffs.

This year, he's whatever he is, 30 points below the cut line. You know what I mean? So you can't get in this stuff, and obviously Kyle struggled this year, but the 11 and the 19 have been hauled ass. The 11's probably the best car on a weekly basis, him and the four, you know, right there together. So, I mean, you can't, I mean, he's got, I looked it up the other day. I thought this kind of blew me away because for whatever reason I thought he won more.

He's got two wins and 133 starts. One was a play race. And one is a plate race. So, I mean, that's not going to cut it at Joe Gibbs. racing. Especially not, I mean, if there was nobody nipping at your heels, maybe you get a couple years extra. But when you got Christopher Bell sitting in the wings there waiting, this is, this cannot surprise you. Not to mention, the 95 is running better than the 20 right now. 95's running well. Yeah. I mean, even you look back at guys with this, showed a lot of promise.

You know, I'm talking about JJ Yaley. Remember him in 18 batteries, Interstate Batteries car? I'm talking about Jason Leffler. Guys that we knew could drive race cars, but to your point, Man, if you don't put the points on the board, they'll put your ass in a win. What people don't understand either is like they look at JJ Ealy and think, oh, like just a field filler. That dude's won seven U-Sex Silver Crown Championship. J.J. Yaley, J.J. Yaley is probably a use.

He's a Hall of Famer in motor racing. And people don't understand that, man. That dude was a driver, man. I think that's the hard part, though. And when you stump your toe in Joe Gibbs racing equipment and you get let go, you're in trouble. Like we look at everybody other than Joy Lugano. Look at Bobby Levani when he left.

He sucked, right? I mean, look at all the rest of them when they got fired. They suck, Suarez. He's gone. Like, when you look at Joy Lugano, Joy Lugano sat in this studio and he said the only cup opportunity he had when he got his deal at Gibbs terminated as a cup driver of the 20 car, the only chance he had to stay in cup was Roger Penske.

That saved his career. The rest of them, they're done. You look, I mean, I'm a preface this by saying I love Eric Jones. We've been, you know, him and Bubba have kind of crossed paths a lot. You know, we were KBM together with Gibbs a little bit here part-time. Great kid. Running him, have a beer every once in a while. But he's been in the best stuff you can drive every step of the way and does not have a lot to show for it.

He's got one truck series championship. I think he's got, I don't know, seven or eight truck wins, seven or eight Xfinity wins and 80 stars. One snowball derby. He won a snowball derby. I mean, he's a hell of a race car driver. I'm not taking that away. But he's also been in the best stuff. And it's just going to be interesting to see where he goes from here.

I mean, is this a name for the 48? Is this a name for the 42 or the 43 or whatever ride's going to be open? Is this, what's he going to do there that he couldn't do in the 20 car? Yeah. Where do you guys think he'll go? I don't know. But to me, you look at a guy like, look at a John Hunter. John Hunter is over.

I mean, he's had a rough couple weeks now, but this year he's been overachieving, in my opinion. Well, not lately. The last two weeks has been rough, but he's had decent speed. And honestly, you said Suarez, I think Suarez is overachieving in that 96 car. He's actually been, I mean, not competitive, but he's been on the lead lap better than he wasn't beginning of it. If Swares doesn't bring a significant amount of money to a Cup team, you will not ever see him in a B-rider better again. I just think he's doing well for what he's in. Like, he's overachieving.

I don't disagree with you there. I'll tell you what, and talk about Christopher, talking about this LFR deal, obviously. but you know Christopher has turned it on here the last month or so he's right back you know we I wrote him off early in this in this rookie battle and he's got it down within like 80 points now or something where I thought Reddick had this kind of sewn up yeah they're kind of going set opposite directions yeah like Reddick's kind of you know he made a couple mistakes this week and late in race wreck twice or wreck once each summer months man the tracks are hot and slick you and you can't afford to slip up now if you slip up there's so many cars on a lead lap now that if you slip up you're going to be 20. Freddie's even on lead lap. It's, you know, well, you talk about the, you know, the, you can only take what your car's going to give you. And there's going to be some weeks with that eight cars fast, and Tyler runs the hell out of it and finishes up front.

But there's some weeks, there's, you know, I forget where it was, I can see all our cars on the same straightaway, you know, and we made jokes about this last year, about shot photos and stuff like that. And those are the weeks where you've got to finish 18th to 20th and take your day, you know, lick your wounds and go home and not pound the fence off of two or pound the fence off or whatever. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and, and, wreck your day.

and then finish 28th or whatever, you know. So, you know, but Christopher's definitely turned it on here lately. That 95 deal, I don't know. There sounds like a lot of hands. Didn't ready to cook the wall in the last lap Saturday? Last lap Saturday and then like three or four to go on Sunday. Saturday, man, you just, you can't do it. Especially when you're car, you've got to race that car again the next day.

You just can't do that, man. But that's learning. That's the rookie stuff and he'll get it figured out. Yeah. But, I mean, you might know more about this 95 deal than I do, Brett, but I mean, this sounds like there's a lot of different moving parts here. Yeah, I mean, what we know is, it, you know, initially Toyota wanted to have a big hand, it didn't keep it open, and Toyota

wanted to keep Eric Jones and something. But we also know that a month or so ago, Cal Wells was seen walking around this shop, and he was rumored to be a part of the group that's trying to take this thing over. The question is, who's really backing it financially? Is it a manufacturer like Toyota, or is it going to be a group like Spire? And Spire uses this as a business model, or revenue model. That's what they've done with the group they've got now. So that's what we know. Well, what's weird is we've announced, we're selling, we're going out of business, but nobody's raised their hand and said, hey, we're the ones buying it. Yeah, I mean, you hear those names, you hear a name like Todd Braun thrown around who I think he's probably involved in Spire deal.

He owns a third of that charter that they did. And Todd's got a lot of ties. Is he Haley's uncle? He's Haley's uncle? He's Haley's uncle. I was going to say this is probably going to turn into, you know, Justin keeps advancing like it is. It's probably something like that. But, you know, I don't know.

I think it comes down to, you know, what resources stay in place. If I'm Justin Haley, I don't want to go get in that 70s. Evan Spire car. No. It's already won in it. Not, not, yeah, he did win it. Congratulations on still. I got to give Joey Denowitz a lot of credit for a funny tweet he posted on Saturday,

or whenever the Xfinity race was. And it started raining and Denowitz tweeted something like, it's proven fact that Justin Haley excels in the rain because of that Daytona win. That's funny. That is good. But week in and week out, I don't, I mean, look, I don't like to suck. I don't, I'm not going to go spot for a car that sucks. You can't say that.

I can. I'm not going to go spot for a car that sucks. No. And if I'm Justin Haley trying to build my name, I'm not going to go get in a car that sucks. He's better off, you know, running in Exfinity now where he's already won a race. He's already qualified for their playoff.

Like, go build your name, build your career. Don't put yourself in a position to fail at a young age because it's really hard to stump your toe and come back. I mean, I remember being a kid, and it took until a race car driver was 30 years old, and they had to prove themselves. They had to get into a cup ride that wasn't. a great cup ride and they had to prove they could not tear it up and run top 15 in a car

that was otherwise running 25th. Look at what Jeff Burton did for the Stavola brothers. We could go through all them different scenarios and all them different drivers and all different now you better come in, you better come in with a bunch of money and you better freaking do good and you better make the playoff and you better win races. And if you don't, you're Daniel Suarez, you're Eric Jones. You're gone. Is it stump your toe? That's what I was going to ask. I was going to ask if that was a pageant thing because I've never I'm just letting go. I never stump my toe.

I stub your toe. I stump some . Hey, what if we come up with code words? Like, instead of saying my crier, we say trucker. Instead of saying ass, we say ass. Well, that's why people say mother trucker. Mother trucker. So after that Bristol deal with McDowell, you know, I text Bubba.

And I, because Drew Blickensurfer used to be our crew chief. He's McDowell's crew chief now. So every, Drew will listen. Like, if we're racing around each other, Drew will be scanning us to see what we're talking about, you know. And he'll text me after to raise something funny or I'll text. him back something funny, you know? And so I text Bubba after that deal. I said, hey, we got to come up with some code words when we're around McDowell,

just, you know, just random stuff to say. So I'm like, I'm just going to start shouting out fruit, you know, like, whatever. So we come out, Bubba started the whatever race it was hot. I can't remember, maybe Texas or something. Bubba asked for frozen strawberries, you know, for like a snack during the race. So Bubba, yeah. So Bubba, like, he tells crops. He says, crops, give me them strawberries on a, you know, pit stop.

Oh, nice. And the can of whipped cream. Yeah, and the cool whip. So whatever. So he said strawberries, you know, so he's, so then we end up right behind McDow. And I just yell, I'm like, applesau, you know, whatever. So I go back and somebody starts sweetening me like, man, it was weird code words on the 43 radio. They were talking about fruit and applesauce.

And so, I mean, yeah, we got, everybody else got code words. We got really, they were deep meaning code words on the 43 team that week. Whips and change, right? We have code words, but all of ours are just, like, sponsor. And so yesterday, this is, this is awesome. This is not awesome. This is awful. This is awesome.

Yesterday, so the tin car is a bacon car, Smithfield, right? Which, by the way, I love Smithfield original bacon. I also love the thick cut. The thick cut, I guess. But regardless, so instead of them saying two tires, four tires, gas only, they have these call pit calls in certain situations where you're running up front, which is pork chop or bacon or ham or whatever. Well, yesterday, there was a miscommunication on. what the pit call was versus what the pit call was. So one word was said, but they meant another word.

And so they didn't mean, do you remember when the 10 car stayed out? And he was the only car to stay out. Yeah. They meant for him to pit. But there was a miscommunication there. You got the wrong word. And he was the only guy that could not make it to the end on fuel. So if they do not wreck there, he's obviously not even going to finish on the lead lap.

But I think that's a good point, man. Like when you have code words, you better make sure everybody knows what they mean. I was wondering why he stayed out. I'm like, you got a pit right here. You can make it from here. Once 50 laps or less were left in the race, we were all pitting, and they just had a miscommunication. But look, it's happened to all of us. If you do this long enough, it's going to happen.

Casey's bored. She's yawning. I'm not. I was texting Jason, actually. So, Kevin just texted me. Kevin Hamelin just text me and said, you know, thanks for everything. Tell Brett to take it easy on the other spot or on the podcast. And I said, that's too late.

Yeah, way too late. All right, let's head to Xfinity Fast Lane. Pay attention. Pay Applesauce attention. Pay trucking attention. All right, let's hit the gas and jump into the fast lane. Let's see who's bringing some Xfinity speed this week because we're going to fly through this week's speed trivia contest.

We've got our three contestants today who will have 60 seconds to answer 10 questions. Reminder with rules. 60 seconds to answer 10 questions, whoever answers the most right win. So we're doing the same thing we did last week. One word answers per question. You cannot answer with I don't know. You will be subtracted a point.

I don't know. You can skip questions and come back. If enough time remains, if there's a tiebreaker, we'll get a tiebreaker questions, and a sound will indicate whether you're right or wrong, and then we'll reveal the answers at the end of 60 seconds.

Going for a new record of two this week. There's a chance I won't get any right. Yeah. Since you won last week, Brett, you're going to start off this week. And as soon as Casey reads, first question, I'll start the timer. All right, ready, Brett? Yep.

Where did Clint Boyer start Saturday's cup race? Knight. Kevin Harbick, Denny Hamlin, and which other driver finished top three in the first two stages Saturday? Brad Kislauski. The top three lap leaders on Sunday were all SHR cars. True or false? True. Where did Clint Boyer finish stage two on Sunday?

Sixth. Which organization won stage one and two in the next meeting series race at Rhode America? Penske. I didn't watch it race. What was the last year South Carolina appeared in the SEC Championship game? Oh, man. 2010. Get you some.

Stephen Garcia. Where did Clint Boyer win his only career? Cup, road course phrase. Say it again, I'm sorry. I won't listen. Of course not. Cynum. Where did Clint Boyer

win his own... Which U.S. president was responsible for the Louisiana purchase? Jefferson or Lincoln. Multiple choice on that way. What was the Clint question and did I get it right? You got it right. Which road course did you win at?

That's what I thought I heard after I went back and tried to remember what I heard. That's it easy.