Door Bumper Clear - 192 - Ryan McGee: A Sports Swiss Army Knife

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

ESPN’s Ryan McGee joins Brett Griffin, T.J. Majors and Freddie Kraft to talk his life as a sports journalist, plus cover everything from the weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway. The long-time racing reporter shares about his family’s deep sports pedigree, his early days covering NASCAR and his special connection with Benny Parsons. He tells the story about the biggest interview of his career with Usain Bolt. Plus, he discusses his column from June on NASCAR’s ban of the confederate flag. Then, he and the guys dive into the first elimination race at Bristol. Kyle Busch had some choice words for Joey Logano after the race. T.J. shares his perspective of the late race moment and the culture of relationships in the NASCAR garage. Lapped cars were out of hand on Saturday night and the spotters dish on why something needs to be done about these ‘moving chicanes’ on the track. Four drivers have been eliminated from the Cup Series playoffs, including a surprise in Ryan Blaney. The gang points out missed opportunities from his season. Silly season is heating up and Bubba Wallace’s next move seems imminent. The guys drop some hints about a pending announcement and why it may allow Wallace to write his own history. Ross Chastain announced his move to the Cup Series in 2021 and the roundtable reacts, explaining why this could be make it or break it for his career. In #AskDBC, the guys question the playoff points structure and debate if it needs changing. McGee answers a question about the current sports media landscape and explains why NASCAR draws parallels to other leagues. Lastly, the spotting trio rants about condescending communication over the race director’s radio Saturday night at Bristol.  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.

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and make your own podcast. TJ will be your first guest. So download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm.com to get started. That's A-N-C-H-O-R.fm to get started. Hey, I'm Brett Griffin. You're listening to Door Bumper Clear, presented by OfferPad. Today we've got Ryan McGee of ESPN on the show, long-time friend of mine, a great guy. We'll catch up with him and then talk about Joy Lugano getting in Kyle Bush's way. T.J. Blocking, imagine that. Slow lap cars at Bristol and more silly season news. Let's do it. Everybody's listening, but I don't care. I'm on an episode of Door Bumper Clear.

Hi, T.J. Majors. This is Brett Griffin. Hey, me too now. This is Freddie Kraft. Get ready. Be ready. Be ready. Give me what you got here. White flag.

White flag. Recognize. Hello. Clear. Bring a halt. Coming to the line. Door. Bumper.

Clear. Hey, everybody. I'm T.J. Majors. Spire of the 22 cup car. 99 pickup truck. Good for you, man. Brett Griffin, Spotter for Clint Boyer. What's up, Freddie Kraft, spotter for Bubba Wallace, Derek Krauss, the Dinger, whenever he decides he wants to race again.

We actually, a cool deal today. We've got a very important guest. Ryan McGee is going to join us not only as a guest, but he's also going to give his opinions on our topics. Like, we don't have him done that in a while. This is probably since Gluck. He's a good guess, but honestly, I've been thinking about this, and TJ, I think you have the final vote and whether or not we do this. I think next week we should bring Casey on as a guest for five minutes, just to say hey and see how she's doing. one is a new mommy. What do you think? I don't know why she can't come back full time. Man,

let's go, Casey. Maternity leave, what's that? Yeah. You can give us some maternity hour here. You already did all the hard work. I mean, the rest of it's easy, right? It's like buying a puppy. The cheapest part about buying a puppy is buying it. The rest of it is expensive. She's done the easy part, Freddie. The hard part is the next 18 years. It's true. Freddie thinks the hard part's giving birth. I promise you that's probably not easy. I can't imagine this. I can't imagine this. I promise you at three in the morning when that baby wakes up crying and you think you're sleeping good. TJ, how much sleep did you get your first kid? Both of them, man, right when you think you're sleeping good, that thing goes off again.

You fall asleep and it goes off again. It goes off. It goes off. I thought I was sleeping good last night. We had some people over, enjoyed some, got my new Hannah, Newhouse T-shirt from Hannah. They came over yesterday for a little football, so I might have partaking in a little bit of beer drinking. And then next thing I know, I'm sleeping. and it must have been maybe it's a potential that I might have been snoring,

and I feel the old bed raising me up. And I'm like, what the hell's going on here? Woke me up out of a deep sleep. Your bed's got a razor thing in it? Yeah, like it'll raise, like you can raise the head. Why they wake you up? The only reason Megan made me buy this bed was because the guy selling it was an incredible salesman. He told her, does he snore?

Because if he snores and you buy this bed, you just raise the head up a little bit, he'll stop snoring. Yeah, because you wake him up. We bought it right. Yeah, exactly. Right. If you punch him in the face, he also will stop. I think I told you the story about the dog, right?

The first day we had, like the first week we had this bed, I'm sleeping, and it's just got a little remote, you know, and I don't even know why it was in the bed, but I'm sleeping, and it's got the head and the feet raise up. Somebody lay on the remote. The dog. So I'm like, I'm sound asleep, and I'm getting folded up like a pretzel, and I'm like, yo, babe, wake up. Was it vibrating?

Megan, wake up. And she's down, I look over, and she's sound asleep. I'm like, what the hell's going on? I look over, the dog's just got a little. Paul folding me up like a pretzel in my bed. I'm like, you son of a fucking out of here. Maybe the dog heard you snoring. Didn't want to hear it anymore.

Holy cow. All right, we got a long, big show, man. Let's kick it off. Let's bring Ryan on here, Jason. Ryan McGee in the house. What's up, y'all? What's up, dog? So what you've been up to, dude?

You know, I was, um, when the things, so I was in, the last time I was on an airplane or in a hotel was the Tennessee, Kentucky game. in early March 8th. And when everything went, that was on my way to airport to go to the SEC tournament and they said turn around. And then they go, no wait, drive to Atlanta because there's a race on Sunday.

It's great. I got to about gas down there. They called and said, nope, never mind. Turn around again. And I thought I wouldn't have anything to do. I was so freaking busy this summer. It was crazy. But that's good though.

We were on the runway getting ready to take off and they shut the motors down. It's like, yeah, you're not going. now. So what you've been busy doing, man? Well, right now, where Marty McGee starts Wednesday night. I mean, the actual TV show starts Wednesday night. We've been doing a radio show, but we'll, uh, so we've been getting ready for that. And, uh, and the problem is we keep writing stuff that doesn't run because, like, I wrote a big

story about the Northwestern, like, coaching staff and how they're watching football together on Saturdays, but we're not going to coach. And then, you know, now the Big Ten's coming back. So I've written some beautiful stories and no one's ever going to read. So let's start from the beginning, man. Ryan McGee's born. There is a pedigree in your family for sports. Tell us where that came from, man.

What got you here? Well, I mean, I think it's like this for everyone, right? I think that you love certain sports or you love certain teams or you love certain, you know, whatever about sports because of how you were raised or where were you raised. But a lot of it has to do with who did your daddy pull for? Or where did your mom and dad go to school? or where'd your granddad go to school or what town do you live in? And so for me, it was about dad.

My dad, Dr. Jeremy Gugh, was a college football official for decades. And I wrote a book about it. I put it right here behind me so y'all could see it just in case. And also, my dad was gas can man. You guys know I'm a Rockingham guy. And when my dad was in the Army in the mid-60s, he was scrubbing toilets one day next to this guy from Wisconsin. and he said, Jerry, you're from Rockingham.

Dad's like, yeah, and goes, well, I'm a race car driver from Wisconsin. When I come down to Darlington and Rockingham and Charlotte and Raleigh, I need crew guys. And my dad's like, okay, Dave, Marcus, whoever you are. And sure enough, like four years later, the phone rang. And it was Dave. And so my dad was a gas cam, man. And, of course, I mean, I was born just a few miles down the road from the racetrack and Rockingham. So that's why you love, that's why I love NASCAR.

And I love college football because my dad was a college football official. And my brother and I got to go to games and get to the stadium early. And we learned how to cuss, listen to people scream at my dad, because he was a referee. And so it's just that, but that's why you love the sports that you love. And it's probably, I know what's the same for you guys. Yeah, I told Freddie how deeply entrenched your, your pedigree is into sports, man. So I met you for the first time in 1999. at the Labor Day race.

Now, we had had some phone calls and emails and stuff and whatnot, but I met you in person for the first time. We were run with Elliot Sadler, a muscular dystrophy association paint scheme for a Jerry Lewis Telethon. And you and I spent a lot of time on that feature, man. But what was the first race you actually covered as a journalist? The first race I covered as a journalist. So I started right out of college.

My first week at ESPN was the week of the first. first Brickyard 400. Was that 94? Yeah, 94. And I became a really big deal, really fast. Are you impressed? I knew that. I knew that.

Because you know how I knew that? Because when I first met you, when was the Wood Brothers 50th anniversary? That was 2000. All right, that's still the greatest press kit. You're welcome. It's ever done. I still have it.

I really do. It's in this drawer right here behind me. I'm going to dig it out later. But I know you know your history. I know all you guys do. But I, so when I started at ESPN in the mid-90s, the only Southerners in the entire company. It was me and Reese Davis.

And he was from Alabama and I was from North Carolina. And I sounded like I was from North Carolina. Reese at that point had scrubbed his southern accent. I give him a hard time about it. Yeah, you get him on a Friday night just talking. All of a sudden, he sounds like he's from muscle souls. And, but because of our southern accents and certainly because I was from Rockingham, they assumed the two of us knew a lot about NASCAR.

and we certainly knew more than they did. So that's a long way of saying. I worked on a show car RPM tonight. I covered a lot of races from a long way away. But my first Daytona Speed Weeks, that was the first time I was paid to go to the racetrack with the credential on. And that was Speed Weeks 96.

Wow. So, yeah, so I hit, I think I hit number, like number 25 last year, which is in a row, which is, I mean, that's not Glenn Wood numbers, but that ain't bad. No, that ain't bad. So you have touched, man, so many people, right? Obviously, on your way up, now you're on the up and up. People are looking up to you.

Who do you look back on? And I'm going to put you on the spot because obviously we're a NASCAR podcast. NASCAR-wise, who mentored you? Who gave you your shot? Who do you look up to the most? Benny Parsons. Benny was, obviously, you guys know, lived in Lerby, drove from Mr. DeWitt, who owned the racetrack at Rockingham.

And my dad had known Mr. Duet his entire life. And so when I started at ESPN, I'll never forget. One night I'm sitting in screening where you sit and watch TV and you write down everything that happens. You cut High Lakes for Sports Center in the phone ring. Like they paged me. Ryan McGee, you have a call online, so-and-so. And I picked it up and it was BP.

And Benny was like, Ryan, they told me there's a Rockingham boy. There's a Richmond County boy at ESPN. I said, yeah, and he goes, what do you need? And from that point forward, if I ever had a question, if I wasn't sure where my career was going to go next, you know, I called Benny. And this was a year before we started RPM tonight. And for folks that don't know,

RPM tonight was a nightly motorsport show we did for years at ESPN2, the first nightly motorsport show. John Kernan, the first host of it? I know he hosted. Yeah, yeah. It was a kid. Well, actually, Kenny Maine was the first host. Kenny Maine, yeah.

Kenny Maine was so funny in that show. I love it. Kenny, we did the weekend show with Kenny, and then eventually we started the nightly show in Charlotte, and we brought on John Kernan, and it was Kernan and Jerry Punch and BP and all those guys were always so good to me, but Benny in particular, man,

if I had any question at all about anything, and that included, you know, what are they talking about, those track bar stuff or whatever? I call Benny, he answered the question, and he, from, I miss him every day, because he was so good to me. In my office, I keep a picture of my heroes that aren't with us anymore.

And Benny's absolutely in that group. Man, that's a great tribute. All the stuff you've covered. And, man, you've covered a lot, a tremendous writer. What's the biggest story your favorite article you've ever written? You know, Usain Bolt, fastest man in the world. Second fastest. You hadn't seen me run.

Right. 424. And you won't need it. Yeah. I told Bolt. You didn't see me run a Traverse High School. That's right. If you had, you'd change your mind.

But no, they sent me down to Jamaica to do a story in the same bowl, really at the height of his powers, right for the world championships. And I went down there and spent two or three days with him. And in the beginning, they were a little standoffish because they said, no, you write drug stories. We don't want to talk to you because you write drug stories. I'm like, no, I don't. And they had Googled me.

And there was all this Jeremy Mayfield stuff with me. And they're like, yeah, you'd write drug stories. I'm like, no, I don't. And so I end up spending three days with Bolt in the mountains of Jamaica going to seeing little babies that had AIDS and watched the power that he had and how he handled it with such grace. And oh, by the way, I mean, won the Jamaican, you know, championships in like four different events by like 100 yards.

And but the real story there was was that this is really early on. Facebook had just started. and I was addicted to, like, posting stuff on Facebook, and I had posted, hadn't posted anything like three or four days because it couldn't get cell service. It was literally in the mountains of Jamaica. Well, y'all were racing at New Hampshire that weekend. And what I didn't know was that some guy named Ryan McGee,

like apparently partied too hard at Lake Norman that weekend and, like, went face down in the water. And they thought he was dead and they took him to the emergency room, all this stuff. Well, word gets out on Lake Norman that Ryan McGee is dead. and local news is reporting it. And no one can find me. And my family's at the beach and no one has my wife's telephone number.

And I land at Myrtle Beach from Jamaica to meet my family. And I finally get cell service. And I have like all these messages. Wow. And there's people going, where are you? And I find Dave Hart, a PR guy now in Texas Motor Speedway. I got the last voice I heard was from Hart.

And I called Hart. And he goes, you're alive. I go, yeah, I'm alive. And he said, hang on it. He ran it to the media center, New Hampshire, and announced. I'm on the phone with McGee. He's alive. I had no idea.

So the biggest story you ever covered was that you're alive? Yeah. But anyhow, the point is that I've never seen, I mean, we all think that the guys were around are famous. But when you see Hussein Bolt, one of the biggest stars in the world, own his island and his element, that was just the story I never expected. Tell me about him. Is he a good guy?

Because I'm a big fan of his. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And that's the part, too, is you guys know the deal. You go to interview, you never meet your heroes, right? So you go to interview all these athletes, and a lot of times you're disappointed. But in the case of Bolt, I kind of went in thinking, this guy's a really big deal. This probably isn't going to go well. And he couldn't have been nice. Once I got through his people, he was great. Your football guru, could he play the game of football? Oh, yeah. No, there's no question about it. And had NFL teams reach out to him more than once.

Yeah, listen, if you're fast, you're fast. You know, I'm a Tennessee guy. I always think about Willie Galt and like in our book. My dad writes about James Jet, who was in West Virginia and won a gold medal and all of a sudden blew past dad on the field at West Virginia one day. And I was like, who the hell's that guy? And so, yeah, if you're fast, you can play the game. And he's so tall and his hands are just enormous.

And he was an amazing soccer player from what everyone says growing up. So yeah, he could have played. There any question about it. He won world championships looking backwards to see. how big his gap was. That's how fast he is. No, no, it was crazy. And should, has every excuse in the world to be the cockiest dude and the most arrogant dude in the world. But my experience with him was, was nothing like that. Wow, that's crazy.

You know, just one thing I want to touch on before we get started with our actual show was, you know, in the height of Corona here, all that stuff started going on with Bubba. And I really don't have a personal relationship with Ryan. We've spoke a couple times across some DMs and stuff. But one of the things that's stuck out to me during that moment. During those, whatever, a couple weeks was your deal on first take, you know, you're kind of, I don't want to call it a rant, but, you know, what you said about the Confederate flag and stuff. And I just want to know, like, where did that come from? I know, like, a guy is deeply rooted in the South as you are, took a lot for you probably to go that

far with it. But I, like, I went back and forth to people. I was pretty outspoken on Twitter, obviously. And you, based, what you said on that show put everything, like, that I was thinking in my head into words perfectly. Well, and you told me that when you and I went back and forth a little bit on Twitter, DM, and I can't tell you how much that meant to me because that was, when I said earlier, I was so much busier this summer than I expected to be. Some of that was for reasons I saw coming, and a lot of that was for reasons I did not. And that Confederate flag column was certainly something I didn't see coming.

But, you know, guys, it's crazy, and y'all know this. There's certain projects that you work on for months and for years. And for me, I throw something out there and a feature, like an ESPN magazine piece that I worked on for six months. And I don't ever hear a word. And I wrote that column in about 45 minutes. And when it happened, I called my boss. So I have to write something. I said, because I feel this passionately about it.

I felt like that flag should have been banned from the racetrack a long time ago. A lot of people, Dale Jr., agreed with me, with us on that. And so, you know, when you write a column like that and you get so personal and you are, you're vulnerable and you're exposed in your family, I mean, I write about my family's history. And in the context of don't come at me with what that flag actually means. I know exactly what it means. And I know what it used to mean. And I know what it means now. And I just, I appreciate you saying that, man, what a, what an incredible tie.

I don't want time to go any faster, but I'm really, really curious to see 10 years from now how we look back on the spring and the summer of 2020. I mean, just obviously in the world, but particularly in our corner of the world in a garage, because I never thought I would have the opportunity to write that column. And I'm glad that I was because the right thing was done. I'm thankful that we finally got sports back because the pandemic, I think we spent 10 weeks with no NASCAR. We were obviously the first thing back. And now I can't turn on my TV without being able to watch sports.

Like as a sports fan, it's literally too much, man. Like I'm overwhelmed by how much sports is out there. So you're posting all these pictures from the beach of how you're working your butt off down there and eating all these great low country bulls. How many hours a day are you working right now trying to keep up with all this? It's nonstop. And I warn my family. I said when this happens, it's going to happen. And the SEC didn't start until this weekend.

We actually finally get college football back this week. I know you can't say that, but I can say that. Big ACC fan over here. Yeah, but it's crazy, man. And I'm telling right now this college football season, I mean, even if it's just a couple of conferences, we're talking about a college football season that's going to start on Labor Day weekend.

It might not end until Easter. And that's in addition to, you know, you guys met the racetrack every weekend and triple headers. And, yeah, this past weekend, I couldn't keep up. And we're going to have the masters, what, in the middle of November. And we just had the 24 hours of LaMont at the end of September. I mean, it's just, it's the whole thing is crazy. But it's, there's not enough people to go around and we're not even allowed to travel very much. So everybody's covering things remotely.

And, yeah, this is a good time to be a Swiss Army knife. if you're any employee anywhere at all, particularly in sports. Yeah, yeah. Ryan McGee, good to have you on our show, man. We're going to kick this thing off. I know you've listened before. We go through a lot of different segments,

and I want you to be your normal, candid, fun self. Don't hold anything back, man. Give us that Ryan McGee opinion that we all value so much. Hey, I'm a fan of the show, so I know what the tone is, dear. All right, good.

We're going to go from being serious with you and we're going to have a hell of a lot of fun. Woo-hoo. So before we get started, let's hear some more about our present. We're off the Sin City for the second Las Vegas race weekend of the season, and we have some really good news for those of you that live in the Las Vegas area, or, Freddie, if you want to move there.

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What's the number? I have no idea. All right, well, whatever number it is, that's what I'm playing for craps this week. O for Offerpad on the old roulette wheel. Sorry, not craps. Loggingoffpad.com today, and they'll get you started. Make sure you tell them we sent you by selecting the podcast option and the how did you hear about this question.

I think it's 16. I'll play 16. 0 for all for bad. Spot on. Spot on, spot off. He's spot off. You like it. Spot off, you don't like it.

Spot off, you don't like it, and you say why either way. Spot on, spot off first topic. Kyle Bush says Joey Laganos nobody's friend for a reason after getting held up behind the lap 22 while battling for the lead. T.J. Spot on, spot off. Didn't see this one coming. Geez. Spot off, man. I don't really care what Kyle says.

I mean, I don't personally. at this point in the playoffs, you're racing for every single point you can. And, you know, there was an opportunity that if the caution came out, you move up, you get out of the way. I mean, you can't really get out of the way of Bristol. You see that all night long. So we move up, leaving the bottom, and he chose to follow us for a corner too long, I guess. And, you know, look, if the caution comes out, we can gain three, four more points.

with the caution, if we get a lot, then the caution comes out, we can lose four more points, four or five more point, maybe more than that. Let me ask you this, did three or four points make a difference on Saturday to you? How many points would you have carried over until the next round, TJ? Yeah, why would it have mattered? Say if you carry four over? You can't carry them over. You're not carrying those points over.

Well, you're trying to get everything you can, so. So why did you block him? We didn't block them. Why did you move up? We were already running up, too. I heard from Hirschman, I walk out and they both stand next to me. So Tony Hirschman spots for Kyle, T.J. spots for Joey, obviously. And so they're right next to me, and I'm packing my stuff up, and I hear,

and Tony likes to tell everybody what they do wrong. Tony's, Tony is perfect. I don't know if he knows this, but everybody else knows it. And T.J.'s never wrong either, so it was a great conversation to dip into that for a minute. But, yeah, his biggest thing, I think, was that you moved, that you ran the bottom for a bunch of laps and then moved up when they got there. And I think that's what Kyle was pissed off about. But I just, I just don't, like, we've talked about this before making enemies.

And I, those three or four points that you were banking on if, if you could have won the race, yes, you race your ass off to stay on that lead lap or one down if you could have won the race. Because that's big deal. That's bonus points. That's points that's points you're carrying to the next round. Those three or four points that you might have gained if you caught a caution, I don't think they're worth pissing Kyle Busch off to race against the rest of this playoff. I just want to know, does Joy Lagano have another friend that's a driver, T. T.J. Like, do you know?

Or is Kyle right? I think he's got a handful of them. I don't, like, but let's go back to what you said, though. Elias Adler had every friend in the garage. Who calls him now? Yeah, I'm just asking, is Kyle Busch wrong or right? Does he have friends? I mean, does Coleman Presley count?

Coleman used to drive. Does that count? He's his friend. Coleman is that. Coleman is retired. Coleman is. McGee, you watch Kyle Busch race all these years. You watch him dominate in the lower series,

and then he obviously wins a lot of cup races. now he's not running those lower series and he's not winning cup races. Is that why he's on a winless streak? There's, I did not see it coming and I look back now and I should have. We all should have that when qualifying and practice went away, which I haven't missed. I've been asking for that for a long time. He needs laps.

That's just how he's built. And so, yeah, no, I think it's, I think not getting those laps in on Friday and Saturday, whether it's in a Xenity car or a truck or whatever or practice laps in a cup car. He just, he's, he's a guy that needs reps. And so yeah, it's interesting, but yeah, I don't, I'm trying to think, that was a great point you made, by the way, about,

does the phone ring now? I mean, Ernie Irvin was just on, with Dale Jr. on the podcast. It's something I've always been fascinated by, which is having friends right now is great in the garage. But, but they're going to call you when you're done? They probably aren't because as you guys know, once you are cut from the herd, the herd moves on.

And I'm talking about the NASCAR garage. And so, yeah, it's, I'm not sure that having friends matter so much at this point. I mean, I guess it might be lonely on a Saturday night and a motor coach, but. We're not on one day shows. One day shows, you're not really too lonely.

Yeah, no, that's just it. So, no, it's a, it's a great question. And the social aspect of it has always fascinated me. And it's not so much right now, like you guys say, because you're really only in there one night. But I always call it Bill France Senior High School. Because I'm always fascinated by who you're friends with and who you aren't friends with.

And you guys probably know this, but that extended to the media center. You know, when I was on the road every weekend, you had certain groups that hung out together and certain groups that tried to be the mean girls or whatever. And it's, but that part of it doesn't exist in any other, sport except maybe golf because golf is the only other sport that packs up and goes somewhere every weekend. But that part of it fascinates. Do you think, and along those lines, I see Charles

Barclay come down hard on NBA players. And I see other analysts come down hard on the sports that they're covering, but they don't travel with them like our guys do. Do you think that's why our reporters and our analysts are always so in the middle and so nice? Because it does driving me nuts sometimes to see how nice our analysts are. Like call a spade a spade, right? Do you think that's why? It's because we're all so close. Yeah, and I tell you what happens to

is they get called out. And I mentioned Benny Parsons. You know, when I was producing Benny, I used to get on him about that. He would come in to do RPM tonight on a Monday and he'd sit in the newsroom and just rail on, you know, Pocono races are too long. But you couldn't ever get him to say it on television

because he was dear, dear friends with the Madioli family and he had won at Pocono and he'd been going there since it had opened in the 60s. So I get that. Yeah, you can be too close, but I've also been in the car with Daryl Walter and with Benny Parsons and with these guys. And part of it too is, you know, they get calls on Monday from the people that are their friends complaining. And you know, you guys know, you go to dinner on a Friday night and everybody's complaining about I can't believe so-and-so said that to me. And everybody's so intertwined. It was, well, so-and-so said this because he drove this car or he has investments in this or whatever else. And so it's so unique to NASCAR versus any of the sport.

It is a traveling click thing. You know, you get done to the track on Friday after practice. You go to dinner with the same people most of the time. And, you know, even us, like in your early days, I don't know if we've had roommates and stuff. I've had, I mean, me and Travis Mack, you know, crew chief here and not room with each other for two, three years. He see you in your underwear? Probably. I don't ever want to see. you in your underwear. That's TMI. Well, and I'll say this.

Do you wear underwear? My dad, yeah, as far as y'all know, I'm wearing pants. I know. I've been worn pants on television since March. But my dad,

all the years my dad was on the road as a college football referee, as an official. He was a university president. Like he was an accomplishing. He had all these guys on his crew who were accomplished businessmen. And, you know, Pulitzer Prize nominees and FBI agents and software CEOs and all said, and they all room together on the road.

And so, yeah, it's, and the same thing happened. You had the guys that you hung out with and the guys that you didn't. And, you know, but NASCAR has always fath, the psychology part of it, the sociology part of it has always fascinating. Second topic. Kyle Bush says some of these kids don't know what the hell they're doing and don't know where they're at, nothing like a gase or a Smithley. Spot on. So you have to bleep yourself? about three times.

He's so happy about that. Ryan, so when Jason started our show, we figured out quickly that he was a big Kyle Busch fan. So obviously the second spot on topic here is a Kyle Busch topic. So don't be surprised if there's multiple more Kyle Busch references coming by Jason. Hey, he ain't had anything talk about all year. So we finally got some. No, he's already went to Chase now, though. He ditched Kyle, and now he's a Chase Elliott fan.

Kyle was the only one that said anything interesting. I don't know. Kyle run pretty good yet or not. He might be swaying back. Listen, I'm spot on for Kyle Busch's comments because those lap cars, look, if you go out and run a 500 lap race and you intend to run the full race and you don't have to pull behind the wall because you have a problem and you're 20 plus laps down, you shouldn't be allowed to run the next time you come back to Bristol. Like, we have gotten out of hand with allowing these guys to be this far off the pace with a car that doesn't have any damage. I mean, we saw cars out there with no right front fender on it laping these guys. I don't know how many times I drove by that number 15 car.

It had to be 40 extra times. And so I'm spot off from the sense of we have to stop letting these teams that aren't competitive get these charters and get their hands deeply entrenched into our sport. Because if this continues, we're going to look like the freaking Arca series. That's my biggest thing. I think at these short tracks, half miles, you've got to adjust the minimum speed. You know what I mean? You can't – it's kind of be a smaller percentage because, like you said,

I mean, the one thing I don't like about his comment here was he kind of lumped Garrett into it again just because of his history with Garrett. And I guarantee you, Kyle Bush probably couldn't have told you what car Gareth Smith who was in Saturday night. You know what I mean, which you guys might not even know. I have no idea what car he was in. So he was in the 78. So he was the one that was on the bottom out of the way all day, you know. He was actually one of the better ones. He was probably the best one out there.

So, but he gets lumped into this, unfortunately, because of his history with Kyle. Because of you. Vegas and me last year. you. But, yeah, like, they've got to do something. These guys are just way off the pace. You know, adjust the minimum speed, do something. That 51 was in the way all night long. Then you've got the 53 out there. He causes the caution that, you know, he kind of gets run over. It comes down on the three car when the four's pit and screws the whole race up for us. Helps a lot of other people out. But, you know, like in the middle of pit cycle, the 53's wrecking.

Like, how does that happen? He has no idea. You know, he's just, you know, it's just stuff like that. These guys, yeah, you know what? Give him a chance to race. If they want to race, go out there and race. You know, some of them, 27 cars, 77, they were decent. Kyle didn't seem to mind when the 77 held the four up and he got around him for the lead. Yeah, I was going to bring that up. He left that part out. But, yeah, you know, but yeah, like they've got to do something to get it more comparable.

You know, mile and a halfs, whatever. They can get out of the way. There's room. There's nowhere to hide at Bristol. There's nowhere to go. Yeah. Is it new? I mean, is it like, you guys tell me, is it a, is it a worse problem now than it was, Brett, 10 years ago, 15 years ago?

I mean, look, Ryan, when I got here, man, we had 60 cars trying to make these cup races. And we had Darrell Waltzups of the world missing them. And when I look at it, man, like it was super competitive. And, you know, you still had a handful of guys that could go out and win. But I feel like the gap wasn't as big as it is right now. Because, I mean, I hate to say it, but it's a business to a lot of these teams. And it's a profit center to a lot of these teams. And the way I look at it when 60 cars were showing up,

If you weren't fast, you didn't race. If you didn't qualify in a time, you didn't make it. I mean, Carl Long kicking DW out of a Coke 600 was a big freaking deal, and he made it because he was fast enough. And then DW had to go back and buy that seat from Carl in order to run his last Coke 600. So I definitely think it's gotten worse because the charter thing took us from really a free enterprise market to there's 36 guys locked in,

and six plus of those guys aren't very fast. I think it's worse. The reason it's worse for me now is, it might not be worse, but we don't know the names that are in there now. Before back then, you knew who was in every single car no matter what. Now I couldn't tell you who was in the 53 and who was in the 51 or whatever they were last week. Before you knew, and it was usually somebody that had... You could trust. Well, it was somebody that had won 100 late model races in Wisconsin or somewhere like that.

You knew that guy, you knew his pass and he had a background racing, went up through the ranks. I can't tell you a lot of these kids passed to where they got to now. They ran you know, they ran 35th and 3xini races. Now they're running the cup race at Bristol.

Yeah, I couldn't tell you that. And you see the guys, you see the guy, like if I know what car B.J. MacLeod is in on Sundays, I know that car is going to be out of the way because that's a guy that's,

like you said, one hundreds of super late model races. He knows what's going on around him. You know, he got wrecked on Saturday, unfortunately. But, you know, like he knows everything that's going on.

James Davidson was in the 53. Indy car guy, let's just throw him as, you know, first one of his first five starts, let's throw him to the wolves of Bristol, let him get run over. Like, I don't know. Obviously, we've talked about the approval process on here before, and the fill of field,

you've got to have guys out there like that because they're the ones paying for the rides. But, Ryan, these cars are not fast. No, they're not. And honestly, and it reminds me of, you know, I covered in early days in my career, I covered the Indie car split when the IRL and cart with their separate ways.

And both of them, even as much money as there was in champ car and cart with Penske and all those guys, but particularly in the IRL was, back half of the field was just bad. The cars are bad, the drivers, the same thing. I didn't know Dr.

Jack Miller, the racing dentist. I'm not over the hell he came from. I knew he was in the way. And so that was, so that's what it reminds me of in a lot of ways. And guess what? That's a sport that,

you know, that for years had franchising. So I get, I was just curious to know from the spotter standpoint, because I see it. but sometimes I think, well, am I just not remembering correctly from 15 years ago? Our challenge is we will catch two slow cars at a place like Bristol, and one is running the top, and the other one is running the bottom.

And we have bottleneck on them. Like if they would just get in the non-preferred line, wherever that is, or if they would just get in line, it would help. I mean, you catch the 53 and 27, and we're running third, and the 27 dive bombs of 53 getting into three. and it's like, dude, I'm clear by a straightaway behind me. Is nobody talking to you to tell you that? Do you not have a mirror to see that? It is an awareness issue, but I still go back to what I said to you. The cars are slow.

Yeah. I like what Freddie says, though. You know, going back to the Kyle thing, Kyle got the lead because of the 12 and the 77 maybe getting jammed up and the four had to lift a little bit. You get the lead, which kind of makes the race and exciting. It's like a sprint car race. The leader takes off and then they get to lap traffic

and then the second place catches him, and then there might have been an opportunity. I don't mind it because you can't really get out of the way at Bristol. When you think you get out of the way, the field goes by, guess what? Here they come again. You know, Kyle was right on Kevin, you know, made the mood to get around him. Great race. I mean, that's exciting.

I'm guessing watching it on TV. That's probably exciting. It was awesome. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just part of it, you know, and then, you know, he gets to lead like that. Then they get to us, and he can't get around us. like Harvard just drives around the bottom and then they go by us. There's 30 laps to go in the race still.

There's 30 laps to go. It's not like there was the green-white checker and we just jammed the brakes in front of and costing the race. He had 30 laps if he was better to get around him. And I realize he's just frustrated too, which is most of this because he's had a terrible year in Kyle Bush terms. You know, this would be a, I mean, he's won races this year in the trucks and stuff, hasn't he in the beginning of the year?

I think you want a couple truck races. Yeah, he's still a successful year for a lot of. of guys still, but not on Kyle Busch terms. So that's just, you know, Bristol, you really can't get out of the way. And instead of, most time we were battling how many, like, five, six years ago, we're battling cars that are missing the front ends off. You know, because they're riding around there. You go to the garage, fix it, and you got modified looking cars out there. Now you just have cars that are completely, like, no damage or anything. It's just part of it, though. I don't think you'll ever be able to get rid of it. Next topic. We'll start with Ryan on this one.

Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Cole Custer, and Matt DeBendetto eliminated from the playoffs after the first round. Spot on, spot off. I still can't believe Blaney's not still in it. I mean, you go back to like July, and he was in my top four. I mean, I felt like, all right, here we go. You know, this is the year he's filing over the hump, and he's a contender, and here we go, and they just lost to handle it. And even talking to drivers as they were headed home,

on Saturday night. They can't believe it either when you think about where he was and where that team was at the start of the year. So, I mean, it's still, I still, it's relatively early in his career. He's been around longer than maybe people realize, but he's still, I mean, by the numbers, he's still a young guy. But I just was, if you had come to me in June

and said that after the first elimination, he'd be gone, I'd have said, you were nuts. I was trying to think, ever since we started this, this playoff elimination thing, I was trying to think of what were the most shocking eliminations after the first round versus what we thought we had in the middle of the summer. And if he's not at the top of the list, he's top three. What do you think they, what do you think happened?

The lack of practice? Yeah, I don't know. And you guys tell me when it feels like, and the people I talk to say this, but I'm curious to hear what you all have to say is it's just more difficult to make it up when you lose the handle on it. You know, it's like my golf swing. When I've got it, it's great. But if it goes away, if I don't keep playing,

I'm not going to, it's not going to come back, which is a really nice way of saying my golf swing is never going to come back because I never get to play anymore. But without reps, without laps, you know, it's like a confidence thing, I guess. And when you lose it, I mean, it feels like you just don't. It's hard to make corrections when it's like real racing, points on the line. You know, going back to the Kyle Busce's team. It's just, but you guys tell me that

that's kind of my take based on what I see and who I'm talking to. Yeah, I mean, I think the theme of Blaney's season is missed opportunities. The beginning of the year, he was probably the fastest car on the racetrack and never cashed in on it, whether it be a pit road accident or I think it was Vegas, a late caution he pits, everybody else stays out, they lose the race. You know, so, I mean, if you capitalize on a couple of those opportunities, now you build a bank of stage points of where you're not you're not even in jeopardy of going out in the first round. And then we talked about this on the show last week about, you know, mistakes in this round. At Darlington, they somehow, you know, on pit road, knock a vows to him out.

He's got to come to pit road. As we're coming to green, he loses a bunch of time there. We never see him again. Last week, he has to pit twice under the first caution for, still don't know why. And we never see him again. And, you know, just the, I felt like, as a toll, the Penske cars just missed it a little bit on Saturday. And he never really got the opportunity to race his way up there because that's a place he normally runs good at.

But, you know, just like, just, I feel like the story of his season was just missed opportunities. Yeah, he definitely, he definitely had a lot of, had a lot of speed in the beginning of the year. He was leading every race. He led. Oh, yeah. He was legitimately leading every single race at some point, speed-wise. I think, I really think the lack of being in the garage, new crew chief and stuff, you know, you're buying into a new way, you're buying into a guy's new, new vision. you're trying to, you know, Todd's trying to mold him, you know, to develop him more.

And you kind of lose the ability to do that when you don't have that face time every, you know, two, three times a weekend in the hauler where you have that time. Yeah, you can, you have Zoom and all that. But it's not the same. You know, it's hard, you know, working with Todd before. I think it was a great mix for Blaney, you know, just kind of teaching him, you know, developing him more. that hurt it some too it hurt our team i think for sure because joey's really good um you know he's really good with the gap really good with the you know just keeping team morale way up he's really good

he's a really good motivator for the whole team and uh you know not being able to get into the garage and do that stuff really hurts really you know it's hard to you know hard to do things like that so i think um that and the lack of practice you know learning each other what did you do here what did you do for that now we got to figure out during the race So everybody's going to. I go back to Kansas. Kenseth never stood a chance. And I'm so glad he got an opportunity to get in that car and do whatever.

But I remember talking to him after Darlington, after the first race back. And he said, I didn't even know who my crew guys were. You know, because he walked out to the track. The first time he met his crew, they all had masks on. And he was like, how's it going before he got in the car and hit the track of Darlington? So, yeah, at the end of the day, you got to have some one-on-one time. And so, you know, no matter what the weird situation was with that car, he never said a chance because you got, you have to at least have to have the chance to talk to the guys. And he was talking to him on radio.

That's all he had. I mean, look at Clint. You get Clint around his guys, man. They're going to, Clint's hilarious. You know, he, you know, tension goes to him, you know, and you hang around Clint. You want to keep hanging around Clint because he's funny. You know, you want to work with him. I'm spot on here for the word experience because all the veterans in this group of playoff drivers,

moved on. And a lot of these guys that didn't move on don't have the experience in the playoffs that those guys have. But when I look at Cole Custer and Matt Debenaddo, dude, they beat Jimmy Johnson. They beat Eric Jones and Joe Gibbs racing equipment. Just the fact that they made this playoff means they had a successful season. Obviously, Cole won a race, a 21, man. I don't know what's going on with him. He's lacked speed for the last few weeks. I mean, the last seven races, that guy, he's tanked. And I don't know why, because we expected him to be good at Bristol, too. But nonetheless, he's had a good season. In my opinion, he deserves a renewal.

And if he doesn't get a renewal, it's because Austin Cendrick is lighting the world on fire in the Xfinity Series. So, again, hats off to all those guys for making the playoff, but I still think the word experience comes to mind, and that's what moved the next. The round of 12 is made up of a hell of a lot of veterans. Next one. Five cautions the least amount for a fall Bristol race since 1983.

Freddie, spot on, spot off. I wish there's only four. one of them ruined my race. No. Yeah. You know, we talked about this last week. You know, like, I'm okay. I don't want to go down the road of complaining that there's not enough cautions,

and then we get to the point where we're complaining that they're throwing too many cautions because they fabricated a debris caution or something like that. It is what it is. Some races were not going to have cautions. Yeah. You know, that's just the way it goes. But, I mean, you see, we had a couple wrecks. Jimmy Johnson wrecked the 47 on the backstretched there to start it.

I think the six spun one time. right before stage, I think it was. Natural. Real cautions. Just caution flags. You know what it is what it is. And maybe it goes back to these cars still being a little bit too easy to drive where these guys aren't,

the package is not lending itself to these guys being on the edge as much as they need to be to crash these things. But I'm still of the opinion where let the strategies play out. And unfortunately, and it would have been really interesting.

We were five laps away from seeing Green flag pit stops at Bristol. When was the last time? The leader was pitting when that happened. That's what I'm saying. A bunch of us had pit. We had worn a left front tire. We had a bit.

Way to loose wheel. Yeah. So like a bunch of guys had to come there. And but we were literally, the leader was coming and the rest of the lead lap cars were going to be coming the next four to five laps. So it was going to cycle. It was going to cycle through. It was going to be interesting to see how it played out. Unfortunately, we got that caution in the middle of it.

But yeah, I'm all for natural cautions. There's no reason. I don't know what the solution, what the people want that are complaining about lack of caution. Every time Ryan McGee saw three wide on television at Bristol, that was an opportunity for a caution. And we didn't get them because guys. were making moves and making passes. And, man, we were going so fast through the center of the corner of the other night. It was blowing my mind.

I mean, it was a heck of a race too. Only have five cautions at a half-mile racetrack speaks volumes to how talented these guys are. Because, and not to mention, we were missing all the moving chicanes. Wasn't you just saying how untalented these guys were in the back? They were moving chican, which tells you how talented the other guys are, not to freaking hit them every other lap. But the last caution, I finally, first time all year, after 28 races or whatever it's been, I finally caught a caution that helped my race. I thought you were going to knock the fence down when the 24 caution came out.

Oh, I was pissed. Because I didn't know he was out of the race. So the 24 runs into whoever he runs into on the backstretch. And look, that was caused by a slow car too. Slow car was in the way up against the fence and they all check up. And William goes in and COs the car in front of him. but I thought William would continue and that caution was going to save him

from going multiple laps down. That's why I lost my mind, Freddie. Sorry about that. Did you see the wreck? Did you see the wreck? Yeah. What happened? I didn't see it. So the slow car was in the way, essentially. Up against the wall?

The first car ran all over him. 95. The 95 ran all over him and checked up hard and then 24 just KO the 95. I thought the ultimate warrior slid in between me and Brett next to me because the fence started shaking. I was a guy going nuts next to me. know what the hell is going on. Sorry.

You just grabbed the rail. You just grab the rail. Start doing that. It's hard to beat natural car. I'm okay with the competition cautions in the beginning to give people a chance. Okay, you started off your way off. This is your one opportunity to pretty much try to stand

and lead lap and adjust your car for the rest of the race. But after that, you know, we got caught by it, but still, it was a real, there was a wreck. I mean, what can you do? So it's part of it. You can't be mad at that. that rather than a piece of debris. There's something shiny on the bottom.

Don't put it out. I mean. Well, let's talk about cautions for a minute. We're talking about caution, obviously. The Xfinity series, the truck series, they throw these competition cautions and nobody pits. Does NASCAR not have the ability to realize nobody is going to pit before they even throw that caution? It is a wasted caution.

Yeah, but I think you got to give people opportunities. With no practice. You look at like the Martinsville race, how bad the Gibbs guys were to start that race off. they, you know, we've heard different stories about, you know, they got the wrong tire data before the race. So I think you got to give somebody like that opportunity. Like if you miss it, if you miss, yeah, if you miss it that bad, you've got to give, you know, without the lack of practice, give them an opportunity to get a fix before they

end up losing three laps just because we didn't have practice that week. So, but I agree with you. Like, it almost should be a mandatory pit stop. Like, all right, everybody's coming. Everybody's putting tires on here. Everybody's got to go and we'll do the, you know, everybody's on the same page. It just, it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be an opportunity to gain an advantage of something. Yeah.

I mean, I get it doing the truck races. Like, I get it. But there's a handful, I can promise you, from about 10th, 12th on back, that's not, they can't wait for that competition caution. Like, you can't wait because you've got to work on something because you're not that good. Obviously, the guys at front don't want it. But especially in the truck and Xfinney series,

some of the guys in the back, I mean, almost the back half of the field always pits. And that gives them an opportunity also to, okay, well, I'm going to pit at lap 30, get some tires, maybe get back up through inside the top 10 before the end of the stage. that gives them an opportunity to kind of swap their track position a little bit. But I think with no practice and stuff, you almost have to do that early. You almost have to do that early deal just to kind of give everyone a chance in case you're way off somehow. I mean, Ryan, watching the race at home, was it any less interesting because we had less cautions?

No, I got to go to the bathroom, so I'm glad. I like those competition costs because I'm getting old, man. I got to go to the bathroom all the time. It's Bristol, right, yeah. So I don't want to get up and miss anything. No, the competition costs don't bother me. I get it. And I've not a crew chief, never been, never been a race car driver.

Thank heavens. Never been on a pit crew. But my feeling is that, yeah, you give them the opportunity. But maybe you learn. Maybe you go to everyone and say, are we wasting our time here? And I think even when no one pits, I think they'll probably tell you. And no, you know what? I'll take whatever I can get because you're right.

There's always going to be somebody that probably needs it. But yeah, for me, it just gives me a chance to go check the grill. So I'm all for it. 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 OfferPath. pad.com. Next topic, Daniel Swarres announced he's leaving the 96 team.

Jim Utter reports that Gaunt Brothers is the frontrunner to land Bubba Wallace. Why doesn't Freddie go first on this one? Spot on, spot off. Who's first, Jason? I think Brett should go first. I don't think there's a chance. I don't even think there's a one in a million chance that Bubba Wallace is going to drive this car. and people can say, well, why is that the case?

Well, obviously, it's a Toyota, but it didn't make the Daytona 500, which means it doesn't have a charter. And Bubba Wallace is not going to take a multi-million dollar sponsorship to a team that won't be locked into the Daytona 500. And the funny part about this, Ryan, is I think we were one of the, Freddie actually mentioned the word Michael Jordan on this show. I don't know what you're talking about. I did not.

You were the one that said Michael Jordan, but we were referring to somebody else. Freddie going to carpet land again. Regardless. Frederick, can you stop by? We need to talk to you. Somebody on this show said the word Michael Jordan a few weeks back. And then here we are. You know, Bubba's on our podcast last week.

Dude, you're following some big names. Blake Shelton two weeks ago, Bubba Wallace last week. now Ryan McGee. You actually have upstage all those guys. But last week I asked Bubba Point Blank on this show, and I was joking when I said it. I promise I was joking. I said, have you talked to Michael Jordan?

Kidding, but not kidding. And he said no. So now that's the second time on this show we've said Michael Jordan. For the third time on this show, I'm going to say Michael Jordan. Do you think he's coming to NASCAR, Ryan McGee? I don't. I mean, he could. He's a motorsports fan.

I mean, you guys know this. he was invested in motorcycle racing for a long time. He looked at getting into sports car racing. So, I mean, it's not 100% out of the wrong possibility. But if y'all want to just keep bringing his name up just to get his name on the show, that'd be great. I think that Bubba drives a car next year with the number three on it, right? But I think the other number is not the number one because there's a lot of rumors they're buying a 13 charter, which would make sense, right? Jermaine has said they don't have a sponsor.

or they're not going to re-up Ty Dillon. Freddie, do you think, what do you think, Freddie? You know more than all of us. I don't know anything. I'm sorry, I've just been over here counting my car payments. Freddie bought a new truck, right? He's 38 years old, and he bought his first new vehicle this week. Congratulations, sir.

That's a big deal. That's a big deal. That's a big deal. So, you know, obviously I can't delve into a whole lot of other stuff. but I do know some things are in the works, obviously, and I think, you know, everybody sees the rumors out there. It's an obvious over here. Everybody sees the rumors out there with, you know,

with Danny maybe trying to get into the ownership side of it, and maybe Linkin' Bubba to Toyota with that, which would be awesome for Bubba. But, yeah, this Gaunt Brothers deal, I'm not, I don't really know, utter, you know. Is that why you got that new Toyota out there? I got a, yeah, I've got a Chevy and a Toyota. There's 23 reasons why I know you're lying to me right now.

Well, you know, it is what it is. He looks so uncomfortable. right now. Well, I mean, it's hard to get Freddie a incredible. Look at him. He's like, oh, yeah, oh, you know. Hey, hang on. Let me get my recorder going here.

I'm like, I might have someone. I just, I just call them. I call usp.com and pay. I got some inside information above a wall. Speak into the microphone, clearly, please. You know, I don't, I just, I've, I had a laugh when I seen this article out from Utter. It's like, yeah, we're going to take, but was going to take multi, multi, multi,

multi, multi, multi million dollar sponsors. to a non-charter team that struggles to run 25th every week. I think that's a solid business plan. The biggest thing that I think that Bubba said was that he is betting on himself now, and he's not going to better himself. He's putting himself in a better situation. There's zero chance Bubba leaves the 43 and goes to a worse situation. Like there's no chance.

And the way he was very passionate about it too. Like if I can't do it in this, I shouldn't be driving race cars. Yeah. So, you know, Bub is, like he said on the show here. He's going to get everything in a row to make this his best opportunity. And if he believes in himself that if he has the right equipment, he's going to run up front. And, you know, another thing, you know, if you talk about if he possibly gets in something with Denny Hamlin and a car that with Denny Hamlin, you know, a new team, there's no comparisons to be made. You know, if you get in the 42, you're instantly compared to what Kyle Arson did. If you get into 48, you're instantly compared to damn Jimmy Johnson. Who the hell wants that? You know, you never want to be the guy. You know, that follows the guy. We talked about that. It's spotters. Look at William Byer. Yeah.

I mean, you don't, you know, so, you know, everything has benefits to. If you get in a new car, there's no history. You can get out there and write your own history in that thing. So I think that would play a factor in the Bubba's thought process also. But, you know, I'm sure, I think probably sooner or later, pretty much closer to sooner, you'll hear about what Bubba's doing. And it's exciting stuff for him. Is it going to be Wednesday when we hear?

I don't know. I think it might be this week. I think it's possible. We need to have a, where's Freddie go? Where are you going, Fred? Why don't have that? Ryan's got his recorder out again. That I don't know.

Freddie, where are you going to work? This will be here right here. Hang out. Everybody seems to think I've got a deal in place because I bought a new truck, and Megan wants to murder me because I don't and I bought a new truck. Seriously wants to murder you because it doesn't have a big enough back seat. Oh, it's got a pretty big back seat. It's got a whole truck brand.

Yeah, you know what's silly season when we're basing potential moves on, I heard so-and-so bought a new truck. Oh, I got last week, some guy I had to call Bob and tell him this, but Pockris, you know, Pockers has been covering it up. obviously. And there was somebody on Twitter is like, look, Bob, you're wrong. Freddie bought a Chevy and Bubba did a Chevy commercial tomorrow today. So he's not going to Toyota, obviously. And I'm like, yeah, that's how it works. The spotter's really in tone with the manufacturer deal. And what you don't know is that Bob not only knows what you bought, he has a copy of the purchase

agreement, and he has already contacted your bank. He knows what your credit rating is. I thought that was him in the background when I was talking to the salesman. Bob has your birth certificate. Yeah. Anyone who says Bob Packers, you're wrong. They're drunk. They are wrong. They're wrong.

They're wrong. Yeah, exactly right. I saw a lot of hate last week on social media compared to the other shows that we do. Usually the hate comes at me, McGee. But last week it came a lot at Bubba. And I saw people saying that Bubba's doing the 43 a favor by leaving. I don't know that the 43 has been this relevant since Bobby Hamilton drove it. Like what do you think Bubba Wallace did for the 43?

car. Are my wrong? No, you're not wrong at all. I mean, all he did was almost one in the Daytona 500. All he did was, you know, he posted more top tens. The net car has seen in forever. That 43 car was on everything all the time. You know, in my opinion, I think as a fact, he changed a lot of people's opinion of Richard Petty because of the way that the king rallied to his side and brought to light some of the things that Richard Petty did for Wendell Scott a really long time ago. And so I think that it's just, listen, he knows what he's into here. He and I, we did a huge story about Bubba.

And it's one of my, your question really, one of my favorite stories I've ever done was a story we did about Bubba leading into his first eight tonal 500. We went back to Wendell Scott's family and we did all of that. And Bubba sat right there and told me, I know exactly what I'm getting into here. And he said, and I was not in a position or mature enough to handle what I know is coming, what I know is inevitable. This was five or six years ago.

Now, and I think he's far, he's matured on his own, but also been forced into maturity over what's happened and what he's done over the last two years. And so, yeah, he knows what he's dealing with. And I'm always impressed at how he handles it. He has become the guy that you can't say anything about without hearing immediately from a couple hundred idiots. And that's who they are. And anyone who tries to discount what he's done.

because the 43 car, you guys know me. Listen, I mean, I'm sitting right here at my desk. I mean, I got nothing, I got nothing but Richard Petty stuff all over this office. So I love the king. But that team has challenges. And you guys know that better than anyone. And what he's done is remarkable. And you're right.

He's made that car relevant again. And I think has done things that will keep that team around, you know, for the foreseeable future in a lot of ways because of the exposure. car when a lot of guys didn't want to drive it. And now I know a lot of guys that do. Yeah. And that was the reputation of that car going all the way back to Bobby LaBoney. The reputation of that car has not been great.

It's great. It's legendary. It's historic. It's all over the NASCAR Hall of Fame. But it's like, yeah, but that was a million years ago. But yeah, what he's done is remarkable. Anyone tries to discount that. I got no time for him.

It's not a gimmick. You know, he earned his way to where he is. no one's handed him anything, if anything, it's been the complete opposite. You know, when you talk to him until the last six months, when you talked to him before, couldn't find sponsorship. And couldn't get CEOs to jump on board. Part of the reason he couldn't stay anywhere for any lengthy period of time was because of that. So everything that everyone says gives him an advantage is actually, if you ask him,

I don't think it's helped a lot. And now those things are coming together. Listen, anybody that discounts anything he's doing, and they just have already decided how they're going to feel about it. And chances are, you know, we're not going to change their mind. And I have no interest in changing their mind because I won't talk to them. All right. Last topic here, spot on, spot off.

Ross Chastain to drive the 42 car full time in the Cup Series next year. Ryan, spot on, spot off. Yeah, I mean, honestly, 42 car was one of the ones that a lot of people were, I really enjoyed what you guys are done with the podcast, talking to athletes from other sports. and when I've talked to athletes from other sports or sports center anchor or an NFL reporter and suddenly they're paying attention to all the silly season because of Bubba Wallace, there were a lot of people that were hoping just from the outside,

not within the NASCAR community, there are a lot of people on the outside hoping he's going to get in that 42 car for no reason other than the reason that it was open. Yeah, Ross Chastain, congratulations, sir. You know, this Ross deal, on both sides of it. You know what I mean? I know, I know Brett's kind of close to this deal with Ross because he's been helping him the last couple of years. But, you know, this is, we talked about Bubba last week betting on himself,

and now Ross is betting on himself. But the problem with betting on yourself is you better cash in because if you don't, this could be your last opportunity. If you get in that car and run like Matt Kenseth does this next year, you're out. And that might be your last shot at a good top-level cup ride. So, you know, I don't know that when you have a, a sponsor that's backing you in the Xfinity series.

And this sport is so based on money and everything driven by money, who's got money to bring where to walk away from a potential sponsor. I don't know that I agree with it. But like you said, if you're going to bet on yourself, maybe he sees this is the only opportunity he can get in a good cup car. Maybe that's the risk he's willing to take. It's just, you know, as competitive as he is in Xfinity, you know, the opportunity to maybe come back and do that again and compete for his championship,

over getting in a car that's kind of underperforming right now. I don't know where you weigh that out at. Man, I wish it would have, I don't know why it wouldn't have happened earlier this year, maybe because he can't, I mean, at least part-time. Because, you know, he's been linked to Gannasi in that 42 car for a while now. He's been linked to that car. Then you go and pull Matt in, which is a great, you know, Matt's a solid sub. he's an accomplished driver.

But Ross was, you know, already linked, already embedded in the Gannasi stuff. So really, I don't know, I would have. I think that we talked about it on here. Why did it take so long for this? But we talked about it on here, Ganesi over what they went through with their sponsors needed a name. They needed a name. They needed a face. So you go out and you get Matt Kenseth, champion driver, big name in our sport.

And that'll sure up your sponsorship, whatever you have for, you know, through at least the rest of this year. You know, I don't know that Ross moves the needle that much for some, you know, a sponsor like that. No, probably not. But, you know, if it's not your long-term plan, how do you not? If Ross gets in that car and runs the way that Matt just ran, there's a chance that charter is for sale. Right. So, so obviously, Gannasi is banking on a young, hungry kid coming in and being better behind the wheel than an established veteran, right?

I think the missing story here is 18 months ago, Chip Canassie Racing shut down a team that Ross Chastain was scheduled to drive full-time for, and Ross Chastain was unemployed. And my good friend, Elliot Sadler, and my other good friend, Chris Rice, picked Ross Chastain up and put him on their shoulders, and they gave him five competitive races to go run, one of which he won at Daytona. And I think that scenario with Nutriac Solutions set him up for this year where he's run full time. He's been competitive. He's been a media hog on TV. He's got five second place finishes and he's turned a lot of heads. Now the same guys that put him on the street are putting it back in their car. So to me, the big spot on here is collig racing and what they're doing to create opportunities for kids like this and guys like this.

Because without them and without those fast cars, if Ross is still, and I told him this yesterday, If he's still running Sim racing for Gannasi and he's still driving for Johnny Davis Motorsports on Saturday, nobody wants him full-time in a cup car. So to me, a big spot on to Chris Rice and Colleg Racing, Matt Collick, and what they've done to support this guy. You talk about Collick racing. There's potential that they are going to move both of their drivers to the Cup Series. You know, you hear Justin Haley to that spire car rumor.

You know, I don't know if he's going to stay or go, but you hear that rumor. but you don't hear these rumors if these guys are underperforming in this stuff. So just as competitive as they've been, Justin Haley has impressed me a lot this year. The leap he's made from last year or this year. He's a consistent top five car now. And then Ross, he's definitely gotten better. Yeah, Ross week in and in and weekouts competing for wins. But, you know, I just, you know, I think honestly, you know, if you look at the pool of drivers,

Ross is probably the most talented one. I would probably, in my mind, I would put, I would put Corey the Joy up there talent-wise, but Corey's unproven. Ross has got Xfinity wins. He's got truck wins. So, you know, Ross obviously would be ahead of him on that list if you're talking about the pool of drivers. And so, Ganesi's going to go out and try to get the best guy, and it's just up to Ross, whether he's going to make that decision where if he wants to stay and compete for a championship,

and we talked about it on here. You know, Matt Kenseth, he's not on TV. We haven't seen him all year. You know, he's running 15th to 20th every week, and Ross is on TV every week competing for wins. Now, where's the value in that for you? You know what I mean? Like, how are you going to weigh this out to where do I want to be the big fish in a small pond or I want to be another guy in the Cup series? Like, I just, I don't know.

It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out, but it's, you know, it's just, it's an interesting decision. Well, Chip Ganesi, hey, Chip Ganesi loves nothing more than being able to tell everybody I was right. He's always been that guy. I think about even covering him in open world race in all those years. No one had ever heard Alex Zanardi, right? Jimmy Vassar was nothing. you know one Pablo Montoya was whatever he was a F1 burnout not going to make it you know to the top level and chip loves to be right about things and so yeah if he has the opportunity to be able to go back

and say I told you all two years ago he was the guy it just didn't work out then then he's going to do it but chip also is very impatient so uh you're I can't remember who said it among you guys but ross probably got a year to uh to show what you can or can't or can't do. Here's the question hanging over, you know, my head, given what you just said, it's the last year of a car. The car that we're going to run next year is expiring. And you have to focus on the next car next year.

So the resources that are going to be required to come in to be competitive in an expiring car, I don't know what they are. I'm not on that side of the world. But I would have to imagine that the teams, the super teams, if we want to call them that, They're going to bring all their players to the field, and they're going to try to kick your tail and kick you out of here. And I think that's going to be a challenge for a lot of teams. And I don't just mean Chip Canassie Racing.

I mean the Richard Childress of the world and all these other guys that are running, you know, 15th on back. I mean, dude, it's going to be a challenging year for them, right? And for Chip, obviously, he's taking on a fourth IndyCar team with Jimmy Johnson. There's a lot going on for a lot of teams. And I think that's going to, I think the achievement gap, I talk about that all the time. kids, right? I think the achievement gap for next year, McGee gets a lot wider than it's been.

Yeah, no, I agree with that 100%. And it's transition years. I mean, and we used to feel like we were one of these about every other year with the cars, you know, in the previous decade. But yeah, the transition years are always big. And like I say, patience has never been a hallmark of Chip Gannasi's career. And so a new car or not, Ross Chastain, you better get up on it, son. He will get up on the wheel. We don't. Do know that about him. There's no question about it. All right, it's time to hit the gas and take our Xfinity speed from the track to the studio. Let's jump into our weekly Xfinity Fast Lane segment.

We'll roll out the guys six questions and time each person to see who can answer the fastest and how many they can get right. Freddie, as the champion of Xfinity Fast Lane, you're up first. Go ahead. I'm ready. First question, how many stage points has Bubble Wallace scored in 2020? You finally got a hard question. Congratulations. Six. Which Chevy finish highest on Saturday? Chase Elliott.

How many career X-Finity Series wins does Chase Briscoe now have? Ten. Eight. Who asks, do you like green eggs and ham? Who, Dr. Seuss? Who is the oldest Kardashian sister? Courtney. How many years did Prohibition last in the U.S.?

Eight? Is it 10? It's 13 years for prohibition. What a bunch of idiots. Why would you prohibit booze? Bubba has scored 17 stage points so far in 2020. Damn, Freddie. Was the highest stage.

You know as bad as you thought. Briscoe has nine wins and Sam I Am said you like three names and a DJ scored more than one race. Well, Dr. Seuss technically said it, didn't he? Through somebody else. Yeah, he was the author. He was the author. He didn't say it.

He said it. through Sam I am. It's a technicality. Dr. Seuss said it. You can file a formal complaint. He actually does say right after I do so like Green Eggs and Ham, Sam I am. I mean, he kind of says that right afterwards. It's been a while since I read old Green Eggs and Ham.

All right, Brett, you're up next. Oh, great. All right, Brett, first question. Who finished directly behind Clint Boyer on Saturday? 21 car. Who scored their first top 10 finish of the season on Saturday? Daniel Hammer. It's not even the cup breaks.

How many cautions do the X-Fune Series race have? Two. What does the acronym... Wait a minute. As a caution of stagebreaker, is that different? Total cautions. Well, you ain't say that. You say cautions.

Go ahead. Sorry. What does the acronym IKR stand for? I know, right. Who is Lightning McQueen's love interest in the film cars? I have no idea. While in play, how many players are on a water, Polo team.

Seven. What? That was such a swing in the dark. I played water polo. Who are you talking about? In what? My little kitty pool. I'm just surprised the horses don't drown.

I have my swimmy's on. Jesus. You want to play later? Yeah. Come on in. The water feels nice. Is it warm? So Chase Elliott finished behind Clint on Saturday.

Ryan pre-scored his first top-10 finish. The Xen series race had seven top or seven. seven cautions, and Sally is Lightning McQueen's love interest. Oh, that girl. Jason knew all of these without looking them up. Yep. Cars, I'm a big cars guy. All right, TJ, you're next.

Yeah. You ready? Good luck. Yeah. How many playoff points does Joey Logano have starting the next round? Time's up. 36. How many laps out of 500 did Quinn Hoff complete on Saturday?

I almost spit my water out. 452 Who led the most laughs in Friday's Xfinery Series race? Ross S-Tain. What does the W and SWAT stand for? No idea. Who sang the song, Poker Face?

Lady Gaga? My poker face. How many keys are there on a piano? I don't know, 110? Damn, dog, that's a lot of keys. Congratulations, Brett. You are the picture this week. Congratulations.

Ligano has 22 stage, I mean, playoff points entering the next rounds. Quinn Hoff completed 483 of 500 laps. Jason, are you saying that right? I don't know. Huff. Huff. I think it's Huff. Huff. It's Huff the Magic Driver, remember?

Huff the Magic Driver. Justin Alguire loved the most laps in the next few years race. I should have guessed that. SWAT, the W stands for weapons, and there's 88 keys on piano. That's close. You weren't close? I mean, how many would you guess? 88.

Yeah. You idiot? Did you learn that on your water polo team? We played it underwater. We're always thinking fast on door bumper clear, and so was runner-up. KFB, Kyle Bush, because he had this week's Xfinity fastest lap at Bristol. You know something else that's fast? X-FINITY X-5.

It is, and it's more than speed, too, TJ. It's reliable, secure, safe, and you're connected throughout your entire home. of Xfinity, follow at Xfinity Racing on Twitter and stay connected with exclusive behind the scenes NASCAR content. Shout out to Xfinity, premier partner of NASCAR and our podcast. Ask DBC.

Send in your questions 24-7 on Twitter using the hashtag AskDBC. Askedvc. And we did have a lot of better and more questions this week, so I appreciate everyone sending their questions in. That's because T-Bet sent out that tweet in 2016

asking for them. Yeah. We finally got them. Thank you so much, T.J. Most of the questions, never mind. I don't think I'm bringing it back up. All right. First question from West 22 underscore 4.

Did the decision not to reapply the traction compound at Bristol helped produce the ability to move around more than in years past? Man, I like the surface, to be honest with you, I felt like a typical Clint, right? He picks the top on a restart. At his own discretion, he gets to pick the top McGee, and the next word's out of his mouth is, give me down as soon as you can.

I'm like, well, you just took the top. How am I supposed to fix this problem you just created? I really felt like the bottom was the place to be, and then after you ran 20 plus laps, the top came in. It's a wonderful racetrack. This is the best racetrack that we have on the circuit in terms of creating the ability to run anywhere we want to run on such a really small surface, a half-mile racetrack.

I wish the tire would still fall off a little bit more. I mean, we're out there running 150-plus laps before we really see a guy getting tire trouble. but outside of that man big big big fan of the surface i thought it was really good i think um you can watch bristol i can watch all these guys that are great short-titch drivers they still miss the bottom and when they miss the bottom that guy behind him gets right up to him and that's that's you know just waiting for something to happen some of the guys roll up there and don't well don't wait you know give them a little bump move the guy up the racetrack and if you get up the racetrack you know two feet you're you're

you're way slower and the guys all over you and trying to pass you. So I think the service was great. Yeah. Y'all hadn't heard? They ruined Bristol. Y'all hadn't heard? They roared it. Roared it. They roared it 20 years ago. They ruined it when they took the asphalt away and then they

reared it when they regraded it. And then they ruined it when they, yeah. I was there at the World of Outlaws race. That was in the late 90s and it covered a whole track of dirt and ran a war of Outlaws. And even then, this old boy stopped me as I was leaving the track. I was like, this is the greatest.

This is the coolest thing I've ever seen. And Sammy Swindell won and the whole thing. I remember leaving the track. And this old boy was standing there. He goes, they ruined the track. I ruined the track, Ryan. When they come back to run these stock cars, they'll never be the same again.

I'm like, all right, I'm like, you're probably one of these guys that thinks that when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon at ruined the tides. I got nothing for that. It's Bristol, man. It's just, it's, I love it. Tie-bang short track, man. Like we talked about, you know, you guys said it.

It was bottom dominant to start, you know, first part of a run you got to get to the bottom then it quickly moved up to where some you could see like the 18 i feel like it was one of the first ones to make the top really come in way up there he took off and he started hauling ass and then everybody started following him and then it was like late in that run when we were getting towards the end of that long tire run it seemed like the bottom came back in i know you guys clint was was rolling the bottom really well he got drove up into the top five uh priest is another one that i thought thought was doing a really good job but yeah i'm i'm all for not altering the track surface. And the truck race was great, and they didn't even spray it for the

truck race. That was left over from the All-Star, and it was super racing. The bottom was still good. So I'm all about, just leaving the surface alone. But Ryan brought up a good point about putting dirt on Bristol. I've seen a little, little Adam Stern tweet this week that suggests maybe we're going to do it again for a cup race. I mean, that would be a little while. I don't know about that. That would not be excited. I don't see the cup. I was fine for that. They were even, they were, They were having a problem, though, like that night. They were having a problem with, they kept having to go up and patch some spots occasionally

because this world of outlaws cars were digging up. You can only put so much there. What I remember is I remember Bruton Smith got in trouble and could have cared less, but he got in trouble because I think what they did to clean the track was they rerouted like the river into the track and watched it out. It just drained it out that way.

So, yeah, it's a, yeah, I was an interesting night. But yeah, listen, I'd love to see the cup cars on dirt. Maybe, maybe, but I don't want to see it, Bruce. No, if you're going to run a dirt race with the cup cars, listen, I'm all for trying stuff, we need to go to a place that's a dirt track, you know, go to Knoxville, go to somewhere an established dirt track. We don't need to be trying to convert one of our tracks into a dirt track. I don't even know.

The one time I covered the Arca Bondo Mar-Hide series on a dirt track, was it like, is it the Springfield mile? Yeah. I still can't believe what the hell I was looking at. I was like, and, you know, big surprise Frank Kim. I was going to say, who won Tim's, deal or Frank Emil? Yeah, Frank.

I think if you're going to run a dirt track, I think the only place it's going to, it's got to be El Dora, man. It's got the banking. You can, I feel like a place like Knoxville, they're going to form, we're going to lay rubber down. They're going to run around the bottom and you're not going to. At Aldora, man, they slide up.

I think El Dora agreed with you. I think that El Dora wanted one of the bigger series, and I think that that's created a problem for El Dora. I think if you're going to do it, that's the race track. I agree with you, 100%. They're in a, they're in a cooler dirt track. other than Lancaster, South Carolina on the planet.

Oh, there you go now. There you go. We'll take him down in Lancaster. Forget Bristol. That's the world's real fast as half mile down there in Lancaster. Yeah. I've seen some boys get cut in the parking lot down there, but it's worth it. They were probably related to me, Brian.

Good chance. They were probably related to each other. Yeah. I was like, I'm pretty sure that it was a McGee and a Griffin, but I'm not sure. No, one of them was wearing a Clemson shirt, He deserved to be cut. They were fighting over to Watermelon Queen. That's what I heard.

McGee and I's teams are, we're rivaling up this week. It's Tennessee versus South Carolina. There's got to be some kind of bet. Yeah, who's winning? You're favored by three, right? Yeah. My favorite South Carolina, Tennessee weekend, was actually a Tennessee loss, and it was Halloween day.

I was on the film crew at Tennessee. I was a student then, and it was the day that they shot the movie, the program. Because if you watch in the background of that movie, the program, all these plays happen and half people in the stands are wearing orange, which doesn't match any of the teams on the field. But that was the most best, most fun I had in a loss in typical Columbia. It was October 31st, and I was wearing like a flannel shirt, and it was like 150

degrees down. What I feared as a South Carolina fan about Tennessee was when Peyton Manning retired, he would come back and be an offensive coordinator. or head coach for Tennessee. And I was like, we'll never, we have a hard enough time beating ourselves, much less beating Tennessee, right? I'm like, we'll never beat him again if that happened. So I'm glad you wouldn't let Peyton come back.

We've all tried to bring him back, and we've all personally asked him to come back, and maybe one day, but right now he's making too much money doing all his other stuff. I'm sure he's listening, so just ask him again. Oh, yeah, totally. Just you guys, though, Peyton Man has never made any major career decision without first asking me. Okay. I thought that. Because I wrote a couple stories about it, right?

Yeah, that's how that works. Oh, man. Second question from M. Birchfield 12. Do you think that playoff points should be reset after each cutoff race? It feels like it would be more drama each round not to have drivers automatically advanced because they seem to have so many. It's definitely going to create more drama. I think I don't like the fact that, you know, the four is basically locked into the championship.

But, I mean, on the other side of it, dude's earned it, man. that whole team's earned it. They've been kicking ass for all year. They've got nine wins. We haven't seen anybody win like this. I mean, what's the highest win? We've seen in a season here recently. Has it been that high?

I don't remember anybody getting double-digit stuff or close to. No, I think 07 was the last time we had double digits. Yeah. This is pretty a long time. But, I mean, a lot of this too has also came in a weird way. He's got, he has a couple, you know, with no practices and stuff. It's just kind of different. he still earned these wins.

You're still, you know, cup races, and he's got up there and won him. I don't care. It should definitely set the first round, and then you can carry over the points that you earn in the first round to the second round. But when you go out and win an undefeated season in football, you don't get a buy to the Super Bowl. You get a buy in the first round, and then you've got to earn it the rest of the way.

So, yes, continue to earn your points in the playoffs, carry those points over, but you should not get a buy to the Super Bowl because you had a successful regular season. What have you done for me lately is the name of sports? And you're only as good as your last game, McGee. How many times have you heard that in your sports career? I echo everything that Freddie just said.

I don't have anything to add other than just what I said. What have you done for me lately? You're only as good as your last game. Yeah, and you get a bump. I mean, I don't have a problem with what's essentially a first round by, which is, but, you know, if you're the best team, and the four is, then, okay, then in theory you should continue to have success and that should get you to the end. But, you know, I have no problem with it.

The Patriots go 16 and O and they make the playoffs and they lose in the first round. You know what? Or will they get a buy and then they lose? Well, then you should have taken care of business. So, yeah, it'll get you there and I don't have a problem with it being weighted in their favor because a regular season should be rewarded. If you're the regular season champion, particularly if you've dominated, you should be rewarded. But yeah, once you get down to when the whipped cream hits the mix master, as my dad likes to say, then you need to be able to take care of your own business.

We didn't have that saying in Long Island, believe it or not. I mean, if you're in a situation where you could literally sit out a race after a points reset and still be the points leader of the following week, to me that's not right. I don't care who it is. Yeah, a little much. Yeah. All right, next question from SVT, Cobra John. I'd like to hear Ryan's take on NASCAR media in comparison to other sports.

Things like Focus on CrowdSize, Was the Race Good or Not, Penalties versus making the story about the competitors and the actual race. And if he thinks the new car will be good for competition. We'll see about the new car. It's a little early on that. I mean, what I've been told is there is certainly a step in the right direction. It ain't going to be the car tomorrow. It's not going to have a wing on it, I don't think. So we'll be all right with that.

not going to look like Fast and Furious Nine out there with those carbon fiber wings. But to the other point, it's an interesting time for sports media in general. I mean, just this last week, Ed Hardin, who's won the North Carolina sports writer of the year, a zillion times was laid off from the papers in the triad. He's been a NASCAR columnist forever. So it's a tough time. The media core in NASCAR and motorsports in general is a lot smaller than it was 10 years ago. there's only a handful of national writers.

But I'll say this about the question about crowd size and all stuff, that happens everywhere. Now, I have always believed, NASCAR is the only place where I ever hear the phrase, is this good for the sport? I've written columns about this before. I don't ever hear in the NFL or gospel or whatever is that, you know, Jeff Gordon's on SNL tonight.

Is this good for the sport? Like those conversations take place all the time in motorsports and I don't hear it anywhere else. So there is a little bit more of an obsession with those things. But listen, there are articles written all the time about television ratings in every sport. You know, with college football. When the season started Labor Day weekend with only a handful of teams playing,

and we had the big Monday night Labor Day game. And instead of Florida State Virginia Tech or, you know, Boise State, Alabama or whatever, you know, it was what, BYU Navy. And the ratings weren't great. And there were a lot of articles written about that. So there's an attendance issue. in the lower half of college football right now. I write about it all the time.

So I think that NASCAR fans are focused on their sport and rightfully so, and as a result, they think that these articles are only written there. But I'll say this, like there wasn't a good race thing. I mean, Jeff Gluck does that because that thing drives traffic and people react to it.

And he gets a lot of votes on that thing every week. So it drives O'Donnell crazy. Yeah, but you know what? People are checking in. I mean, and they respond. So, you know, the people who are still, Bob Parker, Jeff Gluck, Jennifer Fryer, you know, utter whether you agree with what they're right or whether you don't. Those people are out there, Dusty Long, Nate, they're out there still out there every week when most people aren't. You know, when I was in the media center 20 years ago, it was standing room only.

There's a reason all these racetracks built big, gigantic media centers, and now there are best half full for most race weekends, not Daytona, but for most race weekends. And so you can not agree with what the small, proud band of NASCAR National Riders right. But you better be glad they're there because more and more, which each pass a week, the media core everywhere is getting smaller and smaller. Whether you agree with them or not, if they disappear, you're going to miss it. I don't have any issue. You know, obviously I took exception to some of the stuff others been saying lately, you know, calling racist snooze fest and stuff because I feel like I just hate the fact that

you know, people bring negativity to, you know, or try to drum up negativity. But like I got like, but others there at least. He's at the racetrack. But you got another guy like my buddy old, what's his name from Yahoo? Bromberg. He doesn't even come to the races. So I, like somebody like that drives me insane when they, they'll take shots at NASCAR, take shots of NASCAR when they're not there.

You know, they're not even, I feel like they're not part of the sport, but they have a column or they have, you know, whatever they're contributing to. And they take shots. I just like, I don't know. I feel like, why would you? you bring negativity to a sport that you're covering? Yeah, but, but I get that, but, and I think some people overdo it on the negativity. There's no question about that.

God rest his soul, we all miss David Poole. I miss him every day. But, but Dave, David, a lot of days thought his job was just to make everybody mad. And so this is not a new thing. It's been around forever. But, you know, however you feel about it, particularly in the age of Twitter, I mean, everybody, it's all kind of a snark fest and everybody's competing as to who, you know,

I go, I go cover a college football game and I look left and right in the press box, and most of the people with the game right in front of them have their head down, and it's a contest to see who can tweak the funniest thing. Now, this is coming from a guy who I try to be funny on Twitter all the time, but if I write a column that calls the sport out, and I don't go to the racetrack that much anymore,

because ESPN, we just don't, we don't televise it. I still go to more races than I expect to. I still call my bosses and say, I want to go to Martinsville this weekend, not this year, obviously, but it's been a regular year. You know, I'm not going to miss Daytona. I'm not going to miss ND 500. I'm still going to go to those races, but that I mean, just because I love it, that I'm not going to write something, you know, that sometimes you might not agree with. But just snark for the, for the sake of snark, you know, that's a social media thing. That's something that kind of didn't exist 10 years ago that does now. I love the business side of sports, and I'm a huge

college football fan. That is my favorite sport to follow. Obviously, I work in NASCAR, so I got to say that one doesn't count, right? When I watched you talk about last week on Twitter, all the things that the presidents of these universities are dealing with, football almost is a pimple on a bull's ass in terms of all the things they're trying to deal with. But when I look at the sports and business aspect of college football, if college football didn't happen this year, how many universities could have? have truly withstood that financially, knowing that the business, the biggest business, recreational business aspect of their university is dead. Like if it didn't happen, what happens to those universities and those football programs? Well, it has a huge impact on the athletic department. I mean, the entire athletic department budget, all due respect to basketball, the entire athletic department budget at every school at what we call the FBS level, which is called 1A, that's Tennessee, Alabama.

USC, Texas, whoever, that is all football-centric. The university itself, it's a speed bump. I've used the example of a million times over the last few months. University of Florida, easily one of the most successful athletic departments across all sports of the last 25 years. They won national championships in baseball, football, basketball, I mean, everything. Their budget is about $150, $160 million. They have 110 football players.

The University of Florida, now. It just in Gainesville, not the system, has 55,000 on campus students, and their budget is $6 billion. Billion. With a billion. With a beef. Yeah. You know, all this talk about the Big Ten. I looked it up, I looked it up not too long ago. You know, yes, football is super, super important at Ohio State, and athletics are super, super important in Ohio State. Their annual budget's about $8 billion. Wow. The budget for the athletic department isn't quite the $200 million. So, For a university president, and you're talking, again, I keep going back to my dad, and we wrote a book.

He was a university president. It was a Division II school, Wendgett University outside of Charlotte. He's president of school for 20 years. And athletics. Great place to go to school. Yeah, there you go. But in the pie chart of his day, athletics was a tiny little slice of it. And the rest of it is dealing with faculty and dealing with all these other things.

Now, there's no question that athletics affects, you know, admissions. It affects applications. to the school. It affects donations from alums, all those things. There's no question there's a bigger impact than just a $150 million or whatever dollar budget. But when you are the president of Ohio State University, the conference call to vote

on whether or not to play football is probably your 20th conference call of the day. And it might be the 10th most important thing you deal with that day. So I've tried to cut them slack. It's been frustrating. The Big Tenor particularly couldn't handle it worse publicly. but yeah it's a it's a fascinating fascinating thing but but i tell you one thing is really shocked me and you guys deal with this on a daily basis are people like my friends in the media center who think we know how the sport works of NASCAR and we don't really know because we've never

handled a contract you know we don't never been on the spotter stand you know we've never sat in a motor coach or been in the car with the driver who's crushed because he finished third instead of winning the race and it's going to lose his deal we've i've never dealt with any of that And I've been really surprised at how many of my really, really esteemed Hall of Fame colleagues in college football on the media side don't even know how universities work. And they don't even know how athletic departments work. But you've had to learn it now because of COVID. Man, I'm proud of you for all you've done in your career. Obviously, still a lot left to be done.

Like I said, been friends with you a long time. I appreciate you coming on. Huge fan of Marty Smith as well. Maybe we'll get him on sometime. I'm sorry. I wanted to have the bigger name. on first. That's why you're here first. Well, I appreciate that. And Marty, listen, good luck. If you get Marty on, tell him to call me because he don't ever call me back anymore now.

He's a big deal. He's done it. He's done at Georgia Tech last weekend with those ugly pants. I'm not sure what he was doing on the sideline. Y'all, y'all, that was a, you all busy on Saturday, but his pants were like this whole social media thing. And I'm like, I'm like, that's not a compliment, brother. I thought. Didn't you guys just have a conjugal visit, though, I think? I thought I saw that somewhere. Yeah. So Marty, Marty had the Georgia Tech UCF game on Saturday. and he was sitting, he did his half of Marty McGee on Saturday morning from a hotel room. And it looked like he was in like the conjugal visit trailer, like outside the minimum of security prison.

And I sat on the air. I go, welcome back to a conjugal visit. And the bosses, the bosses weren't super pumped about that. Hey, I'm proud of you, boys. I love the show. Listen every week. And I've been known in Shultz. I felt like since he was about nine years old, so I'm proud of him too.

About two years. Even though he didn't know what segment we were. We got Matthew Dillner sitting behind the camera. You can't see him, but he's still here with us, too. Yeah, well, I've no dinner since he was like, a dinner used to work for me. I don't think I was a great boss, but we worked together a long time. He said you suck.

He's flipping the camera off for some reason. All he ever used to say back in the totally NASCAR days, man, we got these stores of law of speedways. I'm like, man, nobody wants to hear about that. And now it's the greatest show streaming on television. He's a genius. I didn't know. All right, you boys are the best.

And hey, this is for you. Go, devil dogs. There you go. Thanks, McGee. See you, brother. Later, brother. Stay at touch. See you, man. Thanks.

Anything to rant about? Yes. I think we ran it about lap cars. Well, I'll tell you what pissed me off the other night. And I can't stand people that give you condescending comments. And what was driving me crazy other night was the race director saying, all in what your problem is, there's only two lanes to pick for him. What's taking so long?

Like, it's just easy. Like, oh, yeah, we're just going to roll up to the box and go left or right. Like, for one, he said, oh, it went way smoother. So for context, as we're coming to the choose box, they had a wave off the green flag a couple times because they were still choosing as the cars were in the middle of the backstretch. So the race director gets on there and starts making comments pretty condescendingly, I thought. That was like, well, there's only two lanes to pick from. What's so difficult about that? They did it just fine.

The last two nights. Yeah, they just did. Everybody else was fine. Well, yeah, they had eight less cars for one to start there. and a lot goes into that. For the whole lap before that, you're talking about scenarios of where guys are going to go,

what position you're in, what the breakdown number is, where you're going to choose the top or bottom, and it's not as easy as just we're going to roll up to this orange box and go left or right, and it's going to be based off the guy in front of us or whatever. So it's something like that, when you're just belittling something

that we're putting a lot of effort into because it's causing you. I think at Martinsville, Bristol, it should be. all right we're going to choose this time it's two to go at the line I've been calling for that forever get everybody to yeah get everybody to choose get them lined up down the backstretch

and now you're coming to one to go and we're coming to green your only other option in my opinion tj is at these tracks these short tracks to move the choose v before start finish and you call one to go on the backstretch and we choose back there or we choose coming out of four that's the only way to solve the problem because to freddie's point there's there's 30 people that really care which lane they're in in the cup race. Let's be honest. In the truck race and the next infinity race, there's only about 12. The other guys are just picking where they're picking

to try not to wreck because they're out there not to wreck. So I kind of watched what was happening to create that. And you got guys that are playing games coming up to the restart deal. Like if you know you got guys scrubbing their tires across three different lanes, the bottom, across the middle, and then all the way to the top. And then they get to the box and they swerve one side. I've seen a couple guys. I saw the leader do that a couple times. Exactly. Like, if you know where you're going to go, just start creeping up there so we can get it over with quicker. And you know where you're going to go. He's not making his decision right before the line. He knows where he's going to go. And I saw a couple guys, even in a truck race, line up on the outside, then right

before the line that swerve all the way to the bottom. Like, who are you trying to fool here? Like, just pick the lane that's going to be best for you. Don't worry about what other people are going to do behind it. It's turning into a mind game. And it doesn't need to for the You know where you're going to pick, depending on the guy in front of it. He doesn't need to juke you out. You're not hitting the spin button here, juke moving madden here. Just pick your lane. And we have guys that are, and I don't know what he's doing,

but twice I looked back and saw the 19, about 15 car lengths behind the next car, going to the restarting. Like, come on, man. Like, just pick your lane and go. It's your go. Yeah, like, it's one of two things have to happen here. Either you have to meet. Bubba is probably one of the easiest guys to work.

with as far as the choose cone because it's he's done it so many times with ledger cards it's as simple as me telling him what position you're running in and i count the cars in the preferred lane and he knows whether he wants to go down there or go to the top because he you know if we're 22nd you and 11 guys line up on the bottom you're giving up a row so you're going to go the other way whatever so can you text clint that we do the same thing i mean we count we know we we we count the bottom there's be shorter cars in the bottom most time so we count the bottom but clint if i say four cars are on the bottom you take the top four cars are on the bottom uh hey johnny we just went to the bottom everybody has a different method of it too though there's look it's it's up to the driver at the end of

the day i'm giving clint's because i love him but it uh it does add another element to our responsibility as a spotter because sometimes sometimes clint wants me to tell him exactly what to do and other times he wants the information yeah 100% that just drove me crazy and they did it like three restarts in a row and i was getting pissed off well i was fine with him being upset until he said the other two series did it fine. It's like, well, the same spotters were spotting them two series too, Berman. Like, you think it's us?

It's not us. Don't be screaming at us. Yeah, even when we didn't do the choose cone, we had issues getting lined up. Hold the one to go because we couldn't even double up. Because David Hooch left. How are we supposed to choose? How are we supposed to make more decisions, you know, now?

And get lined up. NASCAR's got that and a lot better. They've done a tremendous job of that this year compared to when they had to fill that void. And we're all learning this. we go to though so I thought you already knew everything no not the shoes cone never done that before my life there's no cone there's no cone there's yeah choose box choose b choose vd bcd bcc tj congratulations you won at bristol with kyle bush but brett still leads 11 to 10 to 8 i told

y'all i want to harvick damn i still janked him i still janked him he didn't win because of me well literally i mean y'all wouldn't let me have harvick i had the winner picked so who's going first freddie you're first i can't decide i can't either i'm trouble. There's two guys I want to pick. One, I really kind of had circles, but he's had such a bad playoff that I don't want to pick him now. But I'm going to pick him anyway. I'm going to go Ryan Blaney. That's who I was kind of late. That's who I was going to lose. I'm next. Here we go. Can I get Harvick again? No. Is that on the table? Look, if Blaney, I'm only really racing Freddy at this point unless T.J. comes out with a miracle.

So if Freddie is picking Blaney. It's going for the win, man. It doesn't have anything to do other than try to win. and I'm going to have to go with a guy that won there last time, Joey Legano. You thought I was going to say Joy Gase, didn't you? Oh, 100%. I had you. I had you. What did he win there last time?

Slots? Man, I want a Blaney for this one, but... Shoot. Taking all my picks. I don't want to pick ourselves, so who don't I want to win? I just pick you. I know, but who don't I want to win here? Pick your nose. You can't pick yourself.

I'll go with a guy that had a good run there last time, gave up the bottom on a late race restart, but had some speed. I'll go with William Byron. Will he be? Wow, two non-playoff guys. You guys are crazy. Hey, do me a favor.

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