Door Bumper Clear - 227 – Daytona II: Driving Like Maniacs

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

A wild conclusion to the NASCAR Cup Series regular season at Daytona International Speedway has the spotters fired up with much to say. Freddie Kraft, Brett Griffin and T.J. Majors relieve their nights at Daytona and react to all that played out through an intense race.Bubba Wallace and Freddie came up one position shy of a victory that would have earned the No. 23 team a playoff spot. Learn what Freddie instructed Bubba to do when the last lap crash broke out and why this second-place finish is nothing to celebrate.Brad Keselowski and T.J., and Kaz Grala and Brett fell victim to the same accident on Lap 158. Hear about the incoming missiles that took the No. 2 car out and why Grala came storming in there, landing a hard hit on Kyle Busch.After the wreck, Busch had some strong words about what the racing product produces at superspeedway tracks. Hear the spotters take on his opinion, why drivers race like maniacs in these events and dislike it so much.As the race neared the finish, manufacturer teamwork was setting up to determine the outcome. After the Ford cars pit early in Stage 3, the Chevrolets and Toyotas didn’t pit in time before an accident involving three of the four Rick Ware Racing cars brought out a caution. The crew reacts to the cause of the wreck and how it impacted the finish.Prior to that yellow flag, Bubba Wallace grew frustrated over being passed by his corporate Toyota teammates after they drafted together to the lead. Freddie explains why it made him so mad that he yelled at Brett and why the Toyota camp can't seem to work together as well as the Fords.The NASCAR Playoffs begin this weekend at Darlington Raceway. Tyler Reddick secured the final spot but the spotters thought he was doing everything to lose it on Saturday night. They discuss his aggressive driving style and how he handles mistakes.Kevin Harvick is in the playoffs once again but now sits last on the playoff grid. How did he fall so far from being the championship favorite last season? The gang shares what has happened at Stewart-Haas Racing. Plus, they debate what to expect from the first round of the post-season and who may be eliminated early.After 23XI Racing revealed Kurt Busch will join the team in 2022, the car unveiled featured a number pushed forward from its current position. NASCAR then confirmed the new number placement for 2022. Was this unconventional way of making a significant shift in the sport the right way to go about the news? The crew debates and shares their thoughts on the new Cup car number spot.In Reaction Theatre, someone said hold my beer, T.J. looks for an invisible car, Chase Elliott receives zero love and Brett tells us who’s hot.Later in What an Idiot, find out who may have cost themselves their best shot at a victory in their career. 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.

Yeah, show me my opponent. Top spot I want it. My grind, I'm honed. Can't stop, keep going. Door. I remember when they told me, I would never get the trophy. Or first, show me my opponent. Top spot, I want it.

My grind. I'm here. Because this is my opponent. You're listening to Door Bumper Clear, presented by Offerpad, and I am Freddie Craft. After the regular season finale at Daytona, we're here to cover the wild finish, Bubba Wallace's comments about working with teammates, Tyler Reddick earning the last playoff spot, and the car. number being moved forward in 2022.

Let's roll. Nobody's listening, but I don't care. I'm on an episode of Door Bumper Clear. Hey, everybody. I'm T.J. Majors. Inspired of the two cup car this weekend. And ironically, he's not 30 minutes late like he was for the plane. Hey, what's up everybody?

Brett Griffin's Spotter for Colleg Racing coming off of three wins in a row. What's up? Freddy Kraft. Spotted for Bubba Wallace. I did not do Jeff Burton this week. The old Brett did. Want to do it with Talladega? Why? How did you miss the plane?

I didn't miss the plane. I was getting so many text. Hey, can you bring up to Brett on the show how lady was for the plane? So a couple things. A couple things saved me. Number one, I wasn't late. Everybody else was early? Because if you read the red in writing, and I'll let Freddie read the red writing so that I'm

not making this up. I get a phone call from Ann Meyer, who is one of the flight attendants, and it's 802. Okay? She says, hey, Brett, are you on my plane? And I said, no, ma'am, I'm on. I don't know what plane I'm on. I'm on in 43, it leaves at 845. She said, in 43, you left 15 minutes ago. And I was like, well, that would be 745. She goes, you're on my plane. And it leaves at 8 o'clock. and I said, well, it's 802, and I'm clearly not at the airport. Where are you at? I was like, I'm at Bojangles. I'm about to get me a spicy of chicken.

Of course you are. And she's like, starts freaking out on me. And I've known Ann forever. Yeah. She goes, well, Austin Cendrick is not here yet. He's hung behind school buses. And I'm like, big name. That's good.

Okay, that's good. And I said, well, I text Amanda Leach last night who works at Colleg and just confirmed that we were on this 845 plane. Well, that's funny because she's the third one not here. And I was like, okay, well, I'm going to go ahead and get out of this bojangles line, and I'm going to head to the airport. And if you leave me, at least text me and let me know you've left me so I can figure something else out.

I'm pulling a Freddie. I'm not freaking out. I don't even care. I'm like, it's a seven-hour. It's a seven-hour drive. If I have to drive, I'll drive. And if they have another plane going later, I'll get on another plane going later. I really don't give a shit if y'all leave me is where I was at at that point in my life.

let me call Jonathan and I'll call you back. She's all high-stressed, right? And I'm really not. And typically I would be because my personality gets, you know, kind of high-strung, right? Really? So she calls me back. Man, I'm telling you, sugar would have melted in her mouth. Brett, it's fine, honey, take your time.

I don't know what Jonathan said to this lady, but it calmed her. Or maybe she just went to the- He said, wait for Austin Cendrick. That's what I was thinking. So I was on the elevator this weekend. Ironically, T.J. with Austin Cendrick, who was going up, to watch the Xfinity race. I'm sorry, the Cup race. He could have watched a lot of the Infinity Race.

He actually could have watched the entire Exfinity Race up there with us, too. So he was going up to watch the Cup race and listen to his spotter for next year and obviously evaluate how he spots and the door closes. And I look at him and I go, hey, man, thanks for being late to get the plane. No, thank you for being late to the plane. Because I'm the a asshole that was the last one on the plane. Of course. So if you're the last one, it's got to be your fault.

Yeah. But Freddie, what are the tech say? What are the message said? The message at 845? It said be there Friday at 845. But that still makes you late. I was 30 minutes early for my flight. But it still makes you late because you were the last one there.

I wasn't late. The only way you're not late is if you own plane because you're never late for your own. I was on the wrong plane. All right. Well, I would also like to call out how many people, Brett just called out in this five minutes of starting the show. I mean, those are all really nice people, and you just call them out for making a mistake. I love everybody.

And I'm just glad Austin Center was late. Thank goodness. All right. He recognized that he was late. I was in Bojangos trying to get a biscuit. Daytona. Anyways, the playoffs are officially here, and I would like to congratulate Freddie

for making it through that last wreck by some miracle and getting a third note second place, It was expert spotting on my part. I just said they're wrecking, do not lift. That was it. He popped out the other side. I said, good job. You're third.

Freddie never really gets mad at me. Despite me. We're going to talk about it later. Okay. I don't want to bring it in another. Then you'll get mad to me twice. I don't want to get mad to you again. You know what?

When I was leaving the roof, I looked over in turn four, and I could swear Casey had had been there because there was stuff everywhere. Whoever just tagged me this morning from some sort of race track in Belgium. I'm so sorry. I saw that. I'm just traveling all over the world. Hopefully. World traveler.

Yeah. I would love some sponsorship to actually go to these places because it seems like fun. Well, you got a rich husband. Just show some consideration. That's all. That's all we need out of you. Consideration. Look who's talking.

Anyway. Yeah, so we survived about six wrecks and somehow finished second. It was like the worst. I got home. I took off third place and Megan's like, good job, babe. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, must win race. We finished third.

Great. And I landed and saw the Busher got disqualified. And I said, great, must win race. I said, the only thing worst in finishing third in a must win race is finishing second in a must win race. So, I mean, obviously a good result for us. Yeah, I was going to say. Where were you when you entered the backstretched on the last lap? We were in a top 10 somewhere.

You almost James Bush had that thing. Yeah. That was my thought process going into that wreck. is like just send it like hopefully they all don't come out the other side you know before it's happened before so uh yeah but we did a good job all night we'll we'll get to some some race tactics later but uh how did you make out tj uh what's wreck what's time uh tj was in probably the best mood i've ever seen him in at a plate race like i walk down there and he's just in this little happy go lucky mood i'm like who

who is this guy my own little typical He's running around all stressed out. I'm not stressed out. I don't know, man. It was relaxing. He's in the playoffs. It's like rain at a racetrack, racing at a play race. If it rains, it rains.

You can't change it. I mean, if you get wrecked, you get wrecked. I mean, his guy ran over him from 34 car lengths back into a wreck. It was actually two and a half miles. If we replay the audio versus the time of the crash, it was two and a half miles. We were almost, like Brad saw it and I. saw it and we were like we could have stopped before anybody in the right like we would have stopped before you know not hitting here come these missiles from out back missiles incoming

missiles incoming and we get hitting the door but i think there was contact with between those two cars beforehand that shot one car into our door there and it's like okay we're go oh my really yeah i got alfredo in one of those wrecks what do you um what do you think about that package. I mean, obviously we're going to have a supposedly have a different car at Daytona when we go back. But how do you think that package was from entertainment perspective? Fine. Entertainment-wise, could get runs. To me, I would like to see it a little bit further because there's still, we still have that real bad shoving us off. Like real bad. Like you can get there and I would like to see it go just a little bit further to where it's still, like me and you could come

off turn two and get a gigantic run before turn three. And that's where we have the recs. We're going to keep having Rex in turn three at this package at Talladega and Daytona because guys are going to run it over them. And it's not even the front two guys. Daytona 500, the front two guys, but they're not really the ones that started it. And the same type of deal happened with the four and 99 and Kurt, right? 99 changed lanes to go down. Kurt trying to follow him, swiped his bumper and turns him into the next car. And then we got a big wreck in him in the three. game. It's because they're all on top of each other. Like, you go back and, I don't know about

saying it needs to go back to like where, when they replayed Dale Jr.'s race there, that was super hard to get, you know, runs and stuff. I mean, but it was awesome to watch. Them cars were bouncing around, getting, I mean, it was fun to watch, but they're still all over each other in my opinion. Was that the year we went to and had that house down there in Ponsoneland or whatever we were when he won that race? I was, wasn't it?

There's been three or four times. But wasn't that the year we went, like, from Sonoma straight to Dayton or something? You might have that year. The year, next year we went down, like, we race and went down, like, on Wednesday or something. It spent, like, a complete week of, because we had that off weekend. Yeah. And it was the best weekend in summer. It was awesome.

Yeah. You never got to experience it, did you? No, thank God. Oh, gosh. It was so awesome down there. Houses. We talked about that limo driver. That baseball wins.

One of the biggest wins in NASCAR history, though. Absolutely. The car win. Yeah. The side of the car's right behind you. Yeah. Behind Casey. That's it.

I felt like it was definitely similar, but I thought it was a little bit harder to create the run. Like you still at least had to be smart enough to back up to the guy behind you. You know, like a lot of times, like I felt like the last package, like the run would develop from four or five rows back and then get on the guy's bumper and just shove him out. I noticed guys were able to get out pretty far still at some points. The leader could get out there too far at times. but just to me the runs you could still

they're still just all over each other there is no there like I thought there'd be a little more of a bubble than what there was and there wasn't like what was amazing is the ability to save the cars sideways getting run over from behind there were a lot of big save I actually saw some guys hit down the backstress and I was like I was getting ready to call wreck

because I saw how hard they were hitting each other I screwed up yes I screwed up late in the race the 17 was that when you let them drive around the outside of you yeah yeah the 7th 17 was on the bottom leading the bottom lane, and he was pretty aggressive, and I forget who was behind him, but they got together and kind of had the 17 jack

completely sideways, I thought, in 3 and 4, and he was going back to the middle, so I called to get to the bottom, get to the bottom, because I thought he was going to stack the middle lane up, and he never slowed down. Like, the middle lane just took off again, and I was like, well, I just screwed that up, you know. But the biggest thing I took away from it,

and I don't know, the lap time, were two seconds slower. Yeah. But did anybody notice? I mean, I know we could probably notice. In the beginning, I thought they looked slow, but after we started racing, you just, you didn't notice a lot.

Yeah. I mean, it was, we would run, in the middle of a run last time there was like, last race there was like 45 seconds. This race, the Coke race, was like 45 second lap times in the middle of race. And this was 47 seconds this week. I could tell coming off of four coming at me early, but as a race went on it,

wasn't even in my life. You adjust to do it. You never noticed it then. I did the same thing. I mean, as a fan, they probably... Yeah. And the time of the race was 20 minutes, the difference last, you know, this was a little bit longer. But the caution, yeah. Yeah, we had red flags last year, too, but... But, I mean, that's just all based on how bad the red flag is, really. 100%. So I'm just saying... How many of them you get. We talk about speed on here a lot, but places like... I mean, obviously, I think mile and a half should actually show up a lot, much more. And we've seen ridiculously slow lap times from some of these tests with the next-gen car. Have we?

Yeah. Yes. How slow? Pretty slow. I mean, we're at the video. How much lower Bristol? The video I saw from Bristol last week, if you put a stopwatch to it, it's just under 17 seconds. Wow.

Two and a half seconds slower than Ryan Newman. I know when Ryan Newman went around that? 14. Yeah. Yes. I mean, we ran four. We were on low 14ths. I mean, we're, I mean, we're.

And maybe we're unicorns. Maybe we're in a very small amount. I know we're special. You all definitely unicorns. But like maybe nobody can. cares about lap times but us because we're racers but when i hear of 1490 at bristol i'm like whoo get you some yeah here's 17 second lap of bristol i'm like hell i can do that yeah yeah yeah yeah well i mean we remember whenever like ryan newman would break that like Atlanta when he went out to

qualify that one night at Atlanta and charlotte like i mean it was unreal yeah so and then around bristol it's i know it with the first time somebody hit 14 you were like whoa yeah wow is he lifting you know so definitely um it's it's interesting you brought up that the you know that wreck at the the end there with the the the one of the 99 because i don't know if you caught this you're you're you know you're probably paying attention sometimes a little more than brett does uh but in my opinion the 99 should not have still been in the race um you know this happened to me a few years ago at indianapolis and we had that big red flag for the reddick wreck and i watched the 99 roll all the way off of four under red.

Under red. He probably about half that short shoot through the pit road opening and all the way to his box under red. And we were part that we did almost the exact same thing. And we got parked. You know, that was the end of the race for moving under the red. And they were screaming at the time that the eight car to stop moving. Yes. So as this is going on, he did.

And then the 99 rolls to his box. I guess they fixed the car after the yellow comes back out. He goes back out there and he's in contention to win a race that he should not have been in. Yeah, the... Is anybody talking about that? I haven't heard about it. Yeah, I reached out, and obviously with the day off, I'm sure nobody really wanted to work yesterday. So I don't know.

Maybe there's a rule change. Maybe this is something they just missed, but... Yeah, we threw the red. We were coming out of turn four, and I was telling Brad to slow down. But we weren't pitting. So I think Brad's thought process was just get out of the way of any safety stuff. Well, they threw the red. I was walking to the airport.

So speaking of airport... So early, early for your flight. You were early for that one? It was early for my flight home. Speaking of airports, I got to give a shout out to these guys. Jeb Burton, Justin Haley, Tyler Redick. I'm on the airplane, and there may have been other drivers doing this too, but I'm on the airplane flying to Daytona, and those three guys are wearing their masks. And we're not required to wear a mask on our airplane where I was still on a private

plane. I think that speaks a lot to leadership. I think it speaks a lot to responsibility. We were kind of the first ones to come out and talk. about drivers and being in public with this pandemic going on and the risk that you're taking, I think it speaks volumes to those guys that they're wearing masks, given, they don't have to and they just say, hey, I'm taking this series for me, I'm taking this series for my team. I want to be here for you guys. So shout out to them guys. I was impressed by that. It takes a lot

to impress me. Our masks are mandatory. I'm sure TJ's on too. They were. Yeah, but that's, I mean, it's smart. That's what you got to do. How was any experience with the COVID-smelling dogs. Never saw one. I never saw one. I didn't go in the garage this week. I was faster than that dog thought I was. I heard that they, I don't know who it was, but there was, I mean, we've heard that they're batting a thousand, right? So the process is this dog sniffs you out and I don't know what it does. Most of the time they either sit down when they, when they catch something like a bomb sniffing dog or drug sniffing dog will just sit there. But where they, they've sniffed guys out and they've gone to the, they go, you get sniffed if the dog hits you.

for, you know, possible COVID, you go to the care center and take a test and it's either, you know, negative or positive. How great is this? And this is great. And supposedly the dogs are batting a thousand. Like, I love dogs. And I think, you know, it was National Dog Day last week. I just think that these dogs should honestly be everywhere right now.

I mean, why not? It's preventing the spread. Like, it's amazing. There are people walking around with COVID that don't know they have it. There are people walking around with cold-like symptoms that don't know they have COVID. I've had three negative tests because I couldn't get rid of this freaking cold I've had for last month. but you don't know.

And I mean, what a great way and safe way to protect people. I love it. It's impressive. Agreed. And one more call out. Of course, the regular season champion is Kyle Larson. I'm so sorry, Freddie. And now that was a tough one for your boss there.

What a difference a year makes, right? Yes. I mean, a year ago. A year ago, we all. TJ, you wouldn't have thought that right. He adapted pretty quickly, TJ, to the school car. think it's out of the realm obviously when you have i don't i didn't see the hmsk cars being as strong as they ended up being to this year i knew they would be strong but like we haven't seen that dominance

was it's been pretty big i mean i'm not sure we've seen one company dominate like that in a season and i mean they're dominating look at denny and harvick last year how many wins did they have combined oh almost 16 17 yeah that's half the season almost yeah they won half and they don't how many they have this year? Oh, none. Exactly. Zero, 0 for 26. Who would have guessed? How many is Hendrick have? Oh, I wouldn't even know if I guess. I mean, everybody's won.

It's got to be double digits, right? Or right at it or close to it. So I never would have thought, Denny would have no wins, Hardrick would have no wins, and they would have double digit wins or right in the ballpark of that. While we, I mean, we talk about how good the Hendrik cars are, 168 points to Chase Elliott, 185 points to William Byron, 323 points to Alex Bowman.

So you can talk about the car all you want, but... He's best in shop by lot. He is by far the best car there. Yeah, he's a top dog there. So we talk about a lot within the industry, best in shop, right? That means that Kyle is the best at Hendrick. Best in class means best in your manufacturer. He's both by a lot.

Yeah, 100%. For sure. He's made up so many points on a guy like Denny, who Denny's had a fairly successful year, honestly. Like stat-wise, just no wins, but he's had a good year. Yeah. Is he your pick for the championship now that we're in the playoffs? I don't know how you pick against him right now.

I mean, how many points he's scored in the last, whatever. I mean. I'll tell you how you pick against him is you put Chase Elliott in at Phoenix, and we saw how dominant he was at Phoenix last year. That would be my only argument to say, who do you pick that can play with Larson? It's Chase Elliott. But he's his teammate.

He should be in that conversation. And he dominated, started in the back at Phoenix, drove to the front, dominated the race. He was like freaking seven-tenths faster than the field at one point. Like that is insane. Yeah, you'd look down in your lap and be like, oh, that look, a good lap.

Yeah. Hey, Clint, you did. Well, you didn't do so good compared to that nine car, but when he was catching up, you cross the line, you ran a good lap compared to the people you were around. You're like, oh, good lap. And then, like, five seconds. Slater hit cross, I'd be like, oh, I'm not telling him that.

I don't hurt his feelings. I am not repeating that. Hey, before we move on, I have to tell a funny story from yesterday. We'll talk about? I forgot about it. So we, so, you know, we went baseball. We went to baseball tournament yesterday. Brett's kid, Bodie. Yeah, me Brett, Chris Lambert, his son, Cam, my wife, Megan, obviously. And I mean, this is Bodie's first time pitching. This is nine you baseball, so this is the first time the kids are pitching.

and Bodey does unbelievable job pitching. I got to give a shout out to my buddy Max Major. My brother. He was, yeah, TJ's brother. He was, we told him he had to grunt, like get some more effort and grunt in the batting cage. And I told him, I'm only going to give him a shout out if I could hear him from behind me in the batters box. So I heard him yesterday. So shout out to Max.

But the best thing that happened yesterday was we're sitting on the third baseline. Bode's team is at bat. Somebody, I don't remember who was up. They hit a slow rolling ground ball down the third baseline. It's painting the line. It's right on the line, and it looks to me like it's probably going to roll foul. It's trending foul. And Brett screams, pick it up as it's in fair territory,

and this little kid, nine years old, third base, for the other team picks the ball up in fair territory. Now I'm like, okay, fair ball. And the kid, everybody gets on base. And we're like, oh, man, Brett, that was, you know. We were down five to one. The kid goes back to third base and just gives Brett this death stare. I don't know if the kid thought it was one of his coaches.

He picked the ball up, but he picked it up and he should definitely should not have picked it. I totally said it under my breath. I was like, pick it up. You are, like, I just see it now. You're going to be one of those parents that. Pick it up. Going to be. He already is.

Are you going to get kicked out? of any game that you go to. Oh, God, pick it up. I saw yesterday, I saw yesterday just sitting next to him for Bodey's pitching performance, which was unbelievable. I think he had six strikeouts and four innings. He did a really good job. One hit, loud one hit.

Yep. And how'd they get five runs if you only allowed one hit? No, it was a different game. This was the next game. He, but just watching the umpire call balls and strikes, and Brett's calling him the pitches as they leave his hand, he's like, got him. Oh, that was a ball. I mean, but I can just see this is not going to go well.

No. It's only the start of the season, right? I'm from patient in South Carolina. We look for any edge that we can get. If the nine-year-old is too damn dumb to know not to pick the ball up, even though he heard pick it up, I can't help it. Okay? I'm confessing right now.

I told the kid to pick the fucking ball up. He is nine. Are you considering your, are you the edge they need? I mean. I'm so sorry for any kid. Well, that kid looked over and just gave Brett, this death stare for you to pick it up. I wouldn't look at the kid. He wouldn't look at him. I was like, oh man, he's staring at you. Meanwhile, everybody around me is going, Brett, really? Like, Brett, seriously? You know what I picture? You know that scene in stepbrothers or whatever where they get that, they get him in the back alley? I can picture that hole, and they're going to find some white, uh, uh, Brett. You're going to eat it. The bad thing is our coaches listen to this podcast and now Fredi's painting me out in front of these guys. So they're probably going to, they're probably going to give you money.

By the way, that happened at 5 to 1. We ended at 5 to 1. We ended at 5.5, I think. Let's go. Oh, my gosh. Whatever it takes. Oh, clearly. Well, before we heading to spot on, spot off, let's hear a little bit more about our amazing presenting sponsor, OfferPad.

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When asked where you heard about OfferPad, select themask our options so they know we sent you. First topic. Kyle Bush says, just frustrating to come to these places and wonder if you're going to walk out of here after being involved and you crashed with four to go. Freddie. I mean, spot off. Listen, it's, yes, it is a super frustrating form of racing because you work all night to put yourself in a position to win the race and then with four laps to go,

there's a wreck and we're all wiped out. So I understand where he's coming from. But that's the way it's been forever. And it's no news flash that racing is dangerous, especially at a place like Daytona, Taledega, where you're going, whatever, 180. I don't know what our top speed was yesterday in this package. But, I mean, listen, NASCAR has done everything that can to make these cars as safe as possible.

But it's still a dangerous sport. And this is still a dangerous form of racing. And if you don't have to take part in it, you can ride around last place all night long and finish 20th and go home and go to the next race. But this is the option you have. If you want to race, get out there and race. Don't complain about it after the race is over. You don't have to do this. If you're scared, go to church.

My friend of my, Chris Matlock and Columbia says that all the time. You don't have to do this. You can ride around out there and do single car runs all night if you want. You know, you probably won't have a sponsor for this particular race. You know, did Kyle Busch have to go up there and be in the middle of the pack? No, he's locked in the playoff. He's good, right? So I get where they're coming from.

Obviously, drivers are friends of ours. It's dangerous. But shout out to all the men and women that build these safe cars, safer tracks than what we used to have. and everybody walked away from a melee of a wreck. And, I mean, that's why NASCAR slowed. NASCAR sewed the cars down two miles an hour. Why do you think they did that, T.J.? Safety.

Yeah, going too fast. They're trying to make it safer. The more we sew them down, in my opinion, the more we get on top of each other. And that's what T.J. was talking about with the pushing and shoving, right? So I don't know if Kyle Bush has an idea of what we can do to fix this. I'm all four ears and listening. We can't just go out there and run wide open because we'd go 240 miles an hour and then if we crash

we're going to end up at the damn hooters across the street right because these cars aren't going to stay on the ground they'll be going too fast so I don't know what y'all want NASCAR to do at these particular tracks other than not fucking go spot on spot off I cringed at this moment

you want me to answer on that one or I was thinking TJ still had to go now I'm sorry you were talking I didn't say I'm a idiot I'm I'm spot off because look it's part of it but like you said I think we're going

in the right direction I like that we're going slower and it's not noticeable once we're racing you can't tell I promise you if you were just go down them by the fence when that pack went by

you'd have been like yeah wow like it's unreal but I'd still like to get them off each other just a little bit because to me it's to me it was still very little skill requirement

to get a run when you wanted to very easy to do at points. I like the fact that we're a little slower, but I'd like to see a little more, a little more of a bubble still, honestly, just a little bit more. I don't want a lot more, but a little bit more.

But I do like that we're going a little slower. I feel like we had cars hitting all different directions last night, and I don't think I saw one get in the air, not even begin to lift up a little bit. And down in the three is a pretty, that's a spot where it can happen, you know. So I think it's good that I think people have got to be, happy about that. I think Jeff Gulloch asked the drivers or Ligano or somebody in response to all the wrecking what they can do about at these tracks. He's like, just run the road course. That seems like a

terrible idea. Well, Freddie still gets in a wreck there. I get wrecked there, too, so. Close the door. Well, wasn't you, actually. Wasn't me. Yeah, wasn't you. I was an innocent victim. You were crossing the sidewalk at the point of the wreck. Spot on, spot off. Three of the four Rick Ware racing cars crashed together. to bring out a caution before the Chevy and Toyota's made their green flag pit stops. Freddie. That's your favorite group, man. Honestly, Brett, spot on, spot off here.

Are you surprised? Didn't want them cut a tire, though? So what I saw, just to break it down, they're all running in a pack, and Garrett Smithley spins out. Whether he cut a tire or just lost it off a four is right off a four. No way you lose it going that slow. You know, he lost it off a four. Gase was behind him. Cody Ware was the last one.

I don't think Cody Ware checked up as fast as Gase did. So to avoid Gase, he went to the outside. And when he did that, Gase moved up to avoid Garrett and stuffed him in a wall as Garrett went the other way. This is kind of the dangers of running around your teammates. Who are the names in that right again? That was Garrett, Cody Ware, and Joey Gase. Okay.

And these guys have charters. three of them four of them yeah uh why why do they always bring out wrecks at the worst times these guys it's the hell you're talking about i got a lucky dog out of that what happened to you on that pit stop to lose a draft we were it just wouldn't go like we're right on the four leaving pit road i'm like okay we're good we get off turn two and they're just like blah see you brad's like if they don't fan out we're going to lose it i'm like it's nothing we're not going to fan out yeah i'm like i'm pretty sure sure they're not going to fan out.

So you lost it. Yeah, I just think it's unfortunate that cars, and look, if Garrett cut a tire, there's nothing he could do there. But it's just unfortunate that guys that are non-factors in their race, non-factors in this decade, for that matter, are always part of the conversations of bringing out costs and changing the way the race ends.

I don't mind. It's always been like that, though. We've always had, there's always been as bad. We're the slowest cars on the track constantly bringing up costs. Honestly, it was probably. Our boy Quinn Huff's been doing better. He hasn't been bringing them out as much. It's been probably, I don't know, man.

Back in the day, we used to have guys just, it was guys wrecking back in the wall. You know what I mean? The problem was back in the day, these guys wouldn't be in the race. Wow. I'm not, I mean, they wouldn't be fast enough to make the race, T.J.,

he's not lying. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm agreeing, but for sure, yeah. But we still had a group of guys that you just knew we're probably going to back it in at some point. You've got legitimate teams trying to show up, want to bring race cars, and they can't because these field fillers

are, I mean, if we qualified, how many seconds would they be off the pole? I just wonder why, like, and I'm not saying... Three seconds? I'm not, like, if it were me, I would probably find it, like, a David Reagan

if he would do it or somebody like that. If it were me, I would call him to Motorsports and say, hey, don't throw that car away. Can I please buy it? Because I don't want to be so slow that it's embarrassing every week. I'd trade a charter for a... They'd call... Ying and Yang here, they did get a top 10 yesterday.

Yeah. Josh Balicki. Yeah, he did. That is their second one in their existence. That's awesome. Yeah. How many cars finished the race? Not many.

But I did want to give a shout out because I'm the to BJ McLeod. I know. B.J. McLeod got a P9 out of that deal. Same thing. I don't know. BJ McLeod is my favorite guy amongst, this group of guys that are just kind of out there doing what they need to do trying to make money, whatever.

But BJ at least has the awareness to put himself in the right spot on the race tracks and be out of the way and not race you to death for when you're lapping them and stuff. But it's just good to see him. BJ's awesome dude, so it was good to see him get a top 10, P9. I don't expect them to go out there. They don't have the funding other teams have. I don't expect them to go out there and be super competitive. But I also don't expect them to be in the way.

and wrecking at the end and just, I mean, it's just, it's gotten ridiculous. We kind of had to be in the way a little bit when we got, what that group caught us. We had, I mean, if you stay in the bottom, the whole entire group goes by you, and then you're just further back, so we blended from the top and got help on the straightaway,

and we ended up, like, fourth in line on the top or something. We didn't try to make any moves. Just kind of hung out there that way. We were racing the 14 for the lucky dog, but you're not overly worried about at that point because the first car is going to get the lucky dog. The next guy's going to take the pass. Yeah, and everyone had to pit in that group,

so it wasn't like you were going to be in trouble. Right, right. But I thought we played that right. It's always easier to blend from the top. We always talk about it. Don't let it be going to be good to your right rear. So you want to be the guy at their right rear, so you can kind of get a little pull and blend in.

And I never understood why when we run the bottom places in groups, why slower cars would stay on the bottom, and both lanes would have to shift around that car. It's funny y'all say that because I had lost the draft, and I was the first car that was pulling the guys that had lost the draft. And the pack got, you know, half straight away back from me. And I go to the top. Well, half the cars go to the top with me.

The other half, stay on the bottom. So here come the leaders having a split us three wide because the other four people don't know. And the other four spotters obviously didn't know that you want to blend from the top because your momentum is going to be greater. And it's going to give you an easier chance to get the draft. You get the right side door. when you go to the bottom, they all just, you don't have,

by you and they stall you. You don't have any offensive at all. You're on the O line and that's it. But as I moved them up, I watched four guys not move up with me, and I was like, are y'all lost? You shouldn't be out here. Who were they? I don't remember.

You're lying. Check them off. At that point, I promise you, I don't remember what was going on. If they were somebody that lost a draft, Brett probably has no idea who they were or who their spotters were, probably. No idea. I know one guy that lost the draft and was going to get back in it, even they were wrecking.

Yeah, that reminds me of Michael Walter one time. I spot for him in the Bush series. He was driving the Band-Aid brand car probably around like 2000 or something. He goes, I just got passed by a guy, and I don't even know who the guy is. I don't even know who drives that fucking car. Well, you're part-time, so you're not really expected to know who's on the track anymore, huh? Austin Dillon team says the 17 is a weapon out there, as Chris Bisher made multiple daring blocks up front and then finished second before getting disqualified.

TJ, spot on, spot off. I mean, I don't particularly remember seeing him throw anything that was ridiculously crazy. Obviously, he didn't get turned or wrecked, so I don't know how. It's just how this racing is. If you want to get the lead and protect it, that's what you have to do. So I looked up there and saw numerous guys leading the race that were swapping, and guys were checking up pretty hard when they got behind him. So I don't know if I can single out one guy, it's just a product of this racing.

Like I promise you, if Austin gets the lead, he's going to be doing everything he can to hold the lead and put himself in the best position that he can. The guy might look like a weapon, but sometimes you have to be that way. And you can't be laid on it. I mean, it can cause wrecks. And it has caused wrecks, but that's just this racing. Yeah, 100%. I mean, the 17 is fighting for his season right there.

Yeah. not only a win at Daytona, this is the playoffs. Like you said, I didn't see anything egregious. I mean, I felt like he was aggressive, but everybody's aggressive at that point. And it worked out for him because coming down the backstretch, he's in contention to win the race. You know, Austin ends up wrecked, and the 17 comes out of there in second place. If I'm Austin, I'll tell you the guy I'm mad at is Ross Chastain. Because as they come down the front stretch, taking the white flag, 17, 3, and 42 are lined up on the bottom.

They stall out a little bit around the start finish line, and instead of staying in line, Ross splits off three wide to the bottom, and that effectively ended any chance for that lane to go. Yeah, three wide kills the lanes. It just kills them. So, I mean, if you're going to be mad at anybody, be mad at the 42. I mean, it's the heat of the moment. Austin Dillon is the first guy out of the playoffs. I don't think you can take seriously what these guys say a lot of times. You know, they got their helmet on, they're hot, they're frustrated.

As soon as they have to live for a big block one time, they're mad. It's natural. I mean, it's natural. and look, man, Austin Dillon won a really big race by running over a guy. It's plate racing, man. I mean, you have to say it. But what's most frustrating for spotters and obviously drivers is your fate isn't always in your hands at these plate tracks. If somebody has a big run and you throw a block and they run over you, whose fault is it?

Right? So it's just, it's a weird situation to be in. And these guys are going to get frustrated, and that's what makes plate racing fun. It's what makes it exciting. Half the drivers out there, I hate to say this, guys, they don't want to be out there, but they have to be to do their jobs. I mean, I was flying in, you know, multiple times in my career with drivers, and they'll look at the window and go, oh, boy, this place.

Like, I mean, it's tough on them. I mean, I've been with drivers on race day mornings at Talladega. They're in a completely different mood than they're in at Darlington, you know, before the race because it's stressful. I mean, they're going to go out there. Stressful for everybody, man. Run 200 miles an hour around a bunch of guys that are all driving like maniacs. I think the only guys that it's not stressful on is probably the picker guys

because it doesn't really matter where you come off pit road there because it's going to be completely different 300 yards after you go green. I think, you know, the young guys don't know how crazy it is and the guys that have been doing it 20 years. I mean, I'll give you a prime example. Ryan Newman, how many times you, you see him in the pack the other night? Rarely.

I mean, how many times you see Clint Boyer in the pack the last two years of his career? Right, when you get to that point, you're like, exactly what we talked about earlier. Fuck it. I don't want to be in there. I don't have to be in there. I'm going to wait until I was surprised seeing him.

I was Harvick. I'm going to wait until the end of the race, and I'm going to go in there and try to get me some, right? And that's because they're over it. You know, I mean, I've had drivers come to me and say, I knew it was time to retire when I were sitting there under red flag at Talladega and wondering, why the hell am I doing this?

These places are dangerous. They're scary. And the problem that the drivers have is their fate isn't in their hands. It's in the other people's hands. It's watching the 99 and the one go up through there, coming to the white flag, checker flag, driving like maniacs. Next thing you know, 30 cars are wrecked and guys are flying through the air, going right, hitting the walls.

And you're sitting there and you're running seventh and you didn't do anything wrong. And next thing you know, bam, you're an ambulance. That's why they hate it. Yeah, or like earlier this year, Talladega. We're just minding no business in the top plane. Next thing you know, we're upside down. You know, flipping into three.

On my hood. Yeah. I mean, Kyle Busch gets wrecked. He shoots to the inside wall. He bounces off the inside wall. And several seconds later, after the wreck started, not after he bounced off the wall, bam, he gets nailed in the door. We are going to have these wrecks with these runs in the mat, like at the end of these races.

It's too much going on for anybody to be able to absorb it all and not have this happen. It's just too much. I just don't understand why, you know, you look at the Exfini race, and, man, that honestly those guys have had some pretty good finishes here and not had two, I don't remember the Xfini cars, because they can't lock bumpers, I guess. I can't tell you how many times Elliot and I flew into there, and he would say, Brett, we're really good at this together, but I hate it. Yeah.

But if I'm watching the race, you'd have no idea Elliot Sadler hated doing that. But if we brought him on this show right now and said, Elliot, later in your career, how much did you love plate racing? He's going to be like, I hated it. But when you watch the race, I'm watching the race the other night, and I'm like, Joy de Gano looks like he loves this. Chase Elliott looks like he loves this. There are guys who look like they love it.

But deep down inside, I got to wonder if they really love it, because it's dangerous. This is what makes these guys special. This is what make these guys do things that are death-defying that most people wouldn't do. I wouldn't do it. Back, just for a minute, back to the 17, maybe he was blocking and aggressive like that because he knew, Maybe it was his illegal track bar that was forced him to be so aggressive. Hey, we got, did you see the news, Jason? Do we ever find out if they check the track bar before the race?

So what if I told you that the track bar was legal before the race and illegal after the race? How is that possible? Smart people. Smart engineers and people working on these race cars, they get the track bar to drag the ground during the race. So it'll lower the back of the car off, lower the back of the car. lower the back of the car and get down low, which makes you go faster because it gets a spoiler out of the year. And I believe there's some tolerances.

So this is designed. I think a lot of teams do it. And NASCAR's aware of it. So there's tolerances in place for wear or damage or whatnot. And, you know, people I saw Twitter blow up asking us, how is it possible that why didn't they look at this pre-race? Well, they did. And it was legal then.

And then after the race, there's a picture I saw Bubba where we're driving, we're running behind the 17 and we're in a shower of, sparks. Oh, yeah, it's bad. Guess what's dragging. That's the track bar mount. So, you know, whatever it was, they got it too low. They got the track bar worn too much, and that's why it's illegal after the race. Nice. So we got a new Xfinity team starting next year now. Who is it? Tommy Joe Martins has partnered with Caesar Baccarella to form Alpha Prime Racing to race Xfinity starting next season. Martins 10 to 15 races, Baccarella and Rajah Caruth among the drivers. Caruth races Martinsville, Dover, Richmond, and possibly more.

Nice. Big fan of Rajah, Caruth. He's a good kid. I've met him multiple times, spoken to him multiple times, and he told me about this opportunity maybe getting this year, next year, I should say. And it's good. I hope he cashes in on it. Yeah, I race on eye racing with him quite a bit.

Good kid. I mean, I think it's pretty cool how many teams are forming in general. I mean, Cup and Xfinity. The Xfinity, we talk about it day in and day out, how the racing has been so impressive just to see the product on track and now sponsors and drivers are getting opportunities. I think it just shows where we've come now, I would say this year. Spot on, spot off. Bubba Ellis says, I'm the one that gets called out for not working with teammates and I'm the one that gets left hanging. There's a reason why Ford is in Victory Lane because they always work together.

This was during his post-race interview. Oh, man. Now I know why Freddie got mad at me. So during the race, I'm watching Bubba control the lead. And I'm watching Bubba have all this help behind him. And then the next thing you know, I'm watching Bubba go to the bottom and the 18 drive around his right rear. So the caution later came out and me being the great friend that I am and I was so concerned

about my friend Freddy Kraft. I walked down there and said, Freddie, why did you leave the top? Freddie went absolute ape-shed on me. cuss me out. I thought he's going to throw me off the back of the roof. I was asking about and ask you the same thing. I wish I would have now. I'd be glad you did. Damn it. I'm surprised you didn't hear me yelling because I was only three people down. I was a little bubble down there. He is screaming at me and cussing me out. I just

turned out. I walked off, man. I was scared he's going to swing at me. So Freddie, tell us what happened. What happened? So what Bubba is referring to as far as him getting called out was this race is earlier this year with the JG. Obviously, we're partnering up with the JGR cars to work together at these plate races. which they don't really partner anyway during the plate races yeah exactly right so earlier races I forget where we were maybe Daytona I don't remember we were trying to we were leading and the JGR cars were all on the bottom and we tried to kind of control both lanes

and they got a little bit of a run so we just stayed up and let them have it and they were like well why would you do that you know you all you left us there whatever just stay in line with us we'll be fine on the bottom that's fine which we attempted to do last night or Saturday night but so this steal here we're the fords all pit so now we're we cycle to the lead it's us and the 42 kind of side by side we've got jgr help behind us which we pulled up in front of them to make sure that we can help all the jgr cars to get that lane rolling uh so we get that lane rolling 42 pulls up next to us

now it's pretty much two lanes of side by side and we're catching the forts a little but we're you know we're catching them so now the top lane the bottom as the bottom starts to fall apart the top planes getting more momentum, more momentum. And we all get clear. There's four of us in line up there, 23, 18, 20, 19. Well, once the 19 gets clear, in my mind, it was kind of common sense that go to the bottom, shortest way around the track, you're going to continue to run the forwards down, and you're going to have a better car behind you because on the top lane behind the 19

was the 8. And then when we pulled to the bottom, it was going to be the 42, which was a rocket ship. yesterday. So in my mind, it was kind of common sense. We're all clear. Okay, we'll ease to the bottom here. We go to the bottom, and the 18th stays up and drags all the JGR cars around us for a lap until the 19 got clear of us. And then they decided they wanted to run the bottom.

So I can understand why Bob's first friend. Your great friend. Tony Hirschman stuck it straight up your old butt. Yeah, he, he, I was not happy with him. Let's just say that. Hurstman tries to orchestrate all these things on the roof during the draft. And I just, how many races is Hurstman want as a Cupspotter at these drafting places? I mean, I know he's got a shootout win for sure.

I'm not sure if he's got any races. Do you want any expedite races in the draft? No idea. I'm just curious if he's qualified to be telling everybody up there what to do because I see him telling all you all up there all the time. Oh, Freddie, what the hell to do? Listen, like here's where I'm at on this deal. On the bottom?

I'm on the bottom. That's where you're at. I thought in my mind it was common sense. They're like, they're like, I got kind of, FF, I got some, FF, I got some, yeah, that's what it was, hashtag FF. I got some grief because they're like, oh, you didn't tell us we were going. Well, what, I'm in front of you. If I moved to the bottom, we've all been running together for the last 15 laps. Like, you're just going to, oh, what's going on?

Where's Bubba going? Like, we're just going to leave. So I'm sorry, I didn't have time to send out a smoke signal and an email and everybody else that we're going to go to the bottom because we are running 200 miles an hour and change is pretty quickly up there. But, uh, so did you at least flip Hirschman all? You cuss me out of it. I was, I was, so, you only lost three spots. You're fine. The next lap, you know, when, if they would have all went to the top and stayed at the top

the rest of that run, I go, okay, that's fine. But as soon as they cleared me, they're like, okay, we're going to go to the bottom now. And I just started screaming, why? Why are we going now? What's the point now? I thought we were doing this two laps ago. That's a classic speedway move, man. Hey, listen, if that's the way, that's fine.

There's nothing wrong with that. Quebec Canada is calling me. What do you think they want? with a 704 area. They want to talk about your student loans. Your car warranty is run out for it. I mean, listen, it is what it is. You know, and his car, you know, he's talking about people working together.

Listen, the Ford's obviously worked together. I can tell you, like, if this isn't pre-planned, this is a solid move for Kyle, because he, if he hits pit road right and comes out first, he's going to be the leader. I've been there, been there done that. I'm not saying Kyle did anything wrong, but what Bubba is saying is, no, I, I, Don't give him grief for maybe not being the best teammate when this is exactly what's going to happen to us. The only way that that works is if it's pre, if it's talked about and those drivers are all on board saying, look, we're not leaving each other all night.

Stick with it. You know what I mean? You can't convince me that Michael Waltrip and Dale Jr. Did not have as much success as they had without committing to working together no matter what during the era in which they did it. And Colleg Racing right now is doing the exact same thing in the Center Series races at plate races at, you know, Daytona, Tel Lega, and guess what they're doing? We've seen it work. They're dominating. They're winning.

They're winning. They're winning. They've seen a work a few times in the last four or five years. It's worked a few times. If these organizations don't, I mean, look, we saw manufacturers get involved and get us all aligned, and it worked. And now it's kind of bad to every man for yourself. And look. Which I enjoy way more.

If I were spotting for Kyle Busch at that time, I would have been saying, stay with this guy no matter what. follow him no matter what unless i'm going to be greedy and then i'm going to say oh he just pulled down he's screwed but that put kyle in a damn good spot like which means they didn't have a meeting before the race and joe gibbs say hey we're all our toyota hey we're all working together help each other don't leave a man out they left pub a out we've worked me and you've both worked with drivers where they know when that little opportunity shows up they know when to pounce on it take it and it puts them i've won races i've won races where we've made a move like that at some point wasn't really there wasn't a plan and it showed up and the driver took it he knew when to take it

and it put us in position to win the race and we did so you talk about call it racing here's the stats six of the last eight plate races they've won one of the races that of the two that they didn't win was when all their cars caught on fire during during qualifying a j didn't qualify ross had to drive somebody else's car. So they really only had one car in that race. So you're talking, you know. Dominance. Dominance.

Six of the last seven races that they have competed in, they've won. So, I mean, if people aren't looking at that model and building off of that, they're idiotic. Yeah, they've obviously got a really good system. Well, they've got those guys. You know, Chris and them have done a really good job of being like, look, guys, we can be really competitive if we work with each other the whole race. And when we get to the end of the backstretch on the last lap, race it out.

If you don't buy into what Chris Rice tells you to do, he will tell you how stupid you are. Gladly, Freddie. He will gladly tell you. But I mean, and if you talk about even winning the races, I don't have the time to go back and look, but stages, how many stage wins have they?

They were one, two, three, and every stage of the night. I remember last year, we were one, two, three. You know, I mean, it's, if you make a move and there's a colleague car around you and they're only separated by a couple of cars, you better know what you're doing, because if they see each other,

they're getting attached. Yeah. And it doesn't matter. the guy that's running third is happy to be running with his teammates at that point in time. And that's what you need. The guy that was running third taking a white flag is one that won the race here. I don't necessarily think that works in the Cup series as much. Justin Haley was running third when Ross and A.J. wrecked each other and he won the race then.

So you don't have to be greedy when it works out of that way. Justin Haley was running third the other night. He won the rate. We went to the bottom of AJ. He went to the top. We're three wide coming off four. Guess who's going to win? A colleague car.

Yeah. This Door Bumper Clear Podcast is brought you by our friends. are racingusa.com, America's online headquarters for NASCAR merchandise. RacingUSA.com has a wide assortment of the newest officially licensed diecast, apparel hats, helmets, novelties, and collectibles for the sports most popular drivers, many of which are now exclusive to RacingUSA.com. For example, RacingUSA.com currently has more than 500 different collectible diecast cars available for 39 different drivers, including this weekend's Ryan Blaney,

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You can also enter to win this month's $200 gift card. Why would you not shop at RacingUSA.com? So whenever you want something new to show your support for your favorite driver, shop RacingUSA.com, America's online headquarters for NASCAR merchandise for more than 20 years. Spot on spot off. Tyler Reddick earns the last playoff spot as no one outside of the top 16 wins at Daytona. Brett.

He tried to give this away. I could not understand for the life of me why he was in the middle of that pack. And to me, it's awareness from the pit box, it's awareness from the roof, and it's awareness in the cockpit. And I am a gigantic Tyler Redick fan. If I were going to come back full time and spot, I would come back for a guy like this. because he's talented. He can win races. He is the man.

I'm convinced he's one of the best drivers out there. If you took it and put him in that five car, I think he'd win a lot of races, just like Larson's doing right now. But to your point, holy cow, did he make it stressful in his situation? He damn near knocked the radiator out of that car. And if he did at that point in time,

Austin Dillon easily could have missed the last wreck and snuck in on points and kicked that eight out. You cannot take this chance if you're the 18. Now, if you're Richard Childress, I don't know what you want to see happen. You want to see your grandson get in or you want to see the 8 team get in. You clearly aren't going to get both in at this point. So you've got to pick one.

So maybe Richard's sitting there chomping at the bit going, oh, look at the 8. Now my grandson could get in. Right. So this is a weird dynamic. But if I'm on that 18 pit box, if I'm on that 18 roof, if I'm in that 18 car, I'm going to be very aware of what needs to happen to get me to the play. Me and Clint Boyer would not have made that mistake. I can promise you that. You look at once that second stage ends, you know, obviously you've got a race for some

stage points, or at least defend stage points, because you know the three is going to be going all out, which a three was up front, both stages. I think he finished second, one stage, sixth and the other. But Tyler defended that a little bit. He finished fourth at one stage. So you leave the second stage up 18 points on the three card. You have no reason to race at that point, because you've got to finish 18 spots within the three. You can ride around and let the three, I mean, don't beat yourself is the biggest thing. You can ride around right behind the big pack and just kind of chill there until the last lap. And you're going to get a top 20. I mean, it's, if there's going to be a wreck, we've done that.

That's if he wins, too. He wins, I mean. He wins. He's in, so. That's what I'm saying. Don't beat yourself. Make him go out there and beat you. Because now if you look and you see with five to go, he's running 10th or 12th or whatever,

okay, then I've got to be, you know, 30th. You know, so it's just. Rick, where I finished top 10? Put yourself in a position to succeed. And this is two weeks in a row. We saw it last week where he was super aggressive and he could have had a 40-point advantage. And then that would have been a 38 point gap after that second stage. and you just got to be on the racetrack at that point.

So, you know, like you said, I love Tyler. Tyler and me, we got off to a little rocky start. First Daytona 500 he ran, and we had a little meeting at an airport face-to-face and talked about it. Pulled him off your neck, right? Yeah. And ever since then, we've been great friends, and I've run into him every once in a while, and he's a good, too. He's a hell of a wheelman. I think sometimes his decision-making might not be the best, but he's also pretty young,

and he's going to get out of that eventually. but like you said, he's one of the best drivers out there. Kevin Harvick goes from starting the 2020 playoffs in first with 57 playoff points to starting 16th with two playoff points this year. DJ. Man. I mean, Harvick, he did what he had to do to, I mean, he locked in, what, a couple races ago or something?

Just before Daytona. Yeah, last race. Okay. I mean, still struggling. it's going to be you know who knows though Harvest one of them guys that could go win the next three races though you know so Rodney and that group are very smart and can't ever count them out so but Harvick uh man I mean spot off though from the year they had last year to where the position you're at this year that's a pretty big different you know different turnaround there it's kind of you know it's rare to see a guy go from

16th to win in 10 races, but it's also rare to see a guy that won eight, 10 races last year, whatever he won, to, you know, barely making the playoffs by points. I mean, you talk about how dominant Kyle Larson has been this year. You know, everybody, I mean, he's clearly the favorite going to the championship. He's clearly been the best guy all year long. He starts the playoffs with five less points than Kevin Harvick had last year. So that's how much more dominant, you know, that's another race win or a state. wins, whatever it is, you know, that Harvick had last year of how dominant he was compared to,

you know, his competition. Kyle has a bigger gap this year, obviously, to the second place guys. But still, it's a, I don't want to call it a fall from grace. But, I mean, you went in last year as the one seat, and here you are as a 16. You know, I saw an interview this week where Tony said that there's something wrong and we've got to find it, you know, and it is what it is. And obviously this new car is going to bring about a lot of change. But there's definitely, they're missing something over there.

Kevin Harvick is one of the best drivers in the field. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Kevin Harvick is one of the best drivers to ever drive in NASCAR. We agree with that. Kevin Harvick is one of the smartest drivers to ever drive in NASCAR. Rodney is one of the best crew chiefs to ever be in this sport. Rodney is an amazing crew chief.

So what's wrong? Well, we know that Ford had a change in the nose, so that's a big arrow thing. And it just seems like whatever that change was, these guys can't compensate it. How many racetracks do we go to do you think that Kevin Harvick is about? best driver in the field. Atlanta, maybe Richmond? Phoenix. Phoenix.

We could maybe keep going. We can maybe keep rattling them off. He's good at Dover. He's good of them. A lot of them. So why is he zero wins and last in the playoff standings? Because their cars are slow. We talked about it on here.

Jimmy Johnson would have won championships at Chip Canassie Racing. Bullsh. If Kevin Harvick can't win a cup race at Stuart Hoss right now, it's because their cars aren't fast enough. It's not because Kevin Harvick isn't still great. Kevin Harvick is still one of the best drivers in the field and they're way off. Eric Amarola sneaks into this playoff with a rocket ship at New Hampshire. I don't know where that rocket ship came from.

Is he better than Kevin Harvick at New Hampshire? Or where it went. Yeah. Is he better than Kevin Harvick at New Hampshire? That's one of Harvick's best track. Okay. So what the fuck is going on over there? That's what I'm trying to tell you, people, is look at the bottom four and look at who

Kevin Harvick is around. Tyler Reddick. Michael McDowell, Eric Amarola, Kevin Harvick. He shouldn't even be in the conversation with these guys. He's supposed to be in the conversation with Kyle Larson, Martin Truex, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Bush. Their cars are off. Tony's right. Their cars are off, and they got to fix it.

Can he fix it between now and Phoenix? I don't think so. He's had 26 weeks to fix it. They're probably looking at this new car going, it can't get here fast enough to get us out of this storm that we're in. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's a big part of the story. I think maybe even the bigger part is the emphasis on, you know, changing lanes are completely. The emphasis on stage wins and race wins. Danny Hamlin had a 150 point gap on third place in the standings after last night's race or Saturday night's race.

He's now seventh in points because he only had 13 stage points and 10 of them, I'm sorry, 13 playoff points. And 10 of them are from where he finished in the standings. He had three stage wins all year long. He had three playoff points. I mean, just talk about the emphasis on winning stages and winning races. You know, we see guys kind of get safe and they don't want to, you know, get up there and win stages. They kind of call their strategy a little bit different to, you know, flip the field

to some of these road courses and give up stage points. But, I mean, look at what you got here. I mean, this guy just went from clear-cut regular championship season contender to now he's seventh in the points. He's out of the final race right now. You know what I mean? One bad race, and it's going to be really interesting. Yeah, really tight.

I'm a big Stuart Haas fan. Obviously, worked there for many years. Got a lot of great friends over there. It's hard to watch. It's hard to watch a team like that do that. Because we need Stuart Haas to do well, to stay around the sport, to stay relevant. Because when owners start not doing well, they can find other things to do with their money. We don't need Gene Haas and Tony Stewart doing that.

We need to keep them engaged. But, T.J., what makes you a championship contender? Because in my mind, it's leading laps, winning stages, winning races. Is Harvick doing that right now? Running up front. And it's Harvick doing that. No. So keeping in mind the few races that they're coming up

and obviously the fact that stages are so important, who are the four drivers that won't advance? I think you look immediately at Michael McDowell. Yep. I think you look immediately at Eric Amarola. Yep. Because of what we talked about, level of aggression and maybe not the best strategy,

maybe Tyler Reddick. You know, he can get himself in trouble. But at the same time, Tyler Reddick's a guy that can go out there and win this race at Darlington this week. It's kind of like, you know, opposite ends of the spectrum. He's a wild card. You know, he runs really well at these places. Darlington isn't the big question mark to me that what it used to be because it used to be

treacherous and we don't see nearly as many guys getting to the wall in three and four like we used to. It used to be you were getting that stripe at some point no matter what. Now you can count the cars on one hand that get it during a race. Casey, that's an amazing question. But here's my question. don't talk about the drivers. Talk about the race tracks that we're going to. We're going to Darlington.

We're going to Richmond. We're going to Bristol. Those are not aerosensitive tracks. Does arrow matter? Absolutely it matters. But these are tracks that mechanical grip matter and the drivers matter. And when you look at that, you've got to say, okay, who's going to struggle in those three races? And I hate to say this about T.J. Majors and Brad Kasowski, but they're in a lame duck situation.

They both know they're out at Penske at the end of the year. I haven't seen Brad as fast as I've seen. him in years past. I got to put him on my list and maybe he doesn't make the second round. Sorry, T.J. I hope you do make the second round personally, but professionally, I don't know that you can. And if you don't, I'm sorry. We'll go have a Waffle House. I'm shotgun a beer in the parking lot. TJ, I'm not really. I've been a worse. Sorry, but I've got him on my list, too. Eric Amarola, to me, has it had the speed, as Freddie said, Michael McDowell, hey, Daytona 500 champion. He'll hang that on his wall forever. We don't even know if this guy's got a ride

next year. He's probably more worried about finding a job than he is making the second round of playoffs because he knows that his team doesn't have the resources and the funding to make the second round. If he's going to make the second round, he's going to need a lot of help from these guys. What does that mean? That means he's going to need a lot of these guys that are in the back half of this playoff. We're talking Kurt Busch, Christopher Bell. He's going to need those guys to wreck and completely take themselves out of the picture. And somebody will do that. Somebody's going to do it at Darlington. Somebody's going to do it at Richmond. Somebody's going to do it at Bristol. Now them three guys are out.

You want to just be able to kind of sneak your way in, right? And look, I think Tyler Redick is good enough to make the next round. The question is, does he have the mental fortitude and the coaching that he's going to need to be able to do that? Great question, though. But for me, I don't look at the drivers. I look at the tracks. And I say, man, these are not three easy racetracks to go to. No, not by any means.

TJ, what do you think? You know, I definitely look at a guy like McDowell to be hard. We don't really have any strong tracks for him coming up. Strong tracks will be road courses and plate tracks, right? Yeah, I mean, I can see Martinsville being okay there maybe. But I don't know, I don't see any strong races. It's just all going to be, you know, who's going to have bad luck? and those guys from 10th on down can't really have any bad luck now.

So there's going to be that into the equation. I think you have two guys just lose it on speed, like you said, maybe the 34, maybe the 10. But the next two to me are going to be guys that are just something's going to happen. And you just can't have that right now. And that's why it's the playoffs and it's time to perform. So I'm, you know, I think Brad's pretty decent at Darlington. I think he's got some strong tracks. He's good at Bristol.

He's got some strong tracks coming up. We got some strong tracks coming up, which you can look at and be like, okay, well, he's pretty good there. He's been good at Darlington. So, you know, if we go there and do what we're capable of doing, we should be able to get some solid finishes there. Enough to beat the guys, you know, straight up. But there's going to be a couple guys, man. And somebody on a big team with a big name is not going to make it to the next round. It's going to be a guy like Harvick.

It's going to be a guy like Bell. What if Harvick blows up lap one this weekend? Yeah. We see that all the time. A guy like Bell, a guy like Harvick, a guy like Kisowski, we should be talking about them going into the third round. Now we don't even know if they're going to make it out of the first. You never know what's going to happen.

NASCAR confirms that the numbers on Cup Cars will be shifted forward in 2022. Was there an announcement this week or something? I think it was kind of on the... Well... Hey, welcome to 2311 Kurt Busch. You are great. Hopefully you are so great you can make us all better next year. Listen, I see everybody blow up about this.

Obviously NASCAR, I don't know if NASCAR had anything to do with the fact that where the number was placed on the car for the announcement. But I've seen that they kind of piggyback that and said, yep, we are moving the numbers forward next year. And then, of course, everybody blew up at the fact of how the 45 card looked in the picture. And let's just clarify one thing. That was like the JGR pit stop pit school car for next year. I was going to say there's no way that's a real car.

It can be. Yeah. It's, you know, that's the car they've used. That's the car they're using for the pit stops. So, you know, this is obviously not to scale. This is obviously not the final rendering of what this car is going to look like. The frame's not going to be red. I would imagine it's not going to be a red car with green graphics.

There's no way you're right because Twitter says that you're wrong. Breton is all about it. So, you know, let's wait. I've seen some, that lefty design guy's got some good stuff that he's put out there. Some pretty good designs. You know, with the number. And my biggest thing is, listen, you can kind of move that number anywhere you want. As long as it's on the door, don't change.

The biggest thing for me is don't change the size of the number. The number should remain the same size. And don't move it so far forward that it's all the way behind the wheel because then you're going to start losing size of the number because the car kind of narrows up up there. But obviously, you know. You guys are doing a, you're trying to change the roof number and everything. We want the roof number to face the crowd. We want the small number on the front.

For a minute, I thought that was a joke. I thought they just mixed up the number, the guy putting a decal on. There's a solid chance that I'm going to get called back to the hauler for. Here we go. Whoa, can I leave the conversation? Nope. T.J. has left the room. How in the hell does 2311 announce that there's a number change in NASCAR?

How does that happen? How are we not out in front of this as an industry? Look, I have sponsors I'm involved with in the Cup series. Why did the teams not get notified by NASCAR? A number change was coming. Why weren't the sponsors able to get notified? How does Denny Hamlin get to break NASCAR Cup Series news that affects every team in the garage? And for NASCAR just to piggyback it and go, yeah, that's where the numbers are.

Jordan. Are you kidding me right now? Freddie just grin at a way here. We're seriously going to be so freaking reactive to what, is Denny Hamlin the president of NASCAR now? I don't think. dredging by his Twitter, I believe not. I was blown away that I saw this on Twitter and I was like, you know what, Denny's an edgy, fun, smart guy.

And Denny really is. If you know Denny, he's all three of those things. He's having fun with this. He's screwing with people right here because he knows it's going to get 2311 a ton of attention. Well, guess what else he got? He broke the freaking news of the numbers change. Like, why is Denny Hamlin doing this?

And I'm not mad at Denny Hamlet about this, by the way. I think it's awesome. I think it was a great brand move for him. I think it was huge for 2311. But if I'm NASCAR, if the NFL is going to change where the goalpost is going to be, they're going to put the goalposts in the middle of the field now instead of any end zones. Do you think that Troy Aitman is going to break the news? You think the stadium is just going to build one?

Hey, look at what we're doing this weekend, guys. I cannot believe that something this significant. Fans are emotional about this. I'm emotional about this. This is significant. This thing takes up. freaking quarter of the side of the car. And we're just going to slide her up here and hope nobody knows that Denny Hamlet

would break it. Are you scared that people are going to be pissed off? Or are you literally just behind the team? And the team breaks it. And you're like, well, what are we going to do now, guys? Like, we should have had a major announcement. We should have had Steve Phelps or Steve O'Donnell or somebody addressing the media about this.

This is a major culture shift in what the cars look like. Brett. Or am I'm going to tell you this right now from a market. perspective, what do you think? In my opinion, I think that NASCAR has looked at metrics around branding and where sponsors are focused when they're looking at footage and on track. I mean, I think this could be a great thing from a sponsor perspective. So from a marketing perspective, since you are definitely a marketing guru here, like, do you agree that this might be a great move from any sponsors in the sport.

Great question. Back up one second. Control the narrative if you're NASCAR. Tell me why it's great. Okay. And if you do that, I'm going to buy into it. But now I've watched a show car that's a pit stop car unveil a significant shift in the sport. Long term, Casey, I think there are brands out there where this opens up. Neutriac Solutions is a very long name.

It's hard to fit all that in a tight space. Moving this number helps that, right? But I would have loved to have been able to call Loveland, Colorado, and tell my good friends out there, hey, guys, they're going to make this shift. This is where we're going to be able to do it. This is the analytics around why they're doing it. I can't tell them that story because Denny Hamlin broke it out and basically said, hey, look at this number shift we're doing. Like, if it's all great, then let's all have a great industry discussion about it. We knew that something like this could be coming.

I think Denny was a guy that said, don't push it back, push it forward. It's almost like he's putting a feather in his cap going, hey, told you guys it's great. Let me ask you this because I know right now you are actively seeking sponsorship for next year. Was the Xfinity series included in this announcement? Not that I've heard. Was it excluded? So something you guys may not know when you look at, you guys know what the A post is on the car, but for our listeners out there, the A post is in front of the driver window.

Okay. So it is essentially between the current car, the wheel and the number. Okay. That particular space in Cup teams now own. NASCAR used to own that space, okay? And they would pay teams small amounts of money if you won the whatever race or, you know, get a $1,500 check. Whatever, right? If you ran the Coors Light sticker, you got $10,000 that weekend, right? So that's gone.

Cup cars have the ability to put anything they want there, okay? Xfinity Series cars, they cannot put anything there that has writing on it. So when you look at AJ Amadinger's Ramco car that won the race, beautiful race car, by the way, white and red car, there's a huge RAM in that space. We can graphically put things there. I, however, cannot put the word RAMCO in that space. So to your point, Freddie, I don't know that if this has any impact on the Xfinity series,

I honestly don't think it will, but how about come out and tell us? But then why would you, I don't understand why you'd have the cars looking so differently, if we're all under the NASCAR banner, why would the cup cars have the numbers slip forward the Xfinity's in the door, like in the middle of the door? I don't know. Why can't I sell that area under the A post in the Xfinity series? I don't know the answer to that.

You're going after your meeting. If you're worried about maximum sponsor exposure, which is this obviously does. Listen, it looks better. For me, purists, love it. Center of the door is where it always should be. If you're going to move it aesthetically, I think it looks better when you move it back.

But for maximum brand exposure, yes, moving forward, because you get the back half of the door and the whole quarterpinal now to put one big sponsor. Let me ask you this. Why is the door number, on the left side of the car, why is the door number there? On the right side of the car, why is that door number there? Left side of the car is for the crew chief and the crew

to be able to identify that car as it goes by. The right side of the car is for scorers to be able to score the car. Do we still have scores? No. Do we have satellite tracking on the car? these cars. Yes. So we don't even

need fucking door numbers. All we need is a roof number. That's incorrect. You're getting crazy now. You need numbers

for fan identification. We don't have the same. You know how you told us to kick you? We'd be kicking you right now. Look, I love NASCAR. I'm just making a point,

T.J. I'm making an argument. I'm not saying that's what I would do. But what I would do is I would have announced, hey guys, really significant announcements coming,

let's everybody hold tight and let's roll this thing out big as an industry. I mean, I don't know, man. Remember when NFL was under a big freaking fire for CTE, basically concussion, concussion protocol? NFL will say, ha, watch this. I'm going to change the narrative.

We're going to change how we do the extra point. They wrote out this whole thing of, we're going to change how we do the extra point. They shifted the narrative. They control the narrative. We should be controlling this narrative and telling, I need to tell the story to sponsors. And so it frustrated me a little bit to see this come out this way, obviously.

Sounds like it. Yeah, I really couldn't tell. TJ, what do you think? Look, if it builds interest, you know, from sponsors and there's more value there, I mean, whatever. Fit with, I don't. Where does it look the best? To you. I mean, I...

Just personal opinion. We're not going to jail for this. Personal opinion, I like it. You're guilty by association. You're going on the haul of it with me. I like it towards the back a little bit. I like it towards the back of the front door, just because I think it's a cool area on the door

to put some logos and stuff like that. Here you go. Here's one for you. Do you think it looks good where it's at on the 45 car with that Monster Energy sponsorship? When I looked at that car, I will say I looked at that car,

and I was like, eh. And then I looked at the die-cast car looks pretty cool. I don't know if you saw where you could buy the die-cass car, I saw a diecast of it. I thought the diecasts looked pretty awesome. But that car there, I don't know if it was a red or something to threw me off.

Like, it wasn't a true, like, race car. That car's not going to look anything like that. Denny tweeted that. That's literally purely for the announcement. TJ, do you think the way they unveiled that car that it looks good? It was a five out of ten. Okay. So you're half a ass-stated.

The die-cast car is about a nine out of ten. But if I were Monster Energy, I would be happy because of all the exposure it did. receive. Hey, Denny's a freaking, Denny's a genius. Whoever made the call on this. I've been saying that for years. To do it this way. That's very suspect comment. I think you've been saying that for a year and a half. Madonna said it best. Bad publicity is still publicity. So people that hated this are still talking about it. People that love it are still talking about it.

People that like Kurt Bush, Monster Energy. Some drivers use this. 2311 Motorsports. People that like all the things or hate all the things, they're talking about this. I think it's great. I just, this is a significant change. Do you agree? Do you think this is a significant? it changed. I do. And I think that when you look at... Do you think Denny Hamlin should have announced the number change? I think that when you look at how sponsorship will be sold, such you mentioned the B post, A post, all that. I think that changes the game and makes it better for all of these new teams and new sponsors coming in. Yeah, we're not denying any of that. We're just saying it should

have been announced differently. I'll see it 2.30 on that's car truck. Think you've heard all the stories from Racings past? Think again. Dirtymo Media's newest podcast, glorious white-knuckle, Godfaring spun out and half-turned-over racing stories, immortalizes the greatest people and moments in motorsports. This podcast is a nostalgic throwback experience in a modern-day vehicle that celebrates racing's glory years. Join me, Rick Houston, each week as I uncover stories that you'll need to hear to believe. You can find glorious racing stories on dirtymomedia.com and all major podcast platform. Before you get yourselves in more trouble, time for reaction to theater.

Are you kidding me, NBC Sports in NASCAR? You mean to tell me you're blocking out the cutoff race to televise a Washington Redskins preseason game? Get the fuck out of here. I don't know who makes the call on them I don't think It's got nothing to do with NASCAR Yeah I don't think it's that And I'm not even sure

I really don't know But I don't think obviously if some areas Haven't some areas don't There's people in them areas or controller They're picking what's going to be on there That's the way I can see it It all goes back to money It's money

Whoever paid more for their sponsorship I'm sure the NFL Probably draws more sponsorship dollars for their preseason game than we were for that race in that market anyway. I don't know how Anthony Alfredo can be so far back away from the accident and run in there like, hey guys, hold my beer, I'm coming. And nails BK. I feel so bad for T.J.

And so bad for Brad Kislowski because that was unnecessary. Anthony Alfredo can't drive worth a damn lick. First of all, I don't think he's holding a beer. He's probably holding some noodles or something. I was told that he got hit from behind when he hit both of us. No, I can go ahead. Unless there's an invisible car. Unless there was an invisible car, an SMT,

that just wasn't being tracked, there was no contact. It was a hard left. I don't know what else to say. Did he get on the brakes like really, really late? I didn't even look at it. Did you see the angle he hit me at? Uh, yeah, kind of clip, yeah, I mean. He's sideways.

I mean, and he knocked me into you. They're going to need some extra duct tape and hope to get ready for Caledega. According to the... Well played. According to one of the, you know, the Freddy's favorite word, when you go look at the data. Yep. You know, unless there was just somebody there that just didn't exist on there.

Maybe their GPS fell off. Maybe. If no one else in America will say it, let me be the first. You, Chase, Elliot. You, you, fuck you. Learn to drive in a plate race. Okay, stop throwing your car around like a rag doll. Stop thinking, yeah, you got the tires, but he ain't got the brains.

Get the fuck off the track. Jason, I can't believe. I can't even believe he let this one slide. There's more. This must have been Dillner. Well, no, shit. People were very upset with Chase. clearly he's got a lot of baddie v fans out there he took a lot of cars out but

dude's going for the win man i mean that's what happens so max major blamed it on the 21 car he said it was 21 cars fall yeah he's a chase elli a fan like jason so he's a little biased so if you put us in the set if you put us together we're actually kind of related but separate we're not but if you put us in the majors hey brett reckoning in front bud might want to tell your driver to hit the brakes I mean, obviously don't have a scanner, or he would know what I told him. Or Twitter. Yeah, if you had Twitter, you can actually see where fans tweeted me saying,

Yeah. Hey. I can't give you full blame because I don't think your guy definitely got on the brakes a little late still, but he was going to miss the, he wasn't. Did you see where Brett told him where wreck was happening? No. Turn two. Yeah.

I mean, your guy, that's what I'm like. I told him to get out of the draft, DJ. Your guy wasn't going to hit anything until he got help. So, but he definitely. He should not have been anywhere near there. No, like, he had. he could have made better luck for himself with the torpedo coming you know chase elli is the biggest dumbass in nascar wow you all can wind at me you know complain about oh he's racing he's

racing he's racing for the wind well no he's being a fucking complete dumbass blocking the whole entire damn fucking racetrack dude like matt ed deserves a fucking cup ride and he does not get one because people are stupid they race him like shit when he races them so clean week in and week out fucking bullshit i'm down with this chase elliott you fucking suck i hope you never win another race championship i hope y'all are mad at me for blowing up on chase elli but just completely stupid whine about joe lagano doing it and then he does it and it's like oh well it's okay then it's for the win just completely stupid dude chase you fucking suck if i looked at chase elliott's stats i would have a hard time saying he sucks

If I looked at Matt D. Benadetto's stats, I would see that he's O for everything. It's hard to be O for everything. And NASCAR's top three series. He's literally O for everything. My problem is the guy saying he deserves a cup ride. Well, he's had one, a good one, for the last two years now. And he's still over.

I'm sorry. Look, Matt D. fans are rabid. They're crazy. And I don't know why. I mean, maybe they drink the same muscle milk he drinks and they're all pumped up in the gym, big and heavy and man I don't know but uh you're drinking the Kool-Aid man

I'm sorry you're drinking the Kool-Aid Ofer I just can't believe somebody would call and say that stuff I mean when you're on the other side of the fence like he said it's it's amazing how when you have a super popular

driver fan favorite makes a mistake like that and destroys a bunch of race cars and it's like it's okay it's all right but if you spot For a guy that gets booed, he makes that mistake. It is the end of the world. He should never be racing again.

We've got some Chase Vitriol on here now, so. I don't, and I still don't blame Chase, man. He was trying to win a race. That's what he's paid to do. He's trying to win. They made a mistake, and it's part of it. He's not the only one. It's ever done that.

Yeah. So, am I crazy? Or wasn't it just a few years ago that Talladega was a cutoff race in the playoffs and we ended up getting rid of that because of how crazy it was so did we just forget all about that when we made Daytona this hectic bullshit is this the way that we want the regular season to end and what happens if Cory LaJoy wins that race does he really belong in the playoffs yeah enough with the gimmicks when you're in win and you're in so this guy's absolutely right um they literally took it away from Talladega because it was too crazy and almost became

like playing a slot machine, a game of chance, versus playing Blackjack where it's a game of skill. That's why they moved it. The drivers were flipping out, TV was flipping out, and then after they did that, they realized, man, if we want a game seven moment, why don't we take it to the place where we just spent $400 million to upgrade the facility?

Where are you going to run this race at that's more exciting? Nowhere. If we run a mile and a half, or if we run, you're going to see the same trend that we've been seeing and guys aren't going to Corey Lejoy, Tyler Reddick, Austin Dillon, Ross Chastain

Matt Dibandello made that race exciting. They were doing what they had to do to try to get him. Yeah, Matt got caught up in a wreck. He was in a good spot. Great spot. Yep, he was in a good spot. He was going to be competitive at the end.

And I don't know what else you could really, I mean, I can say I personally enjoyed it because I wasn't on the bubble, but I can see where it would be stressful, but hey. Very stressful. Hey, this, for those guys, the field, the playing field is way more level at a plate race.

There's still some, obviously some cars, but you've got, look at Cori of the Joy. There is no way that car by raw speed is probably going to qualify in the top 15, top 20 by raw speed. And look at him and his teammate there. Haley. Haley, they, I mean, he's right up there. So I think, I mean, this is just a dumb comment.

And yes, if Corey the Joy won that race, he deserved to be in a race, just like Michael McDowell did in February. Does Michael McDowell have the raw speed to be a playoff car? No, I think he was probably 20th in points by the time that race is over on Saturday. Look, I mean, I hate to keep comparing us to NFL. We've seen guys NFL make the playoff with a sub-500 record before. The Panthers won the playoffs. Are they going to continue to win a championship?

No, neither of these guys, but they still are in the playoffs. Win and you're in. You win your division in the NFL. I don't know who got this guy's panties of them. a wad, but that's right, though. If you win your division in the NFL, you're in the playoffs. Yeah. Exactly.

Even if you're the NFC East, then the FC East sucks, and you got a crappy record, you still won the East. You beat the three other teams that are in your division right there, and that's all you got to do. Let's go YRB! Yeah! Two in a row, baby! Fibbing a fucking winning at Daytona?

I'm nervous this, Justice Dale Jr. won a Daytona. Thank you, DJ for that one. Hey, Brett Griffin! Couldn't you spot that? Dumbass driver is yours to avoid that 18 car. But I will say thank you for hitting the 18 car because when you take Kyle Busch over race, it makes a lot of people really, really happy. I had no idea Josh Williams didn't like Kyle Busch.

Me either. Hey, I'll tell you, though, Ryan has figured out how to survive these races and be there at the end. You know, they handed that Michigan to him on a platter right there. There he go. I mean, and hey, he got up there and took it. And to me, that's Ryan progressing, you know, and you give him a chance and put him in the right spot. And he didn't really, there was opportunities for guys to go right back by Ryan.

Coral Joy had a shot in the middle of three and four coming to the white flag, which I think he should have taken that run. But he didn't, but Ryan is just, his timing's right, man. He's at the end of it. He's figured out how to be at the end of these races. He doesn't, and what I think stands out to Ryan is he's not up there defending. He's kind of the guy riding third or fourth till the very end, and then he takes his run and gets up there.

And he's like, okay, go ahead, idiots. You all wreck behind me. I only got to lead a half a lap here because you're going to wreck, and the caution is going to come out. I'm going to win a race, and I only have to run half a lap to defend it, you know. So everyone wants to get that run at the end of the backstretch, and they all wrecked for second and third and fourth, doing it. Leader walks away.

So, congrats to. him and he's got a pretty good record going there. It's kind of funny how drivers win races like in piles. You know what I mean? Like you'll win a bunch of races and you'll go a while or not win any or it's very rare you have like a Ricky Rudd come along that can win a race every single year for 17 years or whatever that number was. Like usually you see drivers get hot and then they'll fade and then they might get hot again or they might not ever get hot again. Like it's just weird how that happens. And Ryan Blaney right now, three wins, second in the championship standings. Great hair. I'd say he's hot. That's awkward.

I think many girls will agree with the statement. Oh boy, I can't wait to see the finish of this race. Ford, Chevys, and Toledoes, all on different green flag pit strategies. Freddie and Bubba fighting with the Gibbs cars. 20 plus cars trying to get the pit road under green at the same time. Oh man, it's going to be exciting. What's that? One, two, no, no.

Three Rick Ware cars crashed to influence the end of this race. Who could have predicted that? Hopefully all that damage forces Rick to finally sell one or two of those charters to a more deserving team. Oh, and TJ, I had to double check and make sure you weren't spotting for the nine car the way he was blocking like Lugano all night and causing wrecks. TJ, you suck. Brett, you're awesome. And Freddie, I hope you and Bubba have a job Monday morning when you meet Denny. That's genius.

Good news is I still got a job. Maybe tomorrow is when our meeting is, though. Good news is I have a meeting in my office today that's got a lot of cool things in there. I don't have a replica of Daytona 500 trophy, though, which I'm disappointed at. You still get one. Yeah. Can you? Absolutely.

You all remind the guy that owns this place? Leave him a note on the table. You know what? He didn't send you a replica 500 trophy? No. We just Googled how much money he was worth a few months ago. Yeah, well, so I know he doesn't have both of them on display, so I asked if I could borrow one, put it in there. What's the big deal?

You got two of them. Are we going to bring up the boat issue, too, while we're at it? So do he not? Trophies on the boat. So did he let you borrow? your own trophy? I mean, I feel like it had been a cool gesture.

So he didn't let you borrow it? No, it wouldn't even let me borrow it. Can you touch it? Have you touched it? I did actually touch it. Just once? Your whole hand or just the tip of your finger? Okay. Two fingers.

I just kind of touched a little bit and then walk. That was it. That's good. Yeah. We got to gauge these things. It was in the bus after the, in 14, after the race, because obviously I was flying with him

seven years ago and he still won't let you borrow it no I mean I don't care if it's a plastic one you know it could be just a plastic replica I'd take it but it'd be cool to like I'd get you a plastic one yeah it'd be cool to know that I won the styrofoam is this affecting your friendship at this point

because you seem pretty bitter about it it's about to start and do right now I could see you getting mad he had forgotten yeah I forgot about until now I'm teasing him Take him back. Take him Kiddicats just ram them together.

Throw them over your shoulder. No, it's still good to... It's still a good memory, so that's all the really matters. It's all you've got. T.J. is a memory. Fades more and more each day. Hey, I promise you, you're not forgetting your wins. You're not forgetting yours.

I don't even want to talk about it if you got trope. I don't even say it. I don't... I know what time it is at my house. I know, yeah, I got... You got a clock, not from Dale Jr. Yeah, I do. Oh, Dale Jr. gave you a clock, but not a Harley J. Earl trophy.

Yeah. Wow. I think I would trade the clock back in. We need to make a trophy and do a trophy presentation on the show. You have to just make sure you set both clocks at the same time. Otherwise, it's really annoying. I don't think Dale cares if he has a trophy, Casey. No, probably not.

All right. To leave an audio message 24-7, go to anchor.fm.fm slash door bumper clear and click the message icon. We will keep playing the best ones on the show each week. We don't play the best ones. We played a meanest one. True, that. Especially Chase. Offerpad, question of the week. Who had more say in how your home was decorated and where furniture was placed? This is a dumb question. You or your wife. TJ, I need to know this answer.

When we walked into our house, my wife said, this is my dream home. And that was the end of TJ. That was the end of that. Nothing else mattered at that point because, A, she was nine months pregnant. And you don't do a little advice here. You don't overlap these three things in life. Try not to. Buy a house.

Get married and have a kid. If you overlap those things? You did all three? I did two of them one time. And it is whoever came up with that saying. I don't know who it was. Probably Earl or somebody like that. Earl Barbin probably.

Some great philosopher name Earl. Yeah. And I don't know how because I was never had a kid. But yeah, my dream house. I was done. Friday. Aside from my big ass couch that I picked out, I think Megan has designed the rest of the house,

which we built our house brand new. she literally designed or picked out everything for the entire house. Nan Zipadeli picked out everything that kind of went in my house. So she did an amazing job. I did have a townhouse at one point. If you live in Charlotte and you want your house to be pretty, call Nan. I did live in a townhouse and I actually, it was my first new place. Everything I lived in before that was like a rental, hand me down.

I mean, I had lamp shade from one guy, table from another guy. That's the worst. You don't realize it at the time. I was making $12,000 a year working at MB2 and I had much money. I mean, that's like I went off to college and then like 10 years later, you're like, man, I think I can afford some nicer stuff. Yeah. But you have a hard time getting rid of that crappy stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you do. You hand it down to somebody else that needs it, but I had Sean Robinson do my place. She does a good job too. She did a really good job, yeah. I have a hard time believing Nan designed the RPG room. The casting couch? I designed the RPG room. But we did that room after we moved in.

We did that room a couple months ago. Is it still being used? Oh, yeah, all time. What goes on in there? The couch. Just watch TV, man. You don't do any role-playing games? No, no, nothing like that.

Just drink bourbon and watch TV. Well, go get a cash offer on your home today with our presenting sponsor, Offerpad.com. Which I am going to use to sell my wife's dream home at some point. I'm going to use it to. sell our house eventually. Just buy my house. It's that time again

where we discuss our favorite X-Penity X-Fi more than fast moments. Whether you're on or off the track, speed isn't the only thing you need. So what were your favorite more than fast moments this week? Brett.

I got to go with Justin Haley for being more than fast. I mean, this guy is running behind his two teammates. And when they split off, Jeb and AJ are side-by-side. Justin Haley could have taken the time to pick which teammate he was going to help win the race. But instead, he decided I'm going to go to the outside of the 16 and I'm going to win the damn race. So to me, that's thinking fast. That's definitely an Xfinity X-5 more than fast moment, Freddie.

Yeah. My more than fast moment is going to be Bubba. I mean, just the way he drove into that pile up more than fast and somehow came out of the other side, I still never understand. but ended up with a top or a second place finish out of it. So C's parted the right way for a more than fast. I mean, the way we drove into that wreck was more than fast. And the way we came out the other side was a miracle. That was going to.

I mean, I kind of wanted to get with Alfredo the way he gets on that backstretch. But my more than fast moment, I'll go with BJ McLeod. You know, first career top 10. He's got to be on top of the world this week. And it's a great feeling. So congrats for them, guys. Yeah. We like it fast.

here on Doorpubber Clear, but what we really like, boys, is more than fast. Thankfully, there is always tons of action for our Xfinity X-Fi more than fast moments. You know what else is more than fast? X-FINITY X-Fi. With the speed for all your devices, you also get the reliability and security

that keeps you connected and protected. On the track being more than fast means you've got the teamwork and strategy to win. With X-Finity X-5, you can do more of what you love with faster internet and a powerful and secure connection. Follow at Xfinity Racing on Twitter for even more Xfinity X5 more than fast moments. And don't forget, Casey, to vote for your favorites. Thank you to Xfinity, proud premier partner of NASCAR.

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

I like money. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place. We love using Anchor. It's a great platform that lets us hear from the fans in Reaction Theater with Anchor's Leave a Message feature. So when you create your account with Anchor, you can also utilize their feature and make your own podcast. TJ will be your first guest. So download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started. That's A-N-C-H-O-R dot FM to get started.

Or what an idiot. Brett, yeah, I have a feeling this is going to be a good one. Brett, who you got? How do you not? I mean, how do you not? I feel like my rants are. Freddie going to get me in trouble. Oh, no.

I just, don't I going to take my headset and leave again? Freddie, you go. I need a minute. I need a minute to make a good decision. My one idiot goes to ESPN this week for their announcement that Kyle Bush has signed at 2311 racing. My friends text me like, wow, I didn't see this coming. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Nobody did.

I don't think. But, yeah, so my one idiot is whatever intern was working at ESPN that moment when they decided to tweet the wrong Bush brother was coming over to work with us next year. You want to start yet? Do you go ahead. You know, I got to go with a, and I like the kid, but I got to go with Mayett

and starting that ex-fini wreck like that. Just unnecessary at that point in time, a little pushing out of the dog leg. That's already sketch. And, you know, it's just, that was a very, very preventable mistake. That's kind of rule number one in play racing is do not push through the trial.

Like that's, I feel like that's, that's the first thing and what you remind your guy of all day long. The car is light right there. I mean, and anything else, many cars are really moved by

when you get that close. Obviously, we've seen a pat and a Tye Gibbs move when you get close to the left rear quarter panel it shoves the guy around without touching him. So, you know,

the air on the back bumper right there is already, the guy, the guy's already struggling. Brett, we are prepared. We are prepared to delete this, if necessary.

So I'm watching this race play out, and I'm watching a guy up front who has been up front a lot of the night. And I'm friends with this guy. I think the world of him. T.J. touched on it earlier in the show. They're going down the backstretch, and it looked like the seven car of Corey Lejoy was running 20 miles an hour faster than Blaney. And instead of diving to the bottom and trying to clear the 12 for the lead as he came, as we came to the white flag, and with the momentum that he had, yes, hell yes, he woulda. he would have gotten the lead as the white flag flew. When the white flag flies, the race is official.

This would have been LaJoy's first opportunity to win a big race in NASCAR, and he didn't take it. Instead, he went and shoved Ryan Blaney. Damn near probably wrecked him because he was going so much faster. He went and shoved Ryan Blaney, who, as T.J. just alluded to, went on the win the race. Corey, I love you, man, but what an idiot. Take the run.

Yeah, take the run because, and who knows what happens after you take the lead, they might wreck at the start, finish line, right after you go by, and you win the race. And that would have been huge for that company. And you could see it playing out, and listen, Corey's plan was going to work out as long as everybody else was on Corey's plan, because he backed up to the four and was going to get a big run down the backstretch, except for one thing. The four wasn't on Corey's plan, so he split to the bottom and got underneath Corey. and that destroyed Corey's run. 17 took the run down there and he came from further back.

So Corey would have got to the lead. You have to take the run late in the race. You never just stay in line. Dale Jr. was the best all those years. If he got a run, he took it. And that guy, epic, epic, epic mistake. And we would control the race and the costa comes out. And Corey Lejoy may never get that one back.

Some guys will get that back. If that had been Joy Lugano, he'd get it back. If that had been Austin Dillon, he'd get it back. Chase out. Corey may not ever get that opportunity. McMurray. won a Talladega race because we were, we didn't take our round early enough.

And we got, the caution came out off of two on the white flag. We were third in line. I thought we were going to have a really good shot of winning it. My heart sunk when he didn't hang a left. My heart literally sunk. Yeah. We can thank Austin because I think we might have an intro for the show now

and that part of the intro for that part of the show, right? He did say, what an idiot? Yeah, when he got hit. Yeah. He was like, what an idiot. So that might be, you know. Yeah. Yeah, might have to replace that little girl or boy, whatever it was.

Yeah. DBC picks. TJ, it was a miracle. You won with Eric Jones. I'm shocked. Yeah, I mean, I was 10 to go. I knew it. So the score heading into the playoffs is 13, 8 to 7 with Freddie leading and Brett in seconds.

Oh, we got to catch them fast. TJ, you are, of course, third. Damn. Let's make picks for Jarlington. and Brett, you're up first. Let's not forget that we get to refresh the field. We all go back to zero, right? We're starting to playoffs now, so we go back to zero.

Points stay. Points remain, but drivers get. You know what we should do? We should reset it, but give like a bonus point for every time you get the winner right. Like Freddie would have like three or four because you got. Freddie would have clinched championship. No, Freddie would be up three. Great idea, T.G.

I know you try to do something to get an advantage. I'm going to go with the. guy who's driving the all for pad Toyota this week. He's pretty damn good at Darlington. Mr. Number in Vailer himself, Denny Hamlin. I'm going to go with a guy that I have questioned his ability to do smart stuff on the racetrack all show long, but I think he's going to have a good race this week. Tyler Reddick. DJ. Oh, boy. I'm going to roll with Martin Truex Jr.

I was my other guy. We got to go big. Freddie can kind of throw some lobs up here, save some big names. I'll tell you what. But I'm going to tell you something about Tyler Redick. Tyler Redick, I walked up to him the morning of the homestead race, his first championship. And I said to him, hey, man, just keep the right side clean. And he said to me, I'm going straight to the wall.

I'm rim riding all day. And he did it, and he won the race won championship. So when we talk about how crazy it was for him to be in that position at Daytona, I think he's just that freaking aggressive of a racer in at a place like Darlington. he's a guy can be a difference maker in the car because as we said it's not all about arrow it's a lot of different variables and tyler redick's going to be a good way what i like about tyler a lot is just his self-deprecation like he'll run in the fence you know he just like you said he's super aggressive and he'll make mistakes and he'll go yep i'm an idiot or what do you do i think he spun out leaving pit road somewhere he's like

my brain just flew out the window i'm sorry like he like that's just his personality like he's super aggressive everybody owns it at the same time. I do like, I've worked with Tyler, and he's always been like that. He tried the high side one time in the truck, and I was like, what are you doing there? He's like, I just being an idiot. I don't know how to answer to that, but okay. So I do like Tyler a lot. So before we close up the show, I know with the announcement of Kurt going in 2311,

which Freddie, obviously, one of your favorite drivers now, there were a ton of tweets asking who Kurt's father was. and a ton of people tweeting that Brett should be full-time and I'm not sure if Freddie and Brett should make a really great combo could you imagine Brett and Kurt working with each other? No. Not 10 years ago. I think Kurt now is chill. Yeah.

I think Kurt now's way more chill. A little bit. Any rumors we want to squash here? Well, Kurt has already said some of the stuff that's going to happen. Kurt said it. Yeah, well, Kurt's spotter now Tyler Green is not going to be spotting for Kurt next year. he's got his own stuff going on.

I think Kurt announced that Tyler was spotting for Harrison Burton next year at the 21 car. Remember that video segment a few weeks ago where I said Tyler Green held the key to silly season for spotters? Walla! Yeah. So there's, I don't know, there's a handful of guys, three or four guys. There's a pretty big wrench throwing in that plane a couple weeks ago as well. So there's some guys that have reached out to Kurt that I know Kurt's been talking to that are guys, a couple of guys. A couple guys he's worked with before.

A couple guys he hasn't. So, you know, we'll see what happens here going forward. But I think it's just a great addition to our team. It's going to help Bubba. It's been a long time since Bubba. You know, we've worked with the RCR guys out of our shop, you know, last couple years. We work obviously with the JGR guys this year. But now to have an in-house teammate, a champion, somebody like Kurt, it's only going to help.

What's going to help as well is having Kurt next year and having practice. Yeah. If those two, if Bubba can lean on Kurt, which I would, if I was a little, Bobo a lot because Kurt's pretty damn good. And if, you know, Kurt's a smart race car driver and if he can get them pointed right direction, it's, I think it's a... Once Tyler committed to spotting for Harrison, which when we made that video, that commitment was already in place, that started the Domino's.

And obviously, T.J. now is a part of the Domino's or he was. He's now solidified with what he's doing and which driver he's doing with. We all know he's going to rouse. I don't know he's going to rouse. I don't know about that. But this still opens. But Kurt Busch is a guy that people want a spot for. You know, look, there are two kinds of spotters up there.

Spotters that are really good at what they do, and spotters that want to spot so they can be a spotter because they're a race fan. And if you're a race fan and you just want to spot because you love race and you're probably not as good as the guys that truly have mastered the craft of spotting. But speaking of spotting, where are you guys spotting from this weekend at Darlington? Because I've heard it was the roof, and then I heard a rumbling as I was leaving the race yesterday, that you guys may be the top row of that grandstands at start finish. And if so, that is going to be a nightmare.

No, it has to be the roof because they put us there last year and they had to move us, or the first race this year, and they had to move us because it was unsafe. So if it's not the roof, it won't be where they, it won't be the start finish line, top row. You can't have reached out. I have reached out already. And the answer I got this morning was a turn four grandstand. No, I'm just kidding. We're on the roof.

I would be, the turn four grandstand is way better than where we were at star finish line. The name of that grandstand is a David Pearson grandstand. And the top row there actually would be a hell of a lot better than anywhere you could be at that racetrack because it's awesome. But the second best option is that roof. And that's a weird roof. But the top of the grandstands, like you guys said, coming off the four with fans standing up in their seats. It's hard enough where we're at right now off the floor. You can't see it.

It would literally be dangerous. Yeah. Speaking of spotters, no, before we end the show. Shout out Derek Neeland. Maybe Oxford 250 yesterday. I think he had a kind of up and down raise. I heard he got turned around or something in the race. race. Doug Campbell.

Doug Campbell probably cleared him. Doug flew up there with Derek to spot for him. So I don't know. I think they ended up in the top 20 somewhere, 19th or something like that maybe. But good for them. And shout out to my buddy Scott Tapley, who is a good friend of mine from back up north. He won the race with Cassius Clark. So that's a big event. I'd love to go. That's another bucket list one for me, one year, once I'm done with this stuff. But awesome event. Shout out to Scott. Congrats to him. He kind of feeds me some info for this show every once in a while.

He'll be pretty pumped about it. But I know it's been a bucket list for him for a long time. So just congrats to him. Short track racing. You know, I love it. Well, thank you, as always, everyone for listening. And be sure to have a great week. Enjoyed Darlington.

Should be hot. College football. What are you doing this weekend, Casey? It's Chloe's first birthday. Oh, so fun. What are you going to get her? I know what she's going to get her. Kate can be out of the damn floor.

Cake everywhere. There will be a cake smash. We tested it out. We went to Red Rocks on Friday. Thank you to Ron. I'm sorry, Ron. I left such a mess. And actually, we cleaned up.

I should have taken the picture. Can you see the menu right now? I bet you're now mentally conscious of this big mess that you've been leaving everywhere for the past 11 months and now you're going to fix it. I like that. It's weird. I went there and I saw the menu. It's like Casey Boats dirty floor or something. Not yet.

Happy birthday to Chloe. Congratulations. And hopefully you guys. Hopefully you got a little brother or sister coming soon, right? That is not happening. Yeah, but you also said that before, you also said that sitting in that exact seat in that exact spot before you even got pregnant with the first one. Yeah. We'll explain how it happens after.

Hey, thanks for listening to guys. We're out. Hala. Word. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.