Door Bumper Clear - 263 - Michigan: Pressing the Issue

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Brett Griffin, T.J. Majors and Freddie Kraft return to break down the weekend at Michigan International Speedway. The spotters discuss their difficulties leaving the Michigan infield after the race, debate whether or not the Cup cars had enough tire wear, and explain how long they think Kurt Busch should sit out. Plus, hear the latest on Kyle Busch’s options for 2023.First up in Spot On, Spot off, J.J. Yeley's decision to stay out after the competition caution that led to a restart wreck in Turn 2 creates an uproar amongst the spotters. They question the motive for not pitting and why the same team often finds themselves in the middle of the story.Next, Christopher Bell got into the wall off Turn 4 after making contact with Ross Chastain. The guys talk about which driver is at fault, why that caution cost one team any opportunity at a strong finish, and who needs to have more situational awareness.The table then discusses Bubba Wallace’s comments on Joey Logano’s move to hold onto to second deep into the final green flag run. Freddie talks about what it was like racing around Logano and why he’s the hardest driver to pass in the series. You won’t believe the tactic that Freddie used to distract another spotter. Plus, they react to Daniel Suarez’s blown tire that didn’t cause a late race yellow flag.Freddie then comments on Wallace saying he failed after finishing P2. He applauds the team’s strong weekend and explains what Sunday said about Wallace’s potential. Brett discusses Wallace’s high-pressure situation and why he can’t make continue to beat himself up during post-race interviews.Ryan Blaney currently sits on the playoff cutoff line and Martin Truex Jr. is the first driver out with three regular season races remaining. The gang explains what each driver has to do to clinch the last playoff spot before or at the cutoff race in Daytona. Also, Brett shares why he believes 23XI Racing is the modern-day DEI.Finally, Brad Keselowski commented on NASCAR needing to hand out more penalties to gain control of the garage. T.J. explains how his driver is still dealing with the repercussions of their penalty earlier in the year and the table debates the need for stricter officiating.In Reaction Theatre, fans voice their opinions about Ross Chastain never lifting and Kevin Harvick making it back to Victory Lane. Later, hear the gang’s thoughts on expanding the charter system and what needs to happen for the Cup Series to return to a 43 car field.Thank you to our presenting sponsor Offerpad and partners Xfinity and RacingUSA.com for making this show possible. 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.

This is Door Bumper Clear, presented by Offerpad, and I'm T.J. Majors. We've returned from Michigan and have a lot to discuss. We'll cover Joey Lugano's move on the final restart. Bubblewalla is finishing P2, only one spot remaining in the playoffs. Brad Keselowski saying the sport needs more penalties and more. Let's get started. He's listening, but I don't care. I'm on an episode of Door Bumper Clear.

Hey, everybody. I'm T.J. Major, Spotter, the 6 Cup car, the 68, Xfinity Car this week. Who was in that? Which one? The 68. Brandon Brown. Oh, he was? Oh, good.

Nice. Brett Griffin, congratulations, TJ Major, so I'm making it out of the Michigan infield. I don't know if we'd see you here this morning. I was very worried myself. You and I were frantically, the three of us were frantically playing. I don't even know what game to say, but I almost hit Noah Gregson head on.

Well, no one was doing the same thing. We were. And then you're behind me. We're all calling each other. We cannot, to save our lives, get the f*** out of. this racetrack, Freddie. I, Freddy Crafts, Potter Bubba Wallace, who else, land the castle this week,

but I could not get out. And the worst part for me was I felt bad, so I'm just, I'm not paying attention to what's going on around me now. I'm just looking for gates to go through. So this one time I go through over by the scoring pylon, I end up making a left, and next thing I know, I

pass Chase Elliott as they're pushing his car to the tech, and I'm like, I don't think I'm supposed to be in here. You're not. You're definitely not. You were in the cup ground. I was just outside the cup graham. I mean, they don't make it easy to get in that garage. Oh my God.

I was going to go through Hawkeye to make sure my car was clean. But so then I'm like, all right, let me just bang a U-turn and go. I'm obviously not in the right-end. A Ui. So I bang a Ui. I bang a Ui. And there's, when I do that, I realize there's like eight people following me. I'm like, oh, man.

I'm like I've let all. Carly was one of them. I said, I've let a lot of people down a wrong path. She still last one of the plane. So where'd she go? Maybe she found Yuie. I went to five different gates before I finally found a way out of the infield. And people were tweeting last night, you shouldn't make fun.

It was a big crowd. That has zero to do with how we get out of the restaurant. The crowd was, we were literally locked in. It was like we were in the elevator and broke. I went to the back gate. I went to go out the back of that lot because they wouldn't let us out the front of the lot. That's not going to work either. And the cop literally told me he says, I'm sorry, sir.

we have to get all these motorhomes out and then we can let the cars go. That's not the last thing he said to you. I know. He said, you want me to call a tow truck at one point? I said, I guess call a tow truck.

See if he can tow these motorhomes out of here. I'm like, all the motorhomes? Like, this guy over here's drunk falling off the side of his motorhome. You're going to wait for him to get out because it's going to take a couple hours. Freddie goes, I got a flight to make.

The guy goes, I don't care. Pull over here. I'm going to tow this car while he's fussing at Freddie. I just snuck right out of the game. Oh, that was right there. I was like three cars back. I watched Brett do his patent move. He goes out into the parking lot,

passes a couple of rows, and then cuts back up and gets to the front of the line. So basically you have Freddie to think for getting out. Freddie created diversion. Yeah. Well, he gets out and then I got out and I still can go nowhere. And then he tells me, oh, yeah, I'm down here by this guy. I'm like, well, how did you get out?

Why don't that guy? I'm like, they're not letting any bad thing. It's like, well, I kind of snuck through. Like, so I'm still screwed. Yeah. Well, uh, 930 at night, there were still people leaving the track. So that just shows how. poorly.

No, I was going to say how proud of it was. Like, I mean, getting in the elevator. The crowd was great. Yeah. The crowd was a great issue. Listen to me. I don't know if they have a new track president. I don't know if they have a new GM.

I don't know if they have a new head of security. Because those three people typically with the state plan, the traffic plan. Whoever plan the traffic plan, you already win what an idiot. You've never done this before. It was very obvious. I've been going to 25 years. I've never not been able to get out of the racetrack. I really just don't understand why we can't even leave.

even go through the even we couldn't even leave the tunnel that lets you leave the race track. We couldn't even leave the coach? That's the race track that they shut down the infield right? Like they close the they close it. They won't let you out for an hour, right? The, my biggest issue was, and not even the tunnel. I couldn't get out of that parking lot. Like, you know, that's what I'm saying.

There's like a square parking lot. I'm like, I'm going to go out this gate. No, you're not. Okay, never mind. I'll turn around. I'll go out the back door. How are you going to hold the competitors for an hour? What if you wrecked?

What if you wrecked with 15 to go and by the, time you get back there the race inning and now you have to sit there for an hour. Noah wreck 15 left in and he's still going to leave. I mean, I really don't understand how you say, hey guys, race over, but you have to stay here longer. That's ridiculous. Oh, boy. That was definitely the highlight of our weekend. Well, let's, uh, that was my worst. That, I used, I love going to Michigan. I mean, the area's great. Fans are awesome up there. Um, I bet CJ called me six times. Well, he got out and I was so pissed off that he was out. He's like, yeah, I'm down here. And then I called him and was like, yeah, I'm on 12.

And I'm like, you son. I made it out. I went back into the coach lot and went out the front of the coach lot instead of the back. That's the way I started and they wouldn't let me out that way. What a debacle. So when you went out to front of the coach lot, you went towards the front stretch and made a left. Oh, yeah, I went left and then outturned one. See, that had that blocked off for a while.

They did. They opened it first. I guess. That's awesome. Casey, how did you get home? VIP style? Well, if it weren't. Are you going to be on the driver's wives show this week?

Is that what's a? happening. No. You're flying with him. You're VIP in it. I mean, if I didn't fly with him, I would literally still be at the airport because my flight keeps getting delayed. So, yes, thank you for the ride home, Kevin and Josh and Delana.

I really appreciate it, even though. Were you cheering against Kevin for the last five laps when he was leading and you're like, damn, this means I got to stay here for a couple hours? No. It didn't matter. They were going to hold the infield anyway. At this point, actually, now I'm really glad it was. out because I think I got home more than quicker than most of you guys. So,

uh, yes, I might as well introduce myself because somebody said on the show that they like when I say, Hey guys, Casey Boat here. So hey guys, Casey Boat here. You said it twice that time. Yeah, of course. Uh, Jason. Who's this person? Hey, it's Jason Schultz producer. I got home from the bar successfully on the weekend. So it was a very easy process. Did not get stuck in traffic. Good for you. Not driving. I'm glad. Well, we officially have what? What? We're not. We're not. We're not. We're one spot left that we're fighting for in the playoffs at this point? None of you all have one. So it's,

I don't know. Is there a playoffs? What's that? Tell us, I know. Jason, that was pretty low. I mean,

that's pretty low blow. I was thinking like most years one of you all makes a playoff. This year, so far, we're over three. Three races left. That was a rather, why not kick them while they're down?

I mean, yeah, that's a rather low move. I mean, it's kind of like saying you three suck. That's kind of what he said. I mean, he basically did. If you spotted better, maybe you'd have a playoff spot.

Maybe. Maybe. Well, would you guys think of the... Well, if you produce better, we have to hurry this show up. This is Dale's fault. Everything's dayle. What did you guys think of the on-track portion of Michigan? I thought it was great.

Yeah, of course you did. Do you guys have fun yesterday? Brett, DJ? Yeah, Richmond's next week, right? Look, man, Michigan, I just wanted... It was very challenging. I just wanted to widen back out. And I had a lot of hope going into this weekend that it would.

I got there and I looked at the racetrack. It was very gray, which typically means it's very worn. Obviously, it's extremely smooth for the groove to still stay. And look, there's different ways through the corner. But at the end of the day, there's one really fast way through there. And unless you were Christopher Bell, the neighborhood that you ran, it was really fast. But I thought it put on a good show, considering how narrow the racing groove is. I mean, the resin was trying to be used a little bit.

I didn't see any advantages to get in it. Obviously, you could get up there and not wreck, which is a plus because a lot of places is super slick. But I mean, look, it was good weather other than the quick rain shower and good racing. And I'm glad Michigan only has one race because I think it proves a lot of things right. If you only have one race, you sell a hell of a lot of tickets. And there were a lot of people here yesterday. I thought the racing was challenging at times.

The cars that stood out, you could tell who they were. they could make passes and it was also hard for them to pass at times as well but the guys could get runs and you know if you took a chance of passing you might not make it which i i think that's all right the track is getting wider to me i think it's definitely widening out some but my biggest issue with this race is the the lack of managing your stuff better you can literally go as hard as you want from the beginning of the run there's no finesse. There's no taking care of your stuff. It is a, as hard as you can go. And there's, what, we fall off like a second? Something like that, maybe a little over. If that. So,

same thing. I fell off a little more. Well, but you know what I mean, though. There's not like, I fell off a little less. We need, we need the, the bigger fall off. We need something to matter. Like, okay, you need this guy to think, well, if I go really hard here, um, you know, how good was that race in North Wilkesboro? How good were those modified races? See, now I, So I think that's extreme. It's extreme. And like I don't mind it. But like I also don't want to run a race where we had a 50 lap race in North Wilkesburg

the other day. The whole time was in 1840. And we ran 22 second laps in the race because we're trying to save tires. So now you're back in your pace up three to four seconds. They weren't. They must have been good years. No, it was Hoosiers. And you know, it's I need something in the middle of that.

You know what I'm saying? There's got to be a happy. where you still have to go hard. And I think in a longer race, with, not that there's not a competition air, but like you track position is pretty key, you know,

in our stuff with the air. I think there's a happy medium. And we've had tracks with decent falloff and we see how good it is, you know? I mean, we went and did the tire test. I didn't go, but Bub and the guys went,

and they spent a day there tire testing. And then when we came back to the race, it was a completely different tire. They didn't, they never tested the tire that we, raced on. So to your point, we say this all the time on here. Like, we, you need tire fall off. I wonder if the tire

you tested it was more where. I don't know if it was more where. I know they took, they took a bunch of stagger out of the tire or out of the set, I should say, which obviously more stagger kind of frees the car up. But that was, you know, it was just a completely different tire. So you kind of, not to you

waste of the tire. There is zero management right now of tires. Oh, yeah. I mean, we need some man. I mean, tires can make a difference for our car anyway, because we were obviously very good at the beginning. We had a really good car all weekend. We, the first segment, we were putting two on. We put right sound at one point, then we put left side, and we kind of

were a mid-packed car. Once we put four back on it, we drove back to the front. So there was a little bit two tires yesterday, but, you know, obviously it wasn't a big deal. Like the falloff wasn't there. It was more about, you know, just overall speed and track position once you got tires on it. 100%.

Um, what else happened? I don't remember. Truck, uh, Exfinity race? Yes, there was. Ty Gibbs. race another win what's that five on the year five for tie he had a good day Sunday too he he shot himself

at a foot at one point but I mean he could have been I think he could have been top five if he didn't have a speeding penalty there at the end his car was ridiculously fast some sort of miracle that guy just put himself on the 18 car with that run oh yeah I mean and he's only I mean I don't we were talking about this on the roof and

and I have no idea what Kurt's doing what Kurt's plans are what the team's plans are but like you're in a perfect situation right now for Kurt and for Ty, where, you know, obviously now if a couple guys rattle off wins, Kurt's going to be in trouble. But you have to have two winners in the last three races for Kurt to get knocked out right now.

But Kurt can essentially take off until the playoffs. Like, if you already got your, you know, bell rung a little bit, why would you want to come back and run Daytona? I mean, I guess you could just ride around in the back and be there, but, you know, you're at high risk there. So it's a perfect opportunity for Ty to get experience

on all these tracks. You know, he's kind of run a little bit of different, everything. you know, Pocono, Michigan, road course. He's got Richmond this week if Kurt don't come back. You know, you get a little opportunity to run a little bit of everything for Ty in a no pressure situation where he doesn't really matter where he finishes. Danny said on here last week, I don't care where he runs as long as he learns and gets better.

So it's a perfect situation for him. It's a perfect situation for Kurt to rest up and be ready for the playoffs. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. He did a really good job yesterday. Yeah, I mean, super fast, sorry. I watched him make a couple of passes where he took this big arc. into one turned all the way to the bottom. I was like, ooh, that's going to be tough. And

kid made it stick. He's, one thing that I, I think he might be a little aggressive with for the guys that he's around, because I don't think if you, there's, there's three or four that are super aggressive with the side drafting stuff. He was siding his ass off yesterday. He'll go from the top to the bottom and I don't really know

if it's the time, like, I'm not sure you want to set that tone quite yet. You know what I mean? Like when you're, I just don't think he needs to. He's got enough speed where he doesn't have to do that. Yeah. So, Back to your comment around Kyle. It sounded like his interviews were very kind and... Were they?

I didn't hear any interviews. I didn't hear any interviews. I don't know, Jason, if you saw, but I mean... I was just had my DBC pick crashed in the first 20 laps of the race. I wasn't even watching his. You waited all year to pick your favorite guy from your childhood and you pick him and he wrecked so early. But I felt like he handled his interview after getting wrecked out very early. So you're a Chase fan now, right?

I'm a Tyler Redick fan because I am. You can't switch again. I look at, and like I was talking with Jordan Bianchi this weekend, and Freddie and I actually talked about this on Saturday at Buffalo Wild Wings, where they cut you off at 1030. Or if you don't eat. If you don't each, you have two beers. You can I have another beer?

No, you've not eaten yet. Oh, you got to leave. I've only had two beers. Yeah, but you got to eat. Okay. All right. Well, give me some cheese curds, I guess. But like if you look at this Kurt Busch thing,

and I misspoke about some things a couple weeks ago, Tom Bryant when NASCAR gave me a shout, a great dude, a friend of mine. And he explained to me this concussion process. I made the comment that Kurt felt like there was a new doctor in there and that there were tests he had never done before. And that was not the case according to Tom. And I appreciate Tom calling me and correct me on that.

They actually do something and I'm going to screw this name up called a Keene Devac test. You definitely screwed that up. After a crash. So they do this impact testing before the six. season. But the impact testing is actually too intensive right after a wreck. Because if you're not I'm not, why would you do it again? If you're not

relaxed and like on your game you're going to screw it up and you're going to fail. So they have two different tests. And they actually have the same two doctors in there almost all the time. A third doctor is a lady that comes in if those two guys can't make it. But essentially there's two neurologists that oversee this process. To Freddy's point,

obviously Kurt's out on a medical waiver with concussion. He just missed his third race in a row. Now you've got to go Richmond, Watkins Glen. Watkins Glen would not be easy on a guy coming out of concussion. And certainly Daytona, a ton of risk there. So if I'm his doctor, I'm going to ride him out through the end of Daytona because obviously you want him to heal.

We also know these racecar drivers are not normal. There are guys, including my friend Casey Kane, that I do not think should still be racing and they're still racing. Should Dale Jr. still be racing? I don't know. He suffered a lot of concussions. He obviously is handpicking which race. he's going to, but I'm not going to lie to you when he gets in a car. I get nervous because we know

he's had a lot of concussions. He suffered a lot of issues. He missed races. But when I look at this from the overall health of Kurt Bush, which I can't speak to, is he going to come back and have a great playoff and want to do this next year and be able to do this next year, right? And if he is, then obviously the 45 cars is. Denny has made the comment. That car is as long as he wants it. but if he can't or he doesn't want to come back, because Kurt Busch, he's not a spring chicken. He's got some age on him. You know, he's up there in that Harvick era

where he's in his low 40s. So if he says, man, I'm done. You've got the great opportunity to move Kyle into Kurt's car and then transition Tyler Redick in the following year. So you do give Kyle that opportunity to do what he said he'd do. He'd take a one-year deal. He'd take less money, and it would bridge the gap and give him an opportunity to get his feet under him

because clearly we're in August. people. We're in August. So if you've got Chevrolet now entering the conversation to come after you, and you've got one Ford team that's talking to you, and Gibbs has essentially potentially stopped talking to you, you don't have a lot of options if you're Kyle Busch. And you're too damn good to not race a cup car next year. Yeah, I mean, you know, like obviously we've seen Denny go after, you know, he went out and got Kurt when he needed to get Kurt. He went out and got Reddick when he needed to get reddick. You know, if Kyle's available, I'm sure Denny's going to kick the tires on that at least and see, you know, if this is this what you want to do.

I will give you a damn one-year deal for the money you said you would be willing to take. And, and let's, you know, Danny's going to want to put the best available person in his car. It's not going to be just a stopgap to get the Reddick. It's going to be whoever he thinks is the best, whether it's Kurt, whether it's Kyle, whether it's somebody else, I don't know. But, you know, that he's not going to just, you know, let that team flounder for a year while waiting on Reddick. You know, whatever it's going to be, it's going to be the most competitive it can be. Kyle Bush is a stunt, and if you look at him statistically, and I've not done this, but in my mind, if you go back in, if you, yeah, Kyle's a stud period. I mean, he's one of best race car drivers to ever live. But if you look at his win percentage in my mind, he won a lot of races when he was running a lot of races. And I know that doesn't necessarily, you know, correlate with you people. Let me tell what that means. When he's running a truck and he's running an infinity car, he's running a cup car all in the same weekend, he hauls assing all three of them.

Now that he's not running those lower series all the time, it seems to me like his cut win percentage since he stopped running so frequently, it slowed way down. And to back that up, even when we cut back on practice, he slowed, you know, that, like, we had three hours of practice. Kyle was dominating. You know, we cut back to no practice in 2020. I think he went most of the year without a win.

You know, we didn't have, we had very limited practice this last year. So like just to back that point up of seat time itself, like even take him out of the truck and expect, but when we cut back on practice, he wasn't performing as well. What's Hirsch do? And maybe that low seat time for everybody is what's producing all these freaking winners. Because same thing for Kevin Harvick, his win percentage went down about that same time you're talking about. So anyway, that's just what I'm thinking on the Cowboys situation.

I don't think Denny can afford it after the insurance claim that he had to file. So the guy comes in here. He donates his time. Hey, look, Denny Hamlin's a busy man. He's a cup owner. He comes in here. And the first thing he has to tweet after doing our show is it was so dangerous to DBC, I had to file an insurance claim.

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so they know we sent you. Spot on, spot off. It goes like this. Spot on means you agree. I'm spot on. Are you joking me? He's lost his mind. Oh, and by the way,

no one ever seems to agree. And then spot off means you disagree. Spot off. Here we fucking go. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But if you're TJ, Um, uh, uh, there's only one correct answer. I don't know.

It's time for spot on, spot off. First topic, JJ Yaley's team decision to stay out after the competition caution where he got loose and caused a wreck and turned to on the restart. Spot on, spot off, TJ. Spot on, I mean, he's out there racing too. Got some spots out of that. Right. what do you think I mean what are you thinking here

honestly if you're his crew chief like a little point of you say man let's stay out right here we're only two seconds off surely if we get up there in the middle of the draft we'll be just fine who is his crew chief? I don't think it's I mean I know what you're saying but like JJ's been doing it for a while

and I mean I guess it's pretty early in the race and it's lap 20 yeah it's pretty early but with no tire where our stage point is going to help them guys No. But what I'm saying is, it's staying on, you know. They weren't even close to state.

They're behind stage points. I know, but I mean, what is your thought process on staying out and restarting around 15th? Averaging out 25th instead of 35th, I guess. You know what I mean? Just that's the thought process for it. If you're a crew chief, that's what I would. Some I can't add. I'm just saying you want to average out better than where you're running, right?

That's the thought behind. If you're in that car. You're looking for a net game. If that's your, that's your, that's your, you know, you're running before. Y'all are crazy. The only thing you're looking for is not get lapped. which is in that game, right? He's not going to get lap to 20 laps if he starts in the back.

I'm going to tell you how you don't finish the race. You restart 15 to get wrecked. Freddie, what do you think? I think this is just another award in the collection of what an idiot awards for Rick Ware racing. The decision makers over there just can help themselves, but to inject themselves into the middle of all these races. They essentially wrecked the best car on the racetrack Sunday, which was Kyle Bush.

I thought he was the best car all weekend. or one of the best cars all weekend because they inject themselves. Like Brett said, there's, there's, the risk versus reward is so skewed. The only thing that can happen if you start up there is you wreck. You want to,

we talk about B.J. McLeod on here all the time. Do you want to see how you run a race? Look at B.J. McLeod yesterday. He pit the second time by every yellow flag to limit any kind of danger on pit road. He pit, you know,

he started at the back. He was right there with the 15 on that restart. He could have stayed. out and started next to the 15 if he wanted to. But instead he came down pit road, didn't put himself in any kind of harm's way. I don't know where he finished. I think he was like 23rd or 24th place yesterday

because he just stayed out of the way all day long and didn't have any issues. But this team just could not help themselves by putting themselves in the middle of the story every week. I don't understand. Like you said, you know, what are you doing? I think they restarted like 14th or 15th on the bottom.

They were running about 14th or 15th. They restarted on the bottom. But it's like, like we picked off of them because we wanted to get away from them because you know something stupid's going to happen and the track it's like one thing to be if the tracks narrow like darlington or something and there's nowhere to go like you can kind of box people in and hold it off Michigan's so wide they're going around you three or four at a time like you don't there's no way you're holding anybody off there so it's just I don't understand it I'll never understand it and and they just continue

to do it and then they'll complain to me about about calling them out when they just do like this all the time I've got to figure it out well it is it. Freddy wants Denny, he uses Danny to pay the bills and BJ wants his bodyguard. I take BJ as my bodyguard. But I mean, he

finished the race yesterday without a scratch on his race car and probably 24th. JJ, JJ probably could have done the same thing except he's destroyed his race car along with four or five others. The hit that Austin Sindrick took in that wreck was massive and it gets caused by a guy that does not belong up there. I mean, what

how do you feel if there if something goes wrong they were lost in. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's incomprehensible why they would do something like that. Makes no sense. I agree. Contact between top contenders, Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain off turn four, puts Bell into the wall late in the race. Brett, spot on, spot off. Did you hear this, did you hear that scream when it happened of joy? No. What happened? Who screamed? Casey? Why she's scream? Joy. Joy. Joy? Casey, I'm actually spot off for this for a different reason. Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain were running first and second when they pitted.

They exited pit road. They actually swapped spots. Ross beat him off pit road. And they are a lot faster than the guys that are not on new tires. But you're catching the guy, Christopher Bell, who's running top three at the time on the lead lap. do I think Ross did anything wrong? No, not really, but the Freddie's point, this is a really wide race track. You've got your teammate with you behind you to draft and work together. You saw coming off a four that Christopher Bell was going to be very aggressive to try to maintain his spot on the racetrack.

He was blocking and he left, in my opinion, he made a huge error when he left that lane open on the top. I would have never advised my guy, nor if I were a race car driver. would I have thought it's a good idea to leave the top of the racetrack and break the draft on two lap cars. But I thought Christopher made a huge air pulling down. Obviously, when he pulled up, he squeezed Ross. Freddie and I were watching the replay together. And it almost looked like at the very end, Ross might have barely come down to catch his right rear. I don't know if that's true or not, but just based on the replay that Freddie and I were watching

on an 8 by 10 TV throughout binoculars underneath the scoreboard, that's kind of what we came to the conclusion of. But at the end of the day, man, Ross is really pressing the issue right here. And does he have to be? That's the question that probably is looming in the back of my mind. And Freddie and I had a conversation with Ty Norris before the race started outside of your suite, the Xfinity Suite. And we actually were talking about Ross's approach to racing. And it's, I got to get the next 10 feet in the next 10 seconds.

That's like Ross's mentality according to Ty. That's exactly what we saw right there. and if he'd have just been a little bit more patient, it might have had a completely different outcome. But I still think this wrecks on Bell. I think this wreck is Bell's fault all the way across the board. It completely screwed trackhouse, though, for the rest of the day. I think it's you have to look, and we've talked about this with Ross before,

it's situational awareness, and there was none right there. That was a terrible job on Ross's part. Whoever's fault the accident was, we've seen it, and we've seen guys do this before, and I think Ross did hang a left into his right rear because he thought he was going to get squeezed in the fence. And that's like, you're not wrecking me, I'm getting you, and I'm going to keep my car clean.

But the only thing that you can't have there if you're Ross Chastain is a caution flag because when you have a caution flag right there, your race is over. Yeah, you're going to be the lucky dog, but now you're starting at the tail with, you know, whatever it was, 35, 40 laps to go. You have just essentially ended your race.

You've definitely ended Daniel's race because now he's got to wave around. He's going to be even further back than you are. but you know it's you were one of the first guys to pit because they kind of had stayed out on that last caution so they had less fuel than everybody they had to come first but you essentially just by forcing the issue there with Christopher you've ended any shot you've had at winning that race where you come in you just came in the pits running second and now you just caught yourself any chance to win the race yeah i don't i was watching it as it happened and was shocked that it happened but

but with as close as the racing was, and if you had a run to break the plane of the bumper, to me, this wreck starts with, with Bell not getting a good run off the corner. You know what I mean? Like, something happened in the middle of three and four. I'm not sure what,

like, but Ross had a run on him. I don't know if he was off pit road or, um, or whatever it was, but Ross had good enough run to get there. And you know if the guy has a good enough run to get there. You have to pick your lane and make him go to the lane. don't want to be him. You can't do this.

Well, I'm going to block up here. Then I'm going to block down here. Now I'm going to block back up here again. And especially you got to look who it is. You know that if you do that. Most guys are probably going to do that. You can't back out of a spot like that because that's Justin Haley. If we're racing like that, he's going to take that spot. He's going to try to get up there. You can't, whatever he did to make him lose his momentum is the start of it. Second of all, you don't give it to preferred lane. If Ross dies at the bottom, that's fine. You can chase him down on the side draft. And when you get to try it, you get to turn one, you're in the preferred groove at that point because your car is, every group is a

preferred groove with your car. So, but it's really good when you pin them down to the bottom and, and sew them down in the middle. But you don't, you just can't give up the right side like that. And you know a guy like Ross not saying, I mean, Ross is still racing. I, is a race car driver. If we're racing and you leave that spot open, I'm going to take it. I'm going to try to drive up there. So you just don't leave it open. At that point in race, Christopher Bell had the fastest car on the racetrack. And it ended up right. I think the 11 was better than. But even though. The 11 was fast. But Christopher cleared a lot of cars in the center and a corner just drove by. He's fast. Yeah. But so. He was crazy fast. But let me ask you this. Are you saying that Ross Chastain got the

lucky dog right there? Well, no. I don't think he did. He was in position. He was in position. He was in position. He was in a position. He was in a position. He was in a position. He was in a make up on you before you pit is going to, you know, affect where you guys come out of the pit. So Bell's job there is a kind of pitted yet. No, no. Oh, that's why. So that's even worse, in my opinion.

You got a guy coming that's going to be faster than you. You said tires were faster, obviously, a little bit. Yeah. When you come out, why even put yourself in that situation? Well, you're putting, the thing is, I would have, I agree with you guys both. Just take the top because we're right behind them. Make him earn.

So, like, we're right behind, we were right behind Ross. So if Ross goes to the bottom, him, we're not going to help Ross. We're going to pull up to Christopher and push Christopher. You know, so just take the top away from him. If he goes down there and clears you, he goes down there and clears you, but you just ended your day, to Brett's point, you know, if he wasn't the best car, he was a top three car easily.

Yeah. You know, and you just ended your day. It's still winning that race. It's just, yeah, you just can't let guy. I've seen it a couple times where you just, people just more worried about the guy on the bottom. And we did it in the infinity race. Like Landon chased, I forget who it was, no or somebody to bottom, and left the whole top

over for Josh Barry to drive around us. And I was like, damn, you know, you guys. to protect that right here. Well, that's how I won a Xfinity race back there, back in the end of Brad. You had Kyle and Brian Vickers side drafting each other down about, and Brad comes off, turn four on the high side. We're going to turn one three wide. We're in the preferred lane.

Yeah. But like, you can't take the top, go to the bottom and then go back to the top, especially with a guy with tires, and especially the guy that drives the one car. Yeah. There's a lot of things mixed right there. Live to see another laugh. It was just bad situational awareness kind of all around for everything. I mean, I don't blame Ross is on tires.

He's got to go. Oh, yeah. And if you leave the door open, he needs, I would go through it too. If I'm on tires, you're going. You're going. No, no, you're going. So I really can't, I can't blame Ross for having the urgency to go because that's when you make up your time. That's your chance. But you make your own luck. You are slower. You're blocking a guy that's very aggressive. This is a recipe for disaster. We got one. And we got one. Fair. Joey Logano's move on the final restart to get P2, that Bubba Wall is

described as 22 earned another Ford contract. Freddie, spot on, spot off. Yeah, he wasn't talking about the movie made on the restart. He was talking about the fact that he held us up for 15, 20 laps. But Joey didn't do anything wrong. I mean, I would expect if we were leading like that and the Toyota was second, that the forwards were faster behind him, do everything you can to hold him up and let me get away. So, you know, Bob is not like, I don't think he's, I'm sure he's not happy with Joey, but it's not like Joey did anything wrong. The guy is probably now that Newman's gone, the hardest guy to pass in the store. sport. He's one of the best, if not the best guy to block you or arrow block you. He knows exactly

where to put his car to defend against you, even though you're better. I mean, and he was just, we were much better than him, probably 10 laps into a run, but he was just good enough for them first 10 laps to kind of hold us up and let Kevin get out three or four seconds. And I don't know, I don't know if it would have made a difference. We were definitely a little bit quicker than Kevin in clean air, but we have still been hard to pass him. But yeah, this was just frustration on Bubba's part by, you know, we were getting held up and it was clear. And once we got around and we drove away from him and Joey fell back. I don't know where he finished.

But yeah, it was just frustrating on Bubba's part, but I don't think Joey did anything wrong. Freddie Kraft took spotting to a whole new level on the spotter stand at Michigan International Speedway. I have never seen a guy take and give his all more than Freddie Crafted in the middle of the green flag run where Legano is throwing block after block after block. Freddie in his stealth mode self snuck down to Coleman Presley

who's spotting for Joy Lugano and he managed to reach around and cover his eyeballs so that Coleman couldn't see the race track. Freddie was doing everything he could to help his guy get by this fucking aggravating Joy Lugano and I'll be damn

if I don't see him blindfold Coleman Presley and it wasn't much longer we got by it. Do you see pick your chair for me? I'm not bull-hitting you. I did do that. He made it like this. Solid me.

Hey. I'm spot on because that's the, Joey didn't have the good car yesterday. It was, it got in long runs, it faded pretty bad. And they continuously did the pit deal right to put him in,

to give him track position to try to hold people off. And that's going to, he's doing, he's averaging out net gain. You know what I mean? Compared to where his car speed was, he was, I don't,

not even sure he was a top 10 car speedwise. But he was consistently into single digits because of his driving ability to keep people behind him. So spot on for, you know, being able to accomplish that there. That's what we race for. That's better than the move last week for sure. One, we need bonuses in our contract

if we block the other spotters vision. Two, and this is serious question two. I would have a pontoon bow. by now. Did you want a caution when Daniel Sauras cut his left front down? Yeah, absolutely. Did you guys all plan for that to happen? Like as far as a caution?

Yeah, we planned for Suarez to get a flat. Did you guys shot his tire in New York? Were you guys like planning on a caution happening at that point? I didn't think it was going to warrant a caution unless he threw a bunch of debris. I've seen him throw a caution for that before. Right. But I didn't know. And then, you know, I don't.

Yes, I would have loved to see a caution. Down out of the way. it would have been to catch 22 because I wanted to see a caution, but there was a missile coming behind me as well. Because you were trying to catch the 22, right? So, yeah. So, you know, I don't know how it would have played out. You know, the four, I thought we were better than the four, but I thought the 11 was better than us. So I'm not sure. But I would definitely have loved to take a shot at it versus just staying three or four seconds behind him for the whole last part of the run there. So Joey knows how to block without T. T.J. for the record. Yeah. Apparently. I mean, I've been telling you this for a long time.

But he probably still sucks, according to a lot of fans. So. Moving on another Bubba topic, Bubba Wallace finishes P2 and says, sorry I effing failed, y'all. Absolute effing failure on the radio. Freddie, I'm going to ask you this one again. Yeah, it's kind of like what I told him during the race when he said it. I told him shut up. That was a phenomenal weekend for him.

And I know, listen, Bubba's his own worst critic. He's this Bubba being Bubba and I've dealt with it forever. And it's frustrating on my end because I know how much he wants to. to win. But I tried to reiterate this to him on Saturday night where this is exactly what we needed to do. We had a very fast race car. We were the fastest in our group of practice. We sat on the pole

and we ran up front most of the race. You know, I think we fell back maybe as far as 12 one time, but then once we got tires back on it, he stayed in the top 10, up top 5, most of the race. We passed a bunch of cars, drove back to the front. What he's upset about is the choose at the end of the race. We talked about it. And I don't know,

you know, he thinks he should have done something differently. We talked about we were running second, Harvick got a lucky break with a caution flag falling while he was on pit road, I think, because somehow he pitted and didn't lose a lap and he was able to stay, maintain the lead. So when Danny got his penalty instead of us being the leader and controlling the race, we were behind Harvick and had to choose based on him. And our options were simple. Go to the bottom and race him, which we thought we could obviously beat him.

We were better than him all day. Or pick behind him and push him out to the lead. And now we're racing him heads up at the end. And the downside of taking the bottom is if you don't beat him in turn one, now you're probably going to end up behind somebody like Joey or Kyle. But at the same point, Kyle picked behind Kevin and he got ran up the hill in turn one. And he, I don't know where he finished, but he wasn't nowhere near us. So you don't know what's going to happen.

And Bubba, you know, Bubba, you know, Bubba, hindsight thinks he should have took the top. I don't know. I don't think they would have me, you know. You could line it up again right now the same way and it'd be completely different. Yeah. You can mix it up and it's, there's, who ultimately made that decision? Bubba. I told him, we talked about it and I said, here's your options.

here's the pros and cons of each one. I'm going to let you do it because I need him to believe whatever, you know, I don't want him to tell him I think you need to take the top. He takes the top and don't work out. You know, then he's hindsight because he listened to me instead of doing what is there or listen to the team. Like I want him to be fully confident of what he's doing and him pick and go after it. But, you know, I'm just happy that, you know, I know he's upset about not winning.

But, I mean, you look what he's done the last month. His average finish over the last month is 4.5. We've got four top tens in a row. three top fives in the last four races. I think he's finally showing his potential. We're finally showing the speed we've had all year without making mistakes and getting clean races. But I don't want to say I hate it when he gets like this because I know it's just how he is

and how it's, but it's hard to listen to when I'm so proud of him and he's like beating himself up. And I know all the fans, I got blown up with texts and tweets from fans that like, they're like, I don't understand. We're so proud of him. Why is he so upset? So hopefully he feels a little bit better about it today. I know he's bummed out yesterday, but it was a hell of a weekend.

I'm spot on for your assessment. I'm spot off for him acting like that. He's got to be a leader in that scenario. If you look at Bubba Wallace's stats, 171 cup starts. Only 10 top fives. Five of those came at plate tracks. He's had four top fives this year, which is more than he's ever had in his career. He's got 18 top tens total, six of which have come this year, more than he's ever had in his career top tens. He is building something. And when you look at your career as a race car driver, you don't just all of a sudden show up unless you're Ross Chastain and start kicking everybody's ass like Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvich, Joy Legano, all the guys that Martin Truex is in the world, to Denny Hamlins. I mean, he's in a difficult situation and he's made a lot out of it. I mean, dude, a year ago, I didn't know if he was going to make it with this race team. And now I look at it as, man, he is a staple in our sport. He is great for our sport.

But you've got to stay realistic in terms of what you think is going to happen. And I don't know why, me and you talked about this weekend. He was in a I got to win mode all weekend. And you and I talked about it. I was like, man, if it's Daytona, he is. But like here, he just needs to keep building. And these guys feel so much pressure. And I think that's what it is for Bubba.

He's getting out of the car and he's feeling so much pressure is being the only black guy in the race. He's feeling so much pressure as I got to win and get into this playoff. He's feeling so much pressure from his sponsors. He's feeling so much pressure to be in this car for a long time. because there's a hell of a lot of people in the sport in the Cup series and Xfinity series and truck series that would love to have Bubba Wallace's job. I just think he is succumbing to that pressure and he can't do that again. He's got to stop getting out of the car and crying and playing the victim.

Dude, I would have loved to have finished second yesterday. Yeah, I'm spot off for that as well. I mean, could you imagine if an interview with Brendan Gaughn if he finished second, how a static he would be and energetic and stuff. That's what I'd like to see from a guy because I thought Bubba drove a great race. Great race. I thought he didn't fail anybody.

He went out there and ran the race. Just because you sit on the pole doesn't mean you have to win the race. It doesn't even happen that often, honestly, to sit in the pole and win. So I think, you know, you went out there and did your job. You fought through. Yeah. I mean, you got put back in the pack. You race through a lot of things.

And you got back up there. had a shot at it. To me, that's you doing your job, and I thought he did a really good job. If he needs, I would like to see him get out and pump his guys up. You know, we had a great car. We're going to be really good at the next track, you know, and carried in the next week, man. Amendums hard to beat. You can't just go there and be like, hey, we're going to take some momentum this week. That's hard to get. Yeah. And he's got right now. There are some successful guys that are current cup car drivers that have been to sports psychiatrists. There are a lot of guys who have read leadership books. Like, I think he needs to live.

on some of those guys or some of those resources because you can't do that, man. You got to come out looking like a champion. I mean, obviously you're not a quote champion, but you just, man, when you restarted Freddie like 12th to 14th and you were buried back there, I was like, A, their pitch strategy looks like it sucks. And B, I don't think he can drive back up through here.

And I'll be, damn, you drove right back up through there. Like, it wasn't no time and you were up through there. Obviously, the caution came out, which changed some things, gave you an opportunity to get the win against Harvick and Ligano held you up. but like your car, he probably drove the best race he's ever driven in his life. He's also racing around your racing. He's racing with great drivers too. And he's right in the mix of all that.

So I don't think he has anything that hanging his head about, man. He's doing great. No, I mean, you look at that restart. We're raising Harvick, who, I mean, they call the guy the closer for a reason. He's, you know, that's his demo for his whole career is how to finish our races. You're between Lugano and Kyle Larson on the last restart and one, raising your ass off. It's just, you know, I know it. And like we talk about the playoffs.

and trying to get in and Bubba's in a contract negotiation deal right now. And it's like I almost, I don't know, I shouldn't say this, but like I don't give a shit about the playoffs. I just want to continue to build. Yeah. Like I don't know that we can go win a championship. So if I can't win a championship, I don't know that I give a shit about being in the playoffs.

But we can continue to build off this. And if you just continue to put yourself in, we talk about us all the time. If you put yourself in position to win enough, you're going to win races. We've been in the top five now. Obviously, the road course was kind of just a survival deal. But, you know, Loudon, we finished third.

this week was second. If you just continue to put yourself in position, things will fall your way one of these times. And we're literally, we are one, like the timing, we're half a lap or maybe three quarters of a lap from winning that race yesterday.

Because if Harvard gets lapped, we come out with the lead, we restart at the top, we check out, we're gone. You know what I mean? And I don't think anybody's catchments. You're one restart going just a little bit differently

from being in the league. So there's, like you said, there's nothing to hang your head about. It's, you know, and to Brett's point, it is,

it is frustrating when, like, you know, you kind of, you work your ass off all day with him and then at the end of the race he's, you know, bummed out on the radio and it's like, man, we just had a hell. You know how hard.

We just had our best weekend ever and I get it. I know how he feels. But like Brett said, there is the world of pressure on him. But it's just like everything has to fall your way perfectly to win these races. Just like what happened with the four. He caught a lucky caution at the right time to get him to lead and he capitalized on it. Like if that caution falls a little bit differently, like I said, a lap later, Bubba wins that race yesterday.

You never know. It might next week. So you got to keep going. So just keep digging, put yourself in position, and we'll be fine. Speaking of pressure, this next topic. Oh, yeah, understatement there. The playoff cutoff line is now at P2 in the point standings with Ryan Blaney, while P4 Martin Trix Jr. is out of the playoffs with three regular season races remaining.

Spot on, spot off, Brett. I'm spot on for the drama. You know, like you look at this format, which we call it win and your end. Hey, that may not be the case. You might win and be out. It might be. The way this is playing out, right? If we see two more winners in the next three races, which is likely, I hate to say it's likely, but it's likely.

We've got three wildcard races coming up, two wildcard races with Watkins Glen in Daytona. But man, Richmond is a really good racetrack for Martin Truex. Here's going to be the thing that plays out. Here's going to be the interesting thing. Ryan Blaney is sitting there with a target on his back. Obviously, he wants to go out and win the race. but he also needs to stay ahead of Martin Truex Jr. and there's not that many points between them.

So when you look at that gap and that stage is getting ready to end and you're Ryan Blaney's crew chief and you want to call the race to win it, you got to have in the back of your mind that you've got to beat Martin Truex in points. And then you also got to hope that somebody else doesn't win it. So it's really going to come down to a hell of a lot of drama. You know, people are like, man, this ain't right, Ryan Blaney. Ryan Blaney is second in the point standings. He is 16th as of right now in the playoff standings.

Holy cow. But that's what this created. People are like, oh, well, you can't lose. You know, if he's second points, he deserves to get in the playoff. No, that's not the rules to which we all signed up for when we agreed to go race full-time in the Cup series this year. That ain't what the crew chiefs agreed to. That ain't what the drivers agreed to. It ain't what the spotters agreed to.

It's not even what the sponsors agreed to. You know the rules. You know what it takes to get in. do not change these rules and let a guy in that doesn't belong to being. I personally think Truex is in a little bit

of a better position than Ryan Blaney is. Why? Because he can call his race based on what Blaney does. Now, if he's ahead of Blaney on the racetrack, it changes a little bit. But if I'm Martin Truex,

I'm calling this race to win it. If I'm Ryan Blaney, I got to keep in the back of my mind how many points Martin Truex is behind me. Yeah. I think the 19s had more speed than the 12 lately, but the 12 has done a better

job at managing their races. And, and like I've seen two or three races where Martin was outrunning him by 10 spots all day long and Blaney ended up finishing in front of them. You know, there was a couple where we, I think it was Nashville when they pit late. Yeah. Right now it's 19 points. 19 points is the gap. And this is kind of multi-sided because not only you're obviously battling to get into

playoffs, right, but you're also battling for second in points. And second in points is 10 playoff points. So these guys, like you talked about Blaney being. and 15th or 16th in points right now. Whoever gets that second place is going to vault up into the top five in that playoff grid. So you're going to, you're essentially going from Truex who's out. I think he's got seven playoff points right now.

Blaney's got five. Once they get added 10 plus whatever they get here in the next couple of weeks, they're going to vault up. I think the guys in third and fourth right now have like 12 points. You know, they're going to vault up ahead of them or right around them in points. You're talking about going from 17th or 16th or out to back into the top five on the grid. But I'm telling you right now, Now, this Daytona race, like you said, I think, you know, I personally think Truex can easily win this week.

We've seen him be really good at Richmond before. Obviously, the Toyota's got really good speed right now. So this could be a race where, you know, you might see that 16th winner. But, you know, it's just that Daytona race is going to be wild. And going back to Bubba, like, you know, the run we've had here the last month, he's put himself in a position now. Like, two months ago, if we want a race, it almost didn't matter. Because we were so far behind all the guys in points that we were going to be the last guy in

and a win wasn't really going to do nothing for us. This run has put him in the position where now we're ahead of Kurt, we're right behind some of the other guys, and now if we win, we're in. Even if there's 17 winners, we win, we'll be in.

So, you know, just how much the points matter. People say this time, you know, points don't really matter and the stage points don't matter for some of these guys, but every point counts at all times. And if we go to Daytona and these guys are 10, 15 points apart,

Truex and Blaney without a win, what a wild race that's going to be. I really honestly think it's going to get down to that. I mean, Martin's got a good shot this weekend, but winning's hard. Winning's super hard. And things have to go your way the whole race, really, to get these wins. And I could see Martin making up some ground on Blaney. I don't think Richmond's Blaney's strong suit by any means.

But an average day for Blaney would only let Shuex gain about half them points back in a race here. You know, maybe. because I don't, I think Blaney would run a smart race and he'll probably get a few stage points here and there which will make it harder for Martin to chip away at it. But I think Mark can cut it in half, but when we get to Daytona, I could really see

if we don't have a new winner, where do we go after this? Walkins one. Who knows there? I mean, yeah, who knows? But I really think we could be going to Daytona with a two or three point difference between those two guys. Could you imagine we go to Daytona, right? And these guys are separated by like two

or three points, whatever you want to call it. and they have to race their asses off the whole time and they're stage point racing and then they spend their entire race doing that and then Bubba or Corey or somebody wins that race and it's all for not. Like you just, you just, I mean, it's, you know,

that race in Daytona is going to be, especially if we go there without anybody else winning, you know, we're sitting at 15 winners and them two are in a tight point race. You're looking at so many different scenarios of who, and Ross is right in there too of the point race battling for second.

But, you know, you're looking at so much. many different scenarios of a new winner knocks both of them out then now the two of them are racing each other for a three or four point gap and any i mean you could be 10 points ahead of the guy coming to the white and then end up you know it could be a 10 point swing you tell me there's a chance yeah i mean it's gonna be nuts that day i'm talking for us you tell me there's a chance yeah somehow some way you got a chance so if we go to detona and there's still no new winners and we win detona you're in wouldn't that be ridiculously crazy yeah i mean it's it's not i mean it's

Listen, this is, whoever decided that this needed to be the cutoff race should get a raise because they're a genius. I think we talked about it many times. So the ship, the mailing address, what is the 349? I just think that the drama here is building up to something like we've never seen before. And I remember Jeremy Mayfield being in a must-win situation in the first year of the chase for the Sprint Cup. It was either 03 or 04. and he's going into Richmond with a must-win situation, and he goes out and wins the race.

And I'm not lying to y'all when I tell you this. It was hard then. It's even harder now because of the way the stages are and because of the way the cars are and because of how good these drivers are and because you're not practicing much, you're not getting to test. It's harder to win right now

than it's ever freaking been in the Cup Series. And it's showing up. Yeah, and a lot of it, honestly, it's probably, I know it was some car back, then too, but with all the horsepower and you could... There were ways to be faster. Yeah, you could, there was definitely more tools in the toolbox to use than there is now. Yeah.

Is there, so with it really being, except if we were to get another first time winner, with it being like a Ford versus Toyota with Ryan and Martin, are there team orders or manufacturer orders when it comes to somebody like a Bubba leading into these races where he could win to? No, I don't think so. because Bubba, you know, it might be team order maybe more on so on the side of Danny or Kyle that are already locked in

that could help maybe. You know, talking about a place like Daytona really because there's nowhere else where you're going to be able to help. You know, so maybe them guys can commit. We saw Denny, I think it was last year at Talladega. He committed to the back of the 20 car all day long. He was trying to push him to a win to advance him in the playoffs. And you could see that at Daytona,

these guys, if Martin needs a win, these guys could rally behind them and do all they can to keep him in front of them and push him and maximize his day. But yeah, like somebody like Bubba, there's not going to be many team orders because Bubba needs to win himself. Bubba is trying to knock Martin out of the playoffs, essentially.

So yeah, on our side, there wouldn't be any team orders, but I could definitely see that from the Cindric and Joey helping Ryan to all the JGR guys trying to help Martin. But here's the thing, man. Denny Hamlin is a modern day, Dale Earnhardt. He's the only guy in the field that is driving his car for a team on. and who also has other entries in the race that he owns. Obviously, you're talking ownership-wise,

because he was way too nice to Ross and Pocono to be Dell Senior. I don't mean Del. I don't mean. Let me replace that. The situation. 2311 is the modern-day DEI. Let me rephrase that in that sense. And if you go back and you watch in the blink of an eye,

Michael Waltrip's documentary, he talks about Del Senior sitting down with Dell Jr. And himself, Michael. and the three of them agreeing to work together at these plate races. And then we saw what DEI's success was over the years with Michael and Dell Jr. working together. Like, I think Denny is in a situation. And I think Denny's smart enough to know this.

When he gets to Daytona, who needs a win more? Him or Bubba Wallace? I mean, we? I think it's Bobba Wallace. And I think he's smart enough to know that that if it comes down to three laps to go, two laps to go, one lap to go, and you're in a position to go for the win

or help your driver get the win, man, I think he's smart enough to know he's got to push Bobba Wallace to the win. What if Martin's up there too? If I'm Danny Hamlin, I know who I'm pushing. And you talk about like, you know, team orders, team orders notwithstanding. If you're Denny Hamlin,

do you want Martin Truex in the playoffs? No. You don't know what I mean? Or anybody. Because I'd rather race against Bubba. No offense to Bubba, no offense to you guys, but I would rather race against Bubba for a championship

and think I can beat him then I would Martin Truex Jr. Yeah. And Bubba, I will tell you this, man. Bubba knows how to be around these plate races too. 100%. Daytona is getting more interesting by the week. He's gotten really good.

Freddy's gotten really good at calling those races. You've won truck race and cup race and plate racing. Should have won an Xenity race. Should have a guy wrecked me? I mean, there's an aster. A million percent. There's an asterisked on the cup win. You had to get that rain.

You got the money. You got the money. You got the points. I blocked your ass. That's all the matters. I literally look at it. I didn't handle 2311 as a modern-day D.I. Nobody else is doing it.

He is. He's doing it well. TJ, this one is for you. Brad Kislauski says the sport needs more penalties and that NASCAR needs to be handing them out like candy right now to get control of the garage. Spot on, spot off. Jay's just throw that wherever you want. Okay, thanks.

I think these comments come from the rogue core stuff because of... I think these come from the road course deal because of the turn one moves and nobody really have any respect for each other when you get there and it's just being hit or be hit. And I don't think that's a waiter. I do think there were some moves

that they were made knowing they were going to cause wrecks. And like if you go all the way to the bottom, you cross that white line that's the pit exit line. Enjoy the guy. You're not making the corner. You still, you hop the curb,

but you know you're going to force a wreck. I mean, the odds of a wreck happening. I just think it stops, it would stop stuff like that. I mean, not, you know, I do think, I don't think Bubba went down there

to do that earlier in a race. Bubble went down there just because he was going to hit and he was trying not to wreck. But there's a difference between, I mean, I don't know, I just think he just missed the corner. But another guy went down there purposely to

here you guys go. I'm here. You guys wreck out there while you get some spots. I'm spot off if that's the case. I'm spot on if there are people that have an advantage in arrow or engine or mechanical or whatever, and technically they're cheating. I think you should be handing penalties out like candy.

I think the garage can police itself a little bit. When's somebody going to wreck Joy Lugano for what he did at Indy? When somebody going to wreck Ross Chastain for what he's done multiple times this year? When somebody going to rent, when somebody got to pay somebody back? If you police it yourselves, you can stop some of that. So maybe Brad needs to start wrecking people. I think Brad was talking more to the tech side. of things.

You know, and I don't think he really... Oh, yeah. I guess I was after indie, but yeah, you're probably right on that too. But it's, and I mean, it's both ways. I mean, like Brett said, the garage completes itself both ways, really. But, you know, I'm spot on if he's talking about more about tech because, listen, we've said on here a thousand times. If you give these guys an inch, they're going to take a mile.

And we've already seen it. You know, guys are getting caught with, you know, who knows what. You know, the only one that's been really transparent about it has been JGR about what was on there. and it was a little piece of tape made a difference in the speed of the car. So these teams are finding ways to do this. So now if you drop the hammer on them now, you know, we talk about this on here before that the cream's always going to rise to the top. And the reason why the cream rises to the top is because they've got the money.

They've got the money to develop parts that are going to help. Or they got the money to research and develop stuff that makes a small difference. But when the cars are so close together, a small difference is a huge gain on the racetrack. So, you know, we already see these teams finding these gray areas to work in. So if you let it continue down that path, the gap's only going to get bigger. And the difference in these teams is only going to get bigger. And these teams are the teams with money are going to start outperforming the lower budget teams. I can't stand when somebody says, well, just a piece of tape.

Well, it was still put in a certain spot to gain an advantage. Doesn't matter if it's tape. 1989, upper deck football card. It doesn't matter what it is. It's if it's in a certain spot. It was on there for a reason. I think this guy, let's set the context here. He's got salty balls right now.

He's mad. He's 29th in points. His teammate, Chris Busher, he's part owner in this team, by the way. He's 22nd end points. They're not setting the world on fire and they got busted with a massive penalty to start the season. He's still mad about it. And he obviously thinks if he's speaking to the technical side, which is the way I took this, he obviously thinks some people are still doing some things they shouldn't be doing

and they're getting away with it. It's kind of what I take out of this quote. I think you, when you word things a certain way, will you manipulate a certain body piece or whatever that you're not allowed to do? You set the tone for that in the beginning of the year. Now it's a different penalty later on. I think that's, I realized to me, they were setting the tone.

Don't mess with stuff. Well, people did. And there's a totally different penalty for it. Just my side of it. So you think that Denny and Kyle Busch's penalty should have been the exact same as Brett Keslaowski's penalty? I mean, depending on if does it like does it matter if it's a piece of tape or another body piece that you put on there

does it matter does it really matter what you do that's what i think it does i don't think it matters if you're manipulating if you're manipulating then what's the next level two pieces of tape yeah i think i think if you're i think if you're i think there should be a difference if if if you put a piece of tape on the nose versus if somebody you know uh i don't know uh he's heats and bends a piece of your car or cuts, you know, cuts the tail and kind of shrinks it a little bit. Like, there should be different levels of penalties, I think. But if they're both trying to impact the, but how their car is, wouldn't it be kind of the same? So you're saying a car that ran in the 20s at Atlanta and didn't, you know, fixing a piece that was repaired gets a higher

penalty. But what happens? So if they let that go, if they let that go or the penalty is not as severe. Who's the next guy going to go, yeah, well, I was just trying to fix my spoiler. That's why I shaved an inch off of it. You know, like, I just think you set the bar. If you mess with it, you get the penalty. This is where it's going to be. Everybody's getting a penalty. Danny got a, essentially a 50 to 60 point penalty. I don't remember how many points he earned in that race. He got a $300,000 fine for the money he lost from going first and second. So, and he lost the playoff points. He lost five playoff points. And the guy, his one of his biggest rivals, gained five. So that's a 10 point swing. You know, there wasn't like they got off the hook

Scott free. And I think that there is different levels of penalties for the teams. Right. Are you team for the team for the team to gym? The bad part of his he still celebrated here. You know what I mean? He's still celebrated. Took the trophy home.

Took all the victory lane pitchers. Got all the hats. Took everything home. So, but to me it's tire on, tire off. Black and white. You manipulate something?

I mean, and they got penalized for it. And I just think that there should be different levels of penalties. Like if you, if you, you know, if you, there's just different levels. You know, you can push the bar a little bit. It shouldn't be the same penalty for a piece of tape if you damn cut your damn quarter panel

on half and then make it smaller. It's just hard to decide where the levels are. And that's why that's their job. Here's what I don't understand in any of these scenarios, Casey, to your question. And this is where it gets really tricky. If you think you might be cheating, why wouldn't you submit what you're doing to NASCAR and say, is this okay? Now, clearly you're going to try to work to get an advantage in different areas of the car.

We've been doing that as what makes NASCAR great. It's what I like the least about our sport right now from a pioneering standpoint is the box has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. But if you're truly worried about what you're doing at Rouse Fenway, Kazlowski Racing, or what you're doing at Joe Gibbs Racing, and you think in the tech process, they're going to raise an eyebrow to it. Why wouldn't you ask somebody and say, hey, is this going to be okay? Well, because then if you ask, then it calls attention to it, and they will make sure it's not okay because then they'll have other teams do it. And it won't give them the advantage. And Denny Hamlin keeps his win without that piece of tape on, which you can't convince me that two counts of downforce is why Denny Hamlin won that race.

It was four, but I mean. Was it four? That's right. I heard three to four. Holy shit. Let me ask you a question about both he is. Do you think there was one 100% legal car in the field yesterday? I think mine was

Mine too You're both wrong I mean we see yesterday Did you see where I ran I think I was pretty legal We see yesterday I mean I was giving I seen Kevin Belacourt on Friday Or Saturday before practice

And the 77 failed tech for something You know like the 77 I'm like what are you doing You know what I mean But there's not a car in that field That is 100% legal And if there is that guy's not doing his job right I think it's heavily policed

they do the best job they can do. And that's cars pretty thin on people these days, man. Yeah. You know, you used to look at them and there was one official per car on pit road. Now there's like one per six or seven cars. I think they've gotten pretty good with the whole tech process. It flows pretty good now. And I mean, it actually, I think they do a good job with getting everything through.

You don't have as many. Remember, like a couple years ago we used to have cars, not even through tech. Practice was starting things like that. So. Only thing you're ever going to hear me really complain about from a tech. perspective and a rule perspective is if we start changing what that box looks like mid-season. Like, listen, if you got something going on in the beginning of the year, I get it. You got it.

You got to correct it. But if we've run the amount of race, we got 13 races left, don't come in here now with a freaking rule change. And I'm not saying that's going to happen. I'm just saying when it happens in post-middle of the year, that drives me bananas. But if you are NASCAR, and like Freddie said, no team is following the rules to with T. So they're going to find ways that teams are finding the advantage and they're going to make changes because they have to. I mean, this is a long season. They're not going to just start

something at the beginning of the year unless you're talking about on track, such as an indie. I feel like that's a different story. But I don't think that they're going to be able to figure out exactly what teams are doing at the beginning of the year. If it's something really blatant, they do, they fix it. I think they do a good job. I mean, we went to Daytona for the 500 and what did all the cars look like. Remember they, remember the left, they were skewed like, yeah. And then. Oh, for the tests, yeah. Yeah, well, we know.

It went back for the race. Remember it was worse of the race? And then they fixed it like, now. This is not. You guys aren't doing this, yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I think they do a good job of, I don't, I mean, they've been pretty, they've stayed on course this year, I think. It was like, I think you've seen

last week, was it last week, whatever week it was, I guess it was Pocono. You know, they hammered, they hammered the 43 and the 42. They found something there. Like it was like they, they were sending a message that week. Like, listen, we're going to go through and we're going to find stuff and they hammered them. They hammered the 34 that same week. They got Danny and Kyle and DeVictory Lane, or in tech, I should say.

And then they got the 42 and the 43 that one week. You know, so that was, you know, that's kind of the NASCAR's way of sending a message like, hey, we know what the hell you guys are doing. I think they do a good job. But like when they do that stuff, it's kind of like you get, they get your attention. It's also a new car. So they're still figuring it out just like. you guys are.

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shop RacingUSA.com, where you're always somebody special. Engine Engine, number nine, I'll tell you, if they don't hurry up and pick this track, I'm going to run out of beer and cigarettes. Okay, so TJ, look at the f*** date all the time. I'll only tell you this fucking date. Hey, Freddy, just letting you know we got the beige GMC out in the parking lot in case you want to have Bubba come out and hit us, like you said everything out on the track. So, hey now, Jason, got a message for you. Get out of Dillner's ass. Reaction theater starts now.

All right, NASCAR, so you're trying to grow the sport. Well, the worst way to do it is have your TV network set there and have a little bit of it over here on the NBC sports app, a little bit over here on Peacock, a little bit over here on the USA network, and a little bit over here sprinkled on NBC. It's crazy that you have to watch practice on the NBC sports streaming app, qualifying on the Peacock app, countdown to green on USA, and then the race on NBC. This is getting ridiculous. You can't gain new fans like that. Does that really happen? Do we have you? No, that's an extreme example. But this weekend, it was going to say, it's so hard to find where stuff is. I've seen a lot of complaints about practice and qualify. being on different like NBC sports versus Peacock and I think it's better than not having it on at all like

they do sometimes yeah I don't think Xfinity qualifying was on I seen some complaints about that but I mean I don't why wouldn't everything just be on peacock I don't understand that I thought it was going to be but it hasn't been because I don't have any NBC sports login so I have to rely on Ben's peacock account to watch anything and so this weekend it was no any car is all peacock which is nice it's been great there becomes a point in other sports where owners have buried their teams so far in that their fans begged them to sell so they can restructure and rebuild. I know where this is going to improve. Rick Ware, this is your call to action, buddy, because if you're going to keep putting

moving barriers in the middle of the pack causing dangerous wrecks like you did today, you need to get the hell out of NASCAR as quickly as possible. Thank God, Cendrick got out of that car. I mean, it didn't even look like they told JJ the green had dropped. He was going that slow. I mean, you even have Steve LaTart. calling y'all's asses out on the air saying y'all just need to stay in the back of the pet

because that is where you belong it's hard to argue that I mean and I think that they're I think they take a step in the right direction next year I just read some articles this week where you hear Cole Custer's name maybe potentially going over there which you think if that would happen

it would be a little bit better alliance with RCR maybe cutting back to SSR maybe cutting back to one car maybe they sell a charter cut back to one car and kind of focus on just getting a little bit better, please. Seabell might have pinched him. Ross might have thought he was closer to the

wall than he actually was and came a little to the left. It doesn't really matter. The point is this. If team never lift, fucking lifts, he might still have a chance to win the race. Team never lift. I like that. The Ross Chastain, don't give a fuck to her. I'm not lifting.

If I'm got tires, I'm passing you. This is my, I'm, this is my advantage. Yeah, but you still can't. If you have to lift, if you don't lift, you, you you have no chance at winning the race. If you wrecked that guy there. Why is that guy blocking multiple times? It doesn't matter.

It does not matter. I turn left. I turn left next time. Does not. If Ross causes a caution there, his race is over. Over. You have to lift. I know you don't want to lift.

I'm not lifting. You have to lift. Okay, then you lose. Okay. You throw away your chance. Why are you not lifting? Because I've got more wins than that guy anyway. Why are you not lifting?

Because you want to get to the front and win the race. Well, you're not lifting for that. But now you, by not lifting, you've thrown. on any chance you have the winning move out of the window. Chris Rebell's not going to block three times in the same corner next time. Maybe he will. But I told you what, you know what it didn't happen? Ross had no chance to win the race after that yesterday.

I really don't think that, like, he's going. I'm not lifting either though. If I've got tires, that's fine. I mean, that's... It's stupid is what it is. It's stupid on the guy's part that's slower and in the way. No, it's not. He's supposed to hold you up.

That's his job right there is to hold you up. What's the common rule blocking? You block once, right? You block twice? I don't know there was a rule. Well, you've said it before. You said how many times, if you block once, great. When you go to, how does the guy get wrecked?

I just, I want to see a full-blown slow-mo replay as thing because there's a hell of a lot more room to the left than there is to the right. There's a wall on the right. There's four lanes in an apron out on the left. Yeah, so when a guy's on the outside of you, you might want to use room on the left and not the room on the right. I put this wreck on bail. I really do.

There's just no reason for either one of them. There's no reason for either one of them. The guys got tires. You make it as hard as you can by running the preferred lanes. This is literally what we talk about sometimes, two guys going for the same spot. This is a racing deal. I'm here for it. I mean, look, the majority of people think that was Christopher Bell's fault.

But, I mean, Ross had more to lose right there. A lot more. Congratulations to Kevin Arvig. Finally got the monkey off his back. I'm happy for him. But boy, I got to tell you, y'all want to give Ross a bunch of jazz. What about this 22 car? We're going to go 6' wide at the Indy Road course and wreck half the field.

We're going to dump William Byron when. there was no reason to. We're going to drive in our heads here at Michigan and run right at the side of Carl Larson on the last restart. We're going to block the hell out of the 23. I mean, when are you all going to get on him? I mean, Mother Fri's hit everything,

but the flag ban a couple times this year. We got on him last week. I think we've been on him a little bit. We called him a idiot last week, and I don't think he did anything wrong. TJ called him an idiot too. He didn't do anything wrong by blocking us. And, you know,

he didn't run into Larson. He ran us into Larson. He got lute. but he didn't run into us. He just got loose underneath us and ran us up into Larson. But that's just going for it. I don't think it's dirty by any means. Last week was dirty.

What he did at the road course was ridiculous. But this week, I didn't see anything he did it wrong. I ain't going to work tomorrow because it's been 686 days. It's a number four found victory lane. I'm getting drunk as hell. I'd even go to jail. But I don't give a fuck because I'm heading for, I'm heading for the mounds of bush

And I don't mean my wife Oh my gosh I don't need him to say All right So I saw slow motion And I still think Bell needs to The guy's coming with tires

You put him in a hard spot Okay he's gotcha But there is A little turn Oh, Ross definitely turns down on him But, I mean, Bell's coming up regardless, I think. Right here. Right there.

Bell wasn't coming up right there. And Ross had a foot and a half to the wall. And Ross turned him. The little yank to the left. Right there, he turned him. Without a doubt, he turned him. Oh, 100%. And it's just, I mean, it's just, ah, whatever.

We've cut that out of it. It's a racing deal. You too can leave an audio message for us 24-7. Just go to anchor. M slash door buber clear. You will see the message icon. And we'll just keep playing the best ones each week. I think Denny liked that song last week.

He did. It was funny. I saw him walking that dog after the Xfinney race on Saturday. And he had his phone up to his ear and I heard that song playing. Motivation. He's going to win the championship now. Yeah. Is that song?

Modern A. Mark Martin. What's up, Dirty Mo Media fans? This is Indy Car Driver Connor Daly. and comedian Joey Mulanaro. And we're Speed Street, Dirty Mo Media's newest podcast. We dive into the latest happenings in IndyCar, NASCAR, and F1 every week, as well as life on and off the track. Speed Street is available now on all major podcasting platforms. And make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Speed StreetPod.

It is time for the AskDBC Offerpad question of the week. Don't forget to send in your questions on Twitter each week using hashtag, AskDBC and we will keep playing the best or keep answering the best ones. This first one is from JMA 89. Do you think NASCAR needs to update the charter system? Like Rick Ware Racing using a charter to run last every week. If you could change a system, what would you change? Freddie.

I don't think you need to change a system. I think you need to enforce the system. I think there should be a relegation process. they have a rule in place where if you're the last charter or the last points team for three years in a row, whatever it is, they had the right to revoke your charter. And I think that that's what should happen. Listen, Rick Ware is not doing anything wrong.

You know, he's doing the best he can. And unfortunately, they need to be a little bit better. But they've taken a better, a bigger step forward this year than years past. They're still not the best cars on a race track, but they're not like completely in the way. I think they had been in years past. But listen, if you're going to be the slowest car,

two or three years in a row, you should lose your charter. And it should go to, you've got guys, Danny, you've got Dale, you've got Matt Collig probably wants more. Justin Marks might want another one. I saw some new team starting. Yeah, I've seen something about a 30 German team or something like that. Yeah. where we say publicly that this charter system has been extended because if you're looking for

more owners to come in and you're looking for more manufacturers to come in and you're limited. We apparently have. And you're limited to 36 charters that you don't know two years from now what that model looks like. That's a bad thing. And I don't care what they tell you behind closed doors until there's a public announcement. I'm not buying it. We need for the long-term growth of the sport, we need to know what that charter system plan is.

Why would TJ Majors go pay $12 million for a charter? And the very next year they changed the model. And you waste your investment. So I want to see that happen. The second thing I want to see happen is I want to see us go back to running 43 car fields. It's very obvious that we can run. We're going to have to run 36 every single week. Expand that charter system to 40.

Figure out how you model that so that when you sell those four new charters that are available to the guys you just mentioned, Freddie, what do you do with that money? How do you divide that money amongst the other teams that have charters? And I don't mean, no offense, the BJ McLeod's of the world, I don't mean the Rick where's the world. They don't deserve new money that comes in as a result of a new charter being created. But Joe Gibbs Racing, Rick Hendrick, all those guys that are running up front, they do deserve some money.

So I would love to see us have a 40-car chartered field with three open cars. I don't know why, but just a nostalgic feel of it. If we're going back to 43 cars, I love because that's what I remember in NASCAR growing up. It's what I still love. but that's the two things I would change about the charge system if you put me in charge today. Yeah, you have to have open cars because of, like you said, Austin Hill get a start yesterday. If there's no open cars in the field, then that doesn't happen. So you need to have some spots open for open cars.

Hey, I agree. I'd like to see the field extend a little bit more, said it being at 38. I would definitely like to see it go back to what it was. And it'd be cool to see some guys have to, hey, these two need to qualify in. I mean, I always kind of thought that was who's going to go out there and lay down a lap? what I mean. I thought that was, I do miss that part of it. But like you said, you can't just, you can't just change the deal. And next year, guy pay X amount of dollars this year and this guy next year gets it for nothing. You know, there's, does that guy get a refund? Is there a return

policy? But I mean, I like the charter how it's working right now, but I just think ready, like, you do need to enforce some things and put pressure on people to perform. You're just going to have better races. Your ownership in NASCAR was worth pennies on the dollar for so many years. I mean, you were literally only worth the parts that were in your building because typically you didn't own your building, you're releasing the building, you know, your people or your people, they can leave go wherever they want. You didn't have anything of any value. That charter system that the RTA put in place, it changed all that. And it also gives the owners a bigger seat at the table. I think they used to have to bow down to whatever NASCAR said. I think now they're in a

position where they can kind of bow out their chest and fight some of these big issues that they need to fight. Yeah, I think the days of sending people home is over. The difference between the charter system and the open cars is too big. The only ones you ever see nowadays is a one-off like Austin Hill yesterday or that 27 and 26 show up once in a while. You know, unfortunately, I just don't, I think the gap is too big there where it's not really financially feasible to run an open car. But, you know, I agree. Like, I think there's a, I think there's a gap. I just don't, I think there's There's ways to just do it without having to expand it. Like, I don't think you need to expand it to get them guys in.

There's ways to take these charters away from teams that aren't performing. And, you know, whether you auction it off, however you can do it, like, let's just get the, instead of expanding and just leaving these three or four cars out there that don't belong on the racetrack, let's just get the best 36 teams we can get and move forward with that. This next one is from Jack W. Bradley. I heard the 23 team using McDonald's items as. code words for pit stops. How often are those changed and are they always sponsored oriented?

Obviously, I guess they were listening on the radio. Is this the first year? You guys, last year your first year you used co-words or this year? We've always had them. We never really had to use them. Yesterday we used them because we were going to be in position. We thought all day to capitalize on some stuff. So we really didn't use them much, honestly, after the first couple stops.

I've been, we've had code words since. I've had to use code words since 2018. Yeah, and you have to change them every week because obviously I was giving booty. Here's how little we used the code words. So we were running up front of what I think we were leading at the first stage there. And we had, obviously you have two left sides, right sides, fuel only, stay out or four tires, or your five basic, you know, strategies. And we had two code words for each one because you have to, if I say we're going to do Big Mac and we come in and do right sides,

well, you know the next time I say Big Mac, we're doing right sides. So we have two code words for each strategy. And I forget what the hell we were going to be ready to do. But Pouty's like, all right, cheeseburger and chicken nuggets. And I'm like, well, Fibouti, that's both codes. I was like, J.R., tell them to stop using both the codes. At the same time, now you don't have one in your pocket. Can we say no tomato?

Because that's what I, that'd be my code. No tomato. There was one time we were doing filet of fish. I didn't want to say it because that damn filet a fish, I don't, I don't, I ordered no tomatoes Saturday and I got a big ass tomato. You did get a big tomato. That's the worst thing ever. I hate tomatoes and it's the worst thing. Because it always is like, you can't not have it. So one thing I noticed when we do get stuff catered, they start putting tomatoes in bags by themselves, which is great because everyone's like, oh, just take it off. No, because it sits there and soaks in to whatever you're eating. It's juicy. It's disgusting is what it is. I hate a tomato. I hate a tomato. tomatoes. So I love ketchup. Does anybody like tomatoes? We're an anti-tomato podcast.

You don't like tomatoes either? I don't either. They're so disgusting. Do you like a tomato? Get out. Yeah. Just, just go. Everyone's like, oh, it's the same thing. No, it's absolutely not the same thing. We went somewhere. Claudia got a damn tomato salad. Just tomatoes and a piece of cheese. I'm like, what the hell is she eating? Doesn't tell you eat that sandwich? Probably mayo and tomato. That's disgusting. I see, hold on a second. By the way, he's talking about sandwich. I'm sorry, Jason. I'm going to hurry. Somebody tweeted out Richard Petty's favorite sandwich is mayonnaise and black pepper. What?

That's what my grandma made those growing up. Oh. Yeah. I've had mayonnaise. I've had to be a certain kind of mayonnaise. And it's a competitor mayonnaise to junior motorsports, but it was not, uh, it had to be, yeah, a lot of mayonnaise. Is it a college basketball team?

Yeah, it is a college basketball team. I've had mayonnaise and, and like American cheese on a sandwich, um, but not, just a bunch of mayonnaise. Ugh. I love mayonnaise. I don't think I can do it. All right. Who's the Offer Pad question of the week?

I like the business aspect of the sport. Jay Mack is on to something. And look, man, those conversations need to be had. James McFadden. That's him. All right. Well, congratulations to JMA 89 for having this week's Offer Pad question of the week. Time for us to get to our favorite X-Fi more than fast moments from this week.

Whether you are behind the wheel or online, speed isn't the only. thing you need. What were your favorite more than fast moments this week? TJ. You know, my Xfinity X-5 more than fast moment, I really want to give it to Harvick because I thought he did a badass job, but just taking what was given at times and you put him in a position to win the race at the end. There's a reason he's called the closer and he got it done. But this pains me a little bit, but I want to give it to Lugano for holding off for taking a probably mid-teens placed car and running where he ran with it. So that's hard to do.

And, you know, he makes it look easy sometimes, but it's still not easy to do. I mean, it's still, I mean, he's, obviously it's a skill because not everyone can do it as good as what, you know, what he can. So I got to give it to them for, you know, getting more out of what than getting more out of it than what was probably there. Brett.

Bubble Wallace, easy one for me, man. Xfinity X-5 more than the fast moment. This guy's doing a lot of things right this year. on the pole, finish second in the race. He's led 153 laps this year. That's more than he's ever led in his career in a single season. It's almost more than he's ever led in his career combined. So again, I see him. I'm a good friend, Freddie and obviously Danny and those guys at 2311 trending in a good way and setting themselves up for a really solid end of the year. And people, you know, look, we all want to be in the playoffs. And when you're not in the playoffs,

everything shifts at that point to building momentum for the next year. And if they make it, they make it. Obviously, you've got to win one of the next three races, but if you don't, you're certainly trending in the right direction to be in a different conversation going into the 2023 season from a competitive standpoint. So shout out of Bubba Wallace. If you look at 2311 racing, it started off, ended up getting a win, which is great, probably unexpected and lucky at the same time, the first year. Now you got Kurt, and he's obviously helping elevate the program, I think, as well. and probably mentoring Bubba quite a bit

because Kurt's a great race driver. I mean, he's really good. So it's good to see. I think Bubba's turning the page and he's competitive every week now. Before I kick to Freddy, I mean, you're really happy a point too. When you've got to Kurt Busch on your team,

you got to chase that guy. You can't have him beating you 10 spots every week. I mean, we see it with Tyler Redick Austin Dillon. There's a big gap a lot of times. But, I mean, look, at RCR and Nick's Finley side, Austin Hill out runs the shit out of Sheldon Crete. every week. When you look at those gaps, it puts more pressure. I mean, I remember when we left the Wood Brothers with Elliott a single car team and Dale Jerry is your teammate, guess what you had to do?

You had to freaking step it up. You couldn't have DJ out there leading all the laps and you run freaking 19th. So I think a lot of positive just for what Bubba's got going on. Kurt's not the competitor. It's not, I need to beat him deal. Kurt's, Kurt could win the race and see Bubba finish fifth. He'd be a hey, man, really good job this weekend. You know what I mean? Like picking him up. So Kurt's a great teammate, man. Yeah, and you talk about pressure. Bubba, like I said, has averaged a 4.5 finish

since they announced Tyler Reddick's coming to 2311 reason. Just to add to that. More than fast moment, I'm going to give it to Danny. They gave another one away yesterday. I'm thinking that's, I think he'll tell you that's 42.

How do you give it to a guy that messed up? He didn't mess up. The team crew messed up. He didn't mess up. He did all he could, even more than fast. I'm just giving you a hard time. There was, he was P-24 with 35 laps to go and drove back to third.

He did it. He was the fastest car on the race track. He took a couple times. Yeah, he was the fastest car on the race track, I thought all day yesterday. If anybody wants to get out and be mad, kicking stuff and pissed off after the race is over, probably should have been him. But yeah, that my more than fast moment goes to him just for that last run alone driving back. And he was clear cars and there was a gap in front of him. He ran the next car down.

Yeah. Ridicously fast. He was about two or three seconds behind us when he got clear of, I don't know if it was Logano at that point or what. but he was coming. And if that race was five more laps, he probably was going to get to us. So he was hauling ass yesterday. Here on door bumper clear, being more than fast as a way of life.

Thankfully, there's plenty of weekly action for our Xfinity X-Fi more than fast moments. You know what else is more than fast? X-Fi. With a speed for all your devices, you can get the reliability and security that keeps your crew connected and protected. When it's going to the X-Fi,

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. X-5 more than fast moments and Casey don't forget to vote for your favorites. Thank you to Xfinity, proud premier partner of NASCAR. What an idiot, man. Time for What an Idiot.

Brett, who's your pick? You know what wasn't more than fast? Getting out of that damn place. Well, and I hate to do this. You're lying already. I know I complain a lot on this show about a lot of things. But I truly, I mean, I got to go what I said in the beginning of the podcast. My what an idiot is whoever implemented the traffic pattern into and out of the racetrack yesterday.

I came into the racetrack from Brooklyn, Michigan, and there were three lanes available for use. Guess how many we were using? One, you're correct. You got the right answer, T.J. I drive by seven gates on my left that should have been open to let people turn in to go park. No, they're all locked. I get up there to the cop. He's like, you know where you're going?

I was like, yes, sir, I'm going to the tunnel. How are you going to get there? I was like, well, hopefully you're going to let me go straight. We're not letting you go straight. you got to turn in right here. I was like, you know where the problem is, is you're making everybody turn in right here, and then they're going back toward Brooklyn inside your fence.

Why don't you open a gate back there, and we wouldn't have all this traffic around this racetrack? And he's like, well, that's not up to us, sir. And I said, man, you ought to get mad. I'm not mad. I've been sitting in this shit for 45 minutes, but I'm just telling you. Like, a little bit of common sense goes a long way.

We see these racetracks hit home runs with it, and Michigan struck out. Bad. Really bad. I've never been, I mean, I felt like I was stuck in an elevator. We had the three stoogees in there. That's what we look like in that part of the body.

I wish I had GPS on my car during the third of that time. What's that awesome powers movie where that dude's backing up in that hallway? That's what we all look like trying to get out of the racetrack after the race. TJ, what's your one idiot? Is that it too? Yeah, I mean, I've never been. We literally would pass each other. I passed Noah twice.

I passed him twice. We're literally, go to that gate. Well, then we passed her, hey, don't go that way, don't go that. Like, I've never had to do that before. We're just trying to leave the racetrack. Why are we stuck? So I could easily give it to the cop that told me we had to sit there until every motorhome got out of the field. And he let Brett. All they got let Brett go.

But he said to me, he said, we got the motorhomes got priority. Once they all get out of here, then you can go. I'm like, there's hundreds of motorhomes in here. What are you talking about? And then all I did all that driving around, like back and forth to gates. I was in turn four, turn one. Go out, turn one. Come down to backstretch or go out the backstretch gate.

They still weren't letting people out of that infield. So I don't know what was going on. So I'll tell you this. I got on that access road to turn one. And of course, there's a motor home blocking it. There's a guy hooking his camper up blocking the other side. And I'm sitting there just like just and there's a line of cars behind me because that's how it went. You know what I mean?

But how about the, I mean, I'm super impressed with the weekend as far as, um, activities going on at the racetrack. The crowd was amazing after a storm in the beginning. I looked down there and there was a sea of people there. still. We got a trophy. Me and Brad picked up a trophy for DBC picks in the infield this week. But I still have to go back. The 3D printed one?

Yeah. I have to go back to obviously, my early in the show, I gave their award to Rickware raising. They're collecting them over there at times. But, you know, so that one,

but they got a trophy wall. They got a trophy wall. We should send them just a box of them. But I have to give it to Noah too at some point. Like, why are we, listen, if you go out of throw up on yourself,

that's one thing. Why are you talking about it? Like, why do we need to throw up again? Yes. Win? This week. He said, I don't know, stage two or something. Like, like, I'm not, I don't want to be his interior guy.

No. I mean, I don't give a shit. I mean, if you, like, he said something about just kind of holding his breath and getting, you know, worked up. But like, we don't need to know. We do. And they're not some, like, breathing exercises that they can do. Like, I don't care. Like, if I puked on myself, I'm not going to volunteer in the press conference.

Deep breath. All right. Two outside. Take a deep breath. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Just breathe.

They did. They said that. He literally, they reminded him, please, I had a talk. I used to, not so much anymore. I used to tell Bubba stuff, especially like, place like Bristol. Like these guys, like,

if you spot for somebody, I was like, haul and I was like, it used to happen a lot in a modified race because they, them guys weren't used to it. But like, you'd be like, they'd go out there and make a run

and it'd be like, I, what was it? You know, 10 laps, say, and they'd come in the pitch and you're like, what was it doing? And he'd be like, it was tight. I was like, gee,

were you not breathing the whole time you're out there? Like, what the hell's wrong with you? Well, the only time I've had that, I think, I think it was qualifying a couple times, maybe 18, 19, or something like that. When you actually, you had to go out there sometimes. Yeah, and you had to, like, it was on edge been, um, there's been a couple of instances like that. But during the race, I mean, poor Noah. All right.

I have a wooden idiot this week. Oh. I am going to go with you three and Denny for telling me not to take a Ford. to win Michigan. I'd just like to point out who won Michigan, what manufacturer? The one that got lucky. I did not say,

you all are idiots. First of all, I never said that. You didn't have to listen to them. You are you kidding me. You guys, blame everybody else for their problems. You seem like I was an idiot for trying to pick a Ford. You're including me with a group

that you shouldn't because I would not say that. But if you knew they were going to win, you could have picked them still. Denny is my one idiot for this week. and I would like to designate him to be the one to pay for dinner. Oh, gosh. Because I think we should go to steak 48. I don't know if you'd gotten to that third win mark, Casey,

it changes everything for you going into the playoffs. He screwed up two of my picks already, on track and off track. She could have took the fireball shot and got another win last week, too. Yeah, could have done it. Best part of the show last week. You might want to take another shot of fireball. And Danny didn't really know what he meant. I'm like, wait, I feel like he had to say something.

And he's like, yeah, I do. All right. Let's move on to DBC picks where Brett won at Michigan with Bubba. You now lead with seven wins. Jason's in second with six. Freddie and third with five. Casey. T.J.

fourth with four. And I'm last. T.J's so glad you showed up. Now he's not going to finish last. I mean, I'm only one off Freddie. Whatever. True. Let's make picks for Richmond.

I got an asterisk. Jason, you are up first. Kevin Harvick. and I am tied for the most true number one picks. Damn it. That's who I was picking. Oh, my gosh. Oh, damn it.

I feel like Jason's had his picks planned out for a while. He does. Got like this special stuff. Where are we going, Richmond? Got a great pick for next one. He probably makes Ben do all this. Mapes told me you should use his picks. So tell him who's he.

That was my pick. I'm texting him right now. He has a spreadsheet for me. I think Ben does all the statistics for Jason. Oh, now we got to wait for this pick to come back now. No, I have a backup. TJ? I am going to go.

Who'd you pick? Kevin Harvard. I'm going to go with my own car. The six. Good pick. Kyle Busch. Man, you laid up.

You're having a second pick. You watch. TJ come down there yesterday. Another 100 point penalty coming to DJ. Tide. Tidlin. 200 point penalty. Tide Dillon came across my nose

in three and four yesterday. What did you walk down there and say? I said, are you taking him to dinner? No, T.J. said, Todd Dillon just made you his b***. And I said, I told my driver to wreck that motherfucker. He did. So, this is so funny.

I don't, I don't, Ty was trying to drive in there and like muscles way up in front of him. He was 39th. He never cleared him. Ben, another, we were running, we were running this big arc into the corner and everything was great. And then we'd come down about three car links in front of Ty.

And that thing took off. And his car was right there. But it was definitely, it was like a slide job move that didn't work out. But Brett looked mad. Casey, you're up? I will take Laney. And I still think that I need to at least get two wins after I would have taken Harvey class week with a Ford. So.

Yeah, y'all swinging for the fence. Ideally, I almost want to finish last so that I can easily get who I want. But T.J. He f***ed up because he's the only guy that has McGrath. McDowell left at a road course, and that's who I want at Watkins Glen. So all I got to try to do right here is be able to pick after T.J., which means I need to let him win. Do you want McDowell over somebody else you got on the list there?

I mean, I got a couple guys in there I'm looking at, but I'm going to go ahead and swing for a stand-up double, Chase Briscoe. Stand-up double. I'm going to swing halfway. I'm calling Chase Briscoe, stand-up. I'm like, what the fuck is that nickname? No, I'm not swinging for the fence like you guys with Kyle Bush and Kevin Harvick and all them guys.

Stand up double brisco. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Ask me. You want to talk about road course. I mean, what's wrong with Todd Gillen right now? Nothing. Nothing's wrong with him.

I mean, you're saving the road course. I'd save him for it. I mean, is that about it? We only have three races left. We only need two more drivers after this week. And then Casey can start over. I mean, you want me to tell you who I'm picking next week? Who are you picking?

Chase Elliott. That's a solid pick. And then I'll probably, I've got to pick a roll of dice for somewhere. So Daytona is going to be either, for me, Ligano or Bubba. So, and no one has them left but me. All right. Well, heading to Richmond, what can we expect?

I know we talked about the playoff spot, but anything else we can expect on track. Hopefully the racing is a little bit better. I don't remember it being great last time. But thanks to downshifting. Yeah, hopefully we can, I don't know. I'm sure they haven't made any changes for that. So we'll probably still be shifting.

But it'd be a good weekend. A nice, tight, condensed schedule, is nice. I think we fly out Saturday morning. Yeah. Everything starts about 3 o'clock Saturdays and noon. We get all that in Saturday night. Come back Sunday for the race. I'll be going to be really old. Saturday's my birthday. I'm going to be really old. How old you turning?

40. 40 years old. So Sunday night. You got to drink 40 ounce. I will. Maybe not. Doug going to go see his birthday. So I'm assuming Sunday night at Big Al's will probably be a little bit live. Let's start celebrating today. We'll celebrate all week. Hey, make sure you get some food.

You can't have more in a couple of drinks there without having some food. That's Buffalo. I never heard of war in my life. Should again. Went with me. All right. Thank you all so much for listening. I think Richmond should be a pretty solid race.

So make sure you tune in. Don't forget to you watch us on MavTV this Thursday at 7 p.m. Eastern. Anything else? Leave us a comment, like, share. Watch our TikToks? Yes, watch TikToks. none of you all know how to access

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That was an Instagram story. Don't worry. We'll just make you all agree. Don't worry about it. We'll make you look great. Somebody sent me a video and was like, you dance. I'm like, what are you talking about? TikTok.

Appreciate y'all listen. That's the biggest thing. Couldn't do this about you guys. Yes. Thanks for coming to the track and saying hot all of us. Yeah, holla. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo!

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