Door Bumper Clear - 280 - Fontana: Breaks My Heart

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

A sleep deprived Brett Griffin and T.J Majors have returned to Door Bumper Clear to recap this past weekend’s rain-delayed Auto Club Speedway race. They discuss the crazy California weather during the weekend, Kyle and Kurt Busch’s record breaking stat, predict how many wins Kyle will get this year, and reveal how his attitude changed winning his first race for Richard Childress Racing.In Spot On, Spot Off, hear what the guys have to say about NASCAR selling the majority of Auto Club Speedway’s property, who is to blame for the Stage 2 restart pileup, an unlikely driver defending Kyle Busch’s driving skills, and T.J. explaining why his Xfinity Series driver spun out another driver. Plus, Brett explains in #AskDBC why SMT data is hurting young drivers coming into the sport. 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 a production of Dirtymo Media. To the green main, green, white checker here. All right, stay closed up, no, we're leaving leader. Ten from the bar. Five away. Ready. Go, go, go, go, go, go. So good.

Bottom is pushing hard here. Door, bumper, clear. Hey, everybody. I'm DJ Majors, a spotter of the six cup of car, the 8xfinity, and it's a lovely show today already. Brett Griffin Sleep deprived As f***

Home from Fontana Viva Las Vegas this week All I see is Andrew Like trying to find the paper The crop To cut that out Freddy's not here He's dead

He's still somewhere on the West Coast So if you see him on the road Make sure he's Freddy Yeah Alive Well when you throw that Xfinity race

Behind the Cup race It logistically made it Tough for teams To get people home Because you can't get your whole Cup team home and your whole Xfinity team home back to back when there's only so many airplanes. So planes have to come home and then they have to go back and pick up more people.

So had I been Freddie, I would have stayed and went straight to Vegas too versus leaving this morning at 8 o'clock Eastern and flying all day and landing at 6 at night and then turn around leaving two days. It's a lot of flying. I'm sure his wife must be thrilled too. She's thrilled every day. Anyways, hey guys. Boat here.

Your marketing professional, whatever I am these days. And Andrew, who finally still has a microphone, I'm glad they didn't take that away from you. What's up, Andrew? Yeah, they still gave me the mic. After, what, two weeks? Yeah.

So far, so good. Yeah. I think you gave yourself the mic. Yeah. Why don't have bartender Ben, we got a shout out in the pre-show. Hey, bartender Ben. You're great.

All right. He doesn't have a mic, though. No. That's the only problem. He says, he's still riding Jason's coat tails. Ben is. Jason ain't even really here anymore. Jason just sits in a chair

and doesn't, like he did before but he doesn't look up now. Jason's going to Vegas this week. Oh yeah. Yeah. Second ever trip.

Oh, bartender Ben's going too. So they'll both be in our suite. Ben, you ever been to Vegas? Gosh, so many rookies we take. I know. Well,

hopefully you don't blow a motor. Hopefully you hang out with Brett and Freddie. Good luck with that. I don't have to work Sunday. You don't want to hang out with me. you're ready for that. We'll be hanging Saturday night, don't worry.

Okay, all right. Here you go. All right, well, you conquered snow, you conquered rain, conquered Mexican food, a bar. I'm going to tell you something. Did you go? It was cold. Yeah, it was cold.

Really cold. I mean, like, I packed for cloudy and 50 degrees, and I should have packed for snow and a windshield of zero, because that's what it wasn't at golf cart that I was tooling around. on a weekend. But it was, man, I'm going to tell you something. I have seen a lot of snow in my life. Despite being from South Carolina,

I love to snow ski. And those were the biggest flakes I have ever seen them. They were bigger than 50 cent pieces falling from, they look like debris falling from the air. It was a weird sight looking out your window and seeing snowflakes fall down. And then like an hour after they were drying the track. Yeah. So at this point, I feel like in NASCAR, you've seen it all.

I don't that's the most snow I've ever seen on the mountains of that place ever gorgeous like yeah really cool backdrop there but I've never seen that much snow on the mountains like just surrounding yeah and it was so low on the mountain yeah it was way down there yeah no it was it was gorgeous it obviously screwed Saturday up well they acted like you wasn't going to screw Saturday up yeah we got out there and do tell do tell me how the weather was when you left pit road on Saturday for the finity race? Cold and wet. So if you were an ASCAR, what would you have done when you have called it in the morning and just rolled with it?

I'll give NASCAR a huge props. They got it. Agreed. They got a lot drier than I thought they would. In my, I could have this wrong because this is going off top of mine. But very rarely have they ever canceled on track activity, garage activity before we even get to the race track. I remember doing it at Richmond because of a hurricane.

I remember doing it at Atlanta because of a hurricane. I do not ever remember them canceling the entire day of cup everything before the garage open. So they did that at 720 Saturday morning, huge props to that. Obviously, Xfinity, you want to try to get the race in at all costs. You got lights. They knew they had a couple windows. They gave it a valiant shot.

But when they left Pitt Road, that race wouldn't start. Yeah, it was going to be tough. the track they got a they got they got they got really close i mean they were a little they had a little bit more to go but it just didn't light up enough for them to really finish it off and um i mean we got close but just i think it was just too cold and too damp in the air and then it obviously soon as they you know then it starts raining a little bit again and it's just such a big place it's um really hard to really hard to get that place dry in in a couple hours it's so wide like It's not like drying of Charlotte or something where it's pretty narrow.

Like Charlotte's narrow compared to Fontana. But they got close. And the track was for Sunday, the track was, when we got there in the morning was pretty much ready to go by the time we got there. So they did a great job overnight. All the track prep they did and to get it dry because that place is known for having weepers really bad. And we lined up for the cup race, I maybe saw one. that didn't even end up being an issue. Right.

With this being, I know we'll talk about it, with this being the last race at this track, I heard they might have, they might have started cutting the track a little bit since they know this not going to be used. Do you think that helped a little bit? I mean,

I mean, it must have. Whatever they did, whatever they did was good because the first thing I got it, when I got to the roof, I looked over the edge and I'm like, oh, it's pretty good. Yeah.

Yeah. First race there was, what, 97? It's all right. last race 2003. Man, that's a hell of a run for that racetrack.

It's a great race track. Roger Penske built it. NASCAR bought it. And now NASCAR has we will sold most of it. Read the show sheet.

I read the show sheet. Well, anyways, for this win marks 19 straight years, Kyle finds himself in victory lane, which also breaks the record for combined wins

by brothers at 95. So a huge accomplishment. I think there were more Kyle Busch fans in the stands than there ever have been. I didn't hear booze. I don't know about you guys. But really cool to see Kyle get the win with RCR and especially at the last run at Fontana. What do you guys think of the race? The race was freaking awesome.

I mean, anytime you're seeing guys five wide, we couldn't race three wide at Daytona the week before. And I saw guys four and five wide on all these restarts insane. Top line was obviously provoked. bailing off too but i mean you're to to your point about kyle 61 cup wins in his career um definitely hasn't been hot the last few years in terms of his wins he got one win in 20 two wins in 21 one win last year and here he is he goes and fires off a win but i'm gonna say this uh tyler redick could have easily won six to eight races last year had he not had all those left rears go flat uh and made a couple mistakes himself that that team was

arguably the fastest team weekend and week out last year. So Kyle, despite the fact that he's left a powerhouse for JGR and going to RCR, like he's getting to RCR and getting in this car at the right time. Randall and those guys, they were lights out fast last year. They were good at Fontana. I mean, yeah, Tyler was really fast last year, a lot of places. And so Kyle stepping into a a fairly fast car right now. And at Fontana, I think they were really good there last year as well. So no surprise.

You know, Kyle, this is what we said. Kyle's going to take it, you know, to the next level, basically, and he can do that stuff.

So, yeah, good for him to get victory lane. I think he, what did he win last year? The dirt race? Yeah, one race,

one. And he could have won a couple more. He was in position to win a couple more, but just didn't work out. but I mean now the question is how many races is he going to win because this last big year I think he won five races a few years ago like it's been a while since he's had like a Kyle type year a Kyle type year and I mean if you're going to go out like he did in 2019

and win five races the way to start off is do what you did yesterday yeah I mean that having speed there is going to translate to having speed at other places yeah well you know it's no secret that you know that car has been fast so we'll have to see what he does with yeah Kyle's only 37. That's still pretty young. That's pretty young for race. He's born in 85.

So, I mean, he's got at least three or four more year prime years. Yeah. At least. And he could be, Harvick's 44, 45. But I mean, there's not many guys that can be great after 40. No. I mean, it's, yeah, he's still got a handful of years left. Yeah.

I was listening to his interview on Sirius and a few other interviews you have this weekend. And I feel like his overall tone for just. after this win especially was so much more appreciative and humble. I mean, have you noticed anything from Kyle and really, I mean, the entire team realizing he went through a lot last year and over the past few years. Yeah.

I've asked, first thing I asked Freddie, because Freddie was in my suite at the end of the race because he didn't finish the race. His car was completely sandblasted as were a lot of cars. The front of those cars were filthy as the race went on. I don't know, maybe TJ can tell us why or what was going on with that.

but I said, Freddie, how was this interview? Because I expected maybe a typical, I'm a badass Kyle Busch, KFB, you know, interview in it. And it appeared that he was, like you said, grateful. And I think that's a good thing for him. But, I mean, you live and learn. And maybe he got humbled last year, you know. On that, on Brett's note, would you hear about the dirt and early debris? I feel like that was a continued issue for both races.

The cars were a lot of tearoffs. There's a lot of tearoffs being torn off the cars in both races. Just not a lot of laps there before we go green. You go green and, I mean, you got to clean it off at some point, right? So, I mean, that's not uncommon for a highway track. I don't think. I mean, it's just, you know, it's part of the process there whenever, like, you know, you go to a track like there, like Darlington used to be.

It's just what those tracks do. That's why they put them nose guards on the cars and stuff like that. So not really surprised. I don't think the track was like super, super dirty. I just think it was, I mean, it's just normal Fontana to me. Hey, we've been telling you for years now that RacingUSA.com is door bumper clears. Go to store for officially licensed NASCAR merchandise. Well, guys, kicking the season off right, RacingUSA.com is offering our listeners a door bumper clear shot glass.

We all got one last week. I actually used mine for a little bit of tequila I had laying around. It's just like the ones we use And it's at a half price No coupon is needed The shot glass has already been discounted For your shopping convenience TJ how cool is that?

Quantities are limited So if you want to be sure you get one at half price You need to order now Racing USA.com is truly unique Every product they sell is discounted every day You are guaranteed the lowest per order prices And your in stock orders Are shipped the very next business day

Plus you can select from a wide assortment Of the newest officially licensed di-cast Apparel hats helmets, novelties, and collectibles for the sports most popular drivers, many of which are exclusive to Racing USA.com. So whenever you want a new hat, t-shirt, die-cast, helmet, or novelty to support your favorite driver, shop racingUSA.com. Google's top-rated store for NASCAR merchandise.

What did you guys think of those new shock losses? Awesome. I put mine to use. That's what I think of it. Brett, you want to take a shot? Of course I do. I've never said no to that, I don't think. Freddie is going to be so sad.

He missed that one. Well, let's head into Spot on Spot off. Spot on spot off. Spot off. Spot off. Spot off. Spot on. It was super fun yesterday to ride around there.

I am spot off. Damn. Where did he come from? Freddie, since you are on top of your game today, spot on, spot off. I'm out of notes, by the way, so this is it. I'm done. Thankfully, we are at the final topic. Golden goosies.

You know that we can handle it much more. I thought it was a good race. I don't think a lot of people agreed with you. This is, we know. I told you we should see a spot-off, spot-off. I absolutely, I told you we should skip it. Straight to DBC picks. Let's start one idiot right now.

Yeah, let's just, I mean, what an idiotic could probably be a 30-minute segment right now. First topic, as noted earlier, NASCAR reportedly sells around 80% of the land at Fontana, making this past weekend's race the last one on the two-mile layout. A few notes, it is suggested that NASCAR sold the plot of land for a home. around $544 million. That's all. Casual, right? 433 acres of the roughly 522 acres site was reportedly sold.

And that's 83% of the land. So as you mentioned, some of it will be used for the track. What do you guys think of that? Brett. Well, I mean, if I'm in the selling business, I'm spot on because that's a ton of money. I mean, I don't know how you look at that. now half a billion dollars doesn't get you excited and as we all know NASCAR bought their stock back a few years ago and became more privatized and I think they realized when you look at what they did in

Daytona they developed a retail footprint across from a racetrack and they've got several hotels there they've got a first watch there and I think they realize that with a lot of these tracks just like Joliet that they're sitting on a lot of land that's worth a lot of money in today's world with these companies like Amazon and whatnot out here, you know, buying and building these million plus square foot warehouses. So I would say when I went to Fontana for the first time in 99, I thought it was a hole like the area. And I was like, why would you build anything around all these closed down,

basically condemned steel mills? And now everything around there is commercial. Yeah. I mean, you've got, you've got big warehouses, like new balance right across the street. But then nowhere from there, you've got, you know, brand new retail stuff popping up. And obviously, I tario Mills malls there. Say what you want about malls. I personally think malls are dying.

But there's still a lot of cool fun retail, shops, restaurants. I mean, I met Freddie last night for a drink before I left at a lazy dog, cool restaurant. So obviously that area is booming. and to hear that it's worth half a bill. I mean, that's a lot of money. So I don't blame NASCAR to all for doing what they're doing on the financial side, but I'm going to tell you something. That's one of the best racetracks in America.

And it's a true shame for us to lose it as fans and as industry people. And I remember going out there and not loving that place at all. And all of a sudden, once it got some age on it, man, it became one of my favorites to go race at and watch races at. You watch those guys work the seams. I mean, it's a Darlington-style racetrack. The tires fall off, and it seems like only good race car drivers win there. You don't really back in the winds at a place like a Fontana.

So I'm heartbroken that it's no longer going to be a thing. And it's unfortunate. I'm telling you, man, there were a lot of people here yesterday. I don't know what the stands look like on TV, but driving a golf car around, walking around, it was freaking slammed. It was busy. And I think that it's a true shame that we're losing this racetrack. I mean, like if you, I don't know.

Like, I don't know how you can look at yourself in a mirror if you're, if you're making these decisions and say, it's a good idea to sell this. I get the money side of it. I'm not discounting that. But like from what we put on the track there, T.J. I mean, to me, it's a fucking 10 out of 10. Yeah, it's a great racetrack as far as lines and it's got character. It's just the tire wear.

If you run five laps and the cost comes out, do you pit? someone in the back's pitting and coming up through there. So it makes it, you got comers and goers there a lot. It just, the track creates a lot of natural cautions. Like just guys getting into each other, getting into the fence, spinning out, lots of things like that. So I really like that track. And it's, you can really see the guys. You got guys that'll roll the middle.

They get the cars turning really good. Then you guys, the guys that can run the wall really well. And that comes into play. three or four they'll clip the apron I mean just it's all the things we didn't used to go on to the apron there then probably in the mid 2000s or something late 2000s maybe 07 oh 8ish

we started running the apron in three and four no one would get on there before that and then all of a sudden we're on the apron so it means resarts are wild you can get three four or five wide sometimes somebody gets held up by somebody there's there's a lot of um technique involved in passing

and and um and things like that So I'm going to miss that place. Great scenery around there. I really enjoy. I don't ever forget. I went the first few years. I didn't even though there were mountains back there.

Because it's smog and fog and whatnot. All of a sudden it's like, wait, there's mountains back there. And this week, they were obviously covered in snow and just completely gorgeous. But if there wasn't a cloud cover, I mean, you could see them really well. Yeah. Do we know how much NASCAR paid for it from Roger Penske? I don't know because, I mean, back then Roger was private, you know, and didn't have to disclose. I'm sure I'm sure somewhere there's a, you know, I'm sure Bob Pockers knows how much he

paid for it. I bet they made five to one on their money. Probably a little bit more, you know, I would say. But you took at what Roger Penske did. I mean, he built Michigan in the middle of Brooklyn, Michigan, which is kind of middle of nowhere. It's definitely the middle of nowhere. And then he built the sister track to it, Fontana, which at the time was kind of in the middle of nowhere. I mean, I'm telling you, man, this place was a dump. And, and you were like, there's this pretty racetrack built right here in the middle of all this dump. And now it's, that's not the case, man. It's a lot going on around there. It's a busy area. I could never live in California. But the people out there are super nice. Like, I mean, everywhere I went, you have just nice people.

I like the area. There's a lot. There's a lot there. I can't afford to taxes, but cool, cool state. Spot on, spot off. Joey Logano blames a bigger restart zone as the culprit of the lap 87 restart crash that took out several cars in that race. TJ? Um, I mean, where were you at in the middle of all this? Uh, we had fortunately just gotten spun out not too long before that. Plain hit you? Who hit you? Uh, Corle Joy. Oh, LaJoy hit you. Yeah. LaJoy had a good run, but he wrecked a lot of people yesterday. Yeah, he ran into us off of turn two and spun us out. But, um, I mean, he's right. I went back and looked and there's no break. His speed picks up when he goes and he goes just

I don't think it's a bigger restart zone I think that helps to it but we did this stuff even in the regular restart zone guys get antsy start going all the takes is for one guy to go a little bit and then slow down and everyone behind him is jamming up so it doesn't and that's not on

that's not on Joey at that point that's on everyone it's on everyone else trying to get a good start and I mean I mean we've seen him pile up at the old Phoenix and that was a small restart zone when the front stretches the backstretch, we've had pileups there. We've had,

we've had pileups at all, like a lot of the tracks. Just all depends. It takes one person. Why do you think they made a restart zone bigger? Because it just, it gives the leader a little bit more of an advantage to when he can go. So it gives him a little bit more,

just gives him more time to make the decision on when he wants. And it's a guessing game for the second place guy. Because with the restart zones, the way they've had it, it's not a really big restart zone. So you can roll up there as a second place car. and get a good restart because the later the leader gets into the restart zone, the smaller the area is going to go in so it gets even easier.

So if there's more area there, it just gives him more of a more of an edge. And I mean, it could be half the size, twice the size. They're still going to roll up to that bog. Everyone's getting ready to race. I mean, they're ready to go. So it just takes one guy to go a little bit and that stop and then they'll do that. So I don't, I didn't see Joey do anything wrong. Yeah.

It can happen anyway. I mean, I've seen it happen to Wachers Glen. It doesn't matter. If the guy, I mean, to your point, and I told somebody the story this weekend, I remember at Phoenix when the start, finish line was flip-flopped and it was on what is now the backstretch, I remember saying because we could hear each other talk because we weren't near the cars where typically we're close to the restart zone of Phoenix or not. I am saying check up, check up, check up.

And I hear the spotter beside me going, green, green, green, green, green. And I'm like, uh. Who was it? That ain't going to work too good. And that dude literally knocked the hood off of his car. So you also, it's a lot. I mean, last year, prime example, man, I was yelling at Haley to check up. And he ended up knocking a shit out of somebody in front of him.

He was like, well, you should have told me to stop. So, I mean, it does, it is spotter, driver communication can play into when you see a wreck like that happening in it. And listen, I'm not insinuating anything here. but there's a lot. There's some new blood on the spotter stand. There's some new guys up there in competitive situations that typically weren't, you know, and they'll learn.

But it's early in the year. And, you know, you got to work on your communication, but you can't be saying go when the leader hasn't gone yet. Yeah, that's going to create, even if the driver just goes a tiny bit and then stops everyone behind it. Everybody, yeah. The third or fourth car in that lines.

Yeah. But to your point, depending on where you are located and how easily you can see when that first car is going. How do you know when to say green or check up? When you see him take off. When you see the leader take off. You're watching the lead.

I mean, depending upon where you are in the line, a lot of times, Casey, you can almost listen for the leader to go. Like, let's say you're 20th in line on the bottom, right? You can't really watch the leader because 10th place on back in your road could have a problem. And now you're not going to see it if you're solely watching the leader. I remember watching guys watch the full. And I would watch the flag for the initial start in the event that I'm close to the front. But if I'm not close to the front, you can't watch the flag.

You can't, you can't watch the leader. You got to watch where you're at. You just got to be able to use your peripheral vision and, and some common sense. But no, I'll never forget that guy. Green, green, green, I'm going, check up, check up, check up. Is he still spawn? Yeah. Yep.

He was doing his ARIM car back then. He caoed it. Hopefully he learned. Hopefully. Back on the topic of Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott said post-race that anybody who is surprised that Kyle won should rethink their NASCAR knowledge. Spot on, spot off Brett. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's a surprise Kyle Busch won. You know, I think it's a surprise he won this early.

But like I said, I mean, that car's been lights out fast last year. And I can see him having a five-win season. I really can. I think it's because of you. I'm not saying that because of Kyle Bush. I think in today's world, the driver probably matters a little bit less than he used to. I think the cars have more parity.

People obviously have more access to the same things. Is track house above where I thought they'd be yet again this year? 100%. I mean, they came out fast last year, winning races and multiple styles of racetracks. Here they are yesterday. Ross is leading. Daniel Suarez is running forth.

And if Daniel wasn't running forth, you'd be like, well, you know, Ross's teams hit on something. No, obviously track house has as fast cars right now. Pretty obvious Chevrolet overall was fast yesterday. So, I mean, to Chase's point, I'm not sure why he's defending Kyle Bush, but it's no surprise he won a race.

I'm surprised he won this early, though. And then you remind yourself how freaking good that team is, and it's like, dude, they may set the world on fire. Like this may be a championship run, you know, contending team. And it's early in the season to say that. A lot of racing to be left, but certainly looks that way. He's already locked in the playoffs. So I guess he's off to a restart.

Yeah. T.J., spot on, spot off. Oh, he's right. Spot on. I mean, I don't know. Kyle got into a fast car or Kyle's been known to be fast. I mean, that's not really a surprise to me or probably you or anybody that, you know, Kyle's going to be probably pretty successful in that car.

Chip on a shoulder. a little bit pissed off. Yeah. Yeah. Something to prove. Yeah. T.J. Apparently, you spun Sheldon Creed in a fifth place run with Josh Barrier Auto Club.

Spot on, spot off. What did you do that for? Uh, my, throttle hung. Yeah, I don't. It's hard to tell what they're doing on the backstretch there, but you can tell when your car's got to run on the other guy. And you start, I mean, if he goes to make a move, the track's too. wide to the track's too wide

to throw these huge blocks. Like it's not even and we were 45 laps into a race of a what was the experience race? 150. Like you're

there's so much more racing to do and like why are we throwing blocks like that and and um because they come out of the truck series that's why. The truck series they think is cool.

All that side drafting and all that block in and all that driving like they're on our racing. That's what the truck series is. Listen this isn't like a like a Charlotte backstress. like we talked about a minute. Like it's narrow at Charlotte. I mean, you got to cover a couple lanes there.

You can't cover Fontana. You can't cover Fontana. If a guy's got to run, he's going to get there. It doesn't make sense to block. You know how to, you know how to stop that run from happening? Don't get jammed up and get the guy,

get a run on you. So I'm not sure at some point, you know, the drivers make the call whenever they're making a move on if they're going to cut the guy break or they're going to let him spin himself. out. Yeah.

And Josh decided to, you know, look, you're not going to block like, you're not going to block right here. And, uh, Sheldon got spun. So, um, spot on. I probably would have on the same thing. If I'm passing, if I'm trying to, you know, you're trying to pass me and I'm trying to block on them lanes and you're there, are you going to, you're probably going to spin me out.

Yeah. I mean, if he doesn't set the tone there, that's every time he gets a run on him now, it's going to, that guy's going to think he can continue to make them blocks and keep doing that to him. So, um, it's just not, it's just not worth it at that point in my opinion. So, not smart. No, there's so much racing left. And it's, who's even say we even clear him before the corner, you know, he might get on a right door and, and races down to the corner and clear us on the exit? Guess we'll never know. Yeah. Well, that's part of what makes Fontana great, though. It is. Or was what part of my, yeah, great. It is, it is no more. I mean, the thing is like,

depending on who you talk to out there and what article you read the newspaper, you don't even know if there's going to be a racetrack built back out there. Yeah. I mean, you hear the rumors and you see the papers and it's like, well, they kept some land

so you'd think they'd use it for something. But here's the thing, like, I mean, when you look at Irwindale, I was told Irwindale is like 60 plus acres. Well, it only seats 10,000 people or whatever seats. Like, it ain't a cup race. I mean, what's our smallest facility seat?

Probably, well, it'll be North Wilkesboro this year. But outside of North Wilkesboro, North Walesboro is going to see like 25,000. Martinsville? But typically, I mean, our places are 60,000 plus. So how are you going to have a facility that's 90 acres that's going to have a racetrack on it with the infrastructure that's required,

i.e. bathrooms, places to buy food. And then also have enough places to park. Yeah. That's the question. So I don't know. Obviously, they've been talking about doing this for a while, see what happens. I'm interested in seeing because you obviously keep some of it,

for some reason. For some reason. I mean, in theory, why not just sell the whole piece of property and start over somewhere where there is a Irwindale or Bakersfield or somewhere? I mean, there's so many people in California. Like, it's insane. You'll drive through this town you've never heard of. It'll be like, population 300,000.

It's like, what? There's just so many people out there in clusters. So we know, obviously, they won't be back for 2024. I mean, have you heard anything about what will replace? I mean, I think, and this is just me talking out loud, like if you look at the politics of California, obviously it's a very complicated state. You can't do anything easily out there. And it's no secret that they have to deal with drought situations and all the things that they deal with there. So if you're NASCAR and you've got this property and it's already approved to have a

track, like how complicated is it to knock it all down and rebuild it? Well, NASCAR, well, California let you do that? I don't, I don't know because California's complicated. They said, 35,000 at Watkins Glen capacity, but you have- There's 35,000 people in that infield. Yeah, then you got all the, the campers and stuff up against the track, so there's way more. It's all way more than 35,000 people there. And, and Watkins Glen is a massive property. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah. But, I mean, it is what it. Look, you offer me $500 something million for something.

I'm going to take it too. I don't blame them. Just sucks for the fans. I think they'll probably replace it with something good. I'd probably imagine on the West Coast still too since there's, it's pretty limited out there. They clearly did well. They sold out their crowd yesterday or yesterday, right, Andrew? I'm telling you, that place was packed.

I don't know if it was a close sellout. There was a lot of people there. Getting to the roof was a challenge because there were so many people. And I also saw the most diversity amongst our fan base I've ever seen in that crowd, too. I heard Daniel Swerer's appearance was, I mean, around the block. I saw a ton of diversity, and I was excited about that. And I just broke my heart to know we weren't coming back there. But they don't matter about my heart.

Great last run. All right, let's move in the reaction theater. Yeah, this is Andrew. I am the Brett Griffin Fan Club president of the Indiana chapter. Finally, yes! Way to go, Josh! Way to go! The data tells me that Bubba still sucks.

Freddy, you can't see shit. I just want to say, I'm not drunk. My great-grandma, here I'd run him, and she's 90-000-8. Reaction theater rolls in three. Two, one. What is it about RCR-era Kyle Bush

that is just so much more likable? I don't know why, but I like watching them. A lot more. Fair. I mean, he's got a chip on a shoulder. I think you're going to think this is crazy, but him going back to Chevrolet helps his brand. He's back to where he started. And Chevrolet has a huge following.

And I think it helps his brand to be back there. I think it gets some of the haters off of his back to go back to Chevrolet. I really do. You knew when Kyle was being introduced at intros by his booze, like when you're at the track. Yeah. this time did not hear it. Yeah. But he loves it and instigated all that too.

And he's really not doing that right now. You know, he did his little cute bow after he won, you know, a couple bowels. It was more subtle than it used to be, though. It was different, right? So maybe he's,

I don't know, maybe he's getting wiser at his old age. I like it. What is NASCAR thinking? Why did it they penalize the leaders for rate checking the whole entire line on lap 87 and causing a 10 to 50 15 car rack.

They should have black flagged those two leaders. They're going to the back of the line and restart from the bat. T.J. He didn't slow down. So, but as much as I would love to grill him here for doing something, he didn't. So,

I mean, he just rolled up there and everyone got antsy behind him and they had a pile. And they piled up in each other. They had a wreck. Yeah. You know, I got to tell you, boys,

Kyle Bush, circa 2018, proved that when Kyle Bush gets pissed off, told he can't do it, told what he should do, he'll go out and prove you all wrong. Not going to lie, second race to the year,

it's my pick to win. I just know that when this man gets hungry and mad, he's a threat every week. I mean, he was still a threat before. I mean, you can never sleep. Even last year,

any point you could, you know, he was still a factor. My two favorite drivers in my career to watch on restarts are one guy that might surprise you. He's older. He's retired.

truck series badass Ron Hornaday. I was going to say Hornaday. I loved watching Hornaday on restarts. My second favorite guy to watch on restarts, Kyle Busch. He's a guy that you have to feel like is going to get you some positions. And, you know, having worked with a lot of drivers and watched a lot of drivers race, there are guys that you literally coming out of restarts. You're like, man, I just want a net zero gain right here.

I would love to restart sixth and come out of this thing sixth. And with Kyle, when you restart sixth, you literally can almost expect. he's going to come out forth, maybe even better. I would be hard fault to argue that over the course of the year, Kyle Bush on restarts, net gains more than anybody else.

But I'm going to tell you another guy that's aggressive that's getting it done right now in today's world, it's Ross Chastain. The last year, year and a half, he's one of those guys on restarts. He's an animal, and he's going to get some. And if you're not an animal and you can't net gain on restarts,

you're not going to win these races the way the things are playing out these days. It ain't going to happen. All right, well, to leave an audio message 24-7, don't forget to go to anchor.fm slash door bumper clear and click the message icon. We'll keep playing the best ones each week on the show. It is time for the AskDBC question of the week. Send in your questions on Twitter using hashtag AskDBC. We'll pick out the best ones each week.

This first one is from Andrew DeRosa 1. what's the coldest weather you've ever spotted in? And do you prefer the cold or the heat better? I stood beside T.J. am I coldest weather. You remember that one? Where were we? We had sleet hitting us in the face.

Atlanta? Bristol. Sleet was literally hitting. I had to put glasses on because the wind was blowing the sleet into my face so hard that my eyes were watering and I couldn't see the spot. So even though the sun went out, I put sunglasses on and T.C. I look at each other like, what the hell are we doing? doing out of here. That wasn't that long ago.

No. Was there a year that Atlanta got postponed because of snow? Atlanta was cold. So the first time I ever went to Atlanta was in 19, not the first time I ever went. The coldest I ever saw in Atlanta, I went in 1997. I was a senior in college. And we camped in the infield between turns three and four. And I think Jeff Bo Dine or Robbie Gordon sat on a pole and like so 197 miles an hour,

like something crazy because it was so cold when they went out. and it snowed that weekend and oh my god it was freezing cold but as a competitor that day in bristol was probably the coldest i've ever been i got to go with probably texas it was really cold a few years ago a handful years ago at texas at a truck race and that's why i wouldn't know about that it was so cold um actually we had a texas race not too long ago texas can be cold because it's windy yeah freezing yeah texas martinsville bristol i've had some really really cold races there and I would much rather

I'd much rather spot in heat than I would cold. I don't know. Once you get cold, there's no coming back. Man, I don't know, man. Sometimes there's 100 degrees up there. I don't know. I'd much rather hide from, you know, the heat or whatever.

We had an event Rockingham obviously a long time ago and it was so windy that it blew the paratroopers that came in outside of, the racetrack. That was a brutally cold day too. I mean, that was a, it's 40 degrees with 40 mile an hour wins. That was brutal. But Bristol, sleet in the face takes the cake. This next one is from Mucky Guy. I heard a lot of teams had trouble accessing their SMT data this weekend. Do you know what

the issue was and does it happen often? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the issue was and I don't know. I also don't know what the, you know, doesn't, if I don't think it happens often, but we don't use it during the races and stuff. I mean, we don't, so we wouldn't really hear sometimes you might hear a comment like we don't have anything, we can't see anything right now, but we don't really, it doesn't really affect us spotting immediately. So I don't know what the issue was. I think there was some issues in Daytona as well. There was, from what I heard, there was some issues then. So I don't know.

Maybe fans are getting the Wi-Fi passwords off those dash cams. What would teams do when in that situation? There's probably anything they could adjust. I hate SMT data. I hate that it's even a thing. Because to me, you're giving away the intellectual property of a driver to another driver. Like, why should I be able to look at TJ's throttle and steering response and breaking?

and I don't know, man. I'm not a fan of SMT data. Never have been. Like, never was, never will be. I feel like I'm getting to see what makes Kyle Bush special. Now I can go copy it. You know what I mean? Like when road courses, like Martyrsville, just, I'm not a fan of it.

I also think to some degree, KCS messes up some of these young guys because now they've got their crew chief telling them how to drive. They've got their spotter telling them how to drive. telling them how to drive. Now they're questioning themselves on can they actually drive? Can they get it done? Like I would not want to be a rookie or second year guy in this series with a former cup driver or former Xfinity series driver spotting for me telling me how to drive with

all this data. Like, just let me go out there and do my thing. And, I mean, TJ knows it just as well as I do. I mean, there are guys up there in the middle of the race to have its SMT data pulled out. I was never one of those guys. I trusted my eyeballs. But I'm not a fan of it. I never have been, though.

I've said that from day one on here. It's cool to go back and look at it. Like after? Yeah. I mean, it's cool to go back and be able to see all that, but I don't, I don't know. It is time for what an idiot. What an idiot, man.

Brett, who is your one idiot pick this week? Well, I'm sitting here looking at Jeff Gluck's poll. And it says, was Fontana a good race? And 91% of the people said yes. So my one is pretty high. That's very high. Mine, what an idiot, is the 9% of people that said, no. If you clicked no, that Fontana was not a good race,

you need to go watch ice skating or bowling or underwater basket weaving or there's got to be something on television. It would be better use of your time because if you didn't enjoy Fontana, you should not call yourself a race fan. Yeah, I don't know how you don't like that race. It's got everything. Passing, natural crashes, super competitive lanes to pick from to race. Got a little bit of everything.

So, yeah, I don't know how you dislike that. You know, I, man, I'm going to go with the seven cup car this week. Sorry, Corey. But you hit a lot of stuff yesterday. I don't think the AJ rec was Corey's fault. I think that was. more, I think Blaney might have been on his outside. Yeah, definitely things got

squeezed there a little bit. Yeah. I mean, he was up there. He was in the top 10 for quite a bit of the race. So, props to him and I think he finished like 13th or so. The part that sucks about it. Solid finish. Yeah. Is when we got spun out, the thing stalled and we couldn't get it refired. So we lose a lap. And then we run just long enough to lap a couple cars.

So we couldn't get to Lucky Dog. It took us like three or four cautions to get the Lucky Dog. Yeah. Because we kept running just long enough to get the next car. And then it would cycle again. That same guy I'll get to lucky dog again because the leader got to him. Yeah. DBC picks. Man, who won last week?

T.J. Wow. Second win of the year with Alex Bowman, finishing eighth. Eric Almorola finished 35th after being caught at the last resort crash. So. I swung for the fence with Larson. He went behind the wall right off the bar. And then he came back out and made some laps and hated to see that from a picks.

I have Freddie's pick, by the way. Bowman finished eighth. Yep. He was up there leading for a while. I thought you had a guy that might win a race for you. It's one of his better. It was one of his better tracks. You got Freddy's pick.

Freddie picks, what, next to last? Yeah. I pick first and I'll pick Bowman. Where are we going, Vegas? Vegas. Brett, who's your pick. You're picking Bowman? I am.

Well, the last winner of Vegas was Joy Legano. Year before that was Alex Bowman, which you just picked. Year before that was Denny Hamlin. So I guess I'm just going to swing for the switch I don't know how'd Ligano run yesterday He was fast

He was top five all day pretty much Yeah He brushed He got on the fence late But he was uh Yeah he was up there I mean he was top five all day Harvick was fast

But Harvick didn't He was fast late in a runge right? Yeah He was similar to us We were we were probably right there with him Yeah I'll go Ligano Freddy takes Ross Chastain

Look at him go Who's up Casey? PJ you're up Don't I go last Or who did you pick? She picked my own Yeah

I will take I think this guy's due For a cup win there And he's had some pretty rough luck And so I am going to go with Ryan Blaney There you go Everybody's swinging big

Vegas is so fun Like this is a good little A little stretch West Coast swing You know The Dirty Mo experience This is this weekend So I would

Highly recommend sticking to dirty moe media social handles for updates on everything y'all getting to. It is going to be fun. I can't wait. I'm, uh, when do you go out there? Thursday or Friday? I think Friday. Really?

Yeah, I don't think, think trucks are on track first Friday afternoon. Yeah. I got Thursday on purpose. When are you guys going? Saturday. One day? That's stupid. Like 36 hours.

All right. We're going to Spemmer at Rhino Saturday night. It's a shoot. show. I'm going to tell you what, it's an expensive shoe show, too. Last time I paid a check there, I was like, I'm never coming back here. Well, that was a lot. I want to drop y'all off and send y'all in there. Are you going to pay their tab? Probably not. Can you expense that? Well, we'll make that. Yeah, they can expense it. Put in anything on a credit card. Spearmint Rhino? Tips. Have you have you been to the Rino? Have you been to any strip clubs in Vegas? Not in Vegas. No. Which, which

town have you been to a strip club in? Don't act like you don't know. A few, actually. I don't know if I should be proud of that. This is a long time ago. This is pre-Cloy. Don't get me started on scores. Jeez.

Anyways, what else can fans expect on track at Vegas? TJ? Vegas is a great race track. It's another track with some characters, got some bumps. Hopefully it's the weather looks a little cool, I think. It does look cool, man.

looking at that. It's going to be like 53 or something. So, it's usually windy there, which they're in Kansas. It's 45 in Las Vegas right now. Yeah, but it's also. Oh, it's warming up. Sunday is now bikini weather, 66. That is not bikini weather. It is to me.

It's just a good range right. So you'll be wearing a bikini? No. We've had some excitement there, though, too. Yeah. Multiple lanes. Got some bumps to work with and wanted to. wind usually is a factor at some point.

It does get windy. Yeah. I mean, it's usually a good race. Yeah. I hope the Thunderbird's doing a flyover again because we're there. Oh my gosh. Hopefully they go up a little higher.

That was insane. But now Vegas will be fun, man. And that's the thing about Fontana. It's one of my favorite tracks. It's up there. Yeah. That's the same about Fontana for me.

Like I would never as a race fan be like, oh my God, you got to go to Fontana. But I, because of it's Fontana. You need to go for the race, but not. it ain't a destination market.

Vegas, people, I would love to know how many people from Vegas actually go to the racetrack. Because I bet it's not that many. No. I think that whole area, they usually sell that place out. We looked at this demographic-wise for,

I don't know, Brett, you probably do the same thing when it comes to the sponsorship. And I think demographics show that more people are tourists and travel to Vegas from other locations than they do living in Vegas, which is actually,

pretty cool. So when we did the Dirty Mo Media Experience last year, and we sold it out, not one person that came to the Dirty Mo experience was from the state of Nevada. Everybody was from all over the place. And same thing like you said for when we do events. I mean, it's, it's, which helps, which helps from a sponsor's standpoint. Because, I mean, look at somebody like Xfinity, they're not nationwide. They have certain markets that they, you can be a customer in. So looking at VES, or somewhere else where you see people coming from, I mean, there are people that came from other parts of the world. Yeah.

That is when you look at the sponsorship, that is what you want. Yeah. Well, you can get to Vegas and you can get rooms in Vegas and you can get good restaurants in Vegas. And you're not in the middle of nowhere. And I mean, yeah, it's not like when you get to Indy and you're like, oh, let's go eat at San Elmo's night. It's like, no, there's no reservations. When you get to Vegas, there's a million percent at a great restaurant that you're going to be able to get into,

whether it's a local place or it's a place. place on the strip or it's a place off the strip. Like my favorite place to eat, I don't want to screw this up. You're going to give it the way and they won't be any reservations left. It's an old school steakhouse in Vegas. Golden Steer, I think, is the name of it. Dude, it's like mob.

You feel like you're in the 50s when you walk in this place. Yeah. Herm's favorite place to go is the steakhouse. Yeah. Which is in Circus, Circus. I've never ate there. STK and Cosmo is awesome. There's just so many good places to eat there.

Even the track itself, that garage is one of the kind of neon garage. Really cool. I mean, it gets you as close as you possibly can get to some of those cars. Yeah, and they've got the Rockettes in there and they've got good music in there. Lots of entertainment. That was the first cool fans on to exist in our sport. I mean, that was a game changer when Bruton and those guys built that place. Golden Steer Steakhouse, Las Vegas.

That's it. 1,700 of views on Yelp. that's a lot yeah yeah but it's not it's not it's not it's not a tourist place though it's like a I mean I'm not saying tourists don't go there but it's like a local place but when I text my buddy Dave Erie out there and I was like I was passing through and I was like hey man we're passing through Vegas I don't know somewhere to jump off interstate and eat this good he's like go here once I went there I was like I'm going here every time I come like it's just because it's cool feeling you know fun town my how much money you're taking oh where

Vegas I'm not taking any extra money why Nope. I've donated enough for them machines out there. You're taking your Xbox? No. Just gonna sleep. Do you get me a shitty mood all week or just today? Probably most of the week. I know.

I feel like this is like the quickest show. I'm tired. I'm tired too. And they don't be like talking. Well, my flight was supposed to leave at like one in the morning of Eastern. I was taking a red out home and it ended up leaving like four in a morning of Eastern. But then the whole plane was NASCAR people.

I mean, we flew out of Ontario straight. back to Charlotte, which is cool. You got a direct flight in and out of there. Didn't have to go into the craziness of LAX. But it was literally the whole plane. They were like group one and 75 people and are in group one and they're all NASCAR people. That's the worst. When you have status and everybody else has just as much status.

I'm like, how are all these people group one? Never get upgraded. You don't? No, because whenever I travel, it's on NASCAR people. So they all have more status. Just by first class to start with. I can't expense that. You don't have to.

I don't have the budget that you have. Can I all be rich? You can buy first class tickets when you want to. Sometimes it's like 140 bucks difference. Compared to you're already spending like $700,800. It is ridiculous. The most expensive plane ticket I bought recently, and this was in the back of the airplane. This was in coach.

I flew from here to Calgary, which I was informed when I landed this. Calgary, that's how you say it, Canada. My plane ticket was over $2,000. I was in Phoenix for Natalie, you know Natalie. Her wedding this weekend, she married Paul Silva, Larson's crew chief from the dirt side. And I mean, I spent so much money on that ticket. I was like, I- $800.

I think more. Yeah. Yeah, it was ridiculous. It is ridiculous. Well, shout out to them for any married. Really cool wedding. But yeah, I won't be traveling any time. We're all part of the Phoenix they get married in.

Paradise Valley. Like we stayed in Scottsdale, like right by the W. Awesome. So cool. That's a fun area. Oh, it was awesome. It was cool. It was colder there than it was here.

It's insane. So I don't know what's going on in the West Coast right now. All right. We're looking forward to Dirty Muddy Experience. Looking forward to Jason, Ben, blowing motors. Jason's like, no. Ben's like, yes. Well, thank you all so much for listening.

Be sure to comment, like, share. Check out all updates from Vegas. And be sure to send videos and pictures of Jason and Ben on the strip if you see. them out. Yes. They probably can use some donations to... Mike gave money last year. Did not give them money. I thought he gave you a hundred bucks each to gamble on.

Not this year. T.J. will give you a hundred bucks. I think you should give him a hundred. I gave... How many times I gave Jason a hundred bucks? I think you should do it again. I might. I don't know how much money I got, Jason. I got a fair out first. We'll see. All for Spearmint Rino. No. No. I'm not.

No. All right. Well, thanks, everyone. Have a great week. We out. See you. Hey guys, there's a new episode of the Dale Jr. download out this week. Be sure to check it out on all podcast platforms. Check out Dirtymo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.