Door Bumper Clear - 297. Chicago: Unprecedented Circumstances

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

After a historic inaugural street race weekend in Chicago, DBC is back with a special edition recap of all the action. Freddie Kraft, Brett Griffin, TJ Majors, and Casey Boat break down the handful of historic firsts that occurred during race weekend.In Spot On, Spot Off, the group debates NASCAR's decision to call the Xfinity Series race two laps short of halfway, scoring discrepancies following a multi-car pileup, shortening the race from 100 to 75 laps, and Shane van Gisbergen's post-race comments regarding the talent level in the Cup Series.Plus, the group welcomes race fan Ross Olson, who gives a detailed report of the fan experience from Grant Park over the weekend. The group also provides suggestions for future road course ringers to try NASCAR and brainstorm other cities capable of hosting a NASCAR street race. 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.

You ever seen a pizza with pickles on it? Ew. It's disgusting. That's where you're eating? Well, it wasn't, but I've never seen one, but I'm going to try it. Did you manage to not die yesterday after drinking vivosis? Dude, it was a long day. The following is a production of Dirtymoan Media.

Door, bumper, clear. Clear by two. Please really shallow entry. Door, bumper, clear. Hey everybody. I'm T.J. Majors. It's part of the Six-Cup car this weekend, the 8xfinity car. Casey's straight from the gym. Well, I mean, we're hoping to eventually. What's up everybody? Brett Griffin. Former spotter for Justin Haley. I was screaming at the TV yesterday like a drunken redneck rabid fan. I had a lot of fun. And I have one question, Freddy. Is your underwear dry yet?

My underwear is dry. My shoes probably are not. don't know. TJ, I kind of got up in the spotter stand pretty early, and I had the, normally you know me, I like to show up about, I don't know, at the end of the anthem. But yesterday I had the idea that I needed to get up there early because it was raining its ass off, and I feel like if I got to the spotter stand early, I had enough time to sit there and dry out. So I sat underneath there for a while drying out.

I think I finally got about 97% dry when I got on an airplane last night. But yeah. So up, Spotter for bubble, first track. Spotted for Bubba Wallace and Chandler Smith this weekend and I got home really late and I'm tired and I feel like we're back in 2020 when I'm looking at all your beautiful faces on a virtual call but this is this is fun what's up Casey? Hey guys Casey Boat here and what I'd like to say fresh from the gym I'm hoping that if I put on workout clothes I will eventually get there or burn calories. Well we are all out on our Fourth of July vacations from the beach from home We're still not sure where a T.J is, but figured we'd call in, zoom in, make sure you give you guys a good show because there's plenty to talk about after this weekend. Anyways, it's been 60 years since a first-timer won in the Cup series,

and SVG makes it happen. We finally got back after a very wet weekend. Let's hear Brett Butcher this guy's name. Yeah, I kind of want Brett to start first. Yeah, Brett, right now, what's his name? The reason they call this guy, SVG, is because they can't pronounce his fucking name. So I was going to go with Shane Van Gey on my side of town.

But Gisbergin, is that how you say it? Van Gisbergen? Yeah, that's pretty good. That's probably the only time I'm going to get it right in the whole show. I've spent all more than walking right here with each practice. Based on some tweets I'm seeing this weekend, it sounds like there's a few other names people want to call you too. So, back.

I saw that I was getting so much love on Twitter that I had celebrated all day yesterday. It was quite the weekend. What's such a fun time to be on social media. I don't think it was love. I got to be honest. Well, anyways. You must have all the people. For those of you.

When Brett Griffin's trending on Twitter. I trended twice. So our buddy Jeff Gluck texts me and he goes, hey, you're trending on Twitter. And I was like, well, that can't be good, can it? And then a couple days later, he texts me again, hey, you're trending on Twitter again. I'm like, damn, trending on Twitter is hard to say, actually. But, no, it was a fun weekend, man. I enjoyed watching Chicago on television.

And there's a lot of things I love about Chicago. I love Navy Pier, Wrigley Field, Lake Michigan. And honestly, NBC did a phenomenal job of showing just how pretty that part of the city. is. And obviously, I've caught a lot of shit for talking a lot of shit. So here's my biggest struggle. And I think some of y'all with a brain will understand where I'm coming from. NASCAR signed a three-year deal to go to Chicago. After they signed that three-year deal, a new mayor got elected. That new mayor already has said that they don't know if they want us back anymore. So NASCAR is coming in there with teams, with NBC, and NASCAR is spending

tens of millions of dollars. I've heard north of $40 million to come in and put this show on. And so before we even start up a race car, Ben Kennedy with NASCAR is having to say, he doesn't know if we'll be back next year. So when I look at my sport and my peers and my team owners and our TV partners, and I look at how they want to go in and invest gazillions of dollars into this community. And whether you like it or not, that's what it is. It's all about money. And so for you to say as a city, you don't know if you want us back for the next two

years and we can't already be selling tickets and talking about it, then that leader can fuck off. That's just where I'm coming from on this. And it really pisses me off. So Brett, then on that note, looking at the race this weekend, do you think that the product is there, do you think they should be coming back? Well, it's funny you ask that because I got hammered all week for not, for basically saying I don't like the way the city is run. And then here we are on Saturday.

We've got this awesome race going on. And then we stop it for lightning, which I totally get. That is typically in our world a 30 minute delay, Casey. Well, as it turns out, the city of Chicago doesn't do it that way. They do a 90 minute delay. But not only did they do a delay, they kicked all of the fans and even all of the spotters and everyone out of the area. And when I say kicked out, I wasn't there. But I let Freddie and T.J. and whoever else wants to talk about it today talk about how they were talked to and screamed out and told basically to get the hell out of here and leave your belongings behind.

So when you hear me say, I don't like the way this place is run. This is a prime example. Cancel the concert. They could have had that concert. We could have finished that race. It's an absolute embarrassment to what we do for a living to not be able to finish that race on Saturday afternoon and have the concert and have all of those fans that invested all of their time and hard-earned money to come in and have the experience that they deserve. So I will stand on the hill. F*** the city of Chicago's leaders.

Okay. Well, let's take it then to Freddie and TJ, who were actually at the race. What did you guys think of Chicago Race Weekend? So listen, I got there and didn't know what to think going into it, obviously. I've never been to Chicago. I don't know anything about the city. Where we were staying was beautiful. The area around the racetrack, Julie, Tim Berman, the NASCAR side of things.

They did the phenomenal job. The place looked amazing. Super easy to navigate. We walked around the track on Friday when I got there. You kind of go anywhere you want. Then I, Saturday, mistakenly thought I could still do that on Saturday. and that ran into a couple of gates and had to take a couple detours. But it was super easy to navigate.

The airy looked great. The fountains were awesome where the team deal was. And I thought, I was like, wow, this is going to be a phenomenal weekend. And then that yellow flag came out in the middle of that Xfinity race for lightning. And it's like it sucked all the wind out of the sails for that day and then potentially the weekend. I thought we were trending in such a great direction. We were, Julie was on the roof with us talking and joking around. And there's a rumor that Julie's got new nickname Spotter Julie because she took such good care of us this weekend.

Our spotter stand was phenomenal. The Turn 11 deal with the Symphony Hall was phenomenal. Obviously the buses wasn't ideal, but we had, there's really, you need to have somebody in that area. And that was probably the best case scenario without having to put up a new structure. But, I mean, going around town, you ran into people on the streets. They were all super excited about us coming there. I talked to my Uber driver one morning, and he said that I said, you know, his traffic are really jacked up because of the, you know, the racetrack.

He said, no, not at all. He said, it's actually flowing really better. Even I think going, you know, for me walking in and looking around, I never saw huge traffic jams anywhere. Everything seemed to be flowing really well. And it was just unfortunate that we got to a point and to Brett's point, you know, we normally, we get a lightning holds and it is seek shelter. You know, it is kind of get off of the grandstands, you know, do whatever you can to seek shelter, get underneath. something, take cover, whatever it is. And this just felt really different for whatever reason. Like, we were on the spotter stand, which was the president's paddock club. And we were up there

for a little while, and they were starting to clear some fans out. Normally, not that it doesn't apply to us, but it's kind of, you know, they tell us to go. If we want to leave, we can leave and go seek shelter. If not, it's on us to, you know, if you want to put yourself in harm's way, I guess you can call it. But they were not joking. around and T.J. I think he could attested this because I think he was still up there. Like, it got pretty heated between some of the security guards and us and our officials. And then hearing some of the stories from some of the team members are down in suites that,

I mean, they're paying $120,000 for these suites to essentially get kicked out until, you know, they're like, you know, you can leave your stuff here. And there's people going in and out of the suite that don't belong in there. So that was unfortunate. But, I mean, everything was perfect up and, that lightning delay and then kind of all hell broke loose from that point on, but I mean, TJ, you could talk to

talk about what you felt. I had a lot of similar. I've been to Chicago before and I really enjoyed it, so I think downtown Chicago is a great city. The views that we had from the racetrack, traffic was a non-issue

at all. Navigating where we needed to go was very seamless. And like Freddy said, He's right about the vibe, man. There was people there for the first time that were genuinely excited to be there. Never seen a race before and never done anything with NASCAR before and are genuinely excited. And, you know, it's not very often we go to these tracks now and see new fans and big groups like that, that excited.

I mean, when they took the green for the Xfinney race, when the field went by, I turned around and looked at some people's reaction and stuff. And it was like, holy cow, this is awesome. I mean, I'm sure Freddie saw some of the same. But, you know, seeing that from people is exactly, to me, is a home run for NASCAR. And I realize, you know, the city let NASCAR come in there and put this track up and worked with them. Obviously, there's some things to iron out with it that park, you know, where we were, where we were at has different, there's different ordinances. and things they go by. And, you know, we've been throwing a lot of curb balls.

And, you know, most of the time, every time NASCAR gets thrown a curve ball, to me, with weather stuff like this, they're very, they're very persistent. And they did what they had to do. And I don't think it's what, I don't think it's obviously what they wanted to do on Saturday, but that's what had to be done. And, yeah, there's some things to iron out with it. But if that's, you know, the worst part of the weekend, you know, imagine if it was sunny, imagine if it was sunny and that

vibe carried over. I mean, the amount of rain we had, like, Brad, I know you weren't there, but the amount of rain we had, I didn't think we were racing. I mean, it was, and from some tweets that I saw as well where the rain amount was more than they've had, that they set a record?

I think they might have set a record. So, to set a record for rainfall and to still get a race in that day, I think that's an incredible accomplishment in, and just seeing the vibe, like, man, if that were, if that happened in an oval, that you know what it's like when it rains in an oval, like a lot of people don't stick around. There were more people there walking around soaking wet, still there, enjoying the show.

You know, that place, when the rain did quit, how fast did that place fill up, Freddie? It filled up pretty quick. I mean, these people were, they were ready to go. It looked amazing, the facility, everything that was built there. you know, seeing the pictures on Friday or, you know, on Thursday or midweek when people started getting there and it kind of come into life and the track being challenging, throw a little, you know, rain in there and making it even more difficult for these drivers to navigate.

I think it's a, to me, I think it's a home run for the city and for NASCAR. So, you know, I loved it in Chicago. I enjoyed it. I think it was, I thought the race was good. We had passes for the lead. We had, you know, had some wrecks. Everyone thought we were going to block the track and everyone's going to pile on there. Well, guess what?

Everybody stopped. And everybody, I don't know, the car that wrecked the most yesterday still finished the race. I mean, that 42 was in the barriers. I mean, at least three times. And he still, they pull them out and keep going. So how the track was laid out as well, there was, there was, there was punishment for, for making a mistake, which we don't have at a lot of places. you know, there's no, there's so much room for air at a lot of these places. It was, it was nice to see, you know, there'd be some repercussions for making a mistake.

So I think, you know, and when somebody wrecked, it didn't just block the entire track. There was still escape routes. There was still, you know, obviously when the four pulled back across the track, it blocked the track. But he was doing that to retain a track position, but I'm sure we'll cover that later in the show. But now, to me, home run for the fans. NASCAR, everybody involved. Yeah. I mean, like, it was, if you would have asked me at some point on Saturday, I would have said,

there's a thousand percent chance we're coming back. And it was just, like, it was so, and when I say the people were screaming at us and it wasn't NASCAR people, it was, seemed like local security that was just doing what they're told. They're doing what they're told. That's the problem is. They're doing what they're told by the guy that was pulling the plug on the entire event, when based on the conversations out.

I was having with even guys like you, people on the ground, even Andrew, who was a Chicago native, it was, we're going to be able to get this thing back in. Andrews was on Twitter going, we're going to get this thing started any minute. I don't know why all these people are leaving. I hope they let them come back. Well, guess what? They kicked them out and didn't let them come back. That's the problem.

Andrew also put diesel in a gasoline car. You can't sit here. You can't sit here and look at this and say any of this is going to be bad without the direction of one person on Saturday and then pull the plug on that thing. terrible on his part, but here's the thing that people need to realize. We could have went to Joliet and we could have raced around that mile and a half racetrack and NASCAR would have spent minimal dollars to put that event on. We could have gone to tons of racetracks in this country and NASCAR would have had to invest minimal dollars to put that event on. They spent a pile of money to go and do this. They spent way more than they spent at LA. We know how small that LA

footprint is compared to where you guys were this weekend. And they did a phenomenal job. So if we're going to pick a city to partner with and spend that kind of money, I want it to be a long-term investment because the folks that I talked to, even as recently as this morning, are telling me that when we go back to Chicago, the NASCAR investment side would be about half because they've already purchased all the assets they need for the infrastructure side. So that's my biggest thing, my biggest problem with the city of Chicago. A, you need to want us there if we're going to come spend all this money. B, our industry alone brings in a ton of tourism revenue, restaurants, hotels, obviously not rental cars, but public transit, like all of the things that we come in and spend money

on the industry, I want to be somewhere that we're welcome. That's my biggest problem with this whole thing. But don't you think that when NASCAR initially signed the seal, they had a mayor and they thought that they would have the support that they were supposed to have? I mean, does it matter if the current mayor saying we don't know if we're going to do this again. We may buy them out. Then we've got to pick it up, move it somewhere else. I am a traditionalist. I did not like the fact that we left Daytona Beach on July 4th weekend. I'm sorry, it's the way I grew up. It's the way it was. I loved it. Did I adapt to it? Yes. I said, all right, we'll go to Road America. I'll buy into this thing.

I even pumped the shit out of it on how great it was, how great of an area it was, how cool the people are. Well, we did that for a couple years. And now here we are on another one-year ex-escapade. you know, for our July 4th weekend, like Casey, I want our July 4th race to have a home. And I want it to be somewhere that we're welcomed. And look, NASCAR and the team owners right now are going through a contractual process of who's going to get what money in the future. All right. And if you look at it, it's like, all right, what teams are going to get this?

What tracks are going to get that? And when you see that NASCAR can go into a market and spend tens of millions of dollars to put on one race, then it tells us that there's more money out there. to be distributed within the industry. So if we're going to invest this kind of money, I want to do it somewhere that we've got a future. That's my biggest thing. And I realize all these ignorant people that have tweeted me all week

are upset of me because I made fun of it being a liberal-run city and I made fun of some other things. I don't care about those people. Those people don't know me. They don't know what I think. I'm giving you guys a chance to actually, you know, here and see what I'm having to say about my problems with this situation. Again, the people in Chicago always nice to be.

Gibson's one of my favorite state houses in this country. Been on top of Sears Tower, like, love the city. Haven't been in years, but I haven't been to any big cities really since COVID hit. Because when I went to L.A. last year to run the clash, which was one of my probably things that, one of the bigger reasons I came back was literally to work at that venue because of the history of the L.A. Coliseum. And then as I walked around downtown L.A. and I had to step over a human poop. And I had to see more drugs on the sidewalk than I've ever seen in my life. I just simply haven't gone back to big cities.

That is my option as an American. I can go where I want to go. I don't have to go into these big cities. I grew up in a town with 2,500 people in the middle of nowhere, and you better not speed when you go through there, Freddie. But, man, listen, I love the people. I love the area. I just want to see support from the leaders.

And so far, I'm not feeling of love. But on the opposite side, if we were to go to a Joliet or Daytona, do you think there would be as much buzz as there was this weekend, again, prior to all of the rain? I mean, I think that a few years ago, we talked about on the show how NASCAR needs to do new things, how NASCAR needs to try new stuff. And, I mean, this is something that is brand new. This is probably one of the most iconic events that will go down in history. And yes, I agree.

Obviously, the city didn't support it. But what if, you know, what if after conversations and, you know, later on we take this and me? Then I'll change my mind. I'll totally change my mind. if they take a better approach to it, I'll change my mind. But when you look at LA, the first year we went, tons of buzz, tons of hype. The second year, it's less.

So when we go back to Chicago, it's probably going to be less. But I don't care. As long as you can pick me a July 4th weekend home, just like I love the Labor Day home at Darlington. I mean, again, I'm a traditionalist. I'm 48 years old. I've been following the sport since I was four years old. So there are things that I'm not going to be okay with you changing

unless you can convince me as to why, and right now I'm not at the Y part. 80% of the tickets sold were for new first-time race fans. So I think NASCAR is doing their job with what we've talked about in the show, trying to get those new race fans trying to bring new people to the track. I mean, at least on the sponsor car, like that's right. I think if Brett, I think if you were there, Brett, I think you'd have been pumped up about it because it's the vibe. You could just feel it.

You know how like, and I agree with you, I do miss Daytona 4th of July race because, you know what it's like, more on the roof, getting ready for that Xfini race, or whatever you see over the beach, you see all them fireworks going. off and you know people are just having a great time. I do miss that, but the vibe there this weekend, remember, you went to Rhode America a couple years ago, right? Remember how it was just the race fans there were excited and this was like Road America, but in the city with a lot more, with a lot more people.

Like to me, maybe not a lot more people, but combined in one smaller area. And here's the thing, TJ, that's exactly. right. Our race fans are the best fans at all sports, and under no circumstance should they be kicked out of a facility in the middle of a lightning delay. If anything, they should have been provided somewhere to have safe harbor, especially if they were already somewhere that was safe. The last thing that we should be doing is forcing them out to lock the game and say, you're not coming back today. You know, I think there's ordinance for the park, though, and there's no shelters in the park. So they have to go out of the park district or whatever that. is I'm guessing because they ran everybody out of there. That's the problem is we're all guessing because nobody for the city ever come out and publicly said anything. I mean, I agree. Yeah, that's understandable.

There's always something that obviously didn't work out. On NASCAR side, I was a part of the planning of it. And I think to see the end product take the rain away, like it. That's the most work that NASCAR has ever, that's the most work that NASCAR has ever put in to do one race and to know. that you're only going there at one time. I hope we go back next year. I hope the mayor comes to the table and says,

look, you guys were great for us. NBC did a great job, beautifying how pretty our city is and showcasing all these things. And I hope they come to terms. And it's a long term, not a 5th, July 4th weekend, dude, sorry. I'm not saying, listen, again, I love a city of Chicago. I just want to see us go somewhere. We're supported.

And I'll get up with some. I mean, and that's fair, too. I think, like, July 4th, it is, I do miss the, the Daytona vibe. I think it's cool that NASCAR is doing something new. So we'll be curious. I think next year's event has a chance to be bigger than this year's event if they do it there again because if it's a good,

the weather's good and they can promote it and give all the concerts they were supposed to have and be able to do the performances. I'm sure, I mean, Freddie can tell you right now, there was, you'd have been dancing half the time, Brett, because there is all sorts of music playing. and just the vibe that was going on, you know, I think if it's clear and sunny out, I think that place is even more packed with people. And I think the vibes really, I think it's really, really good.

Yeah, that's the thing I'm most curious about, Freddie, is whether or not any of these people get refunded any of their money, because they did one third of the concert they promised. They did one and a half of the races that they promised. obviously you cannot, you literally cannot control the weather. But as we saw, those ticket prices were not cheap. So how do we make all of those people that were so excited to your point, Casey 80% that were coming for the first time ever, how do you make them realize that we need them to come back?

Because if I paid $500 for a ticket and I saw one out of three concerts and one and a half races out of two, I don't know how I would feel about that if I didn't get some sort of compensation back. And maybe they've said something about potential refunds. I don't know. But last I saw, man, I was just bummed that those fans didn't get what they paid for. And you could see during the cup race on television how wet the area was in front of that stage. But as an event company, you have to be prepared for that.

I mean, we've seen tons of concerts that go off in the rain. The artists are on stage jamming out. The people out in the crowd with ponchos and beer in their hands, right? So I don't think you can justify in my mind canceling the concert on Saturday and canceling the concert on Sunday because of the rain. And I know you guys are hearing me and you're like, man, whatever. Listen, it's my job as a concert paying fan to put on rain boots and go out there and stand in the mud and still enjoy Miranda Lambert if that's what I want to do. Miranda Lambert still has to play in my mind, as did the band on Saturday night chain smokers. They didn't play.

So it just goes back to what I'm bummed about. And I think it's a leadership problem. nothing to do with NASCAR. NASCAR did not do one single thing wrong from an event perspective once Friday got there. They couldn't control the rain and what they were dealt from the city, it sucks.

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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?

NASCAR said in a statement in the spirit of partnership, returning on Monday for the completion of a NASCAR Expending Series event two laps short of halfway, was an option we chose not to employ. Spot on, spot off, Freddie. I think spot on for the, I think at the end of the day, the right call was made on Saturday, I mean on Sunday. I wish that call was probably made on Saturday to save the team some money.

Or the fact that we should have probably, there was no rain in the area. I mean, you could start clearing the place out and let them guys roll around there for two more laps and then bring on the pit road. I don't know, you know, I've seen outrage about, you know, where we cut it short a halfway. Would you have been as outraged if we went out there and rolled around for two laps and then through the checker? Because that was on the table. It sounded like at some point. Or if we just rolled around two more laps under caution on Saturday night and then came down pit road and then do the checker at the end of the night. Like they were in a box where obviously it was way bigger than us.

You know, it sounded like that race didn't have a prayer of getting restarted on Saturday after you go back and look at it. And then Sunday, the weather was what it was. We knew what was coming on Sunday morning. So I don't know how you look at that and so and say, if you're going to make this decision, if this is on the table for you, and I've seen where, you know, Bob shared up that sweet, where in rare instances they can kind of do whatever they want,

that's kind of always been part of their rulebook. I don't know why this call wasn't made on Saturday night. Like, all right, you know what, instead of making everybody stay here, we had heard rumors of, you know, we heard on the radio at points, like we're kind of in a predicament that we don't know how to handle right now. And if that's the case, like, let's just cut, cut it all off and get the hell out of here. Like, there seemingly was no reason to me to stay overnight when you knew the weather

in the morning was going to be kind of what it was. And you were going to have to deal with standing water. You're going to have to deal with unfavorable conditions. And we had two laps left. Like, if this was on the table to cut it off short, we should have done it Saturday night. TJ? I don't know. See, no one knew that that weather was going to.

I mean, it literally looked like we were in a hurricane. And no one had predicted that. And I don't know if Brett saw it. Brett probably didn't see the radar from there. His was probably 85 and son. I see you right out everywhere in the country. I'm a weather geek. It is.

It literally looked like a hurricane was going. And we were the, oh, it was unreal. And I mean, we were literally in the middle of it. I mean, we were all in the same little area. And I don't know. It was, I think, you know, maybe the weather, nobody knows what the weather is going to do at all times. You don't know what it's going to do.

So I think that. call the race on Saturday and send them home and then you get up Sunday and say it's only a light rain instead of a torrential downpour like it was. I mean, then you're cutting the fan short of a race that could have happened and then that's even worse to me. So I think you have to come back and make an attempt at it. I hate that the team spent money on it. And, you know, I know there's guys like John Hummer and some other guys that wanted to shot at racing some more. I mean, I wanted to keep going. We were on a different pitch strategy. and planning for track position a little bit later.

Actually, the next stop, we were looking to have a shorter stop and leap over some guys that we're going to have to take more fuel. You know, guys are going to have to get tires and fuel when we were only going to get a little bit of fuel. So we were hoping to leap over them, guys. So I think the right, you know, to postpone it and come back and try to get it in. And, you know, I know they, I don't think they tried so hard to get us out there, even to run a couple laps. and even try it.

But I think given the circumstances that were dealt, and you know, anytime you get, you break a record for rainfall. I mean, that's pretty big to break a record. I mean, that's a lot of rain.

So, but I think NASCAR made the right call and did what they had to do to, um, try to get the events in. And then when it came too late and they knew they couldn't do it, they did the right thing. So I don't think making them guys stick around until Monday. was the right thing.

So, I mean, I think everything was done correctly. Hindsight's 2020. We talk about Monday morning quarterback. Freddie and I literally started the couch racer brand because of things like this because it's easy for us to sit here on a Monday and say, well, we should have done on a Friday night. I feel like NASCAR was in it for the long haul for the Xfinity race. Obviously, they couldn't get it in on Saturday.

They made to move to call it, I think, to T.J's point, they made the right move. I'm spot on for the call. I'm spot off for the fact that the fan. had to be so confused because it wasn't halfway and because we weren't at the end of stage two, which would have given us the opportunity to make the race official. So they called a race that wasn't official based on the way a rule was written that Freddie shared with me yesterday that basically said, we can do what we want whenever we want, no matter if you agree with it or not. So I understand why the fans were confused and it was with warrant,

but I also think that NASCAR from a sanctioning body perspective made the right. call primarily because when that track is ready, you need to be able to put your premier series out there to fulfill the obligation to the fans, the cup fans that are there, that have paid big money to be there. And if we sit around and piddle with that Xfinity race a little while longer, I don't think that was going to be the case. And then they would have had to delay it to Monday. We heard rumors that would have cost a lot of money from a traffic pattern perspective

to leave the road course intact until Monday that had to be broken down and loaded out by Monday at midnight. So financially and for the sport, right call, it just sucks for the fans, but I don't know what you could do differently. Where was this role back, whatever year it was,

Brett, and we were in Michigan for like three, four to until like Wednesday or something. Yeah, what day did we even race on? Did we race on Tuesday or Wednesday? I want to say, I want to say it was Tuesday afternoon,

and we were getting ready to take the green, and then fog set in, and the drivers could see, but we couldn't see the racetrack. And I remember Elliot, saying, well, I could see, I don't need you, let's go green. I said, you don't understand. We can't see the racetrack, which means if y'all wrecked,

NASCAR can't throw the caution. They won't even know you've wrecked because they're up here just as high as we are. But, yeah, that was a long time ago. But, you know, we never started that race. We didn't actually start it until that Tuesday. I did that week every single night for five nights. That was it. I'm not going to lie.

That was some of the most rain I've ever seen somewhere again as well. So, yeah. Moving on, race officials score, Byron, Lejoy, and Harvick, despite them being involved in the multi-car pile-up. Brett, face off your grin, you go first, spot on, spot off. I just don't know how you can cause a massive pile-up, and the 24 calls to pile up, and then multiple cars drive by the scene of the accident,

and then after that, the track gets completely blocked, and then we roll off, and the 24 is allowed to restart the race, and I think what was the 10th position. So I am 100% spot off for William Byron, not only causing the wreck, but getting to essentially retain where he was on a racetrack, Freddie. Yeah, I, so we were right behind this. We were, it was, we were probably the fourth or fifth car in line,

and it was a, that's normal. Yeah, it was not my section. So I just heard, I heard our spotter say, get right, get right. We kind of slid through the corner, and we, we were the first car when, Byron had slid off to the left, and then Harvick kind of spun in reaction to that, and it kind of created the seven to spin, and then those two had the track blocked, and then we were the first car, like, nosed up to the middle of them, so once they moved, we kind of shot through there.

But at the same time, I don't know, five or six guys had passed us on the right before the seven had completely blocked the track. So we rolled through there, and Bubba has still got a chip on his shoulder over Darlington a little bit. So he's like, I better get my spot back. I didn't hit nothing. I didn't touch nobody. And I said, well, you know, we stopped. We'll see what they do.

I don't know. So I was fully anticipating about seven or eight cars. Yeah, about seven or eight cars being ahead of us. And I even said on Channel 2, if anybody was listening, I was like, I said, man, he's not going to be happy, but I think they're going to put us back about 10 spot because he got driven all the way back up to like fifth. And I said, I think they're going to put us back a bunch here. So then they start calling out the lineup.

And it was the guys that were in front of us already. And then it was the 45 and the 54 who were the first two to miss. sit on the right, Redick and Gibbs, they kind of squeezed through on the right first. And then I think the next group was like Danny and maybe the 16 AJ. A couple more guys went through on the right. Well, we restarted in front of them. And I was like, the lineup comes out. And it said all those guys.

And then it was 24, four, seven. And I'm like, then there was 23, I think. And I'm like, oh, wow, we got our spot back essentially. And then I'm thinking, I'm like, wait a minute. everybody got their spot back and then they get on the radio and they like listen the track was blocked so you know we're going to go off the freeze and this is the lineup off the freeze and I'm like okay but nobody gets penalized for being the one that blocked the track like I don't understand like I get it the track is blocked and you and you're I don't know if this was an adjustment they made

this week because of the potential for this but like normally if you stop in a wreck you would go wherever you blend but I know this was probably in rare instances again but but But these guys were the three cars that had the track blocked. The 24 was the one that knows it into the wall there in 11. The four or the seven spin to block the track reacting to the 24. And they're the ones that have the track blocked. And then everybody else stops behind it. I don't understand what's so hard about.

And it would have hurt our team. So I'm glad it didn't happen. But the track's blocked. I get it. Okay, great. We should go as we come out of that pack. You know, once they get the track unblocked, you know, or however it works. like that's how you line up like like because there's literally we probably gained seven spots

of that six seven spots and I loved it but um like I don't I don't know I don't get the rules I thought that you know if you maintain reasonable speed like the six and them guys did at Darlington they were about 50 60 miles an hour they got their spot back the 21 had an issue I forget where it was maybe gateway he slowed down more he was down about 20 30 mile an hour he didn't get his spot back we stopped yesterday somehow got our spot back. Like, I'm just, as always, begging for consistency and I don't, I'm still not seeing it. TJ. Yeah, I don't, I'm spot off because there was actual cars that did like stop and wreck. And I mean, and the track wasn't blocked until the four car pulled up and blocked the track.

He's the one that pulled up to the wall in front of him because a couple, two, three cars went by. And Truex was getting ready to go by. And I think it was the four. Was it the four or was Freddy or the seven? I think it was the four. I don't remember which one. I think it was a four. But, I mean, he pulls up and blocks the track. And to me, I think you look at the road course stuff. You look at accidents here and you say, okay, you were the cause of the yellow.

I mean, they threw the yellow for what? The 24, the four, and the seven. Those were the three cars, I think, that you threw the yellow for. And I think if you're the reason for the yellow, you don't get to retain your track position. and I mean otherwise you know who's to say you need a yellow and you get three of you just to block the track and stop they throw the yellow then you just take off again

then you get a free yellow you know I think if you're the you're the reason for the yellow I think it's an automatic no brainer here that and it would stop people from blocking the track too and I mean you'd hope anyway but it didn't really hurt us

because we were you know we were obviously we got legacy in turn 6 the first lap of the race by the torpedo in the 43, which was awesome. You should have been going faster. You wouldn't have been in his way. I mean, if we went any faster, we were going to hit the wall like he did. So apparently, yeah, so that was disappointing to have somebody overdrive that much and ruin your day that quick in the race. And I feel bad for Noah because I think Noah was actually pretty decent yesterday. He was on, he got to our right side.

He could get the six better than most people. Well, so, now the 43 got to six better than most of them, too. Maybe it was the 43 and turned six, so we hit the six. I don't know. Is there some sort of weird, weird, something lining up there? But I don't know, man. I think if you're the reason for the yellow, you should not get your spots back for people stopping to avoid from plowing into you. I mean, now you're just saying, we all should just hammer down and plow through there instead of,

of being safe about it. If you're the cause for the yellow, you're going to the back, no matter what. Road street racing. I just don't understand how you come on the radio and say, the track was blocked,

and this is how we're going to do it. Why was the track blocked? Like a, you know, a barricade didn't fall out there. Somebody blocked the racetrack and they just got their spot back. Yeah. There was literally no repercussions

for William making a mistake. You know, and that's not how it should be. If you are the reason, and you're not just changing his track position right there. You're changing pitch strategies for everyone in that field depending on what's happening in that race. For the leaders, the guys in the back to keep pitting, getting fuel, trying to get a shorter stop later or something. You're changing a lot of stuff. And there's literally, there was literally no repercussion for it, but two, three spots.

Speaking of change of pitch strategies, Casey, what's the next stop? Oh, man. I feel like we can talk about this for hours. NASCAR shortened the race length from 100 to 75 laps midway through the event, upsetting crew chiefs and drivers who were set on a specific strategy. Freddie, spot on, spot off. I mean, 1,000% spot off. I feel like there was a few different ways this could have been handled.

and when we didn't take any of those avenues, it's for one, to start, like, just to, we knew, I mean, first of all, there's a rule in place, which obviously I know we were going to do everything we could to get out of there yesterday. Like, we were not, we did not want to be there today, racing. So I have no issues with, I kind of knew, I think I was tweeting with your text and with you guys in the text,

like, you might see some stuff that's unprecedented today just because we need to get the hell out of here. Like, like, it was pretty obvious that this weekend wasn't going great for the city side of things and we we needed to get out of there yesterday so we started that race maybe with not enough time you know normally the rule is that we need to start the race with an ample amount of time to complete the race and i don't think that that happened yesterday unless i mean maybe if you were considering it going green the checker without any cautions we could have gotten it in before dark but it would have been tough so you know there's going to be yellows you know there's going to be

the pace is slowed because we're starting in the wet um so if you know that's the case there's to go about this before the race starts or as the race gets started, you see what the pace is, to make it fair for everybody, whether or not it's saying, we're racing until, you know, sunset yesterday we looked up, I think it was 829. Hey, we're racing until 820.

That gives everybody an idea of, okay, whatever, you know, it's 820 and we're throwing the white flag. There's one more lap to go at 820. Then everybody knows how long we're racing, and they can base their strategy off of that. You just, the biggest thing is you cannot shorten

a race and then have the laps remaining less than a fuel run. You know, we could run probably 37, 38 laps on a tank of fuel yesterday. Well, all of a sudden, you make the rate, you know, we're back there and the eight and the 22 did the same as us. We're just pitting because we're running in the back. Like the yellow would come out. We're no reason not to come top off. Well, all of a sudden now, we're rolling around under a caution. And I knew, like, we heard them say something on radio like, hey, everybody's, all the officials have like a number to identify themselves. They don't say like, you know, hey, Kip, go here. It's usually, I think Kip's numbers like 47.

So it's like 47, go to this channel or whatever. So, you know, we hear them say, hey, go to the go-to channel. And I looked at Nick Payne, who was right behind me. I think he was leading or running the second of the time. And I said, they're getting ready to do something, whether I don't know if they're going to throw the checker right now or change the distance or say we got, you know, what time. And then they come up and say there's essentially 25 laps to go or 28 laps to go.

I'm like, well, wow, they just royally f***. all the leaders because at this point, I'm like, we can make it on fuel. And now the 8 can make it on fuel. And the 22, I think, was another one. Poor Christopher. And the leaders, the leaders can. You know, the leaders all had to bid. They all needed to come.

So now, I think there was 11 of us that stayed out and then, you know, put them guys behind the eight ball of, you know, Christopher Bell was in control that race. He was, he was the dominant car. He was in control. And I don't know. I think he restarted 12th, probably on that restart, just for the fact of, They just made a call to change the distance of the race and not making a fuel window. And if you know, like, if you're thinking the other way they could have handled this, I think,

and maybe I don't know what it would have helped a whole lot, but it would have helped some was they should have announced it. They announced the change after the pit cycle. Like if they would have just let these guys come around and pit and then say, you know, because now you're not making your pit's decision based on we're running 25 more or 28 more laps, whatever it was, there might not have been as many guys stayed out. I think we were going to stay out because we had a number, like if we can gain five spots, we were going to do it. I'm sure the eight and some of them guys that pit real late and that the first or second stage would have done the same thing.

But you just gave these guys car blanche and go, hey, you know, well, hell, we've made it on, we got two, three laps on our tires and we can make it off fuel. We might as well stay out now because there's only 20 to go or 28 to go, whatever it was. And it's just, I feel like we just dropped the ball there where you put the guys that were leading and then control the race at a severe disadvantage by changing the distance as late as they did. TJ. I think there's probably a way to be more proactive with it. You know, that the 20 car, like Freddie said, there's, you got, we kind of knew, we kind of knew it was a possibility. You know, once we got through about the first hour of the race and we saw how many laps were done and how much time we had left. And, you know, everyone says, oh, well, sunsets at 844 or whatever. I don't even remember what it was, but that's when it's sunny. And I don't know if you saw

amount of rain we had that day. There wasn't much sun in the sky. So sunset, dark was going to be quite a bit before that. And, you know, it did kind of, I don't really think it was a fair shake for the 20 car or the leaders up there because it basically shifted. Like, you know, Freddie mentioned it, the 31, the 3, the 2, all them, you know, got shuffled right to the front because of, you know, you know, you know, of a race being shortened.

And, you know, I wasn't sure they could make it on fuel. And I asked Matt, I'm like, Matt, you know, how far can these guys go? And he's like, oh, they're good. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I will say that those are the guys who would have picked. Yeah. Those are the guys that wouldn't have, you know, if they don't know if they don't know if there's 25 to go, they're coming for sure. Yeah, 100%.

I will say, though, that a car that was on the same strategy as the 20 and them still won the race. So the five was, I think, the second car on the leader strategy up there in that group. And he finished top five still, I think. So, you know, there was still possibility for, you know, the 20, if everything played out right. He still had a shot at winning that race. If he doesn't, I think he made a couple of mistakes and overshot some corners trying too hard to get back up there. The 91, I think, was a little more patient, just taking advantage of mistakes like that. And ultimately, had better tires than the guys in the front of the end.

and still won the race. But definitely, you know, I think there's more, I think there's something to learn from this. You know, they got, you know, you got better timing on stuff on what's suitable to race in and stuff. Because it was starting to get pretty dark there. I mean, it wasn't terrible. I mean, it was getting close.

So. Was it getting dark or not? It was getting dark. Well, it wasn't terrible. There was, we probably could have done one more green, white checker maybe. I don't know. I mean, but, and I actually thought we were going to need one because, you know, and this is, Brett, this was an issue, I think, with the start time.

I was, I was going to, I was going to ask that. My question, Freddie is, but I got a question for, I got a question for Freddie, though. Freddie, if they say they're shortening the race because of darkness to 75 laps, should there be green white checkers after that, if you're going to a hard set, you know what I mean? Like, if it's going to be dark and you, like, why don't we race to a lap 180? or I mean 80. Yeah, I don't know. We called it, you know, we called it overtime.

And I don't know. It wasn't overtime because we hadn't even got to the end of the race yet. I know. So overtime was 101, not 76. If you short the race to 75, should it end there? I mean, yeah, essentially. If you're saying that's our hard cutoff, yes. And Brett, this is, you know, something.

Obviously we hear what you think about that. But, you know, our start time was what? 455, I think green flag was what originally was before they moved it. I think we ended up starting probably around 5.30, so that's 30 minutes. Like, if we weren't going to, at that pace, we weren't going to run 100 laps at the advertised start time. So, like, that's something we got to address going back there, too. Yeah, obviously, you started with the track wet, so the track's going to be slower. I mean, here's the thing, guys, like, as a fan of motorsports, NASCAR is the best fan experience

you can have watching from home. You have the television, you have the radio broadcast. Both of those have been around forever. But you also have the apps to follow, listening on in-car radios, etc., or watch in-car cameras. But in addition to that, you've got social media. And I can tell you, Bob Pockris and Jeff Gluck

and Jim Utter and Jennifer, or Kelly Cradle, there's a bunch of them that are there that are able to give you a lot of inside perspective and opinions. And Gluck tweeted, well before they changed the distance, that there's no way that we have time to run all of these laps.

Now, as a fan that's sitting here on the East Coast, I'm not thinking about that because I know you have about an hour more daylight than I've got here. And I literally looked at it and I looked at the math of it. And I was like, he's right. We don't have a chance to get to about lap 85. Here's my struggle. My struggle is, as a sanctioning body, Freddie, you should know that you don't have time to run this whole race when you're 10 laps in.

Somebody should be sitting there working on that. when we have experienced racers in the booth like Elton Sawyer, like Chad Little, like Jesse Little, they have got to put people around them to help them make good decisions in an efficient manner. We shouldn't be changing the distance of the race that late when we should have known well before that that it was going to be a problem. Again, I'm sitting at the beach on vacation, having a cocktail watching this thing on TV, having an absolute blast. And then when it comes out, we're changing the distance.

And I started looking at it. I'm like, well, we had to have known this 45 minutes, an hour, maybe even at the point we threw the green flag that this was a problem. So why didn't we change the advertised distance then? That's my struggle. It's not the fact that they had to make a change. It's the fact that they had to make a change so late. And when they made the change, it gave some people a major advantage,

i.e. some of the guys that were sitting up there in front. Yeah. I mean, if you have, you see it. And it doesn't have to be very early. You know, like NASCAR knows what our fuel window is. You know, NASCAR knows these guys can run within a five-lap fuel window. You know, if you have this number of 75 in your head, you've got to subtract 37, 38, whatever it is, from 75. And that's your cutoff point.

Like, you can't make it a, you cannot shorten the race shorter than a fuel run. You can't do it because you've just changed the race. And I know, you know, the 20 had an opportunity to get there. because the 91 did. But at the same time, he just got penalized essentially 11 spots because of the call they made, you know, or 10 spots. And, you know, they would have run the race differently, way differently, if they knew they were only racing in a lap 75.

So it's just, you know, you can't, I just, they dropped the ball there. When we saw this, we talked about it on here a couple years ago when they ran that race at Loudoun. You know, there has to be a hard cutoff time because that race there, you know, the 10's leading. he's checked out. Ironically, the 20 got screwed again because the 20 is running the 10 down, running the 10 down, and all of a sudden we throw the checker with 8 to go. Like, was it going to get that much darker in, I don't know what's a lap, what, four more minutes? You know, like, I thought the 20, I thought, looking at lap time, the 20 was going to get there that day.

But for some reason, we decided randomly to where, all right, there's 10 laps to go now or whatever. I forget what they called that day. But there was no warning again. They just randomly ended the race for whatever reason. So I think if you see this as an opportunity, you've got to get out way ahead of it. And like I said, there's no reason yesterday where we can say, we know this is an issue. Okay, guys, we're going to race till last, you know, we know sunsets at 8.30 or 829. We're going to run until 815, and then at 815, we're throwing the white flag.

No matter what lap it is, no matter who's running where, if it's yellow, caution, red, purple, whatever it is. When we get to 815, this race is over, and everybody would run on the same page, and they could have run on the same page. and they could have run the race the same way and known when they could make it to the end of the race based on fuel mileage. And there was guys yesterday that, for one, it saved their race, guys earned finishes they probably didn't deserve because it was hard to pass.

There was guys that didn't run very good, but you'd give them a track position that can hang on to it. And then there's other guys that, you know, they've ruined their own day. Now, you know, the 2019, they've made mistakes trying to get back there and ruin their own day. But, you know, if you don't put them in this position, that doesn't happen, I don't think.

So even despite all the things that we're sitting here about, Gluck's poll is trending 86% yes, this was a good race. And again, from a viewing experience, it was great. But you guys have to look at this two ways. We're looking at it. Was this a good race from a fans perspective? What you guys are hearing here is industry perspective on it may be not being completely fair and giving some teams an advantage on why we're asking for this change. right we're not we're not saying NASCAR sucks we're not saying they screwed us all up we're saying given that you're going to be in this position we have to recognize it sooner and we have to make decisions differently

that's all we're saying yeah and i think i think that race yesterday was phenomenal i think that was one of the best what we have been asking for for years on this show is to make these things hard and and we want to you know brett we've talked about it you know you don't see anybody blow turn one at wakins glen anymore you don't see guys blow turn four at sonoma these guys were making mistakes yesterday. Talented guys that were really, you know, we obviously seen a bunch of guys below corners that were running around the back, but you saw Christopher Bell

below a corner. You seen Tyler Redick probably give the race away, blowing turn six. You know, he's ahead of the 91 and faster than 91 at that point in the race, and he makes a mistake and cause himself a race. So I thought from a racing perspective, this is one of the best road course races we've had in a long time

just from sheer, you know, challenge, you know, this place challenged these drivers in the wet and the dry. So I don't ask TJ this, though. You brought up a good point. I want to ask TJ this. All these guys, TJ, are blowing these corners. I mean, Kyle Bush, burying the car in the tires, multiple guys did the same thing.

We see them once they're hooked up, back out and roll off. Do you think a mistake of that magnitude should have a yielding preserved race car that literally is almost as good as new when they leave the scene of an accident like that? Man, that's tough. You preached on here. You preached on here for years. You make a mistake. You should pay a consequence. Obviously, they lose their spot in line most of the time.

But like, should that car be preserved as well as it is? You know, my gut's telling me no, but for the driver's sake and keeping the, you know, keeping more cars in the race, I think it's the safest thing. I think if you make the walls any harder where it hurts the car more. I mean, there's obviously spots around that track to hurt the car. We saw plenty of guys doing practice. We saw the 24, the 47, the 9 in qualifying. There are spots to where there's more, you know,

where you just can't afford to mess up. Look at Suarez. He looked like a pinball a couple times there during the race bouncing off the walls. I kind of like the fact that these guys, I mean, obviously when they would wedge it in, they would lose a lot. I mean, I think most of them that had to get pulled out, Freddie.

I think lost a lap from what I saw. So I think that's, yeah, that's a punishment been enough to me. You lose a lap. You lost your track position, but we still have a car in the race, and it keeps the fields big. And the more cars you have out there, the more exciting it is. I mean, obviously a 36 car race is better than a 20 car race. So maybe we need to tear all these softballs down and just put up tire barriers all the way around these ovals in. That way we can keep everybody intact. But I'm, look at, uh, look at Chase Elliott. I mean, he buried it off into the roval when his controller disconnected that one time into one.

and comes back and wins the race. Win's the race. Yeah, and I'm okay with, I'm okay with these cars not getting tore up that bad. I mean, obviously you can hit hard enough at spots to hurt the car. So I think the consequences are enough because, you know, I don't think you're telling me my race should have been over because the 43 car drove it off into the corner so hard.

We had the tire barrier bounced off of it. Obviously, he bounced off it as well, but I don't think that is, I don't think a wreck like that should end people's days. I mean, it's hard to say. I don't think it's right for ending days on them wrecks like that. Moving on, SVG says any of the top 10 in supercars are good enough to come and do what I just did. Brett, spot on, spot off. Boy, I tell you something, man.

I took major offense to this comment. as someone who loves racing and who appreciates different disciplines for him to say that he could bring his nine other buddies over here and they run top 10 and our best cup guy finish 11th. I mean, that's not what he's saying,

but he's insinuating that all of him and his buddies are just as good in this cup car as the cup drivers. And I have a problem with that. I don't think he was trying to insult our drivers and their talent. I know our drivers had some things to say after the race.

Like they should be embarrassed that this happened. I really wish we had AJ Amundinger on this show right now because he made a lot of comments that we talked about at one of the earlier road courses this year in regards to the fact we were in Austin and he came to a Neutron Xilutions Hospitality. And he said these guys, like an SVG, couldn't jump into an Xfinity car and go out there and do this because they're harder to drive.

The shifting patterns are different. but given their experience, they can come in and jump into these cup cars and do it. I was of the belief that nobody like this would show up in a part-time effort and have an opportunity as a first-time starter or even a plug-and-play guy and have an opportunity to win this race. If this is Daytona or Talladega and it's a Brad Keselowski situation, 100% I believe it can happen. But to have a guy show up from wherever the hell he's from, I know he races in Australia. Where's he from, New Zealand?

Yes. Shows up from New Zealand via Australia and he kicks our tails. Like I never thought I would see this happen. It's not like this guy has the same pit crew every week. It's not like he has a great relationship with a crew chief. It's not like he's worked with the engineers to get his setup, you know, just perfect for that particular. He showed up and he was faster than everybody else at the end of the race and he kicked our guys asses and when he made this comment, I was like, wow. Like, I don't know if this should be an insult to our guys or not.

So spot on for the fact he said what he was thinking, spot off for just how I guess it was a gut punch for me. And again, I'll admit it. I was wrong. Project 91 is an awesome marketing effort, obviously a subsidiary of track house. I love what they're doing. the drivers that they're putting in there, but to go and have a guy show up in a part-time effort with a not, I don't know,

I'm blown away by it. TJ. That didn't take as much offense to it. I follow the V8 Supercar's a little bit, and those guys are really good. Everything lined up perfectly for him this weekend because they drive cars that are very similar to our cars, a lot of horsepower,

smaller tire. So honestly, I feel like coming to this was probably easier than what he normally has to drive over there. And the guy's won, I mean, probably close to 100 V8 supercar races. The guy is no joke. He's basically the modern day. I don't know how many Marcus has or whatever, but I mean, you know how good Marcus was when he come over here and ran road course especially. Now, do I think he comes over there and does this on an oval? Absolutely not.

I do think, though, they race in the rain as well. So with the wet weather experience, they run on street courses. Everything lined up for this guy to come over here. Limited dry track time, which probably hurts our guys here. I don't, like, I am not surprised by this one bit at all. This guy, he's a phenomenal race car driver. He's won in a 4-10 sprint car. He's won in all sorts of forms of racing.

But for him to come over here, we know the trackhouse cars can be fast. and it's a new track. Nobody has any info for this track. So I think it's the perfect storm for him to come over here when this race. And he drove, I watched people pass him. And I watched him as soon as they got positioned on him, I saw him let these guys go. He ran a very smart race.

And, you know, to put, I think the race at the end with Justin, that was a phenomenal battle too between him and Justin. That was to make the passes they were making and getting off in the wet, diving. I didn't think they were both making turn four. they were doing that. So to watch those, those two guys, and for, you know, shout out to Justin for being up there, ducing it out with this guy. So, um, I'm not surprised by this one bit at all. Another reference for this is, you know, we have, uh, we had another V8 supercar driver,

uh, part time guy. Oh, and Kelly. I don't know if you remember. Oh, and Freddie, Freddie does probably. Um, he'd come over here and drove the KBM or the Joe gives racing cars, uh, Bush cars, Sfini cars, and he was very competitive, like top five. And he was not a prominent VA supercar guy, like not even a full-time guy. And he would run top five. And I think those guys, it just fits their wheelhouse. These guys will not come over here and repeat that stuff on an oval. You know, they can adapt.

You know, someone can get good at it, I'm sure. But, like, you know, I don't think, like, even looking at AJ yesterday, yesterday, AJ was, where did AJ run most of the day? Right inside the top 10th? He was right around 8th to 10th. Yeah, he wasn't anywhere near as good as I thought he was going to be. Yeah. And, you know, I'm telling you, man, things lined up perfectly for Shane, fast car, new track,

wet course, and the guy's a phenomenal race car driver. So I am not surprised by this at all. I don't think he goes to an oval though and has the same success. Or I don't think he goes to Watkins Glen and just dominates like he did today. Like I think his three fastest, someone said it's three best laps were still two and a half tenths better than third or second places or anyone else the rest of the day is best lap. So the guy obviously does this for a living over there. I mean, you look up his highlights. You're going to see tons of street course wins, tons of road course wins.

So this is right in his wheelhouse. So congrats to Justin Marks for getting this done and getting this guy in the car. But, you know, this isn't, our guys are mainly oval guys. We've added some road courses in there, and we do say our guys have gotten really good at road course stuff over the years. I mean, we used to talk about the ringers coming in. You don't have ringers coming in anymore like this. I do think this is more of a one-off thing, but, I mean, it's definitely tough, but he definitely did a great job. Right.

Yeah, I mean, I'm spot on. How do you argue with them right now? you know but to tj's point i think this just lended itself perfectly to him it's a track our guys are not familiar with the track he is familiar with it's a car that he is it's it's almost a slowed down version of what he races you know i don't know that he is this i think he runs well if we go to a walkins glen tomorrow but i don't know that he wins the race and is his dom you know he was dominant all weekend i felt like he was the fastest car in practice he was probably going to sit on the poll if he had not committed to running one lap when them other guys ran two.

You know, and he ran top three majority of the race before that pitch strategy deal played out. I don't know that he goes to Sonoma and does that. I don't know that he goes to Watkins Glen and is that much better than everybody because of the amount of laps our guys have at those racetracks. I think this was just a perfect storm for him. And this was a great move by Justin and his guys to put him in this race. Obviously, it paid off. This is his wheelhouse.

This is what he races. He races street courses. He runs these kind of cars. And he looked like he was more adaptable to that facility than our guys were yesterday. He never, I don't remember any point of him making a mistake yesterday. You know, all the guys that were fast from the Cupside, you know, Danny Ammon on the pole, makes a mistake on the second or third lap, whatever it was. Tyler super fast makes a mistake drives off into the barrier.

The 20 drives off in the barrier. Martin hit the lottery about, he hit everything yesterday. You know, the guys that were really fast still made mistakes. He never got out of line, it seemed like, except for maybe when he was battling Justin. I mean, they just, they had a flawless weekend, and it's hard to argue with him. If he would have told you had 10 trackhouse cars yesterday and the top 10 guys came over here from the Supercar series, they probably would have took up half the top 10, I would assume, at least. This was me.

This was me fanboying out after the race, Freddie. But the race is over and I'm pulling for Justin as hard as I can. I'm throwing shit to the TV. And I literally said, man, I hope this guy for him. fails tech. You know, if you're sitting there at the track and you put in all these gutless hours, you perceive the race differently than if you're sitting at home having a cocktail. And I was like, I mean, I hope Justin takes his ass out if he passes it.

And then Justin made that crossover and I'm like, get it. And then the guy cleared him again. I'm like, all right, put him into barriers. We need a win right here, boys. And he didn't do it. And after the race, I was like, well, maybe he'll fail tech. Like, I was still pulling for my guy. That's the thing that was fun down here in Myrtle Beach.

But I will say on the other side of it, I mean, this is a huge success for Justin, and it shows that other teams can really do the same. I mean, we'll talk about this in a little bit as well, but NASCAR is trying to expand globally, and this just shows that, you know, Justin bringing somebody from another sport to have success there and to show that his team is really one of the best of the best right now. Like, this is a no-brainer for any team owner. in my eyes. I think Justin just started.

Justin Marks, Casey, Justin Marks looks more and more brilliant every single day that he's an owner. Like the things that he's doing, he's innovative on the marketing and business side, obviously on the competition side. They're better right now. Hell, they were better

last year than in my mind Chip Ganassi racing ever was in terms of being a part of the conversation all year. Yeah, I know Kyle Larson had one year where he won five races in Gannasi stuff, but I mean, they're sitting here already with two wins from two of their cars and obviously Daniel could win anywhere. So Justin Marks looks like a genius right now.

I think it shows what the future of the sport is as well. And on that topic, Steve O'Donnell says NASCAR can take the Cup Series anywhere we want. The race we put on today would sell and be embraced globally. Freddie? Well, spot on. I think, I mean, I think it's a bold statement to say we can go anywhere. because there's obviously some places that probably don't want us, got a little bit like we saw this weekend, I think.

But, you know, I agree that, you know, seeing what we did this weekend, obviously it's very expensive to Brett's point from earlier, but we could take this anywhere, you know, and essentially, obviously, I have no issues. I had my, I had reservations about the street course going in, but seeing the product that it, you know, created and how challenging it was for our drivers, I have no issue with it. that that was a great race and we've we've cried on here for years that we want these guys to be

challenged we want to see these guys in a position where they make mistakes again and they were making them yesterday um you know so it's we just have to get to somewhere where i feel like we are the ones in control of the show you know i felt like at times this weekend we were kind of along for the ride and we were not on our own plan you know we were kind of being told what to do versus you know we we've already had our reservations with naskar ourselves on here about NASCAR not keeping us in the loop of, of, you know, what's going on and, you know, during rain delays or whatnot. But, you know, this felt like NASCAR didn't know what was going on, you know, on top of us not knowing. So I'm all for going anywhere in the world at this point.

And if we can build a street course anywhere, you know, if we run around the damn Eiffel Tower, if we have to do right now, I'm good with it because I did this event up until that rainstorm on Friday or that lightning storm on Saturday, I should say, this was a home run a grand slam out of the park and obviously it got diminished with the rain and then what went on after that but I'm all for taking it across the world at this point. Brett. I think we knew this

when we left to LA Coliseum last year and I think it's awesome for Steve to come out and say this. I wish Casey we were in her perspective where it puts a lot of pressure on the tracks to put on amazing events every single week, but the reality is

it doesn't because the majority of tracks are owned by two entities. Speedway Motorsports, which is obviously Marcus Smith's group, NASCAR, which is obviously the France group, but for him to come out and say publicly, we can do this anywhere. Yeah, we can, but where are you going to pull races from to go and do it? Because Road America was easy for them to go in and slide a date away from. It was an independent sitting there on the calendar. And guess who took control back over of that date? NASCAR did. If they want to go to Boston, go. If you want to go to Bahrain, go. You proved it last year at L.A. You can do this.

You proved it again this year at L.A. You can do this. You proved it this weekend. In Chicago, you can do this. But here's the thing. What's stopping somebody else from doing this too now? If you've got the capital, like is this opening the door, and this is a crazy concept, but is this opening the door for like the live golf tour or whatever the hell they call that thing,

where a bunch of capital gets raised. You go out there and get a bunch of guys paying a bunch of money. The next thing you know, we've got a challenger with NASCAR. and I realize NASCAR has its own proprietary rights to things, but knowing that we can do this anywhere is a great thing, but does it mean that we're going to have some competition? TJ. Yeah, I think this definitely opens the door to pretty much everything now.

I think, like I said before, I think the vibe was great, and I think we can continue this momentum, you know, if they do want to carry it other places, I think it'd be cool to have a like you know one of them what's the street course they race over

Formula one race is Freddie do you know overseas maybe Andrew knows like don't they have a night race over there go no like it's like it might be Bahrain or something like that it's um that is a night race yeah

yeah like I'm I think it'd be awesome to do a weekend with Formula One I think it'd be I think our drivers obviously are a we have a different style of racing and I think it'd be like I've read a lot of comments from Formula One

fan saying they haven't watched much NASCAR but because of this race and they watched it and saw the cars bounce and saw the drivers handling, you know, throwing the cars around having their hands full. They said they were NASCAR fans now. So I think

it would be cool to go do a double header on a track like that. You know, back, you know, run with them guys. Show the different styles of racing. show how close our guys can run together because, you know, Formula One has a tendency to get spread out real far. That's just their style of racing. Who's putting what tires on, you know, when they're stopping for fuel?

But honestly, there's very minimal passing in the race, but that's okay. That's their style of racing. It's more about, well, you know, this McLaren has a new underbody this week. How much faster is they going to be or something like that, which is great. But, you know, I think it'd be cool to show people overseas what our style of racing can be as well. So on that note, we talk a lot about how, you know, Chicago obviously didn't embrace the race, didn't support us being there. With, now that this is done and we see what a success it is, minus the racing or minus the rain part, Formula One has had a ton of support from places like Vegas and Miami. But they've also seen that it works before.

Do you think that now more cities will want to support financially us coming to their area, bringing race, bringing a new market? Do you see that happening? I do. I honestly do. I think it was a home run for what it can do for a city. And I know, like I told you earlier, Brett wasn't there. But the vibe around the city from people that lived there, man, they were genuinely excited. and they were and they loved it and I never heard a complaint all the cars are too loud any of that stuff it was just a vibe around the whole event and then the racing was the guys put on a great show and I think the door is wide open

I guess we'll find out hey what's up everybody I know y'all are probably putting together your vacation plans planning your next tailgate at the track or just looking to upgrade some things around the house our new sponsor money lion the all-in-one mobile finance app has been part of the racing community for years and is dedicated to helping people like you take control of your money and make good things happen. With Money Lion, you can borrow, save, invest, and earn money all in one place. Here's the best part, Brett.

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Already have the Money Lion app. Great. Make sure to follow them on social media because they're hooking up race fans with opportunities to win some really great stuff, including cash giveaways, exclusive on track experiences, and customer rewards like next level grills for your tailgates. With the Money Lion app, you're once up closer to getting your financial future on the right path. Visit MoneyLion.com slash Hot Pass for more information. to the DBCA, Maine. Move on to the DBCA, Maine, where we catch up on all things dirt. And I guess we can take a little bit of a different spin. Obviously, SVG, having dirt experience,

having other forms of racing experience, and we talk a lot about on the broadcast yesterday, how guys like Larson and Christopher and even Reddick had the advantage because they came from that dirt racing, who would you guys like to see take over one of the cars or run a straight race in the future from the dirt world? I know we got 90 shots. That'd be my first shot. Sorry I jumped your freddie about it.

I wasn't somebody else to take my pick. I grew up going to Lancaster Motor Speedway, Chester Motor Speedway, and they would run every now and now and then a huge race. And if you won that race, and again, we're talking 1982, 1983, it gave you an opportunity to go make a bull. Grand National Series start. So I know I am old. But I would love to see Donny's shots. And I don't just mean come in and run a race because I don't think everybody can show up and win like this Shane guy did, right?

So I would love to see shots get an opportunity to run an Xfinity car or a cup car full time for a solid year. That would be heaven on earth for me. Huge props to what he does in a race car. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. You know, you talk about Shane Van Gisberg. What has a kid? I don't even have

no idea. The funny thing was I was jokingly calling him the wrong name for like I was cheering my by the way I was cheering my guts out for this guy

because I needed him to win to keep us in the playoffs. We need, we're 15th. Oh yeah, by the way, you're welcome. But we were,

you know, we're 15th in the cutoff line so I'm watching the end to this race. You know, there's only one spot buffer behind us. And literally the entire top 10

at the end of that race was like there was like two guys had a win. And I'm like, oh, shit. Like, this is not going to go well for us. So now I'm calling this guy every name of the book, like, cheering for him. I was Rosenbagger and all this stuff from the old rookie of the year there. But an interesting point with him is like, you know, he's a, he races in Australia from New Zealand. A lot of our drivers go over to New Zealand, the dirt guys that you're familiar with, whether it's Christopher, Kyle, Sunshine. There's a lot of

popular dirt guys that go over Brad. They'll go over in the offseason. around, you know, December, January to New Zealand and race against their dirt guys. As far as, and the guy, James McFadden is actually, I think he's Australian, and he came over, and he's full-time with the outlaws. You watch him every week, super fast. I mean, super funny guy can drink a beer faster than most. But, you know, I don't know. It's hard to say, you know, I don't know that they would translate as well.

You know, you'd like to see anybody. I would say, I'd like to see my friends get shot. I'd like to see Sunshine getting some form of a NASCAR, whether it's, you know, Cup or truck or something like that. Windham, we put him, and he stuck. He ran a cup race at Bristol a couple years ago. Didn't really get off to the best start there. But, you know, it's hard to say.

Obviously, Brad is at the top of his game right now. David Gravel's another one that's, you know, obviously very talented. So pretty much, I just like to see anybody get an opportunity and anything that it's kind of out of their normal realm of racing. T.J. I think if I had to pick somebody coming up through the dirt ranks, I think I would probably pick

probably Logan's EV. I think he has a lot of driving ability and talent. I think, you know, obviously we've seen a guy, we've seen guys like gravel came in. I think he tried to run Michigan

and the trucks, and I think it was a whole different experience. I mean, that's a tough place to go in with a truck and to learn air. I mean, if there's a, if there's a track, that's really error dependent in the truck, especially when someone's on your door in the corner,

that's tough. So, you know, Brad was in Exfini cars for a little while, but I think Brad sweet's the next Johnny shots of the world of outlaws. I mean, he is, how many championships he got already? Seven, six, seven, maybe.

I don't know, but between you and Freddie, y'all named every dirt racer in America. I think there's any left and aren't going to get a shot at this point. How do you know? You don't know any dirt stuff. All right, well, don't forget to catch us on dirt. Hey, hey, I got to, before we go on, I got a really, I love TJ's pick, by the way. Logan is super talented race car driver.

He's actually, you know, he's across all, he's trying. I think he's competing for the Silver Crown Championship this year, which is dirt and asphalt combined. But I have a great Logan Ceevy story. We were, he, we ended up running into them guys in Cabo this offseason on our vacation. and we all were hanging out at a bar and I don't know exactly what happened. I think they might have bought a bottle of Tito's or I don't know if we had bottle of service or something,

but Logan ended up with a bottle of Titos. And I don't know if he knows Logan, but he's all of about four foot eight and a hundred pounds soaking wet. And he's like, he was walking behind me with this bottle of Titos and we're leaving one bar going to the other one. And he said, what should I do with this bottle of Titos? And I jokingly said, I don't know, just stick it in your pants.

there's no way he was going to be able to stick the bottle of Tito's in his pants. So I just walk out. We walk across the street to the next bar and here comes Logan into the next bar with a bottle of Tito's. And I'm talking like, you know, a fifth of Tito's in his pants. Wow. I was like, no, there's no way nobody saw that. Like, it's incredible. But he was an awesome dude.

He actually, I want to say it. Logan, are you happy to see me or is that a fifth of Titos? I mean, it would have been pretty impressive. But yeah, but no, Logan's an awesome kid and a super talented race guy driver. Won the chili bowl and Swindell stuff this year. So that was awesome to see. But yeah, that was my, that was the first time I met Logan or spoke to Logan, really. And then we got off on the right foot when you're smuggling Tito's around Mexico,

which probably wasn't a good idea. He probably was in jeopardy of a long prison sentence or something down there. That's not the place I would probably risk that. All right. Well, don't forget to catch us on DirtVision this Wednesday. and tons of other content, past races, feature races, check out division. You don't want to miss it. Time for Reaction Theater.

All right, let's move on to Reaction Theater where this week we actually have a guest joining us live. Brett, you want to intro in? Yeah, so I had an idea about a month ago. I don't know if me and Freddie were sitting around talking about it or me and T.J. or what? But I was like, man, I really want to get a fan's perspective of the Chicago Street course live on the show. And then about a week or so ago, I had another idea. I was like, you know what, I'm going to get this person hot passes for the weekend. I'm going to hook them up with all access inside.

Now, you're not allowed to go in the suites with these passes, but you're allowed to tool around in a garage on pit road and all those things. So I threw up this fun little giveaway on Twitter. Next thing you know, Ross Olson wins it. totally random that he wins it. I send him a message because if he doesn't accept it, I'm going to go to the next person. And I was like, hey, Ross, man, would you want this package? And he texts me back if you haven't already given it away,

then the answer is yes. And I'm like, no, you're the guy. Like, you're the one that's going to win this thing if you want it. And Ross is like, man, I'm a long time Elliott Sadler fan. Like, I can't believe this is happening. I'm going to go. I'm going to take my wife. So Ross, man, welcome to the most honest podcast on all on NASCAR, DBC.

What's up? Thanks, thanks. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity that you gave me to join you today. And obviously, the tickets this weekend. We've had a blast so far. It's really been great. Well, tell us about that, man.

I want you to take me through your day, whatever day you got there. What was your first day at the track, Friday or Saturday? Saturday. We got in Friday night. I live in Iowa, so we drove over Friday night to actually stay in the hotel. I'm right now looking right across the window here to the Grant Park. I can see there's still water standing in the concert area, so I'm not sure if I'd want to be standing out there, Brett.

I know you said people should be out there, but I'm not sure I would have been. But yeah, we got, we went on the track on Saturday morning, and it was cool. I mean, I did a lot of investigation before I got up here to see how we'd, you know, work through a road course. I'd never been to a road course. I'd go to about five or six races a year. I have a son that lives in Charlotte, so I'm always down at the Charlotte races every year, and we go to Bristol, we go to Bartonsville, go to Kansas.

So I love NASCAR. I'd never been to a road course, so I didn't really know what it was going to be like. So I did a lot of investigation, like where I'm going to be able to see. Yeah, you're right. I didn't get access to the suites. I certainly tried. I said, this is, this says VIP on it. I shouldn't be able to get in, right?

And they're like, no, sorry about that. But, no, it was cool. So we got in Saturday morning, a walk through the garage. It was awesome. I mean, the garage was on the street, right? Just under some tents and a little bit different garage and normal. But the whole vibe Saturday was awesome. I mean, watching the practice and qualified.

and went to various areas of the track. The place we really ended up liking was turn 8. I know a couple of accents right there in turn 8. There were some TV screens we could see. Went over to the Black Crow's concert. So that was still a perfect day at that time. So I saw that concert. And then was heading back to watch the Xfinity race.

And then, you know, as you guys talked about, things kind of went haywire from there. And yesterday, you know, I didn't expect the crowd that was there yesterday. I was sitting in my hotel room. I said I can see the whole track right from my room right here. And we didn't leave until about 20 minutes before they said, you know, drivers to the cars. So I thought there's going to be nobody there. And it was unbelievable how many people still came Sunday.

And the vibe around the place. So they put some tarping over some fences to kind of block the view as you're walking down Michigan Avenue. So like people from the outside couldn't look in. Well, on Saturday, those all got ripped down. So people were just standing. I mean, they were five or six deep on Michigan Avenue trying to look. So wait a minute. So wait a minute.

So fans ripped them down so they'd be able to see? Yes, yes. So, and I knew that when they were putting them up Saturday, they were still putting them up Saturday morning as we walked to the track, and they put them on the Michigan or on the sidewalk side, and I said, somebody's going to rip them down. I said that to my wife as we're walking there, and that's exactly what they did. Sunday, they put the tarps on the other side. So they actually ended up putting new tarps up yesterday,

but they put them on the other side of the fencing that was there, which was certainly the smarter move. But there were still a couple spots that they didn't have tarp, that there were people lined up sitting up on, on electric boxes and, I mean, it was an unbelievable vibe. The weather obviously turned it, turned it pretty bad yesterday. But, you know, I got to think that it brought in, you know, I know you said 80% of the people were first-time NASCAR fans.

But that was true. I mean, I didn't, you know, a normal race you're going to see. I want to ask you something around that real quick, though, Ross. So you mentioned, and Casey mentioned, 80% of the people are first-time NASCAR fans, that tells me that those people probably are not traveling into Chicago for this race. That tells me that, I mean, Chicago is the third largest city in America. That tells me that the city of Chicago, the people there were willing to come out and support this race. So how expensive are hotel rooms for you?

I think the hotel room here was like 250 a night. That's nothing. That's cheap. That's not bad. I mean, you're going to pay that. You go to Bristol and Martinsville or wherever you're going to try and get a hotel. A big problem in Chicago is parking, and we're paying $70 a night to park our car here. So it's not cheap parking, but yeah, obviously, you know, I wasn't planning on coming because of the price of the tickets.

I mean, you know, the general mission tickets were 269 per person, I think. If you had general mission, if you just want to come, and I know that we talked to some people that said, I only bought tickets because I wanted to go see the chain smokers. Well, you know, they just completely lost out. I don't think there's going to be a refunds. I haven't heard that. Maybe there'll be something. So that's why I worry a little bit about is with no weather guarantees, you know, will people buy these again next year if they're the same price?

Because they're like, you know, I'm not going to take a chance of weather being bad and we'd miss out on the concerts because I believe a lot of people were here. You know, certainly the experience of see NASCAR, but the concerts certainly draw it drew a lot of people in. So you got to stay close. You're a short walk to the venue. What was your favorite part of the weekend as a fan with the access you had? Oh, favorite part was walking down pit road. I mean, yeah, we're right there. I mean, we're jumping out of the way to guys removing tires now.

Right behind the pit road, I mean, the access. So you hear some crew members complaining about the room there. There was not much room. I mean, pit road seemed really wide, like the road itself. Probably, you know, behind pit road. I don't know if, you know, if TJ and Freddie had comments from many of their guys, but there wasn't a lot of room and fans are trying to walk there. You know, so there wasn't a lot of room.

It was cool. It was actually cool to be down there and be that close to it. Really enjoyed that. We enjoyed walking through the garage. But it was tight. It was real tight there. I assume that's tighter than most places that you all go. Last thing for me is, you know, you're obviously a bigger fan than I even knew you were when you won. I didn't know you went to five or six races a year.

When you're an Elliott Sadler fan, that means you've been around by as long as I have, which is a long time. What's one thing you would like to see us do if, we go back to Chicago from a fan experience standpoint. What's one thing we can do to make it better for you guys? I think they need to put some more TV screens around. I mean, we found a good spot that at a road course, you have to be able to see the TV. I mean, we have headphones.

I listen to spotters. I listen to the MRN and so forth. But they need to have more screens around. I really thought in the Grant Park area there'd be screens everywhere. So I don't know how many people got to be able to see, because you've got to be able to at a road course. again, I want to see the whole track. That's why I like ovals.

I prefer that. So I think you got to have, and I think it's got to be more cost effective. I mean, you know, that's pricey for folks to pay, I think. So I think if they could bring the prices down a little bit in Chicago. But, you know, I didn't get this hotel room. Yeah, I won the ticket from you a week ago or something. And first thing I did is, you know, where can I get a hotel? We're Hilton member.

So I found a Hilton Chicago right across the street. And they still had rooms, which is remarkable. I thought there'd be no way or they'd be fine. 500 bucks a night, so I was shocked at that. And I think that's the good sign. I think it's the sign of, listen, we're always chasing a new fan. Sometimes I say we're chasing a ghost in this instance. I don't think that's the case.

Casey obviously works on a sponsorship side too. That's why I want to bring you on here just to hear from your perspective, how great was it or how good was it or how bad was it, man? It sounds like Casey, he had a good time. I mean, if I were the guest next year, I think there'll be a few more sponsors trying to sign up and bring more to the track. Ross, where was your favorite place to watch from? Turn 8. We sat in turn 8 there.

So we didn't have, you know, there was reserve seating up there too. We didn't have any reserve seat. So, you know, with our passes, we could kind of walk through the pits in the garage area. But we found a good spot to sit on turn 8, had TV screens. And it was, I mean, they came into turn 8. I know it was really tight there. And we saw like Sheldon Creed and qualifying going for that last lap. And he just bombed it in 8 and wrecked his car.

But we were sitting right. there at that time. So it was really cool to see. But it was a cool spot eight coming up, you know, up the hill there and turn nine. So that was our favorite spot to sit to watch the races. Well, Ross, we're going to let you jump, man. We got to finish this show up. But one thing I want to say is I had no idea that TJ was going to surprise you with a photo lot with Dale Jr. when you jumped on this call. So TJ does not suck everybody as bad as y'all say he does. He provided Walt Ross with a very rare opportunity to visit with Dale Jr. on a Zoom call. Yeah, that was awesome. I thought that's a surprise. That was surprised. That was

Right. Yeah. He didn't say where he was. I didn't know. Yeah, that was awesome. Thanks a lot for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for having fun with the tickets, man. Thanks for jumping on here. And glad you had fun. And certainly, man, listen, I say all the time, I would love to do a focus group, a live focus group with race fans. This is obviously a small sample of that. But thanks for jumping on, man, glad you had fun. You bet. Thank you very much, guys. Yeah, let us know the next time you had a race. Thanks, man. You reached that this week, but the weather was a disaster. So I was, my schedule was a little jacked up.

But next time you're around, let us know, we'll make sure we could say hi. I will do that. I appreciate it, Freddie. Thanks. All right, Freddie. My hands, we'll keep this thing rolling. Yes, sir. What's up, D.B.C.

I just want to say that Shane Van Gisbergen is a fucking bloody legend. He is the goat. He's been killing it where we are to see him go over there and kick all the American boys' asses. It's fucking bloody incredible. So, yeah, I just wanted to say that. I just wanted to say that I love you guys. Brett, you're fucking amazing.

go Gamecocks. We got a foreigner calling in talking shit about us, and then he says, go Gamecox. So he won me back over at the end. I love you, buddy. Hey, you come back to America, you come find me. We'll go see a Gamecock game. You know what we talk about all the time. How do we get new fans?

I guess having a New Zealander come in here and kick a bunch of American asses will do it. Nasker could probably not be more excited after trying to take this global. Wow, what a race here at Chicago. I cannot believe that SDG pulled that one out like that. he won by a smaller gap than what is in bread's teeth. Where did he go? That's good. Hey, that's a good one.

Move on. Because that is it perfect. I figured somebody was going to bash me in this reaction theater call. I didn't know they were going to make fun of my gap between my teeth. But since they're doing that, cheers, I'm going to take a shot now. Chicago Street course drinking game. Take a drink every time a team Toyota driver runs out of talent and ruins their race. Take a drink every time the booths.

That was a common about a letter. Shane Ben Gisbergin's name. And lastly, take a drink every time Noah Graggson vacanates into the turn six tire wall. Hey, no, here's what I can tell you. When I got home last night at two in the morning, and I don't always know who's tweeting the couch racer, but I kind of, I figured it out. when I got home last night because there was a big bag of Wendy's on my, an empty bag of Wendy's on my kitchen island and I assume my brother part took in because I'm assuming he had no choice.

He's seen the Baconator card so many times buried into the tires in turn six that he had no choice but to order him some Wendy's at some point. Boys, I have my doubts about Chicago. I talk shit. Is that Brayton race today? Brett, you call in? I don't want it to be July 4th. I think that belongs in Daytona.

We need to do this kid again. Peace, holla. Did you get so drunk last night? You forgot to call? I don't know that guy is, but he's a genius. Can I get his contact information? We're our brothers from another mother's, it appears. I bet he likes fireball, too.

Mimosa did kick in, I guess. Mimosas are not the way to go. Not for you. For me. I love it. Good or good calls. Yeah. That's good.

I mean, I think the good stuff. This was everyone loved watching it. Like, it was a great race. And if they were there, they still had a great time, even though it was monseeing. So I call it the win. Well, to leave an audio message whenever you'd like, don't forget to call our new number 704-802-9572. Or you can still go to anchor.fm. Slash drop up or clear.

You'll see that message icon, and we will continue to play the best ones each week. Let's move on to AskDBC. These are questions submitted using hashtag AskDBC, so send in yours and we'll keep looking for the best ones. First one is from Matt. Do you have a Project 91 wish list? I think the obvious answer is Lewis Hamilton. Like, you know, who would not want to see Lewis Hamilton in a NASCAR race ever? Like, who would ever not want to see that?

So that's my pick. I don't, if he's going to dress like a hot air balloon when he gets here, I'm good. If he's going to dress like a normal human, then I would love to see Lewis Hamilton come. This is going for a guy with his cock crocks, just by the way. He's my favorite personality I've ever met in racing that I was dumb enough to not get my picture made with him. We were in Nashville and he'd come rolling in, and seems like a great dude. Bubba was making fun of me in L.A. last year when I rolled out of my hotel wearing my Lewis Hamilton T-shirt, I got a Mercedes hat I wear it and everything in this guy's honor.

So, Freddie, I couldn't agree with you more. I would do whatever it takes to get Lewis Hamilton to the sport if there was anything I could do. Unfortunately, I don't think us chipping in are starting to go fund me. He's really going to matter. I mean, I've appreciate it before, but I would like to see Scott McLaughlin, who also came from the V8 Super Cars a couple years ago, been in Indy cars, won some races there. I think he would be phenomenal.

in a cup car and an Xfinity car. I think he'd be road course especially, but yeah, I'd like to see him get in there. I would love to see Daniel Ricardo because I really just want him to be on their show. I think I've asked you, Andrew, 20 months. You must think he's hot. He is very hot, and I think he's awesome.

So I don't care, like, come run a race or don't run the race, just come on the show, and we'll be good. Justin, make it happen. Or Andrew and Dale make it happen. And this next one is from one of our favorites, Kevin from VA. And from your point of view, how were the fan reactions in your area? And do you have any suggestions for improving spotter locations?

T.J. Fan reactions were off the charts all around. New fans there, the bus around the air. area. You know, running a people in the elevator last night. Just super pumped.

Excited. You know, had a great time. And I mean, yeah, I don't think there's, I don't think there's much I would change. Freddie?

I mean, like maybe some TV, some more TVs like, like Ross said. Yeah. I thought, you know, like I said,

the fan reaction, I saw more phones out recording this week than I've ever seen before in my life. Every fan was clamoring to get over our shoulders or at the start-finish line getting yelled at by security, just trying to get pictures and videos of anything they could, really. As far as spotter locations, we had the best spotter location I've ever had my entire life this weekend. Remus would mean you had shade. Did you have shade? We had shade.

We had drinks. Don't tell them. Stop. Stop. We didn't have anything. We were in the sun sweating and getting rained out. On a serious note, though, shout out to the staff of that President's Paddx Club. They were phenomenal.

They were making sure all the spotters were water, bringing water over to the spotter railing. When we could have easily just walked over to the bar and sales and got it. Bringing food out to the guys when they had a chance. The service up there was second to none. And that's not just for us. That was across the board of everybody that was up there. Everybody in that whole area seemed like they had a great time. I thought the turn 11 spotter stand, I went up there.

It seemed like you could see a good bit of the racetrack. There's obviously some blind spots, and we ended up using five spotters throughout four plus me throughout the weekend, just kind of scattered all over the place. But the three designated spots, the only one that was probably not great was the term four bus stop, on top of the buses, I should say. But it's hard to say whether they should have done there.

They could have maybe built some scaffolding or something, but I thought that was, I thought that was an interesting take and stick them up there. They didn't have a great angle. They were obviously pretty low to the ground because they're on top of a bus. So, you know, the cars were kind of right on top of them before they could actually start spotting. But, I mean, we're learning as we go.

We don't know, you know, and just to have an area where there was spotters designated over there was great. So there's nothing really to complain about spotter-wise. You knew it was going to be a challenge. You knew that you're not going to be able to see a lot just the way the track's laid out. And obviously we'll make improvements from there. But I thought everything was top-knottled from our side of things this weekend. Brett, from a broadcast perspective, any suggestions there?

I'm going to tell you something. Casey, I'm glad you asked me that question. It's like you and I rehearsed this even though we did not because we don't speak unless we're on the show. I'm just kidding. To be quite honest with you. to be quite honest with you, if Mike Bagley doesn't have a TV offer by the end of the week to be full-time on Fox or NBC by the end of the week, it will be a full-blown travesty. He did a phenomenal job of being a color guy.

He showed that even at an Oval, we can have a turn reporter, just like we can have a Pitt reporter. I think Mike Bagley deserves a TV offer to be full-time to represent the sport on the biggest stage, on the biggest channels. And man, what a phenomenal. I see Andrew Donned his head. Like, what a phenomenal job this guy did for television. He was awesome. He was the star of the show.

And I know that Dale Jr. is somewhere in T.J.'s house right now. And I hope he can't hear me say this because he's already got on here and fussed at me before we even started this show. But at the end of the day, Mike Bagley was a stud. If I could jump in and say this, you know, we talked about how F1, I think this was a few weeks ago, I think it was during Monaco, how they made qualifying sound like the most exciting thing in the world. Well, Mike Bagley did that this past weekend. He was literally calling Jensen Button, just running a lap by himself as if it was the most exciting lap all weekend. So I echo

everything you said there, Brett. Poetic enthusiasm. I'm telling you, man, I had an absolute blast all weekend listening to him. I really did. And I was, you know, listening even to Sirius and the broadcast, how they, you know, how they did that radio format. It worked out really well for the challenges that they faced. I think Dale might have had some problems at the start with their like recording or their connection, but I mean, just they made it so seamless when it comes to how they switched from one side to the other and just having that track be so huge. And a lot of first time viewers and a lot of people who are at the track. for the first time, they made it easy for us to follow when we weren't there.

I think, you know, to reiterate what Freddie said, thanks to staff, everyone up there at the track, I mean, we took great care of us. You know, it was a, the area we were was phenomenal. You know, Jolie put it together and Beth and, I mean, just great job all together. You know, I've said earlier, but I think NASCAR did a phenomenal job with it. I'm going to stop you there for a second, T.J. Because I think it's important for us to recognize some NASCAR people right here. Because it used to be that we were told literally in every spotter meeting,

every time we saw some out of the spotter stand, like stay out of the suite, stay out of the fan area, stay out of this. Like the old regime of NASCAR wanted us, not necessarily here. hidden, but they didn't always make us feel welcomed. We didn't have parking passes. We didn't have restrooms on roofs. And the new NASCAR is the exact opposite. I mean, I'll never forget, man, I got caught into the hauler years ago. And literally the question was asked, why were you in a suite? And I said, because it's my suite, I'm the one hosting these people. I'm the one who brought city financial to the, to the series that they're in right now. And the response that I got from the

NASCAR official back then was, well, why don't you let us? know everywhere you're going to have a suite so that we know when you're going to be in the suites. And I'm thinking, absolutely not. You can kiss my ass. I'm not telling you when I'm going to be anywhere. And the exact opposite is what's going on now is fans enjoy seeing spotters. And, you know, it's really cool for us to be more accepted. And I say that, and you guys are probably thinking, man, you're crazy. You've always been accepted. I'm telling you right now, we were not always accepted. It's really cool that the ownership and the executives now understand that spotters are part of the process and part of the competition side, and fans actually enjoy that. So, T.J, I think you're bringing up a good point.

The fact that you were all hosted so well speaks volumes to the current leadership versus where we were even 10 years ago. Like, I'm not talking that long ago, Freddie, right? Yeah, no, for sure. And like I said, you know, I had a long conversation with Julie on Saturday. and you know she said that you know some of the people were giving her a hard time because she was taking such good care of us like what that was one of her main concerns is making sure all the spotters not just us but all the spotter locations were taking care of you know they had to organize and and from my understanding they paid a bunch of money to have spotters Symphony Hall. You know, that was a location that they had to pay for to give us the vantage point that was necessary to get through that set of corners.

So to your point, like, and like I swear to God, I've never seen anything like it where I turned around one time and the night, I wish I got a name. I never got it. Maybe T.J. did. But there was one in particular young lady that literally was like just before the fans really rolled in, she was really taken care of us. And I turned around one time and she had an entire tray of cheeseburgers hand under Earl. So, I'm going next year.

So, you know, but just above and beyond, they went. You know, we had kind of our own personal bath port of Johns over there. It was just, and you could tell that, to your point, like, they, and they asked us to make sure we were identifiable to the fans, you know, wear team branded stuff so that the fans knew who we were, what teams we were with. I took multiple pictures with BBC fans. I looked up there one day and there was a really pretty intoxicated. individual wanted around and just so happened he of course had a couch racer shirt on um so it's you know it was it was it was just nice to be up in there and and hanging out with everybody and then and just getting a chance of talk with fans i know i've seen tj talking to some fans kind of right before the race started yesterday um it was it was it was it's an awesome experience for us and hopefully them too i mean you have to remember yeah where we were at oh go where we were at we were in we were in the top corner there obviously but they could come up to us and that was you know they could get right there

to our area, which made it nice and to have comp. There was a lot of questions. Like, people asked a lot of questions. They were new race fans, which was cool. So, but, you know, like to Brett, you know, what Brett was bringing up, I think people that, you know, have worked hard on this are Julie and Tim Berman. Ben, even, yeah, Ben, all then people, man, need to get a lot of credit for the show that got put together. I mean, they started from scratch. Like, I know there were a lot of issues when it came.

to the rain, but like this is a major city and there are a lot of issues in a normal city, add a race track to it and to have such great feedback from it even on the sponsor side. Brett's not going to like this, but

Chicago let us come in there and do this and to create the vibe that it did you know, I think we need to thank the city of Chicago for working with NASCAR and letting them come in there and do this. It's not that don't like it as we paid for it and I would like to have that reciprocated on the other side because this could be great and it can be great the leaders just have to get it together and I think

they will if they can't if they don't have had us back next year it makes me even more right and I don't want to be more wrong I don't either um on that note though looking at all of the cities and opportunities this leads to where would you guys like to go I know that you know there's Denver's been mentioned in the past, and that's a fairly big market. Obviously, New York City is where I kind of grew up. I grew up 30, 40 minutes from there. Again, another city that's probably hard to work with and probably will, you know, I want to go anywhere that we're wanted, essentially.

You know, anyone, if they want us there, we would love to go there, I think, and we saw yesterday that we bring value, or this weekend, we bring value to the area. We can put on a great show. We bring tons of people. We bring enthusiastic fans. We didn't have any issues. You know, it seemed like it went smoothly on the fan side of things. It's just I'm willing to go any big city in this country where we're wanted.

T.J. If I'm, I'm sorry. No, you're good. Go ahead, Brett. If I'm picking, it's Boston or it's San Diego. And I know those are opposite ends of the world from where we live, right? But, man, I think those two. cities are phenomenal. I've been to San Diego many times and always had a great experience in that

city. And I've been to Boston many times and always had a great experience in that city. So again, to Freddie's point into what I've been on my subbox about, I want to go somewhere that we get embraced, we get welcomed. And we know before we get there that we're wanted back. T.J. I mean, we could add to this list all day here. Long Beach, New York. Pittsburgh, Toronto, Nashville Street course, the sky's the limit right now for me. I mean, but obviously, like, there's been talks of some, you know, bigger mark, like Denver, I don't know, but like any of these places, man, I mean, I think this opens the door for a lot of really cool stuff. There are a lot of interviews, I think I heard this one on serious, but, you know, Chase and a few other drivers mentioned that they feel as though the Coliseum,

might have run its course, Brett, you mentioned it earlier. Do you think now that we know a street course is a success, that this becomes a non-point race in another city, or is that an opportunity that maybe we can look at in the future? I sure hope not. I hope they're meaningful. I mean, I don't want to go. Listen, people, I am in the event business,

and when I build an event, Casey, as are you, like I'm building an event in a 25,000, 33,000. square foot building and I know how much work goes into that these folks in NASCAR obviously with help from a lot of different vendors and supplier partners built this event as you said from the ground up in a freaking however many mile radius like what what the undertaking that they pulled off is unreal this is the hardest I've ever seen NASCAR work to do like I said earlier one race it's the most money they've ever spent to do one race so we can't do that and it be paying points, paying big money for the teams.

Like I think it needs to be impactful and meaningful. And I think the only way to really do that is to do it in a point paying big way. And to your point, like, I'm not a big exhibition race fan anymore like I probably used to be because a lot of the heritage of, you know, the All-Star race or the Winston we used to call, it's gone. And the clash is different. I mean, it used to be you had to qualify by being a poll winner. and now there's all these other things about you made the playoff.

And so, like, I think the exhibition race needs to be kept kind of like it was in L.A. kept small but in a big market and a way that we can get a lot of new eyeballs on our sport for a couple days' times. But, no, man, if we're going to go spend $40 million or whatever they spent this weekend, it's got to pay points, right, T.J. Oh, we can't run a road course of that bad attitude and it not be an official point-paying race. You know, we talked obviously about Julie and Tim and all the hard work. I think overlooked in this is the role that i racing played i mean i racing steve myers and his group they're essentially ones that laid this track out they're

they went there and kind of scanned this deal and and developed a track for us to race on so you know they played a huge role in this and they deserve some of the credit as well agree thanks t j oh let's move on an idiot what an idiot who you guys got oh i think i We just let Brett go first. Yeah, go ahead, Brad. Mine's actually really easy because I looked at this from, it changed the outcome of the race, and I was not a fan of it at all. Whoever did the lineup, whoever approved setting the lineup after the 24 wreck,

that's my word of an idiot. Like, there's no way those cars that caused the wreck, blocked the track, and everything else should have been allowed to TJ's point early in the show, retain their position. And I hope when they have their Tuesday morning, debrief that they figure out that this was a major, major screw up. My second one of an idiot is whoever let Kip leave NASCAR. Kip is one of my favorite people in the garage.

He's a highly respected official. He's a guy that Freddie and T.J. and I could always go talk to no matter if we were going to praise somebody or whatever. So, man, I hate to see Kip leave, but congratulations to him on what's next in his career. I'm going to miss seeing him in that freaking garage. I can tell you that. I was going to save that till the end, but that is not my one idiot, but I do agree that. I think he's an idiot. Who the hell are we going to now?

You need who is going to come up with you and get you out of trouble? What do you think he's doing next week? Maybe we get him on DVC next week. We should. I like it. I know again. Congrats to Kip. They just announced, we kind of knew this going in, but they did just announce he is now the executive director of the cars tour, which is an awesome get for them guys. I met KIP in 2010 probably.

I think he was running the K&N series when Bubba first, me and Bubba started working together, and he's like to Brett's credit, he's always been somebody that if I had any issue, obviously we had some other avenues to talk to some people in the media side of NASCAR, but if I ever had a competition issue, 90% of the time, Kip would be my first phone call. And normally I would send a text off with a question and immediately get a phone call back with a much longer explanation or we would just. just chat about whatever that topic was. So I'm going to miss him.

I hope we don't go far. I'm going to have to go to some cars races now, I guess. But, yeah, we're definitely going to miss him. Kip also is a guy who told us on Sunday mornings that we had to pee. So I'm not going to miss that part of here. When he would text me on Sunday morning, and he would literally say because he knows my we need schedule some Sundays, Brett, where are you? And I'll be like, Mother F***er, I got to pee today.

This sucks. Kip, I can't get there in time. He's like, you got to pee before 11 a.m. So, Kip, I will not miss that part of the text. I will miss his text after you guys say something dumb on the show where he'll group text us and say, what we're going to be. Those aren't going to stop. I really hope. I really hope not.

T.J., who's your idiot. I do have a lot of choices, but I think I'm going to go with the most popular one, the guy that trended twice on Twitter this week, Brett. That was awesome. Good work. Yeah. Fair. I luckily went to sleep early, whatever. I don't know what night the first night was.

I went to bed and woke up to about 10 text messages. You know your boy's trending on Twitter? I was like, I don't even want to look. I said, I didn't know until Freddie told me. Freddie told me he's like, yeah, he's trending on Twitter. I'm like, oh, no. I know. Somebody tweeted, like, you better get him in line.

And I was like, I mean, if I could have done that, I would have done it years ago. But what about the guy who decided to drive his car on track? Yeah. That was my next guy. So my, that was my, he was, the entire cast of Fast and the Furious 27 that tried to break down to the racetrack on Saturday night. I don't know.

I read, there was, I seen a picture of one car on the track. Then I read like there was like reports of 20 vehicles out there, which in my mind, I was picturing like 20 lime scooters going down the back straightaway with drunken idiots on them. That's my one of a hero. Like, who doesn't want to get on a legit NASCAR street course and get to rob your McLaren around there? or your Honda Civic or your Ford Pinto for that matter.

Like if I had an opportunity to move a barricade and sneak on there and try to get. Obviously, he got caught, which that's a bad part of the whole thing. But, man, I'm all for this guy. How are you going to get caught? That's fine. Hey, listen. But my one idiot at the end of the day has to be whoever told these guys, it is a felony to jump in the fountain. Like, that was a perfect opportunity.

We've seen this all the time at Monaco. of these guys, you know, Ricardo, Casey's boyfriend, diving into the pool in Monaco. You know, that would have been an awesome deal. Like, you know, you call the race early, and we've missed that on the second half of the race. You could have gained a lot of momentum back if you just let Cole Custer go do a swan dive into the fountain.

But apparently it's a damn felony. Of all things in that city, it's a felony to jump in. I don't think he needed to go to the fountain to do that. He could have done it on pit road at that point. All right. Well, I have a bone to pick with this next topic, because Brett didn't even show up last week,

yet he somehow wins DBC picks. Taylor, I told you not to pick SVG. You guys did not get what was going on here. I don't know if you realized, but I can't have you two winning. So if I can't win, I need Brett to win. I mean, I wouldn't have won anyways, but seriously. He's the second-pastest guy there.

Brett, you call me out on Twitter. Do you want A.J. back? I can give it. No, no, no, wait a second. No. No, no. Freddie and I actually conspired behind the scenes after you didn't acknowledge the text message. You tweeted that you wanted him to wreck.

So why would we let you win? Freddie and I were texting during the whole picking process to make sure that Freddie got two solid picks. Casey, I'm sorry you suck and you lost, but Freddie. I mean, I'm still doing pretty well. Who goes first? Who goes first, Andrew, on this next one? And we have extra guests here. Yeah, first off the boat.

Hey, Chloe. Say hi. Did Chloe just, is she on the lake? Yeah, she was on my dad's boat, the boat on the boat. Boat on a boat. We're going to Atlanta. They moved this thing to a night race, thank God, because I was there last year. It was brutal in the stands.

And I'm not, listen, I want you guys to get home on Sunday night and be able to tuck your kids in the bed in your situation. Freddy tuck your brother in the bed. But obviously that's not going to happen. this week. We're evening racing, night racing at Atlanta. Who's picking first? T.J. picks first. Oh, man. I feel like

I'm going to go with the six. Oh, calling his own show. I am. We got close last time, and it's time for redemption. Who's next? Who's next? I'll pick Ty Gibbs. I'll take Joey Legano. Joey Legano, Mr. Blocking

guy himself. Good place. to block at. I had to pull up who I have not picked and I'll go with Justin Haley. He's coming off a good run. He's a great plate racer and that's my guy for this week. I tweeted like a rabid redneck two weeks

in a row. I tweeted this morning but I was leaving there obviously Justin, I can't remember if he practiced or qualifying and he tore the car up and Justin obviously comes hanging out with us every once in a while, big owls and I've known Justin for a few years being in the

all the stable over there. And I normally, if I see Justin in the garage, I would either yell something at him or stop and talk and then bust his shops about something. He was very easy to pick on. And we have a lot of fun with him. But I saw him. When I was leaving after they called the Exfini race on Saturday night, he was pushing the car out.

You could just see he was very dejected, very kind of, just not in a good spot. And it was one of the times where I just kind of gave the old head nod and kept digging. And then, you know, just what you could tell. He wasn't in a great. bot. I've kind of got that feeling a little bit this year from him. So as much as I was cheering for the 91 to win yesterday,

I was kind of bummed out that he had to pass Justin to do it. But, you know, obviously he benefited from that, from the call to shorten the race and then capitalized on it and came home that he, I think he finished second, right? Second. Yeah. Yeah. But great round for him and

position to win, really. Well, man, he's under a lot of pressure. You know, you guys, I've lived this for so many years as a driver manager as a spot or not knowing what your fate's going to be on one-year deals. And, you know, Justin's not on a one-year deal, but he's on the end of his contract year. So here it is July. He doesn't know who he's going to be driving for next year.

I know he wants to return to college racing. I know they're having conversations about him returning to college racing, but it's tough showing up to work, you know, every single day when in reality, how many races do we have left? I mean, he only knows that he's working 15, 18 more, you know, weekends this year. Man, it's tough to do that. I don't care if you're a Kyle Busch. You guys saw how Kyle Busch handled it last year. I mean, he was a butthole on pit road to Coach Gibbs on television.

He was a but hole to the media. He was under a lot of pressure, and until he got that resolved, now look at him. He's won three races. So it's hard to go to work every day when you're showing up. And look, Justin's not the only guy out there that's on a one-year deal. And it's just, it's tough. And T.

And T.J's been there. He's been at the end of a contract year, not knowing where you're going to be the following year. But it always works out for good people. people and it always works out for people that work hard. And Justin's both those things, I think you'll be fine. But it's got to be stressful, right? It's got to be.

All right. Well, thank you all so much for listening. Don't forget to like, share, comment. Let us know what you think. I know we all know what you think about Brett, but maybe some better comments on Twitter about the show. And catch us on Dirt Vision this Wednesday. Have a great week.

Everybody enjoy your holiday. Stay safe. Don't play with fireworks. Don't play with fireworks. Happy July 4th. Do not play with fireworks if you're drinking and stay safe. If you're on a boat or on the water this weekend, be careful because a lot of people out there are first-time boaters and they don't know what they're doing and it's dangerous. But it's going to be a fun week.

Happy July 4th. Happy birthday America. I'm glad July's here. It's hot as hell down here at the beach. But we'll have some fun, race some hell. Thanks to Ross for coming on. Special guests in Reaction Theater. And Casey, make sure you put on sunscreen down there.

We'll see you guys. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.