Door Bumper Clear - 298. Atlanta & Kip Childress: Get Ready To Go Haywire

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

After the whirlwind of Atlanta, the ENTIRE Door Bumper Clear Crew is back in the studio with former NASCAR pace car driver, Kip Childress. Casey Boat, TJ Majors, Freddie Kraft, and Brett Griffin discuss Kip's new role as Executive Director of the Cars Tour and break down the action from this past weekend in Atlanta.During Spot-on Spot Off, the group dives into Austin Hill's frustrations after the Xfinity race, Justin Haley bailing on teammate Daniel Hemric coming to the white flag, NASCAR’s decision to not throw the caution after Harvick's spin, and William Byron's winning strategy call after going a lap down earlier in the race. Plus, the group talks about Ryan Preece and Harrison Burton's struggles this season, with both combining for only a single top 10 finish.In Massachusetts, call [phone] or visit gamblinghelplinema.org, In New York, call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369). In Tennessee and Kansas, Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). In West Virginia, Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.1800gambler.net. All games regulated by the West Virginia Lottery. Please play responsibly. In partnership with Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. In Connecticut, Help is available for problem gambling call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. 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.

The following is a production of Dirty Mode Media. No, bumper, clear by two, please release shallow entry. Bumper, clear. Hey, everybody, I'm T.J. Major, Sparta the 8, Xfinity car, Sparta of the 6th Cup car. Super excited about the show today. Really important guest. Brett Griffin, Spotter for last year, Daniel Hemrick and Justin Haley, who just so happened to be best friends on Saturday. Good buddies, good buddies.

What's up, Freddie Crafts? spotter for Bubba Wallace and Chandler Smith. How'd that go? Really well. I think we averaged about a 47th place finish for the weekend. What's up, Casey? Hey guys, Casey Boat here. And yes, I would agree with T.J. Statement. We have a pretty cool guest on today. Freddie, who is that? Yeah, I was going to make fun of him because, you know, he technically kind of retired, I think, or I don't know what you call it. Like, what was that? Like NASCAR, like, I don't know what you left, but you don't look as old as in person. Right. And I mean, and I know you probably still got a bunch of a bunch of pass requests and everything else this week before.

I thought it was, so when I put out the note that I was stepping away from the NASCAR side of things, it was kind of funny that I did get a lot of happy retirement messages, but I knew what was getting ready to come out the next day, so I just kind of let it ride. Anyway, so Kip Childress is obviously in a house, a good friend of ours for a long time. I've known KIP for ever like I talked about last week back in the K&N days with Bubba. But welcome to the show. Welcome back to the show, right? I wasn't here at the first time.

I don't think I was on the show yet. Well, he came in with an entourage of NASCAR people to make sure we didn't put him in a pickle. Guess who's not here this time? I don't know if Amanda's an entourage. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, wow. Definitely showed up with people, though. He had people.

You definitely had people. Yeah. We're going to get all the goods. Oh, yeah. I'm sure he's going to divulge all of the NASCAR information anybody would like to know about now. How long are you at NASCAR, Kip? So there's actually two times at NASCAR. The first race I was ever a part of being an official

And when it comes to being on the cup side Was in 93 or 94 and I can't remember Because that's a long time ago But it was at North Wilkesboro You know we at Wilkesboro they would always run Either the modified tour or the late model stock cars As the junior series when they would race the cup cars there So when we would run late models

They would grab a bunch of us from other local tracks To come help officiate it So we would, there were a few of us that would stick around and work to Cup Race 2. So that was my first introduction to being a NASCAR official on pit road and getting my rear inch out before we got out of there. And that was what I was 22, 23 years old. But then I worked with the truck series in the year of its inception in 95

and stayed with them through 99 when my first daughter was born. Actually, she was born 98. I missed the whole first year of her life. And, you know, that's where this sport, you know, know, it can and could really take a toll on you from a family standpoint. So I stepped away from being an official and working 40 weekends a year and did a few other things. Still in the racing world with racing radios, racing electronics. I even had a stand at trailers of the East Coast helping folks with trailers to go to the racetrack

and even worked at Orange County Speedway for a little bit as their race director before going back in 08 to get teamed up with the K&N Series. So from 08 until last week was with NASCAR. How hard is that decision? Obviously, you've stepped into another great opportunity, but how hard is that? You spend so much time with NASCAR, you know, whatever it is, 15, 16 years there in that stretch, at least. How hard is that decision to step away?

Yeah, so when I first was made aware of the opportunity, my immediate answer was, you know, I love what I do. I'm not looking to make a change. But after doing a little research on it, Because, you know, I'm always said that I should always, and I think we all should live by this, you know, any opportunity that comes your way, take a look at it. Because if it could benefit you or your family, you owe it to yourselves and you owe it to your family to at least entertain that. And so when the opportunity, you know, crossed my desk and, you know, had a few conversations with Dale and Kevin and Jeff and Justin, and it was like, all right, man, this checks all the right. boxes. This is I was able to say yes to this for all the right reasons. So for me personally,

for my family, you know, there will be opportunities to be home on weekends now a whole lot more than there have been, you know, over the past 15 years. And, and, but I look at this as an opportunity to, to, from a professional standpoint, get involved with a series that has done great things up to this point with helping young racers be racers. And so, you know, I, I, I, I'm looking forward to that opportunity. It was the same, it's the same feeling I had at the Canaan level. You know, when we were doing that, right, you look at how many of the drivers now that are in the Cup series

that were racing in the Canaan series at that time. It's pretty dang impressive, right? And to know that we had an opportunity to be a small part of that. When I heard, you know, we had heard rumors that you may be leaving about a week or two, maybe before you announced it. And then we heard the rumors of what you were doing. And I'm like, man, that is just a perfect fit for KIP, just knowing, you know, knowing how we were back and, you know,

I was there until 2010, 2010 to 12, but just knowing how you handle that series and like you said, what it produced down the road like this just seems to me. And the excitement around the cars tour now is through the roof. Yeah, it's phenomenal. And, you know, Jack McNally and Keeley Dubinsky and the whole crowd at the cars tour have done a great job in growing the series to this point. And now we're at, we're kind of at a, not a crossroad, but we're at a time in its career and its tenure to take it to that next level. And so we're looking forward to doing that. I was able to go and be a part of my first race officially this past weekend at Wake County.

Nice boring finish there. Oh, man, it was, you know. Yeah, so the finish was exciting. The race itself was exciting, you know, a little quarter mile boring. My first time ever going there. And I'm going to tell you, if you've never been to Wake County, you need to go. Where's that at? So it's just outside of Raleigh.

Okay. You know, when you get to Raleigh, and you get off of Interstate 40, it's, well, 10 or 15 minutes or so. We're two and a half hours from there, two hours. Right, yeah, about that. Yeah. So, you know, I live in Winston, so just under two hours for me. And so the funny part was is the entrance of a place is hidden. I drove by it.

I mean, just flew right by it and saw it in the mirrors. I went by, and so it went, turned around, it came back. And even as you turn in, you're like, this can't be the right place. This is just, it's hidden. There are other little businesses, and it's in an industrial industry. So, you know, you've got to have an open mind when you pull through the gate, because when you get to where the track is, it is a well-maintained, freshly paved. I mean, it's a gorgeous old racetrack, and the race in there, for every class that runs there is phenomenal.

I had never, I've heard of it before. I had never seen it, and then when I saw it the other night, it just reminded me a riverhead. It's such a tight bullring of a racetrack, and the finish was phenomenal, Quaple and So Quaple and Gio They got hooked up together Coming to the win And so

And this is the hardest part And I guess You know When you get north of 50 You have a hard time with this Learning everyone's names It's been my hardest I mean it took me a long time

To learn y'all's names I'm sure not Not really But no So that's the hardest part It's matching names With car numbers And so you know

96 and the 28 You know As an official, you learn everything in car numbers, right? So, man, they were getting after it coming to the checker and got tangled up coming off of two. And, you know, it's, you hate to see any cars get tore up. And man, some of these cars on a little quarter mile track really got tore up. So you hate to see that. And, but, you know, that was a product.

That last lap wreck was a product of just two guys going for the checker. And so, Logan, it comes out of nowhere. He's running third in the 77. I know the car numbers. But he comes out of nowhere and wins this thing. And so, and to see, and it's his first win. Oh, that's awesome. To see the elation of him and his dad celebrating a victory lane.

And, you know, I had a chance to go down and talk to him when they were rolling through post-race tech. And he, so the trophy they had was a bull. And I guess because we're racing at the bull ring. I thought it had something to do with taking the bull by the horns. Well, I saw the trophy sitting on the deck lid of his car and the horns were broken off of it. And I said, you literally did take the bull by the horns. And in all of their excitement, they dropped the trophy inside the car. So the little horns popped off.

So, man, they were so excited. That's a good story for the trophy, though. I wouldn't change it. I'd keep it. Oh, no. I don't think you trashed that one. So you just said four really successful people in motorsports that are clearly owners now the cars tour.

Which one was the first one to approach you? Kevin. Kevin Harvick. Yeah. So Kevin and I have a probably of the, the four, the longest history. You know, I was part of the truck series when Kevin was driving for Brad Dardy. I remember sitting in the hauler when he stepped in, talked to Wayne Alton, who was the director

at the time about an opportunity to go and drive the Bush Series car for Richard Childress. And he was asking for advice. Is this something I should consider? I remember those times. And then, you know, even after he started driving for Richard and then began Kevin Harvick, incorporated, I was selling radios at the time. I'd already jumped over to the racing radio's part of my racing venture. And so I had an opportunity to work with Kevin there as he was building the truck team and providing their communications equipment.

And what was so cool was he had people come from everywhere trying to give them equipment. And it was so flattering, so humbling to me when he said, nope, I'm doing business with this guy right here. Because the one thing that I told Kevin when I went to him was, you know, I was never a thing. sales guy. I loved helping people. And I told him, look, I said, if I'm at the track, you'll never have a problem that's not addressed right away. I said, I'm, I'm, you're buying our stuff, right? You can get stuff from anybody, but you're buying me. And I'd like to think that that was a reason that he and I was, we were able to do business back in that time. Yeah. And so, you know, the relationship that was formed there, you know,

hopefully it had a little, you know, weight on what we're doing now. It was cool to see you get elevated last week on social media a couple weeks ago, whenever it was when it got announced. I'm curious, what exactly is your role in this thing? Are you the series director? What all are you doing? All right. So title-wise, we're going with the executive director.

Okay. And so right now I'm working with Jack McAnnelly, who is, Jack was the guy who bought the series years ago. And basically when I say bought the series as the Hooters Pro Cup series was going away, he bought the assets of it. And was able to take that and build the cars tour to work. to what we see right now. And it's, it's, it's undergone a few different changes and, and types of cars they're racing and some of the rules packages and some of the,

some of the teams and drivers that have coming in and out. But Jack has been the one that has taken this thing and ran with it and has done a phenomenal job with it. So, um, when, when the foursome, uh, purchased it from Jack, Jack stayed on to be, still be the series director. Um, and I don't even know that he calls himself that. He's, he's, he says he's the general manager. I've watched him work now for a couple of weekends, and Jack is a jack of all trades, right? Man, he does it all. He helps get the trucks parked. He will, he'll help get cars lined up. He was painting tires, you know, they have to start to race on what to qualify on. So he's painting tires the other day. Very hands-on. Oh, 100%. And so, and then, you know, he,

while he does all that, Keeley Dobinsky, she is there, she basically, is the behind the scenes, making sure all the admin stuff gets done. But she's another one that is boots on the ground getting things done. Everything from, you know, the registration for the credentials that they do, you know, the folks who signed folks in, the merchandising trailers, she helps get the tower set up for the race, whether it's the scoring equipment or anything that goes on up there. And she's hands on with working with the track directly too. So what I am going, right now I'm in a learning process.

I'm trying to go in and take a look at how things go on a day-to-day basis. And, you know, not just at the track, but Jack, I said he does it all. I mean, he's working hand-in-hand with the track with all of our vendors who, you know, provide the tires and the race fuel and whatnot. And so I'm learning all those things too. and in the process taking a ton of notes because there are things that I think from a so we'll use this as an example you know we had weather rolling on us too at at Wake County and there was lightning in the area so you know there is not necessarily a lightning protocol like like you guys experienced at Atlanta this week where you know we don't have someone or we don't have the technology right now to be able to

monitor how close lightning may be so you know I've learned over the course of years that that's an important thing you know when you talk about lives that aren't stake. And so that's one thing on my list that I would really like to investigate to see if we could get to a point where we would have an ironclad policy of what that would be. You know, there are everything from, you know, where maybe the nearest hospital is, where, you know, how do we get folks there? Who is our contact there? Little things like that that, you know, over the course of the years, they haven't really had to worry about. So we'll go in there and we'll take a look at how we can make those things better.

And then on the competition side, you know, we're working real hard to make sure that we don't have instances where, you know, guys are having problems getting through tech, whether it's before the race or after the race. You know, no one likes to see anybody disqualifying, but we all know we have a job to do on making sure there's a fair. That's exactly right. I had a conversation with one of the owners when they made the purchase,

and the comment was made to me. We want to put butts in seats. eyes on our cars and we want to make the purses better than they've ever been so when i hear that when i obviously see they've added someone of your caliber i think who wins in this whole thing is a driver's because they're going to be marketed as best as they could possibly be marketed given their age and where they are in their career right so how i mean that's a little bit of pressure on you as i say well so i will say this and i've said this throughout the course of the last couple of weeks that that, you know, I feel like that I've had successful runs at the Canaan series, both East and West,

was that I got moved out there to work with the West guys too. Sorry about that. And then, well, I'm not, because there's some great racers out there. I know, there is. So, and then when I was taking over to the Xfinity series to be their assistant director and kind of kind of, you know, all the movings that go on in the garage area there, and then it's at the same level at the Cup series, you know, for the last five years, I feel like in every one of those instances, I've had a pretty good run.

But it has very little to do with me and has everything to do with the people in the garage, the people in those areas. So, you know, while I may have, you know, I've had success with that, it's because everyone has bought into some of the ideas that I've had, right? So I'm hoping that, you know, this will be, I really feel like it will be. I've had a lot of good conversations over the last weekend with a lot of the owners and the drivers and, you know, that run the pro late. and look forward to that continuing. You know, we've got a couple weekends off. We have a couple weekends off. That must be nice.

Yeah. We have a couple weekends off before we run our throwback race at Hickory at the end of the month. That's a big deal. It is a big deal. I'm looking forward to that. There are a lot of plans being worked on right now that, you know, that everyone will see as we get a little closer to that race. So looking forward to that.

But I'm really looking forward to getting to know these owners and these drivers and want them to know that, you know, it's... You already kicked out the owner's car, didn't you? Harvick? I wasn't on the payroll yet. I mean, my man approaches you about a job. His car goes out and wins the race, and y'all kick him out. I was still on the NASCAR payroll for that one.

Well, then the next week, it's not a car store race, but then does your car get thrown out. Yeah, pretty much. So, you know, that being said, some of the things that we are going to be working on, and, you know, when you're, when you're, When you're looking at making changes to items, no change is going to be immediate, right? Because, you know, all changes cost money.

Immediate changes are really expensive, right? So, but an idea that we all have is that we want to make sure that our rules packages are closer to one another. So we'll work closely with NASCAR, and that's where I think maybe I can help with this, too. You know, Les Westerville heads up the rules department. He and Tony Glover, when it comes to weekly and touring, And so I'm looking forward to working with those guys and getting our rules more similarly to theirs to where, you know, when we have a couple weekends off like we've got coming up, you know, drivers can go and participate at other tracks. You know, the pro late models, that is, those cars are everywhere. And I mean nationwide everywhere, right?

So we want to get to a point to where those rules packages are more aligned. So, you know, when guys have weekends off, guys and gals have weekends off. They could come run with us and it works both ways. T.J. and I used to talk about this all the time on here that we remember the days of the local guy could build a car and come out and compete in the Bush series at the time or the Winston Cup series at the time. So for you to do that, if you make the rules more, I guess, parallel to other cars, you increase your car count. You increase a level of competition. Well, it does. But I like to think, too, it benefits everybody.

It's going to benefit that short track operation too that, you know, because we're not, look, we're not out to steal competition. We're not out to steal their drivers, right? But we want to make it available for them. But the local hero getting to come out and race with you guys, that's cool. Oh, and it'll make for a great race because you know how hard it is to go to somebody's playground and beat them at their game. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. That's cool.

All right, Casey, you ready to roll? Well, yeah. We got a bunch to do. You had, what, your first off weekend in forever? What was it like being home from Atlanta? It was awfully hard not to send out pictures of the TV and my feet propped up on the ottoman on the couch. But I would tell you, it was nice.

So I was going all day Saturday to Wake County for our race, but was, you know, got home right around midnight and, you know, up next morning. And so, you know, one thing that I've missed over the last handful of years is been able to get up Sunday morning to go to church. We have a great church that I've been a part of for a number of years. And, you know, from a family standpoint, they would go without me now to be able to go and do that again on Sunday morning is going to be awesome. And then to be able to come home and watch the race on Sunday and maybe send a text or two out.

And so, you know, the other thing, one of the very first texts I sent out on Sunday was to Jesse Dahlavu. You know, Jesse was the assistant director in the truck series. and so when he found out that I was, you know, stepping aside, you know, put his name in a hat for the cup gig. And, you know, he and Brad Moran, who is the series director, they have a working relationship from back when Brad was in a truck series. So Jesse was offered that position and able to take it. And so, you know, one of the first texts I sent out was to him, you know, telling him good luck. You know, he's... With a picture with your feet up?

I didn't do that. Because I know if I would have attached to a pitcher to it, he'd have never gotten it Because I know how phones work at the racetrack on Sundays. Just make sure you don't spoil all the spotters on that car's tour like you did in the cup series with these guys, you know? Sarcasm. Yeah. Good news, guys. The ultimate experience is back at Bristol.

Bristol. Bristol Night Race. Bristol Night Race was phenomenal last year. The ultimate experience was phenomenal at the Bristol Night Race. and I think this was the one that sold out immediately. So I know there's tickets available. I would not wait long to get them. It's a big suite.

It's a lot of cold beer, good food, an amazing view with seamless glass. You can see the entire racetrack from the suite. I am not typically a sit-out inside kind of person at a sporting event. But at Bristol, it literally, I could spot the race from in there. It's that good. I don't know if this is going to hurt or help sales. Are you planning on going to this one? I am planning on going, and I will be in there for at least half the race.

If there's enough fireball, I might stick around for the whole thing. Please tell me you're going to live tweet during the race while you're in the suite. I will if you want me to. I do want you to. I may bring all 60 people outside to meet you guys on the roof. That's right. Maybe me and Freddie should just come to them. Yeah.

Well, you're definitely coming to them. But I mean, they might not like it. They may have another favorite spotter outside of us three. Probably not. You're a great tour guy, and they'll be in great hands. Yeah. I mean, we won't get lost or anything. I're arrested.

Yeah. Go to dirtymomedia.com slash ultimate experience now to get your tickets. Like I said, they sold out immediately last year. so I wouldn't wait long. Tell the spot of Brett, seeing you. One of the best races of the year as well. I don't think you want to miss it. To Brett's point, it is one of the best sweet experiences.

Bristol has, the seamless glass is phenomenal. The view of Bristol is unbeatable. I'm excited. I can't wait to go back. I can't wait to see all you guys. We've had a lot of repeat customers, probably 10 to 15 people. I've seen it all of them, so I'm sure we'll see you guys again. It's cool making friends.

And I'm going to warn you before you get there. Mike Davis will not shut up. He talks to the entire race. So if you want to actually watch the race, make sure you don't sit there. So it's just like the download. Yeah, it's just like the download. He's a new Dillner. He doesn't hush.

Oh, before Brett gets himself in trouble, T.J. What? Welcome to the show. You had a pretty eventful day yesterday. Take us through it with that. I was like. I don't know. We weren't very good in the beginning.

We struggled in the beginning when it was warm, the sun went down. We made a pretty lengthy pit stop, made some adjustments on the car, and the car was really good. So. emotion with your responses? Well, I mean, what do you want me to be excited? We lost? I don't know. It was a good race. It was fun driving from the back to the front and then having to do it again.

We didn't get a chance to get all the way back to the front there at the end. But, you know, that's the way it fell. And it was good to get up there and be competitive and lead laps and be racing with them guys. So that place is, I don't know what it looks like on TV, but it's pretty challenging. I mean, it's not... It looked the bestest ever looked. It was the most, like, eventful, exciting race. They're on the edge to me. They kept saying, like, 25 laps to go in stage two,

and I was like, wait, we only have, like, one more stage left. This is unreal. So on that note, knowing Rain was on the way, and then ultimately they called it. Do you guys, there was a lot of comments on Twitter for me to ask y'all, like, if you felt that they made the right decision and I know obviously you wish. Yeah, we had to.

We had like 12 to 15 laps of fuel left. So, and if that rain, you know, honestly, I think we get past that point if there's not a yellow. So you get really got to bank on some serious luck at that point. And our car was good enough. I mean, we got almost all the way. We got back to sixth and we were kind of stuck because they were too wide in front of us. And, you know, another, I would have loved five, six more laps or so.

but that's just not the way it fell. But I feel like we made the right pit call for our race. We got a stage win. We could have pitted before the end of that and came down and tried to cycle and hopefully it went long enough for us to cycle back up there. But I think getting back to sixth place makes it, I mean, that's a stage win and a finishing six. So that's a good point day for us.

And right now without a win, it's going to, you know, you're coming down. You're really racing for points. So at this stage, we are. We got to maximize everything we can get. So I think Matt and them made the right call to do, and Brad drove his tail off there at the end. And we almost got back up there. There was some guys that pretty much put it all on the line,

banking on ring. I think somebody said McDowell ran like 91 laps. He had four. Yeah. He said he has like four laps left on fuel before. Like our fuel window was only 73, 72 laps. He was like on 60 laps of fuel. I mean, he was already out there for 60 laps.

They were really banking hard. They had to. They had to make that call, though, because of what we saw in Daytona last year. Obviously, it wasn't ideal. And it was like, we talked about the perfect storm last week for SVG coming in and kicking our asses. This was kind of the unfortunate perfect storm for NASCAR where this caution falls. And I think if we're green, like, if we're still running green, that caution doesn't come out, we still run another 20 laps or so. And it might have hurt you guys.

You know, like it might have hurt them. That guys would have ran out, you know, but it's perfect storm. Yeah. Perfect storm of the yellow comes out. We haven't opened pit road yet. now the drops start to fall, so they're never going to open pit road with it raining because, you know, you don't want to give somebody, you know, you don't want to put anybody in that position to make the decision of do I want to risk it? Do I not want to risk it? I mean, you could. It'd be probably a lot more interesting, but, you know, you're not going to make that call. So then we ride around there under yellow with pit road, and I just think that the rain was so close that you're not going to, with any time it picked up a little bit, we came that pit road. Once you came that pit road, you knew it was over. You know, they're not going to take the drivers out and stick them back in with a big storm. coming. So I think they made the right call. I think obviously it didn't work out timing. It probably didn't look great because it's not raining very hard. It was just a couple drops.

The track wasn't wet. But we knew it was coming and you're not going to restart the race. You're not going to open pit road for one with it raining and you're not going to restart the race like that knowing that the big storm is coming and risk. You know, we did a Daytona last year. We all drive in a turn one. That's what I'm saying. We could have got back to the lead and say we go back green and it's sprinkling. Well, guess who the first car to turn one or two is going to be where if it does start raining, it's going to be us. Yeah. So I think they made the right call as well.

I don't mean, I always wanted to race more, but I feel like it was the right call. Kip, from your standpoint, obviously being on the NASCAR side for years, take us through what that process is like as they made that decision and trying not to frustrate every single person. Yeah, so, you know, I'm sure, and was it Tim or Jasan calling it this week? Justine. Tim's probably still recovering from Chicago. He was in middle Ohio, I think. Yeah, well, okay.

Okay, so, you know, they're in communication with everybody around the racetrack. You know, the spotter stand, the caution car, the turn spotters that are out there, and they're asking what, you know, what do they see? Of course, they're looking at a radar, and they know what's coming. But I think we've all been around weather enough to know that it is, while you see it coming, it can be unpredictable. It could split in a hurry. And so that's why they were, they were hoping that maybe it would.

So they're riding around, the not opening pit road, you know, I was listening to a little bit of a satellite radio this morning. There are fans that are upset about that. The racers aren't, right? The guys that are doing the jobs, they're not upset about that. So it does. It doesn't put anybody in a position where they're going to maybe roll the dice. But nobody would have come in.

I mean, so watching that radar and knowing what they had coming, the one thing that I said is that, look, they're going to stop this. or they're going to park them on pit road. They're doing that once the drop started really kind of picking up. But I said, once they lose this track, it's done. It's too late. Yeah, that place is two and a half hours to dry easily. With every amount of equipment that you could possibly put on it,

it's going to be two, two and a half hours to dry. Everybody just at home that was upset because they stopped the race and had to call the race. I'm telling you, they were warranted because they were having that much fun watching that race. Well, for sure. They didn't want the race to end. That's why I think they were, you know, upset. It wasn't that NASCAR did the wrong thing because I think they did the right thing too, but fans were literally enjoying that race.

I was, you know, and so I don't get a chance, you know, never really had a chance to watch a race live. I would always go back and watch it. But to sit there watching that live, yeah, I was up on the edge of my seat. And you may hate the weather. You may hate the way that race ended. The reason why the race was as great as it was was because of the weather, because we didn't know when it was going to end.

You know, I saw one bolt of lightning off in the distance in turn two, and it was like the aggression level turned up How many laps was that left to go? That was probably, I would say, 15 to 20 laps before halfway. Something like that maybe. You know, maybe 1.15, 110. You know, somewhere in that range. But you could see it.

I even said on the radio, I'm like, okay, now we're getting ready to go haywire because people are making moves they shouldn't be making. And you see the aggression level turn up. And that's when all the comments I've seen, you know, we had their red flag and I just seen, that's when their comments ramped up about how phenomenal. And the race was great throughout. But when that weather got close and you could start to see it off in the distance, the racing itself, T.J. could probably attest to it. It ramped up a lot in the aggression level, similar to when we won Talladega.

You know, all of a sudden they tell us, you know, the rain's coming. You guys better get after it. And we start throwing blocks in stage two that we would never throw in a few, you know. So I think the weather itself, you know, lended its hand to, you know, the aggression level on how good the race really was. Well, I want to tell you what that does. That puts a liability in the driver's pocket going forward because, a lot of times, not a lot of times, we haven't run that package there many times, but two by two is what you commonly say on the radio when you're spoting because there's not a lot of movement. That was a freaking awesome race yesterday.

So if we go back down there and it's boring, it's a driver's fault. Yeah. And one other thing I want to ask you related to weather, and I don't know how much you know about this or how much you were involved in something like this. Obviously, we've seen a lot of complaints about not moving to start time. Now, whether it's, whether it's an hour ahead the day before or 15 minutes ahead that day, What goes into that decision making? And obviously the weather was 50-50, so it's hard to make that call 24 hours out. But, you know, maybe Sunday we see it a little bit better.

You know, what goes into that decision making? Yeah, so I was never really a part of any of those. I do know that to make that call, you have to do it 24 hours or more in advance to do it, right? So I know they were all talking about it. They had to be. But I think at the time that they were looking at that, you guys weren't really expecting to see any rain too much later in the evening. And so what came at you? It sped up.

So, you know, they, they, I can assure you that they were taking a look at that. And if they thought that they needed to move it up, they would have done it without a doubt. The intensity definitely picked up with, because of the weather. We had talked about it earlier too. And it was definitely more intense because we were all, every driver is being told the same thing. Every crew chiefs looking at the radar down there. I don't, I was watching the radar app and I was worried about lightning for a little while. And then the rain got close, and it wasn't, I don't know, like, I saw a lot of lightning,

but I didn't, and I have multiple apps, none of them, I was going to ask you this, what registers is a lightning strike? Because there was a lot of lightning that we saw, but on my, you know, when I'm looking at stuff and none of them showed as being strikes near the track. So there's a difference in the lightning. Yes, I don't know, I don't know exactly what trigger. We would sit there and have, we would receive messages, alerts, whether it be through email or text messages, and it would give us down to the 10th of a mile of where the strike was.

I had one app that was on my phone that was always pretty dang close to the information that we would get, but we were lined up with, you know, the Weather Channel, and there was a system that was put into place that was automated to where, when the strikes happened, boom, we got a message. Oh, because I'm going to tell you, I had to call them and remind them to remove my number, because I was getting them all day long on Friday and Saturday. So, and from mid Ohio and from Atlanta. Yeah, I was just curious because you could see some lightning in the sky,

but they weren't like bolts hitting the ground, you know, but I don't know. Definitely, it definitely picked up. It didn't, like, I know when we made that long pit stop and we got the car better, Brad took off and he was driving to the front. The one thing I know, so you were talking about, you know, spotters would say two by two. And that's the one thing that we heard about Atlanta after they did the reconfigure. was, you know, that that third lane would be tough. I don't know that the third lane was able to make any progress.

It probably didn't look like it did. There were some guys trying. But, yeah, it really... Martin Truex was ripping up there. He was fast. And so to see the cars coming off of the corner, you know, three wide, it was pretty exciting to watch. Yeah, there was a couple times where Martin, Martin drove around us on the outside,

and we tried to follow him and just couldn't. And I don't know, I don't know how much handling battle you fought, but we that was that reminded me of an old like Daytona race before they paved it where handling almost mattered just as much as we saw that on Friday also and ironically he won the race but like the 20 had one of the worst handling cars out there in the front of the pack and all the JGR cars really you could see them go in the corner and wash up the racetrack and we were having similar issues early in the race last night so I just you know that the handling coming into a play and one of the things I think you actually tweeted this which I don't know God forbid we

He tweeted everything, didn't he? I love my Twitter. There's 77,000 people at Lime. I don't know if you did it from, I don't know if you did it or somebody did from Couch Racer, I can't remember. But we talked about the distance of the race and somebody said, like, would you be okay with a 300-mile race? And Jordan Bianchi and Gluck, I was listening to their podcast on the ride home last night.

They brought up a great point. That race was phenomenal, I thought, last night. And it was 277 miles. Like, what's wrong with just running another 25 miles versus going another hour? The race was, I think, two and a half hours long, maybe ish? why do we need to add another hour to that? Like if you want these guys to race with urgency, that's what you do is shorten the damn race.

Like, because you will see less of the riding around two by two. If it's, if it's a, you know, if we're going another, what it was, what we have left,

like 80 laps last night, you know, something like that. Um, you know, like the, I thought, I think that maybe that needs to be visited of,

you know, that this was a great race and it was just shy of 300 laps, 300 miles. You know, why would we not, you know, think about making these races 300 miles. The plate races, I don't think, the only race plate race I think that needs to be 500 miles is probably the Daytona 500.

Yeah, for sure. Other than that, the rest of them, you know, like, you want to create urtons. You're going to get rid of that riding around stage we always seem to have. So I think, I don't think a 300 mile plate race is a bad deal. Probably my favorite thing about Atlanta compared to Daytona Talladega is the fact that the manufacturer alliances aren't as obvious. you guys are able to stay on top of each other, make moves, whether you have teammates or don't have teammates. So when you look at everybody pits at the same time at Dayton's Tilly,

you don't have that Atlanta. Obviously, we saw Penske cars working very well together and a couple different times various teams working well together. Did you watch Qualifying? But we didn't have a whole OEM, yeah, but we didn't have a whole OEM strategy screwing the race up. Why is that? Well, it's harder.

Like we talked about, you know, it's hard. For one, you don't want to pit together. because pit road entry is a little bit sketchy trick is so you know you don't want to end up at Daytona Tadalega we all have it down we all have marks you got a big wide entry you can kind of split up and get away from each other here it's you know you're you're coming off at two you're potentially crossing down the back straight away with guys that are staying out or coming off pit road so you're almost wanting to pit by yourself away from everybody at Atlanta and then it's just harder to get together like and it's harder to defend

And, you know, like a lot of times you'll see us all line up. If we line up four forwards or four Chevys or four Toyotas in a row, the last guy in that line of the four will be the defender. He'll block the runs and the three will move down in front of them. It's a lot harder to do that. The runs last night were massive. And they would come from nowhere seemingly. You know, there was one time TJ was like two back of us in the middle lane.

And next thing you know, like I'm like two back. Before I can even say, like, count you normally be like two back one, half with you. It's like two back inside. you know, just instant runs. So it's just harder to get together, stay together. You know, we tried to work a little bit. Like I said, one time we tried to follow Martin to the top. We couldn't do it.

We almost hit the fence. It was just, you know, the exit of two guy was getting sketchy. Yeah. The exit of two was like getting really sketchy. The coolest part about that racetrack in this package is how short that back straightaway is. You don't have a lot of time to make a move. So when you make the move off of two, that back straightaway is freaking short. You got to be in a hurry to get clear before you get the three, or you may be screwed.

So I just think the characteristics of the track. And here's the weird part for me, Kip, and I'm sorry, I'm going to say this out loud. I think our plate package, which we're drafting package is what we're calling out. I think it has sucked. And when we got to Atlanta, it was freaking a 10 out of 10. And I don't know what the difference was. Because, yeah, Daytona and Talladega are so much bigger. They don't have to lift for the corners at those tracks like they do at this place.

still. I mean, like, when you get that run that Freddie's talking about, when you get to turn three and you're going that fast, you're like, oh, I mean, they don't know if they're going to make the corner. I think 0-2-03, we had two-by-fours on a roof of the cup cars. I think Lord Burton might have won the dayton 500 at year. That's what it looked like racing. I won that way. Well, man, literally, just you guys were swarming on each other. It was, phenomenal. But anyway. And like I said, that's, and you saw guys, there was some guys. The 43 sticks out in my mind. The 45 was up top trying to make that work. The 43 was probably the most aggressive guy there last night.

Martin was hauling ass, but it was just... By aggressive, you mean him hitting things? Yeah, I mean, well, sometimes stuff got in his way, and he's trying to go forward. It was, if you got your car driving good, like, I'm not going to lie, there's a couple times we got shoved down the backstretch and we got a run to the bottom of three and Braddo to the bottom. And I was like, uh-oh, yeah, we're not going to make this corner. And then he went around like two cars and I'm like, oh, our car's really good, you

know, and it's, um, I mean, they go into three, and I'm sure, I don't know if TV saw, but from our angle, you know you can, when you can see them runs for him. those guys going to that corner and one restart, Brad pulled an old Jamie McMurray move down the backstretch. You know how McMurray would always go through the middle on the corner entry, and he shot through the middle right as they split in the other corner. Brad drove through them. I'm like, oh, God. Like, I almost quit looking for a second. But it was, man, they got, they fight the cars. Like, you can see them. Like, that's why I asked you, if you watch qualifying, qualifying was exciting. I watched the Fort Diego into one and he was all, but he was aimed towards the infield and then he was aimed

towards the outside wall and he still saved it. And you had Ross lifting because he was out of control. 42 was lifting. There was guys that were, the 10 got the pole and he was chasing it all the way up off turn four and still got it. So definitely exciting. You guys didn't have a time. I didn't get to see qualifying.

What happened there? We had an issue. We had a little, some kind of issue. We didn't make a lot. We aborted. He about wrecked and three. He did a phenomenal job. For what the issue was, he did a phenomenal job to not crash.

I do you know what it drove like. It might have been. Oh, I saw it. And, you know, like, I was watching it on TV, and it was, you know, everybody was free. We saw guys dive off in the corner and get free. And I, originally, I'm like, because it's not a good feeling. You know Bubba's on the track. They had gone to commercial, so I know we were next.

Bubba's on the track. And when they come back, they're not, we haven't taken the green yet. Bubba's probably just left pit road. So they're still on pit road camera. And they're on Lugano and Cindric having a conversation. And then at the same time, they both perk up, look over and turn one. And they're pointing three or four. I'm going, oh, we just wrecked.

Like, I'm waiting for the camera to cut off and the 23 be destroyed. So they show, they come over there and Bubba, you could tell he's saving it and he's coming downhill. So I'm like, oh, he must have drove off from the three and got loose. And like when he went in there, he like, normally you see him step out on the right rear and they chase it up. Well, Bubba's car actually like tracked to the left and then it was just all over the place and he's like, something's broke and there was, there was an issue.

Self-inflicted. Self-inflicted issue, yeah. But, you know, it is what it is. But yeah, it was, I thought this race itself was perfect follow-up for what we had last week. The big crowd we came off of last week, you know, if any of them people tracked back over to this week and they got a hell of a show. Well, we have plenty more to cover. So let's head into Spot On Spot Off. Hey guys, you like easy money? Then you'll love our new partner Money Lion, the all-in-one mobile finance app designed to help you take control of your money. With Money Lion, you can borrow, save, invest, and earn money all in one place.

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It was super fun yesterday to ride her out. I'm Aaron. I am spot off. Damn. Where do you come from? First topic. Austin Hill says, just have no friends out there. Everyone's my enemy after a colleague controlled Xfinity race. Freddie,

spot on, spot off. I mean, what do you want us to do? Like, move over, let him go, get in the middle of our group. Like, there's a whole point of controlling the race. And listen, I'm, you know, we have an alliance with RCR, and I don't know if that means we're supposed to be nicer to him than we are to other people. But I specifically, if you're

listening to my radio told Chandler, we cannot let the 21 car get to the lead. There was multiple times at the end of that race, obviously middle of the race, we're all working together to try to get up there. Well, we ended up there where we needed to be. Colleague does a great job of getting themselves in position. Maybe our execution wasn't great at the end. But, you know, we have three cars in a line. We're all kind of lined up there, and it's the 10, which was Justin, Chandler, and then

Daniel. And it was flipping behind us, whether there was 20 or 21 in fourth. and a couple times of 21, who I thought was one of, if not the best car on the racetrack at the time, he would get runs on Daniel and get underneath him. And I told Chandler, I don't care if we have to hang Daniel out to dry. We have to block the 21. If we let the 21 get out in front, we may not see him again. And we've seen that.

And we're not enemies with Austin Hill. The guy has won every plate race for two years seemingly. So that's the guy you're not going to help him. You have to control him. You have to keep him buried in traffic. People probably did it to Dale forever because they know how good these people are at plate racing. So if you give them the lead or if you help them get up there, it's one thing if it's the three Toyota's line up in front of us and Austin and Austin are back there.

We're going to work together to get them. But when I have a teammate in front of me and a teammate behind me, sorry, buddy, we're not going to help you get up in there and ruin our party for the end of the race. Because I felt like we were in the position we needed to be and we just needed to control that until the end. but I mean obviously yes we're not going to help you I don't know I don't know that why you'd expect to help at that point you know who reminds me of he reminds me of Elliot at the plate races he just he finds his way back to the front like nothing and then he gets there and once he gets the lead it's I mean you know damn well if he gets the lead he's getting you're gonna have the race just got

harder for you to win if he gets to the front but you know you know speaking you know like I would ask Austin like how did you get to the lead because you helped all your friends get there. I mean, because you know what moves to make and you're there and you know that if you get your best chance of winning that race is to control it. And if you get there, you're going to have your odds go way up. So I think they look at Austin the same way. To that point, there was a, there was a funny, a point in the race where we, we have worked really well with RCR, obviously. Chandler's done a phenomenal job at plate races. We have absolutely nothing to show for it. But there was a point earlier in the race where I forget who was leading,

maybe Sieg and it was you know we can kind of you with the choose rule now you kind of you got to play that in a lot and we had seen it was like Sieg Creed Custer Chandler or maybe Chandler then Custer and then Austin so I said I went down to the RCR

spotters and I said we need to I think that the two because Sieg is essentially a Stuart Hoscar or he's a Ford affiliate Alliance whatever that is I said they'll line up at the top Seag's going to take the top I think the double zero go with them we need to just triple stack the bottom and try to make that work and everybody's on board. Okay, great. We line up, Cree, that splits kind of how

Creed goes bottom. We go bottom with him. The two Stewart House cars go top and Austin went top. And I'm like, okay, I guess we're not doing that. So you want help from everybody, but at the same time, when we ask for help, you went the other way. So I don't know what you expect at us. Yeah. Brett. Look, man, Austin Hill has been the got to be. Freddy's right. He only led one lap, Kip, this past weekend at Atlanta. And I thought on television that Chandler Smith and the 21 Austin Hill had the two fastest cars. And I say that, not only because were they fast, they could turn down under guys on the exit of the corner, clear them getting into the next corner, kind of side job them and

blend up there in line. It looked like the way Daytona used to race years ago when it was nice, and nice and worn out. Austin's frustrated. I mean, he lost his teammate. Once he lost his teammate, I think he's a sitting duck. Colleg Racing is not in business to help Richard Childers Racing win races at any point in any team meeting are they going to stand up and say we've got to make sure we help austin hill all day today if i'm driving and if i'm running a team i want to get rid of the fastest guy out there now the beauty of the alliance is you do work together to make your cars faster colleague racing went through a spell there where they were the fastest plate cars out there and i think that helped richard children's racing get faster and i think it helped austin hill

have fast cars i think when you look at that race four or five of the fastest cars out there were RCR affiliate cars, including the RCR cars himself. So I think Austin is rightfully upset. He kept standing in his interview. I just wanted to get the lead. Well, so did 30 other guys out there, but. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I didn't have a chance to see, you know, Saturday. But I'll go back to the point that you made a little bit earlier, the fact that, you know, even though that you want an opportunity to work together because you're running that a track that's very similar to Dayton and Talladega, you don't have a whole lot of opportunity for that to happen, but because of how fast things go, right? It's a mile shorter racetrack. You know, things happen in a hurry.

And if you end up cutting one guy a break or giving them a chance to help you, the chance of getting that back may not come around. So, yeah, I certainly understand its frustration, but at the same time, too, you know, things happen really, really fast on that race track. Continuing on the topic of Xfinity and Collegraising, Justin Haley pulls out of line coming to the White Flag in an Xfinity Series race bailing on teammate Daniel Hemrick. Spot on, spot off, Brett. Oh, boy.

I think I think Daniel Hemrick did one thing very wrong and very detrimental to his finish you want to know what that is Freddie

I think he trusted Justin Haley I'll watch that restart and I'm sitting there and I'm like man Collick racing is in a really good spot and look you go back if the caution doesn't come out

it sure looks like one of the collie cars is going to win but when the caution comes out it's like man this is going to get tricky and you've got the two collid cars on the outside with Parker Clingerman behind them.

And then on the bottom, you've got John Hunter on the front row, which was smart of him to take the front row, and then obviously a collie car behind him. Well, when Chandler and Parker both run out of gas, the top line is dead in the water. Justin Haley has no pusher. Daniel Hemrick's job on that restart was to get hooked up with a 20 and get him going and hopefully have an opportunity to get up

and get with his teammates. Well, it happens so fast on that restart. I think by the time Justin realized, oh, God, I don't have a pusher. Daniel was already almost clear of him getting into one. So the way it kind of played out in my mind watching this thing, and I haven't talked to Justin Haley, nor have I talked to Daniel Hymrich. Like, I just saw it as when Justin Haley was catching him out of four,

had he picked up Daniel Hemrick, I think he pushes Daniel Hemrick to the lead getting into turn one, and I think he clears John Hunter with no problem. I think Justin, you know, Justin said in his interview that he was running out of gas, and he pulled down, well, I've never seen anybody run out of gas. go so fast by somebody in my life. When we ran out, we didn't pass anybody. I think this is a case of Daniel Hemrick fills the heat of I've got to win a race right now. And I think this is Justin Haley filling the same heat of I've got to win a race right now.

I'm coming off a stellar effort in Chicago. I'm a great drafter. If I can clear Daniel Hemrick right here, I think I have a chance to win. And I just think it, for colleague racing, it just kind of sucks because you should have won the race and the way it played out, you didn't. Yeah, I mean, we were, I felt like we were in position to win the race. I thought, to your point earlier, I thought us in the 21 had the best cars. We got the second with, I don't even know, 30, 40 to go. One time, Freddie, you made a couple moves that I didn't agree with. You left the top open. You didn't get up in a hole. And you fell to

eighth. And I was like, well, he's screwed. I'll turn around and you drove right back to second. That's how fast you are. Yeah, it was one of them dings where, you know, there was one tight hole that just, we were only going to go back two more spots so we didn't get up. And then And I thought, and in the same time, Chandler, we've talked about this with Chandler before, me and you both probably. He gets, for one, trust people too much at play races. Like, same thing with Austin Hill, people see how fast your car are sometimes. And if you make a move, they might not go with you because they would like to see you dump back to eighth.

You know, as much as it might help drag them up to second, they still don't want to see you out front. So they're going to let you go to the bottom and close that hole up and hopefully shuffle you out. Luckily for us, our car was unbelievably fast. I don't trust. I don't trust Chandler. Yeah, no kidding. just see you know. But, you know, we got the second.

I told Chandler, we're just going to ride here, bud. Like, we're just, we're in, where we need to be. We have a teammate behind us. Hopefully he can throw the blog. We talked about he can be the blocker. We'll cover him when he does block. If not, if somebody makes a move on him, it gives us a little bit more time to throw a block. So I'm like, where we need to be for the end of this race.

Like, you don't need to move for the next 30 laps. And that's what we did. And there's a couple times I saw him maybe off at like two to go. Coming to two to go, actually right before the yellow. He started to back up, you know. And obviously if you watch play racing, you know, if the guy's backing up, he's trying to create a gap to get a run on the guy. And I was like, ah, wait, not yet.

Like, we can't, because I don't want to get side by side with two to go and open the door for somebody else to come up in there. You know, I don't mind if we do it taking the white or, or down the back, whatever. But, you know, you do that with two to go and now you've invited somebody else to the party a lot of times. So, you know, I thought we were in position. Obviously, you know, yellow comes out. I'm like, damn it, you know, we're talking about.

And listen, Collet got lucky because one thing happened that I wasn't expecting, and we had talked about it, you know, with the truth rule. we were going to triple stack the top because I had assumed that the 20 and the 48 were going to go to the bottom and because I just Parker is super aggressive he's really good at pushing

I was like if he can push that 20 and the reason why we were going to triple stack the top with the 20 leading was we've done it three times before and we were able to he was not very good his car wasn't great so we could easily drive around him every restart we had and clear him and get all three of our cars clear

so that was our plan luckily for colleague it didn't work out that way where Parker actually chose behind us. So that gave the 11 the opportunity to take the bottom. If not, we would all, like, we would have killed all our cars. You know, all the cars would have been, and maybe outside the top five. So, you know, it got lucky there, but, you know, to your point, you know, it was funny because Justin had Frank Danny spotting, obviously, and Justin gets on the radio and tells Frank when we're running second, you know, make sure Chandler knows, you know, colleague has to win. And obviously,

he doesn't want, he wants Chandler just push him to the win. Obviously, he means Justin Haley has to win. Yeah. Oh, what, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, and then what happens off of four happens where he pulls down and kind of ruins any chance they had at winning, was ironic. I've been in that situation before. Yeah. Earlier this year. It's, you know, it's, we had it in a perfect, you know, when Chandler runs out of gas, it's like all car. And it, the way it worked out was perfect because Justin could have very easily been hung out to dry. And it was just luck, you know, sheer luck of the way the lines broke up that he was able to even tuck in behind Daniel and start to get that run. But yeah, unfortunately, I think, We were in position to get one and didn't get it done. Brettel, like in the cup race, we got to the lead there. It was similar, but you could kind of control both lanes a little bit because Chris was racing with Blaney, and the guys behind them were also two-by-two,

and the intensity was so high that they were just pulling each other back, so they'd neither one of them get pushes of each other, and straightaway would go low to pull Chris and would go to the high side and to block Blaney on the entry, then back to the bottom of pull Chris again, and it had that old school feel of that. Like, you know them guys, and it was actually kind of nice. But as soon as the guy got clear behind one of them, it's like you better pull them tight because here comes the big run.

But, yeah. Josh had a good first stage. Yeah, our car, honestly, our car was, I feel like, as good as the 16 at the beginning in that race. And we had a couple issues, got super loose. Josh got into the wall a little bit. Kind of surprised him because we had been able to run. he's able to drive to the bottom and hold a wide open to three, which a lot of cars couldn't do.

So we were really good. And then he adjusted on it. I guess we entered the race. We had a tire going down too. So we had multiple issues the rest of the race that kind of entered the rest of it. But, you know, in Kip, so, you know, we talk about obviously now going to be working with a lot of young upcoming drivers. What John Hunter pulled off the other night was the epitome of just be there. Just take what the race is giving you at the time because his car was not good.

Like all the Gibbs cars were pretty bad, especially in traffic. And he just kind of hung around, hung around the top 10, top top five, you know, stayed in position. And then he finds himself leading the race when we all, you know, the top lane gets jacked up. And he goes on the wind because guys are fighting behind him. But that's just the epitome of what we always tell to the, especially younger drivers. Like sometimes you've got a fifth place car. You just got to finish fifth with it. We've seen guys try to take a fifth place car, run third, and run it in the fence.

And sometimes you just got to take what it gives you. And sometimes the brakes will fall your way. Yeah. So that, you know, that happens at any level. of the sport, right? So, and that John Hunter's now not a young guy, right? He's a veteran, and now he's smart enough to realize that

that's going to happen, not to, not to try to get any more than your car is going to give you. Not to run a cold custer, slam off the racetrack up into the guardrail and not even really ever cross start finish at Midd Ohio that time. Remember that John Hunter? I love that John Hunter. Is that what John Davis was fighting? That was Canada, wasn't it?

It was Canada. Yeah, yeah. Classic. Kip, Spot on, spot on. NASCAR, Alex, to not throw the caution after Harvick's spin with rain on the way. Yeah, so spot on with that. Because, you know, when you're sitting up in race control and you're wanting to do everything you can to keep the race going, you know, when you do have a car that is off the pace, no matter what the problem is, did he spin? Oh, he spun.

Okay, so. Down out of the way, though. I mean, it wasn't on the track. No contact, no debris, right? And no fluid. You know, one thing that I think we've learned about the next-gen car is that, you know, if there's any fluid coming out of him, it's generally caught by the underpan.

So he's able to get down and out of the way. Kudos to him and Timmy and Rodney for getting him down out of the way because by doing that, it allowed a race to keep going. It's never ideal. And, you know, if you're at a point of the race where you're not worried about what's coming in on you,

you may throw the yellow, but at the same time, too, you're still wanting to give a chance to let that race kind of keep playing out. You know, the fact that Kevin got, way down to the bottom of the racetrack. And, you know, when I was watching him as he was staying down the bottom, you know, and the car's going by him.

He was down as far as he could go. Everything worked out right to let the race keep going. I think so. And so it was the right call to make. And, you know, given they were, they had the opportunity to make the right call. And I think they did. Yeah, race kept going up front. I got a question for Brett.

You know, looking at us to the way some of these bigger races end. you know we have a wreck at the Daytona 500 for what 15th 20th place something like that and it was really do you like and it kind of robbed every one of the of the finish at the 500 in my opinion do you like do you think if you were to do something like that in another series you would get maybe a grid penalty something like that do you think that's something they could look at you know if you ruin the race for the lead for 20th place for the move that you just drive in there and turn a guy should there be some repercussions for that i mean i'll be it honestly So, E. TJ, I was surprised that Kevin wrecked the way that Denny came down on him. I think Denny reacted.

I understand why he wrecked. But I don't think, by no means that Denny Hamlin wrecked Kevin Harvey. Not to evade your question, but just to kind of touch on what Kipp said. I was surprised Kevin wreck because these cars have been hard to wreck in a lot of places. And that looked like the old school days where somebody kind of bounced off the wall, hit somebody in the right front and shoot them down. I didn't bounce off the wall, but that's exactly how. how the contact looked. The only person to me that can answer this question as to whether or not

the yellow should be thrown is Kevin Harvick, because he knows if he was in danger or not riding around on the apron at 40 miles an hour when the field came by him at 200 miles an hour. That's what I was afraid of would be that somebody would wreck and wreck into him when he's just an innocent bystander trying to limp back to pit road. And I can't answer that question. That's a Kevin Harvick question to me. Rodney, his crew, she did tweet, did the caution come out yet, like with a gift? So obviously he thought it should have, but Rodney wants to caution to come up. come out because he's selfish in that situation. I do see the safety standpoint, too.

If he was driving, like if he was riding not in any danger, it has to be a tough call on NASCAR. The problem that we always come back to is consistency. And this is another problem that we always kind of address on here is you have different people calling races. On Saturday night, you know, the, I think it was the 31 does a half spin and the caution comes out immediately. Yeah.

and then you have Kevin, you know, spin off a four, slide in front of half the field probably, slide down the front straightaway. You don't know when he's sliding which way he's going. You know, he could easily back up the racetrack. So I think that this is a caution. Obviously, the yellow wasn't thrown because of we are trying to get to halfway. We're trying to get this race in. You throw the caution, you risk that the weather comes in,

and we have an issue like we had in Chicago with the affinity race where now we're just short a halfway, but we got to all come back tomorrow. Here's my question, Fred, because you're making a great point. Do you want the people behind Kevin Harvick to stay wide open or lift? I mean, you... That's the question. That's the question. And you almost have to live...

Obviously, you don't have to lift until you see... We see it playing out, and luckily he continued on through the grass, did not slide back up into the racetrack. But we've seen many times where a guy gets turned around off a turn four and goes one way and then ends up coming back across the racetrack. And now you've put these guys in position where the green flag still out. You can't lift, especially at this place. You know, with the package we're running, you can't lift. So now they're only going to lift if the caution comes out.

And if he comes back across the racetrack, we've got a bad situation on our hands. So luckily, he didn't. He spun to the apron and continued on and rode around, you know, really slow nursing. I'm assuming flat tires back. But I think 90% of the time, this is a caution flag. And if it's a caution 90% of the time, it should be a caution 100% of the time. And I get it. You're trying to get to halfway, but we've talked about this before on here.

A caution flag is a caution flag. It shouldn't, the situation going on around the race. at that point should not have any effect on whether or not that's a yellow flag or not. TJ, at your point, yes. If somebody wrecks somebody in the back for no reason. Yeah, I just think it sometimes. I've seen lap cars getting away for no reason. I mean, we've seen a lot of dumb stuff play out, and I do think that it shouldn't go unofficiated

when it's changing the outcome of the race. Because we talk about changing the outcome of the race all the time on here, and that's changing the outcome of the race. Yeah. Plus, I mean, I want to see the finish. It's our finish line. I don't want to have to go back and let's review this. let's, that gets really, and that's another thing too.

Like, even when the yellow comes out, we're not really sure where, you don't know where you're going to be at. So it's hard to even lift even when the yellow comes out, because I'm telling you, we've all been robbed by, we feel like we've been robbed to spots. You do, you do, and I mean. I almost got a bunch from them last night. I know.

We spun out and they lined us up back where we were running. At the end, I was like, just go up there. They're not going to let us stand. They'll go up there anyway, just to prove a point. Like, Kip, on the subject of consistency, and you've, you listen to the show, so you hear it's been talked about a lot. And being on the NASCAR side, what do you think, like, what can you tell these guys that hopefully will help them realize why you have different directors at different races? What do you think could be different? All right. So there's a couple things there, different directors, right?

So what you're seeing is they're wanting to add depth to their department. Right. And so, you know, with, with. David Hoots retiring a few years ago and that put all the race directing on to Jassan Hamilton and Tim Berman. Then they started bringing folks in. Chase Preshears was a part of that group and I think now is going to maybe return to help out with that department as well. You know, Tiffany Meyrick's been in that role and learning to be a race director. I think Jesse Little's done a phenomenal job and getting in that seat. I mean, he's just to get out of the driver's seat and into a chair to call races,

to have the demeanor that you have to have when you're up in range control is huge. From a consistency standpoint, I guess I would equate that to, if you're at a baseball game and you got a guy calling behind the home plate and he's got a strike zone that's here and here, we all know what the strike zone is supposed to be, right? It's the width of the plate from the chest to the knees. But they all see things just to touch differently. You know, you're going to have that with this too.

And to ask one guy to call every race is impossible. You know, you're going to have someone get sick. And that's why they wanted to add the depth to that department. And I think they're really getting to a point, though, where they are becoming more consistent. The challenges are is that there are no two situations that happen on a racetrack that are the same. So you do have to be ready to react differently to the – and, you know, it's like everyone says, oh, you know, you go to Charlotte, Texas, and Atlanta, and they all the same track, they're not. So any situation that happens on a racetrack that may look the same, the situations

that are all around it may be different. And so it's not easy. You know, if you, I remember hearing stores about, you know, a driver or a car owner or a crew chief being invited to come on, hey, come on up, sit down with us one day and see what we've got going on. It is a, it's, it's really a work of art when you sit up there and you hear it. And you did it. I remember it was a couple, not that long ago you were doing it, right? Yeah. So we were, we were in a position to where we had some folks that were, we were still trying to build that department. And because I had had some race directing experience in my past, I called a few races for, for Xfinity. And basically, that was nothing more than to knock the cobwebs off and be ready to go. So if they needed someone to go up

there at a moment's notice, I was ready. And so, you know since that time they've like said been able to add jesse you've been able to to add a few other folks and and that they're certainly not wanting to be inconsistent because i mean they want to do the the exact same thing for every time that they can but but i'm going to tell you when you're sitting up there and situations happen on the racetrack and it's all at the blink of an eye you don't have a chance to really to really sit there and you know observe it and let's think about this you have to react. And so you and at the same time you have to not react in the same accord, you know, not reacting. And I remember I'd walked away when Kevin had his deal with Denny, but I remember

seeing the replay to not react on that. They're sitting there with a button on the, on the, or the finger on the button, and they're ready to. But at the same time, you know, they get crucified at they throw a yellow and it doesn't materialize. So they, they're, they're in a really tough spot. A lot of times in no one situation, but the goal is to be consistent as much as they can be given the circumstances they're having to work with. RacingUSA.com is DoorBulliverclear's go-to store for the latest and greatest officially licensed NASCAR merchandise. And here is another reason why. RacingUSA.com carries lots of exclusive door bumper clear officially licensed merchandise. Right now, you can order a door bumper clear fan pack bundle. Each DBC fan pack includes

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needed. You are guaranteed the lowest pre-order prices and your in-stock orders are shipped the very next business day. Plus, you can select from a wide assortment of the newest officially licensed diecast, apparel, hats, helmets, novelties, and collectibles for the sports most popular drivers, many of which are exclusive to RacingUSA.com. So whenever you want a new hat, t-shirt, die-cast, helmet, or novelty to support your favorite driver, shop racing USA.com. Google's top rate is store for NASCAR merchandise. William Byron and others use strategy at the end of stage 2 to gain track position, and Byron wins after going a lap down earlier in the race. TJ, spot on, spot off.

I mean, spot on, that was his only call for a win, and they got it. So I don't know how you could spot off the call. He won the race with it. So don't think it, you know, obviously if it goes back green and they don't pit, they're not going to win the race. They're going to go a lap and a half down, pitting under green if they have to. Big trouble. That was it.

That was winter. Blue is big. And they won. So it's spot on. Yeah. I mean, he was decent in the beginning. He was pretty good in the beginning. He passed like five cars in that, in that last run.

Everybody pitted in front of him or they wrecked him from him. But then, like, they had a pit road penalty. I don't know if it was. driver or team, whatever. Safety violation. So they make a mistake. They get to put in the back and what happens. You see it a lot of, you see it almost every week.

Somebody has to go to the back for a safety vior, some kind of pit road penalty, and they end up getting caught up in a wreck. Because, you know, a lot of the wrecks were happening mid to backpack, and, you know, he gets caught up and gets damaged, and now he's a lap down and has to battle back. And this was their avenue to take a shot, and they took it. And when you have three wins ready on the season, you can afford to take these shots. And now here he is. He's now matched, I think, his career win total this year.

He had four coming into this year. He's got four this year now. He's now back in the point lead after having, what do you get, a 75 point penalty or something like that? Or 60. So, you know, listen, he's on top of the world right now, and I don't know how he's not one of your favorites to go to Phoenix. He's got 27, I saw, I think, playoff points. Obviously, that's the most of anybody. To your point, tied Ryan Blaney at eight-cup wins, has more a couple of three.

wins on AJ Foyt like this guy has has set the world on fire this year and and I mean I think when you sit you look at what Rick Hendrick did with him Chase Elliott Alex Bowman I mean like I remember us that you were replacing Jimmy Johnson Jeff Gordon Dale Jr. and Casey Kane well how the hell do you do that well now it looks like he knows what he was doing I mean earlier in the year before Alex got hurt he was leading the point so I mean Hendrick motorsports once again you know the cream rises to the top and here they are I mean you can't spot off what those guys are doing. But here's the big winner and William Byron winning that race. It's the guy that's sitting 16th in points. Because if AJ Amundinger, Michael McDowell,

those guys Daniel Suarez that are running second, third, or fourth, if any of those guys pull this win off, that guy's 16th of points. It's out. It's toast. Yeah. Yeah, so I think a lot of the credit has to go to Rudy, right? And I think when you go back and you see the pairing and we'll use Mr. Hendrick again as a, yeah, don't ever question what he does. I mean, he's been pretty dang successful in most everything he's touched throughout his racing career. So pairing Rudy and William back up a year or so ago, how long has it been now? This is our second year. All right.

So pairing them back up together, man, it was, they never missed a beat. And I think you're seeing that now. And I've gotten to know Rudy a little bit over the past couple years. And, you know, he is just, I think a lot of the crew chiefs are this way. when you see them, if you meet them walking around, there's regular old guys, but dang, they're so smart. And they're constantly playing four or five plays ahead and, you know, knowing, okay, what are our options now that we have this penalty? And so, you know, a lot of credit has to go to Rudy on that one. I agree.

Spot on, spot off. Ryan Priest has zero top tens compared to Harrison Burton's one. T.J. Yeah, this is kind of spot off. I think I did expect Ryan to have some more successful runs this year. He's had speed at times, but definitely not the consistency that he's probably looking for. I do think Ryan can still, is a phenomenal race car driver, and I do think he'll get it figured out. He hasn't, to me, he hasn't tore up a lot of stuff, but he just hasn't had a lot of speed.

So, you know, looking at at Harrison's, I don't know, word Harrison get his stuff. top 10 at. Was it Chicago? I don't know. It wasn't Chicago. I don't even know where it was at, but you know, I don't, I think Harrison's struggling right now, you know, and I think he's in one of them positions where yesterday I think we saw him just trying too hard early on in the race. And I think the situation that he's in, pushes him to try too hard. And it's easy to get in trouble. Yeah. He was at Darlington. I gotcha. Nice easy place. Yeah, I mean, that shows you, That shows you that, I mean, that's a tough race to finish. So obviously, you know, he knows how to put together a race.

Just needs to figure out how to keep doing it. As far as Priest goes, you know, he's shown speed. He was on the pole of Martinsville. He was probably the best car at the clash before they had issues with whatever was fuel pickup or something like that. But it kind of goes to show you where Stuart Haas is at. You look, you know, you say Ryan's got no top tens, which is surprising to me. When I've seen this on the show sheet, I was like, there's no way he doesn't have a top 10 yet. because seemingly everybody figures out a good way to get a time.

I mean, JJ Yaley, to their credit, last night finished, six or seventh. You know, like everybody usually- Yeah, that's his second top ten of the year. Usually just figures out a way to get a top ten or just kind of, you know, backs into one, whatever you want to call it. But, you know, you look at Stuart Haas as a whole. They have 12 top tens across the board, and seven of them are Kevin.

You know, that's whatever, you know, that's 19 starts apiece. 76 races, I think, whatever it is. You know, that they don't have the speed. they've had their borderline awful you know kevin's the only one that has been consistently can able to run up near the top 10 at least uh the 14 to 41 they just don't have the speed to compete and and like like i said last night sometimes you get it you know Ryan's running in the top 10 last night and gets run over from behind and turned down into us and and that's the end of the race unfortunately um so you know to to Ryan's side of things like I know he's a phenomenal race driver I've known Ryan since he's 12 13 years old run of modifies um and I don't doubt the fact that he can bounce back from this, but at the same time, you know, numbers don't lie. And we talk about that with Harrison at the same time, Harrison's got 56 cup starts and three top tens. And unfortunately, that's not going to cut it where he's at. I am spot on for anybody that's in the Xfinity series or the Cup Series is looking for a job because it appears there's going to be some guys out of

jobs if this trend continues. I mean, you can't, to Freddie's point, you can't go 20 plus races and not score top 10. I mean, I talked about last year when they made this change. Ryan Priest and Cole Custer on paper look like the same guy. And here they are 19 races, statistically, and they still look like the same guy in the Cup series. Ryan's a good dude. Ryan's a very good race car driver. I think he belongs at the Cup level. I think Harrison Burton is also a good dude. Comes from a great family, won four Xfinity races in one season. I know he's better than where he's running. You know, is he a guy that's going to go out there and compete to win a Cup championship? No, not at this point in his career. But he can't go out there and

continue to wreck at lap 10 or in stage one. or halfway through, he's got to finish these races, or he's going to be in trouble, big trouble. And I don't mean trouble, like, he'll be in trouble, like, he'll be in trouble in terms of nobody's going to watch it. Yeah, when you lose the 21, what are you going to do? And to your point, I don't know that there may be one viable option

to put in a 21 car if, I think Harrison's back next year. You know, even we've seen flashes of decent, you know, he ran, like we said, top ten at Darlington, the middle part of the year we saw, I felt like we started to see improvement, and now we've kind of trended back in a different direction. So to your point, great kid, great family. Hopefully he can find that again. And I think he remains in the seat of the 21 for next year,

mainly because who are you going to put in there? You know, if you assume, you know, we've heard obviously the 10 is going to be open. I would assume that between the 10 and the 34, those rides are full with Zane Smith and Michael McDowell. Could be right. Could be wrong. I think that those two guys take those two rides, whichever way it works out. Do you think Michael McDowell stays where he's at?

I think he either gets into 10 or he gets into 34. I think. I don't know for a fact. I think he would like to go somewhere else, but I don't know where you go if you're not getting in one of those cars. What else is open? Maybe the 21. But that's what I'm saying.

I'm assuming that the 10 of the 34 take up Zane and Michael McDowell, who I think are the best two available guys now that Josh Barry is off the market. The next guy I think you're looking at is maybe, in Austin Hill, what's his deal with RCR? What's his deal with Chevrolet? Can he get out? Can he go over and run a Ford? And you got to also look at Harrison's financial side of things.

He's got big sponsorship with him. So can Austin Hill match that? Like, there's a lot of things that come into it where if you're going to replace Harrison, yes, he's not performing like you would hoped. But who are you going to put in there that you think is just going to, we just talked about you replaced Cole Custer at Ryan Priest's and you're basically getting the same results? Who are you going to put into 21 that's going to just completely,

go and blow Harrison out of the water. Yes. So this proves two things, right, that these guys that drive these cup cars are some of the, if not the, best racers in the world, right? From top to bottom. They're all good. And we've seen success that the success that both Ryan and Harrison have had at every level that they've raced at.

So they can get the job done, right? So the next thing that this proves is the fact that chemistry has a lot to do with it too. And I'm not saying it's just driver crew chief. It's everything. It's all encompassing right now. So, you know, it's a shame that they all can't, you know, find good finishes, find good races, find wins. But at the end, you know, it's chemistry has a whole lot to do with it.

And right now it's just not clicking for, you know, for these guys. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, you look at this Harrison thing and you look, man, the best thing that could happen to him yesterday is to have to sit in a hauler or sit on top of a pit box. and watch your teammates, your other three Penske teammates, go out there running one, two, three. Well, he's pressing.

I mean, and that's... But you got to go home and you got to, you got to wake up and go, I got to calm the little bit down. Yeah. I got to wake up tomorrow and I got to hit reset and I've got to finish New Hampshire. And I've got to try to stay on the lead lap

and I've got to try to run top 15. And here's one thing I want to help you people on social media with. Jeff Burton is not paying for Harrison Burton to drive at Penskee racing. Stop tweeting that. that stupid Harrison Burton was recruited by Roger Penske

to come and drive this car. He was flown to Detroit, Michigan to meet with Roger Penske without Jeff Burton. He was hired

to drive this car. He has sponsors backing him. Stop tweeting that his daddy is paying for this ride because he's not. I just want to help

y'all not look so dumb. That's all. Don't hold anything back. I'm not. It drives me nuts, though. I think there's a lot of people out there that probably say you drive them nuts.

That's fine. They don't have to follow me. They don't have to ever see my tweet again. They can help them with that. That's exactly right. All right. Listen up, everybody. I know y'all are probably putting together vacation plans. Planning your next tailgate at the track are just looking to upgrade some things around the house.

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Which one were you pulling for there, fan boy? I was pulling for Chris. He's never won. So I was hoping he... He's so close, but both Noss Energy drivers, they went one, two, and the Lublani Memorial. Racing was all over the place this past weekend, and there is tons to look forward to this week

between Milbridge and the Kings Royal, I believe, is this weekend. Oh, is that this weekend? The million, I think, is this week, isn't it? Yeah, it's the million. So first, so going back, so I'm watching this race, and it didn't go off, they had some rain in the area for that Lou Blaney race, which is at Sharon Speedway, the Blaney race.

family owns it. And I'm watching it, and it's going off at about 1.30 in the morning. We had got back from McFinity probably. I went to bed. And so I was like staying up, staying up, and the two of them are running up front. That's primarily the reason I stayed up there, both in a dash. So I know they're both starting up front. And I'm like, this day has been horrendous.

We had failed tech twice. We lost our pit stall selection, which is a big deal at plate races. You know, we had our issue in qualifying. We had issues with our pit road practice. Then I'm running second. We're running second thinking I'm going to get a shot. to win the race and the expanding we're running a gas. I'm like, this day cannot get any worse.

And then these two are battling it. I'm like, God, please just don't run each other over here. I'm like, this day cannot get much worse. And they end up running one too. And I had hoped that that was going to be a trend for the next day to turn around, but it didn't. But yeah, it was a fun race to watch. And I'm looking forward.

I assume they're both going to a door this week for the million and the King's Royal, which this is probably the, I think it's a two million dollar person. It pays a million dollars in, I think like $2,023. to win, which is probably the most, I think, has ever been for a sprint car race, at least. That's one thing I want to see Kip take the bull by the horns on is I see these massive purses in the dirt world. You want a million-dollar cars race? I want a million-dollar cars race, Kit.

And I'm not going to sponsor it. I want a million-dollar midget and my car race. He said you got the couch raise of 200. There you go. We got a $100 deal right here. We're almost there. Oh, well, don't forget, catch all the racing. on DirtVision and catch us on DirtVision this Wednesday.

Let's move on to your reaction today. People we need to talk to about these Sunday night races. I'm nearly as fun watching, knowing that I can't get absolutely hammered and sleep it off the next day. I mean, I could, but I can't really call them the word. Also, T.J. you don't suck. Was that T.J? That was, T.J. The one thing I seen off the frontstretched.com there had an interesting stat.

This is the first back-to-back shortened races since 2003. Wow. And that lends itself to two Sunday night races. You know, we got shut down for darkness basically last week, and this week was, unfortunately, weather, and you're not going to keep us there all night because, you know, it's already, I don't know, was 10 o'clock. I wanted you guys to stay there all night.

I'm sure you did. Did you care if they had to stay all night? He cared. He cared more than you did, I'm sure about it. I cared, right? But do you think that having the night races obviously broadcast has something to do with it, which you talk about a lot? I mean, it was hot last year in Atlanta. I was going to say is all of the races that are now night races like Nashville and Atlanta, I mean, even Chicago is really hot.

Do you think that that has to do with it? Or have you been involved in that process where they're saying, like, you know, we're making it safer by having night races? Well, it's July. So it's going to be hot, right? I mean, so, and we've had hot races before. I think that, you know, broadcast certainly has a say in it. But all the stakeholders do. So, I mean, one thing I'll give Ben Kennedy credit for, you know, when we've watched

Ben rise to the company both right after he got out of the driver's seat and all the way up to where he is today, Ben is working his tail off to make sure that the schedule is, is more diverse than it's ever been. And it's going to be more, I don't know. how you say this, but more appealing to everyone, right? So you're, you're always going to have folks that aren't going to be happy with certain things that you do or certain decisions that you make. But, you know, having that race, you know, the national race being late, you know, the late afternoon, Chicago, you know, they'll probably think about that again because your window there

with no lights. It's a real challenge. But, you know, the later time or start time at at Atlanta, you know, a lot, you probably has to do with the, with the heat of the day. But But a big thing, too, is making sure we're putting eyeballs on it, whether they're sitting there at the track or if they are watching it on TV. And, you know, I know there has to be a recovery day. I get that depending on how much adult beverage that you do consume. But, you know, a lot of the folks that were there at the track, you know, they're planning for that. And if you're watching a race at home, plan for that too. If you've got to take a half day the next day, then I guess that's what you just need to do.

I mean, Brett drank a case of wine last night. It wasn't the case. It was four bottles. I don't know how many bottles are in a case It might have been a case So here's my thing I grew up a NASCAR diehard fan I pulled for Dale Earnhardt over Michael Jordan

Right I absolutely love racing Hey easy dude I missed a 1230 starts Yes but let me ask you something You're a sports nut When is the biggest NFL game played on Sunday Is it the 1 o'clock games Is it the 4 o'clock games? No

It's Monday night right It's the freaking on Sunday That's true too But it's the Sunday night game NBC has that big Sunday night game. ESPN on Monday, they don't play it at that freaking 5.30. And when you get later in the year, they're actually doing it for Thursday this year. When you get later in the year, they will flex games to Monday night, or Sunday night, I should say.

You know, if there is a playoff matchup or a game that has playoff implications during the day, they'll move it to that Sunday night game the week before. So I mean, the Sunday, and I'm getting at, the Sunday ratings in Chicago were phenomenal. Yeah. Obviously, duh. but I think a lot of that helps that it started later and went later, and here we are again starting later and go later. I really hope the ratings come out today, tomorrow,

and I hope they're over $3 million. And if they are, I think unfortunately NASCAR employees are going to just have the industry, is going to have to embrace the fact that the ratings are going to be better at night, and we have to race when the ratings are going to be at their highest point. Otherwise, the sponsorships are devalued, right? I would say this too. I would almost venture to bet that the same person that's complaining about a late start time on Sunday is the same person that's going to say we need to be racing midweek at night. Yeah, we tried that.

Well, I guess what it was. And I know. I know it did. The ratings sub. But, you know, I'm really, I'm really passionate about what fans think about, you know, how the sport is managed and whatnot. But it does amaze me sometimes that some of the things that are complained about. And I think that, you know, the late start time on Sunday, you know, I ask you guys when we walked in here what times that y'all got back. And so, you know, I get it.

It makes for a late trip home or it makes for a really tough Monday. But, you know, at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we are, the motorsports industry is being seen by as many folks as we can. I think two things you have to watch out for with this is, and we've seen it, I saw a chart, I wish I could pull it up now. I think it was a Nashville race that they were breaking down. and it was obviously a great audience. And we've heard this in the past. Me and Brett have talked to people that said every hour you move back closer to prime time is worth about 5% of audience, you know, pick an increase.

Thanks to Jeff Burton. We know that. Yeah. So the problem is you have to also watch about how late you run, I think, because there was a chart that I watched. I think it was after Nashville where we had a really good audience, but then the late starts to run into 10, 11 o'clock at night, and the audience starts to crash out because obviously they're going to bed.

And I've seen a lot of people talk about. about, well, if you're going to run a night, run Saturday night. Well, we've seen that in the past, and the audience isn't there. And I remember growing up as a kid, I was at the racetrack my whole life. And I remember hating the Saturday night races because I was at Riverhead Raceway watching my dad race. And it's like, oh, well, I'm going to miss that race. And that's what, you know, you want to promote local short track racing.

That's where a lot of our audience is going to be on Saturday night is at their local short track watching their races. So that hurts our audience. So I think that it's been a home run. Nashville's numbers were up. Chicago was through the roof. you're going to see this one probably come in over 3 million where last year I think it was like two five two six something like that you know and from an in a in person attendance it looked like

the crowd was really good last night too yeah for sure so if you run a if you run a sundan night race do you not try to force a 500 miler on a sunday night that's when i tweeted what i tweeted yesterday man i loved that atlanta 300 mile race and i did it blocks sorry you can unblock me after the Xfinity series race i literally was sitting there and i was like this is the best length we could have for this style of racetrack and a plate drafting style racetrack. I'm saying one more thing than I hush. I think the best thing for NASCAR to happen as it pertains to the Chicago street race is for that mayor to say don't come back. Because when I look at LA, I was there for the first year in LA. The buzz was enormous. Was it not? The second year, I think it wasn't, and I wasn't

there, but going off the industry stuff, I heard it wasn't quite what it was your one. If we have the opportunity to put this street race on tour, man, I love that idea. I love us taking it to new cities, because there are a lot of amazing cities in America that we aren't close to. Yeah. And this gives us an opportunity to do that. I think to your point and to what you just asked, T.J., that lends itself to, that can cover both. You know, the race doesn't need to be 400 miles. We can now, we can start a race at 7.

And if we run three hours, you're done by 10. And you don't see that fall off at the back half of 10 to 11 o'clock where people are just going to bed. They've got to go to work on Monday. You know, a Sunday night race where you shorten the distance and make it a two and a half. three-hour race, I think is a phenomenal idea. I love to watch the truck series. I love to watch it. It drives me bonkers when they start at 9 o'clock East Coast time.

Yeah. I do think, to touch on Brett's point, I think Chicago deserves a nice, you know, hopefully if they go there, hopefully the weather is nice, because I would have loved to seen that the vibe at the track that day, like let all the events go off that should have happened. Everything, right? All the concerts. Everything.

Yeah. I think we're going back. I think it's just going to cost NASCAR. I think you would have enjoyed it. More money. I think you should go, Brett, because I think you would have enjoyed it. Sign me up. Yeah, great.

I'm telling it. It was actually... They'll love to see you. It was a really cool band. I used to love downtown Chicago. How many calls will we? Let's do one. Yep.

That's what I'm saying. Let's be going. Like I said, we'll shut up. Sure. Can you please explain to me how in the living hell Justin Haley comes on the radio, tells his crew chief, make sure Smith knows.

how important and when the colleague is here and then tries to pass him when he has no shot and then says on TV I was running out of gas are you freaking kidding me? I thought that was a brilliant PR move by Justin.

Yeah. I mean, give me, he needs to be an attorney or an elected official as soon as his NASCAR careers everywhere because I bought it. Kip, did you buy it? He was running out of gas.

I was driving home. Justin, we got a guy that would like to talk to you. Yeah, how do you guys come home with the Department of Defense Business cards. I'm worried about you. The letter said...

For you. Yeah, they said we'd like to speak to Brett on the note. I'm changing my number. They already know it. While you're talking about that, special shout out to Robert Coons, who is... Sounds important. Resident Agent in charge. In charge.

U.S. Defense Department of Defense. He said to see school coins. I think Kipp's titles should be executive director in charge. In charge is sounds important. It does. Casey, what are you in charge of? I'm still trying to figure that out. She's in charge of telling you to her.

But that ain't worked triple. It never works. We got a cool coin, too, from it. Do you still have some of yours? Oh, yeah, my Air Force coins. I do, too. We did a lot of stuff with Dojr. Sponsors back in the day.

We got a lot of coins. And, man, I've got a good collection. I'm at home. So they're always cool to keep and look at. General Handy was a four-star general in the United States Air Force was the highest-ranking coin I think. Nice. He's pretty far up there.

I'm like, man, do you have the president's phone number? And he's like, yeah. I'm like, oh. The coolest one that I ever got, and I would get it on an annual basis, was when Leonard Wood would walk up to me in a garage and hand me one. Yeah. Yeah. So now I'll be making the trip to Stewart because I know that. And I'm going to tell you, just a plug for them, if you'd not been to their museum and Stewart, put it on your list to go.

Great place to go. Absolutely. Great place to go. There's only one place to eat in town, Hardie's. No, there's a Mexican restaurant. Is there? We went up there and took a tour of the shop and got to watch Leonard working on, on the, on engines and I'm going to tell you that guy still gets it done to this day. He had a carburetor,

an eighth scale carburetor that he had on top of a regular size engine and he was making that thing sing. And then we talked about going to lunch and we talked about where to go, one joint in town and it was a Mexican restaurant and let me tell you it was hopping and authentic. It was very good. Good, good. I love Stuart Virginia. All right. Let's move on. NASCAR, you suck. How are you going to sit around for 15 laps with a thumb up your ass, waiting for the rain to show up. Guess what? I don't care that it's just going to be

like Daytona last year. They're all going to wreck going into the one because there's rain. Let them run. Guess what? You can call it out and have them slow down. They have things called brake. Does he want to pay for all the wrecked cars? I don't know if you saw how good them breaks

worked in the rain a lot last week. Or Daytona last year? Yeah. Did they all have breaks in? We cannot have another Daytona incident like that. We cannot do that. I do think there was a handful laps before the rain was even doing anything that they could have opened pit road. But which I think they should have. I do think they could have opened pit road right there.

Because those guys that were doing that were swinging for the fence anyway. It's not like they just got up there and earned their, you know, positions. But I mean... To Kipp's point. They were not coming in. No. You were going to wait until one to go. To come in.

I hate to say it. Because I do enjoy Daytona being the final race of the regular season, but I think Atlanta needs to be the new one. And Atlanta at night, this race hadn't even made the end of the second stage, and it's more intense than any other race so far this season. Again, weather played a factor with that. I think if you told the guys at Daytona, we don't know when it's going to end. You'd see Daytona ramp up too.

But, you know, it all played a little factor. Weather coming to Daytona, especially you can see it off. Like, you've been part of races where we can see the rain coming. And, hey, I mean, how many times you told your crew chief, hey, it's about a half mile away, I can see it. And it's go time. So definitely played a big part of it. All right. Well, to leave an audio message 24-7, you can call our new number 704-802-9572.

Or head to anchor.fm. slash dorm upper clear. We will continue to play the best ones each week. You can also submit your questions to AskDBC, which is our next topic. Use hashtag AskDBC when submitting, and Andrew will do his best to pick the best ones. This first one is for Mike,

and it's directly for Chris, or for Kip. Oh, Chris. I'm sorry. This first one is, I hate you. This first one is for Mike. And it's for Kip. What was the most funny or interesting experience you had driving the pace car? That's a lot of laps around a racetrack.

To come up with one, right? So, you know, to go back to this season, we, when I knew that my status was going to be changing, I had the opportunity to go back and maybe some of the guys that were starting up front and asked them, hey, then I wouldn't tell them why, but hey, there's a camera on the back of this car if you would, you know, come up and show that camera a little bit of love. And so, you know, and I've done that throughout the course of the year. You know, we had Lynn St. James as our honorary driver at Phoenix. And because of her and the relationship she had with Kyle Larson, Kyle came up and nudged us on the one to go lap, and she just lost it. She had so much fun.

So, but this year at Nashville, I walked back and I said, hey, Kyle, there's a camera on the back of the back of the the car, you know, and I get photos from that, if you would, just come, you know, show a little love. While I'm standing there, I see Brexton and Samantha's standing there with Kyle, and I asked Samantha, hey, do you think Brexton would like to get in the car? She said, that'd be awesome. You know, so cool. And so I said, didn't have any honorary drivers, didn't have any riders of that race. So she went and asked Brex, and he said, well, are you going to ride? She said, no, you go ahead. And he's like, nope, not going to do it unless you get in the car, too. So she jumps in the back. Brexton gets in the front of the car.

and we roll off the pace laps and Brexton said, yep, see those skid marks going up to the wall? I know who crashed right there. Yep, see that sponsor ever on the billboard and turn three? I know who they sponsor. Yep, see, he was so business-like, right, sitting up in the front seat. You know, when you go through turns three and four,

you really ought to stay right down to the bottom of the racetrack. So he is 100% racer already. Samantha, meanwhile, is in the back seat, like a five-year-old, turned around, taking pictures, screaming and hollering. She had a blast riding in that car. and, you know, video in the whole time, and of course, Kyle came up and gave us a nudge, and I didn't tell her that was going to happen, but, you know, she got a kick out of that. So that was really kind of cool, but there have been so many over the course of the year,

so many great honorary pace car drivers. There have been a time or two also when, you know, things may have gotten a little dicey because someone was upset with a decision that we made, and that's okay, too. Care to elaborate? Anybody stand out as an honorary driver? Honorary drivers. Yeah, so, you know, I said this. on the last show, when we had Chip and Joanna Gaines, you know, at Texas, and this was several

years ago, you know, they are, you know, the people who watched them on, they were on HGTV, I guess they have their own network now, right? So when you watch them and you see them on TV, that is exactly how they act in real life. And so the funniest part about that is when, you know, Chip was going through his pace car driver training. We have to give them all the training. He was so excited. And we'd already been out giving, you know, a ride. to folks. We're running 100, 110 around a racetrack, and we get him in the car and put him behind the wheel. I said, yes, sir,

your training starts right now. He says, how fast we get to go? And I said, 45. And he was like, are you kidding me? 45, so we're out there and we're putting around at 45. Meanwhile, Tara Labani and a couple others are still giving rides, and they are whipping past us, and it was

freaking him out. But he was a lot of fun. Like I said, just the fact that he is, that's how he is in real life. but so many athletes and celebrities that we've had an opportunity to either introduce to our sport or they come and do this because they already love our sport was so much fun. And that's, you know, everyone has asked me, you know, what part of the job you're going to miss? That's definitely one of them.

I got to ask you this while you're talking about it. You've been around a lot of great leaders in motorsports in your career. Which one have you learned the most from? Wow. Yeah, so I've grown up in the sports. So I had the chance to be around, you know, when Bill French Jr. was, and now I wasn't working, obviously, but when Bill Jr. was running the sport. And, you know, so I've seen the different leaders up to this point, you know, right up to, you know, Steve Phelps being the president of NASCAR right now. I was, I was extremely excited when we learned that Jim France was going to take a more active role in the sport. When Jim showed up to the garage, that first weekend, and, you know, immediately remembered me

from back when my dad was a part of the sport. Wow. And I didn't realize this. Jim and my dad actually were over in Vietnam around the same time too. So that was pretty interesting.

And so to be able to talk and listen and learn from that man with all the things that he's learned or has been a part of, you know, throughout his lifetime in our sport is really amazing.

He is, he's so smart. And he's, he's kind of unassuming too. He could walk through the garage tomorrow and no one would realize who he was. You know, blue jeans, ball cap, he's just cruising around through there

and just blends right in with everybody. But knows everything about what's going on, has his finger on the pulse. So, you know, Jim is obviously, he ranks right up there amongst the best of them. You know, of course, Mike Elton's been in the sport for a long time and, you know, Mike came up to me at Chicago

and, you know, he said, so I heard you're leaving us again because, you know, when I left, you know, the first time when my daughter was born and now leaving, you know, last week. And so he sat down beside me and he asked me what I'd be doing. And he leaned over and he, you know, kind of like, you know, he put his arm on. He said, you're the right guy for the job. And there is no better endorsement than to get that from him. So I will say that I've had the opportunity to be around a lot of great leaders, you know, both at that level. and series directors too. Brad Moran's doing a great job with the Cup Series now. I had the chance to work with Jay Fabian when he was part of the Cup Series. Man, well, I know that you know Jay in a very intimate setting at Indianapolis. I remember that. Which I thought was a joke when I text you. I was like, this guy in Spade Series.

I thought it was a birthday party. So Wayne Alton, the Alton family, I've been around them my whole life too. And then the future leaders are coming up through the sport too. you know, Seth Kramick, who's in charge of the truck series right now. You know, the future has, or the sports had a lot of great leaders up to this point, and the future is extremely bright for what's coming. Agreed. This next one is from Master of Light.

What is your favorite Kevin Harvick moment from Kevin's amazing career that he's had from the Cup series? For me, you know, I remember watching one of the moments that sticks out for me. We were actually riding back. We used to raise speed weeks all. the time and I don't remember what year this was. It had to be mid-2000s, maybe. We were riding in the back of our hauler, leaving New Smyrna for T.S. Hollers, riding back to the Long Island, and we watched the race where he edged out Mark Martin, I think it was at the 500. Yeah, that was by inches. Yeah, by inches. We watched that live. So that's one that always sticks out

for me in my memory of Kevin, obviously. I mean, look, it's easy to say the Atlanta win for a million reasons, but I don't think that win was about Kevin Harvick. I think that win was about our sport, Richard Childress racing, Dale Earnhardt. But Kevin drove the car, and he drove the wheels off of it, and if that start-finish line had been three feet further, closer to turn one, he would have lost. Jeff Gordon would have beat him, so definitely a big win. I mean, we were all in our three ball caps on the roof that day, and it was emotional. It was cool to see him win that one.

Yeah, so I will go back and I will say this says what is your favorite Kevin Harvard moment, and the Atlanta race is mine. I was at racing radios at the time, and Richard Childers Racing was a customer of ours. And I remember the Daytona, that day at Daytona. I remember the silence on the radio, and it was eerie. And I remember the jubilation on the radio on that day, you know, when he won that race. And it was healing for the sport and even people would be on the sport. So that, for me, that sticks out pretty big.

T.J. man i think um i don't there's a lot of kevin harvick moments that stand out and getting to know kevin a little bit i've been on a lot of flights with him here in the last couple years and getting to know him he's a really funny guy but he's man he is the closer that guy you'll see him in 25th and the next stage or next you know 25 last letter he's 20th then he's 15th he knows how to go forward the entire race he is probably one of the most consistent drivers These races that he's ended up finishing good this year and got up near the front, like Darlington, he was right up there, I mean, top three at the end of the race.

And it's because he never, he never made any crazy moves. He rolled the bottom. He did what his, he knew his car would do, and he is very consistent. He's probably one of the top three most consistent guys on the racetrack to me. And he knows he's super smart when he's running these races. He knows, I mean, he knows what's going to happen. before it even really happens a lot of times. He's just smart.

He knows how to be there at the end. And, I mean, he's got so many moments. So between that Daytona 500, the Atlanta race, him and Rodney, man, they built a really solid team there. And we knew every week here, we had to beat the four there for a while. So he's accomplished a lot in his career, and I'm glad I've been here to witness it. I don't think mentally there's anybody else in the game better. than he is right now. He's tough, he's confident, he's selfish when he has to be.

I think he has all the mental, he has more mental assets than most that are out there. And I've been around a lot of race car drivers. I know where they have deficiencies. I don't think mentally Kevin's got one. Not in the race car. To your point, I think he is doing more with less than anybody in the sport right now. You look at Stuart Haas as a whole and Kevin is still finding a way to be in contention to win races and get top five, top tens. they are outperforming their equipment at the moment, I think.

And he's been an incredible mentor, I feel like, for a lot of the up-and-coming drivers, too. I think every interview I've seen from drivers about him. I think the coolest thing about him is seeing how much he changed once he had kids. That's like when you saw the childish crap go away and the maturity not only come to the forefront. It came to the forefront quickly. And I think that's awesome to see growth. Racing season is still underway. New customers download the draft.

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gambling resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance, eligibility, wagering and deposit restrictions apply. Terms at sportsbook. Dotraftkings.com slash auto racing terms. What an idiot. Let's move on to what an idiot. Kip, would you like to start off?

Thanks. Got any idiots? You know, I don't have one. You know, that's... It's starting to sound like me, Kit. Yeah, sorry. No, it's not... That's not a bad thing.

You know, so I had a great weekend. You know, obviously going out to Wake County and being a part of the cars tour for, you know, the first weekend officially for me and seeing, you know, how our race day goes. I mean, from the, you know, unloading of our equipment to setting up for the race, seeing those teams work together, even in the face of adversity. They all really work together. I don't have, there's no way I could have a what-an-a-diet for this week.

So I will. Just defer to Brett. You didn't watch You don't have a couple You didn't watch No, Freddie usually has a list Sometimes T.J has a list If you didn't watch a truck race

or the Xfinity race, that's why. Yeah, I was busy. Oh, yeah, okay, never mind. I won't, you know, again, I don't remember his name, but the... I'll call him an idiot for you. It's Sean Hingarani. Yeah, so I could not believe that.

Who? Sean who? Yeah. Yeah, so when he and Dean were, I guess, you know, coming to the... checker right it was uh i saw that replay about a thousand times on twitter i could not believe um someone you know if you're a part of a team and you're and you're a part of that team that's kind of like

that's kind of like the epitome of teams when it comes to arca racing right um i cannot believe that bill and billy are going to stand by and and not do anything as a result of what happened right from so to break it down the the 15 was probably the second best car anchoring was light's out better than everybody. He had spun out, drove back from nine seconds back to win the race, lights out fast and everybody. The 15, I think, was the second best car. He was, he could actually keep up with Anchor him a little bit, maybe not quite as good, but he would make mistakes and get himself buried in traffic a little bit. And he was, our friend Jesse Love was leading, but Jesse was having issues with his car running down up. What's his name,

Brett? Jesse Love. The one long straightaway there off the keyhole, whatever it is, like he would just, his car wouldn't run. I was a fuel pickup issue, what it was, like he dropped a cylinder. So he was having to play a lot of defense, and it got worse as a win, it seemed. So Sean was behind him, and if he just was patient enough, he probably would have broke by him and took off, and it might have been harder for rank him to catch him, but he made mistake. He drove off the tracks. That let Dean and a couple other guys in front of him. They eventually all get around Jesse, and now Dean and Sean are racing for the lead, and Sean puts the bumper to him in that second or last right-hander, and Dean just kind of

runs him wide off the last corner coming down the front stretch, and Sean stays in. it stays gets out in the grass spins out and then waits on him and first of all after after he spins out he needs a caution obviously because he's got to catch up so what does he do for a caution he just lines up poor bob shack who's 73 years old just trying out there making laps and he goes and just wrecks that guy trying to get a yellow yellow yellow doesn't come out because bob kind of spins off the racetrack and kind of gets going again so that's one move that's just ridiculous well then to top that off and from what i understand people that were there on the radio they're asking him the whole they knew what he was getting ready to do,

and they are pleading with him not to do it over the radio, openly over the radio, and he still manages to wait on Dean Thompson, who's running second, who's got three or four second place finishes, and just runs him off the racetrack. Yeah, you know, I've never, Brett calls people enough, idiot enough for all the rest of us,

so I generally don't go down that path, but I will say this. If you're racing in the Arka Series, you're probably doing it to try to make a name for yourself, to move up through the ranks. that is obviously not the way to go. I mean, you're not a great teammate. You've lost your composure there at the end of the race.

To hope that someone is going to look at you and want to be able to put you in their race car. Or if you're trying to attract a sponsor, they're going to really think long and hard before getting into business with it. Yeah, and listen, that's one of my stops on my path to where I'm at now was about two years of entering any motorsports. And that was, you know, watching them guys put all, I mean, And it's, we talk about how, you know, Cup guys are not teammates. You know, the 10 car, you know, the 23 and the 45 are teammates, but the 23 team is one team, the 45 team is one team.

When you're at that level, there's no such thing as like different teams. There's probably 10, 15 guys in the shop and they get all the cars ready. They all load up in a van and drive to most of the races. I did it for two years. We'd get on a, they got like a little bus that we would all drive to the track. That, like you said, is the epitome of family team atmosphere. sphere and for that to happen there is just, it was ridiculous. Yeah, but you know, when you

talk about you guys not being, you know, y'all are teammates, but your two different teams, you know, that generally only really comes into play when you're battling for a win. Oh, yeah. When you're a lap down or you're at the tail of the field and you go and you take out your teammate, that's that's, yeah.

T.J. got anybody? Or Brett? I mean, it's kind of hard. I kind of give it to both of them guys, though, because I don't know if, you know, if, yeah, Sean into the back of him a little bit, but that's kind of road course racing in a slow corner. It's kind of short track racing a little bit. To me, you know, you're going to get bumped sometimes. I don't know if that necessarily, I mean, obviously it was really obvious that Dean

ran him off on purpose and it eventually wrecked him. I mean, you know, if that's the case, he gets side by side with you, you get on the next corner, you bump him a little bit. I don't know if that's like, to me, there was a jab and then Dean threw a big punch and, you know, wrecked him. Well, he didn't wreck him. He ran him. You could have lifted. Well, he ran them off. And if you're going to spin out,

the head monsoon there a little while before that. So if you run somebody off in the grass, it's going to be bad. So I kind of, I give it more to Sean, but there's a runner up right there. You know, and also who's the guy that spins through the sand trap? Oh.

And instead of driving straight about across the sand trap, it's maybe, what, 15, 20 yards wide? he decides to try to go down the whole thing and then get stuck. Well, my favorite was our buddy from two weeks ago, Lawless. Oh, was that him that did that? No, Lawless, maybe different. Lawless spun through the sand trap and there was a road right behind him. And instead of backing onto the road, he drove into the sand trap and got stuck.

He was, he slid through the sand trap onto the grass and there was a... That was him. Yeah. Instead of driving straight across it, though, he turned down and tried to go it down a long ways. I don't know if he's, yeah. A lot of mental fortitude lacking in y'all statements. I'll give it to the 24xfinity car for wrecking himself in Atlanta. I don't know where the awareness was lacking.

I tweeted it. I didn't know who was spotting for the car. Nick What's his name was spotting? He got mad. I tweeted about him. Listen, let me tell you all something, man. I've had a lot of fortunate opportunities in this sport. The first one spotting for Elliot Sadler was in the Cup series, and it literally was a part-time

gig in terms of the money that was coming in. It was for fun. I can't tell you how many times I've told people, no. I don't want a spot for you. And it's not because I don't like them. It's because I'm not going to put myself in a position to look stupid. I do that well enough myself. I don't need to help doing that.

Absolutely. I mean, we look at Freddie with Garrett Smithley. He stopped spotting for him for a reason. I've had other friends that I've, listen, when I went up, when Tyler Monde got the Kyle Larson gig, I went up to him and I said, congratulations. And Tyler at the time, I mean, he had come from spotting for back markers. And we all got to start somewhere.

I went up to him and I said, man, you got an amazing opportunity on your hands. Every spotter up here would love to spot for Kyle Larson. Stop spotting for all them crappy drivers that you spot for because they're going to make you look bad. And I think when you look at these spotters these days, they make a lot of money to spot these cup cars. We didn't. I mean, my first year, I'll be honest with you. In 2001, I made $12,000 spotting for a cup car. It was $300 a weekend.

And now they're making a lot of money. And they don't have to go out and do these gigs for $2,300, $400, $400, $400,000. it makes a weekend and it make them look bad. So my spotter, my idiot for the week is whatever happened with that 24 Xfinity car because there's only one other car around you. How can you wreck yourself in that position? I have to give somebody, what a genius. I slipped these in every once in a while.

I saw after the Xfinity race, Parker Cligerman, obviously he got, I don't think he ever touched him. You guys. He lost the nose. He got tight and he packed air on his left rear and it wrecked him. So he went down to apologize to Austin. Hill for that incident. And he made sure he was at least 10 feet away because he watched that video of Austin Hill

with my Snyder last year. So he was apologizing, but he was in front of the car yelling, hey, I'm real sorry about that. So he wasn't getting within arm's length. And I don't blame him because Austin wasn't in a good mood, obviously. But that is my what a genius for the week. We'll have to go to Parker. Maybe he should have went on. I want to be your friend.

Maybe he would have liked it. I have one more to add. Go, T.J. Wow, it's you. It's your bird. How do you show up with glitter all over you? I don't know. I got glitter on me?

You sure do. It's all over you. It's on your face, too. I wanted a shirt to the shoe show last night. I didn't tell you this morning. After four bottles of wine. Listen, I had, I had 14 people at Myrtle Beach, and the majority of them were teenage girls, so that's exactly how I've ended up with glitter all over.

That explains a lot. I'm going to tell you all something, man. Ocean Lakes. Have you been Ocean Lakes? Have you been Ocean Lakes? Yeah. I grew up. up going in there as a kid as a teenager and high school college student and I haven't been in a long

time. I have never seen that many people in one spot in my life. It was absolutely insane. My girls had a blast and we'll be going back but not July 4th. It was too hot. It was hot. July. It's supposed to be hot. I know it's supposed to be hot. All right, moving on to DVC picks. Congratulations, TJ. You bet on yourself and it pays off. Look, man. Look. I almost had it. What happened to Lugano? I felt like guys up there all the race. I look at the end of the race. He's like 17.

I don't know. I was wondering about that too. Yeah, I don't know what happened. I felt like he was in the top three the whole race. Justin Haley was back to back top tens. We've seen this though, Freddie. A couple of these guys, they run fast. And then when they lose their track position.

The 10 was a perfect example. He led that whole first run and then he was struggling back there by this. And that's honestly been a characteristic of that 22 this year. They have struggled the first couple stages. And then Paul swings. for the fence with a late pitch strategy and you know obviously joey you put him in the top five he's hard to be you know so he's so you do that and you end up really really solid finish so who's going first not me i am for new hampshire and i'll take c bell freddie martin truix junior

brett oh we talked about him on the show a lot and he needs a good run this is a sister track to phoenix and he finished fifth there last year kevin harry and TJ. I mean, geez, everyone's I was going to pick Briscoe and I looked where he's at in points because he finished seventh there last year and he's barely above,

he's like 31st in points. So, I mean, he's not trending. Good. Listen, let me tell you something. He was like a month ago, he was in the playoffs. When we broke into the playoffs, we passed him.

So he was 14th or 15th in points probably a month, maybe six weeks ago. And yeah, that's where he's at now. Can't finish. 30th every week. Man, I don't, you guys are all taking the heavy hitters, so I'm just going to.

You're about to talk to a shit about somebody. I mean, I want to have a shot of winning, but I know there, I know I'm not going to, you know, I don't want to, what can I do? I'm going to take Suarez. I mean, that's not a bad pick. No, I think he's got a shot, but I mean, I have other better drivers still left to pick. So I think Swarres, if he puts together a solid race, he has a chance to be good. All right.

Well, heading to New Hampshire, the weather looks super stellar. Let me guess it's going to rain. Yeah. Of course it is. So what are we thinking? Zero light. No light. Hold on a minute.

Hold on a minute. Kip, who do you think is going to win the race? Yeah, so that one's tough, right? So thinking back to, I mean, C-Bell is always good there, I think, right? And it kind of falls into some of his wheelhouse. This would be a great breakout race for priests. I don't know that he was going to win. but a great opportunity for him to have a good finish.

Man, it's tough. I was at a test there, and the 20 was really fast. Was he really? So I'm way out of the loop on all this. Is this new package or is this? No, this is short track. This is the same short track. They're testing the new package.

Right after the after the race. Yeah, but I think Truex is going to be really good there because he's been really fast everywhere he's been here lately. So that's... Yeah. He's had more speed than what some of his finish his show. Yeah. So what are you saying case he's going to run?

I'm hoping it's not because I'll be there But I will leave early anyways It don't matter Look who's talking I was wondering what we're thinking about The wet weather tires And if it will potentially be used I don't

Will they bring them here? I don't even Yeah oh yeah I mean it's going to be the same We're not I think it's a great thing Because it saves us probably 30 minutes A lot of times And I think they could maybe

Even push that a little bit more But they're not going to put us in position where we're really racing on a super wet racetrack, I don't think. No. No. So I'll tell you this. You know, the idea for that is not to race in the rain. It's made to be able to get to racing as the tracks being dry.

And it's a good opportunity. That way you're not waiting around for that extra hour, extra hour and a half, especially on a humid day. We've seen the wet weather tires. I think it'd be great if the track's a little bit damp and we go green there. I mean, I... Wilkesboro? I thought it was awesome. Yeah.

So, and I'm fine with the... Man, it was... You remember what it looked like at Wilkesboro. It was fun, man. There was guys that were not too sure looking around. They were fast. The cars looked up on top of the track more, and the drivers were wheeling it. And that's, it didn't look like a sealed off RC car.

They're the best drivers in the world. Prove it. Yeah. Okay. And I would say it's not a total washout based on, you know, the one that I use. But, you know, it is New Hampshire and you are close to the coast. So, you never know. Best race of the year this year is going to be in New Hampshire, modified race.

Yeah. You spotting Friday. Yeah, I was spot for our buddy Doug. Doug Cody. Right. Tommy Baldwin's car. Well, he texted us about the other night. He was mad about something.

He was mad. Yeah, he got spun out leading the race or something like that. Yeah, but go down to, what's the name of the place? Lobster down the street. Macris. Macris. Macris. I'll be up in X lot or whatever it's called at the Black Flag Podcast Party on Saturday.

Tim. Did the spot go there's Mills Falls? I don't even know where that is. Go to both. Go to both. So badass. That's a great area. Thank you so much, Kit,

for joining us. It's always fun to be around you. Are always welcome. Good luck. Yeah. Congratulations. Let's get one more. The boss wouldn't be happy

if we don't get one more cars to our promo in there. Where are we going next? So Hickory here at the end of the month for our throwback weekend. Yep. For the pro lates and late model stock cars, I'll be a hell of the show. Which if you aren't aware that kind of like the Darlington throwback weekend, they take these late models and throw them back.

I think the theme is this year maybe the, I don't know, are we allowed to say that they've announced right, the Hooters Cup deal. I know there was a guy. talking about throwing back to Hooters Cup pain schemes. So I know there's a bunch of that. And it's going to be a phenomenal race. So last July 29th. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Looking forward to it. You going? I don't know. Mike. I'm home.

It's a cool weekend. Yeah. I'm not going to Richmond. Before we leave, shout out to two people. Our friends, Chocolate Myers, Jess Ballard, both kind of won their battles this week. Ring the bell. And awesome to see that. I've known Jess for a long time. Good friends with her and Travis. Awesome to see her kind of take the next step and and, you know, get ready to start life over again. It seems like for her she's been through the ringer and chocolate. I don't know chocolate well, but I obviously seeing him come down the hallway and ring the bell in that video is awesome. So shout out to them too.

I hope everything, you know, on the up and up from here. That's right. Thank you all for listening. Kip, best luck in your in charge roll. We're pulling for you. You got a full of fans in here and stay in touch, man. Can I have your sign in stuff? Yeah, can I have your sign into that system log in?

Megan needs a, Meg needs a hot pass for Loudon, if you could. We'll send you those requests. I'll give you Jesse's phone number. We all. I'll see you. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.