Door Bumper Clear - 312. Las Vegas & Regan Smith: "Jackass Of All Trades"

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

Amazingly, the DBC crew survived Vegas and is back in studio to recap the first race of the Round of 8. Regan Smith jumps into the fire in replacement of Brett Griffin, who is still in Vegas, to chat with Freddie Kraft, TJ Majors and Casey Boat. The group recapped an eventful live show at Westgate, Kyle Larson’s superstar status as a global driver and Ryan Blaney’s DQ that has him in a must win going into the final two races of the round. In Spot On Spot Off, Dale Jr says “you can’t just run well and advance” in the Round of 8, saying a flawless performance is required to advance into the Championship 4, Christopher Bell feels like he missed his best shot to make the Championship 4 and NASCAR penalizes multiple drivers on hanging back on the restart.Plus, the group fields Reaction Theatre from distraught race fans, Vegas attendees and TV viewers who aren’t thrilled about a particular commercial.DraftKings State-Specific Problem Gambling Information: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. Licensee partner Golden Nugget Lake Charles (LA). 21+, age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. See DKNG.co/autoracing for eligibility, terms and responsible gaming resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply.  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. Norse. Clear. Clear by two. Pretty shallow entry. Bumper. Clear. Hey, everybody.

I'm T.J. Major. Spider to the 6th cup car, the 8xfini car. And it's so awesome. We've replaced Brett with... You want to say his name? What's up? Freddie Crafts spot for bubble. We have Brett.

We're going. He's still in Vegas trying to lick his wounds. Freddie Crasbott for Bubble Wallace. Casey, what's up? Give me one second before we introduce our guests. How are you? I'm swell. How are you?

You are slow? Swell. Oh, I thought you said slow. I thought you said, I can't hear that good. So, so. So, so. So, so. So, so.

So, so. I tried to set this guy up for failure a couple weeks ago. It was his 40th birthday. And I said, hey, why don't you come on the show on Monday morning? Because I knew what he didn't know, which I found out later that he did know, was that he was having a surprise birthday party on Sunday night, and I was going to be like, if I'm going to be hung over because of Regan's birthday party,

Regan Smith needs to be hungover with me. So what's up, buddy? Doing good. I'd be here with you guys finally. And I appreciate you trying to set me up a few weeks ago. Fortunately, for me, I'm not good with surprises, and I kind of knew it was all coming. I thought it was odd.

I'm like, why does Freddie want me to go on this Monday at 9 a.m.? I'm not going to be able to see straight at 9 o'clock on this Monday. and yeah, I probably would have made you look good. And guess what? Guess what would have happened? Neither one of us were seeing straight that Monday morning. I don't think it's... Or shut out.

That Monday morning, I was here. I was still awake that Monday morning from the night before, I think. So it was a good time. 40 hurts. The hangovers hurt a little worse. Yeah, I say this all the time. Somebody asked me when I turned 40 last year, like, do you feel 40? I said, no, I feel 60.

I act 20, so the balance is out better. Your liver feels 80. Yeah, but yeah, so Vegas, first of all, all first and foremost, I think, TJ, our dirty-mo, what the hell was the name of it? Dale Jr. and Friends Live show. Dirty-mo Media is the name of the company. Oh, is that what it is? Yeah.

I just haven't seen a check in a while, so I haven't. I'm starting to forget. But, yeah, man, what a, what a phenomenal, marvelous, terrific. I don't know, Andrew can throw me a couple more time we had on the Westgate. The Westgate. Where are you should have dragged your ass out to Vegas. What I'm trying to figure out is I saw a picture on X or whatever. it's called now and y'all's faces around the side of the west gate like what does the world come

that's i mean were they that desperate that they put y'all's mugs on there we apparently i woke up i stayed at the west gate on thursday night and might have gone out too late with a friend of ours named tim dugger and um that was a really bad idea and the first thing i saw when i opened my eyes was the marquee with our picture i was like oh no we got to do that tonight i got to do this all over again but man it was it was it was it was quite the time uh what a yeah it was fun what a crowd we had i would i would also like to congratulate you freddie because you showed up the most hungover i've ever seen you to the point where you actually warned the first few rows front row yeah like that you you might i mean you might we were trying to figure out the the first we had a vip

package and then a VVIP package and the VVIP package was the front row and I was we were trying to figure out what that second V stand for. Is it very very very? I thought it was going to be vomit because I mean, Brett had a plan to come out there and do a shot and I'm like, Brett, I don't know if I could do it. Like I was just, I pour like I was back there trying to survive. What time did you tape at? We started seven.

And you were still that hungover. It was the worst hangover of my life. He walked in and it was like, I don't feel good. And then Douger called me. night and he's like, I think that this is also the worst hangover I've ever had, which is our fault because me and him drank espresso martini's like dumbasses for some reason. Pinkies out or what? Yeah, pinkies out.

Like, I don't know what the hell we were thinking. So that was a problem. But then, yeah, we got out there. You guys ordered those? We rallied back a little bit. Like, just, I've ordered them. Oh, yeah. It's like, it's his favorite thing to do.

I don't know what happens to him at some point, but he's like, we just go straight from beer to espresso martinis. And it's, I'm never doing it again. It's over. Like, that game has been played. It's done. TJ, how'd you feel on stage? Were you on the struggle boss or were you good?

No, I was good. I had, um... I kind of knew the answer when I asked. Yeah, I figured out. They had been practicing since Tuesday night or whatever out there. So, I mean, they went, him and Brett, what did you go Tuesday? Tuesday, yeah. Yeah, they went on Tuesday.

You had to get acclimated to the time. We had a list of people that we were going to get to sub for them if they didn't make that. We did. Actually, at lunch, we were thinking about that. Got to cover all your bases. Well, I mean, hell, it's half the time for radio. We don't know where he's at during the show here. So,

fuck off. So, Regan Smith. We can't let Brett off this easy, by the way. Okay. You guys are all here, traveled back,

got back from Vegas, late night. So Brett just bails on the show? So his issue is now he has to fly commercial. He's finding out with some of these guys, he's got to fly commercial. He can't fly with the teams anymore. They don't have red eyes.

So they got red eyes, but by the time, they don't let drunk people on planes. So by the time he would have gotten there, it would have not went well. He was sending me updates last night. He was at the sphere. I guess he went to the sphere last night.

So, but yeah, he, uh, yep, he's still in Vegas, which is better off for all of us, honestly. Like, we don't need him here. I just got to judge his commitment. He's not here so I can say it now at this point. His commitment levels low. This isn't the first time. In Nashville, he's like, I'm just going to stay a day.

You guys go record. Like, we're low on his list. Yeah. We are low on his list. But what's up with Regan Smith these days? What do you got going on, brother? A little bit of everything, right? Yeah.

Jack of all trades, master and nuns. You are a jackass of all trades. I'll give you that. I won't disagree with that statement. I mean, obviously we've got the Fox stuff going on in FS1, and the second part of the year gets a little bit quiet for us, do some of the truck races. I was at Talladega a lot, or two weeks ago,

and be at Homestead this week in Phoenix in, what, three weeks now, I guess? Yeah, no Martinsville. Yeah, so, you know, once we get through that, we still have the Race Sub-studio show that we do every day, and race day show occasionally to help out with that and involved in that and get to be a dad the second part of the year. It's kind of strange. Would you rather have it, would you rather have the first half of the year or second half of the year? Which more, which one do you like off the more? I don't have a preference. If the Broncos were good,

you'd probably like to say. We're about 10 years away from the Broncos being good. I do get a kick out of Freddie wearing his giant's hat right now after. I wore this on purpose. They played good last night. They, they told them. No, they didn't. I think they played bad. They played good in terms of them. I think they played bad. We didn't play very good. I think both of them played pretty bad, honestly. You know, but I tell her, I get sht all the time because I wear

a Mets and Giants hats and they're like, I can't believe you're wearing that. I'm like, if you're going to wear it when they're winning, you better fucking wear it when they're losing. That's true. So it is what it is. I'm a die-hard Giants fan. I love the Giants. And I was actually happy that it didn't win because I'm of the opinion. If you're not going to make the playoffs, don't win a game.

Just tank. But to answer your question, T.J., I don't think there's a preference, right? There's something cool about going and getting to do the Daytona 500. Yeah, the Daytona 500 is a big one. Just still being there and being a part of that. And I don't know. For me, you know, the TV thing's perfect because I'm still involved with the sport.

I still get to see everybody that I know, everybody I grew up with, everybody that I've been around for all these years. And I kind of get a nice mix, the second half of the year. I can have a little bit more lead way on the weekends and stuff like that to do other things that take up life and that are of interest to me. and, you know, I will say the tough part about doing the first part of the year, all you guys move around, right? Like, we got to know spotters, crew chiefs, drivers.

We got to know who's in what. And we basically get a tune up at the clash, a tune up during the dual races. And then we're doing the biggest race of the year immediately. And I've got spreadsheets of, you know, drivers and crew chiefs and spotters. And, you know, apparently spotter, you guys move more than drivers do, is what I've come to learn. And as I'm looking at these spreadsheets, I'm like, I'm going to, am definitely going to mess this up at some point during, you know, the biggest race of the year. But, you know, by the end of our season, you finally start to memorize that stuff and it's muscle memory and then we turn it over.

I have really bad news for you. There's like 15 spotter changes next year. Are we going to share that or are we going to wait? No, because I don't think the spotters have shared the news with everybody, but there's a lot. I would say there's, I mean, there's at least, there's like six or seven for sure that I know of. Why more this year than normal? We talked about on here. One team stepped up and started paying some people, so people wanted to go there to work. So they got out of their deals to go over there. And so that kind of domino effect, you know, one guy moves and that makes me, somebody else's got to move. The whole landscape changes whenever that happens. So there's literally, I could probably think seven of eight, right, seven or eight right off the top of my head right now that are done deals and or guys getting out that are leaving for sure. And they're searching around. There's going to be new blood. It's going to be interesting. But yeah, when you get there, there's going to be, I'll run you. when this is over, but there's going to be a lot. I might start a couple weeks earlier than I normally do to make sure I get it all right this year. Yeah, there's going to be, there's a handful this year,

more than normal, I think. Yeah, more than normal for sure. You know what's crazy is there, we have that first wave of silly season, right? It happens and, and you hear all the stuff. And once that first wave happens, then the second wave, but it's not just, it's not drivers. It's not teams anymore. It's crew chiefs. It's guys within the team. It's pit crew guys. Like, that's all turning into part of silly season. And it's, it's crazy how it's evolved. over the years to where it just, you know, we're seeing crew guys move a lot now, too, or over the wall guys, I should say, more so than crew guys. But it keeps happening. Like, it's, you think it's almost done. And then boom, here comes the next wave of it. And okay, that's done. Now we got the Exfinity. Now we got truck.

It's just nonstop. Yeah. You know, obviously we feel our job's important. And especially now, the way restarts are, it feels like you're plate racing every race on a mile and a half anyway for restarts. Is this a sales pitch right now for more money? More money. Yeah, I just need more money. always, Denny, if you're listening. But even the over-the-wall guys, the pit stops are so fast now. So if you're, I mean, I looked yesterday and I think like three-quarters of our pit stops for under 10 seconds, you know, so if that's, if you're a 10-7 versus 10-1, like, I mean, a 9-7 versus 9-1, like that's huge.

That's a big difference on the pit road, you know? So that's why you're seeing these guys go out and get the best pick crew guys or the best spotters or the best crew chiefs or the best engineers, whatever it is, the people are realizing like, you know, the margin of error is so tight in our sport. right now with everything being the same that you need to have the best of everything up there if you're going to succeed yeah all a's yeah all a i mean now so you're obviously not working the cup series but i'm are you catching most of the race do you watch any of the race you kind of recap i mean obviously you're not going to sit there and watch four hours i don't think every sunday no actually i do

believe it or not i'm not saying this because i'm sitting here now we're we're talking about the race that happened yesterday at some point but i uh i would say 90% of them i watch them live and i watch them straight through. There's a few of them, you know, if we got my little boys into golf, and he golfs a lot on Sundays in tournaments. And so if I'm taking him and caddying for him, I'll tape the race. But I make a point, I won't look at my phone, I won't, I'll stay off with social media and everything, because I want to watch it and not know anything that's taken place. I want to watch it to make sure, other than fast forward and through the commercials or whatever, that I absorb everything I'm seeing. So I'm forming my own opinion on it, not somebody

else's opinion not something that you know that I saw outside of outside of what actually is on camera what I'm witnessing and so I yeah I mean I watch I watch them all 100% of the way through and occasionally I got to catch one you know on tape like the Xfinity race we had something going on Saturday so I had to watch you didn't miss much there it was just Riley oh Riley dominated kicking a shit out of us for a couple hours I haven't I haven't seen an expedit car drive away like that in a long time Riley did a great job the car was awesome what did you think of the the cup race just overall product yesterday i thought it was a good race i mean i you know there was passing there was guys battling it seemed like tires were wearing for the most part maybe maybe not you know

as much as you like to always see but it seemed like they're wearing from everything i could tell and and by the end of runs there was guys hanging on i mean you know Kyle arson at the end of the race it looked like he was hanging on right at the end of most runs and what i thought was most interesting like you you brought up the pit crews right and and nine one to nine seven so he takes the lead on that final pit stop with a, I think that was the times, right? Was he was, I think he was like a half second quicker on pit road than Christopher Bell on that particular stop. Gains two spots.

That's the pass to win the race. And Cliff Daniels immediately says afterwards on TV or on his radio, what a team effort. And I think that just shows to me, you know, as we can be mad about, you know, maybe there's not as much passing every week as we want or maybe some races don't look as good as we want them to, the short tracks in particular. it's becoming more of a team sport because of all that. And that's why you're seeing the importance on this other stuff. And I don't hate that.

I think that we need to highlight the pit crews that do a good job. Obviously, the driver, you know, he's the one that you see the most. But these guys are, you know, what they're doing is pretty spectacular. And you're talking fractions of an inch away from a tire coming off and getting two weeks off or having the best pit stop of the day. I mean, they've got a lot of pressure. You talk about clutch moments. eight seven the final pit stop time on on the five card the nine the the 20s of nine oh

i think ours was an eight something yeah your guys have been oh we had we had one pit stop where i actually told brad to slow down don't even try don't even push it in a per rucas your last stop was an eight five yeah stupid but but it was like that earlier this year too like when i look at the i don't look at all that stuff quite as much the second part of the year but the early part of the year that 16 was dude our pick crew your picker didn't have a second, nine second stop yesterday. Not one. 8, 7, 3.0 is two tires, I assume.

86, 8, 7, 3, 8, 9, 8, 5. That's ridiculous. Look at the result, though. And that's why you ran top five the whole race or the second half of the race. But yeah, I mean, I thought the race was okay. I didn't think it was great. I thought it was fine. You know, there's nothing wrong with the race.

It was, you know, you could see guys get out front. Like, if Bell's cycle to lead, he maintained it. Then I was good to see him at the end of the race. be able to run Lars and down and race with them a little bit. But it was a little bit harder to pass. I think than places like Kansas were, you know, some of the mile and a half races we've had. But it was fine.

There was nothing wrong with it. The only thing I had a question about, which I don't want this to happen because I love going out there, but I'm starting to wonder if Vegas isn't a candidate for one race because the crowd in-house isn't great. And we've seen this now. We go back places one time versus going there twice. You kind of pack the place.

I don't know, but I just love going out there. much. I don't want to forfeit a second race. I don't want to give that one up. I love going out there, but this might be a candidate for a place where we only need to race there one time. I don't know, man. I think the football game hurt the crowd yesterday, though, too. Really? Fair. I mean, I mean, yeah. But how do you plan against that either? You can't. I mean, we don't know. Our schedule comes out way before the football schedule. So it's almost like you have no choice in that instance. Yeah. I think the race was pretty good. There was guys on edge.

Obviously, I mean, Larsson lost it at one point. God. What a, I mean, is the save? I mean, he hits the wall.

That's what. I think it's both. Yeah, a little bit of both. Yeah. I mean, how, like,

do you think he, I don't personally call that luck. I call that as a side. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's not a bad word. He was driving that car the whole time.

I guess he's lucky to at the part of the corner where it stepped out. Yeah. You know what I mean? But like, as far as like saving it and, and getting back rolling or only losing like, what, three spots, two three spots, if that.

Well, on the topic of Kyle, I mean, him running his rookie test at Indy and passing with flying colors. I mean, what does that do really for the sport and other sports in general? The guy is ridiculous. In one week, he won a sprint car championship of an 11 race series. He passed his rookie orientation at Indianapolis going 218 miles an hour. And then he goes and locks himself into the final four of the Cubs series. Like, if you...

I wonder if he gambled at all there. No, did he win that? I don't know. I don't know if you want to. If you win in everything, that's so well. I mean, it was like what he's accomplished in this era, generation, whatever you want to call it, is unbelievable, honestly. He needs to be a little careful, though, because they're, like, I could see him. He started fading off of us a little bit.

He was, he was little faster the first 10 laps, 15 laps, and then he wasn't, it wasn't quite as quick as that part of the race, but I could see him overdriving him. Like, he got loose a couple times before, and they're just, like, you got to finish that race. If you rack right there, say he spins all the way out his scenes inside wall, he's probably done. And out of the playoffs. And out of the playoffs. So, like, when he's driving on that razor edge, like, he probably doesn't need to be at that point. I'd like to know what Cliff Daniels was really thinking, right? Not what he put on the radio when he's so calm, cool, collected when he's talking to him.

We see your car. It looks fine. No big deal and all this. But he had to be sitting in that moment thinking, holy shit. We about just threw this whole thing away right now. And it's not worth it at that point in time. I think one thing that I wanted to ask you guys about that I heard out of them guys yesterday,

which was, you know, we saw this with Lugano last year, wins Vegas goes out and wins Phoenix. They come out and say, we're not going to just solely, oh, Jesus, solely focus on Phoenix. We're going to have a shot. We're going to, you know, we're still wanting to go to Martinsville and homestead and kick everybody's ass.

If you guys were in this situation, would you make a lap? or run a simulation for anywhere besides Phoenix coming up? I mean, I think you have to. Go back to one thing also that we were talking about two seconds ago before I answer that. In terms of Kyle Larson and what he's doing, right, across all different series, all types of car, there's times where I don't think he gets enough credit.

And I know he gets a ton of credit for it, but to look at when he hops in something he's never been in, how good he goes, rather it was when he did the dirt late model stuff, which is completely different than anything else on dirt that he's been driving up until that point. and he wins, what, three races in or two races in against all the best in the world at that? I have made the argument for quite some time now.

I feel like Kyle Larson is the best in the world. I don't think he's just the best round. I think he's the best in the world. We've said that on here a couple of times. And I would love to be in a, live in a world where we could put that to the test, right? Go get a F1 guy. Go get somebody that, you know, the V8 supercar guys and find a way. And I know that there's a race of champions that exist and kind of can try and figure that out.

but his capability and anything, and I say this after being on the racetrack with him, right? And seeing him when he was younger and as he's evolved and as he's grown, he's something special. Like we're seeing something that is generational and compared him, whoever you want to compare it to, maybe AJ Floyd or whatever the best comparison is. I don't know what it is,

but it is something that definitely has appreciated. And to your point, not only that, like not only does he just, is unbelievable, phenomenal, terrific, marvelous on the racetrack, he what he does off the racetrack is just as special you know he goes to these dirt races and stands there with hundreds of people behind his trailer and signs autographs all night what him and brad are doing for the purses in the sprint car series is unbelievable you know that i think i seen the other day where they ran i think it was 11 of those races and they they paid out over a million dollars

in purse money so you know it's it's stuff like that off the track you know i'm sure you know him you go you know he's easy easy guy to sit down and have a drink with and and bull's about it's racing. Like it's just, you know, everything he does right now on the track and then even off the track, just, you know, promoting the sport and trying to make everything better. You've seen him last year set out the chili bowl because they didn't pay enough money. And guess what happens this year? They double the purse, you know, so or the double the winner's purse anyway. So, you know, things he does is helping and not only helping himself, he's trying to help grow the sport in general. But back to that. So, you know, obviously we seen Lugano last year. They talked about,

you know, we won Vegas and then went straight to work on Phoenix. He goes to Phoenix. and him and Blaney of the two best cars there that day. You know, I don't know. Obviously, you're going to go out there and race, and there's ways, you know, you might want to affect the guys that win races that you have to race at Phoenix. But if I'm these guys, I'm not me. I'm going to the simulator.

And am I having my engineers run every sim possible, known to man to get my stuff as good as it possibly can be when we get to Phoenix. Yeah, I mean, I've, you can go, DJ. Yeah, I just, I mean, yeah, I mean, they're going to work on that Phoenix car all for, they're going to be already working on it now. But, like, I don't think you, these next two races are just, just throw away as I still think I mean obviously they're going to prepare for them but I don't I don't know if they will he just won't have the urgency you know what I mean these next

two races he's going to go out and race and if you know it works out good like without a homestead where he's typically really good Kyle Larson's seven out of ten at homestead is better than most people's 10 out of 10 so I mean that's always got to do him and him and redick will be probably the two best at running the wall this week I think you know true X is good bell will be good again bell's all right he doesn't run the wall as good as some of the dirt guys do, like where you'd expect him to, because that seems like the correlation there was doing it yesterday. Yeah. But it's, it's going to be interesting to see, you know, he, and honestly, Kyle, now it's almost like it's, it's more dangerous for us at Homestead because he doesn't care. Like, he can just

rip the fence now. He might kill us this week just because he, he doesn't have to worry about stepping over the line. You know, I think that there's a reason why the past two champions have been the guys that win the first round or first race of the round of eight right and and say what you want to say but but we're stacking so finite amount of items on this new car that if you have those two extra weeks to just really dive into it maybe it's even run an extra simulation laps right like when we're talking millions of laps in simulation that these guys are running on this stuff if you can run two million laps compared to somebody else that runs a million laps you're getting you're getting more dialed in more perfected on them every little aspect and and and you're you're

It may be something as simple as, you know, just a thousandth of an inch that matters. But if you do a thousandth of an inch on 10 different spots, okay, well, that starts to add up. So I think that that gives them an advantage. I do think you still want to go and run good in these next two. If you don't, it really doesn't matter because you already know what the prize is, right? And to think that they're not going to go to Homestead and run good, that's crazy. He's going to be fast there, right? He won Martinsville earlier this year, so he's probably going to be fast there again also.

So the one thing that I think could be interesting is let's say he's in position, let's just say Martinsville, right? And he's got the lead and, you know, somebody could point their way in. Like, I don't know if you ever get this far out in front of your skis to think about this, but if somebody could point their way in that maybe he doesn't want in, and somebody's behind him that he does want in that's not as good at Phoenix. And you think, well, if I just slip up in this corner, they win this race, they're going to battle in Phoenix and they might not.

otherwise you can still dictate a few things as you see fit for your team when it gets to that championship race. Because at the end of the day, two more wins are great, right? But there's only one that really matters. Yeah, for sure. And we talked about, we've said it on here before. Vegas is, in my opinion, the third most important race of the season. You've got Daytona, you've got Phoenix. And then this is this race here. You know, you can talk all you want about the Crown Jules. The Crown Jules don't get you championships. And this race and Phoenix are the two races that we've seen, like you said, the last two years, this is what, dictates who wins a championship or at least who races for it. So, you know, it's interesting to see. And I'll tell you what, looking at the, we're looking at the points. I don't know if Andrew

has it in here, but it's pretty crowded with the JGR crowd at the cut line. How do you think those, how do you think those, I think it's like, I'm pretty sure Martin and Denny are tied and Bell's two back. Is that right? Denny's four up, Martin's three up and Bell's three back. Blaney's penalty changed. Oh, okay. Yeah, which, do we want to go ahead and address that now? Yeah, he got to squalified. Yeah. Bye-bye. Okay.

What I was getting at were challenges for playoff drivers. Obviously, Truex made it very clear that he wasn't thrilled yesterday. And Blaney with this disqualification, which I think is the second driver to get DQed in the playoffs. What does this mean? Is Blaney essentially out of it now? He's must win. He's got to win. He's must win.

I'd make the argument that. that, you know, Blaney and Bush were probably must win even before this race. As bad as that sounds, like, I think that somebody was going to put themselves in a situation that they were in an insurmountable hole after this race. I didn't anticipate it was going to be based on a disqualification, but that's how it went down. I, you know, I think that, if anything, maybe it makes it makes it a little easier because they don't have to worry about points now. They just worry about how do we go out and win the race?

And, you know, no offense to Ryan, because I think he's a great race car driver. Penske cars have not shown the speed that they need, in particular at the mile and a halfs, right? And I know we won Charlotte, but obviously, you know, they were pushing the limits on stuff and they knew they had to. And talk about them guys being must win. When you get to the round of eight here,

and I saw it firsthand on Saturday with Chandler, we came into the race. We were 11 points out of the cut line. 11 points off the cut line. We ran second and sixth in the two stages, fourth in the race, and lost four points. It's like, what? How does it happen?

You see the same thing. You know, you've got guys like Danny and Martin getting 40 and 35 points in the race and losing ground. You know, so if you're going to be on it, you know, you have to be on it in this round of eight. You can't, you can't just run media. I shouldn't say mediocre. If you run top 10 in each, you know, back half of the top 10 in each stage and finish top 10, you're probably losing points to people in, you know, in this round of eight. So you've got up, there's no, there's no what Martin's done the last two rounds of, you know,

I'll just skate through with a couple of. 15th, 16th place, finishes, whatever it was, that's not going to work this round. We have a spot on topic on exactly what you just said that. Perfect. No, but it's a good point. But I know I've seen, of course, Martin, a lot of little frustrated. That was a questionable pick call for sure.

Listen, I love James Small. Like, I love that guy to death. But that seemed, and what he was doing is trying to save a set of tires for the end of the race. Yeah. But that seemed like a call that would more fit something like we would do or a non-playoff team that has some speed. Yeah, 34 or something like that.

To explain it, we had eight sets of tires yesterday. Right. So you're going to make six pit stops, you know, just, I think, you know, naturally, you're going to make two per stage, and that leaves you with two sets of tires sitting there. I mean, we made seven pit stops yesterday. A lot of yellows. Yeah, you get a lot of yellows. Now you've got to make a decision.

The only thing I didn't love about the call was making it to start a stage. You know, I think that we just had, I mean, it's like this is why I say it's a good plan for somebody not in the playoffs because we had a caution with, I don't know, know, like 15 to go in the second stage, that would have been the time to save a set of tires. You know, I know I'm probably going to lose a little bit of track position here. Yeah. But I'm going to have a set banked and, you know, and then, but you start a stage and then we run out. We saw, you know, it was like 35 last four somebody had a tire issue.

So, you know, you're going to run out that stage or that run, you know, whatever it is, you don't know how long you're going. So that's obviously where they got way behind. I mean, we were raising about 15th. We passed them on that run. And then they never seemed to realize. I mean, they got back up. And so whatever was eighth or nine.

but they never really recovered from that, you know, staying out right there. Yeah, we put scuff rights on and went back out and lost. The guys that got us all had four tires, but we only fell to like fourth or fifth or something like that. But it was, those are like cautions, I think put more of a, they definitely mattered because people were, it's like, oh, we use a lot of tires here in the first part of this race. So we tried to save a set for that. We actually had a set left, which probably most guys at front did.

Yeah, we had one set left. Yeah, so. But they had two. As much as it's easy to sit here and say, oh, should have done this, should have done that. I think what, in my mind, when I watched it happen, a couple things. He figured some guys in the back, like you said, we're going to stay out and take that same risk, and they didn't. If you get three or four cars up there as a buffer, you stretch a little bit of a lead. Now, you know, now you don't pay quite as big of a price.

Maybe you get to lap 20 before you start losing all those spots. And he did drive out, you know, for a little bit. You got the lead. got the lead and it looked okay briefly. The other thing that I'm curious about, and I haven't talked to James, obviously, but I'd be curious if he wasn't looking at, you know, Martin seemed like he'd been complaining about all day long. The car wouldn't fire off. It wouldn't take off. And I almost wonder if that was the best opportunity to see, okay, maybe it's just because of the air. Maybe if we get out front, maybe our car will fire off and it'll take off great. And it didn't work.

You know, I don't hate trying something. And I do think, you know, obviously long runs, he was pretty good. And the flip side of it, if the race plays out a little different at the end, he's a genius. Yeah, like, you know, like that's why it's, it's, it's risky. And I think it's probably a little, maybe too risky for, for what you got going on with your scenario. But like, you know, I was surprised more teams didn't do that, especially at that caution with whatever was 12 or 15 to go in the second stage, you know, that more teams didn't say, oh, you know what, if I'm going to ever bank a set of tires, here's the perfect opportunity. Because now I know I'm only going to run 15 laps and then I'll have a set sitting there for late. if we get a rash of cautions in that final stage, which we didn't. You know, we only got one or two, I think.

But, you know, it was, it was a risky play. And listen, they, they went for it. And what they did, well, I think the riskiest play that they've made all year was shaving their beards off because they haven't run well since. This is the best run they've had since then, I think. Yeah. This time of year, you've got to have a beard. I mean, they shit.

They got them now, but they, they shape, you know, hockey, play off beard. So they went, they went clean shave for, for darling. and then the beard gods were not happy. The beard gods were, they're pretty pissed off, apparently. Well, before you head into spot on spot off, I obviously want to bring up the NASCAR TV deal in the future. As of this morning, SBJ reports that TV execs still don't know when they expect a new deal. Any rumors, thoughts on that one?

Yeah, Regan's got all the, what do you got on this, Regan? I mean, I know you've been sitting in on the negotiations. It is a fact that the spotters know more of what's going on in the sport than anybody else. Or they think they think. That's half a battle, though. If you think you know, then you'd like to nominate the – I'd like to nominate the Spireguise to negotiate our deal. That's the first I had heard of that.

I think we're all sitting here wondering when's this going to happen or what's going to happen. To me, you know, last I had heard, there was some other stuff that was happening too, right, with the owners that I think is, is probably equally, if not more important at the end of the day. And it's, I don't know. I don't know what's holding the TV deals up. And quite honestly, I don't ask because I don't want to know because then I can't get myself in trouble. So that's the easiest way for me to do that and kind of defer that one.

But it does appear that there's other stuff going on. Like if you listen to what people say and I'm not, you know, I'm not there week to week right now to be able to really hear all this stuff. But you just kind of listen to even when people are giving interviews and talking, There's got to be some other stuff taking place. Yeah, I mean, it seems like there's, you know, there's a lot of balls in the air. You know, you see a lot of shows out in Vegas and there's juggler. There's a lot of balls in the air that, like, it's TV deal, the charter deal, the owners,

what kind of cutter they going to get? What kind of cutter the track's going to get? It seems like everybody's trying to juggle everything at once and hopefully it all falls back into place. I don't, what I don't know is if you just put your business hat on for 10 seconds, right? And you look at all the, you know, TV charters, all these balls that are in the air, I don't know how one gets done without the other. Like if one's not done, then how can this one happen? And vice versa.

So it's almost like everybody's going to have to be in the same room at the same time and agree on everything and lock it down altogether, whatever it may be and make it happen. Because to me, the charter deal is a pretty big deal. It's not the biggest deal. Yeah, for sure. Experience the thrill of the racetrack like you're in the driver's seat with Draft King's Sportsbook.

bet on your favorite racers and feel the rush of every pass, pit stop, and victory like never before. Right now, new customers can turn five bucks into 200 instantly in bonus bets. Bet five on anything to score big, no matter what goes down on the track. So, Brett, we're heading to Homestead this week. You know, this is a racy track. There's a couple guys that we know really good there, Larson Reddick, but this is an important race to try to get your spot in the final four. There's only one guy locked in, chance for the other seven to lock in, punch your ticket, when in your end.

and this is a place where running the high groove, TJ is a big, big deal. Yeah, running the high group is a big deal here. But there's also guys that love to spoil the party. So I know me and Freddie would love to do it. Yeah, for sure. The racing action doesn't stop until the checker flag drops. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app now and join with code DBC. New customers can bet $5 to get $200 instantly in bonus bets.

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Void in Ontario. See dkng.com slash auto racing for eligibility terms and responsible gaming resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. Spot on, spot off. Spot off.

Spot on. Spot off. It was super fun yesterday to ride her out, Marin. I am spot off. Damn. Where did he come from? First topic. Dale Jr. says you can't just run well and advanced in the round of eight, saying a flawless performance is required to advance into the championship four. Spot on, spot off, Regan.

Can't just run. Say that one more time for me here. So you can't just run well and advance. Basically, you're... You have to have a great... Yeah, I mean, it has to be flawless. You have to run top five, top three. Yeah, like that ninth place, Martin Gau? That just isn't, it's not going to keep cutting. I think that's spot on.

I mean, I don't, you know, I think we saw it yesterday. Freddie, you just mentioned it a minute ago in terms of the Xfinity stuff that you can have what you think is a perfect day and still lose points right now. And yeah, I think that's spot on. And I do think it should be spot on, right? Like, we've got the last eight guys left for a reason, and it's because they've been the best and because they put themselves in that position. And, you know, to expect that to expect that first through eighth is going to be anything

other than the eight guys in the playoffs right now, I think would be a mistake. Those are the guys that are going to rise up and find a way. Aside from Ryan Blaney, everybody else is the top 10. Right. The other eight guys were in the top 10 of yesterday's race. I'm sure they all got stage points probably every stage or close to it. Yeah, we just talked about it on, you know, Chandler, like I said, finished second, sixth, and fourth, and lost ground.

You know, and it just because you got, you know, you had one guy win, and then they get such an advantage, and especially the Xfinity series too. Them guys all run. It's the same guys up front. But then you come and see this, and this is when you're supposed to step up and these guys are doing it. You know,

and you're going to see it again this week and you're going to see it again at Martinsville. You're going to have to go out and run top five every stage and top five in the race if you're going to point your way in. And, you know, Larson wins this, so that takes one spot. You know, it's potential. Only one guy's going to get on points.

You know, I think it'll probably be two, I would think, but you never know. Like, it could be, there's a guy like Redick could easily go out there this week and he's still, 16 points, he's back. So even if he goes out there and wins both stages and wins a race and somebody finishes second, like Danny runs right behind him, he's not making up 16 points there even. So, you know, it's like.

Yeah, it's going to be hard to, it's going to be hard to make that up. So you got to go and I think, I think Tyler's weekend to get to the championship four, his path to championship four starts this weekend. This is it here. This is kind of like us at Talladega. We drop the ball, Talladega. I just, we just, we're not good at Talladega and we did too. Yeah.

You know, and, you know, that's, that was our play, our round kind of hinged on Talladega to where now this is Tyler's opportunity. Tyler is obviously very good at Roemstead. He won two Exfendi championships there just by being better than everybody running the wall. And this is his opportunity. If he comes out of here, still 16 down or doesn't gain much, he's going to have to go to Martinsville and win. Like, that's going to be a must win at Marksville.

You say you're round hinged on Talladega and then you went out to the Roval and Bubba. Bubba's up front at the robo. Yeah, who saw that coming? That's what I'm saying. You guys legit won that race and everything falling in the way to need it to. But it's just, you know, we put ourselves in a hole going into where we had to run Talladega. I'm sorry, we had to run the roval for points. For points versus if we were to the good or if we finished 10 spots better like we should have at Talladega,

we might have been able to run a little bit different. But this is around for Tyler. Now this is the one Tyler's got to have circled and he's got to go out there and he's got to win every stage and be up front at the end. Here's this crazy part. I don't, like, as you look down the list of these guys, right? All right. William Byron, one at Homestead. Denny Hamlin, one at Homestead.

Martin Sherex Jr., one at Homestead. Bell, we know he's going to be good. Does he run the wall to your point earlier as good as some of the other guys there? Maybe not, but I know he's been working on it, right? And he's been getting better at it. Redick, we know he's going to be good. Busher, you guys remember a couple years ago? Busher looked like he was going to win that race.

I think we were, I think we ran it in the springtime, if I remember, correct? Yeah, he was a, it was a Fox race. and he looks like he could have won that race at one point or another. Blaney, you never know, obviously the cars haven't been as good for him as they'd probably like, but if they get the car right, he could go win there. Like, it's just all eight of these guys could win this race, and none of them would we be sitting here next Monday saying that's a surprise. So now of a sudden your points shuffle, you know, completely different,

and that cut line could shift, you know, if it's one of the guys below the cut, it shifts again. Yeah, for sure. Hey, door bumper clear fans, it's Mike Davis here. President of Dirtymo Media and co-hosted the Dell Jr. Download. Listen, do us a favor. The next time you buy merchandise, do it with RacingUSA.com. Every item is discounted every single day, so you never need a coupon code. You're guaranteed the industry's lowest die-cast pre-order prices,

and you get your order fast, since every in-stock order is shipped the next business date. They're Google's top-rated store for NASCAR merchandise, and like I said, huge supporters of DoorBumper Clear, your favorite podcast. With that being said, let's get back to the spotters. Right now, RacingUSA.com's sale merchandise is on sale. Every sale item at racingUSA.com is already discounted at least 30%. And listen to this, if you buy two or more sale items, you automatically get another 20% off when you check out.

Hundreds of great discounted items. And at RacingUSA.com, you're always guaranteed the lowest prices and no coupon code is ever needed. get a jump on early Christmas buying at racing usa.com Christopher Bell says that was my moment to make the championship four and I didn't capture it. Was this his best shot? Spot on, spot off, Freddie. I mean, obviously it's his best shot when he's on the guy's bumper coming to the checker, but I don't think this wasn't, I think he did what he had to do yesterday.

He went out there, performed, got stage points, ran top five, top three really all day long, and now has set himself up. I think he came out of Vegas last year in a big hole and had to go out and win, you know, and did. But, you know, this just sets him up. He can go. Now, he can go to, he's going to run good at homestead. Like, don't get it wrong if I say he's just, he's not as good as Kyle Larson, which, by the way, nobody is at running the wall. So, you know, but, you know, he's going to be fine here. And then he runs good at Martinsville. So, you know, he just, he came out here. I get what he's saying. He probably, you know, there was some, I seen where he said something about he got kind of stuck behind a couple

lap cars at one point and gave up some of the gap. And it, it stings when you get stuck for a lap and lose a little bit of time and then you end up on the guy's bumper, you know, like you could have done something differently. So obviously, I think, you know, at the moment, the moment he's knowing that all I had to do is get ahead of that guy and I'm in the front championship versus now being two points out or three points out, whatever it is. It's unfortunate for him, but I think he's going to be fine. He's got plenty of speed that he just has to limit mistakes like he's had in the past of, you know, we've seen, I say on here before, Christopher Bell spends out a lot. You know, like if he steps over the line, it's easy for him to step over the line sometimes. So he's, if he can stay within himself and go back

and do what he did yesterday and get top three stage points, top. top three in the race, he'll probably jump that cut line coming out of Homestead. Then he's going to go straight up at home at Martinsville. Yeah, I don't necessarily think that was his chance. That was obviously it was a chance to make it a lot easier. But I don't, he still has some good tracks coming up. And he's only, what, three, what was it? Three points out.

Yeah, that's right in the mix of things right there. And I, oh, man, I mean, I look at these guys that are, you know, Byron, Denny, Truex. these guys don't really have any bad tracks coming up. No. So it's going to be you have to be on your A game the entire time. You're not going to be able to, you're not going to be able to spin out and brush the wall. If you come down and lose your track position one time, you're probably in a lot of trouble.

I think the better question is, do you run that last straightaway a little bit differently? With the blocks that were happening and everything taking place there, do you just hook them? Do you do that a little bit differently? I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's something to think about to a certain extent. And I don't know, I watched it numerous times. I don't, I don't think it would have mattered. I don't think he was far enough up to be able to, even, even if you hook him, I think he still beats you to the stripe.

So, and Christopher kind of said that in his post-race interview that, that he felt like it wasn't going to matter. Whatever, whatever he did right there, you know, when he went high and Larson went high to block him and then he went low, they, they brushed bumpers a little bit. But, you know, it wasn't. I just, I don't think he was going to be able to get up far enough to where one of those blocks was going to cause, cause it to happen that way. And it wasn't a situation where you just hold your ground and it's going to make any different. You know, I look at it as the, to what he said afterwards, what he's going to relive is going to be all those moments like, like you guys just mentioned of, well, if I would have got by this traffic a little bit better.

But you could do that about every lap of the race. Kyle Larson could have sat back and said, well, if I would have picked a little bit higher line through three and four, he never would have got to me. or if I would have, you know, would have done things a little differently. You know, at the end of the day, it was, it was a huge opportunity. And you're going to think about that every lap now from now until Martinsville. If you lock into Phoenix or whatever happens over the next two weeks, it'll be on your mind for sure. Well, looking, I mean, Freddie, back to your comment around whoever does well in Vegas typically will win or do well, go for a championship in Phoenix. I mean, is this a sure sign that if Christopher makes championship four,

he has a really high probability of potentially getting that championship? Well, no, not necessarily because he still has to put all of his focus into Homestead in Martinsville right now, where Larson, what we're saying is when the guy wins Phoenix, I'm sorry, when the guy wins Vegas, he essentially doesn't have to care about Homestead and Martinsville anymore. He can just solely focus on Phoenix and go run all his test labs there. and his engineers can run all their Sims based strictly on Phoenix, where now these guys have to focus on the next two weeks because your three points out,

you need to be the best you could possibly be at Homestead, and if you don't win Homestead, you need to be the best you could possibly be at Martinsville. So, you know, obviously there's really no correlation in how well you run at Vegas versus how well you're going to run at Phoenix, except for the fact that you can just, you know, divulge more time into getting ready for Phoenix. Kyle Larson is basically on vacation for two weeks.

He has no stress. There's no stress on Kyle. Does he ever have stress? I mean, does he really ever have stress? You might not see it. You don't see it very often. And I listened to Gluck and we, you know, we're, three of us are huge sports fans. And, you know, Gluck kind of related it to, so the way the baseball players are playing out right now.

Like, some of the top teams got knocked down in the first round because, you know, they just, they had a week off or whatever it was. And I just, there's, I don't see a correlation to that in our sport because, you know, it'd be one thing. It'd be me telling the bills, all right, you get the rest of the weeks off. but you're playing the Giants in the Super Bowl. Well, guess what? The Giants got to play everybody else and get ready for everybody else, but the bills are just getting ready for the Giants. You know, so they're going to know every game plan,

they're going to know the Giants inside and out versus, you know, the Giants are getting ready to play the Packers in the next round. And then they, so you get such a head start on just getting ready for one race, one, you know, one run, one setup, whatever it is, that I don't see a correlation in, you know, we see football, baseball. when you sometimes they come off a buy a little bit slow whatever it is but you don't know your opponent beforehand you don't know there's there's not one thing you can just focus on i just got to get ready for this like you do at phoenix yeah i i'm man i agree i don't i just think like you said

they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna pick through all the data and stuff with fine tooth comb now even more so but that's um i've been in been on a team that was in that position and there is nothing easier than the next two races you walk in there everyone in the playoffs is like you can Tell their edge. On edge, yeah. And if you already have that win in the bag, you're walking around, like nothing can bother you. So it's a good. Stress factor.

It's very good. It's nice. NASCAR penalizes multiple drivers for hanging back on the restart. Spot on, spot off, TJ. I mean, I'm spot on for policing. I didn't see it, so I don't know how bad it was. I think Freddie saw it because he was right there. Chase was behind the.

Chase got it. And I guess AJ got it. I didn't hear AJ's, but I believe you when you tell me it. happened. Yeah. Chase was definitely laid back on us and we got a little stacked up on a restart, so it probably made it worse, but he definitely laid back. And that's what you want, especially now coming down to the end of the year because Phoenix is going to be a big deal for this. Phoenix is one where you could lay back and have a massive run down that, you know, cut. And that's going to be one. I'll talk about it right now because it's going to come up in Phoenix.

100%. People are going to get out of line before the start, finish line in Phoenix. Are we going to police it or not? That's all I want to know. Because we can bank on it right now Monday morning or Sunday morning a fixed infinity race or Saturday morning after truck race. They can't get out of line before the start finish line. Yes, they can. The way the dog leg is, you're going to hit the start finish line. But I'm just so that's cut and dry. It should be.

But you've seen as many pictures of I had where there's a guy next to a guy. I've told you 100 times that I've said, remember, don't change lanes to the stripe. And I call out the restart line. I'm sorry, not the restart line. The start finish line, every restart usually like, you know, you're at the line now. 100%. And I go in this one. I'm at, you're at the line now inside.

Yeah. Like, how is that? I was, I was getting ready to say the exact same thing. Almost every restart. You're waiting. You're trying to do the right thing. You're waiting for that line. But somebody always gets inside of you and how that's possible.

You can even go back and look at it. Like pictures. Yeah. I don't know how like it needs to be a cut and dry deal. Like if you hit that box or put a box right there. If you're left side, just like Pid deal. They do it for that. If you cut it, you need to be penalized.

I think that was, I've seen more of that stuff than, and probably that was worse than Chase's restart. It's like, it's essentially, it's very relatable to don't lock bumpers in the trucks and Xfinity at the end of the race. It happens every race, but they don't ever call it. And we're going to see it. I'm telling you right now, whether it's Saturday morning after a truck race, Sunday morning after the Xfinity or Monday morning after Cup, there will be some picture

somewhere of somebody getting out of line too soon and not getting called. We had to serve two penalties for, we weren't even sure we missed the chicane, like it was on the edge of it, but we had a stop on the track penalty and a drive-thru penalty. for that and we lost ground. I mean, we didn't even make it through there. People are actually using this and gaining ground because you're putting, you're passing a guy already before the start finish line. So like Freddie said, you get to that lime. You think, oh yeah, I nailed it. You're a line now inside. You're like, how is this even possible? I didn't see, you know, the two that happened this weekend. I didn't, you could see them, but it was really tough, like on the shots to

where you can see it to fully understand. The one to me looked like there was a stackup, which to the, I guess that was at. That was Chase's. Chases. That looked like it made it look worse than what it was. And I almost felt like even had he not been laying back as what they said he was doing, he was still probably going to have a run on that stag up no matter what. I do think, you know, all that aside, like, man, more rules where we're going to take judgment calls and somebody's going to not be happy about it and somebody's going to... Shouldn't be a judgment call. It should be just like pitting if you drive, if your tires hit that box or whatever. But the laying back is hard.

But we're not talking about... Oh, yeah, okay. We're not talking about, yeah, like the line to me, I thought the line was pretty much cut dry. Like you got the line on the bottom of the track, you got the start finish line, you can't cross over until you get beyond that. I thought here lately that that's been pretty cut dry. I haven't seen the pictures that you're talking about in Phoenix. Phoenix is pretty rough.

I believe you because you see it more than I do. I'm just, in my head, I always thought that was kind of cut dry. Now, to the outside, that's a whole other story. Right? Like when they jump to the outside, okay, do you have to wait until your whole car's over the start finish line? Do you have to, and had the guys that got penalized this weekend,

not jump to the outside? had they stayed in line, would they have gotten penalized? Where I think the dilemma is going to come is going to be, okay, what is the exact gap? Is it a half a car width, or car length, excuse me, is it, is it a full car length? Is it, where do we, where do we draw that line? Because now, okay, let's get them all back to where they're bumper to bumper. Somebody missed a shift and we wreck half the field. Now we got another problem.

Or somebody goes late in the restart line, as we saw when we extended the restarts earlier this year. So I feel like it's just this moving target of, where do we want to be with this? And you can manipulate it. If I want to, I could back up, leave a gap. And they tell you to close up like, you know, exit of four. They want you side by side. Well, what's to stop me from laying back a little bit?

And then I just throttle up right before we get to four. And the guy behind me now has a gap. And he doesn't even realize. And he's not, you know, he's asleep with the wheel. Now he's going to get a penalty because I, you know, did it. Like, it's just, it has to happen because you can't let guys lay back. But it's, there's going to be so many instances where, you know, you call one, but then there's going to be three.

examples of the guy somebody else doing the same exact thing that didn't get called. So it's just, it's hard. But I like the fact that they're, I think, you know, they're just showing, okay, we're going to make this call. This is what, you know, this is what we see. You know, we see it in football. Like every year, there's a rule in football that they go, all right, we're going to, we're going to call this every week. Right now it's an eligible man downfield for whatever reason. There's 10 of them a game. I get a kick out of though. We're making this call now. We've started doing it the past, what, month now? Give or take a little bit. And we're making this call now the past month. This has been going on for three plus.

years, right? Like, this has been going on. Honestly, what are we? 75 years in NASCAR? This has been going on for 75 years. So why now? And, you know, I guess it goes back to what we're saying earlier that everything is just so close and so even that this stuff matters more now. Those two spots on that restart, you know, are more critical if you get them. I mean, you set up your run completely different.

If you're running three mile an hour faster than the guy at the end of the restart zone, like that guy's a sitting duck now, you know? So it's, and that's just that little bit of. gap where you can, you know, you guys count you down to the restart zone and you can just roll a little more momentum than the guy in front of you is and now you're kind of a sitting duck. For the longest time, I always thought, ah, we need to, you know, have drivers up there that make that call, right? But as I sit here between you two, I'm questioning myself on that. I'm thinking maybe we need spotters up there making those calls.

You know, like when you guys get done spotting, you go up into the tower and you got another career afterwards. I'm pretty sure NASCO would never want to see a spotter anywhere near the control time. At least the three guys on this show. I studied up, right? I haven't listened to a lot of the door bumper clears and coming into this week here knowing I was coming on. I listened to a couple of them.

And I was fully prepared, as I look at these lights right now, I was fully prepared for just about anything. And I studied up on my French to make sure I knew what the language was and all that stuff. You haven't been taking the bills, have you? Oh, here you go. I try to skip those whenever possible. Not quite to that stage of life yet. Yeah, you get the Brett's new favorite thing, the French things.

The French is, yeah. Oh, cool. All right, well, let's move on to the DBCA, Maine, where we catch up on hot topics in the dirt world. And, of course, would love to start things off by congratulating Jade Abidiccian on her Extreme Outlaw Midget Championship. Really cool to see how much she's grown, and that series has done an incredible job,

put on a great show all year, for sure. Yeah, it's good. I've known Jade a little bit, just, you know, obviously talking to Chad. And that's where she kind of learned her craft a little bit. She was obviously a really good micro-outlaw, whatever you want to call that driver. Then was always fast in the midget, always, you know, really showed speed everywhere she went. And then just kind of had to learn her racecraft a little bit. And then she had a great year this year.

Might have triggered the biggest midget pile-up T. T.J.'s ever seen the other night. That's one way to win a championship. Like if you just, if somebody's got to gain points on you and you just wipe the whole field out. I mean, and I don't think she did it on purpose, but it was just, it was, it was a huge wreck that we saw coming off a turn four yesterday. I think all of her wins, though, definitely helped with the championship. Oh, she, I mean, she is, you know, we always, everybody always asks us who's the next great female driver or whatnot. And right now, Jade's got to be at the top of that list.

I mean, she, like I said, she's always shown speed. I was at Millbridge one night, and she was running one of Chad's cars. And, and just, there's no fear. You know, there's just, there was, like, somebody tried to squeeze her in the wall, and she just kept her foot in it, like rode up the wall and passed the guy down the front stretch. And I was like, holy shit. Like, this, this kid's got no fear whatsoever.

So, I mean, that's, that's one step there. And I think that she's just super talented. Yeah, I don't know her personally, but I've watched a lot of the races this year. And, I mean, she is, she does, she does. Some of the slide jobs that I've seen in her pool, like, she's not scared. No. So really fun to watch. Absolutely.

I don't know what the path is for her going forward. I don't know if she transitions to asphalt or does she stay in the, you know, the sprint car side of things? She's a toy or the driver, so it depends where they. But I mean, what if she just, what if she likes what she's doing, you know, or she'll just have Toyota support? You know, she's going to be, she'll be doing whatever she wants, really. I know a lot of this is over my head right now because I don't follow that as closely as everybody. It's a same height as me, a lot of stuff over our heads. Well, that's a fair statement.

But the wreck that you guys are talking about, I just typed it in to try and find it. and I'm not getting it. And then I looked at what I was searching. I thought twice about that. Well, you can't Google midget pile up. That's not a good idea. Probably not recommended. On Twitter or X trying to do that.

But I also have no service right now. So I'm kind of S.O. either way. Yeah, that wouldn't go well. Shout out also. Buddy of mine, Logan, Stevie, won the Silver Crown Championship yesterday. He's having a career year. just super talented race car driver. Won the Silver Crown Championship.

I think he's running away with the USAC midget championship right now. Won the Chili Bowl this year. One Indiana midget week. I mean, just, or sprint week, I should say. I don't even know. It must have been midget week, I guess. But just a phenomenal year for him. And, of course, Donnie Schatz,

getting his 311th career World of Outlaw win. I mean, talk about the season. Oh, I mean, what else can you say about Donnie Shots? I mean, the guy's ridiculous. He's won the outlaw chamber like 74 times. It's 21 last week, 74 this week. That's about the same to me. That is a hell of a good run.

53 championships this year? That's impressive. He's got a lot, man. What's the, does anybody know? And I'm sure I shouldn't put anybody on the spot like this. What's the outlaw points look like right now? Because I know it was close between Brad and gravel. I don't know.

I hadn't seen that. I think Brad's starting to put a little bit of distance. Brad's sweet is up 68 points. Over gravel. 68. They've got to be winding down, although they run 4,000 races. But I know.

They have Devils Bowl this weekend and then essentially. Just Charlotte? Yeah. Then Charlotte. Oh, I'm going to go to Charlotte on probably Thursday night, I would assume, see my buddy Tyler race. When is that this week?

No, it's Phoenix. Yeah, I think I'm going to get on there too. Yeah. Yeah. So it'll be fun. I'm sure I'll see some friends down there. But that's always a Strickler,

who I'm trying to avoid now for all costs. He's running that late model that week. What do they call him? Kyle, what is it? The high side ticker, Kyle Strickler. What a name. I know. Brett would call him that.

Brett would call him something else. Yes. Yeah. But I mean, I wonder who came up with that. Like, because I've met him probably 10 years ago and he already had the nickname. Like, he was one of them like the, uh, the commoditides or whatever. Yeah. So I think it's funny how a lot of the, like, when I watch the dirt races and stuff, the

announcers, they use nicknames a lot. Oh, that's all they got is nicknames. Yeah. Everybody's got a nickname. Everyone's got a nickname. and it's some of are kind of funny, but some of you hear

for the first time or knew you're like, wonder how you're in that name. Like Brad. What's the backstory? Like Brad. The big cat. Like Brady,

why is Brady Bacon the macho man? Last time I saw him getting funny ran around the car from a guy. That's not a macho man. I'm saying. It's interesting for sure. Well, can't forget to mention Milbridge.

Of course not. Of course not. I just realized we made Milbridge a drinking game during Dale Jr. and friends and we didn't say it. We did not say it once after that. Probably the drinking. And listen, if you are interested in Millbridge, don't let me butcher this. Ashley Burnett, is that her name?

Yes. Ashley Burnett did a great job last week on the Dale Jr. Download, which was the business of motorsports with Kelly and Mike. So if you want to learn more about Millbridge, go listen to that episode because it was really good. Highly recommend. Yeah, that was a great episode if you want to learn more about. Casey's favorite episode ever, probably. I had to guess.

With Kelly on it, of course. And DirtVision's where it's at between this show, starting on Wednesday, Devil's Bowl Friday, tons more local races that you can all catch on Dirt Vision. Freddie, I got to quit. Were you hot yesterday? Yes. It was way hotter than what I remember seeing the temperature supposed to be.

Yeah, I saw like mid-70s. I didn't factor in my Saturday plans. I would have probably went to a little bit earlier. It was like mid-sev or your Friday or your Thursday or Wednesday. It was super, super hot though. So it's weird out there. And I know you know this first time. You've been out there plenty to know it also.

Like everything's like 20 degrees different. Like it's either 20 degrees hotter than you feel like it should be or if it's 50 in the desert, it feels like it's 20. If it's 70, it feels like it's 90. Like it's just a different world out there. What was the year we had the sandstorm? Yeah, that does. Yeah, we watch it. I remember the flag being like leaned over down the back straightaway.

There was so much wind. You could see it coming. Yeah. I mean, that racetrack every year, it's something, rather it's heat, rather it's cold to your point,

sandstorms, snow. I think it's snowed out there before. Oh, yeah. It's supposed to be hot this weekend, I think. So I have a cool shirt to try.

Somebody, yeah. I don't doubt that. I don't doubt that at all. So somebody reached out. You got to plug it into the battery pack and everything. They're going to have to carry it up the roof for you. It's like the size of a small cooler.

I'm just going to use it as cool. I'm going to need two of them probably. I don't know. They get me and Herman are going to try him. I mean, you're serious. Oh, yeah. Somebody sent this. It's literally just the tight, like you hang it on the rail, but you want to walk away to some part of the two little hoses.

You're done. You're wearing a cool suit to spot. Why don't you come stand on the roof of Texas a few weeks ago and let me know how long you're up there. Wow. Hey, buddy. You don't look like a guy that likes this son to me. Listen, somebody in my. I don't like the sun, but I mean, I'll deal with it.

I'll go roast with the best of them. Oh, we do. We have entered a new era where spotters have to wear cool suits. Are we going to take oxygen up there too? Are you going to pipe that in? Have you listened to the episodes where they complain about wanting shade up there? I mean, anything else. Listen, I never say cool suit.

I say cool shirt. It's a cool suit, essentially. Listen, you want to hear that. How many times do you say, oh, my AC's not working in the car? How many times we hear drivers complain about that? I always get told that. It's hot in here. It's probably loud, too.

deal with it. Listen. Luckily, I'm in peak physical conditions. I'm not going to need a cool suit this week. Freddie's not

taking a cool suit up there. I'm very confused. Are you trying to say if anybody is, it should be being? I wasn't saying it, but I was saying it. Where are you seeing

that it's going to be hot? It's in the 80s. That's not hot for Florida. 85 is brutal in Florida. Let me tell you. It's 20 degrees hotter than 8. No, I'm joking. Let me tell you, it's not the fact that it's not

the fact that you're saying the temperature is not. not really the problem. It's just a direct sunlight at that time. Like, do you, like in Texas when it was 99 degrees, are you ever going to go to a beach and stand out there for four hours with no, no umbrella or anything? Absolutely not. You guys are on the roof. You got a breeze. Think about the guys that are down on pit road. There's no breeze. I'll tell you. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. Here's one person I didn't think about that I felt I feel worse for than anybody in the sport the other day. Flagman. The flagman. I know. I look at it all the time.

He's got the wind coming off the car. But he's got a full helmet, a full face helmet, a fire suit. Like the guys, like, I was like, the pit crew guys are screwed because they got fire suits on, but they can go find shade somewhere or fans, whatever. Like, we don't have to wear, we can wear shorts and a t-shirt if we have to. Like, we're not in the, but that flag man, or flag person, I should say. I know. up to the roof for TJ.

Whoever does it. I'm going to take it myself. I hope that they reverse wire it. Like what happens in the car sometimes there where it just pumps the hot water through the thing the whole time. It'll be all right. I'll just unplug it. I mean, listen, it can be miserable up there, but I don't think I'm going to go to the point

of the cool suit. I'm going to bring it. I'm going to surprise me at all. I'm going to enjoy it, too. Hopefully. You let us know how that goes. I'm going to. Moving on to reaction theater.

Hey, guys. I know you've been. really after getting that ED read from the download guys, but maybe you should try to get on the PD ad that NBC's running this week. Did you know one out of ten guys has a curved pit road?

I never knew. Is that an ad, really? Are you serious? Yeah, it's Peroni's disease. Are you way to hold on it? Did you search that? I thought that guy made that out. If you watched the broadcast. It plays like every... It straightens your pit road

road out? Yeah. No surgery required. Freddie, you sounded way too interested about spreading your pit road. He's going to have to. That sounded more like you were saying. It straightens your pit road. Oh, like, give us more info than we needed right there. Shout out to during the Dale Jr.

and Friends show on Friday, we did get a few of those questions and we obviously did not get to answer them. But yes, shout out to whoever submitted those questions. What kind of questions? Pit road questions? The length of. Pit road. They wanted to know the length of our pit road

and it's a TV. Oh, Jesus. I think one was the length of pit road at Millbridge. One was, I can go on and on. What's the side effects for that kind of pill, you think?

Like, what if it goes the other way? I've never thought about it. They're all right. That commercial is, they're a blast in that commercial. I don't have as much problem with that as I do, like with kids, right? They're playing some commercials right now

on all TV stations that are like, they'll give me bad dreams. And I'm like, how? And maybe it's because it's Halloween time. I don't know, but like, you know, my little girl, she's got all these dolls. She plays with dolls nonstop. I bet you we got 200 of them in the house. And every time I watch the race, I've got to tell the kids, close your eyes, close your eyes, at least 20 times the race because there's a chucky doll on TV trying to stab somebody.

And I'm like, how is this okay for TV right now? Now, you know, the younger me would have not thought twice about that. Now I do. Oh, man. Okay, well, PD. If you got PD, take whatever that stuff is.

Maybe we get them as a sponsor. TJ's off the fire right now. I just listen. This is, we can get off the rails real quick on this. Well, are you the more calls? I know I've seen otherwise.

Maybe it was fitting because Vegas does have a pretty decent curve to their pit road, right? Yeah. The whole thing's curve too. Curse a little bit more at the end. Homestead's pretty much the straightest pit. Yeah, it's a straight pit. They might have pulled our ad for this week. Maybe their ads work and we're talking about it right now.

Somebody's using the material for you good use. Freddie, this is Carrie. I met you at Big Al's and I am married to RJ, the idiot. I can't believe he typed the phone number wrong in your phone and I missed out on a live session. We were even at Dale Jr. Motorsports today. How can I get an invite back? We can make that happen anytime you're back in town. That's fine.

Maybe reach out to me or Andrew over these guys. What are you talking about? I gave the guy my phone. He typed his number in wrong. There's nothing else I can do for him. I like to blame Freddie, but that's not really Freddie's fault. It's my fault. The guy typed his number in wrong.

She did say you typed it in wrong. No, I didn't type it in. I handed him my phone because that's possible. It would be my fault if he was reading it out because I go, I probably typed it in wrong. But I always make sure that I go, here you go, bud. Put your number in there. so that I don't have to do anything.

And I text him and as soon as I text him it said, message not delivered. I was like, this guy probably put his number in my phone wrong. But thankfully when I got back from a week in Vegas, the first thing I've seen when I walked in the studio is a half gallon of fireball. So I really appreciate that, RJ.

And he sent me his phone number. So I should go compare it. See how close. Let's see how close he was. That's probably one number. I'm sure. Yeah. You know, like,

no, that's, you ever, like you should randomly text anybody. You ever done that? just like just random ass number yeah just testing a message hey you know the deal's hey uh it's been done you know forget you know me something like that oh that's funny yeah you just you ever get in like an elevator and just like make a super out of context conversation with oh i do that all the time

i always get in there with a bunch of people and i'm like man i hope it don't break again and then you see people like kind of turn around i used to i used to mess with people all the time in elevators and then i got on an elevator in kansas and it broke double tree No, and there was a soccer tournament going on, like a bunch of, like, 10-year-old girls. And they got in the other way with me, and I was like, I'm just sitting there talking. And on the way out, it was like a 50-something floor hotel. And on the way out, they hit every button. Oh, I was like, on purpose?

Oh, yeah. That was awesome. Yeah, they just, I was like, they got me. I'm not to mess with nobody in elevators anymore. Oh, my gosh. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. I had to get off.

Like, it was like 50 floors and they hit everybody. I was like, I got to get off and get another elevator. Like, I'm not taking this one all the way up. Did you think to yourself? Like, I just, like, like, what did you think about? I was like, I thought it was great. Like, I was like, sons of, like, they got on like on the third floor. And it's like, I should have known because it was like four little 10 year old girls

giggling and they got out. They went up one floor. And then on the way out, they're just like, boom, all the way. I'm like, what do you think they were saying to each of those little, those girls? We were like, hey, watch this. Look at that. Look at that creep. Watch this.

Best part is it took them literally one floor of an elevator. to figure out what's taken all of us many years to figure about Freddie. You don't want to be near me? Yeah, just go ahead and do it right from the start. Watch us ship this guy to the roof. Oh, man, I'm like, you got it. On the way, I just, I didn't even, I was like,

just close your eyes and laugh. Like, I'm like, son of a bitch, they got me. Just got in from one heck of a weekend in Vegas. My goodness, kicking it off with meeting my favorite driver, Dale Jr., of all time. Got to see Freddy and Brett. There's a joy to meet them. He even got to see Andrew.

TJ, I guess he was Big League. I don't know. He was the hardest one that gets to meet. But anyway, Austin, my awesome show, loved it. Thank you. See you all later. The guy doesn't realize he met you. You just up Dale's ass at the point.

I was just looking for my gift cards. Just looking for my gift cards, man. Oh, man. That story changed so many times, by the way. I was never offered a $500 gift. There's a lot of inaccuracies between what you told us and what they told us. I don't know how. There's always three sides of every story.

And we got to get that. I can tell you right now if, I mean, would you like, we're not here. I think he'll need to go. So, Ray doesn't know. Dale, Dale tried to pay TJ with a gift, to spot a late model race with a gift card to loves. Every race that I've done him, he's just giving me some little bit of something.

Whatever. I don't even ask. He just like, all right, here's a little bit of cash. Whatever. This time, Stefan comes up to me. I went into Florence with him. Whole day, a day off. I went to race Florence with him.

for fun. And Stefan comes up to me. Yeah, the next day. And he's like, hey, I got a gift card for you for last night. I'm like, what? Gift card? Yeah, he's like $200 for, he's like, I know. I'm just doing what I'm told. I'm like, okay, well, you can just keep it. And, uh, T.J's above gift cards. Well, yeah, I mean, and so I'm kind of like, I thought it was a joke. It was kind of that along that lines. And then, um, Stefan, I guess Andrew passes Stefan in the hallway that week. And he's got like a stack of these things, like, just whatever. And I'm like, I don't want it unless I know he went and bought it. I actually cared about, you know what I mean?

Right. The gift card doesn't matter if you have someone go and buy them all for you and hand them out. Like, it's not a true gift from that, you know, to me anyway. I'm like, if I don't know when he walked in there and bought that gift card, I'd have taken a fee to other gift card. If I know he went in there and took 10 minutes out of his day to do that, whatever. How do you know he didn't?

Because Stephen did it. Did he tell you? When's the last time he seen Dell Jr. Go to Lowe's and buy 50 gift cards or whatever? He admitted it on the show. But it's kind of biased because you're sharing your story and Dale is not here to defend himself to all the people who are listening. It's way better. It's way.

It's way. It doesn't matter. Dale was there to defend him live in Vegas. He could do, he could offer me a $5 a gift card and everyone's going to side with him. It's not going to matter. I've been down this road. I know how it works. I know how this works.

The one thing you can say, thanks Jr., which I can't believe Dale never heard that before, but that's because he doesn't listen. DJ stands for Thanks, Jr. Did you know that? I have heard that. Dale didn't. Everyone heard it for the first time on Friday, apparently. And thank you, the Westgate, by the way, for allowing us to share those stories. Thank you.

These are stories that we will have forever. Judy, Heather from Westgate with that whole sports management style of things. The people at the resort themselves setting up the stages, everything was unbelievable. If you were a... He looked like a... Who's outfit? Yours. Yeah, Freddie, you were like you came straight from...

I put a button down shirt and said I look like a waiter. You had a button down shirt. I did, believe or not. Do you own one? Yeah, dude down. Mike, Davis did tip him. He did get tips.

I did get tipped and I got, Mike Davis gave me a dollar for delivering your steak. But listen, like, if you're a Dale Jr. fan and we do that again, you're going to want, that was just Dale telling stories for hours.

And like, if it was some, I've heard stories I've never heard before, stories Brett, who's known him for 20 years, never heard before, maybe even some TJ didn't know. Like,

there's just so many stories that, and there's more. Oh, my God. There's a lot more that didn't get told for the next time. There were a ton that did not get told. Listen, if I, there's, that's not even the, we could have done six hours of stuff. We could run a whole show on our trip. Hopefully we do it again.

And like, to that point, like, if you came to this one, you're going to walk on the next one because you don't know what's going to come up. You know, it's not going to, we're going to repeat the same stories over and over again. He told stories that I didn't think that I've, honestly, I've stayed away from because I wasn't sure how. The funniest part about it was like we talked about earlier, we weren't going to drop names. We weren't going to name names. We're not going to name names and write out the first story.

I was like, so, so and so. And I'm like, well, I thought we weren't naming him. He's like, I'd have to be fine. He's like, we're going to use names, I guess. Now, he just wait until he gets down to your name at that point. Oh, boy. No, his answer was, you made me take, I took a shot and you asked me. Which I got up, I have a one bone to pick with somebody from the Dale Jr.

Friends show. What? Mike Davis. We all came out. We all did his fire again? Yeah, that's fine. we all came out we all did a shot right we every one of us including dale which i was shocked about but uh i will you go back for a break there to do the meet and greet and we come back

and i realized mike took like the smallest sip ever at oh i saw it sitting there's a bottle with fireball was still sitting there with almost i'm i was very disappointed in our boss there so next next dirty mo live and friends he's got to do too freddie not only that but there was a water laid out for me on the bar. Oh, I listen to this. This is great. Yeah, there's a water laid out for me on the bar. Tiff's like, grab that. It's the first one on the end. Like, that's yours. I'm like, all right, perfect. So I go out, Casey and I do our whole intros, and I don't have a chance to go and drink that water until everyone's

sitting down. And I realized Mike took that water. That was for me. So I'm like, all right, there's another clear drink right next to it. That must be another water. Oh. Guess what it wasn't? It was not a water. vodka soda worked out good for you he's training for an iron man he's like I'm not drinking

anything out here I think Mike did put it back because he looked at me he's like this was not what I wanted whoever was our bartender you failed but no Mike it was Mike's fault he took the wrong he took the wrong cup

I got the right one that's for sure yeah it was a lot of fun and hopefully we do it again and hopefully you can make it but yeah at the Casey's point thank you to Westgate thank you for everybody in here Andrew Micah Dustin Tiff, Colby, you guys were phenomenal. We didn't do it after we showed up and it was smooth sailing from there.

I don't know if I forgot anybody. I didn't get it. Forget anybody there, did I? Thanks for snacks in that room. Snacks. Thank God for. I was, I was hung over. I was supremely hung over and I was like, I got to mix a drink.

So I made, I don't even know what the hell I made first. It was like a red bull or something. I took one sip. I was like, nope, that ain't it. Put that down. And then I found a beer. I jugged a beer. And I was like, okay, now I'm feeling a little bit better.

And I can at least go out there and not throw up on people. Do you want for the next one of these? You want a cool shirt for that? Yeah. Depends on where we're at. Yeah. Might need a warm. I'll tell you what.

It was hot out there, though. Those lights are hot. But yeah, but it was such a good time. And hopefully we get to do it again sometime. We got two more calls. This is an update from our Blaney friend. Oh, boy. Oh, the hot tub.

Go 12. That's it. That's it. You know that we got a group of Blaney fans that say they're all in the hot tub together. Yeah. They called one. He was on a string of bad races, and the guy's like, I'm just going to get in the tub and bring a toaster and it's over.

I'm drinking beer in the tub, drowning my sorrows, and every week now we get an update from him. Go 12. Well, we have a fan who's not happy at Ryan Blaney. Uh-oh. He's having a bad day. I'd like to rescind my earlier request as a C Bell fan going to the Blaney Hot Tub because fucking him and it's illegal car.

You know what? His hot tub is probably fucking illegal too. cost us a point that mother fucking him and his fans in their illegal ass hot tubs I don't want to be anywhere near it I want illegal hot tubs and fucking dumping people for the wind

Bell's too fucking nice you should have just oh wow we got some fans but I'll tell you right now that's a diehard right there he's on the Christopher Bell bandwagon like nobody else I will be sure to let him know

yeah oh I mean I'm so sorry I mean he has a great shot He has a great shot at the team before. It's fine. It's fine. It's okay. It'll be okay. I sure hope so for that guy's mental health. Can you please call us next week and just let us know you're still with us? There's a lot to unpack on that one call. We got to waterworks at the end there, I feel like. It went from anger to, that was a quick turn. I didn't see that turn coming at the end of that call. It's a twist. That's it. That's all. Wow.

That's a good one end on, though. Ask DBC. Hey, to leave a message on the show, call our number 704-802-9572. Andrew will keep picking the best ones each week. Just to sleep at the wheel over there. She has been. I've got a text up at the same time. No, you've been looking at your phone for like two minutes.

Okay. It's supposed to be Casey doing that, read. Let's move on to Ask DBC. Good idea. Vegas, guys. So first question is from the real deal anew. Right now for up-and-coming drivers, would you rather be in a middle-tier cup car

or in a top-tier Xfinity car? Great question. I think it is a great question. And there's some people right now that are making this decision, I think. And I think that if I was this person and I was helping this person, I'd tell them to get in the top-tier Xfinity car.

You know, especially some of the top-tier Xfinity cars that are open. Right now, we don't know who's driving the Gibbs cars. You hear a Sheldon Creed rumor. You hear rumors about other guys. And that's a car that can go out there and win five races next year easily with the right person in it. So, you know, I'd say, I'd rather see John Hunter laid this map out, you know, a couple years ago where he went from that front road car where he was doing pretty well. He was running 15, 20-ish, which is good for that team. But he went back and rebuilt his career on winning truck races, winning Xfinney races, and now he's going to come back with a legacy Motor Club next year in a Toyota program deal.

But I think right now, like winning is everything in this sport, in my opinion. You could probably make a little bit more money maybe with the step up to cup, maybe mid-tier. But if you go out there and perform, the little bit more money you're making this year, you know, you're going to win a bunch of races and get, when you go to Cup, you're going to make even more money in a couple of years. Your outlook is much better. If you're winning, you're relevant. And if you keep winning, you're just, the rides are going to get better and better in my opinion. I mean, if you go into the Cup series and just you run mid-pack,

you're not, your stock isn't going up, I don't think. Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on your stage of your career too, right? Like, you got to look at that also. I would say for a young guy or, you know, younger guy, take the Xfinity car. 100%. Go out and win races and figure out how to dominate races and be up front every week and do that. I don't know who you're alluding to. I'm not sure that I know who you're alluding to there.

You want to be anybody. Could be Sheldon Creed. could be there's a number of guys you know there's could be anybody what about but listen this this this is relatable this is relatable this is relatable to you as well because you you know I don't remember all the details of your career

where you were at financially whatever but you were in the 78 car you won a race and then eventually had to make the decision to go run and compete for more winning you know won a bunch races at junior motorsports you went back and ran the Xfinity series versus just there's a lot of guys that try to hang on to the cup deal versus, you know what, I can just go back here and enjoy all guys

as a perfect example in the same car. You can go back and be more competitive and win races. Well, and I think that's why it matters what stage of your career at, right? Like, there's certain guys where I'd say stay in Xfinity. Like, why even mess around? Yeah. Now, it also matters too. Here's the other thing I think that matters different.

When I was doing it, there was a big spread in the cars. I didn't realize until I left JRM or until I got done at JRM and went back, you know, last minute and did the deal in the Cup series for the, I guess it would have been 2016 season. I didn't realize, like, that gap kept growing, right, in terms of the cars and, you know, what you could make up as a driver. Like, when I went and drove Tommy's car in 2016, Tommy Bolton's car, I felt like I was at the top, like, peak of my driving ability right then. And I thought, okay, if I can, you know, if I can help him get five or six more spots of race, then, then, yeah, I'm doing my job. That wasn't a reality. just couldn't, you couldn't make up that gap. I think the difference is now, and the cars

were very different. That was the old school, or the old generation car. Now, all of a sudden, we got this car that's got a lot more similarities that you can, you know, you can make up a little bit more as a driver. You can help out a little bit more as it, or at least that's, that's what I see anyway. So that's why I say, I guess it depends on the team. It depends on the structure. It depends on, you know, mid-tier now. What is mid-tier? Because I feel like that mid-tier has grown to where now mid-tier is 10th to 30. potentially and and you can mix a lot of guys up more so as to how they run there so now what what if to change it up a little bit because I think there are a few guys such as a Ryan Truex who had a few

starts in a top tier Xfinity car and then full-time middle tier I say the same thing win races you know yeah right but Ryan Truex if he could get a full-time cup ride in a mid-tier cup car he doesn't have a full-time Xfinity right yeah no yeah yeah that's what I'm saying is he's winning races but he's only running part time for Xfinity, is that still the same, whereas he is still as relevant as somebody else? I don't, how many races do he win? How many won? Yeah, that's, to me, you have to go out and win more consistent. But he's bent up for every time he's in that. He's fast. His name is there. You see him there. Right. Yeah. When he is on track. If, if, if, if, let's just say we're talking Ryan Truex right now and you've got that, you know, you got that option to hop in a cup car full time. You take the full time

opportunity. At that point, he's in yes. And I know we're not talking him right now, but I'm just using that as an example. I, you, Absolutely take the full-time opportunity. And I don't know. I'm not really sure which way I go on this either way. So Martin's coming to the end of his career. At some point, we all agree, I think, in the next year, two years, three years, whatever it is. I'd love to see him win the championship and just Mike drop it out.

I want to see somebody do it. I don't care who it is. Just somebody, damn it, do it. So we'll use you Ryan and forget the fact that they're related. But just Ryan is a good example of. So Ryan this year says, all right, I'm going to go run the 10. whatever. You know, the 10's not going to be super competitive next year.

It's going to be a 15th, 20th place car, probably weekly, depending on who drives it. Now, Martin goes out and says, all right, the end of 2024, I'm retiring. And Ryan's sitting there and runs 20th every week in a cup car, 25th, whatever it is, maybe worse, versus Ryan goes out and wins six Xfinity races, which scenario is more likely to get Ryan to fill Martin's seat? It's going to be going out and winning the races.

in a part-time schedule, I think, versus he's going to be more on their radar. If he's going out here, I'm going to go out here and win every start I'm in or run top five and win a couple versus, oh, we got Ryan, but he's ran a year of cup and he's run 25th every week. Like, I understand what you're saying. Like, if you don't have any opportunity, you know, the mid-tier cup opportunities, a better opportunity. But if you're trying to get to here, the route of, you know, the route to there is to winning races. I think, yeah, but you're. And there's a lot that goes into it. I'm going to say as we say that. You also got to think about the fact, okay, well, you know, JGR, Toyota-affiliated, they're going to look at their drivers that they have in the pipeline as well. So you've got to factor that in as well. I mean, I think everybody's going to have their own scenario of what works best for them and what can get them there. And rather, you know.

It's all timing, though, too. And we saw. And we saw this. I know people were upset with us because we didn't talk about this last week and it was probably just for the fact that I forgot about it. But Haley Degan, we've seen she announced full-time at Xfinity series. And they're like, what does she done to deserve to get out of the truck series? And they're like, what do you talk about? The truck series is so much more equipment dependent versus, you know, you can show talent. I think the truck series better prepares you for cup racing right now just because of how, you know, sensitive the arrow package is. But, you know, she is kind of plateaued. We're going to find that out next year. Yeah, she's kind of plateaued in her truck career.

Like, she's kind of showed you what she is there and it is what it is. like if she has the opportunity to step up and why wouldn't somebody give Haley Deegan the opportunity to get in their race cars you know she's obviously going to put a lot of eyes to your team there's going to be sponsorship dollars coming in and now she has the next opportunity to go out there and prove that she belongs and and show all I think the Xfinity series you can if you're a talented race car driver you could show that talent a lot more in the Xfinity series versus the truck series so you know I have no issues with her moving up that's that's you know she had an opportunity that sponsorship

behind her and she's going to have a chance to go out there and prove what she can do now. If she goes out there and runs, you know, 20th, 25th again the next year, like, you know, then that's probably where her career is going to stall out. She's not going to get any higher than that. But, you know, it is what is. And there's nothing, there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with taking that next step because what she's doing in the truck series isn't going to get her anywhere right now. I think the only thing in terms of, you know, truck series and what she's doing there that you want to maybe see is just a little bit of that, maybe run-up front consistency just a little bit, right? So that you get that experience

of what it is like to run up front and what's different there. The racing's a lot different, right? If you're up in the top five, than it is if you're 10th and on back. Sure. So as that, that's the one thing that, you know,

I think I'd like to see out of any of them as they move up. It's just that ability to be up there. It doesn't mean you've got to finish there, just to be able to show that you know how to run there. And that you can get to that spot, even as different as the air is, as different as the racing is, because it's, you know,

it's still running up front. in any series is going to be different than the middle year. But I also think for her situation, too, you say in the next year how she runs, I think that that team has also made changes to continue improving, continue growing. So I think it might, like the fact that she signed a multi-year deal shows that, you know, they're willing to grow and improve together where it may not be next year that she's seeing the top fives, but obviously they're making the right changes similar to what you mentioned with a few other cup teams too. So should be.

And that team, we got to remember also, that's a brand new team. Right. They've only got one year of Exfinity under their belts right now. And all things considered, they came out of the gates pretty hot for a brand new team. I felt like they did a really nice job. And, well, I mean, they were a truck team prior to that. And still, I think they do still do some of the truck stuff here and there. I think so, yeah.

But they did a nice job of evolving that program. Well, and they went out and got the guy they needed. You know, Brett Moffitt is really talented, race car driver. And he can make stuff happen sometimes. They had an issue this week. they were something's wrong i don't know he was really slow this week i don't know what the problem was but uh you know brett is very capable of taking a car and rannie be running it like you talked about you know five or six spots better than where it might be running right um so you

you know that's if he's not back there that hurts her i think you know because then you know you still like we always talk about you need it a guy you know you need the like steward house losing kevin harvick next year is really going to hurt them um you know you need that guy to compare and go okay well we know it's not the cars because kevin's running top 10 with the same stuff. You know, so if you have, if you have a Moffat there and a Haley, at least gives her a benchmark of, all right, well, here's Brett, here's where you need to be. And here can, here's Brett that can help you get there. You know, here, here's what Brett's doing. You know, we have all this SMT data. You can compare in the same car, you know, apples to apples what you

got. So hopefully he's to be able to stay there and at least on a part-time basis or something, but I, you know, hopefully that's the case for them. But yeah, to your point, they've, they've run really well for a brand new team. Moving on to the next question from Mark, and this is for Regan. Did Tony Stewart force you below the yellow line at Tardega? I knew that was going to come at some point, huh? I mean, yes. Yes, I felt that way then.

I feel this way. I still feel that way today, yes. The only answer to that question is what happened when Brad, you know, stayed his ground the next race we went there. Who was it with Carl? Was it Carl, yeah. Yeah, well, that's the answer. Which would you prefer?

You want a guy? Listen, there was paint on the nose of the race car where there was contact and I went to the bottom. He had that bright yellow, bright yellow race car that day. And yeah, I mean, I don't know. That's another judgment call rule because we've seen that recently. I think it was the Talladega truck race where guys were forcing each other under the line and didn't get called. And they were calling it different back then. Oh, yeah.

There was a shift that happened on that particular moment. Back then, you know, we'd sit in the driver's meetings and number one, it had never been. called if anybody went down below the line. I think it was even even truck races I think earlier that year there had been some instances where it was questionable and they didn't do anything about it and you're always under the under the impression if you get forced down there just go for it like what am I going to do okay I got forced down there I'm going to lift and finish second when I'm staring at the finish line like okay yeah good idea guys hindsight should have just wrecked him and it would have been it would have been fine you know honestly probably I would have to think probably minard would have

won the race because if I turn him, we lose our momentum and Paul was back there. Who knows? Maybe, maybe, I don't know. We'll never know. Never know. Well, yeah. I thought it was a BS call back then. I still think it's a BS call. Mark, Mark, thanks for bringing up old. Now he's going to be in a bad mood. I was pissed off. On that, though, obviously you made the name for yourself in broadcasting and with your career now. I mean, can we ever see you back in the car? I don't know. It's weird because there was there was a period right when I started doing the TV stuff to where yeah I'd love hopping in stuff when I could and it was fun to still stay in it I think the the challenge for me right now is like the the first year I did TV I ended up hopping in the 95 car the second half

of the year and just being out that first half of the year I realized like holy cow like I'm I'm behind right like as a driver I'm behind and I got to get caught back up and I got to figure a lot of stuff out again and I mean heck I haven't even driven anything now since what 2019, I think was the last time I drove anything. And my kids all the time, Dad, go drive something again. Dad, which none of my kids are old enough to understand, you know, what they watch on TV with me on the weekends, that, yeah, I once did that.

And, you know, so there's times where I'm like, yeah, that'd be kind of cool. If I can't, here's where it got. Like, when I had the TV opportunity, I was at a weird spot in the career in terms of, I didn't have anything full time. And you kind of sit there and wait and see, somebody calls and you go fill in for them and you do all these fill in roles. And it got to the point where, you know, when they, when they threw the TV option out there and I got to thinking

about it, I'd always told myself, like, I'm not going to just go hop in something just to be out there and to be, you know, 35th every week just to keep my name in there. So I've gotten, got to the point where I'm like, man, I hate waiting on, I don't want to say waiting on somebody to have an issue, but that's what it almost felt like was you're waiting on somebody to have an issue. And And the TV thing popped up. So I was like, yeah, let's try that for a year. And there was still stuff that would pop up that I could hop in and I could go do. Well, now as time has gone on and I haven't hopped in stuff for a while, I'm like, well, I can't, I don't know if I can give somebody my all in terms of time and in terms of going out there and giving the effort that I feel like.

And I won't do it if I can't give 100%, right? And if I can't give the, you know, heck, just getting back in shape, I'd need two cool suits also, TJ, just to build and make it through a race. So, you know, all that little stuff. I factor all that into it. Do I still want to drive stuff? Absolutely. I mean, I love driving. There's nothing.

Even just going out to GoPro and goofing off on go-carts out there. Like, there's nothing like putting a helmet on your head and going out there and doing it. And I'm certainly never going to say never. I never used the R word. So, you know. Never dropped that one. I never did use that word. And, you know, if something makes sense, I love road racing.

So that would probably be more prone to do something like that. fun stuff moving on to what an idiot what an idiot man what you guys got I had a little list this week almost had to give it to TJ's wife

she asked me a question that was pretty dumb but it turned out she just left the word out so I was like okay welcome to my world she I posted a picture of us on the marquee and it was on my story somewhere on Instagram or something and she

replied and said somebody should get a picture of that. And I was like, Tamila, what the fuck do you think that is? But then she just, really? You have to call her out on the show? Yeah, I mean, it's fun. But she didn't, she meant to say at night. And I knew it she meant because I said, I have to get a picture of it at night. She said, that's what I meant. I said, yeah, I know. But it's still fun to pick on her a little bit. I live with it, man, don't worry. I did see now, I got, I should have checked with Kyle about this. But they spelled high limit racing wrong on the high limit championship trophy there was no eye in racing now nowadays nowadays they might be slang that i'm not aware of or they have to shorten stuff up so that might have been

on purpose but i doubt it uh but tj i think the one we got to talk about in depth is uh i don't if you saw the finish to the winchester 400 i did see did you see any of this late modelry so uh stephen nassie who i love uh i think his personality is what we need in the sport at times you know you need a guy that's kind of edgy and they call call him whatever it is nasty nassy nassy and classy nasty uh he led a majority of the race i think he was in position to win got a late caution chose the outside chose the outside and then uh geo rizero uh kind of squeezed him up into the fence and got gone took off and and won the race and nassie was upset after the fact in which you if you choose the top you're putting yourself at the

at the mercy of the guy in the bottom um but then what happened was they pull in a victory lane nassie comes up next to him, you know, pulls next to him and gets into it. And Nassie's crew guys are on the front stretch. I think it was his dad are going into the window of the Riziro car. And Gio drops it in gear and does his burnout and knocks Nassie's dad flying down the front straightaway. And yeah, like, it's a, it's a scary situation when you see it happen, you know, you're seeing it happen. And Nassie's calling out Gio for doing that, but Gio can't hit your dad if he's not out on the racetrack trying to get the kid's window or trying to do whatever it is, you know. So my one idiot has to go to these crew members that, first of all, if you're, let the

guys fight. Like if Nassie wants to get out and fight GEO or GEO wants to fight, let that happen. But to go over to a car, we've seen this in the modified world. A kid just got thrown out every racetrack and series and modifies because his team jumped the kid while he was in the car and their dad's beating on them with helmets. You know, let, let the, if the drivers want to fight, let them fight. The crew members should not be involved. I always say that about the fights on pit road.

Like the guys that should get thrown out of the ones that. jump in or take shot to drivers. Like if you're, if you put, I know it's a scary situation and geo probably needs to be smarter about, you know, because you can really hurt somebody. But you can't get hurt if you're not out there trying to get in the kids window while he's, you know, while obviously there's some high tension going on. So while I love Stephen and I think he's a really good race car driver and I shoot the shit with him every once in a while, like if I'm going to call anybody an idiot in this situation,

it's going to be the dad for trying to get into the kid's window while we're out there celebrating Victory Lane. I do want to call out. I just look at the picture from the high limit, and I don't see an air, so I think you... Well, that's not surprising that you don't see an error. The picture somebody sent me... Unless it was Photoshop, the picture that somebody sent me.

I think it was Photoshop, because I remember seeing that threat. But I'm just looking at the picture of Larson, I'm not saying anything. Hey, speaking to the Winchester, I didn't see it, so I can't speak to that particular instance at all. But for a while, do you guys remember? didn't we used to park the cars on the front stretch? And this was after I was done driving.

So it had to have been within the past four or five years. I remember we used to park them on the front stretch and let everybody get out of the cars. And no crew members could go to the drivers other than maybe somebody to bring a water or something like that. And there was like a two or three minute period where it was kind of like a cool down period, right? Like when did we get away from that? Because now it's like everybody's of the cars right away. Immediately. But that would clean some of this up.

Give those guys a few minutes to go see each other, talk about it, hash it out. don't let anybody up to them, you know, and some of that stuff, like, we did it with good intentions, and then it just kind of slowly starts to go away, like, and I don't know why that is, but I think that's an easy way to clean that up, right? And we see it all series. I don't care if it's the cup level or, you know, Milbridge. I don't care where it is. And we saw, you know, unfortunately, after that deal with Tony in upstate, you know, New York,

it was as strict as it could possibly be about guys going anywhere. And, you know, when you got out of the race car on the racetrack after that, every series across the country short track dirt whatever it was right there was do not go anywhere you know get out of the car you get in the ambulance or you get out the car you get in the little vehicle and drive off whatever it is don't go out there now we i see it every week now you see it's starting to slack off a little bit where there's a guy walking on the racetrack he's going to flip the guy off or or like we we need we've seen this a thousand times we need to be protected from ourselves because we will do dumb shit i've seen us do it like you know so like you need to

keep strict rules on this and you can't have people. And maybe it's the series fault. Like, you know, maybe it's whoever runs Winchester 400 now needs to do a better job of keeping them off of the racetrack. And maybe that's what Stephen was getting at. But like at the same point, like, you don't need to be out there if you're the driver's dad or crew member, crew chief, whatever it is. You know, you don't need to be out there trying to get in the kid's window as he's trying to celebrate probably the biggest win of his life. And I know, he didn't, honestly, I mean, it wasn't like he went in there and they, you know, you run the top at Winchester. It's a really super high bank racetrack. He just goes in.

in there and just kind of squeezes them a little bit. I could pull a video. I don't think... Winchester's a great race. I mean, I didn't think... When I looked at it, somebody sent me the video and I was like, something else must have happened to piss Stephen off that much. Well, didn't that happen also in the Archer Race not too long ago. Didn't...

I forget... I know it was Jesse Love and somebody else that were racing, and one of them got up into the fence and it ended their night. Yeah. That happens. It's racing. I mean, he... He didn't really wreck him.

He put him in a bad spot. He put him in a bad spot, but I mean, you gave him that line. How many to go was it right there? That was like 10 to go. maybe eight to ten to go. Might be your only chance to get by. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and tell you.

I'm not, same thing, just like Martinsville. I am not going to win the race from the outside and being a nice guy. You're not going to win the race. So I just don't know why, you know, I don't know. Did you have been to you? Did you pick one? I mean, I don't know who the guy is, but I saw some guy mouth off to one of the workers at the Cosmo and the Cosmo, the security guy, did not.

like it very well. And that guy... That probably did work out good for him. It did not work out very good at all. He kept... It was really bad. Like, he was cussing at the guy. I don't even know what he was cussing at, but the guy was obviously really drunk. And man, that security guy just finally just had enough. He says, all right, just kind of put his stuff down. So I got walked over behind the guy, grabbed his arm, like, whatever move he pulled, that guy was on the ground face down, just like that. And I'm actually, I'm standing there with Brian. We're like, whoa, this is like happening right here in front of us. Like, most time...

You don't see stuff like that. But yeah, and then there was a whole group of, I don't know what the group was, but there was a whole group of girls that had just come back from the pool. And it was like four o'clock. And I mean, they had been at the pool all day. And I don't know if they saw the rest of their trip because they come through the lobby. And they are, everyone's, they're all holding each other up, sunglasses on, still walk. Like, they are in really bad shape.

been like they I don't know if they saw the rest of that evening like oh I'm sure they didn't it's probably their first trip to Vegas and they so uh Blake just sent me there's two things I also want to touch on but Blake just sent me or one thing and then Blake sent me this uh both donnie Wilson haulers who Gio drives for had punctured tires yesterday after the race is over so now you're not one idiot anymore now you're a piece of if you're going puncturing especially on a hauler like that where who knows if you get flat right there if it blows out down the road somewhere. You could potentially really hurt somebody. So that's really, really dumb. And who knows who did it. But, you know, it's just obviously he could kind of, it's a hell of a coincidence. I mean, I'm sure John from the stands watching the race didn't come down there and do it. But there was one I wanted to point out. Then I don't, I'm not calling him an idiot. But he could have been a little bit nicer.

We had, Ty Gibbs had an issue, lost the wheel. Obviously, it was a couple laps down. He came out on a little bit fresher rubber and was our best friend. Like he would just get on above his bumper. and just push us. We gained two or three spots at the end of the race because of him. But there was a group in front of us that we were running down, and it was the 22 and the 17. And the 17, who is a playoff car, is racing the 22, and the 22 is blocking the shit out of the 17.

And I'm laughing, and poor Herm standing next to me, I can see steam coming out of his ears. And you would think, like, Ford, like maybe we don't need to race the guy into playoffs as hard as we possibly can at this point in the race. And we were probably a lap from catching them.

Like, if he would have held him up, because I think Chris finally got around him with maybe two or three to go. If he didn't get around them, we were probably going to pass both of them because we were just, we were literally, a tie and Bubba would just run opposite lines

in the corner and then get together on the front stretch and just basically tandem and just run people down. And I'm laughing, I was dying laughing because I'm like, Joey is going to cost a 17, not only the one spot he should give him right now. I mean,

he doesn't see he got to give him, but he was, I mean, he was actively blocking. Like it was that Kansas race with Harvick a couple years ago. I know that one well. I was like,

I was like, what is he doing? But, you know, that's not an idiot. You're not an idiot for doing that, but you could have helped your buddy out a little bit more than that, I think. There was a few moves like that that, like, I looked off a four one time, and I saw the 10, the 17 was getting on the outside of the 10. And the 10 was just like, no, I'm just going to keep coming up.

And you're either going to lift or you're going to right side your car. Like, why? I mean, I just don't understand things like that. Yeah, I don't, yeah. Playoffs, man. Playoffs. Yeah, anybody you want to call an idiot? I mean.

I don't know. I guess I didn't, I thought I prepared for everything. I didn't know how to call somebody an idiot. The only one that comes to mind right now off the top of my head is Brett for not being here on a Monday. That's typical. We all would support that idiot. Yeah, we're past the idiot part with him. I can check.

Let me see somebody. I'll pick somebody for you here because I'm beating you by 60 points right now in fantasy football. I figured that was coming. I knew that was coming at some point. You don't really have anybody that didn't show up. I guess maybe your own running back, Javante Williams, there is only got seven points. My fantasy football teams are a debacle. four and one in my league so it's not like they're terrible.

Yeah, but if you look at the team, it's not good. It's a matter of time telling them about six and four here. All right, before we start getting tweets about how this isn't a football show, moving on to DBC picks. Congratulations to Brett, right? To Brett for his DVC win or picks win. We are going to Homestead and T.J., you get to pick first. I'll take Redick.

Good pick. I'll take Larson. Brett's the only one that can catch me still. I just got to get out of last, so Casey's got to buy dinner. The last place finished from the race. Did you think you had a shot of winning it still? Please tell me that's not the case. No, no, no.

She thought she's the only one that had Larson left. Yeah, I did. I have no idea. I guess I'm picking. She just prepared all week and done like, I'm just going to be able to pick Larson, no matter. I totally did plan that. That really screwed me there. I guess I'll pick.

I'm in last. Christopher. Christopher. Bell? Yeah. Bushard. Bell, which run? Brett picks,

William Byron. All right. I just need to get out of the last place. So last place in our last place. Whoever finishes last has to buy dinner. Which, by the way, our restaurant burned down yesterday. Epic. You see that?

No. I don't know if it burned all the way down, but the kitchen was on fire last night. Bad, like a big fire. So we have to hope that that's back in order by December. December so that we could It might be better if it's not for you. Yeah. Oh, sorry, guys.

We've got to go to Burger King. We'll go to pie in the sky and eat pizza. Yeah, I had a picture. Let me see if I could find it. That's not good. No, it was pretty big. Oh, they'll fix that right up. That's just a grease fire.

Just a little deal. I mean, there's firemen trying to break through the ceiling. Okay, when they cut the roof, that's maybe more than the grease fire there. Never mind. Take it back. Yeah, if the roof, they're cutting a hole in the roof. That's probably not good. Well, heading to Homestead.

that first off. Did you pick? Who'd you pick? I pick Larsson. Oh, Larsen. Okay. First off, what do you guys think about how F1 is in Austin and they start at 3 p.m. And we're in minding it means start at 3.30.

What are we thinking ratings will look like here? I mean, I don't think our ratings get affected by them at all. No, I think that's a unique group. I think it's, I think their fault, you know, they should schedule around us. But I mean, they, it's not the first time this has happened. No. This happens all the time. And I don't know.

How do they, How did they determine what the hell market they're trying to be relevant in? I know. Because, like, they're starting at 3.30 in Austin. Well, like, Europe, that would be, what, six hours? Yeah, but, like, so we're starting, they're starting at 6.30 in Austin. Starting at midnight in Vegas. And they're starting at 10 o'clock local in Vegas.

Yeah, that one, I didn't understand that one. I think, and I think that one, I didn't realize, if somebody was telling me this week, they have to tear the track down every day while they're out there. So, like, you know, like, we had Chicago shut down for the weekend or whatever it was. because they have to have the strip open back up every day. So they're going to be up and day, you know, whatever they practice, qualify, whatever they do. Then they got to open the strip back up and then close it. It's all super late.

So that's why I think that's why it's so late is because they're going to have to, you know, you can't run it in the middle of the day when strip is probably, you know, max capacity. Can you imagine the cleanup on that thing? Have you, did you, I mean, the strip looks completely different. Oh, my gosh. Right in front of the fountains there is all blocked off. Their pit area, I know they're not calling you. at a paddock right now anymore, but like their pit area looks so different.

Like it is so, it is really cool to see it. It's going to be a really, when they go down around that sphere and stuff like that, it's going to be a neat track. So I'm excited to watch it. That sphere is wild. That is, man. I saw, I saw some pictures where they're trolling golfers. Yeah, with a guy with a smile, he watches a wall. I thought that was pretty cool. Brett's recommendation was, uh, don't go, which I don't know what the hell he's never talking about, but said, don't go to the Earth show or Earth Postcard. He said the graphics are unbelievable. The moral of the story is,

Earth is screwed. We got to move to Saturn. And there's no way. Is that real time he's sending that right now? That was last night. Oh, yeah. That was midnight last night. But like, for one,

don't ever believe anything Brett says. So that's a start. So if I was you, I'd go to the show and see what happens. But yeah, it was, it's interesting. has his take and be swayed at times. But, yeah, I am curious, you know, going forward, it seems like we could find a way for the series to all work together.

Yeah, and we see it with IndyCar, too, at times. Even if you're two hours apart or, well, I think IndyCar for the most part, we're, yeah, but I'm saying it happens every once in a while where we end up similar start time. You may have some scenarios to where it's just, you know, it's unavoidable, right? And I don't know the, you know, for example, the Vegas scenario, I guess it sounds like they have to be during the night time is the only time they're allowed to race, but I don't know why you start those races back to back, but who knows?

I'm not in that position. Yeah, no doubt. Where are we going, Homestead? We are. I think we've already said, you know, who will be our top contenders, obviously. All three back this week? What we got this week? All three.

I think do we have this one with all three and Phoenix with all three? Which I hate the fact that the trucks don't go to Martinsville. I don't understand. I mean, I think it's back next year. I think I've seen that maybe. but like that truck race at martinsville is like one of the best races of the year every year and for whatever reason it came there's no reason why we can't do all three out there we have especially it likes now um when i mean this year there's a modified race i think Thursday night and

Friday night there's nothing there's just truck i think maybe exceed practice for 20 minutes that we're going to drive up there for and back but uh yeah so i'm looking forward to homestead i'll still die on this hill that homestead should be the final race of the year every year um i I love going down there. It was always fun to go down. I feel like everybody went down Tuesday or Wednesdays, went to the Keys, they're fishing trips or go to South Beach and hang out for a day or two to kind of celebrate the year being over if you weren't in the playoffs.

But it's a racy racetrack. I think a place where, you know, the fastest car can go out there and win the race. I've said on here numerous times where if you've got a good car, you can move around enough to get where you need to be instead of being locked into one lane. I think it needs to move every year. I agree. I think I think that I would be finding. if it's just them three, the final three tracks and some kind of rotation.

Or just make it a three, I still think it's a three race playoff. Then you don't have such an emphasis on one place, you know, a three race final four. Yeah, three races to me, though, it does away with that game seven moment. Oh, 100%. We've looked for that for a while, right? I agree.

Maybe two you can make an argument. So somebody, but then how do you say if somebody wins the first one and somebody else wins the second one? Yeah, it's just, it would just be points in my opinion. I know it. I know, and that's just because it's just, I'm just trying to get back to, can we just run all year on points? That's, I'm getting more.

Like, I don't, I harp on here and I beat a dead horse. I hate the fact that, you know, we saw yesterday. Whoever won that race off pit road at the end of the race was going to win that race. If Bell comes off ahead of the five, the 20 wins. You know, the five wins the race because he came off pit road first. But I'm saying, but he came off a pit road first. If the 20, if the 20 comes off pit road first, does Larson ever see him again? I mean, I don't know.

That's a beauty. We don't know. Oh, yeah, I agree. Larson may have gotten by him and then maybe Bell's close. and he doesn't have to run them down from his far back. Obviously, he had a better long run car, right? But if that's Phoenix, the guy that wins the race off, head road is winning.

I think that I'm of the belief it needs to move around every year. I've been that way for a while. We're so limited on tracks that we can go to that time of the year also, that there lies the next problem, that you just can't go to enough places to really truly move it around. But I do think it needs to be something, kind of like a Super Bowl. It goes different places, different seasons. Well, thank you, of course, for stepping in for Brett because, I mean, you really stepped it up with our replacement.

Well, I don't know about stepping it up. I'm just sad. I didn't get to hear, you know, whatever Brett had to say today. He'll make sure he says it on Twitter later. Yeah, he'll be easy to find. Yeah, he'll get, he'll have no problem getting that out. He'll be back, unfortunately, is next week, I assume. But yeah, I appreciate you coming by. We've been talking about this for a while. I really wish it would have been that Monday morning. I probably would have said enough stuff to get myself fired if it would have been that Monday morning. On a hangover, I say stuff I probably shouldn't say. I would have been the only one in here feeling the way I did. But yeah, fun to have fun.

I appreciate you coming by. And we look forward to seeing everybody homestead. I don't know who, you truck racing this week? I think so. Yeah, I don't even know. I know. I know Greg got hurt the last race, so I don't even know who my driver is. Are you spotting for Dale?

No. I'm over that. Oh, okay. He's all growing up. Oh, retired. I'm so sorry. Retired for Spying for Dale. Yeah.

I didn't realize Dale was running this week. I forgot that. I mean, I'm not getting no gift card. I can tell you that. Joey, Joey Meyer is who's going to spot again. Same guy he ripped apart at Bristol a little while ago. We wrecked out and I flipped over and just sat there and smiled.

You know what that's like? I have a little bit of experience with it. By the way, my, my Iron Man is this weekend. Is it this weekend? This weekend. Shout out. Andrew. So you're going to slip me some...

I have to now change my one idiot because you're an idiot for running an Ironman. What do you consider it? Like doing an Iron Man? Because you don't run an Iron Man. You run, you do it. You participate in an Iron Man.

You run it. Like how you run a race. What happens after an Iron Man? Throw up. Like you do all just train and to get ready for it. Then what do you do? Like you finish it off and you're running. I can't wait.

Vacation. Like no more training. How long have you been preparing for this Iron Man? Like legit, I know you, I'm sure you got a regiment. Like, how long has this taken you to get ready for? I've stayed in shape since, I mean, January, but really diving into it, end of July, beginning of August. It's been nonstop since then. When would the three of us here have to start for an Iron Man?

And we'd have to start two years ago to even have a remote hope at it. I would just die. I'm not going to make it. Yeah. I mean, I could drown five feet into the swim. Like, yeah, I don't know. In five feet of water. You can put your feet down. No, I'm tired. I can't do it.

What is the Iron Man again? How many, how many miles and stuff? This one's a 70.3. So it's a 1.2 mile swim, 56 bike and a 13.1 run. One mile swim. Oh, there's a lot there that I don't like. If you download the Iron Man app, pick the Wilmington race. You can type my name in. And you'll get updates. What day is this? It's on Saturday. We're racing all this Saturday. Yeah, but it's supposed to be super. He's going to have these pills that blood flows.

Yeah. He's going to use TJ's cool shirt. Yeah, hopefully it doesn't swim on his back. Shark fan. DJ was over here doing the math trying to figure out if he could do an Iron Man. I don't know. Maybe I could do it. You also just told us you want a cool suit for the roof.

Yeah, man. I don't think you're doing an Iron Man, T-Jay. I told him I'm not doing an Iron Man for sure. I think I could do it, though. It's like five hours to say. It just take me a while. Yeah, it'll be like five and a half, five-forties, like the time I'm going for. sleep that long. So let alone, let alone try the bike.

Hikes 56 miles. Oh, God, yeah, that's too far. That's a lot. God, you know, sore. I'm not going to drive 56 miles this week. I know. I once, I did one half marathon, and by the time that was over, I couldn't move for a week. Literally could not move for a week. Everything hurt, and I was like, why would anybody put the body through anything more than this? So I had a really, I had a, no, you didn't run it with it. We did. We, we, spotter idiots. I had a really good half. marathon experience. So we go, no, Kansas. Oh. So Kansas, we all, there's like 10 of us to decide we're going to run a 5K. And you know what spotters look like. They look majority like more so me than

TJ. And Tyler's in good shape. He does all. Oh, Tyler was one. He was the ringleader. It was his fault. Tyler Green. So they're like, let's run this 5K. And I'm like, oh, what a terrible idea. But then Brett started doing it. So then it was like peer pressure, Dougie did it. There's a bunch of us. So we actually prepared for like probably a month or two months to like run a 5K. And I'm like, it's three miles. Like I could probably do three miles. I used to be athletic. It would be fine.

And so I end, we take off and there's a half marathon the same day. So it's a half marathon and a 5K in the same course. They just go out before us and then they kind of try to finish within an hour of each other, I guess. So I go out. I run about a mile and I hurt my, we all made the mistake. We were in Dover the week before and we ran on that track that's there, the, like the college that's across the street that Delaware stayed or whatever the hell it is. And three of us really had hurt our knees and somebody after with facts like, well, you shouldn't have ran on a

rubber track. And I'm like, well, nobody, I don't know anything. Nobody should have told me. Somebody should have told me this. I haven't heard that. So, well, okay, well, whatever. Like Tony, ex-Toney Hirschman about it because he got really injured. But he's also stupid. Like, we took off. I got about a mile in hurt my knee and I was like, well, I'm not, I have to go, it was a Saturday night race. So Saturday morning, I'm like, I'm not going to be miserable all day because my leg hurts. So I'm just going to walk the rest of this three. 5K. I would have used that excuse.

Yeah. So, so, Hirschman gets hurt like the same spot, like the same mile. And all you do with the 5K was you go up and turn around and come back. It was like a mile and a half,

whatever, turn around, come back. So I see Hearst coming back and he's laboring, limping, still running. I'm like, what are you doing? Just stop.

Like, don't hurt yourself. And he was hurt for weeks. You know, he hurt his knee really bad. But so my fat ass just goes, walking. I'm just walking now.

And there's a guy at the finish line with a microphone calling everybody out as they finish. And sure enough, I'm getting like from maybe a quarter mile away from the finish line. I hear like sirens and sirens and I'm like, what is that noise? And I look over my shoulder and here comes old boy leading the half marathon. And I'm like, oh, shit. So now I'm like step my pace up a little bit because I've got to beat this guy at least. So sure enough, sure enough, he beats me, right?

He catches me and goes by me right at the line. And the picture, it's him crossing the line and me sitting there feet too. I was like, yeah, fuck, I finished second in the half marathon today, guys. Look, I got photo evidence. The guys like, so-and-so wins the half marathon and Freddie Crabb from Morsville, North Carolina. What years is?

I don't even know. It was probably five, six years ago. I don't remember who I was spot for. Oh, yeah, we need to find that picture. Oh, I'm sure. It was the, I forget with Helen. The funniest part was, Tyler Green's like, we all had rules.

Like, are we going to run this 5K? And it was, yeah, I don't mind running a 5K, but it better be flat and straight. Like, I'm not. So he's like, oh, yeah, this one's, this one's, you know, no hills. Me and McMurray do it every year. I'm like, okay, cool. It looked like the, it was like a whoops section.

We were running up and down hills the whole. I'm like, I'm going to kill Tyler, by the way, the whole time. McMurray runs, he runs 12 miles a day just because he's bored. Just because he wants to. I see him out on Broadway School Road every morning. Every morning. He's literally 12 miles into his day at 6 a.m. I'm like, what the heck?

Oh, well, he has been nipple issues, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, now let's close up the show before we go. That's a real thing. Oh, I know. He went into it on detail. He has to run shirtless because he's got a nipple problem. Or you just put, never mind.

Okay. Band-Aids. Anyway. Thank you all so much for listening. I don't even know how to close this out because that was not expected. Have a great week. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening.

See everybody. See everybody homesaid. Thank you for coming to the live show. Hopefully we'll do that some more. And thank you, Regan. Yeah, I appreciate you coming by. Sorry if we got you in trouble. Check out Dirty MoeMov Media.

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