Door Bumper Clear - 324 | Richmond: ‘Jumpman’ Hamlin, A Questionable Caution & Truex's Tantrum

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Freddie Kraft, Brett Griffin, T.J. Majors, and Casey Boat recap all the action from Richmond. Did Denny Hamlin jump the final restart? Did the phantom caution for Kyle Busch’s wall rub kill everyone’s race strategy? What happened with Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace? Should we race on Easter Sunday? The hosts also highlight NASCAR Cup racing on an oval with wet weather tires for the first time ever and suggest that more tire wear would help at Richmond. Plus, will Bubba Pollard’s impressive Xfinity result open more doors in the future? Episode Highlights Brett: “Denny jump(ed)man!” Freddie: “Where’s the consistency?” Bubba Pollard’s up-and-down Xfinity debut Should NASCAR put more pressure on the TV networks? Brett: “If you want me to hear of you, run up front” Should SMT data be available to fans? Want more DBC? Check out and subscribe to the new DBC YouTube channel!  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 Dirtymoe Media. Still good. By one. No number dry, man. It'll come to you. Fall asleep on the gate out back. Keep coming top. Here.

Keep up in bottom three. Bottom three, right. Go, go, go, go, go, go. Bupper, clear. Still there, bumper, bumper, clear, clear, clear. Hey, everybody. Oh, what's up? Did I go too soon?

Sorry, my bad. Yeah, you did. Okay. Okay. That was well-plan. Good job. Freddy thought about that all night. It was all morning, really.

That was all morning, yeah. But anyway, I am T.J. Majors, and I spotted the 88 expanding car this weekend and the six cup car. What's up? Freddie Craves spotted for Bubba Wallace, Kyle Sieg and Doug Kobe this weekend. Did a little modified. Modified. What's up, Casey? Hey, guys.

Casey Boat here. And virtually joining us from some random house that has, what, turd and chickens or something like that. Where are you, Brett? I just popped a bottle of champagne, Brett Griffin. coming back full time into the Cup series starting this weekend. You know, where eight races in and some spotters just ain't making the cut. So I'm going to step up my game and I'll see y'all at Margin'sville, boys. Let me ask you a question.

You're in Myrtle Beach. You're in Myrtle Beach. I am. Do you think it's a good idea to drink champagne? No, because I don't usually do well in the most. But nonetheless, just popped a bottle. How well were you doing last night? April fools of all the holidays.

Brett, how well? well were you doing last night? I was doing really well. Mimosas at breakfast and a couple of cold beers on the beach and a couple of cocktails last night and man you guys, y'all, I'm glad you got to race last night. There was a point I looked at the radar

and I was pretty worried. Well, that pretty much sums up why your tweets were the way they were last night. Were you, I was Brett going nuts on Twitter again last night? I mean, he made a comment about like, oh, there's another commercial. This gives you a moment to like gather my thoughts.

And I was like, your thoughts are already all over Twitter. So not really sure you needed that one. But anyways, we are back from a, I don't even know how to call this race. It should be a pretty light episode. I don't know what you guys.

It's called Richmond. Richmond. Yeah. Listen, I mean, to Brett's point about the weather, I didn't realize it was going to rain. I mean, I don't think it was really going to rain that man.

Until Sunday morning I woke up and I was like, oh, it's definitely going to rain. There wasn't that big of a chance all week. Yeah. But like you saw that it was going to kind of blow out of there. I knew we were going to race at some point last night. But it also gave them an opportunity to go to that wet weather package, T.J. Yeah, which is always pretty exciting.

I almost wish we kept it on the whole race. Might have been a little bit better. I thought the wet weather stuff went really well. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was a step in the right direction. It definitely got the race started earlier. I think we were only like early 15 minutes delayed. I just wish we need to figure out a way to clean up the, the cautions.

You know, like, I didn't think, I was, I was asking about the tire wear because I know, like, we, the lap time started to level off around lap 25,

and that's when they immediately, like, there was really no warning for that comp caution. It was like, it's lap 25, we're throwing a caution at 30. You know,

I felt like we could have probably carried that on a little bit longer and got it a little bit drier before we went to the slicks, but that was the only beef that I had been, and then just the fact that we'd burn so many laps under caution,

you know, trying to dive-in road. So, I don't understand, I like the wet weather stuff. I thought it all went great. Everyone had way more grit than I think they thought they were going to have, which is good. So, because you don't want them all going there wrecking.

So, but I wish we could just transition into a dry. You know, they tell us from, instead of the 30 caution, just tell us, hey, you know, from here on out, it's a slick tire race. You pit when you want. I know we would have had to focus a little bit longer on pit road to get it dry, but to me, it should be choice at that point. Let me ask you this, T.J. because you're bringing up a great point, and I think a lot of fans, including myself and guys like Jeff Gluck, industry guys, our struggle was, man, we lost a lot of time waiting on that transition, and then we lost even more time at the end of stage one, waiting on another transition. So how do we fix that? Because obviously, it's easy

for us to bring a problem. What's the solution? And I mentioned last night on the teardown in the group chat, which I stayed up until one in the morning watching, should we have a you know, dry pit road speed and a wet pit road speed that is significantly lower that gives us the opportunity to come in and pit without having to stop the entire race and do what we did because I felt like as a fan, all the efficiencies we gained by starting the race kind of on time and with the wet weather tires, we lost waiting on those other two scenarios to play out. So, man, it was as great as it was to see them start and to see them two and three wide and racing their tails off.

We kind of lost all that momentum when we had to stop the race to change tires and then hold the stage in to let us not finish under green. I don't think you have to do a different thing. I think you just dry it more. I think, yeah, I think what they needed to do was, you know, let the teams dry the boxes while we're out there racing. You know, like they have, every team's got multiple fans in their box. Let them do that and just have non-competitive pit stops until I'd rather have a not,

I'd rather have them say pit road's open, non-competitive pit stop. You can do that in one lap versus we ride around there for six or seven laps while they make a pass down pit road. And then it's still a non-competitive pit stop, you know, at one point. So, you know, the second time they did it, they switched to a competitive stop. But I think you just like let the teams dry the boxes. The pit road, I mean, it was obviously wet, but, you know, you make a couple passes while we're out there parade last before the race. And then it is what it is and make it a non-competitive pit stop until you feel like it's dry enough to make competitive pit stop. I just think you're taking all the fun out of it at that point.

You're taking all the switching over, like dry pit road a little bit more, let the teams work on it, let the jet dryers work on it, the down draft thing. And don't let the transition happen itself. You know what I mean? But don't you need the caution lapse then for them to dry that portion of pit road with the cars were on while they were gridded? I think if you know, if you know we're going to have, you know, could have a possibility of a wet stop there.

I think the teams put more emphasis on it. And I think NASCAR puts more emphasis on it. if you're going to do that. Like they, they probably could have made one more pass at some point there and had a competitive pit stop then because that, them deals with the teams working on it and what they did to pit road. It worked really well.

So, but I, I don't want to stop the race at that point. I want to see who's going to chance, who's going to be the first one to come down and who's going to, who's going to take the leap? You know what I mean? Because we're all, I mean, that's, that's kind of tense right then because you don't know if you come out there and you're out stickers,

you're going to be, you're either going to be stupid fast for a little bit or you're going to be awful, but it's going to come to you. I think they're working in that direction. I think that they don't, you know, this is only the third time they've done this ever. You know, I think they're just trying to clean up and know what's what to expect before they, because I think Elton even mentioned it in his post race was, you know, they're working their way to this. They hope that one day they can be kind of like Formula One where it's, you know, you just come down pit road whenever you want and put tire, you know, wet, slicks, whatever you want to put on there. and do that way, which I think is obviously what we all want, but I can understand why they are a little timid to do it so far.

Here's my other question for you guys. We've all spotted and seen a lot of races. Tens of thousands of races between the three of us. Have you ever seen a slick tire ripping around a racetrack with a track still that wet? You know, I mean, I was curious when they threw the yellow because it was starting to change colors. You can see there was one lane that was drying up pretty good,

like a lane and a half, say. But I was like, man, it's, it's, I even talked to Bubba. I was like, do you think we, has a track feel. I said, run, you know, run the outside lane here because we were running second and it was going to be non-competitive, so I knew we were going to come off second. I said, do you think we need to choose behind Larson or is the top okay? And he said, now the top's fine. He's like, I think, he said, there's two lanes we could work with right now. So they were, Bubba was really confident. You've seen how hard they raced each other. Bobba and Larson really went at it for about five laps when I restart. And I mean, nobody was giving an inch really. So, I mean,

they were, they were confident enough about it to drive in there. So it seemed fine to me, but it look wet for sure. So it looks wet, and it is wet, but what I'm getting at is, man, we've spent all this time all these years trying to dry the racetrack 100%. And what I mean by that is the apron right up against the wall, the skid pads. Like, have we been excessive in our drying efforts? Can we go back green without having to track 100% dry? Because it sure as hell looked like it on TV.

I mean, I don't think the track was ever 100% dry last night. Right. It had those damp spots. At the end, the whole bottom of the front stretch was wet. It looked like Texas used to look when it would get wet. But then, to your point, if you, Brett, if they try to be a little bit less cautious on the drying up the track part, like at a larger track, would that cause more incidents? And then they'd be liable. And then you'd hear NASCAR or people talking to shit about that.

Like, I feel like it's a lose-lose scenario. Yeah, Casey, I don't think you can do it at a Texas. I don't think you can do it at a Pocono, at Michigan, or even a Charlotte. But I do think after what I saw last night, man, we don't have to have Martinsville, you know, Richmond, some of these tracks, 100% dry that are slower corner speeds anyway.

So, I mean, it was just really weird for me watching on TV, watching those guys go green to Freddie's point. Yeah, Bubba was on Larson's door. And, I mean, he was within a couple inches of being in the part that was too wet. But never in NASCAR history would we have. gone green with slicks on with a track that wet. So, I mean, when I watched the Kyle Busch thing play out, and I'm sure we'll get to that later, you know, does he even hit the wall if the track's not wet way up there?

So, man, what's the point? Like, we may as well just go green from now on. We don't have to have the track 100% drag. Yeah, for sure. Well, I know you mentioned this a little earlier. Tell us what happened between Bubba and Larson Freddie in that slow-key incident towards the end of the race. Oh, Bubba f*** up. I mean, he made a mistake.

I think he owned it after the race, and he made a mistake. He got loose. We were, we were, like, catching Larson for fourth, I think it was. And finally got a good run off of two, got underneath him in the three, and the two of them kind of, you know, they're both really hard-dose racers. They're both going at it. But, yeah, I mean, he doesn't need me to come on here and sugarcoat it for him. He made a mistake.

He knows he made a mistake. He went down to apologize to Kyle afterwards. My true ex is probably still pissed, which he has every right to be. But, you know, it is what it is. And, of course, like he said, karma bites us right away because it snowballs into a bad pit stop. And instead of a top five like we should have had, we end up with a 13th or, yeah, I think 13th. We come out 15th. So just a mistake that can't happen.

And we'll just learn from it and try to move on. But, yeah, it's just, you know, can't happen. Before we move on to additional topics, I feel like we could talk about this guy all day with some of the spot-on, spot-off topics and how the, finished turned out but Denny getting his fifth win at Richmond I mean Toyota obviously I feel like have the strongest cars is that is it safe to say that you know especially on a short track like this

they're the ones to beat moving forward you know obviously they were all pretty strong last night I think Truex the 20 Denny we were all we were pretty good you know they were all pretty strong Joey was really strong last night though Larsen was strong he kind of got burned by that caution and never really regain the lead again.

But, you know, moving forward, hopefully we just continue to get faster everywhere. It's like, like, we talked about at the beginning of the year, like, when you come out of the gate running as strong as you did at Vegas, you know, you hope to build off of that. And then that's kind of what we're, I hope that's what we're doing right now. Well, it should be interesting. Brett, I know you have shared your thoughts multiple times on Twitter. What did you think of the broadcast and how the race went from their perspective? You all know what kind of shoot anyways, right? Jump man.

That's what he did. He jumped, man. No, listen, the broadcast was a big miss at the end for me. It's very frustrating. You felt a lot like Daytona to be, you know, three and a half hours invested into a sporting event and to literally not get to watch the walk-off home run, which essentially is what we missed.

Instead of seeing the swing in the bat and the ball coming off the bat, all we see is the ball going over the fence, and we have no idea, you know, what pitch to pitcher through and what, did the hitter take an opposite field? Like, we literally went away knowing nothing. So I don't think the booth knew, to be honest with you, because they didn't bring it up. It was literally in Martin's interview

when the fans and the viewers were rewarded with what actually Martin was upset about, which was Denny jumped the restart in Martin's eyes. So, man, I give the TV a beat all night. I give it an F at the end. Very, very frustrating. I shared the link, obviously, with you guys this morning to make sure y'all saw what we all saw. We can't have people three and four hours invested into a broadcast to not understand

and know what happened at the end. Very, very unfortunate. I saw, I mean, they showed it once he, in the interview, they showed it. Yeah, after, they didn't show it live. That's five fucking minutes later, Casey. You got to be kidding me. You're ridiculous. No, he's not ridiculous.

You can, you cannot show the viewer what happened five minutes later. Oh my God, I can't believe you take that stand. When, well, I mean, we'll talk about it. All I was saying was that they showed it. I didn't say that they like. I don't see what the problem is. It was zoomed in on all the cars going through the middle of three and four when the race is going green. Got a good look at Casgraala as the race is green.

What's the problem? That part was a little bit of a struggle. The details are so nice in those cars and the cameras. I mean, I mean, Brad, I've seen a lot. And you're the only one. You and Casey, you guys are maybe anybody as much to chime in. Like, I just saw. nothing but complaints about the broadcast on my timeline last night when I got on the plane.

And it's, I mean, what I know we talk about commercials. Obviously, the camera angles we've harped on, Dale's jumped on it about, tight camera shots. Like, what, what is it like watching at home? Because I just see nonstop complaining about it. Oh, man. I mean, here's what I learned is there is no way that Clint Boyer and Kevin Harvick had any idea what happened at the end of that race. They were staring at a monitor. So was I.

and they were calling what they saw. They weren't looking out the window. You know, Jamie Little in her post race, she caught a lot of crap because she didn't ask Martin, you know, or asked any about jumping the restart. Well, she didn't know. She was probably behind a pit box watching on television.

She probably was not standing on the wall staring at turn four. That's how they consume it. They also have a little bitty monitors rolling around with the RF cameras. So, like, I think fans, you know, we're pissed off. And we should be. And we're pissed off at Clinton, Kevin. and we're pissed off with Jamie Little. It's not their fault because they're looking at the same thing you and I are looking at.

And it was not, despite what Casey said, it was not until Martin said, didn't he jump the restart, that they went back and had a replay they could lay in front of us. And honestly, Freddie, by then, old Brett Griffin watching in college, I would have already turned a TV off and went to a buddy's house. Like I wouldn't have still been watching post-race coverage. So we've got to clean that stuff up. Like I said, it was the Daytona 500, the end of the Daytona 500 this year all over again. super confusing.

Yeah. I mean, I just, it's, it's unfortunate because I mean, and it's, it's not just random fans that I see complaining about it. It's people that I know are really invested in the sport and really enjoy watching the sport. And they're just, they're like, man, this is, this is not good. It's, it's, it's really bad, actually, you know, it's so I just wish there's a way and I don't, I'm not trying to piss already off our buddy. But it's just, you know, it's got to get better. Well, I know we'll talk about the finish a little bit more later. TJ, before we move on to Spot on, spot off, what

was the Xfinity race like working with Bubba Pollard? Oh, Xenity Race was... It was a roller coaster day. It was up and down. We put a lot of work in during the week of going over things with Bubba just trying to get it, put into his head,

what the place was going to be like, what you have to drive it like, and it still was not what he was expecting, I don't think. But we started off good. He went out there and just kind of ran a normal, normal lap and in practice, he ended up being fast in practice. So it shows that he was already really comfortable with the track itself, but the way you drive the track and the way it falls off in the Xfinney race is pretty, it's a lot.

And I don't think he's, you know, at first couple of cautions, he's like, stay on me, you know, I need to go. I need to go a lot slower than what I thought I needed to go. He's like, I feel like I'm crawling, but I need to go even slower. And that's, to me, that's one of his strengths when he can figure that out. And he did figure it out. But to see him, you know, we got about 10 laps into the race and he passed a couple cars. And you could tell that he was getting more comfortable with where he could enter, where he could be, and where he was supposed to be on the racetrack.

But, yeah, he just adapted very quickly. And, you know, we didn't have the greatest stops all day. I think we'd get to, like, 15th and then would have, he hasn't had a lot. live pit stop really ever, I don't think. So that was all new to him. So we lost a little bit on the first stop. I don't think he was turning the wheel when they were trying to change the tire, which just doesn't usually end up very good. And then the second one, I just think we just had a bad stop. We lost four or five both times. But if he could have maintained that 15th, 14th, and then restarted there, I really feel like naturally without any other help or, you know,

different strategies he would have probably finished in the top 10 still. And maybe, he you know if that could have panned out a little bit or he might have had a shot at a top three because the the way the the strategy fell at the end we took tires on the last caution hoping there wasn't going to be another one that there wasn't but if there you know if one comes out we're in trouble but he did a really good job if there's another couple laps i think he gets around jesse love he was getting ready to pass him but he did a really good job of managing his car and racing the racetrack the last run which a lot of people at richmond especially in the xfinity series, they have a hard time doing. And that track was, it was pretty warm out, wasn't it?

Yeah. It was like, it was a good day for a race. A hot Richmond is a great racetrack. You know, anytime the sun's beanie down in Richmond or it's a little warm, that's a great racetrack, especially when you can spin the tires to the start and finish line, which I don't think. How happy were you when they told him to come in and get tires? Because I watched some other teams and organizations elect not to come get tires. When I spotted for new drivers, obviously Bubba Pollard's first ever Xfinity Series start, like you don't want to be on defense, man. You want to be able to go.

You got to, you had to be like stoked when they said, hey, Pitt, put four times on it. Yeah, I was kind of torn because he got stronger as the runs went on. And I kind of wanted to see it. I kind of wanted to see it play out and get some, you know, get some other cars that way. I knew we would get passed by cars with tires. but if we could have got, you know, three or four more cars naturally that were on our same sequence, and then the yellow comes out with 30 to go, we're literally going to be in the top five probably right then, and those other guys don't have any more tires.

So we're going to be on offense at that point. But, yeah, I know it worked out. I mean, you're kind of, you know, once we went back green, you're just praying. Once I saw the white flag, I was like, thank goodness, because even a green white checker with no tires. Like 15 broke or something like two ago. But at that point, man, Chandler had already lapped so many cars. He had laughed everybody to add tires. But still had tires laying.

And talk about fast, Freddie. I mean, obviously, you won this race a year ago with Chandler Smith. This kid's got two wins, you know, seven races into the Xfinity series schedule. It seems like him and Austin Hill are in a different zip code in that series. Yeah. I mean, Chandler is, obviously, we know how talented Chandler is, at least I do. I hope everybody else has already realized it. If not, you're getting ready to find out.

But, yeah, just in a fast race car, I mean, he was unbelievable yesterday. I think he was he was the best car. Him and Al Maraola were probably the two best. Almarolo seemed like he faded a little bit towards the end. Chandler came on stronger. And then they had that pit stop where they put tires on. And Chandler, I mean, he cut right to the field. And he was probably, I don't know.

I mean, he was back in the lead in probably 15, 20 laps like from the back. And then he took off and then, like you said, lapped up. I don't even know what it was, seventh or eighth or something like that. That's right in Chandler's. That's what he's really good. Yeah, that aggressive. You got to go right now.

I mean, honestly, kind of like truck series restart where you got to go. And he knifed through there and he got to lead and never looked back. I'll tell you who I was impressed with. And it kind of goes back to the Bubba who, like, you know, I really, I wasn't overly impressed well.

Like, I mean, he did a very good job. But like, it wasn't like he surprised me by any means because I think that's what he's good at. You know, he's good at managing tires. He's good at, you know, he's good at short track racing. But SVG, like SVG. He ran hard, yeah. Like he, and we always say like the road course guys

kind of lend themselves a little bit better to short track racing just because of the break. and stuff. But he ran around the top 10 pretty much all race. I forget where he qualified, but he seemed like he was up decent. And then they were a team that I didn't understand. Like you've got three cars kind of running in the same pack

between Josh, who Josh finally had a decent run. I think he finished 12th. Josh, AJ, and SVG all kind of were running together. Like, why didn't, why don't you know, bring one of them in and put tires on and let, you know, split your strategy and give yourself a chance, but either way, I didn't understand. But I thought I was pretty impressed with

SVG's first short track race. Yeah, what I saw with him was the ability to adapt and move around. Like, he didn't just run the same line. He was moving according to where the other chest pieces were going. And he was, a lot of guys get stuck in a rhythm, and they just stay in that same lane no matter what happens. And he was very versatile. And, I mean, he actually, I mean, he was holding off the other two guys there for a while.

I mean, we caught him, and we tried to pass him on the bottom. And, of course, we just passed 16. As soon as we got pinned on the bottom, here comes the 16, and backgroundly outside of us. And we were literally in a in a colloquy sandwich there for a while. But no, I thought SVG did a really good job adapting to the track and learning the techniques of passing and rolling up and turning down on the exits. He did a really good job with that stuff.

So now that we're a few races in, is it safe to say Chandler and Austin are the two favorites for the championship? Or do you think somebody else has a shot? I mean, everybody's got a shot. Justin's going to find his form eventually. So, you know, he's had some, you know, he's going to win Phoenix until the left for a tire blows out. You know, he'll find his way eventually. But, yeah, I think right now, if you had to ask me, Chandler, Chandler would be my pick to win the championship.

He's just, he's just got so much raw talent. And he's, you know, like the problem, Chandler's own, Chandler's problem is going to be, he can be his own worst enemy get sometimes. And he worries about stuff that he doesn't need to worry about. And if he can clean that up and not have mistakes like he made a Cota, he's going to be really hard to beat. That's going to be the thing with him. if he has any of those mistakes in the last eight races, Austin Hill is going to sit there and he's just waiting for it to happen. And, you know,

that moment where Austin Hill probably lifts and lets a guy go wreck himself or something and takes advantage of it, that guy right now, to me, still could be Chandler. You know, I think if Chandler, he needs to just control himself, like you said, at the end of races or whatever the – is just worth it? You know, is going for fifth or wrecking, you know, better than, you know, than seventh or whatever.

So I don't know. I think that's, I guess we'll tell. Time will tell. A big race within the race this weekend for Xfinity, too. Obviously, Casey's very tied to that program. But $100,000 to the highest finishing qualified driver, that is a massive payday for teams and drivers in that series. These guys can't usually go out and win the race and win that kind of money.

So, man, it really adds a lot to the show. And there's four really good drivers going for this hundred grand. Yeah, on that note, let's make picks for this weekend's Sash for Cash Race. I believe it is Chandler, Eric, Jesse, and Parker. I think I should get to go first since I'm so good at making picks lately. Of course. Who is taking that 100 grand home? I'm going to go with, I'll go with Chandler Smith.

I mean, look, I spotted for him last year, literally one year ago this past weekend. And after the race, I called Chris Rice, and I said, man, this kid. has got it like this dude can flat out race and he was the highest finishing colleague racing driver in his cup series debut you know he beat the other two cars that night um since then chaylor and i became good friends i've started helping him with some business stuff and actually started managing him in his career so i would be very hypocritical to pick anybody other than my guy chandler smith i mean you obviously can't yeah you obviously won't be picking he's my guy fred he was my guy yesterday Hopefully, unbelievable.

That's why I don't want to kick Bubba's ass. I don't know how you don't go there. But yeah, I said Eric would probably be my pick. Chandler, like last time we were here, he had to decide he wanted to get in a pissing match with Jeff Burton all night. So he's got to avoid that this time around. But, yeah, I mean, Eric, like so many years of experience at Martin'sville, he's going to be hard to beat, I would think.

So both of you guys are picking Eric. I don't know how you go against. Yeah, you can. I mean, who was the other one? Jesse and Parker. I'll take Jesse just for fun. Jesse's probably going to run into some. but we'll be fine.

Jesse put together a good race. Yeah. He fell back a little bit. I guess he gets top five, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's good. I mean, he's done, he's actually done, I don't know, I shouldn't say I was not expecting a lot out of him because I had hold him in high regard and I want him to do well.

But he's, he's outperform my expectation so far. Well, he also reminded me that it's about 148 steak, 48 dinners. So if he does win, dinner for a few weeks, we'll be on him. I've seen he was there last night. Yeah. I think he moved there. I think he moved in. I wouldn't be surprised if Chad will be there with him this week.

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Spot on, spot off. Spot off. Spot on. Spot on. It was super fun yesterday. Right around, Aaron. I am spot off. Damn.

Where do you come from? All right, let's move on, this spot on, spot off. The first topic, NASCAR should have allowed teams to choose when they switch between wet weather tires and slicks. Freddie. I mean, spot on, I want it to go there. I want that to happen. I want that to be the case. I don't have a problem with them.

This is the first time NASCAR Cup Series points race with this process. I don't really have an issue with them not doing it that way. But eventually, yes, I want the decision to be in the team's hands. I'm spot off because teams are going to pick the fastest tire. NASCAR just went ahead and picked it for them by saying, hey, we're switching over to slicks. What I am even more spot off for is the fact that NASCAR stopped the race at lap 30 to determine that. I'm on TJ's side with what he said earlier. Let the teams decide when they're going to put on the slicks.

and leave it up to them. Don't throw a full course yellow to do it because it negates everything that we've all gained. I mean, you watch it Justin Haley and Clinton, Kevin, man, they had full bone, I mean, especially Clint. He was so excited for all the dirt racers that were doing so well when the track was wet. Like everything they had gained was negated

when the caution would stop and equal opportunities were given to put, you know, the faster tire on. So I'm spot off all around the way that played out. Is it the faster tire? You know, like, who knows? But that's the strategy. of it, right? Yeah.

I mean, I think that's what comes in the play, though. We'll never know, Freddie. We'll never know. I think that is a, I mean, we learned how to run, we learned how to run, you know, 40 laps at Bristol. We turned that into 70 or 80 eventually. And I don't see why, I don't see how the Cup teams, there's no way I don't think we couldn't handle or manage the situation. If you feel an issue, you hit pit road.

Or, you know, you ask your spot or, hey, does, how's the track look? am I you know is it dry enough do you think i mean that's something that can come into our play as well you know if we have to be on top of things like that we're going to have to get good at knowing when it looks good enough to put them on and keeping your driver in the where he needs to be on the racetrack so i i think the cup teams can definitely manage it i just think we need to make sure pit road safe enough for it to happen and i would put more emphasis on dry and pit road before you go green so that it can naturally transition into a wet to dry race. And I think it would be a lot of fun, the unknown.

Yeah, I didn't understand why, you know, it's raining and the cars are in the garage. And then as it starts raining, they push out to pit road. Like, that's a time I feel like, like, leave the car or stage the car somewhere else so you can just work on the road the way, you know, we need to have that. Because that's the whole problem is the cars are on pit road so they can. can't dry it while they're doing pre-rade stuff. And then that's why they got to kill all that time while we're rolling around before the green and then under them cautions.

So I feel like maybe is their way to stage on the front stretch or whatever it is, like leave pit road open and be able to dry it the whole time while we're working there. They have enough, the equipment they have, if they made three passes down pit road as we're doing our first pace laps and got it really dry. And if, you know, if we say, hey, guys, cover your stalls up. This is, you know, this could go from a wet. We're all going to have our stuff covered. Yeah.

No problem at all. But like you said, though, if we learn how to maybe park the cars a little bit better, or even if we leave them there, sometimes there's dry spots underneath the cars. You know what I mean? So get them out there, let them run 10, 15 pace. So they have to get the pit road dry. So when we go green, we're going green. We don't have this.

Okay, we're switching. I mean, I don't know. I just think it would be a pretty natural transition if we made pit road safe. Yeah, because that's what they said on the radio. The reason, the caution came out at like 65, right? 65, 64, something like that. And we were going to 70 for the stage. And immediately they said that, you know, they're bringing the Titans out to dry it and or the jets to dry pit road.

And the reason they gave was because they were putting the slicks on and now they were going to, they're going to open the potential up. Guys were going to pit, like certain strategies, you were going to pit 40 or 50 laps into a run. So, you know, they knew the opportunity was going to come up to. to have a green flag pit stop fairly soon. So they wanted to make sure they dried it right then and there. And we're going to be able to switch to competitive pit stops right then and there. So that's why we killed that time also.

It still was a little damp. It was still pretty wet. That's what I'm saying. Like it wasn't much different than that last 30 deal. You could see the jets. The jets would go by and like normal Brett, you know, if you've seen this before. Like they would dry a streak and then as soon as they were kept rolling another 100 feet, that streak was back, you know, the different color.

Yeah, it was just like damp in the air. Yeah. And it wasn't, we raced on that on the racetrack with no problem. Yeah. Yeah. So, listen, I think that, and we would have been, listen, we can talk about all we want, but like if, if they did just say, hey, you know what, you guys come down pit road and do whatever the hell you want, like, and somebody slid and killed the barrels at the end of pit road because the pit road was wet,

we'd be the first ones on here to kill them because they shouldn't have done that. And so I think the first time around, first oval, I think, you know, if this is a road course, they've seen, they've showed that they're going to do this on road courses and let us, and let us, you know, pick what we want to do. We've already done it at Walkins Glend. Yeah. So, you know, it's, it is what it is. But I think, I think for the first time,

the first oval points cup race, I had no problem, really. With the format, I just wish it wasn't so drawn out. Did they have any communication whatsoever with the teams when they made that decision to switch the tires up? They announced it. Oh, they didn't, like, evaluate with drivers of Hayes. Oh, they would ask, two or three times, you know,

what are the drivers sink? and there was, I don't think I saw any thumbs down. No, yeah. All the drivers. The drivers are ready. So I didn't hear any driver or anybody go complaining saying, hey, I don't think it's safe enough. And we saw guys get out of the groove and go all the way up by the wall and still not wrecked. So I think the track had plenty of grip in it no matter what.

Yeah, you could see. I noticed, you know, when we had that restart and Bubba and Larson were racing the hell out of each other, there was one time where Larson, like, we finally got up just like a quarter car with higher. and I could see the right sides touched where there was a little bit of color change and we got loose. You know, we got loose off of four. But that was, you know, lane and a half two lanes, like two and a half lanes on two and a half lanes all the bottom. But you're also getting after. But yeah, he's also on the edge of pushing trying to get the lead.

So but, yeah, there was really no issues whatsoever from what I saw. Another controversial topic from that race, the phantom caution for Kyle Bush scraping the wall killed race strategy. T.J. Spot on, spot off. Yeah, I would, I mean, when they called the call it the call. and I expected look back there and see a car wrecked and that wasn't the case. So I don't know. I think with the weather and the track being a little bit damp still, I'm guessing that's why they were probably a little bit on edge.

Well, I'm just saying, I mean, it did rain a little bit when we were so out there, but I'm just saying like, was it raining when he wrecked? No, it was not raining when he wrecked. But I'm just saying the way the event was going, they don't, I don't feel like they were on with having non-competitive pit stops. I don't feel like they were pushing it. But I don't think it should have been a caution. Brett.

I'm spot off for it, man. It's completely screwed up an organic strategy process playing out. I mean, listen, he hit the wall harder than Haley Deegan hit it. But Dale Jr. said on the show, on our show, a couple weeks ago, that we need to take into consideration which series it is when the caution is thrown. And this was just a little bit worse than Haley Deegan's. The driver drove off. I watched it very closely as he drove off.

off his right rear. There was no debris coming off the car. There was obviously nothing coming off the wall. He didn't hit it hard enough. So this was one of those deals where they were they were button-happy, jump-happy. And man, they let him far, far, far worse, not cause a caution to throw a caution for that. Freddy's spot-on, spot-off. What do you want me to say here?

He slowed down to it on same break. I mean, you haven't kept quiet before. I mean, I saw, I don't know. Two weeks ago, guys creeping around there, that's no caution. This guy goes up. I watched that because, like, I don't know where you were at on the racetrack, but I seen him get loose into one or whatever he did, and he chases it up, in the wet.

And we've seen it before, even when it's not wet, TJ, you get, once you get up high enough in Richmond, like, it's, you're just kind of along for the ride until you can get to get back underneath you. And I just watched him kind of just skate up the racetrack and brush the wall. And as soon as he touched the wall, put it out. And I was like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. Yeah. Like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, but listen to Brett's point, I mean,

I'm sorry, Dale's point in last week or two weeks ago, whatever it was. It was a different race director last night. We had Tim Berman instead of just on and, and maybe that's just the difference in somebody pushing the button and not pushing the button, but you can't honestly tell me that that needs to be a caution and the 77 doesn't need to be caution. I don't give a shit which way it is, but it's one or the other. Like, all we ask for is fucking consistency and we cannot get it. And the only way, and maybe it's to Dale's point, we need one guy in the,

booth to do it. And that's, that was David Hoots 10 years ago. And maybe that's what we need to get. But obviously, I know they want to train other people. You want to have multiple people that can do the job. But this is the problem when you have multiple people to do the job. Nobody knows when the fission is going to come out. And you talk about, and you talk about, you know, we talked about it last week. You didn't want to throw it during a pit cycle. Well, that is going to be the most exciting part of the race right there. Because now you've got guys on different strategies. TJ, I think you were one of the ones that pit like 40, 50 laps into a run, right so you're going to you're going to you're going to two stop that strategy guys like larsen us other guys

are going to one stop it so now you know we're in position to now we're making time on the guys that pit already they're getting ready to pit again and probably another 10 laps or so so now they're going to flip it and come back and start chasing us down that's going to be the most exciting part of the race because at that point in stage two nobody really knew exactly what the best strategy was and that was going to play out organically and then whatever anybody saw the results of that that's how they were all going to run stage three where there's going to be two stop or one stop. And now you throw a bull-hick caution in the middle of that and ruin what was going to organically be the most exciting part of the race, just watching these guys pit again in about 10 laps or

whatever it was, and then try to chase Lars and us and the 48 and guys like that down. I mean, it didn't really ruin our race. Our car had enough speed to get back up there and mix it up. It killed Alex Bowman's day. He was going to run probably top five in that stage and we never saw again because he had to take the wave around on that caution and, you know, so like I just don't understand. I'll never understand it, but it is what it is. And I guess consistency is just completely out the window. Another topic from yesterday, and this is probably one we'll spend most of the show on, spot on, spot off. Denny jumped the final restart. Brett, I'm afraid to start with you, but I will. You don't know. He didn't see it. He made sure he did after

because he tweeted out a million times. Go ahead, Brett, jump on this one. Freddie, that was funny. Man, dude, this is a freaking debacle we're in now because Josh Wise thought he'd chime in and say, oh, it's a soft box. It ain't a hard box. You can still kind of go whenever you want. They're going to give you some leniency. And so I don't know how Josh interprets boxes these days, but when I look at a box, you have a firm in and a firm out. And I am on the fence here.

actually I'm not on the fence. I know that Denny went before he was in the box. There is no doubt about it. He went early. When you watch Martin Zincar, he went early. When you watch the TV replay, five minutes after the race was over, he went early. When you go back on my Twitter timeline right now, he went early.

But we talk about this all the time. At the end of the day, Denny Hamlin, kissed the girl, got the trophy, and went home the winner. So, man, NASCAR, I don't know, Freddie, man. What do you think? I'm hearing some crazy shit on NASCAR right now. Danny, listen, Danny's so great, he can, he can form his own box if he wants to. You know what I mean?

Like, he'd go wherever hell he was. He could have took off a middle of a backstretch for all I care. No, he definitely jumped to start. I mean, it was pretty obvious watching it live and then going back and see the replays. And TJ's got some points he can make here in a minute because I know he went back and kind of looked at more of the SMT than I did because I went to bed last night. But yeah, to your point, Brett, I don't think this is over yet. I think that there's some, there might be some interesting news coming out. tomorrow in the penalty reports about this.

But yeah, just some rumors that were flying around the group text. And that is how rumors get started this morning. But it'll be interesting to see. But I mean, like we talked about unprecedented with Bubba. If what I'm hearing is true, it's definitely to be unprecedented for sure. But TJ, now to your point, TJ, he took off early, right? I mean, I don't think there's a doubt in the mind that he took off early. Was there a reason he took off early?

So I don't think you can flag any for it because. you know obviously SMP doesn't show the restart zone so you can't tell and leader fires first so he's the leader of the race so you can't tell obviously he did fire first but if you watch even martin's in car camera martin's laying back and i don't blame and if they go into turn one martin's getting ready to time that restart perfectly for the restart zone like i mean we go another half of car length martin's probably even with him at the line and maybe even have a tire in front of they go into the if they go into the first corner and martin's got his left front in front of Denny's right front. Denny's not winning that race. So it's just two guys,

two veterans playing the game with each other. And we're supposed to be, when you come to that line, you're supposed to be even up. I mean, that's what they say all the time, even on the front row, right? Martin's not even. So I don't, I don't, you know, I don't blame Denny for going early because Martin's is creating an advantage for him as the P2 car. And if then he gets into that restart zone at all. Martin's going to have a time drive. So you're saying he laid back on that restart causing Denny to almost jump it. Yeah. If you remember last year, I forget what track it was, but Danny, somebody, Danny was running third or fourth new tires. Maybe it might have been Kansas when Reddick won. You know, Denny's, Danny, somebody behind Denny was laying back, maybe Larson.

And Danny, like, tried to combat that by laying back with him and it screwed him. Like, he ended up not getting a good restart. The guys in front of him got away and he, and it cost himself a chance to win the race. And, and it, and it cost himself a chance to win the race. and at this point, like I think a lot of times you'll hear, you know, veteran drivers say, you know, if you want to take, if you're the leader and you've got the control car, if you're the control car, you want the advantage, go as early as you can because that gives you the control of the restart like you've earned. You know, I feel like the later you wait in the box unless you start playing games with slowing down and stuff, you know, that doesn't work. You're inviting the guy to, you know, to have a chance. The earlier you can go, the better. This was probably pushing it.

But if he sees him laying back, he's not going to give him the opportunity to what's going to happen. is Martin's rolling laying back so he can roll to the line with more speed. One mile an hour faster is all fixed. And then that's just only going to accelerate more and more as you get down further down the straightaway. So yeah, if that's what he did to combat it, I don't have a problem with it. But at

the same time, we have rules for a reason. And he definitely... But if you're going to fight Denny, do you have to fly Martin? That's my question. So I know NASCAR has tried to enforce laying back on restarts. Is that something where they just felt you know, both of them were almost at fault and they just let it go?

Or is that something NASCAR should have really faulted them both? It's possible. It's possible that they, but, you know, I don't know. You're drawing a pretty hard line on the same with laying back. And I think they're both at fault right here. And they both try to create an advantage for themselves. And one guy's madder didn't work and the other guy's happy it worked. And, you know, we're all sitting here looking at Denny and saying he's John.

But are you self-policing this if you're in NASCAR by, disqualifying Denny Hamlin is the winner because y'all are fussing about Martin laying back. You're saying Denny went early. Two wrongs don't make it right. But the guy, Joy Legano, who finished second, would be declared the winner if they had disqualified. I think both wrongs made it right. And Martin addresses himself. I hear you from the world that we live in.

You're saying it's okay that Martin laid back and it's okay that Denny went early and Denny Hamlin deserved a win. As a fan watching on TV that has come over because you watch the Netflix show that does not think, you know, a three-pointer is a three-pointer when the toes on the line. Why do we have a box if we're not going to enforce going inside of the box? We have too many fucking rules as it is. And we go back to what Caitlin Vitsy said a year ago on our podcast, which is it's really hard to be a NASCAR fan to keep up with all the rules. If you're a fan and you're watching this on television, this is a missed call by NASCAR.

I'm not saying they should or shouldn't have called it because God almighty, we open up Pandora's box on these restarts. But it is a black and white zone, and he clearly went before the zone. So if Martin does that ends up getting the lead from it, do you black flagged Martin after he wins the race from the outside from laying back? Well, I'm just, what I stated was a fact, which is you said Martin was laying back. We all agree Denny went early. If you black flagged Denny for going early, it fixes itself. if Martin isn't going to win the race because he finished third or fourth or wherever he was at pissed off. I think if Martin's door-to-door with him right there and then he takes off early, I think they call it.

But yeah, I think it was pretty obvious that Martin's laying back a little bit. And I mean, I'm not, I don't know. It's hard to. Listen, it's hard. Listen, you got 45 seconds from the time he goes. You don't even have 45 seconds. You've got 30 seconds from the time he goes to say that he went too early and he's black flag. And from what TV told us

later, they never said the restart was under review. Was it under review on your NASCAR channel? No, I don't know. I was three wide. Yeah, I wasn't listening to anybody. Like I said, this is a sticky, sticky, sticky

situation. And I think, Brett, like, to your point, I think that's why we may hear something tomorrow, because I think maybe they could go back and look at it and decide whatever action they're going to take. So we'll see what that is tomorrow. I think on, but on Super Speedways, right? Like if a car goes below the yellow line, they've disqualified a driver rate after

the finish. So they technically could still do it, right? Not late. No, I don't think they could take it away. But I mean, I think at this point, I think the wind's going to stand, but it'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow. It might be expensive. Another expensive trip for Denny.

Denny's going to love this show. Right now, Jeff Gluck's poll is at 52% say yesterday was a good race and 48% say no. If the drama between Denny and Martin

didn't happen, do you think the tables would have turned and it would be an absolute no. Let me ask you this. What would the percentage be if Martin won? 60-ish? I don't think it's a big change. I think it is. So you don't

think the race was I mean the race was, I'm sure it was very boring. Throw out the ending. That race was not very good. Yeah, I don't like it. It was fine for me. I enjoyed it because we were pretty good. And the same kind of those Phoenix.

I told about like, you had a good car. You probably enjoyed that race. We had a good car so we could pass people. Josh Barry was pretty good. He could pass people. You know, you guys were getting up in there.

I still, you know, but you literally drove as hard as you could almost every lap still. I mean, you ran. That's not good. Driving like. As hard as you could. You didn't have to manage anything. You went as hard as you could.

Oh, you're just saying you just drive. Yeah. I mean, he was not. strategy. There's no I mean, I mean, there's definitely fall off and there's like that was the problem. That's why I'm so mad about that caution because I thought that was going to be a really exciting second half of that second stage and it just got ruined.

Then you put, you put tires on everybody's car and and now would say a thing. We'd like go back to running as hard as we can. There was fall off, but there wasn't enough because we, we went pretty hard near the end there and we fell off, but they couldn't pass us. Yeah, no.

And it was Josh Barry. He couldn't get around us. It was the same thing. it was the same thing for us we at i don't remember when the hell it was maybe the end of the second stage we were we would stay two car lengths behind byron for 40 laps and then finally we're like five to go into stage we got away from them we got around them and drove away by yeah half a straightaway straight away in that five lap there was no management of anything you could probably put any you could take the top 20 guys in this series and put them in each other's different cars and it's going to run

in the same spot they're going to run to the max of that car you know there's no hey i shouldn't spend the tire right here. It's got I'm going to pay for it later. There was none of that in my opinion. Yeah. I didn't. Like I said, that's what was so aggravating about that caution because I thought that was going to be a really exciting part of the race to see how it played out. It got it got taken from you. Martin Shurex Jr.'s tantrum toward Tamlin and Larson was justified. Spot on, spot off DJ. I didn't really know what was going on. I looked at it down in turn one. I saw smoke and I just and I'm like still spotting at that point. I'm like, watch what's going on our funny. I don't know what's usually when the check of flight comes out.

Everyone just kind of slows down. And I was looking down there's smoke billowing stuff. And I mean, he was mad. I don't, I mean, Martin probably should have won that race. I mean, I think that was more of his race to win the second half there. But some circumstances happened. I think he feels like it got taken from him. But that's racing.

I mean, I completely understand why I see all I'm getting a lot of shit for being a cry baby and whatever last night. I was like, he should be mad. He was going to win the race. He was going to win the race. Then yellow comes out.

He gets beat off pit road. Probably makes him matter. Danny jumps to start probably makes him matter. Then he goes into one. And the one thing I didn't agree with, or actually two things I didn't agree with him. I know he's just mad after the race and he's kind of venting. He's probably mad at Bubba.

He's mad at Danny, you know, whatever. But, you know, he goes into one. If you watch the replay, of the restart. You know, they get the, and he's on Denny's quarter as tight as he can into one and running him kind of down the racetrack.

And then Danny washes up into him, like, what did you expect? Like, you've got him so low on entry. Like, I don't think he had a choice, but to, you know, if you enter on the bottom of one or two, especially driving through a little bit of wet patch down there against the wall, it's probably not going to go well.

But then down the backstretch, he just hangs the left on Larson. Yeah, it's a last lap. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But then like last lap, he's, you know, down to the backstrap, he hangs a left on Larson.

So Larson, like, I don't give a shit I run him in the fence down the front stretch And he's mad about that too So I mean, I know he's just mad And he's just angry at that point But I also don't like running into people Under the Yellow or after the checker Like not afterwards. It's just not safe.

You don't know who's got their belts undone Or I know they're not supposed to but they do There's cars. I mean, I don't, if I'm on the inside of you And we're going to turn one, I'm probably going to wash up a little bit too That's why we talk about like if you Short Track Racing

True's rule You know, I don't care what the lanes are You know, what's planes but better If you give somebody the bottom them on a green white checker at a short track, you're asking for something like that to happen. And again, I didn't think it was so egregious that it, you know, it didn't knock Martin back five rows or nothing. That's why the restart is so important. That's why Martin laying back a little bit is so big because if he gets a foot in front of Denny's tire,

or even if they're dead even in the corner, Denny can't hit right front to left front. He'll rack on the inside. So if Martin can create a little bit of advantage right there, like one foot and he's going to beat Denny. And to your point, if he does get that nose out, like, what's he going to do? He's not going to give him room down there. You know what I mean? Like, he's going to be on his door. Then he's going to have one car with him like two inches.

Yeah. So, you know, it goes both ways. But I get why he's mad because he's mad because of what happened with Bubba. He's mad because he was going to win the race. Yeah. And an unnecessary caution came out. But then after that, you know, that's just racing, I think. Brett.

He had three things go really, really wrong. You know, Bubba, Rick Larson. And man, I was even- Sput him out there. That was, well, it drew a caution, which I was literally sitting there watching. And I'm like, man, is this really caution worthy? He spun him down.

There's nobody in harm's way. He's continuing on. But nonetheless, that caution clearly brought out the pit scenario. Martin Truex didn't win the pit scenario. Martin Truex didn't win a restart scenario. Martin Truex didn't win any scenario that helped him win the race at the end after leading over 100 laps. So every single frustration that Martin Truex felt he absolutely deserved to feel that way.

I couldn't imagine being him as crew chief, his spotter, sucks for his pit crew because obviously they got their butts kicked on pit road on that one stop. And man, that's all it takes. I mean, there's Denny Hamlin riding around. You know, Denny was running 18th early in the race. Nothing great. Next thing you know, you look up in he's six. Next thing you know, you look up in his third.

Boom, the caution comes out. Booms, he comes out with a lead. And it's like, man, this guy's on track. And luck beating him and you don't beat him. So Martin 100% deserves to feel the way he felt. Him and Larsen in a piss and match was just all those things that mounted up. So that's what makes NASCAR great. That's what makes 48, 49% of the people vote this was a good race

because, you know, I liked the race at Richmond. I thought it was an okay race. It wasn't any better than Phoenix, if I'm being honest with y'all. But that certainly helped people vote, yes. The two shoutouts, I always say that Denny's great. If I continue to say Denny's great, I'm going to have to say his pick crew is, I don't know, phenomenal, marvelous, terrific, whatever the fucking adjective is. Their three, their stops last night.

The last stop was 8.69. It was like a second fashion and true X's. 9-1-87-8-8-4-88 were there competitive pit stops. Holy shit. Like, that's unbeatable, really. I mean, it's ridiculous. And then Gay Park, you know, you talk about, you know, Danny running mid-pack. I think the 11 was the first one, one of the first ones to come in that state.

and we were going to, everybody's deciding whether it got, you know, two stop or one stop. He was one of the first ones to come. So that jumped him, some of the track position there. And then, I mean, he makes a call that I didn't even, not that I didn't agree with because he knows a hell of a lot more than I do. But, you know, he stayed out long. And, you know, he pit probably 10 laps after us on that last pit stop. And I was like, man, I don't know, is 10 laps really going to make a difference? And he f***ed us down from a, like, I don't know, over a straightway back, went right by us, ran the two lead.

He ran Larson down and ran the leaders down. Then he kind of stalled out a little bit there. But, I mean, just like he was going to run fourth or fifth and was easily going to run third. So, I mean, Greg Bar just called a great race to put him in that position. The Pitts crew does enough amazing job to get him to lead. And then he capitalizes on it. You very have a good point, though, right there, Freddie.

Like Martin Truex essentially lost the lead of the race to Kyle Larson on pit road earlier in the night. And he went in, man, and just dive-bombed him and retook the lead, which we didn't think was necessarily going to be easy given how important, you know, clean air is there. So I think all those things just add to Martin's fire of why he was so upset. I mean, he was deservingly going to win the race

until you read Kyle Larson. So congrats, Freddie, for fucking up the whole thing. My bad. Your point around pit crew members, obviously Denny and Martin, our teammates, you know, is there drama or what is it, like, on the JGR side, like having to pick your pit crew members. And obviously Martin's probably not thrilled that, you know, his pit crew wasn't as quick

as Denny. And I'm sure there's more to it between Ty and Christopher as well. How does that work? I mean, I just think that them guys are clicking. You know, you move parts and pieces around just like any other sport. You know, some guy, you know, it's not always the whatever it is. Danny's also the flagship guy over there. He's been there the longest.

He's got the most wins, I think, I'm sure. You know, so if you're if you're seating it and you've got full. four great pick crews, I would imagine, the best one goes to your guy that's been there the longest and goes down from there, however you want to do it. But I don't know that it's necessarily like the five best guys they've got are Denny's guys. I think it's just the way they line up and click with each other. You know, they weren't, I'm assuming these are the same guys as last year. I don't know that for a fact. But they, you know, they weren't like this last year, but they, this team this year is unbelievable. Like they do it every week, it seems like.

So for them to shine right here and get him to lead and him to capitalize on it, just furthers the point of they've been easily the best picker on the road this year. Wouldn't it be great if we all had a voice in our head telling us when a pothole was coming up or helping you parallel park without curbing a tire? You know, like having one of us in your ear each time you drive. Your very

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I bet they hate my guy. For you. For me. Damn. Just damn. That is the first time I think I've ever seen somebody throw a bumper. My God. Amazing.

I saw him. I didn't know what he was doing because I saw him, you know, last week or a couple weeks ago, Justin wrecked. And I saw Justin take his bumper cover and, like, launch it into his own back window. Just because he was angry at Phoenix when his car wrecked, you know, the tire blew out and he caused him to win. but he yeah when I saw him walking down the track I'm like what is he just taking that back to the garage with him because I didn't think anybody was stupid enough to actually go back towards cars again but he was but it was funny because I've actually had experience of this quitting quitting this exact team for for reasons where your driver might do something stupid or say something stupid and I thought I got this audio from the their spotter who actually I think he quit midrace or I think he quit might be right here so it goes on for a while I don't have it's it's not cut clean enough for me to But he did. It goes on for a while. He makes sure he lets Dawson know that that was pretty much the dumbest thing he's ever seen.

And I didn't get to see it live or I didn't get to see a reply. I guess he just went in there and wiped them out. I didn't. Did you see it? Joey slid up in front of him off of a term four kind of in Dawson's got in him right around before the start, finish line. And the rest is a bumper cover. Let me tell you what I called a bunch of shit for.

I had never heard of Dawson cram. Freddie, I know that it's not across you knowing that it's me. But I tweeted that I never heard of the driver. I've never heard of the spotter and I've never heard of the crew chief and people like, oh, you're an idiot. Joy Gase has been around forever. Well, I wasn't talking about Joy Gase.

I was talking about the clown that brought out in the cost. Who the guy is the guy that wrecked Joy Gase? But man, now I have heard of Dawson Cramm. People said he had 50 starts and by 50 starts, I thought they meant Xfinity starts. Turns out he had like 16.

But when you have zero top tens in your career and you've been riding around in the back, I'm not going to have heard of you. People are like, oh, you've got to pay more attention to the little guy. I don't have to pay attention to shit. I pay attention to what I want to pay attention to, and it's people that run up from. Let's move on to the next goal.

Hey, Freddie, I guess this one's for you. I'm not really above a fan. Don't mind him at all. Not my guy. But my four-year-old sitting here with me for probably the first time ever watching a race, and he recognizes this McDonald's car battling Kyle Larson. What do you say, buddy? Go McDonald's go.

Go McDonald's go. There you go, Freddy. You've got a fan, I guess. There we go. Happy meals. Was that before? That must have been the early Larson battle, not dealing one. I was hoping for more of Freddie, you're an idiot.

That kid was MFing us later, probably, for costing his buddies's race. You guys, KJ majors especially, you and bubble-powered were such a great duo. You ran through Richmond like it was nothing, man. And the way you, like, settled him down and told me like, hey, that's no problem. Keep going. That's how you roll, man. I can't wait to see what Bob Pollard does after this. And I can't wait to see who else is in that 88 car.

And I'm especially intrigued about North Wilkesboro with Butterbean and the 03. Blake, was this you? I mean, yeah. He's obviously a late model fan. Brettie was just calling about Bubba's Good Run. how great TJ is, which that guy must be drunk. TJ is so great. They moved them to part-time in the company.

TJ chose part-time over full-time. Just see you know. Look who's talking, Brett. I don't know if y'all can see my face right now, but I'm laughing so hard. I can't see you think that. But, yeah. Maybe we should, I mean, that 88 car is running again this week. It was driving this week.

Carson Cople. That's right. Carson, Yeah, that'd be a good one. Missing a Cars Tour race. I think he's a big deal. At Hickory for it. You think so?

I do. I know you watch a lot of cars. I was going to say, is this the Arcor race that you spotted her? It's all my homework. I know you catch up. I know you don't miss race. I've heard of this guy because he runs worth of shit. That's why I know who Carson Swaple is.

If I didn't, I may say he was Carson Cavaple. I wouldn't even know how to say his name. Yeah, and like to Casey's point, actually, and Blake put in our chat there that he, you know, he's a, I think, two-time champion. Is that right, Blake? Two-time defending champion of the carster, and he's going to miss a car store race this week to run that.

I don't think it's out of the question he could probably still win the championship. But, obviously, but it's, you know, he's forfeiting that race to go and chase this bigger dream for now. So it's good luck to you guys this week. This is another very strategically given, like, race for, because Bubba-fit. It's Richmond, the way it drives. And Carson has been very successful and ran well at Martinsville.

So I think he'll adapt pretty quickly to it. And I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun. Wow, NASCAR. I am loving this Richmond race. This is amazing. I'm so glad you started on time so you could stop. You can start.

You can stop. You can start. If you're going to do this many parade laps, start throwing candy out for the kids. And I love the new spin on. pit stops, Arka style all the time. Why should we compete in the pits? Go!

Netkar! Brett, the guy wants to, he wants them to start throwing candy out because we run too many pace laps or parade laps under yellows and stuff. He said, I'm glad we started on time so we could stop and then start, and then stop, and then start.

I think that guy was in the house with me watching. That was pretty fun. And he said he liked the archa pit stops where they don't matter. was that you yeah listen that was that was it is what it is not wrong yeah he's not wrong the best battle of the night has been between nassar and tv trying to win brett's what an idiot award this week tv goes to commercial 13 laps into the race as the best racing in years

occurs at richmond but then proceeds to show non-competitive caution left for any eternity to then cut the commercial when it goes back green but nassar screams hold my beer they start the race on wet weather tires but then demand the track to be 100% dry after less than a full stage. They dictate teams must run wet weather tires, but then tell them that they have to switch to flick. Let the teams and drivers decide. Don't worry, though.

TV tries to overtake NASCAR's stupidity by doing a feature on pit crews before a non-competitive stop. Hold up. NASCAR tries to take the lead after declaring a non-competitive stop will now be a non-competitive stop. Three hundred laps to go.

At which sports betting had a in-race betting for how many more stupid decisions NASCAR and Fox would make. I don't know what they make the total, but I bet be over. Also, Brett, hope you're covering well from getting your short curved pit roads, strengthened and lengthened. Pala. What?

From his search. No, no, Casey, would you like to rebuttal what this guy had to say? I would love to hear it. Which part? He had a lot to say. Yeah, and he was right on every single bit of it. I mean, I... The sanctioning body has sold their soul to the devil.

tells us we're going to race on Easter, we say, okay, TV tells us, you know, go lay an egg. We try to go lay an egg. Like, NASCAR has got to hold the network's feet to the fire starting now. They have to listen to everything that caller just said and go to the TV network and say, everything he said is not acceptable. Period. Sorry. It is what it is.

That was the most well thought out, written, I don't know, it sounds like he read a script. I texted to him. No, he would have added more curse words if it was from you. He's not wrong on any fronts. I mean, I agree. I think the one part, so Brett, I don't know if you were following Twitter and the broadcast at the same time. Like, I mean, obviously there's going to always be a delay.

But how can you possibly use that delay when they're trying to figure out what happened to your point around Clint and Kevin? Like, how did they use that to be able to provide the right information without having it, right? They should not be delayed. We should have saw the restart. That's very plain and simple. That's what I'm saying.

NASCAR needs to go to the TV partners and say, yes, you've paid all this money for this, but this is our product. We're the governing body. You're going to cover, I mean, every single thing that that guy just said was a warranted complaint. And as a viewer, he should not have that many warranted complaints in one broadcast. Things are going to go wrong. I get it.

But he was 100% spot on with what he said. And we, being NASCAR, we need to listen to that guy. guy because even looking at the attendance yesterday, it was garbage, right? I'm not hiding the truth. It was maybe 30% full. Teams, I'm sorry, sponsors like Xfinity, sponsors like Monster and sponsors like Coca-Cola and OEM partners like Toyota, they get free tickets. And I have a friend that was given a lot of free tickets.

And he couldn't give one single ticket away because everybody said, no, man, we're not interested is Easter Sunday. And I know, listen, man, last night Jordan Bianchi was on this long ran about how it's okay to race on Easter. And he's right. It is okay to race on Easter. But you need to realize when you race on Easter, no matter where it is, if it's Bristol, if it's Martinsville, if it's Richmond, if it's Charlotte, nobody in the South is going to go. Because when I grew up, there's four things you did on Sundays. You went to Sunday school. You went to preaching. You in the grandma's house for lunch and you turn a NASCAR race on in 1230. And those days are gone.

When Easter isn't a sacred holiday, it's gone. So yeah, Jordan, we can race on Easter Sunday, but you better be willing to do it in front of nobody because that's what we'll be doing last night. And I hope the ratings were good. I really do. I hope the ratings were up 100%. But from an attendance perspective, nobody's going to go on Easter Sunday in the South. It ain't happened.

Yeah. And to circle back to TV stuff, and I just don't know. I don't even know who this falls on. Who decides these cutaways? But I've seen a lot of people complaining on my timeline about they're battling for the lead and we cut to the booth because I think Keelan might have been in there. He was. And then there's a battle going on later in the race and they cut to a comparison of

code of pit stops for some reason. Like I just don't understand. It's like they're filling time that they don't need to fill. I don't know what they're doing. I think at that point there was nothing exciting going on. in the broadcast. Like I don't know about... From what I was told,

they cut away... I'm pretty sure passing for seconds, it's exciting. Yeah, from what I could, they cut away from a battle for second to show the booth. Like, I don't know why that would happen ever. Especially in a race where we don't have a lot of passing.

Yeah, there wasn't a ton of battles happening. Like, not, not up in front like that. 200 laps into this race. Probably the worst called race I've ever seen. This race director couldn't run a drive-through at Bojangles, let alone an NASCAR series race. I don't know.

I mean, they had a bad caution call. And the front load was a mess because of their tires. But I don't, I mean, I didn't remember anything. Honestly, it went pretty smooth with the rain tires. What they're complaining about, though, is the fact that they threw a caution and said, come in and put slicks on. They threw a caution and Freddie, to your point earlier, it wasn't five to go on stage.

It was seven to go on the stage. We're all assuming pit road opens. We get a three-lap shoot out to end stage one. That didn't happen. So, like, I think that's what this guy. has a lot more. Listen, you guys, y'all are in the middle of the race. You're worried about your team, your driver. When you're sitting on the couch, you know, being a couch racer like I was, you consume this thing completely differently. Yeah. I was expecting a restart. Me too.

Like, I was, I was angry because we were running second. And I was like, damn it, now we're going to have to pit because you're going to flip the stage at that point because you want to get the best finish possible. And I was like, now we're going to have to forfeit these stage points because we've got to come in and I don't know how many guys. I'm sure guys are going to stay out to get points. So I was kind of angry. And then they're like, roll the jets down pit road. I'm like, yeah, we're going to get stage. Like, we're not going to get restarted here.

So as soon as they called that, I knew we were going to go to the end of the stage. So I get it for sure. That stuff was kind of like I said, long and drawn out. And I wish we could do a better job with that. But I don't, they were kind of in a box. I felt like it's a 255 laps out of 400 right now. Holy fuck. If they can throw, you know, more commercials.

that'd be awesome because I totally like watching the commercials over the race give me a break. It's not like you missed anything. I bet still you. I mean, that's all I see is harping on commercials and commercials and commercials. So I don't know, obviously I'm not watching them,

but it's just, my timeline is full of I'm tired of seeing commercials. My text messages when I get on the plane are just, you won't believe how many. commercials were in this race. So it's, I don't, I mean, I know you've got to pay the bills, but I don't know. There's got to be a happy medium somewhere. I feel the same way when I watch a football game, though, too.

I don't. I feel the same way. They get a commercial when there's timeouts and TV timeouts. They don't miss action on the field. Well, yeah, they never play an experience. But there's less in a NASCAR race. NASCAR is trying to do more, i.e. with stage breaks to help us prevent that. So there has to be a better way to balance it because this guy's not right, man.

I'm watching. I flipped over from the NC State. whipping that they put on Duke for all you Duke fans spelled the okay I flipped over and I see this crazy around amazing race going on and immediately went to commercial and I'm like it's like 13 what are we doing so these fans are not wrong man I'm telling you y'all you all you better quit listening to your fan council and start listening to what people are saying on the show because they're right hey Brett yeah how many times you yell roll tide you the night a bunch I hate Thompson I'm glad they lost Jay I'm sorry that you're part of a losing

organization. But that happens. You know, everybody that, you know, I think every team that wears orange is officially out. Isn't there that website, did Duke win.com or something? You ever seen that? You ever been to that? No. Yeah, just go to it. And then it always comes up and

now it'll probably say, probably say no. You know what I mean? Like, I used to send it to Hovis all the time because he was a Duke fan. And I know we're not a basketball podcast, but tonight, Iowa plays LSU and women's, and I cannot wait. I hope Caitlin Clark hangs 100 points on LSU. I cannot stamp Kill Mulkey. Actually, I hope LSU win so we can beat about 40 in the finals, whatever.

Freddie, I'm sorry I got off top. Yeah. I love it. It's the first. Okay, update. It's lap 261 of 400. And I'm getting blessed off these fucking truly. Oh, yeah.

What do you say? Brett, stop calling in. No kidding. He said, I'm getting blitzed off of these truilis. That sounds like John. Like, this was John's birthday weekend. He was birthday was Saturday night. I wonder if he said,

his birthday month. John, yeah, birthday month. John, John and like Trulies and White Claws for some reason do not mix. The guy can pound beer with the best one. He starts drinking them things and he blacks out all the time. So this might have been John calling in. But boy, at least hopefully you're feeling better today, buddy, whoever you were. Tons of great calls as always.

Don't forget our number, 704. 802-9572. Send us a message whenever y'all would like. I mean, keep them coming because they were great this week. Another way to get a hold of us is by using hashtag AskDBC on Twitter. Why didn't anyone in the back half of the top 15 take two tires and give themselves a chance to win at the end? Oh, sorry, good. Oh, you're good. I was just going to say they continued on with, feels like the risk would have been minimal since they were running back there anyways. Uh, they weren't going to win. No, we're going to go to the back.

Uh, that's why they didn't do it. Um, it was just, you couldn't, I don't think you could do it. You probably would have got wrecked. I was surprised more than try it, though. Like, what do you have to lose? Yeah, I mean, I tweeted it. I think you take two tires here if you're, if you, if you want to give yourself a chance to win. Like a Noah probably could have been, uh.

It's a two lap. It's a two lap race. If you start with first and they wreck after the caution, or are they wreck after you take the white. I mean, you potentially could win the race if you had a great restart. Yeah, I mean, I agree, but I feel like you're at risk so much, especially that place, how many times we've seen guys get run over and wrecked. And there's not that many cars in the lead lap. I think there was 15-ish probably.

Dude, you get it so many laps on your tires, you weren't winning. Yeah. I mean, and you were, like TJ said, you were, the odds of you getting wrecked are through the roof. And now you've thrown away a top 15 and end up 30th or whatever. What do you have to lose? A race car, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, and to that point, I've seen, I'll give old Tampa Tim's a shout out here.

he had, like, he had bet, one of the bets was over under, uh, point five cars running less than 200 laps. Everybody ran the whole race. I think everybody, I think the most was like three laps down. I think was LaJoy who finished last. Um, so, you know, if you wrecked there on a green, white checker, you're finishing last. There's, you know, so I know it's a risk first reward thing. It's just, you weren't going to win the race like that.

Now you're putting yourself at risk of really, really hurting yourself. That should be a sign right there to me, too, that if nobody falls out of the race. Yeah. that means these things are not hard enough to drive and there's not there's not enough um fact i don't know bristol just set the bar super high for short track racing in general for me now so you bring up the point right here tj i case you give me two seconds you're good um i feel like to tj's point driving style should dictate tireware and the way we're laid out right now lap count dictates tire wear how do they go back

this is what Goodyear needs to be challenged with. You're building soft tires. You're building tires with fall off. How do we go back and make the driver have to manage the fall off versus the lap count? I know y'all know what I'm saying. So apparently I think for this tire, it was a tire that it's fairly soft, but it just has, they've added to it. It's got more depth, I think, to it.

So it doesn't, you don't get to the end of it. You know what I mean? So you're saying the staggers bigger? You're saying the tire is bigger? What does that mean? It's just got more, I think it's just thicker. Like, I don't know if it makes it a bigger. I don't know if it makes it a bigger diameter tire, which I don't think it probably does.

Just more to where you're saying? Yeah, there's more. There's more to wear to it. So, I mean, if you're, we need to get to the end of it. I mean, when you saw where guys, why did guys have to manage our tires at Bristol? Because they got to the end of the damn tire, you know, and we're not getting close. I mean, we probably could have ran a whole fuel run easily on this tire. Yeah, you're going to, but everyone's falling off.

at the same pace. Like you had cars, you would catch a car. Brett, we had the deal where we get 15 carlings clear. We get around a guy and we're clear in front of us. We run a 10th and a half, two-tenths faster than the car in front of us.

We run them down. We run the exact same lap time as him. And as soon as we move up and we get a little bit of a run, guess who moves up in the next corner and takes it all the way. They do. Yeah, and then the nose slides out and then you're done. And there's no punishment for getting closer to the end of that tire.

There's no, you know, we used to watch Tony, all these guys that are really good at Richmond, they'd run like they were like almost down by the, by the pit wall or exit of four. Like they're down there because that's where they're not spitting the tires. There's none of that right now. They're, they're sliding out to the wall more than ever than I thought. So the only reason you run low out of four is if you're crossing somebody over and you ran up in the middle of three and four. Otherwise, you're not hunting that grip like the Xfinity guys were. You're not, if you notice the Xfinity race, those guys that would

discipline themselves and get down there and drive straight out to the start, finish. line every lap those were the guys that move forward at the end because they did you could wear them out enough to where there was a there was an advantage um you know to saving your tires we just don't get close enough to the end of the tire to really hurt it I mean there's guys that you know that the experience race the end of the run that we're struggling we never had that that bad at I don't think the cup cars had it to that extent no you can tell it on TV you have fall off but then like we said the guy the crew chiefs are so smart that the I think the the pace was a lot faster practice-wise.

You know, like when we fired off, I think we were probably... No, the pace in the race was way faster. Yeah, it's like we were three-quarters of a second faster than what we anticipated going there, I think, obviously new package, short-track package. So that lended itself to the second stage. People, you know, everybody was going to run the first stage out.

It was only 70 laps. There was no benefit to pinning there. Obviously, we had another, you know, with the wet tires and stuff, it altered that. But the second stage, I think there's a lot of unknowns about should we pit twice. Last year, it was clear everybody should pit twice every stage.

And then this time you go back and it's like, okay, well, which way should we go? So then, you know, that's why that second stage is going to be big. But then the tire wear doesn't matter because everybody's going to buy the time the third stage comes around. Everybody's going to know which strategy is the best one. And I think the first, it was the first green flag stop in the second stage. We cycled through in maybe two laps, three laps. It was the whole field had pit under green in about two or three laps. So everybody saw, okay, we're going to run about 50 or, you know, and then somebody's going to come.

And then once he had come, we all got to come because that guy's going to have a big advantage. and we all came and so you see the where's there but then it doesn't really matter because we all just pit together eventually everybody knows the strategies faster and you you kind of lose the coming and going we're going back to Richmond in August right um is this the last year we see two races at Richmond based on what you guys saw last night um I don't know I mean it's what I saw I mean from what I saw Bristol? I mean, that was, that tells me that any race can flip a switch like that. It's a huge difference. If we would have went and saw something where we started seeing guys have tire trouble and you just didn't really know what was, I know you can't have the unknowns every single race,

but if you start having things like, hey, watch this guy, man, he's running too hard. You know, that's going to change. You're going to have more passing because you're going to have guys that are like, okay, well, I'm going to be smart here. Let this guy go. Like, how much, how much, I mean, guys could drive around each other at Bristol like nothing because there was different mindsets. Everyone had a different mindset on what they could do and what they could manage. And man, that was fun to watch. Yeah. You know, I think the Easter date is going to be a tricky one.

There's only, I think, if I am correct in assuming what they want to do for the Easter weekend, there's only three or four tracks you're going to race at. It's going to be Martinsville, Richmond, Bristol, maybe Darlington. Because it's close to home. Please don't give that day to Darlington. Please don't. So, you know, those are the places where they can log log logistically. And again, shout out to the team this week.

A lot of guys went home Saturday night, flew back Sunday afternoon. The garage, the garage closed early Saturday, opened late on Sunday. So he gave guys an opportunity to be home with their family. I think that schedule lays out pretty good for Richmond. So I would assume this race is back. And then, you know, I don't know about- Why not move it up a day? Because you see the TV numbers have been great.

And that's all they're worried about. You know, you see other sports. Other sports, everybody, there's basketball games all day on Christmas. Obviously, we all watch football on Thanksgiving. You know, people know. People know that people are home celebrating a holiday together. They want to put something on TV for them to watch. I don't fault them for that.

You know, it's just you're trying to capitalize. And to Brett's point, this is kind of a sacred holiday in the South for sure. But it's just. It can't always be about max ratings, though. Yeah, well, it is. Unfortunately, I mean, it can't always be there. So Brett, to that point, what would dictate it? Like, if NASCAR, if the ratings come out and they're, you know, mediocre for an Easter weekend, like, do you think that changes?

Or do you think it's pretty much set? Listen, if Fox hits the button, whatever the magic button is that they press, and they come up and they're in black on revenue and they're in black on viewership. Restarts. To continue to do this, whether we want to do it or not, right? If they're in the red, then they're going to reach. think it, you know, but to Freddie's point, you know, we're still primarily, you know, what we are 100% of Southern sport on Easter Sunday when we're racing in the South like this. Man, I don't know.

I think TV's going to dictate exactly everything. And to TJ's point, could we race on Saturday? Yeah. But there's only one Saturday race on our entire schedule this year. And the reason that is is because ratings are down and they're bad on Saturdays or not what they are on Sunday afternoon. So it just sucks because I love turning on the TV and seeing a packed house and seeing American flags. We're a patriotic sport and see so many great synergies and cultures within the grandstands.

And listen, there wasn't enough people there yesterday to start a campfire. So I don't, I don't know. It's just a bad look. I hate it. It sucks. Well, Brian submitted a great asked BBC question. Why won't NASCAR make full SMT data? available to view regularly, whether by TV or by fans on a subscription basis.

TV and Larry Mac clearly has access to remotely via web, so why can't we see it? Good question. That's a really smart question. That's a great question. I don't have an answer to that. But Freddie, the thing is, man, like you and I are sports nuts, right? We're sitting there watching Tyree Kiel run 22.8 miles an hour down a football field. or we're watching all these analytics that these, you know, other broadcasts give us.

I mean, this may be the best question we've ever been asked on here. If T.J. can see it. If Kyle Bush can see it after the race, if the crew chief can see it. If Larry McReynolds can see it, why can't he see it? Yeah. I mean, and it's interesting. Like TV uses it for a lot. TV uses it for almost all of their, you know, their scoring pylon.

You'll see now, used to be back in the day, the scoring pylon didn't change until they crossed our finish line. Now it adjust live in time, you know, as a pass is made, it adjust because of the SMT data, the box in there that's, you know, collecting data. So they use it for a lot. So I don't know why SMT. And listen, there's talks that the teams won't be using SMT. Maybe in the near future, they might be having, you know, a different way to track this stuff through NASCAR. But I think TV is still going to use it.

So I don't know, you know, maybe there's an avenue for them to make money if they want to put out a, I think it's team analytics is what it's really called. SMT's the company, I think. But, you know, it's, maybe this is an avenue for them to make money, because I don't know why I wouldn't, if it's available to everybody to watch, like all of us,

you know, there's war rooms across the sport that are watching every minute of every lap, you know, of what's going on and what guys are doing with throttle trace. And like the thing that I would love for everybody to see one time is Denny Hamlin's throttle trace, which I don't know how, like,

like, it's, it looks like a heartbeat. It's up and that. It's like a real fast heartbeat. I mean, it is. It's one of the most, it's one of the most incredible things to watch. And you're like, because everybody else is kind of flatline.

And it's, and you're like, what is he doing in there? Like, what's going on? But that stuff would be amazing for people to watch. When Denny gets to the middle of the corner, looks like he freaks out. Yeah. Like his like, like he's tapping his leg sitting at the table the entire time. But yeah, it's, it, it, it, it, I don't know why that there's, that's, that's a very good question. And I don't know why they have not made it available yet.

And it's, it's, it's not, um, you should get credit if they do start making money off of this. Yeah, it's not, it's not as refined as what you think, though. It is, the Cup series is refined for, for raw data stuff like break and even that, though, everyone's sensor,

like you might see, you know, somebody's brake sensor might show a lot more, but that's because they're not exactly the same, like, they don't line up the same for every single car. And restart zone stuff, there's the tracks that we see these things on,

you'll go through or you'll run the bottom somewhere, it look like you're in the infield at time. because it's not the lines on the track that we see on SMT are not exactly core they don't correlate exactly to to the real track so you wouldn't be able to line up a restart zone you wouldn't be able to line up you know things on like that nature but you can see who fires first and we were we were watching i was watching qualifying in the hauler on the SMT and bubba was in the second round we were like head to head with larson and we're nose to nose in the three and the next thing I know Bubba is like in the grand stance.

Like it just like it just darts off from the right. And you're like, holy shit we wreck. What the hell just happened? You look at the TV and he's still digging. Yeah. And it catches back up. But so it's definitely not without its glitches.

Even with like trucks in Xfinity have it, but it's it's not the same system and it's accelerometers. So you go through the S is at Coda. I mean, your car is over here outside the track. Your car's over here. There's, you can't tell what a guy does through the S is in a truck or Xany car at Coda.

But it's not quite as refined as what you think it probably is. but if for the... Still a great question. One of the best questions we've ever been asked. Yeah, for sure. What an idiot. Let's move on to one idiot. Freddie, would you like to take things off?

Sure. I had a couple this week. I'm sure you did. First I was going to give it to Brett. Because, Brett, how the hell you get suspended off Instagram? I mean, have you looked at this weather? Dude, I literally said that, I mean, who was on our show? Reddick.

Oh, it was Reddick. And I told Reddick, you should die bomb his ass talking about Chase Elliott. And Instagram said that I was promoting violence. I wasn't. I was promoting hard racing. So you're telling me that. Hard racing, mind you. Did Josh Barry a dive bomb swore?

Is that? Yes. What an interesting deal that was. My one idiot, only for the soul's sake of the fact that he cost me DBC picks this week, I got to give it above it. I mean, son of a. brought a caution out with my guy leading my guy was gone gonna win the race we brought a caution in there many times damn it um i mean there there's it's hard not to pick you know the the easy go-toes probably dawson cram um but in that wreck like for me it's a toss up obviously cram wrecks the hell out

of them you can't go down the toss of you to say he wrecked the hell out of them because you can't go down the f***er racetrack while cars are driving by we've seen this all aftermath we've seen this turn out really, really poorly. You don't do it. I'm not talking about the way you drive through somebody. Oh, I'm no, no, for sure. You wreck a race car for probably, what, 25th, 28th, maybe, maybe if that. I don't know.

You know, I did. I'm giving Reddick an honorable mention here because he's down there doing a scooter ride at Richmond in the track walk segment. And I don't think he's even learning anything. I think he's doing it strictly for social media stuff. Good. Because I'm on the roof just hollering him. Tyler, every time I would yell, Tyler, he'd look around.

He had no idea where I was. And it actually turned into the funniest thing ever because he looked so confused. He kept asking, I think it was Jared. Would it have been Jared? No, probably Tyler Anderson. Maybe, but he'd be like, did you hear that? He'd look around more. And I'd be like, Tyler, he'd look again.

And, yeah, I got a, the picture that I was sent of Freddie, it looks like Freddie likes to sign Pitt Rhodes. That needs to be tweeted out. I retweeted it yesterday. Yeah, that was an interesting. Brett, you got an idiot Are y'all just going to ignore the person who spelled NASCAR wrong in the middle of the infield and the Exhibit Series sign?

Yes. They fixed it on Saturday. They did. Yeah, that was pretty impressive. Nurse car. N-R-S-C-A-R. Like, not only are you a dip-b-h for painting it wrong, who is looking at this for quality control?

We all have to be held to a standard. And whoever misspelled this and painted. this is the biggest idiot in 2024 in our NASCAR world. Maybe in NASCAR, Brad, but we are forgetting about something that happened. The different length three point lines in the... Oh, my God. Did you see that, Brett?

No, what happened? It was in Washington, right? One of the regions, the three point line was shorter on one end of the court than the other. Yes. At the top of the key... The Gamecocks needed that. That's what Gamecox needed. We need shorter three point five.

So at the top of the key, you can see... a visible difference. It's probably like a foot, foot and a half, something like that. And then, so the teams both just decided to play with it since they both have for half the game. But yeah, I don't know how you go to make a three point line on a court and make it different on both sides. On a very serious, what an idiot note, like we cannot expect fans to read after the race that a driver, a car, a team had two or three lug nuts loose and hand a penalty down and not see a driver or see a driver. or CA driver jump to start at the end of the race about being penalized. So I'm glad to anyone.

I'm glad to help my BBC picks. Obviously, I'm going to be any hamlet fan. But if we're going to have rules and we can't enforce them, we may as well not have rules. I do have an honorary, what an idiot. And it was anybody that

bought in that fell for the bait earlier and took the, took to social media to tweet about Denny's fine. That's coming. That was an April Fool's joke. I apologize. We are, we are recording.

on April 1st today. So anybody that took that bait and went right to Reddit or Twitter or wherever you, wherever you stir your news up, you get my honorary one idiot for this week. TBD on who that is. Yeah, we'll find out. I feel like it's going to be somebody. There's going to be somebody that was listening. And we did it early enough in the show where they're going to jump on there and say something.

But it was fun to have fun for a little bit. Moving on to ask. We've already done that case. We're going to go ask TV. Moving on to DBC picks. Well, there were a lot. I'm not going to lie. Moving on to DBC picks.

I don't have enough champagne left to go back up. We got to go fall. We cannot back up that. BBC and I ain't going to make. Oh, my. Congratulations, Brett. Way to go, Brett. Denny got you that win.

We're taking picks from Martinsville. And I think I go first because Ty Gibbs really let me down. Casey goes first. I mean, Ty had, seriously, like, Ty had a great shot at it last week. Great shot. Anyways, I will pick Lugano. Logano, T.J. Man, I am...

He had one there since 2018. That is a great pick. I'm going to go with a guy who's arguably probably the best there right now, and that would be young Ryan Blaney. Took my pick. He won the last time we were there. That pisses me off. I was going to take him.

Took my pick. I've had success with this guy at this racetrack, I know he's angry, so I'll take Bubba Wallace. Oh, I cannot believe. You're laying up. You just left me. No, y'all just left me Mark Truax Jr. on the table. He's pissed off.

He's a great short track driver. He's won there. His last win wasn't that long ago. It was 2021. I'll go with Mark Trux. You've already picked him, Brett. Did I? No, I'm just kidding.

April fools? Should have let him. Oh, man. You should have just let it roll. I'm a bunch of shrievee. You can't play jokes on me. You should have just let it roll. Speaking of jokes and fun stuff that we do here, we always get packages from fans, and I don't

do a good enough job of highlighting them. And Brett, I don't know if you can see us. But we got some really impressive stuff this week. One box from our buddy nicely. And I think nicely might have sent all of this, but there was two didn't boxes, so I'm not 100% sure. So if you sent, we got a fireball keg. Yeah, there's a fireball keg.

There's a keg of fireball, which is just a guy. which is exactly what we did not need. Hang on me, I'll bring that on the table here. We put it in your seat because we figured you could take it home. But yeah, so we got a keg of fireball whiskey

on the table now, which I hope somebody takes home and I never see again. They sent me a set of hair clippers, nicely did, because I needed a haircut a couple weeks ago. TJ, what did you get?

I finally got on my boat. You got a boat? TJ got a boat. Yeah, I'm on a boat. My flippy floppies. Speaking of boat, Casey. Yeah. Casey?

I did. I got a $50 gift card, so you did me well because this is something I need, probably for my own sanity. So thank you. And Brett, Brett, good news is nicely sent something for you too. It's the note says, enjoy Chicago, Brett. And he sent you a bulletproof vest. So I don't know what that entails. But I guess maybe you seem a little concerned about going there last year.

so he's made sure you're going to be plenty safe when we get down there. Well, that man, you know, people have been tweeting me for the past year, making fun of me for being scared to go to Chicago. So thanks to that nice gift, I actually felt a lot more comfortable and looking even more forward to going to Chicago knowing that I have a bulletproof vest on. All I need now is like that level three helmet that Fortnite gives out or whatever it is. Brett, I think you're going to... That'd be great.

I don't think it'll get worse than last year, Chicago with you. But I think you're going to enjoy Chicago this year. I'm going to make me and Freddie and TJ, if you'll come with us, the reservation of Gibson's, one of my favorite steakhouses to eat at. And I'll wear my bulletproof vest around and we'll get us a good state. Maybe we can just do the DBC Picks dinner there from last year. Hey, I'll be there. That's too damn bad.

Damn, shame. Yeah, that'll be fun. Casey, guess where I saw Chad at last week. Did he tell you? No. I'm assuming big owls. It was big owls. Even Billy were eating lunch at Big Al's.

So I left the show last week, got some honeyhab wings, and they're set chatting his dad. It was cool. The number, Billy, the number of people who have said, hey, I saw Chad at lunch the other day or I saw him here the other day.

He has yet to invite me to lunch. So if you see him, be sure to ask him to invite me to lunch next time. Take a hand. rude. Oh, well. Well, we are headed to Martinsville. What?

I looked at the weather. Actually, Stevie Reeves on the way to the airport last night said, yep, typical NASCAR weekend. It's 80 all week, and then it's 50 when we get there, and then it goes right to 75 on Monday. So in this race, I feel like, like Martinsville, I remember, I don't remember what year was. It was not that long ago.

It was the coldest I've ever been in a racetrack. It was like four or five years ago. It might have been a night race. I was freezing to death. at that place. Yeah, Martinsville is one of those places where, man, you can get really cold. And it's usually windy as heck, that flag blowing right behind you. This was the first week, I remember.

And the modified race was super windy on Friday night. But this was the first week. It hasn't been like a hurricane force wind on the roof during the cup race. And I kind of enjoyed it. Yeah, this year's been super windy. So Saturday night, man. The Xfinity race is Saturday night, right, Casey? Yep.

That is correct. 730? It's going to be in the 30s or 40s, man. It's going to be cold. what package are we running what tire are we running do we know short track package for the cup car I don't know what tire

yeah I don't know what tire it'll be it'll be fun I hope you know like I said we've tested here so much that the pack the box has gotten so small hopefully hopefully we can pass it's going to be a challenge with the shifting but hopefully we can

put the bumper people and get them out of the way and when people make mistakes that's the biggest thing and we talked about it on road courses You talk about there's no more mistakes. You don't make mistakes anymore. So, you know, like there's, we talk about wheel hopping into corners and that doesn't happen. You know, the guys, when you make a mistake in Martinsville now, you just downshift and take off again. It used to be like you'd slide up the hill and you'd be out of the groove and game over for you.

You'd lose 10 spots because you're out of the groove. But now it's just, all right, I just run up the hill a little bit, drop a gear and take off. And it's and you're back to, you're driving away from the guys behind you. So we just need to get back to where mistakes are costly in this sport. And right now they're not there, but hopefully we can get there. Well, definitely should be interesting. Who wins? Forget our DVC picks. Like, who is going to be the best car you think?

Our best manufacturers. Toyota's still going to dominate? Listen, Ford was really good here last year. This was probably one of their best tracks, I think. I remember Stuart House cars were good in qualifying. Briscoe and Preas, I think, qualified up front. The Penske cars were good. Obviously, Toyotas are going to be good, I think.

It's hard to say. I didn't remember Chevy. I'm not just remembering badly, but I don't remember Chevy being great here. Blaney dominated. right the last race yeah Ryan's just been super good there but I feel like that was also towards the end of the season when Ford showed up more in Blaney's ship Ryan's been really good at martinsville for a few years now uh but what do you think SVG's in route awakening for he's probably never seen this much pushing and shoving it's coming I listen they they they do some beating

and banging in that uh sports car series whatever supercar series yeah but not not like that they get penalized for yeah that's what he said after the race but I'm just saying it still happens it's not like That's not like, you know, MSA or something where they never get near each other. I think, like I said earlier, like these, we've seen A.J. really excel at this place. Yeah, but not right away, though. But AJ? I thought AJ was pretty good here. I mean, he was okay, but he didn't just like run up front in his first.

Martinsville races. It takes a little bit of time. I mean, how does it him or even Carson, how do they prep for a race that they've really never done before? You just get on the simulator? I mean, the only thing. I'm going to get his ass kick. Let's not. let's not pretend he's not going to get his ass kick.

Like he's, he cannot go, if he's aggressive, they're going to wreck him. Why? Because they, I mean, these guys don't play.

He's stepping into the grown man's world. This is going to be a big transition for him, I think. Yeah, I mean, obviously, he's, he's just got to be willing to give it back

and you can't get pushed around. Because that's what they're, Jim's best finish all year is six. Really? So far. Yes. Bubba Pollard got the best finish of J.R.M. all year, if what I read on the Twitter is correct. So all they had to do.

I mean, just and I'm a minute. You're welcome. All they had to do is bring TJ back to get the best finish of the year. I'll tell you what, I'll do another one and take a little bit of time off again. Super spotter. He's hoping from our gift cards. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. All right. Well, it was good to see seeing a bunch of DBC fans again this week in the garage, especially the, the garage layout of Richmond's really cool because they're all right there behind the garage stall. So you get a chance to see some buddies. I see my buddy Jimmy Wags with his kids. I see my son. I see my buddy Jimmy Wags with his kids there yesterday. So, you know, it's good to see so many fans, obviously, every week.

And I only got to hear one, T.J. Sucks this week, which is disappointing. I got a few on Twitter. Oh, did you? Oh, did you? Okay. So don't worry. We made that far. But, yeah. So it was a fun, fun weekend.

And anytime we get to meet some people is great. So we'll see you guys out in Martinsville this weekend, hopefully. Cool. Thank you all for listening. And have a great week. Word. Yeah. See you.

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