Door Bumper Clear - 351 | Roval Recap with Leigh Diffey & Bob Pockrass

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Freddie Kraft, Brett Griffin, and Casey Boat are joined by NBC Sports PxP announcer, Leigh Diffey, and FOX Sports reporter, Bob Pockrass, to recap the Charlotte Roval Round of 12 elimination race. Bob gives us the scoop on next steps for Hendrick Motorsports after Alex Bowman’s DQ resulted in Joey Logano making the Round of 8 instead of Bowman. Leigh shares his favorite stories from the broadcast booth and which tracks he’s still got on his motorsports bucket list. Is Kyle Larson the de facto Cup Series Championship favorite or could another driver claim the title? Samaritan’s Purse is responding to both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, with multiple disaster relief bases in North Carolina and Florida. If you are in need of assistance, please call 833-747-1234 for the Homeowners Helpline for Hurricane Relief. You can also make a gift by mail. Send to: Samaritan’s Purse, PO Box 3000, Boone, NC 28607. 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. No good. By one. No number drive, man. It'll come to you. You're a fucking idiot if you think that's right. But that's just because T.J. planned it that way. Ball three, one of the gate.

Outback. You come in top here. You come and keep up. Bottom three. Bottom three, wife. It's hard to get lost. I mean, seriously. Might be the dumbest thing you've ever said.

Door. Bopper. Clear. So there. Pumper. Pumper. Clear. Clear.

What's up everybody? Brett Griffin. Welcome to DBC number 351. Freddie, we've got our first dual citizen on the show today. And our two most distinguished guests that have ever been in the room at the same time. That is a thousand percent of fact. Freddie Crafts, spotter for Bobbillis. I have no voice today.

I must have been screaming it. You got a big house after? Yeah. For a while. Megan was actually worried about it last night because I think I was screaming so loud that she said, I think you're going to have no voice for the podcast. So it sounds like I smoked three packs of cigarettes before I got here. this morning. But hi, Casey. How are you? Thanks, Meg, for bringing Freddie in full force this

morning. Casey vote here. And yes, it is the Battle of the Broadcasts today. We are joined by two of the coolest people in the sport. I would say they have pretty awesome jobs. Bob Pockris, right? Pockras, Pockriss. How do you say that? Pockrass. And of course, Lee Diffy. thank you all thank you both for coming out because I'm very surprised that you all are willing to be on the show still

after some of the that these two clowns cause we don't cause Bob have we ever said anything negative about you ever in the history of the sport you guys maybe once or twice but that's okay this is where Bob comes in

I just don't understand how you guys said that this is a battle and Lee and I are friends I was like were you guys going to get a table and joust here to me. And if it's a battle, you better put your money on leave because...

We spend two hours recording this show, and as soon as it's over and it comes out, Bob, text Freddie and everything that was wrong in the show. Because he knows every rule and everything. He's the omniscient Bob. Well, I, you know, when somebody jumps into your DMs, you know, you kind of pay attention, and that's what this guy did.

And I had to accept the invitation. And then... Hang on, say, Brett slid to your DMs. He did, he did. and 255 pounds. And Junior said, did you get this cleared by NBC? And I said, yeah, publicity PR said it's okay. So here I am.

Man, we appreciate both of you guys coming by. You ended up somehow, Brett booked, Brett books guests all the time. And somehow he booked both of you guys for the same day. So this is how we ended up in this situation. But, I mean, talk about a roval yesterday. I really have no voice. I can't even talk. but what i mean lee i know that was your first roval like what were your impressions of the racetrack

and and and the race that you saw yesterday so i was really excited to see on the schedule uh for the track walk period for the drivers and the crew chiefs and everybody knows i i i changed my friday and uh got there to do that and um it's something that i've done a lot uh throughout my career when i go to a track that i don't know i love to walk it and um or at least you know even if it's a golf cart ride you walk it you're running you run it, you do whatever, you get around it. Very lucky this year that Jeff Burton takes Steve LaTard and myself around on a Saturday morning, but I wanted to walk it. I was blown away by the undulation. The track was very different to what it presents, how it presents on television.

So I was really surprised at that. I immediately thought it was a great blend of a road course and a street course. And then the way that it raced yesterday, I thought there was lots of variability. There were, there were some good overtakings. We knew that was going to be moments of chaos, which there was so it was double thumbs up. Bob, I know you interviewed everybody leading into this race and there was a lot of concerns about turn seven. Did anybody, I didn't think it was as bad as anybody thought it was going to be yesterday. Did anybody talk about that after the race going, you know, after the race was over?

Not too much, except for maybe Tyler Reddick and some of his adventures in there and Daniel, yes. But, you know, and talking to the drivers after the Xfinity race, you know, they didn't seem to have a huge issue with it. And then I think the biggest issue people had was the change of the curbing in the front stretch chicane, which they welcomed. It was just, you know, now you're going into a race with no kind of a little bit of an idea, but not a full idea of how it was going to play out. I mean, Lee talks about the track walk on Friday, and we saw several drivers and crew chiefs out there. And then you saw several more doing another track or partial track walk on Sunday morning. morning looking at those new humps and saw danos swarge like almost jumping i thought i was like it's

he's like these are soft and so they were trying to figure out how to get around there so i think that is where the most angst was i thought it was funny that soarez had blue paint all over his shoes and you can see the footprints of like he must have walked over the fresh paint uh yeah but the the biggest thing for us sunday morning was the the thing i saw saturday during the exchange i got a text from our team and it was from a prominent he's not a crew chief anymore. He was a very prominent crew chief. Now he's in the GM role or whatever.

They were talking about the curbing in that chican was worse, beating the drivers up worse than Watkins Glen ever did. We talked about that Watkins Glen getting in the bus stop. And they were like, okay, we're going to look at that. And they actually, they took a whole set of turtles away, right? I mean, for the race on Sunday. So, I mean, that was obviously a big change for, you know, you, Bubba thought he was Travis Pistrana in qualifying, I think.

He was coming straight as he hit it. You know, usually hit your right sides on the curbing. He was straight up in the air, four wheels off the ground. And I was like, well, this is not going to be the best lap we've ever run here. But yeah, I mean, it was ever-changing track as always in NASCAR. Lee, you mentioned you walked a track. You're seeing a lot of these tracks for the first time in your life. And not only are you seeing them for the first time.

Now you've got to go out there and paint the picture during the race for everybody. How are you preparing for these weekends? Just trying to be a, I guess I'm a little bit old to be a sponge, but never too old to be a sponge, right? So surrounded by great people, learning every second of every weekend from the people I'm surrounded by relying on my experience in the sport to not get through. That's the wrong way, but like to enjoy where I'm at. and just like being open eyes, open ears, listening, learning, you know, even somebody like my teammate who I, you know, sit shoulder to shoulder like am with Bob with Jeff Burton and, you know, everything he's done and achieved in the sport. And he said to me just the other day, he said,

div, he said, it's pretty cool having you here. He said, your fresh eyes are making me appreciate things that I'd forgotten. And so it's kind of a blend of everything. And, you know, you're never too old to be a student and learn things. Once upon a time in my life, I was a school teacher for a very brief period of time. A PE teacher, right? P.E. teacher. How the hell do you get from PE teacher to NBC superstar? Well, I mean, at one point in my life, I thought I was going to be a farmer or I was going to work in agricultural economics. I studied, I studied agriculture at high school. And so, I don't know, my life is, my life has taken a lot of turns. And I guess that's made the ride pretty interesting, but grew up as a kid racing dirt bikes and that was the path that ultimately

led to commentary. But to get back to your original question, it's been a great ride. And I love, I'm not afraid to admit that this is my first time or this is new or this is, you know, I'm learning because I think that's what the viewers do, right? They want to know what it's like. And so I'm trying to help get that message across with my newness, my freshness to certain in places like Talladega or the Roval or Darlington. Darlington. Darlington. Say it like a redneck one time just for me.

Darlington. Darlington. He sounded drunk. That's the biggest thing for me. Like we take for granted that we get to do this job. You know what I mean? I know we about no off weeks or whatever. We take.

But then I ran into Lee on the roof at Darlington and he's like, you know, this place is unbelievable. Like you don't realize if nobody's been there, but somebody's not been there before you take it for granted. And then I saw you were talking about Talladega a couple weeks ago, like, oh, like we get to do this for a living. And then like you said, like Jeff Burton said, fresh eyes. Like, you know, you get to remember, oh, you know what? I'm pretty privileged to do this.

And Bob, I mean, how long have you been doing this, Bob, a hundred years now? Well, full time since late 2003. But, you know, I joined the Daytona paper in 91. So I've been to every Daytona 500 since 92. And I joke that my first Daytona 500 was writing about, was it Bill Elliott had just joined Junior Johnson's team? Is that right? In 1992, I was 10 years old.

Yeah, well, I don't really remember. Well, anyway, it was about Bill Elliott not playing nice with his teammates at Daytona. And the stories haven't changed in 30 years. It's just different people. But you talk about, you know, sometimes not realizing it. You know, I do that half marathon at Daytona. I've done it the last couple of years. So I'm not too.

of the first part is around the track. And usually, you know, people are serious and they're running hard. But people there are running up the banking and down the banking and up the banking and down the banking because they've never been on the track. You know, they've never been inside that facility. And it just amazes them. And just to see, you know, people taking selfies and stopping in their first mile of a, they know they got another 12 to go.

But it's just amazing to see. the perspective of somebody new. And that's what I love about Lee being here because he talks about how intriguing, right? The Charlotte Roval is while we probably hear people say, oh, oval and a parking lot, right? That's the jaded version of people who run it several times. And to hear Lee's excitement for it and intrigue in it, I think helps bring back that excitement for all of us. obviously I haven't been able to go watch the broadcast yet. Lee, how did you make that ass with him by Kyle Larson sound exciting yesterday?

Well, I don't think we had to because there was so much else going on, right? There was, I mean, look at the Tyler Reddick into Daniel Hemrick, you know, the bounce off and then and then hitting his boss and getting the rear wheels airborne. And I mean, there were so many things that were happening, you know, kind of Kyle out in front and dominating was a side story. Give us the, what was the, what was the Redick analogy? Oh, I said, I said on the broadcast that it was like slicing it off the tea, hitting a tree and your ball bouncing back in the middle of the fairway. He saved him, I mean, he saved Redick's day. Yeah, 100%. Because Reddick was wrecking.

He was going to wreck. He went in there, wheel hopped, and was completely wrecking until he hit the 31 car and then the circle car to the circle. Well, and don't forget that those guys used to be teammates in a truck at Brad Kislovsky Racing way back about what, seven, eight years ago. Yeah. So, so they're, you know, Tyler Redick felt bad about it. When I talked to Daniel Hemrick, you know, Hemrick's like, he kind of gets where, what Redick needed to do there. He said he wished Tyler had a little bit more patience, but he said it wasn't egregious.

He didn't, yeah, he didn't mean to. So I got a question for both of you guys. Lee, this may be easier for you than Bob because you're, you're, quote, new here to the Cubs series. But as journalists and as, you know, broadcasters, how do you guys keep the audience? that we have engaged and yet still go after the new audience. Because Bob, you mentioned you've been doing this since 91, essentially. That's a challenge.

I mean, because you're looking for viewership and clicks in both of y'all's worlds. Well, I, you know, thankfully, NASCAR seems to serve things up in the silver platter sometimes, right? I mean, there's always something interesting, right? But changing the roval, right? And changing the curbing. And you obviously have the driver, you know, the changes of the drivers, even during the season, right? So there's always something going on to keep fans who have been fans of a long time engaged. I think the challenge is to, you know, you've still got to explain things about rules and stuff.

And some people might know them, but other people might not. they might be new and you know the rules maybe occasionally change throughout the year and from year to year so it's uh it's even if you're like oh i think i know that rule sometimes oh wait that rule changed or did that rule change so it's not difficult i'd say to keep people engaged lee maybe for the better question for you is how do you balance the charlecking to somebody that might be watching their first race versus a guy that's been watching NASCAR for 20 years. Well, the guy who's been watching NASCAR for 20 years is always going to watch. So the challenge is to getting that person who's channel surfing or looking for something different or intriguing.

You know, I think we're all guilty of forgetting why we're there. It's racing, right? There's a race. That's why we're there. We race. Yeah. Right. And we're entertained by the race.

So there's the overarching story, which is who's going to be the champion this year. And then under that umbrella are all the other stories. So it's the story within the story. And I think whether it be grabbing your cell phone and whether you're looking at whatever social media platform you're like, you're looking at the most interesting or something that's going to get your attention and keep you there. And so that's incumbent upon us to tell those stories about, you know, we're all intrigued by human interest, right? So what is Bubba's story? What is Tyler Reddick story?

What is Kyle Busher's story? It's the comeback story. It's trying to win for 20 years in a row. You just got to keep throwing those nuggets at people. And some of them, not all of them, some of them will stick. And hopefully they'll stay with the broadcast. Bob, speaking of that, last night, Alex Bowman, his team, they get decued. We started hearing about it probably 45 minutes prior to him actually getting decued.

What was it like at the track when you started hearing it? And what did you do up until the point that you tweeted he's been decued? Well, I got in a text from some people, I would say maybe 30 minutes maybe before the announcement. But look, I've gotten text before and nothing has happened, right? Because, you know, it's just because somebody isn't necessarily totally clear the first time or clear the first time that they have their procedures of check. So, you know, as they did yesterday, they, they, they, let them refuel the car. They even let them, you know, they let them purge the water system, right, and add and add water,

which, you know, they don't always do. So, you know, so that stuff takes time. They probably had to go up a chain of command, right, of, hey, calling this person and that person, and then calling the people at Hendrick and kind of going through everything before they made their decision. So mainly I'm working trying to get a story ready and trying to get a story ready and trying to get everything ready so that in case it does happen. And I'm alerting a lot of people in our offices, people who are doing graphics and stuff like, hey, don't put out this graphic yet. Or you may want

to start changing, start a new point. Start working on a new points. You're going to start working on new points. Graphic. Don't know that it's going to happen. But just a lot of that kind of stuff. A lot of stuff behind the scenes, you know, that we do on Fox getting ready for various, you know, we have podcasts going on. We have your social posts that we're getting ready to post. just saying, hey, just hold on here until we hear. And, you know, in these situations, I'd say about 50% of the time, the DQ happens and 50% of the time, you know, the, you know, NASCAR determines to give either the team the benefit of the doubt or they, they've, you know, they fail weight the first time or height the first

time and make it through on the second time. Here's something really interesting that I don't think enough people give credit or credence to is that when. Bob first started out. It was strictly with a newspaper in Daytona Beach. And so he's on the Fox side, our Dustin Long or Nate Ryan, you know, started out strictly as journalists, print journalists. Then along comes in the late 1990s. Along comes the internet. Then they become paper and internet journalists. Now these guys, and whether it's on the Fox side or the NBC side, they've morphed to TV. He's just dropping in like casually, yeah, I've got to call the office about graphics and all that.

He never thought about graphics. He never thought about TV messaging and all that. And I don't think enough people give enough credit to people like Bob or Dustin Long and Nate Ryan in that kind of genre because they've morphed. You know, he's on TV now too. He's on social media. He's not just a print journalist. And, you know, I don't go to his side of the world. But these guys are so talented, they're coming to our side of the media.

And I don't think they get enough credit for that. We can be a little bit orky, you know. Not you, but. Oh, yeah. Just me. I've never seen you be awkward. I've never seen you be awkward. Not ever. Except that one time it's over.

With tequila bob. Remember tequila bob? Yeah, he only used tell stories about hickies and everything. Yeah, yeah, great. So, Bob, with that said, NASCAR announced last night there is a tolerance of 17 pounds that they give you. So how do you end up, according to the research that you've done this morning, how do you end up over that tolerance?

Well, I guess there's a couple. There's probably two ways. Either you've removed weight sometime between the pre-race, pre-practice qualifying technical inspection and the time the car goes through inspection post-race, or you've lost the weight unintentionally. So what do you think as far as next steps go with Hendrick and if it will upheld? I mean, I think, well, I think Hendrick will appeal because you have nothing to lose. what would tip the scales of an appeal?

Did you get that? Yeah. Did you get that? Come on. That was a good. How about that? How about that? I mean, I don't know that I would call it a hail melon move, but I think it's going to be, unless there's, I mean, if 17 pounds fell out of the car during the race, I think, you know, we'd notice.

So now, look, could there have been, you know, something in NASCAR's procedures or the scales that they'd, they could say would have made off now. Look, all the other cars pass tech. So that doesn't necessarily sit in their favor. But, you know, I think it's going to be difficult. And look, you know, crew chiefs and mechanic and technical people I've talked to, they get 17 pounds of tolerance. So just like Pitt Road, you get five, five miles per hour.

You try to find a way to use that. Now, taking 17 pounds to have a car can be a lot more challenging because there's lots of eyes and lots of cameras. but, you know, these guys, I mean, they know they get it. And so, you know, you had that situation was a year or two ago. Remember, they took a bunch of wheels at Indianapolis, I think. So teams apparently had been putting different type of air in the tires. There was for tech, there was no, because you got to change your tires after tech

because you're rolling it through the garage. The tires get scraped a little bit. So if you want, so they allowed them to change tires. So they were putting different air in the tires, go through. tech make the car heavier. And then, of course, it's going to be a little bit lighter with the air in the regular tires. So, I mean, these teams are smart.

They know that there's that tolerance. And if they can find a way to potentially, you know, potentially make the car lighter, they will. And again, we haven't heard from Hendrick. I'm not going to say that's what they did. If there's a 17 pound tolerance, you can guarantee every car that we're through there last night with 16 pounds like. That's just how smart these teams are.

Like that they're going to like you said, they take it. We get a five mile an hour tolerance for pit road and we run to that five mile out. And you'll see a multiple penalties for point one zero one over. You know, so any tolerance, these teams are smart enough like you said about that. Any tolerance they give you, you're going to use up at the maximum. Well, you guys have way more meetings and calls and stuff during the week than a lot of people realize getting ready for the show. So with this Alex Bowman 48 team situation, how much time will y'all spend on that this week to get it ready to set up for the broadcast?

Typically our production calls are on a Tuesday afternoon. There's a lot more. That's just for us, like the producers, they do a lot more than what we do. But it'll be a big topic of discussion. And Jeff Burton and Steve LaTart will, they'll kind of hold court on that.

So our producers will ask them their thoughts on it. Jeff Jeff is very tapped into NASCAR and very tight with NASCAR and he'll know everything that he can that NASCAR will allow him to know and he'll share that with the group and then you know it's it's not going to be the story but it's going to be one of the leading stories and then so then they just figure out how much time we'll spend on that in the pre-race show but countdown to green or and then during our editorial of the show but the moment the green flag drops you know everything changes Yeah, not a lot of balance if Hendrick has four teams in there. I mean, that's 50% of the make-up of the playoffs. Does it help your story if Penske has two versus one? Because one Ford versus two Fords. Yeah. That's a big shift for me as a NASCAR fan because Ford does have a big allegiance of followers.

You know, I've worked for Ford several different times. I mean, the Blue Oval has a lot of clout. I think it makes it interesting if Joey, you know, as we sit here now, Joey is back in. I think it makes it interesting that you've got a multi-time champion, you know, going for a third championship. He's a big stage player. And that's nothing against Alex Bowman. Alex, you know, will be really upset about missing his opportunity to become a champion. So I think whenever you have big names in for the big moments, that helps. But it's, it's another layer to the story of this year's playoffs, isn't it? Bob, as Lee just said,

as we sit now, Joey's in. The appeal process usually takes a week, I would always say, but like, is it going to be? It's an expedited appeal. They'll hear it. I think they're hoping to hear it Wednesday, assuming that there is an appeal. It's typically one person and it's a final, there's no second appeal on a race disqualification. So now if this had been a part or piece, they'd have to probably schedule a Wednesday appeal and then potential like Friday. final appeal to get done before the start of the next race.

So we'll know the end result by the time we race this weekend. Yes. Yeah, no, you'll know that you'll, yeah, you'll know then to, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll know, you're on your plane to Las Vegas. Do you have to stay down here now to cover this appeal or do you still go home? I still get to go home. So they don't, you know, they used to, you know, used to hang out outside the R&D center, but now they kind of let the teams like drive in and kind of, or at least they used to, let them drive in park in the back. and they don't even need to hold it at the R&D Center. You know, this isn't a, I mean, unless they're, I mean, they have the car there. So in case if there was something, I guess they would have the appeals panelists go take a look at the car.

But, you know, they don't always have to do them at the R&D Center. Looking at the round of eight, are there any surprises? And who do you think the favorites are? Well, you know, first off, you have the top seven in points from the regular season are in this. And then Joey Lugano. right? I think Brad Kislauski was the eighth in the regular season points. He's the only driver from that top eight who didn't make this round. So I mean, I think that makes it, you know, we talk about all the chaos and yet we have the best drivers from the regular season and a two-time

cup champion in this round. So I think it's, to me, it's some, I mean, Kyle Larson has six wins this year. Nobody has more than three. You know, I mean, he's sitting there saying everybody knows he can win on any race. Cliff Daniels is sitting there saying, you know, our biggest competition is ourselves. With respect to everybody. He's like,

with respect to everybody else, right now we feel that our best, you know, our biggest competition is ourselves. You know, to me, he's the favorite. I don't,

I don't think enough people give enough credit to Christopher Bell. I think he's, to me, he's that quiet achiever. And, you know, he,

I love the fact that how honest he was at Kansas, where he made the mistake at the end of, for stage one and stage two when he hit the wall. He said that was totally on me. And I just think, you know, he's the only guy who's made the championship for the last two years in succession.

And I just think the time is now for him. As fast as he's been at these flat mile ovals, if he gets to Phoenix, he has to be the favorite, in my opinion. So then I'll hear a couple weeks ago, like that Gateway Phoenix won, like, New Hampshire, these flat mile ovals, he's been the guy, him and Blamey. or been the two guys to beat. And he's been, I think, a little bit better than Blaney. So to your point, like, he's going into that race.

If he can get there, still got to get there. But if he gets there, he's going to be hard to be. But if somebody in the round of eight wins Vegas, and they probably will, they are sitting on a meal ticket to get more weeks of prep for Phoenix than everybody else. We've seen it before. It used to be this race was Martinsville. And whoever won Martinsville, it was like, oh, you better look out when they get the championship weekend. We say that this race this weekend, we've said on here before.

is maybe the third most important race of the season. Daytona 500 is always going to be the most important to me, championship race and then Vegas. Because like you said, if you win Vegas, you can spend the next three weeks simming, doing everything you can for Phoenix versus having to worry about any other race in this round. I know I'm meant to answer the questions, not ask the questions,

but I'm intrigued to know. Did you guys enjoy seeing the non-playoff drivers win the first two races of the round of 12? I wish I was one of them, but yes. I totally did. I think it has a cool element. And it just shows you, I mean, I told my buddy this past week, I saw a guy named Logan Watson down in Monroe, North Carolina. And I said point blank, the drivers are the best today they've ever been in my lifetime.

And it's because they don't have a second job. They do this seven days a week. And then they wake up and go to bed thinking about how am I going to go fast, how am I going to win? And they're training mentally, they're training physically. They're training in simulation. They're unbelievable. and it just goes to show that anybody can win. 30 guys can win any given week.

I was talking about this on the roof yesterday. 31 if you take out Larson. I was talking about this on the roof yesterday. And we talked about it here a couple weeks ago, SVG in these Xfinity races, nobody progresses more during a race, in my opinion, than SVG. Like he starts the race 30th. And by the end of stage one, he's probably 25th,

but he's figuring it out. By the end of stage two, he's 15th. By the end of the race, he's in the top 10. And it's just him learning. We don't have enough practice for him to get this down. I said, that's amazing that he can do that in the Xfinity car. Next year, he's not going to be able to do that. Like, you can't qualify 30th in the cup race and progress that much through the field

because everybody in the cup field is so good, that field is so much tighter that if you, if you don't have your A game for qualifying, you're going to be buried, I think, all day. And that's just a testament to how talented and how deep that cup field really is, I think. We need rookie tests. I'm not saying we need to go back to seven test a year. per team and the way we used to do it. And I do realize when I say we give a rookie a test that track house is going to get all the data from the test, I realize all that.

But we can't expect an SVG to come along at his age and be able to get in this car and be competitive without more seat time. And there's no way to get it except in real time. And like you said, in a cup series, good luck. Yeah, you're not going to do what you do in Xfinity. Yeah. Like, it's not going to happen. His progression has been pretty astounding, I think, though.

You have to realize his level of racing IQ. I mean, that's a guy who's gone and done a round of the World Rally Championship and finished in the top 10. You know, he could race V8 supercars for so long. Now he's in NASCAR. You could put him in anything. And he just loves to drive a car. And I think here in North America, we have so many examples of great drivers who were diverse. You know, Mario Andretti, Tony Stewart, AJ Foight, whatever.

The list goes on now in the modern era, Kyle Larson. Shane's cut from that same cloth. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree. Of all the personalities you've covered, because you've covered more forms of motorsports than any broadcaster I've ever personally met or been associated with, who is your favorite personality? And I know that's a hard question to put you on the spot. But, I mean, you've covered F1, Indy car, Rallycar, MSA, obviously NASCAR now. You've covered motorcycles. Like, holy cow, what's your favorite personality? somebody who has some character somebody who likes to have a laugh there's big characters out there Valentino Rossi is one that stands out

but anybody who can laugh at themselves and just is happy to share their true love of motorsport whether it's two wheels or four I'm so lucky to have worked with so many amazing people throughout my career my little red-headed brother from Tallahassee Florida Ricky Carmichael

I get to sit beside for the Supercross season. And we literally are like brothers. We fight and tease each other and have so many laughs. I mean, Ricky's a big character. So, yeah, I've been really lucky. I know I'm not giving you a direct answer. That's okay. I love hearing all these names.

Because it is hard. You know, when I was young, when I was in my 20s, sadly, this person is no longer around. But when I got my big break in television, which before it was called V8 Supercars, it was the Australian Touring Car Championship. And I was in my mid-20s and I got to work alongside a guy by the name of Barry Sheen, who was a two-time MotoGP World Champion. In fact, the last time the UK had a MotoGP World Champion, so it was in the mid-70s.

And the same time that Barry was the 500-C world motorcycle champion, James Hunt was the Formula One World Champion, and they were best mates. And there's actually an interesting documentary there. It's called When Playboys Ruled the World. they were they were a couple of um they were a couple of rat bags and uh they they they liked having a lot of fun and that's a pretty interesting documentary but anyway i was a kid and i got to sit beside barry sheen and he kind of he kind of um you know taught me about the the world of television and business and racing and he was this global icon and superstar and i didn't realize what

i had sitting beside him you know and he helped me make the transition to the uk to the bbc and and um so i've been i've been really fortunate Bob, I got one more question before we dive into the actual show itself. So along those lines, I remember watching guys, and I hate to call them out, but guy like Casey Kane come in here and struggle to do media and struggle to be a public speaker. He eventually got really good at it. But have you noticed the drivers are better now when they get here than before? Are they still pretty raw?

Because you're making a face like that. They're still raw, but it's not their fault. I mean, they've been racing now go-carts and everything. they're going to Millbridge at age five, six, seven. And to be, and to be good, they have to go every week and they have to focus on racing. And they don't, at least now there's more people their age racing. But, you know, once you get to kind of a touring series level, there aren't a lot of people your age to hang out with. Football players and basketball players and baseball players.

They're all in a locker room with people their own age. They create their own skills. They become leaders. They're on a bus for four hours. And they learn social skills. And here, you know, some of them are being homeschooled, which, you know, you have to be probably. And you're not hanging around people your own age. You're either racing against people who are older than you who are probably very jealous that you're beating them.

Or you're hanging out with crew guys who are 20 years older than you and are, you know, just saying, man, I hope this kid doesn't wreck this car. right or I hope this kid appreciates it and so I think it's it's a challenge to to learn the social skills to learn the skills of you know public speaking and being comfortable with yourself in in this environment where you what you need to do to be great I mean to be a great race car driver you need to be a very focused person on the craft you don't have time to socialize you know I mean How many stories every year? Well, I skipped the prom or I skipped, you know, going to high school football games because I'm racing every weekend.

Well, how do you learn social skills that way? I don't know. But do you also see, and we've talked about this before, how drivers can't really speak their minds to some extent. And people are teams like TRD and Chevy. They have programs where they can go through media training so they are more polished. Like, do you see that change? because I don't think that existed in the Casey Kane era.

Maybe a little bit. What I was hoping is that now young people, their lives are on social media, right? And so they're used to putting everything out there. Like, I'm thinking, man, if we want to put a camera in this person's house, like, they're like, yeah, I mean, I take selfies and film myself all the time. But right now, it's still at a point where most of the top young drivers have people doing their social media for them because they're so focused on their. They're racing craft. You mentioned all the other sports, football, baseball, basketball, soccer, whatever. I watch for the love of the game.

When it comes to racing, Lee, I watch racing probably 60% for the personality and for the relatability. Like, it's the story of the driver that I care about as much as I do the racing, which is completely different than other sports for me. 100%. I mean, if there were no drivers in the cars, would you watch? No. Of course you wouldn't.

No. So on that note too, I mean, you followed super cross. I've seen you in the marine industry, things like that, which is where I came from. We complain a lot about, you know, the process that NASCAR has and the challenges and discrepancies, things like that. How similar is it for other sports now that you're ingrained in pretty much everything? Oh, it's pretty much the same everywhere you go. Yeah, it's pretty much. And the competitors will grumble.

And yeah, I mean, it's pretty much the same. I just want to jump back a step to the to the young drivers and their their media savvy. I think a great example right now of of incredible maturity and a great communicator and a great ambassador for whatever brand he's representing is Connor Zillich. It's unbelievable. You wouldn't you wouldn't like if you played a clip and you said and don't don't look at the screen whoever's listening wouldn't know that he was 18 years old. I mean that that kid is the template.

We brought him on here. Somebody that had met in the offseason and then he won the. the Rolex. I called these guys. I went in a group text. Hey, we got to have the Zilich kid on. They're like, he's not going to fit in with us. He's only 17. And I go, but he's not. I said, trust me. Let's give him 30 minutes. And he came on here and he left there. He walked out. He did the 30 minutes.

He walked out. And Brett looked to me and goes, holy that kid's 17 years old. We weren't even sure if he was allowed to come on the show. His parents had to sign his way. Yeah. But he's just, somebody, the other day, you know, Jordan, Bianchi, sent me a text. And it was like, and this year, give me five the best prospects in NASCAR. And he was number one.

And I said, like, he's like, give me that with a note about each one or whatever. And I just like, Zillich, total package. Yep. Like that's the end all, be all. Like that's the guy. You know what I mean? And he's like you said, obviously very, very, very talented race car driver. You know, obviously road course racing, whatever it is.

But he goes and where do you run the, with a Darlington? Or I forget where he ran. Kansas. Just ran fourth. Kansas. And he just top five. And I'm like, everybody's like, we'll see what he does on Oval. I'm like, well, he's going to prove you wrong again.

And then that's, that's one side of it. Then you gets out of the car and you're like, I'm not talking to an 18 year old kid. Like, he's just, he's unbelievable good kid. He's like one of our adopted children on DBC. So, all right, we'll get off his jock and let's go to the show. Hey, it's good. Lee brought it up. He's going to laugh at that part.

He's a good dude to be around. I mean, you just don't feel like you're around an 18 year old. Agreed. All right. We'll chat more Roval when we head into spot on, spot off. spot on spot off spot off spot off

spot on spot on it was super fun yesterday to ride around I am spot off damn where do you come from first topic

just feet away from taking the white flag in Saturday's Xfinity race NASCAR through the caution setting up an overtime restart spot on spot off Lee

spot off I think there was enough time for NASCAR to make that call a little bit earlier It's always easy to Monday quarterback, and I'm not, I don't want to be too harsh to NASCAR, but I think there was enough time to make that call earlier than what they did. I talked to Parker yesterday in the garage. You know, obviously wandering.

I was like, I said, let me give you a big hug. And I said, how many people have offered you hugs today? Because, you know, we all love Parker. Parker's a good dude. It's a very good race car driver. And he said, I just came out of a meeting with NASCAR to, and I said, do you feel better or worse at this point. And he said, I actually feel better. And, and their side of it is they don't watch the broadcast. Like, we all see on TV. Like, well, the way I saw it was the car buried on the

big screen. Um, Honeyman, I think it was just had a left front flat, locked the brakes up. I mean, you couldn't get any more buried than Leland Honeyman was in that, in that barrier. But everybody's like, we see it on TV. And NASCAR said, we can't watch the broadcast. And the reason they can't watch the broadcast and maybe this, you lead to TV, you might know this. But he said, is if we're watching a broadcast and the broadcast so happens to show a replay. And it's a replay of a wreck. All of a sudden we want to, and we've done it before me and you,

I'm sure I've done it. Like you're spotting the race and you look up and there's a replay of a wreck on TV and you're like, oh, no, no, never mind. That's a replay. They said that by the time they confirmed it,

it was 20 something seconds. And when they confirmed it, they hit the button and it was whatever it was. But I agree with you. We were on the radio. The leader was probably just coming out of the. backstitch chican. And I said, there's a car buried. There's going to be a caution. And I said, no, wait. They're waiting. They're waiting. They're still waiting. They're also scanning spotters.

They're like, yeah, like, make plays not excuses is what's on my son's mirror. The, well, look, it's spot off because take Parker Clickerman out of it. It shouldn't take 20 seconds to get a caution for somebody who's buried in the tires. I mean, no, granted, I think on TV you kind of saw him moving, but you don't, I mean, if a car is buried... He wasn't getting out of that. Yeah, and so whatever the process is, it needed to improve. And actually, during, before the cup race, you could hear them talking to spotters, their officials and say,

okay, where can you see, tell me what you can see, I think to make sure that they had the whole track covered. Because again, whether Parker, wherever Parker Kligerman is or the impact on the race, shouldn't take 20 seconds to throw caution for a car buried that deep. As you guys know, often a positive comes out of a negative. And even though he's one of my broadcast teammates, I don't know what the circumstances are around Parker deciding not to race full time anymore. But if I'm somebody a sponsor or a team and I'm on the fence about my 2025 plans,

that drive that he put in the other day gets him a drive in 2025. Absolutely. That was the drive, even like aside from his truck win at mid Ohio, that was the best drive he's ever had in his career. You're watching. I'm assuming you watch the race. But like, so the last seven laps, I would say, once Sam gets a second, I'm like, oh, he's going to, he's going to eat Parker up here.

He's got fresher tires. He's going to wear him out. And Parker defended, like nobody I've ever seen before for five or six laps, whatever it was, like just, you could tell they were just, the two of them were just driving the shit out of their race cars. And it was, that's like the most purest form of motorsport for me is like this is just watching these two guys. They are getting after it.

There's nothing left on the table. Parker's racing for his life. Sam's racing for his life. Like that was the best five laps you were going to watch in a long time. The lights are controlled by the tower. And it's like Buffalo Wild Wings was running the lights. You know, it's like, we got last call. And it's like, oh, no, let's get everybody to stick around for the 30 minutes.

Boom, we got overtime. So it was like watching a real life, you know, Buffalo Wild Wings ad campaign moment. But I do hate it for Parker. I mean, he. oh, that's a heartbreaking way to lose it. But shout out to him, though, because he saw how close he was on the broadcast when they interviewed him. And it was, I mean, he handled it very well. I can promise you in the back of his mind, he had to keep telling himself, I work for NBC tomorrow and I'm on the broadcast for NASCAR.

I work for NBC tomorrow and I can't say anything stupid right here because he's that intelligent of a person. I would have lost my mind. He's very measured. You know, he knows how to play the game, as you would say. I'm sure he would love to get out there and just MF everybody on the planet. But like you said, he's also looking for a job. So he can't get out there and bury everybody and then make himself look bad after something like that. I guess Bob and Lee, for you guys, knowing a topic like this, when you're on the broadcaster

and you're writing a story, obviously NASCAR is a partner of yours and the company you work for. How do you handle, you know, constructive criticism versus being, you know, supportive of what they're doing when they make a wrong call? Well, I think, I mean, first off, you ask what their side is and you try to present both sides. You try to ask people around if there's a way to do things better. I mean, our job mainly is to explain to fans what, why something happened. and, you know, potentially what can be improved to change it if anything needs to be improved. And that's, you know, I think, you know, we're just try. The main thing is you try not to make it personal, right?

With, I mean, we know all the people who are in the tower. We see them every week. They see us every week, you know. And so I think if you can keep it to a point where it's constructive, And it is, you know, as a journalist, you always believe that discussion and openness and transparency and debate leads to improvement. Now, there's, there will always be another side where it says, well, maybe we shouldn't talk about this in public or that in public. But in my role, my role is to have it being talked about in public and just trying to be

as fair as possible. And as Lee talked about earlier, you know, when you're go from newspapers where you're a 24-hour news cycle to now TV and social media where it's a 24-second news cycle that does present some more challenges to it. And Casey, you have to remember and acknowledge the weight and responsibility of live. Like, live, there's no do-overs. Live is you get one chance. And that's either in broadcast or in race control or wherever. when you're when you're live that's it you don't get a chance to go off and make another coffee and delete that paragraph or whatever you let's do a second take let's do a third take the weight and the responsibility of live is it's pretty heavy so there's a reason we're taped and and olympics

this year like you know i mean like i'm watching the same race you are live and i thought what you said was what i thought i watched i thought the jamaican sprinter won the race yep and you said it like and and obviously that's not the case but like how do you deal with that or you know back i hate i hate say backlash because i hate i get all that but like same thing you're watching it and then you are calling that in the moment like how does that work for you know so it was um you know you have to as a broadcaster as a play by play calling the action you have to trust yourself you have to trust your eyes and you have to trust your instinct and you know throughout everything that i've done it's always worked.

And I missed it by five thousandths of a second. Yeah, what the f***? And so, you know, I've spoken about this with my bosses. You know, if I'd said Noah Liles had won, it would have been the call of the century. But I said what everybody thought, where the cameras were going. And, you know, the year before in Budapest,

I called Shakari Richardson becoming the world champion by seven hundredths of a second, just with my eyes, right? I called it. And that worked. and when, you know, I've been criticized by people Monday quarterbacking saying you shouldn't have said anything. You should have said it was too close to call, but that's not my style. I trust myself.

I trusted my eyes and I missed it by the blink of a human eye, 5,000ths of a second. And I have to wear that responsibility for the rest of my life. I got absolutely slaughtered in the media and it was pretty hard to wake up the next day and put my clothes on and go to work. But that's what you had to do. And I'm actually, I'm not ashamed of that call. I made a mistake. I'm human. I was bold.

And I got it wrong. And that's exactly what I said in my statement on social media. My support team from our president of NBC Sports down, the entire executive team, all of the producers were incredibly supportive. Because it was a bloody hard moment. It's pretty hard to wake up. And you're being attacked by every media organization and every Monday expert who doesn't know what it's like to sit there. the way, as close as I'm sitting to Bob, I was sitting with a legend, my teammate, Addo Bolden, who's won four Olympic medals in 100 and 200. He thought the Jamaican one as well. But I was the one

who said it. And so I have to wear that weight of responsibility. And I had to take the punches. But it made me better. And as a father of two boys, I use that as an example of rebounding and and showing that you can turn a positive after a negative. And I've learned from that. And I've called some close races since. And yeah, I mean, it was tough. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't.

It's just, you know, we, we, I, I, I tweeted it. Like, I was like, if you guys are talking about this, you don't, you've never met Lee. You never spent a minute with him. Like, he's calling it. Like, don't say anything. Well, that'd be exciting finish. They come through the start of the finish line. I go, is that what you want?

Like, you know, I expect you to make that call. And like I said, I'm watching the race the same time you are. And I'm like, oh, we like, obviously, we're all in this room probably cheering for the American. And I'm like, damn, just lost. And then, you know, what transpired next. But yeah, it was, it was hard to see knowing you and having so much respect for you, knowing that that's just your style. Agreed.

And I mean, if you were Brett, you would just block them all. So thank you for handling it well. All right. Moving on, spot on, spot off. During stage one, Bubba Wallace was issued a course cutting penalty in the front stretch chicane while William Byron was not penalized after using what appeared to be the same line, just two cars back from Wallace. Freddie, what do you think?

So as much as, and you talk about tendencies and part of our job is to know the tendencies of the drivers around us. That's what we study film for is to know what these guys do in certain situations. we also know that about NASCAR. So NASCAR came out. They removed that turtle Sunday morning and then also held a meeting with the drivers and crew chiefs or maybe just crew chiefs.

And it was, we are now going to enforce this very strictly. The track limits are going to be enforced. So I told Bubba what that means before the race, I said they are going to call penalties in the first 10 laps of the race on non-playoff drivers. That's how they're going to do this. They're going to set the tone that they're making this call.

It's not going to be somebody that they can negatively affect in a really bad way. It's going to be guys that, I don't want to say don't matter, but there's guys that it'll be less of a harsh penalty. You saw it in the first five laps. Eric Jones gets popped. We get popped. True X, I think, was the next one after us to get popped.

Then there was never a call the rest of the day. And I literally watched Byron go through there right behind us and do the same. And Bubba, listen to Bobba was wrong. 100%. He was pushing the limits and I had told him three or four times on the radio like, you got to be better through that chicane. I said you're just like, you don't want to say on the radio

because now you're drawing attention to yourself of hey, don't watch us. But I was like, hey, you got to like, you know, be mindful of you got to have your left side tires on that paint. Bob. I mean, I would say spot on because, I mean, it's ball strike.

And sometimes you're going to call, you're, it's going to be a ball on one and then strike on another. And I think that's the way this is. And NASCAR tried to show, photo where both Byron's left and both left side wheels were on the red and white at the same time. So they're like, so we didn't call it there. Bubba, I think was a little bit further inside. Well, Bubba was never further. We was further inside. So I mean, look, they're not going to,

they had told the teams that kind of a tie goes to the runner. And they told us tie goes to the booth. Is that what they told you? That's what that's what they tell us by the message. The message we got was tie goes to the booth. So, uh, you know, I, I mean, I don't, if you don't have cameras there, I mean, to officiate it, like you would probably, I mean, I think they said they put up some cameras. But I mean, if you don't really have a system like they do on pit road to officiate it, you know, if you, if you're, if they had penalized Byron, I'd say spot on too. It's just, it's one of those calls that's just in the moment. I'm not going to bash NASCAR on it too, too much because it's, again, it's so close. So, so close. that, you know, that I just think it's a difficult area to officiate. I don't want to see officiating there. Like I don't, I want the track limits to be the track itself and not a human eye making a call that out of bounds should have a penalty.

You know, when you, when you, you don't question, did a driver hit a wall or not hit a wall? You know they hit a wall. You know they're risking damaging their car. So for me, it's not a NASCAR thing. It is a track limits thing. And I just want to take NASCAR out of the equation of at their discretion. was it a penalty or not? Lee.

Yeah, what they said. All right. I support that. Moving on. The updated robo layout was an improvement to the old with the new turn 7 being a good passing opportunity. This was the best road course race of the season. Spot on, spot off, Brett.

Always Mr. Optimistic. Well, it's definitely not the best road course race this season for me. And I do think that. that turn seven was the only real passing zone unless you had a superior car to the car in front of you or on fresh tires. You were able to, I'm going to use the leeward overtake somebody. I don't think I've ever said that word. I usually say pass. But turn seven was an improvement. We can't let them go through that backstretched chicane as fast as they're going through there because we need that to be. If we're going to stay on the roval, Lee, I think we got to make that be a passing zone.

Who said that was the best road course of the year? Were they not watching Watkins Glen? it was Jay Jay felt it was the best one he used to work at Fox take that for what it's worth it was it was just spot on as far as the changes were improvements for sure for sure I mean I liked

we even discussed in our production meeting before the race like keep it keep an extra close eye on turn 7 because we made such a big deal at Talladega at 190 miles an hour four wide at one stage there were four wide in turn seven like you know watch that and and it was almost every lap they were they were two and three wide through turn seven so um i i think that section where they they you come through turn five and up and over the hill and then down to six and then leading into

seven i think that was very inviting and i think that worked instead of that that really cut back to the to the right i think that opened it up it flowed better um yeah i think there were i think there were positives all around so spot on from me i think that there was so much negativity leading up to it. You know, so much drivers were so concerned, teams were so concerned. They walked the track like last week or so. And they were all worried about just the big dive bomb. And maybe Saturday I thought was a good illustration of it.

You know, Parker and Sam are battling. And you make that lead car make a decision. Do I want to block the bottom? And as long as like Sam, Sam pulled off a move that was unbelievably talented. but at the same time he could have been the guy that just lined Parker up and shipped him out of the way and he didn't he knew that he can go in there once once Parker shouted his entry up and as elite guy I don't even know how you have two options Parker decided to block a little bit if he moves up maybe Sam just ships it in there and door slams him and takes a lead who knows but Sam did it the right way and it was very respectful and it made for a great finish on Saturday for that reason we never got that Kyle was killing everybody on Saturday Sunday so it we never got to that point, but it wasn't as big of a show as everybody thought it was going to be. I would say spot on for the fact that the drivers were definitely being beat up on Saturday,

going over that curbing and then changing it so that, you know, that they were not beat up as much, which kind of created the, the next, the earlier discussion of track limits. but at least NASCAR listened to the drivers, listened to their concerns. And certainly there was a feeling, well, just don't go over them then, but they know that drivers are going to do the most,

do what they need to do to make speed and made the change. We've said this before by the drivers. Like you've got to protect them from themselves a lot of times. Like I get it. Like they were, a lot of drivers were talking about, like Bubba was literally flying to the air on, during qualifying.

And, you know, he's like, man, that hurt kind of. you know, like that was a rough ride. And a lot of drivers saying this is rougher than Waukins Gun never was. But if I, if you, if I told you you can gain a tenth of a second by doing it, you're all going to do it. You know, so it's like you have to at some point protect these guys from themselves. And luckily they made a change over there.

All right. When we come back, it's time for Reaction Theater. Now it's time for our favorite segment, Reaction Theater, where it's your turn to be heard. Reaction Theater is brought to you every week by Consumer Cellular. Consumer Cellular has the same fast, reliable nationwide. coverage is leading carriers, but with plans as low as $20 a month. If you're paying too much for wireless service, pump the brakes and switch to consumer cellular. They offer big wireless coverage without the big wireless cost. And now, once you turn

50, you can get two lines of limited talk, text, and data for $30 each. That's $60 a month. So why keep spending more than you have to? Be a winner with consumer cellular and call 1888 Freedom or visit consumercellular.com. This rate plan requires two lines of service, age verification and credit approval. Subject to system area limits, taxes and fees apply. So I'm sitting here, watching, waiting for Bathers,

qualifying. I'm saying, and I want to give my Lee Diffy impression. I figure it's something like, it's a big one, Arnard. Hey, guys, this one's for Lee Diffy. I think he's doing a pretty damn good job,

but I got to say, I had to listen to boogie-bugty for way too frigging long in my life. And now this, let's go, bullshit. I'm sorry, but this isn't a car rental ad. So we've got to come up

with some new material for restarts. What do you say during resarts? I haven't. I don't know. At least they hadn't made a personal yet because they make it personal to be afraid. They call it fat asses and gait tooth and balding. You bring that on yourself,

but I actually don't notice it. And I watch the broadcast every week. So you're fine. I don't know. I couldn't grow a beard in time, but at least I wore a cab. You did. The guys with the beard.

the ones who get us in trouble. Who? Last year, I asked if the studio had light and Bob told us they were boobs. I have any question for you, Bob. Will the DVC studio use wet weather tires if it rains?

Oh no. I mean, I don't think they, I mean, these guys are good on slicks everywhere. They're that talented. They don't need the wet weather tires. They can just go out. I mean, look, I mean, they crashed just as good on the slicks.

I just, I wouldn't waste my money on wet weather tires with them. We, we, yes, we, yeah, I agree. I'm not going to say anymore. All right, listen, listen, I came all the way from Long Island to Charlotte Motor Speedway to ask Freddie Craft about the Columbia story. And I found him after his little appearance on the backstretch at Charlotte Motor Speedway. and I asked him to give me the Columbia story and he went ahead and ignored me.

I then found him again and asked him one more time and name dropped a good friend of his and he still declined to give me the Columbia story. Freddie Craft is a fraud. He named John my buddy Eric Zay and guess well buddy, you're never hearing the Columbia story. Get over it. Just fine, mate. I'll get it to you.

Faye don't remember it anyway. I was going to say, I wouldn't even there. Lee, we had a, me and Brett had a, went to school in Columbia, South Carolina, and we went down there one day, and it turned out worse for one of us than the other. I'll, I'll say that. You did get to meet Don Staley. That's a positive. I did get to me in Don's daily that day.

Hey, Brett, you fat motherfucker about Alex God's a woman in the fucking round of eight. Don't say about Alex Bowman anymore, man. and he's done. Shut your big fat ass up three times now. Keep that motherfucker name out your mouth. Have a good one. Should we tell him? I'm sure you guys are pretty happy with yourselves.

Now that 48 has been disqualified so that you can continue to say that the Joey Lugano, even your bullshit stand. Might as well add Jeff Gordon back to the playoffs. I'm so mad right now. I can't. I'm bitten that if you can't tell. racing gods have ruled in Joey Lugano's favor

and now he's coming to rule you all well I was going to call in and basically rubbing in but Alex Bowman making the round of eight and say you guys for not believing him but instead just found out he got teakued so I guess it's time to take some edge off take a nice warm bath got the tub filling up the candles lift and the toaster ready terrible day to be a little fan

the toaster ready at one point did we never say we don't believe in Alex Bowman. Did that ever come out of my I think we need to call his crew chief and asking him a secret of losing 17 pounds?

I can't believe your fat ass didn't believe in him and got him described like you know that's all on me that's all on me. That first call

he regrets that first call I guarantee. Yeah. Good job playing out Jay. I'm glad. Dead. Good.

Every week. He calls it. He calls it every week. Parker Kligerman baby. Hell yeah. Finally, dude.

Parker, Clingerman, baby. That was... That needs to be a caution before they get the white flag. We could have had a green-white checkered in this Xfinity rate. What the hell, man. These are quick calls. NASCAR.

You just 22 to All-Star race, Parker Cleggerman. One of the most personable people in the Xfinity series for... Sam Mayer. Like, I have so many f*** emotions right now, and I'm so pissed off. I made two calls now. They need to play more. We need to cross. chronological timeline.

You T-Jer. I love you, Brett. You, T.J. Well, God's going to stay in front of the TV. I apologize

for about that call that race because apparently it really was a green-white record. Woo! Go NASCAR. I love you.

Hala. Call back. The, my favorite body is like, they decide by personality who they let win their race. You know,

Parker's a nice guy. That's a damn air, we're going to throw the yellow. You're like, that doesn't happen. I hope it doesn't happen. Wow, NASCAR just stole Parker Clark Kliberman's first career win. Who's up there hitting the buzzer?

Steve Harvey. Where's this family feud? It is ridiculous. No wonder Carl Edwards retired. Man, I don't know who got blueball even worse today. The South Carolina fans, every quarterback's threw at a yards out of bounds on a two-point conversion. Parker Kligerman in the 48th team,

whenever NASCAR threw the caution about, you know, A pew pair before the start-finish line on the white flag. Yeah, I'm sorry. Did NASCAR have Steedy Wonder as the honorary release official for today? Why? Do they wait? Three years to throw a caution for the 42. It makes no sense.

Three years is a long time. I tell you what. If I was Park, Cleggerman, I walk right in the NASCAR hauler and just start whipping an ass. Just everybody in there, just start whipping their f***. Hell, if I was within a thousand miles of Charlotte, North Carolina, I walk into myself and start whipping ass. That's a good news. Sam Mayer gets out of the car and he thinks

the good Lord. Maybe he should think NASCAR. This is bullshit. Can't even stand the kids smiling on TV and he has nothing to do with it. Sam, listen, don't hate Sam Mayer. Sam Mayer did everything right in the end of that race. He didn't, he could have done a lot of things wrong and wrecked

Parker and it took chances that I've seen him take before. He did everything right and did it the right way. And I'm not 100% sure that without that caution, he was still going to pass Parker. So I think the fastest car won the race that day. The caution was going to come out, though. Yeah, oh, for sure.

So the question is, would Parker still be leading when the caution does come out if they take the white? But to your point, Sam's approach once Parker blocked the bottom to late apex that corner like he did and pull it off without. I mean, if he touched him, he barely touched him. Brett. What the fuck happened to the Cox? like they had the game one

QB choke twice did the good one yeah well yeah we got one good one he looks like Urgle yeah yeah he's gone all right well he ain't gone

I'm sorry Jay go ahead well you can take the kid out of the truck series but you can't take the truck series out of the kid kamikaze Carson's out here run over everybody

ruining days left and right what it is Carson didn't make a single friend yesterday like he I watched I don't know how much it came across on the broadcast,

but he was very aggressive all day yesterday. I think there was one big incident to seven, right? He was adventurous. That's one way to put it. I said it at one stage to Jeff Burton. I said, Jeff, think about the moves you made when you were 21. But isn't he good for you? He is.

He's been entertaining, for sure. I mean, yeah, I think when Phoenix, is done. He's going to take some time to reflect and there's going to be highs and lows on the season. But I think for a kid clearly he's fast. He's got talent. I think there'll be a period of reflection and self-analysis

and he'll come back better next year. You all messed up. Y'all said you could send photos of this number. Y'all are in for a heap of trouble. There's some freaky-ass fans out there. Watch yourself. Turn it off. All right, bye.

Jay, did you how many texts you get this week jay we got about 75 texts how many of them were explicit photos i got a lot of pictures of people's pets pet oh pets oh i got you yeah nothing explicit um but i will say that it's coming it's probably coming after this but there were there were a surprising number of good texts went back and forth with a lot of people don how do we share these texts we got to put them out on social can we can we share these texts? Can we share these texts? Legal needs to probably be involved. Let's call HR and see how we can do this.

I love how animated our listeners are. The reaction theater is the best part of this show, just because we get to hear from everybody. And then my favorite part's next. Don't forget our number 704-802-9572 to leave us a message. Consumer Cellier is the official wireless partner of Brad Keselowski, RFK Racing, and the 6th car. If they can count on Consumer Cellier, so can you.

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This rate plan requires two lines of service, age verification, and credit approval. Subject to system and area limits, taxes and fees apply. Time for AskDBC. Another way you can send us your thoughts. This first question is from Matthew. Lee,

what mother sports event have you not commented yet that you would love to? Daytona 500. That's a very easy answer for you, huh? Yeah, yeah. Quick answer. Love it. Well, it's right up there on the list.

So the only form of motorsport that I haven't done is NHRA. I've done everything else. But the one big marquee event that I haven't done is the Daytona 500. I'd love to do it. In the pantheon of prestigious races, where do you, I don't want to get in trouble with the NASCAR fans. I think in my opinion, and maybe back this up, 80500 is probably the most prestigious race in the world. And then it's the Daytona 500. Like, you feel the same?

I mean, I know, like, Bathurst and all that stuff. But, like, I feel like those are the two main. Yeah, I mean, there is nothing and it's, and it's, it's no disrespect to anybody because it's not even, in my mind, it's not even an arguable point. There is nothing in the world like the Indianapolis 500. That's why it is the greatest spectacle in racing. To see in excess of 300,000 people in the one place is just extraordinary. And I've had a lot of visitors come from overseas and come to the 500.

and they can't forget what's going on on track. They just can't believe the human spectacle. And then the Daytona 500, which I've been fortunate enough to go to as a fan just once. I'd love to go back next year. 24 hours of Lamont where there is, you know, there's probably 200,000 people there is extraordinary. Monaco Grand Prix is special in its own way. The people watching and car watching and boat watching is pretty crazy. And then the Bathurst 1,000, which just happened last weekend.

Yeah, we're going to bring Brett's pontoon to Monaco next year, I think. Yeah, a little good out there. He's got my door 18-foot pontoon boat with a 90-horsepower motor on the phone. Do you want to tell you a story that is true that we used to do that the viewers didn't realize that we did? We would do the pre-race show sitting up here like we are on, on, it was called the Prince Ragnier Key, which is like where the entrance to the harbor from the Mediterranean, we'd be under this kind of marquee. and with Monaco in the background and we would do the pre-race show

and we would pre-record one of the segments and David Hobbs and Steve Matchett were released and I would do the last segment by myself and then I would run. But where I would run was down the stairs to a boat, to a tender and we would go across Monaco Harbour

to the commentary booth in the space of an ad break and one year the boat didn't come for me and I almost missed the start of the start of the Monaco Grand Prix. It was like, it was interesting. They were fun days at work. How was the panic level? It was big.

How do you describe to folks in Australia the diversity of the NASCAR schedule? Because we have to be the diverse, most diverse scheduling presenter in all of motorsports, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's extraordinary. I don't think people, like, probably a better person to ask is Shane Van Gisberg and who's just come from supercars and has now. living the NASCAR dream. And he's loving it so much for the simple fact that he's racing every week. That's what he loves most about it because the supercar schedule is spread out, in my opinion,

way too long with too few events. And of course, the economics play a role in that. But Shane's loving it so much because of the diversity and because of just the frequency. He's in a car every week. And that's the great part about it. But I mean, until you have been as a fan or for us, we're lucky enough to work in the industry to experience the NASCAR schedule. It's quite hard to believe, really. Matthew also asked a question to Bob. You've covered NASCAR for over 30 years. Did you think you'd do it this long?

And what are some of your favorite memories? Well, I don't think you could ever say that you're going to be in the same industry for 30 years, covering the same thing because usually it gets chosen for you. so I've been very fortunate and my memories go back before covering NASCAR as a kid I moved to Indianapolis when I was 10 and you talk about the Indianapolis 500 um can I plug that's coming to fox uh next year sorry awkward Lee you can punch me in the faith thanks thanks but but to kind describe I mean what what Lee was saying like I mean when you're a kid in elementary school choir you learn back home again in Indiana.

So when they sing that before the race, that's just not some song. You know, that's something that you grew up doing. You know, I was in the Boy Scouts, and we set up chairs for the parade that they do the day before the race. So you saw all those drivers. You knew their faces. You didn't need a fire suit to know who they were. And so it is just totally ingrained in that community.

And people, you know, I mean, that race has, you know, this will be 109, 109 years of history. And there are people who have been going there. Tickets passed down from generation to generation. I was not. I think I did go. I moved to Indiana in 1979. I think we went in 1980.

And I went to pretty more. I don't know yet. You look like you want to. Well, I mean, I grew up. Bob wants to do Bob's thoughts from the front trench of Indiana. I mean, look, I joke that, you know, as a teenager, I, you know, apologies to my high school teachers, but I learned as much about biology and the human body standing in turn one watching the Indianapolis 500 as I did in school. I mean, it's a cultural experience there like no other. So, so those are, as far as NASCAR, I mean, look, I don't think, you know, Dale Jr. winning in 2001 at Daytona has to be, you know, the most kind of emotional moment. You know, there's certainly a mix of sad. And, happy memories of that day, but being there for that event was,

uh, was something that I don't think you'll, you know, you could ever, you could ever forget. Um, you had, uh, you know, the Tony Stewart rally there, the him, the him, Carl Edwards battles were, you know, during that championship season, were, uh, were unbelievable. That you were right. Uh, yes, you know, I have been in the middle of, uh, of some fights and, and everything as well. So a little bit of everything. This next one is from Alex, with the Bathurst 1,000 happening over the weekend. If Lee could pick two drivers from each manufacturer that take part in a wild car entry, who would he pick?

Like from NASCAR to go to Bathurst? Yeah, let's go to that one. I'll tell you who one of my, one of the first people that I ever spoke to here about supercars was Austin Dillon. and Austin, Austin just had such a passion to race a supercar. So maybe put him there for Chevy. Can I take two from Chevy? How could you not want to put Kyle Larson in a super car, right? For how he just loves driving all different types of cars.

And I don't know. I think your man, I think Bubba would really love it because the track is, when we went back in the good old days of Speed Channel Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip, myself and Calvin Fish, we went and covered the Bathurst 1000 live in 2011 and I'll never forget the look on the faces of particularly DW and Calvin as former drivers when they saw just how narrow the track was and how fast the cars go across a narrow strip of asphalt

across the top of the mountain. They couldn't believe it because it's just a normal road that gets turned into a racetrack. So I think Bubba would really really. enjoy that. I remember DW did like a ride-along, right? He was screaming the whole time. Yeah. He called it a geological oddity. So there's a few drivers for you. I guess I didn't choose a Ford driver. I don't know. Blaney is a Ryan Ryan's a student of the sport and loves the history of the sport. So maybe

Ryan Blaney. I like it. Next one is from Aaron. Which tracks have been on your bucket lists since before you worked in motorsports. This one's for Bob and Lee, obviously. I guess are we talking about ones that now we haven't been to? You know, before I worked in motorsports, I guess I was living in Indianapolis. So, um. Chili bowl. Yeah.

I mean, I mean, you hear so much about Lamont. Like that, like to me, that would be probably the one that I would just, want to see an experience once. Lee? I would say before I was working in motorsports, I'd say Indianapolis, for sure, and being lucky to go there many times

and be involved in the event. Maybe on the still-to-visit list, well, now I'm living my dream of checking off all the American tracks that I've never been to, and especially this year, like, Talladega was mind-blowing. That was something else.

That was, and I didn't even get to experience the boulevard. So that's still on the to-do list. But just to go there first thing in the morning and the sun was coming up and there was nobody there to stand on pit lane and look at the grandstands and the enormity of it, that was pretty amazing. And even though I called Formula One for many years, I've still never been to spa. So I'd love to go to spa in Belgium. Oh, that is a good one. All right. When we come back, it's time for what an idiot. What an idiot. We, Bob, should we kick things off with any idiots you have on your list?

So we call it. We usually call somebody an idiot. You know, it's not really an idiot. It's not really an idiot. Like mine's this week is going to be whoever put the arc of brakes on Tyler Reddick's car. Because he struggled a couple of times piling into folks and wrecking Daniel Hemrick.

I mean, it's pretty hard to hit a car and get your rear wheels completely off the ground. And Brett, my idiot is you for saying, calling him out when I don't think you'd be able to do it much better if you were in that situation. Okay. I don't know whether. call somebody an idiot just go for it it's almost like a group of people

this is this is what I think was the whole dbc this is what I think was idiotic we did give kudos to NASCAR for making that change to the to the front stretch to the front stretch but kind of there been a practice day like it's this to the people who are like hey let's go let's change the track

we're trying to create chaos but we know that we've had issues with bumpers before or with curbing before. Let's have a practice day. And if you had a practice day, then you could have changed the course and then everybody could have at least had a little bit of practice over what they actually raced on. And I mean, in the end, did it make a huge difference? No, but I just think when you are going to an elimination race and you change the change the course before the start of it with no practice, just in the eyes of a competition that just doesn't seem right.

I can't name mine because I don't know her, but it was the woman in the white Cadillac Escalade who wouldn't let me out of the parking lot yesterday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, who didn't understand a one for one. You know, one car goes, let somebody in. One car goes, let somebody in. She was determined that I wasn't going to get out of the parking lot yesterday. Oh, first time on the show and you've got a stay. If you drive a white escalade and you blogged and you go get yourself.

I don't think I have an idiot. I can't remember. You're just in a great mood. I usually have a list. I'm such a good, I'm an idiot. I have a buzz from smelling you for the last hour. I was up until 3 a.m.

So maybe I'm the idiot for coming here. I'll call my buddy Brian. My buddy Brian's here. He's an idiot. He stayed up with me. So, yeah, but now we,

I don't think I really have. I mean, there's the guys I watched yesterday, namely probably the 77 and the 99 looked like pinballs for a lot of it. I know Bubba, Bubba kind of like to break up and launched the 99 over the backstretched chained a little bit. And I guess they, they thought we wrecked them.

But, uh, yeah, looked like they were kind of pin balls all day yesterday. So maybe they're my win idiot this week. All right. We're going to talk Vegas before Bob has to bolt. Bob's important.

He's got to go do real TV. Well, to help with my DVC picks, Bob, who are you picking to win Vegas? Well, you should pick. You should pick Kyle Larson, right? He's won the last two races there, right? He's finished top two for the last five. Yeah. And I think he's won every stage and the race the last two.

Yeah. So he's pretty damn good there. Well, what do you expect the race to? be like anything in particular? Oh, that's a great question. I expect it to be like similar Vegas races. I do think that, you know, you can look at Kansas, most recent mile and a half and take maybe a little bit from there. So, but I'll be looking for the guys like Christopher Bell, the William Byron's, the ones that you feel like, okay, do they need, they need to get.

And really Ryan Blaney, too, because I feel like Ryan Blaney hasn't totally hit the stride that he has. at this time last year and obviously this these are the races to pick it up well have you been to this track before i have but not for a race yeah so it's another new one for me so um really looking forward to it i think bob's point on blaney is really valid blaney's in the round of eight and he's had seven dnfs i mean he's he's yet to be allowed to be released kind of thing and and and um so i think he i from an entertainment standpoint from a broad podcast standpoint, I think it would be, you know, I know it's a, it's an uphill climb at the moment for them, but I think it'd be something special if the 11, if Hamlin did. Like, because we just, we're, we're stuck in this regular conversation mode about what's wrong with the 11. What are they doing? And we, we default to Atlanta and that strategy of sitting at the back. And wouldn't it be, um, refreshing to see him up front and kind of, you know, putting all those stories to the side. So there was a point of season. He looked to be the favorite. Yeah. Yeah. And, but I don't know how you don't style of Larson.

Yeah. You're good here, right? Bubba's good at Vegas. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're good everywhere, but I mean, listen, I don't ever,

I don't ever try to sing Bubba's praises on here. You know, I like to give a little time. It is unbelievable how much he has improved his road racing savvy, whatever you want to call it. Like we, I mean, we used to dread road courses.

Like we used to. We go to. on my, you drag three times a lap. Yeah, we used to dread it. And then, like, now it's become commonplace where he's going to be in the top five or top 10 of practice. He's going to be running. Like, yesterday, we were probably a top 10 speed car.

And if he doesn't make two mistakes, he's going to run about fourth. You know, he blew the back stretch of the chain, had to do a stop and go, cost them three or four spots. We ended up, I don't even know, eighth or ninth, whatever it was. But, like, I mean, two years ago before. And it's not a lot of, I know Redix probably made our cars better. You know, when you have a guy that knows what he needs on a road course, it's going to elevate your whole program, just car wise. And I'm sure Bubba can look at some of his SMT traces and learn a lot too. But the cars are better. But to go, I mean, we couldn't run top 25 at a road course three years ago. And he's now just improved so much. He told me at Bristol that, because we were talking about when he went to the Rolex 24 at Daytona earlier this year to do the Michelin Pilot Challenge race, how. much he loved it. Things didn't work out for them in the race so well, but he was so intrigued and he had so much fun that he really wants to go back. And so that's somebody who doesn't dread

road racing. He was asking to go back into that. And I think it was like a light switch went off last year at, I want to say, Watkins Glen, where it was, I think a lot of it was just confidence. Like, I think for a long time, he realized, he's thought like, I'm just trying to hang on. You know, and, and I'm like, every, that's everybody, bud. Like, you know, that, like, you know, that like you know Scott Dixon was the one that somebody he talked to that gave him that boost of confidence as well but it's like you know I know you feel like you're out of place but so is everybody else like this is not easy for anybody like everybody feels like on edge you know and I it like whatever light switch went off last year at walkins Glen we ran top 10 the whole day

from that point on every road race we've gone to he's been top to top 10 guy and from literally two or three years ago we were we couldn't sniff to top 25 so it just credit to him but yeah but Vegas is also a good track for us. Casey, who are you picking? Oh, oh, yeah. I thought we were going in the picks. I'm sorry. I mean, who are you going to pick?

I will take Larson. Thanks, Bob. Weird. I will take. I'll take Willie B. I was who I was going to take if I still had him. I had SVG last week and T.J. had Amundinger and I kind of snookered him to get him. And you, you'd be yourself.

And I'd have told him SVG was in the race. he would have taken him and then I would have taken an Amadinger so it actually bit me and I would have taken the lead. Who did you pick? William Byron?

Yeah. I'll take, have I picked Bell yet? I'll take Bell. Do we have T.J.'s yet? We don't care about it. Yeah, he texted me, Larson. Then he texted me Byron. So we're waiting to see

who his third pick is because I texted him and I said, I think we're going to need a third. So we got the three little bubbles. Kyle Bush is T.J.'s pick this week. That's a big. Interesting. Hometown guy.

He's got a win. He's got a win in a couple of next couple of weeks. He's got four more chances. And he's going to be good. Like he's going to be good at Vegas. He's going to be good at Homestead. Where else do we go? Bartonsville is going to be tough.

I don't think anybody's going to pass there. But, and then Phoenix. Who knows? But I hopefully, as much as we've been a Kyle Bush lover on this show, I hope he does get a win this year. T. T.J. said, Lee, that it's not a big deal if he doesn't get a win this year. he said it did he not yeah he did i don't know if lee knows how big of an idiot tj is sometimes i'm surprised you haven't called out that he thinks that denny doesn't belong in the hall of fame yet

he did say that on here also he kind of backtracked it when danny was on he mean when denny came here he did not he did not have that opinion but yeah he said danny doesn't belong in the hall of fame because he's not won a championship and i that was like i think that was the year dale went in and i was like huh tough take but What about the three-day time of 500s? Real quick, you know, with the last few races left of the season, what do you see as being the biggest storylines for you guys, not only the end of the season,

but heading it to next year with schedule changes, driver swaps, all of that. What are we thinking? You know, obviously, you have the futures of 2311 in front row. There are still a little bit to be determined. I just hope we run good in the next four years. So that will be obviously a storyline. and then I think the other storyline

for me will be one of the guys got knocked out of the playoffs and that's Chase Brisco and how does he do in the move to JGR? What about Spire? I think there'll be a storyline

but I don't, you know, their kind of growth is gradual so, you know, I think they're more a storyline where are they three years from now, four years from now. Lee, any good storylines you're looking forward to?

Well, I do. I like the emergence or the, continual growth of Spire. Because for me, like in a broadcast, it's such a living, breathing organism that you, there's the main stories. But I love, like, looking around the sides, like, what else is happening? And I love it when you see Zane Smith up there or Hosevar or, you know, now, now with the,

driver swap, Justin Haley's back there. And I really, I enjoy seeing their success because it's a surprise. Like you're looking around and you, it's almost a routine sort of, you know, where you're talking about a Tim Penske car or Stuart Haas or there's a Hendrick car, whatever, and then, oh, here's a spy car. It kind of grabs your attention. So I agree with Bob on that. You just continue to follow their story.

I'm a fan of new champions. Like if there could be a new champion this year, I mentioned earlier, Christopher Bell. I think that would be good for the sport. You know, that guy has shown that he's the total package. and a fresh champion, I think, would be a good thing. I'm going to put you on the spot. Mm-hmm. I'm not British.

I can always do the British thing. I want you to do the lead-in for DBC for next week, right? So we're coming out of Vegas. We don't know how the race is going to go, but you're the setup for kicking off the DBC show. Do it now? Yeah. Who's your guest next week?

No, we don't have it. No, we're coming back from Vegas. Nobody wants to get up that early. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Bob's going back to New York. You're going back to Connecticut.

Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to be here by ourselves. TJ will be here with us. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully. Lucky me.

You ready? I'm ready. Yeah. You do three, two, one. Yeah. You ready? All right, here we got. Ready.

Three, two, one. It was a massive weekend in Las Vegas. Freddie and Brett are a little worn out, and they're running low on energy after Vegas. But it was a season. successful weekend. They're a little poorer, so take it easy on them on this week's door bumper clear. There we go. Just play that every week. Is this replaced Vegas? I only wanted him on here just for that. And to hear him say Darlington.

Darlington. Bob, we appreciate you coming as always. Thanks for having me. Your expertise is unmatched. Yeah. And Lee, we appreciate you coming on as well. I'm glad you ran into Mike Davis. And I'm glad you let me slide into your DMs. Yep, thank you. It's nice to actually be here. See it in the flesh. You're welcome anytime. Thank you. All right. We'll see y'all after Vegas.

Have a great week. Hopefully. We're out. Word. Check out. Dirty Moe Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.